Moll Flanders (3 page)

It was not long but he found an opportunity to catch me again, and almost in the same posture; indeed, it had more of design in it on his part though not on my part. It was thus: the young ladies were gone a-visiting with their mother; his brother was out of town; and as for his father, he had been at London for a week before. He had so well watched me that he knew where I was though I did not so much as know that he was in the house, and he briskly comes up the stairs and, seeing me at work, comes into the room to me directly, and began just as he did before, with taking me in his arms and kissing me for almost a quarter of an hour together.

It was his younger sister’s chamber that I was in, and as there was nobody in the house but the maid below-stairs, he was, it may be, the ruder; in short, he began to be in earnest with me indeed. Perhaps he found me a little too easy, for I made no resistance to him while he only held me in his arms and kissed me; indeed, I was too well pleased with it to resist him much.

Well, tired with that kind of work, we sat down, and there he talked with me a great while; he said he was charmed with me and that he could not rest till he had told me how he was in love with me, and if I could love him again and would make him happy, I should be the saving of his life, and many such fine things. I said little to him again, but easily discovered that I was a fool and that I did not in the least perceive what he meant.

Then he walked about the room, and taking me by the hand, I walked with him; and by and by, taking his advantage, he threw me down upon the bed and kissed me there most violently, but, to give him his due, offered no manner of rudeness to me, only kissed me a great while. After this he thought he had heard somebody come upstairs, so he got off from the bed, lifted me up, professing a great deal of love for me, but told me it was all an honest affection and that he meant no ill to me, and with that put five guineas into my hand and went downstairs.

I was more confounded with the money than I was before with the love, and began to be so elevated that I scarce knew the ground I stood on. I am the more particular in this that if it comes to be read by any innocent young body, they may learn from it to guard themselves against the mischiefs which attend an early knowledge of their own beauty. If a young woman once thinks herself handsome, she never doubts the truth of any man that tells her he is in love with her; for if she believes herself charming enough to captivate him, ’tis natural to expect the effects of it.

This gentleman had now fired his inclination as much as he had my vanity, and as if he had found that he had an opportunity and was sorry he did not take hold of it, he comes up again in about half an hour, and falls to work with me again just as he did before, only with a little less introduction.

And first, when he entered the room, he turned about and shut the door. “Mrs. Betty,” said he, “I fancied before somebody was coming upstairs, but it was not so; however,” adds he, “if they find me in the room with you, they shan’t catch me a-kissing of you.” I told him I did not know who should be coming upstairs, for I believed there was nobody in the house but the cook and the other maid, and they never came up those stairs. “Well, my dear,” says he, “’tis good to be sure, however”; and so he sits down and we began to talk. And now, though I was still on fire with his first visit and said little, he did, as it were, put words in my mouth, telling me how passionately he loved me, and that though he could not till he came to his estate, yet he was resolved to make me happy then, and himself too; that is to say, to marry me, and abundance of such things, which I, poor fool, did not understand the drift of, but acted as if there was no kind of love but that which tended to matrimony; and if he had spoken of that, I had no room as well as no power to have said no; but we were not come to that length yet.

We had not sat long but he got up and, stopping my very breath with kisses, threw me upon the bed again; but then he went further with me than decency permits me to mention, nor had it been in my power to have denied him at that moment had he offered much more than he did.

However, though he took these freedoms with me, it did not go to that which they call the last favour, which, to do him justice, he did not attempt; and he made that self-denial of his a plea for all his freedoms with me upon other occasions after this. When this was over he stayed but a little while, but he put almost a handful of gold in my hand and left me a thousand protestations of his passion for me and of his loving me above all the women in the world.

It will not be strange if I now began to think; but, alas! it was but with very little solid reflections. I had a most unbounded stock of vanity and pride, and but a very little stock of virtue. I did indeed cast sometimes with myself what my young master aimed at, but thought of nothing but the fine words and the gold; whether he intended to marry me or not seemed a matter of no great consequence to me; nor did I so much as think of making any capitulation for myself till he made a kind of formal proposal to me, as you shall hear presently.

Thus I gave up myself to ruin without the least concern, and am a fair memento to all young women whose vanity prevails over their virtue. Nothing was ever so stupid on both sides. Had I acted as became me and resisted as virtue and honour required, he had either desisted his attacks, finding no room to expect the end of his design, or had made fair and honourable proposals of marriage; in which case, whoever blamed him, nobody could have blamed me. In short, if he had known me and how easy the trifle he aimed at was to be had, he would have troubled his head no farther, but have given me four or five guineas and have lain with me the next time he had come at me. On the other hand, if I had known his thoughts and how hard he supposed I would be to be gained, I might have made my own terms, and if I had not capitulated for an immediate marriage, I might for a maintenance till marriage and might have had what I would; for he was rich to excess, besides what he had in expectation; but I had wholly abandoned all such thoughts, and was taken up only with the pride of my beauty and of being beloved by such a gentleman. As for the gold, I spent whole hours in looking upon it; I told the guineas over a thousand times a day. Never poor vain creature was so wrapt up with every part of the story as I was, not considering what was before me and how near my ruin was at the door; and indeed I think I rather wished for that ruin than studied to avoid it.

In the meantime, however, I was cunning enough not to give the least room to any in the family to imagine that I had the least correspondence with him. I scarce ever looked towards him in public or answered if he spoke to me; when, but for all that, we had every now and then a little encounter, where we had room for a word or two and now and then a kiss, but no fair opportunity for the mischief intended; and especially considering that he made more circumlocution than he had occasion for; and the work appearing difficult to him, he really made it so.

But as the devil is an unwearied tempter, so he never fails to find an opportunity for the wickedness he invites to. It was one evening that I was in the garden with his two younger sisters and himself when he found means to convey a note into my hand, by which he told me that he would tomorrow desire me publicly to go of an errand for him and that I should see him somewhere by the way.

