Moll Flanders

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I fetched a deep sigh, and told him there was nobody in the
world could be more delighted than I was in the good agreement
we had always kept up, or more afflicted with the breach of it,
and should be so still; but I was sorry to tell him that there was
an unhappy circumstance in our case, which lay too close to
my heart, and which I knew not how to break to him, that
rendered my part of it very miserable, and took from me all the
comfort of the rest.

He importuned me to tell him what it was. I told him I could
not tell how to do it; that while it was concealed from him
I alone was unhappy, but if he knew it also, we should be both
so; and that, therefore, to keep him in the dark about it was
the kindest thing that I could do, and it was on that account
alone that I kept a secret from him, the very keeping of which,
I thought, would first or last be my destruction.

It is impossible to express his surprise at this relation, and the
double importunity which he used with me to discover it to him.
He told me I could not be called kind to him, nay, I could not
be faithful to him if I concealed it from him. I told him I thought
so too, and yet I could not do it. He went back to what I had
said before to him, and told me he hoped it did not relate to
what I had said in my passion, and that he had resolved to
forget all that as the effect of a rash, provoked spirit. I told
him I wished I could forget it all too, but that it was not to be
done, the impression was too deep, and I could not do it: it
was impossible.

He then told me he was resolved not to differ with me in
anything, and that therefore he would importune me no more
about it, resolving to acquiesce in whatever I did or said; only
begged I should then agree, that whatever it was, it should no
more interrupt our quiet and our mutual kindness.

This was the most provoking thing he could have said to me,
for I really wanted his further importunities, that I might be
prevailed with to bring out that which indeed it was like death
to me to conceal; so I answered him plainly that I could not
say I was glad not to be importuned, thought I could not tell
how to comply. 'But come, my dear,' said I, 'what conditions
will you make with me upon the opening this affair to you?'

'Any conditions in the world,' said he, 'that you can in reason
desire of me.' 'Well,' said I, 'come, give it me under your
hand, that if you do not find I am in any fault, or that I am
willingly concerned in the causes of the misfortune that is to
follow, you will not blame me, use me the worse, do my any
injury, or make me be the sufferer for that which is not my fault.'

'That,' says he, 'is the most reasonable demand in the world:
not to blame you for that which is not your fault. Give me a
pen and ink,' says he; so I ran in and fetched a pen, ink, and
paper, and he wrote the condition down in the very words I
had proposed it, and signed it with his name. "Well,' says he,
'what is next, my dear?'

'Why,' says I, 'the next is, that you will not blame me for not
discovering the secret of it to you before I knew it.'

'Very just again,' says he; 'with all my heart'; so he wrote
down that also, and signed it.

'Well, my dear,' says I, 'then I have but one condition more
to make with you, and that is, that as there is nobody concerned
in it but you and I, you shall not discover it to any person in
the world, except your own mother; and that in all the measures
you shall take upon the discovery, as I am equally concerned
in it with you, though as innocent as yourself, you shall do
nothing in a passion, nothing to my prejudice or to your
mother's prejudice, without my knowledge and consent.'

This a little amazed him, and he wrote down the words distinctly,
but read them over and over before he signed them,
hesitating at them several times, and repeating them: "My
mother's prejudice! and your prejudice! What mysterious thing
can this be?' However, at last he signed it.

'Well, says I, 'my dear, I'll ask you no more under your hand;
but as you are to hear the most unexpected and surprising thing
that perhaps ever befell any family in the world, I beg you to
promise me you will receive it with composure and a presence
of mind suitable to a man of sense.'

'I'll do my utmost,' says he, 'upon condition you will keep me
no longer in suspense, for you terrify me with all these
preliminaries.'

"Well, then,' says I, 'it is this: as I told you before in a heat,
that I was not your lawful wife, and that our children were not
legal children, so I must let you know now in calmness and in
kindness, but with affliction enough, that I am your own sister,
and you my own brother, and that we are both the children of
our mother now alive, and in the house, who is convinced of
the truth of it, in a manner not to be denied or contradicted.'

