Moll Flanders (20 page)

This was too reasonable a proposal to be denied, so he called the landlady of the house and told her his wife was taken ill, and so ill that she could not think of going any farther in the stage-coach, which had tired her almost to death, and asked if she could not get us a lodging for two or three days in a private house where I might rest me a little, for the journey had been too much for me. The landlady, a good sort of a woman, well bred and very obliging, came immediately to see me, told me she had two or three very good rooms in a part of the house quite out of the noise, and if I saw them she did not doubt but I would like them, and I should have one of her maids, that should do nothing else but wait on me. This was so very kind that I could not but accept of it; so I went to look on the rooms and liked them very well, and indeed they were extraordinarily furnished and very pleasant lodgings; so we paid the stage-coach, took out our baggage, and resolved to stay here awhile.

Here I told him I would live with him now till all my money was spent, but would not let him spend a shilling of his own. We had some kind squabble about that, but I told him it was the last time I was like to enjoy his company, and I desired he would let me be master in that thing only and he should govern in everything else; so he acquiesced.

Here one evening, taking a walk into the fields, I told him I would now make the proposal to him I had told him of; accordingly I related to him how I had lived in Virginia, that I had a mother I believed was alive there still, though my husband was dead some years. I told him that had not my effects miscarried, which, by the way, I magnified pretty much, I might have been fortune good enough to him to have kept us from being parted in this manner. Then I entered into the manner of people’s settling in those countries, how they had a quantity of land given them by the constitution of the place, and if not, that it might be purchased at so easy a rate that it was not worth naming.

I then gave him a full and distinct account of the nature of planting, how with carrying over but two or three hundred pounds’ value in English goods, with some servants and tools, a man of application would presently lay a foundation for a family and in a few years would raise an estate.

I let him into the nature of the product of the earth, how the ground was cured and prepared, and what the usual increase of it was, and demonstrated to him that in a very few years, with such a beginning, we should be as certain of being rich as we were now certain of being poor.

He was surprised at my discourse, for we made it the whole subject of our conversation for near a week together, in which time I laid it down in black and white, as we say, that it was morally impossible, with a supposition of any reasonable good conduct, but that we must thrive there and do very well.

Then I told him what measures I would take to raise such a sum as £300 or thereabouts; and I argued with him how good a method it would be to put an end to our misfortunes and restore our circumstances in the world to what we had both expected; and I added that after seven years we might be in a posture to leave our plantation in good hands and come over again and receive the income of it and live here and enjoy it; and I gave him examples of some that had done so and lived now in very good figure in London.

In short, I pressed him so to it that he almost agreed to it, but still something or other broke it off; till at last he turned the tables and began to talk almost to the same purpose of Ireland.

He told me that a man that could confine himself to a country life, and that could but find stock to enter upon any land, should have farms there for £50 a year as good as were let here for £200 a year; that the produce was such, and so rich the land, that if much was not laid up, we were sure to live as handsomely upon it as a gentleman of £3000 a year could do in England; and that he had laid a scheme to leave me in London and go over and try; and if he found he could lay a handsome foundation of living suitable to the respect he had for me, as he doubted not he should do, he would come over and fetch me.

I was dreadfully afraid that upon such a proposal he would have taken me at my word,
viz.
, to turn my little income into money and let him carry it over into Ireland and try his experiment with it; but he was too just to desire it or to have accepted it if I had offered it; and he anticipated me in that, for he added that he would go and try his fortune that way, and if he found he could do anything at it to live, then by adding mine to it when I went over we should live like ourselves; but that he would not hazard a shilling of mine till he had made the experiment with a little, and he assured me that if he found nothing to be done in Ireland, he would then come to me and join in my project for Virginia.

He was so earnest upon his project being to be tried first that I could not withstand him; however, he promised to let me hear from him in a very little time after his arriving there to let me know whether his prospect answered his design; that if there was not a probability of success, I might take the occasion to prepare for our other voyage, and then, he assured me, he would go with me to America with all his heart.

I could bring him to nothing farther than this, and which entertained us near a month, during which I enjoyed his company, which was the most entertaining that ever I met with in my life before. In this time he let me into part of the story of his own life, which was indeed surprising and full of an infinite variety, sufficient to fill up a much brighter history for its adventures and incidents than any I ever saw in print; but I shall have occasion to say more of him hereafter.

We parted at last, though with the utmost reluctance on my side; and indeed he took his leave very unwillingly too, but necessity obliged him, for his reasons were very good why he would not come to London, as I understood more fully afterwards.

I gave him a direction how to write to me, though still I reserved the grand secret, which was not to let him ever know my true name, who I was, or where to be found; he likewise let me know how to write a letter to him so that, he said, he would be sure to receive it.

I came to London the next day after we parted, but did not go directly to my old lodgings, but for another nameless reason took a private lodging in St. John’s Street, or as it is vulgarly called, St. Jones’s, near Clerkenwell; and here, being perfectly alone, I had leisure to sit down and reflect seriously upon the last seven months’ ramble I had made, for I had been abroad no less. The pleasant hours I had with my last husband I looked back on with an infinite deal of pleasure; but that pleasure was very much lessened when I found, some time after, that I was really with child.

This was a perplexing thing because of the difficulty which was before me where I should get leave to lie in, it being one of the nicest things in the world at that time of day for a woman that was a stranger and had no friends to be entertained in that circumstance without security, which I had not; neither could I procure any.