Accordingly after dinner he very gravely says to me, his sisters being all by, “Mrs. Betty, I must ask a favour of you.” “What’s that?” says the second sister. “Nay, sister,” says he very gravely, “if you can’t spare Mrs. Betty to-day, any other time will do.” Yes, they said, they could spare her well enough; and the sister begged pardon for asking. “Well, but,” says the eldest sister, “you must tell Mrs. Betty what it is; if it be any private business that we must not hear, you may call her out. There she is.” “Why, sister,” says the gentleman very gravely, “what do you mean? I only desire her to go into the High Street” (and then he pulls out a turn-over), “to such a shop”; and then he tells them a long story of two fine neckcloths he had bid money for, and he wanted to have me go and make an errand to buy a neck to that turn-over that he showed, and if they would not take my money for the neckcloths, to bid a shilling more and haggle with them; and then he made more errands and so continued to have such petty business to do that I should be sure to stay a good while.

When he had given me my errands, he told them a long story of a visit he was going to make to a family they all knew and where was to be such-and-such gentlemen, and very formally asked his sisters to go with him, and they as formally excused themselves because of company that they had notice was to come and visit them that afternoon; all which, by the way, he had contrived on purpose.

He had scarce done speaking but his man came up to tell him that Sir W—— H——’s coach stopped at the door; so he runs down and comes up again immediately. “Alas!” says he aloud. “There’s all my mirth spoiled at once; Sir W—— has sent his coach for me and desires to speak with me.” It seems this Sir W—— was a gentleman who lived about three miles off, to whom he had spoke on purpose to lend him his chariot for a particular occasion and had appointed it to call for him, as it did, about three o’clock.

Immediately he calls for his best wig, hat, and sword, and ordering his man to go to the other place to make his excuse—that was to say, he made an excuse to send his man away—he prepares to go into the coach. As he was going he stopped awhile and speaks mightily earnestly to me about his business and finds an opportunity to say very softly, “Come away, my dear, as soon as ever you can.” I said nothing, but made a curtsy, as if I had done so to what he said in public. In about a quarter of an hour I went out too; I had no dress other than before, except that I had a hood, a mask, a fan, and a pair of gloves in my pocket; so that there was not the least suspicion in the house. He waited for me in a back-lane which he knew I must pass by, and the coachman knew whither to go, which was to a certain place, called Mile End, where lived a confidant of his, where we went in and where was all the convenience in the world to be as wicked as we pleased.

When we were together, he began to talk very gravely to me and to tell me he did not bring me there to betray me; that his passion for me would not suffer him to abuse me; that he resolved to marry me as soon as he came to his estate; that in the meantime, if I would grant his request, he would maintain me very honourably; and made me a thousand protestations of his sincerity and of his affection to me and that he would never abandon me and, as I may say, made a thousand more preambles than he need to have done.

However, as he pressed me to speak, I told him I had no reason to question the sincerity of his love to me after so many protestations, but— And there I stopped, as if I left him to guess the rest. “But what, my dear?” says he. “I guess what you mean: What if you should be with child? Is not that it? Why, then,” says he, “I’ll take care of you and provide for you and the child too; and that you may see I am not in jest,” says he, “here’s an earnest for you,” and with that he pulls out a silk purse with an hundred guineas in it and gave it me; “and I’ll give you such another,” says he, “every year till I marry you.”

My colour came and went at the sight of the purse and with the fire of his proposal together, so that I could not say a word, and he easily perceived it; so, putting the purse into my bosom, I made no more resistance to him, but let him do just what he pleased and as often as he pleased; and thus I finished my own destruction at once, for from this day, being forsaken of my virtue and my modesty, I had nothing of value left to recommend me, either to God’s blessing or man’s assistance.

But things did not end here. I went back to the town, did the business he directed me to, and was at home before anybody thought me long. As for my gentleman, he stayed out till late at night, and there was not the least suspicion in the family either on his account or on mine.

We had after this frequent opportunities to repeat our crime, and especially at home when his mother and the young ladies went abroad a-visiting, which he watched so narrowly as never to miss; knowing always beforehand when they went out, and then failed not to catch me all alone and securely enough; so that we took our fill of our wicked pleasures for near half a year; and yet, which was the most to my satisfaction, I was not with child.

But before this half-year was expired, his younger brother, of whom I have made some mention in the beginning of the story, falls to work with me; and he, finding me alone in the garden one evening, begins a story of the same kind to me, made good, honest professions of being in love with me, and in short, proposes fairly and honourably to marry me.

I was now confounded and driven to such an extremity as the like was never known to me. I resisted the proposal with obstinacy and began to arm myself with arguments. I laid before him the inequality of the match, the treatment I should meet with in the family, the ingratitude it would be to his good father and mother, who had taken me into their house upon such generous principles, and when I was in such a low condition; and in short, I said everything to dissuade him that I could imagine except telling him the truth, which would indeed have put an end to it all, but that I durst not think of mentioning.

But here happened a circumstance that I did not expect indeed, which put me to my shifts; for this young gentleman, as he was plain and honest, so he pretended to nothing but what was so too; and knowing his own innocence, he was not so careful to make his having a kindness for Mrs. Betty a secret in the house as his brother was. And though he did not let them know that he had talked to me about it, yet he said enough to let his sisters perceive he loved me, and his mother saw it too, which, though they took no notice of to me, yet they did to him, and immediately I found their carriage to me altered more than ever before.

I saw the cloud, though I did not foresee the storm. It was easy, I say, to see their carriage was altered and that it grew worse and worse every day, till at last I got information that I should in a very little while be desired to remove.