I saw him turn pale and look wild; and I said, 'Now remember
your promise, and receive it with presence of mind; for who
could have said more to prepare you for it than I have done?
However, I called a servant, and got him a little glass of rum
(which is the usual dram of that country), for he was just
fainting away. When he was a little recovered, I said to him,
'This story, you may be sure, requires a long explanation, and
therefore, have patience and compose your mind to hear it out,
and I'll make it as short as I can'; and with this, I told him
what I thought was needful of the fact, and particularly how
my mother came to discover it to me, as above. 'And now,
my dear,' says I, 'you will see reason for my capitulations,
and that I neither have been the cause of this matter, nor could
be so, and that I could know nothing of it before now.'

'I am fully satisfied of that,' says he, 'but 'tis a dreadful surprise
to me; however, I know a remedy for it all, and a remedy
that shall put an end to your difficulties, without your going to
England.' 'That would be strange,' said I, 'as all the rest.'
'No, no,' says he, 'I'll make it easy; there's nobody in the way
of it but myself.' He looked a little disordered when he said
this, but I did not apprehend anything from it at that time,
believing, as it used to be said, that they who do those things
never talk of them, or that they who talk of such things never
do them.

But things were not come to their height with him, and I
observed he became pensive and melancholy; and in a word,
as I thought, a little distempered in his head. I endeavoured
to talk him into temper, and to reason him into a kind of scheme
for our government in the affair, and sometimes he would be
well, and talk with some courage about it; but the weight of
it lay too heavy upon his thoughts, and, in short, it went so far
that he made attempts upon himself, and in one of them had
actually strangled himself and had not his mother come into
the room in the very moment, he had died; but with the help
of a Negro servant she cut him down and recovered him.

Things were now come to a lamentable height in the family.
My pity for him now began to revive that affection which at
first I really had for him, and I endeavoured sincerely, by all
the kind carriage I could, to make up the breach; but, in short,
it had gotten too great a head, it preyed upon his spirits, and
it threw him into a long, lingering consumption, though it
happened not to be mortal. In this distress I did not know
what to do, as his life was apparently declining, and I might
perhaps have married again there, very much to my advantage;
it had been certainly my business to have stayed in the country,
but my mind was restless too, and uneasy; I hankered after
coming to England, and nothing would satisfy me without it.

In short, by an unwearied importunity, my husband, who was
apparently decaying, as I observed, was at last prevailed with;
and so my own fate pushing me on, the way was made clear
for me, and my mother concurring, I obtained a very good
cargo for my coming to England.

When I parted with my brother (for such I am now to call
him), we agreed that after I arrived he should pretend to have
an account that I was dead in England, and so might marry
again when he would. He promised, and engaged to me to
correspond with me as a sister, and to assist and support me
as long as I lived; and that if he died before me, he would leave
sufficient to his mother to take care of me still, in the name of
asister, and he was in some respects careful of me, when he
heard of me; but it was so oddly managed that I felt the
disappointments very sensibly afterwards, as you shall hear in
its time.

I came away for England in the month of August, after I had
been eight years in that country; and now a new scene of
misfortunes attended me, which perhaps few women have
gone through the life of.

We had an indifferent good voyage till we came just upon the
coast of England, and where we arrived in two-and-thirty days,
but were then ruffled with two or three storms, one of which
drove us away to the coast of Ireland, and we put in at Kinsdale.
We remained there about thirteen days, got some refreshment
on shore, and put to sea again, though we met with very bad
weather again, in which the ship sprung her mainmast, as they
called it, for I knew not what they meant. But we got at last
into Milford Haven, in Wales, where, though it was remote
from our port, yet having my foot safe upon the firm ground
of my native country, the isle of Britain, I resolved to venture
it no more upon the waters, which had been so terrible to me;
so getting my clothes and money on shore, with my bills of
loading and other papers, I resolved to come for London, and
leave the ship to get to her port as she could; the port whither
she was bound was to Bristol, where my brother's chief
correspondent lived.

I got to London in about three weeks, where I heard a little
while after that the ship was arrived in Bristol, but at the same
time had the misfortune to know that by the violent weather
she had been in, and the breaking of her mainmast, she had
great damage on board, and that a great part of her cargo was
spoiled.

