الفصل الفصل 24 · 第24章

When I grew near my time she desired my gentleman to go away to London,

or make as if he did so. When he was gone, she acquainted the parish

officers that there was a lady ready to lie in at her house, but that

she knew her husband very well, and gave them, as she pretended, an

account of his name, which she called Sir Walter Cleve; telling them he

was a very worthy gentleman, and that she would answer for all

inquiries, and the like. This satisfied the parish officers presently,

and I lay in with as much credit as I could have done if I had really

been my Lady Cleve, and was assisted in my travail by three or four of

the best citizens’ wives of Bath who lived in the neighbourhood, which,

however, made me a little the more expensive to him. I often expressed

my concern to him about it, but he bid me not be concerned at it.

As he had furnished me very sufficiently with money for the

extraordinary expenses of my lying in, I had everything very handsome

about me, but did not affect to be gay or extravagant neither; besides,

knowing my own circumstances, and knowing the world as I had done, and

that such kind of things do not often last long, I took care to lay up

as much money as I could for a wet day, as I called it; making him

believe it was all spent upon the extraordinary appearance of things in

my lying in.

By this means, and including what he had given me as above, I had at

the end of my lying in about two hundred guineas by me, including also

what was left of my own.

I was brought to bed of a fine boy indeed, and a charming child it was;

and when he heard of it he wrote me a very kind, obliging letter about

it, and then told me, he thought it would look better for me to come

away for London as soon as I was up and well; that he had provided

apartments for me at Hammersmith, as if I came thither only from

London; and that after a little while I should go back to the Bath, and

he would go with me.

I liked this offer very well, and accordingly hired a coach on purpose,

and taking my child, and a wet-nurse to tend and suckle it, and a

maid-servant with me, away I went for London.

He met me at Reading in his own chariot, and taking me into that, left

the servant and the child in the hired coach, and so he brought me to

my new lodgings at Hammersmith; with which I had abundance of reason to

be very well pleased, for they were very handsome rooms, and I was very

well accommodated.

And now I was indeed in the height of what I might call my prosperity,

and I wanted nothing but to be a wife, which, however, could not be in

this case, there was no room for it; and therefore on all occasions I

studied to save what I could, as I have said above, against a time of

scarcity, knowing well enough that such things as these do not always

continue; that men that keep mistresses often change them, grow weary

of them, or jealous of them, or something or other happens to make them

withdraw their bounty; and sometimes the ladies that are thus well used

are not careful by a prudent conduct to preserve the esteem of their

persons, or the nice article of their fidelity, and then they are

justly cast off with contempt.

But I was secured in this point, for as I had no inclination to change,

so I had no manner of acquaintance in the whole house, and so no

temptation to look any farther. I kept no company but in the family

when I lodged, and with the clergyman’s lady at next door; so that when

he was absent I visited nobody, nor did he ever find me out of my

chamber or parlour whenever he came down; if I went anywhere to take

the air, it was always with him.

The living in this manner with him, and his with me, was certainly the

most undesigned thing in the world; he often protested to me, that when

he became first acquainted with me, and even to the very night when we

first broke in upon our rules, he never had the least design of lying

with me; that he always had a sincere affection for me, but not the

least real inclination to do what he had done. I assured him I never

suspected him; that if I had I should not so easily have yielded to the

freedom which brought it on, but that it was all a surprise, and was

owing to the accident of our having yielded too far to our mutual

inclinations that night; and indeed I have often observed since, and

leave it as a caution to the readers of this story, that we ought to be

cautious of gratifying our inclinations in loose and lewd freedoms,

lest we find our resolutions of virtue fail us in the junction when

their assistance should be most necessary.

It is true, and I have confessed it before, that from the first hour I

began to converse with him, I resolved to let him lie with me, if he

offered it; but it was because I wanted his help and assistance, and I

knew no other way of securing him than that. But when we were that

night together, and, as I have said, had gone such a length, I found my

weakness; the inclination was not to be resisted, but I was obliged to

yield up all even before he asked it.

However, he was so just to me that he never upbraided me with that; nor

did he ever express the least dislike of my conduct on any other

occasion, but always protested he was as much delighted with my company

as he was the first hour we came together: I mean, came together as

bedfellows.

