Moll Flanders. Даниэль Дефо
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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, it is 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 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, “it is 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, until 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 today, 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 turnover), “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 turnover 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