I had now a new scene of life upon my hands, and a dreadful
appearance it had. I was come away with a kind of final
farewell. What I brought with me was indeed considerable,
had it come safe, and by the help of it, I might have married
again tolerably well; but as it was, I was reduced to between
two or three hundred pounds in the whole, and this without
any hope of recruit. I was entirely without friends, nay, even
so much as without acquaintance, for I found it was absolutely
necessary not to revive former acquaintances; and as for my
subtle friend that set me up formerly for a fortune, she was
dead, and her husband also; as I was informed, upon sending
a person unknown to inquire.

The looking after my cargo of goods soon after obliged me to
take a journey to Bristol, and during my attendance upon that
affair I took the diversion of going to the Bath, for as I was
still far from being old, so my humour, which was always gay,
continued so to an extreme; and being now, as it were, a
woman of fortune though I was a woman without a fortune,
I expected something or other might happen in my way that
might mend my circumstances, as had been my case before.

The Bath is a place of gallantry enough; expensive, and full
of snares. I went thither, indeed, in the view of taking anything
that might offer, but I must do myself justice, as to protest I
knew nothing amiss; I meant nothing but in an honest way, nor
had I any thoughts about me at first that looked the way which
afterwards I suffered them to be guided.

Here I stayed the whole latter season, as it is called there,
and contracted some unhappy acquaintances, which rather
prompted the follies I fell afterwards into than fortified me
against them. I lived pleasantly enough, kept good company,
that is to say, gay, fine company; but had the discouragement
to find this way of living sunk me exceedingly, and that as I
had no settled income, so spending upon the main stock was
but a certain kind of bleeding to death; and this gave me many
sad reflections in the interval of my other thoughts. However,
I shook them off, and still flattered myself that something or
other might offer for my advantage.

But I was in the wrong place for it. I was not now at Redriff,
where, if I had set myself tolerably up, some honest sea captain
or other might have talked with me upon the honourable terms
of matrimony; but I was at the Bath, where men find a mistress
sometimes, but very rarely look for a wife; and consequently
all the particular acquaintances a woman can expect to make
there must have some tendency that way.

I had spent the first season well enough; for though I had
contracted some acquaintance with a gentleman who came to
the Bath for his diversion, yet I had entered into no felonious
treaty, as it might be called. I had resisted some casual offers
of gallantry, and had managed that way well enough. I was
not wicked enough to come into the crime for the mere vice
of it, and I had no extraordinary offers made me that tempted
me with the main thing which I wanted.

However, I went this length the first season, viz. I contracted
an acquaintance with a woman in whose house I lodged, who,
though she did not keep an ill house, as we call it, yet had none
of the best principles in herself. I had on all occasions behaved
myself so well as not to get the least slur upon my reputation
on any account whatever, and all the men that I had conversed
with were of so good reputation that I had not given the least
reflection by conversing with them; nor did any of them seem
to think there was room for a wicked correspondence, if they
had any of them offered it; yet there was one gentleman, as
above, who always singled me out for the diversion of my
company, as he called it, which, as he was pleased to say, was
very agreeable to him, but at that time there was no more in it.

I had many melancholy hours at the Bath after the company
was gone; for though I went to Bristol sometime for the
disposing my effects, and for recruits of money, yet I chose to
come back to Bath for my residence, because being on good
terms with the woman in whose house I lodged in the summer,
I found that during the winter I lived rather cheaper there than
I could do anywhere else. Here, I say, I passed the winter as
heavily as I had passed the autumn cheerfully; but having
contracted a nearer intimacy with the said woman in whose
house I lodged, I could not avoid communicating to her
something of what lay hardest upon my mind and particularly
the narrowness of my circumstances, and the loss of my fortune
by the damage of my goods at sea. I told her also, that I had
a mother and a brother in Virginia in good circumstances; and
as I had really written back to my mother in particular to
represent my condition, and the great loss I had received,
which indeed came to almost #500, so I did not fail to let my
new friend know that I expected a supply from thence, and so
indeed I did; and as the ships went from Bristol to York River,
in Virginia, and back again generally in less time from London,
and that my brother corresponded chiefly at Bristol, I thought
it was much better for me to wait here for my returns than to
go to London, where also I had not the least acquaintance.