I had taken care all this while to preserve a correspondence with my friend at the bank, or rather he took care to correspond with me, for he wrote to me once a week; and though I had not spent my money so fast as to want any from him, yet I often wrote also to let him know I was alive. I had left directions in Lancashire, so that I had these letters conveyed to me; and during my recess at St. Jones’s I received a very obliging letter from him, assuring me that his process for a divorce went on with success, though he met with some difficulties in it that he did not expect.

I was not displeased with the news that his process was more tedious than he expected; for though I was in no condition to have had him yet, not being so foolish to marry him when I knew myself to be with child by another man, as some I know have ventured to do, yet I was not willing to lose him and, in a word, resolved to have him if he continued in the same mind as soon as I was up again; for I saw apparently I should hear no more from my other husband; and as he had all along pressed me to marry and had assured me he would not be at all disgusted at it or ever offer to claim me again, so I made no scruple to resolve to do it if I could and if my other friend stood to his bargain; and I had a great deal of reason to be assured that he would by the letters he wrote to me, which were the kindest and most obliging that could be.

I now grew big, and the people where I lodged perceived it and began to take notice of it to me, and as far as civility would allow, intimated that I must think of removing. This put me to extreme perplexity and I grew very melancholy, for indeed I knew not what course to take; I had money, but no friends, and was like now to have a child upon my hands to keep, which was a difficulty I had never had upon me yet, as my story hitherto makes appear.

In the course of this affair I fell very ill, and my melancholy really increased my distemper. My illness proved at length to be only an ague, but my apprehensions were really that I should miscarry. I should not say apprehensions, for indeed I would have been glad to miscarry, but I could never entertain so much as a thought of taking anything to make me miscarry; I abhorred, I say, so much as the thought of it.

However, speaking of it, the gentlewoman who kept the house proposed to me to send for a midwife. I scrupled it at first, but after some time consented, but told her I had no acquaintance with any midwife and so left it to her.

It seems the mistress of the house was not so great a stranger to such cases as mine was as I thought at first she had been, as will appear presently; and she sent for a midwife of the right sort—that is to say, the right sort for me.

The woman appeared to be an experienced woman in her business, I mean as a midwife; but she had another calling too, in which she was as expert as most women if not more. My landlady had told her I was very melancholy and that she believed that had done me harm; and once, before me, said to her, “Mrs. B——, I believe this lady’s trouble is of a kind that is pretty much in your way, and therefore if you can do anything for her, pray do, for she is a very civil gentlewoman”; and so she went out of the room.

I really did not understand her, but my Mother Midnight began very seriously to explain what she meant as soon as she was gone. “Madam,” says she, “you seem not to understand what your landlady means; and when you do, you need not let her know at all that you do so.

“She means that you are under some circumstances that may render your lying in difficult to you, and that you are not willing to be exposed. I need say no more but to tell you that if you think fit to communicate so much of your case to me as is necessary, for I do not desire to pry into those things, I perhaps may be in a condition to assist you, and to make you easy, and remove all your dull thoughts upon that subject.”

Every word this creature said was a cordial to me and put new life and new spirit into my very heart; my blood began to circulate immediately, and I was quite another body; I eat my victuals again and grew better presently after it. She said a great deal more to the same purpose, and then, having pressed me to be free with her and promised in the solemnest manner to be secret, she stopped a little, as if waiting to see what impression it made on me and what I would say.

I was too sensible of the want I was in of such a woman not to accept her offer; I told her my case was partly as she guessed and partly not, for I was really married and had a husband, though he was so remote at that time as that he could not appear publicly.

She took me short and told me that was none of her business; all the ladies that came under her care were married women to her. “Every woman,” says she, “that is with child has a father for it,” and whether that father was a husband or no husband was no business of hers; her business was to assist me in my present circumstances, whether I had a husband or no; “for, madam,” says she, “to have a husband that cannot appear is to have no husband, and therefore whether you are a wife or a mistress is all one to me.”

I found presently that whether I was a whore or a wife, I was to pass for a whore here, so I let that go. I told her it was true, as she said, but that, however, if I must tell her my case, I must tell it her as it was; so I related it as short as I could and I concluded it to her: “I trouble you with this, madam,” said I, “not that, as you said before, it is much to the purpose in your affair; but this is to the purpose, namely, that I am not in any pain about being seen or being concealed, for ’tis perfectly indifferent to me; but my difficulty is that I have no acquaintance in this part of the nation.”

“I understand you, madam,” says she; “you have no security to bring to prevent the parish impertinences usual in such cases, and perhaps,” says she, “do not know very well how to dispose of the child when it comes.” “The last,” says I, “is not so much my concern as the first.” “Well, madam,” answers the midwife, “dare you put yourself into my hands? I live in such a place; though I do not inquire after you, you may inquire after me. My name is B——; I live in such a street”—naming the street—“at the sign of the Cradle. My profession is a midwife, and I have many ladies that come to my house to lie in. I have given security to the parish in general to secure them from any charge from what shall come into the world under my roof. I have but one question to ask in the whole affair, madam,” says she, “and if that be answered, you shall be entirely easy of the rest.”

I presently understood what she meant and told her, “Madam, I believe I understand you. I thank God, though I want friends in this part of the world I do not want money, so far as may be necessary, though I do not abound in that neither.” This I added because I would not make her expect great things. “Well, madam,” says she, “that is the thing, indeed, without which nothing can be done in these cases; and yet,” says she, “you shall see that I will not impose upon you or offer anything that is unkind to you, and you shall know everything beforehand, that you may suit yourself to the occasion and be either costly or sparing as you see fit.”

I told her she seemed to be so perfectly sensible of my condition that I had nothing to ask of her but this: that as I had money sufficient, but not a great quantity, she would order it so that I might be at as little superfluous charge as possible.