It is true that he had no wife, that is to say, she was as no wife to

him, and so I was in no danger that way, but the just reflections of

conscience oftentimes snatch a man, especially a man of sense, from the

arms of a mistress, as it did him at last, though on another occasion.

On the other hand, though I was not without secret reproaches of my own

conscience for the life I led, and that even in the greatest height of

the satisfaction I ever took, yet I had the terrible prospect of

poverty and starving, which lay on me as a frightful spectre, so that

there was no looking behind me. But as poverty brought me into it, so

fear of poverty kept me in it, and I frequently resolved to leave it

quite off, if I could but come to lay up money enough to maintain me.

But these were thoughts of no weight, and whenever he came to me they

vanished; for his company was so delightful, that there was no being

melancholy when he was there; the reflections were all the subject of

those hours when I was alone.

I lived six years in this happy but unhappy condition, in which time I

brought him three children, but only the first of them lived; and

though I removed twice in those six years, yet I came back the sixth

year to my first lodgings at Hammersmith. Here it was that I was one

morning surprised with a kind but melancholy letter from my gentleman,

intimating that he was very ill, and was afraid he should have another

fit of sickness, but that his wife’s relations being in the house with

him, it would not be practicable to have me with him, which, however,

he expressed his great dissatisfaction in, and that he wished I could

be allowed to tend and nurse him as I did before.

I was very much concerned at this account, and was very impatient to

know how it was with him. I waited a fortnight or thereabouts, and

heard nothing, which surprised me, and I began to be very uneasy

indeed. I think, I may say, that for the next fortnight I was near to

distracted. It was my particular difficulty that I did not know

directly where he was; for I understood at first he was in the lodgings

of his wife’s mother; but having removed myself to London, I soon

found, by the help of the direction I had for writing my letters to

him, how to inquire after him, and there I found that he was at a house

in Bloomsbury, whither he had, a little before he fell sick, removed

his whole family; and that his wife and wife’s mother were in the same

house, though the wife was not suffered to know that she was in the

same house with her husband.

Here I also soon understood that he was at the last extremity, which

made me almost at the last extremity too, to have a true account. One

night I had the curiosity to disguise myself like a servant-maid, in a

round cap and straw hat, and went to the door, as sent by a lady of his

neighbourhood, where he lived before, and giving master and mistress’s

service, I said I was sent to know how Mr. —— did, and how he had

rested that night. In delivering this message I got the opportunity I

desired; for, speaking with one of the maids, I held a long gossip’s

tale with her, and had all the particulars of his illness, which I

found was a pleurisy, attended with a cough and a fever. She told me

also who was in the house, and how his wife was, who, by her relation,

they were in some hopes might recover her understanding; but as to the

gentleman himself, in short she told me the doctors said there was very

little hopes of him, that in the morning they thought he had been

dying, and that he was but little better then, for they did not expect

that he could live over the next night.

This was heavy news for me, and I began now to see an end of my

prosperity, and to see also that it was very well I had played to good

housewife, and secured or saved something while he was alive, for that

now I had no view of my own living before me.

It lay very heavy upon my mind, too, that I had a son, a fine lovely

boy, about five years old, and no provision made for it, at least that

I knew of. With these considerations, and a sad heart, I went home that

evening, and began to cast with myself how I should live, and in what

manner to bestow myself, for the residue of my life.

You may be sure I could not rest without inquiring again very quickly

what was become of him; and not venturing to go myself, I sent several

sham messengers, till after a fortnight’s waiting longer, I found that

there was hopes of his life, though he was still very ill; then I

abated my sending any more to the house, and in some time after I

learned in the neighbourhood that he was about house, and then that he

was abroad again.

I made no doubt then but that I should soon hear of him, and began to

comfort myself with my circumstances being, as I thought, recovered. I

waited a week, and two weeks, and with much surprise and amazement I

waited near two months and heard nothing, but that, being recovered, he

was gone into the country for the air, and for the better recovery

after his distemper. After this it was yet two months more, and then I

understood he was come to his city house again, but still I heard

nothing from him.