My new friend appeared sensibly affected with my condition,
and indeed was so very kind as to reduce the rate of my living
with her to so low a price during the winter, that she convinced
me she got nothing by me; and as for lodging, during the winter
I paid nothing at all.

When the spring season came on, she continued to be as king
to me as she could, and I lodged with her for a time, till it was
found necessary to do otherwise. She had some persons of
character that frequently lodged in her house, and in particular
the gentleman who, as I said, singled me out for his companion
the winter before; and he came down again with another
gentleman in his company and two servants, and lodged in the
same house. I suspected that my landlady had invited him
thither, letting him know that I was still with her; but she denied
it, and protested to me that she did not, and he said the same.

In a word, this gentleman came down and continued to single
me out for his peculiar confidence as well as conversation.
He was a complete gentleman, that must be confessed, and
his company was very agreeable to me, as mine, if I might
believe him, was to him. He made no professions to be but
of an extraordinary respect, and he had such an opinion of my
virtue, that, as he often professed, he believed if he should offer
anything else, I should reject him with contempt. He soon
understood from me that I was a widow; that I had arrived at
Bristol from Virginia by the last ships; and that I waited at Bath
till the next Virginia fleet should arrive, by which I expected
considerable effects. I understood by him, and by others of
him, that he had a wife, but that the lady was distempered in
her head, and was under the conduct of her own relations,
which he consented to, to avoid any reflections that might (as
was not unusual in such cases) be cast on him for mismanaging
her cure; and in the meantime he came to the Bath to divert his
thoughts from the disturbance of such a melancholy circumstance
as that was.

My landlady, who of her own accord encouraged the
correspondence on all occasions, gave me an advantageous
character of him, as a man of honour and of virtue, as well
as of great estate. And indeed I had a great deal of reason to
say so of him too; for though we lodged both on a floor, and
he had frequently come into my chamber, even when I was in
bed, and I also into his when he was in bed, yet he never offered
anything to me further than a kiss, or so much as solicited me
to anything till long after, as you shall hear.

I frequently took notice to my landlady of his exceeding
modesty, and she again used to tell me, she believed it was so
from the beginning; however, she used to tell me that she
thought I ought to expect some gratification from him for my
company, for indeed he did, as it were, engross me, and I was
seldom from him. I told her I had not given him the least
occasion to think I wanted it, or that I would accept of it from
him. She told me she would take that part upon her, and she
did so, and managed it so dexterously, that the first time we
were together alone, after she had talked with him, he began
to inquire a little into my circumstances, as how I had subsisted
myself since I came on shore, and whether I did not want money.
I stood off very boldly. I told him that though my cargo of
tobacco was damaged, yet that it was not quite lost; that the
merchant I had been consigned to had so honestly managed
for me that I had not wanted, and that I hoped, with frugal
management, I should make it hold out till more would come,
which I expected by the next fleet; that in the meantime I had
retrenched my expenses, and whereas I kept a maid last season,
now I lived without; and whereas I had a chamber and a
dining-room then on the first floor, as he knew, I now had but
one room, two pair of stairs, and the like. 'But I live,' said I,
'as well satisfied now as I did then'; adding, that his company
had been a means to make me live much more cheerfully than
otherwise I should have done, for which I was much obliged
to him; and so I put off all room for any offer for the present.
However, it was not long before he attacked me again, and
told me he found that I was backward to trust him with the
secret of my circumstances, which he was sorry for; assuring
me that he inquired into it with no design to satisfy his own
curiosity, but merely to assist me, if there was any occasion;
but since I would not own myself to stand in need of any
assistance, he had but one thing more to desire of me, and that
was, that I would promise him that when I was any way straitened,
or like to be so, I would frankly tell him of it, and that I would
make use of him with the same freedom that he made the offer;
adding, that I should always find I had a true friend, though
perhaps I was afraid to trust him.

I omitted nothing that was fit to be said by one infinitely
obliged, to let him know that I had a due sense of his kindness;
and indeed from that time I did not appear so much reserved
to him as I had done before, though still within the bounds of
the strictest virtue on both sides; but how free soever our
conversation was, I could not arrive to that sort of freedom
which he desired, viz. to tell him I wanted money, though I
was secretly very glad of his offer.

