Moll Flanders. Даниэль Дефо
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parts and behaviour; and it was my misfortune to be very well with them both, but they managed themselves with me in a quite different manner.
The eldest, a gay gentleman that knew the town as well as the country, and though he had levity enough to do an ill-natured thing, yet had too much judgment of things to pay too dear for his pleasures; he began with that unhappy snare to all women, viz., taking notice upon all occasions how pretty I was, as he called it, how agreeable, how well carriaged, and the like; and this he contrived so subtly, as if he had known as well how to catch a woman in his net, as a partridge when he went a setting; for he would contrive to be talking this to his sisters, when though I was not by, yet when he knew I was not so far off, but that I should be sure to hear him: his sisters would return softly to him, “Hush, brother, she will hear you, she is but in the next room”; then he would put it off, and talk softlier as if he had not known it, and begin to acknowledge he was wrong; and then as if he had forgot himself, he would speak aloud again, and I that was so well pleased to hear it, was sure to listen for it upon all occasions.
After he had thus baited his hook, and found easily enough the method how to lay it in my way, he played an open game; and one day going by his sister’s chamber when I was there, he comes in with an air of gaiety, “O! Mrs. Betty,” said he to me, “how do you do, Mrs. Betty? Don’t your cheeks burn, Mrs. Betty?” I made a curtsy, and blushed, but said nothing.
“What makes you talk so, brother?” says the lady.
“Why,” says he, “we have been talking of her below stairs this half hour.”
“Well,” says his sister, “you can say no harm of her, that I am sure, so it is no matter what you have been talking about.”
“Nay,” says he, “it is so far from talking harm of her, that we have been talking a great deal of good, and a great many fine things have been said of Mrs. Betty, I assure you; and particularly, that she is the handsomest young woman in Colchester, and, in short, they begin to toast her health in the town.”
“I wonder at you brother,” says the sister. “Betty wants but one thing, but she had as good want everything, for the market is against our sex just now; and if a young woman has beauty, birth, breeding, wit, sense, manners, modesty, and all to an extreme; yet if she has not money, she’s nobody, she had as good want them all; nothing but money now recommends a woman; the men play the game all into their own hands.”
Her younger brother, who was by, cried, “Hold, sister, you run too fast, I am an exception to your rule: I assure you, if I find a woman so accomplished as you talk of, I won’t trouble myself about the money.”
“O,” says the sister, “but you will take care not to fancy one then without the money.”
“You don’t know that neither,” says the brother.
“But why, sister,” says the elder brother, “why do you exclaim so about the fortune? You are none of them that want a fortune, whatever else you want.”
“I understand you, brother,” replies the lady very smartly, “you suppose I have the money and want the beauty; but as times go now, the first will do, so I have the better of my neighbours.”
“Well,” says the younger brother, “but your neighbours may be even with you; for beauty will steal a husband sometimes in spite of money; and when the maid chances to be handsomer than the mistress, she oftentimes makes as good a market, and rides in a coach before her.”
I thought it was time for me to withdraw, and I did so; but not so far, but that I heard all their discourse, in which I heard abundance of fine things said of myself, which prompted my vanity, but, as I soon found, was not the way to increase my interest in the family, for the sister and the younger brother fell grievously out about it; and as he said some very disobliging things to her, upon my account, so I could easily see that she resented them, by her future conduct to me, which indeed was very unjust; for I had never had the least thought of what she suspected, as to her younger brother: indeed the elder brother in his distant remote way had said a great many things as in jest, which I had the folly to believe were in earnest, or to flatter myself with the hopes of what I ought to have supposed he never intended.
It happened one day that he came running upstairs, towards the room where his sister used to sit and work, as he often used to do; and calling to them before he came in, as was his way too, I being there alone, stepped to the door, and said, “Sir, the ladies are not here, they are walked down the garden.”
As I stepped forward to say this, he was just got to the door, and clasping me in his arms, as if it had been by chance, “O! Mrs. Betty,” says he, “are you here? that’s better still, I want to speak with you, more than I do with them.” And then having me in his arms he kissed me three or four times.
I struggled to get away, and yet did it but faintly neither, and he held me fast, and still kissed me, till he was out of breath, and, sitting down, says he, “Dear Betty, I am in love with you.”
His words, I must confess, fired my blood; all my spirits flew about my heart, and put me into disorder enough. He repeated it afterwards several times, that he was in love with me, and my heart spoke as plain as a voice, that I liked it; nay, whenever he said, “I am in love with you,” my blushes plainly replied “Would you were, Sir.” However, nothing else passed at that time; it was but a surprise, and I soon recovered myself. He had stayed longer with me, but he happened to look out at the window and see his sisters coming up the garden, so he took his leave, kissed me again, told me he was very serious, and I should hear more of him very quickly, and away he went infinitely pleased, and had there not been one misfortune in it, I had been in the right, but the mistake lay here, that Mrs. Betty was in earnest, and the gentleman was not.
From this time my head run upon strange things, and I may truly say, I was not myself, to have such a gentleman talk to me of being in love with me, and of my being such a charming creature, as he told me I was, these were things I knew not how to bear, my vanity was elevated to the last degree. It is true, I had my head full of pride, but knowing nothing of the wickedness of the times, I had not one thought of my virtue about me; and had my young master offered it at first sight, he might have taken any liberty he thought fit with me; but he did not see his advantage, which was my happiness for that time.
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