Some weeks passed after this, and still I never asked him for
money; when my landlady, a cunning creature, who had often
pressed me to it, but found that I could not do it, makes a
story of her own inventing, and comes in bluntly to me when
we were together. 'Oh, widow!' says she, 'I have bad news
to tell you this morning.' 'What is that?' said I; 'are the
Virginia ships taken by the French?'--for that was my fear.
'No, no,' says she, 'but the man you sent to Bristol yesterday
for money is come back, and says he has brought none.'

Now I could by no means like her project; I though it looked
too much like prompting him, which indeed he did not want,
and I clearly that I should lose nothing by being backward to
ask, so I took her up short. 'I can't image why he should say
so to you,' said I, 'for I assure you he brought me all the
money I sent him for, and here it is,' said I (pulling out my
purse with about twelve guineas in it); and added, 'I intend
you shall have most of it by and by.'

He seemed distasted a little at her talking as she did at first,
as well as I, taking it, as I fancied he would, as something
forward of her; but when he saw me give such an answer, he
came immediately to himself again. The next morning we
talked of it again, when I found he was fully satisfied, and,
smiling, said he hoped I would not want money and not tell
him of it, and that I had promised him otherwise. I told him
I had been very much dissatisfied at my landlady's talking so
publicly the day before of what she had nothing to do with;
but I supposed she wanted what I owed her, which was about
eight guineas, which I had resolved to give her, and had
accordingly given it her the same night she talked so foolishly.

He was in a might good humour when he heard me say I had
paid her, and it went off into some other discourse at that time.
But the next morning, he having heard me up about my room
before him, he called to me, and I answering, he asked me to
come into his chamber. He was in bed when I came in, and
he made me come and sit down on his bedside, for he said he
had something to say to me which was of some moment.
After some very kind expressions, he asked me if I would be
very honest to him, and give a sincere answer to one thing he
would desire of me. After some little cavil at the word 'sincere,'
and asking him if I had ever given him any answers which were
not sincere, I promised him I would. Why, then, his request
was, he said, to let him see my purse. I immediately put my
hand into my pocket, and, laughing to him, pulled it out, and
there was in it three guineas and a half. Then he asked me if
there was all the money I had. I told him No, laughing again,
not by a great deal.

Well, then, he said, he would have me promise to go and
fetch him all the money I had, every farthing. I told him I
would, and I went into my chamber and fetched him a little
private drawer, where I had about six guineas more, and some
silver, and threw it all down upon the bed, and told him there
was all my wealth, honestly to a shilling. He looked a little
at it, but did not tell it, and huddled it all into the drawer again,
and then reaching his pocket, pulled out a key, and bade me
open a little walnut-tree box he had upon the table, and bring
him such a drawer, which I did. In which drawer there was a
great deal of money in gold, I believe near two hundred guineas,
but I knew not how much. He took the drawer, and taking my
hand, made me put it in and take a whole handful. I was
backward at that, but he held my hand hard in his hand, and
put it into the drawer, and made me take out as many guineas
almost as I could well take up at once.

When I had done so, he made me put them into my lap,
and took my little drawer, and poured out all my money among
his, and bade me get me gone, and carry it all home into my
own chamber.

I relate this story the more particularly because of the
good-humour there was in it, and to show the temper with
which we conversed. It was not long after this but he began
every day to find fault with my clothes, with my laces and
headdresses, and, in a word, pressed me to buy better; which,
by the way, I was willing enough to do, though I did not seem
to be so, for I loved nothing in the world better than fine clothes.
I told him I must housewife the money he had lent me, or else
I should not be able to pay him again. He then told me, in a
few words, that as he had a sincere respect for me, and knew
my circumstances, he had not lent me that money, but given
it me, and that he thought I had merited it from him by giving
him my company so entirely as I had done. After this he made
me take a maid, and keep house, and his friend that come with
him to Bath being gone, he obliged me to diet him, which I did
very willingly, believing, as it appeared, that I should lose
nothing by it, not did the woman of the house fail to find her
account in it too.

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