الفصل الفصل 67 · 第67章

He called the messenger in, after some little stay, and asked him where

the person was who gave him the letter. The messenger told him the

place, which was about seven miles off, so he bid him stay, and

ordering a horse to be got ready, and two servants, away he came to me

with the messenger. Let any one judge the consternation I was in when

my messenger came back, and told me the old gentleman was not at home,

but his son was come along with him, and was just coming up to me. I

was perfectly confounded, for I knew not whether it was peace or war,

nor could I tell how to behave; however, I had but a very few moments

to think, for my son was at the heels of the messenger, and coming up

into my lodgings, asked the fellow at the door something. I suppose it

was, for I did not hear it so as to understand it, which was the

gentlewoman that sent him; for the messenger said, “There she is, sir”;

at which he comes directly up to me, kisses me, took me in his arms,

and embraced me with so much passion that he could not speak, but I

could feel his breast heave and throb like a child, that cries, but

sobs, and cannot cry it out.

I can neither express nor describe the joy that touched my very soul

when I found, for it was easy to discover that part, that he came not

as a stranger, but as a son to a mother, and indeed as a son who had

never before known what a mother of his own was; in short, we cried

over one another a considerable while, when at last he broke out first.

“My dear mother,” says he, “are you still alive? I never expected to

have seen your face.” As for me, I could say nothing a great while.

After we had both recovered ourselves a little, and were able to talk,

he told me how things stood. As to what I had written to his father, he

told me he had not showed my letter to his father, or told him anything

about it; that what his grandmother left me was in his hands, and that

he would do me justice to my full satisfaction; that as to his father,

he was old and infirm both in body and mind; that he was very fretful

and passionate, almost blind, and capable of nothing; and he questioned

whether he would know how to act in an affair which was of so nice a

nature as this; and that therefore he had come himself, as well to

satisfy himself in seeing me, which he could not restrain himself from,

as also to put it into my power to make a judgment, after I had seen

how things were, whether I would discover myself to his father or no.

This was really so prudently and wisely managed, that I found my son

was a man of sense, and needed no direction from me. I told him I did

not wonder that his father was as he had described him, for that his

head was a little touched before I went away; and principally his

disturbance was because I could not be persuaded to conceal our

relation and to live with him as my husband, after I knew that he was

my brother; that as he knew better than I what his father’s present

condition was, I should readily join with him in such measure as he

would direct; that I was indifferent as to seeing his father, since I

had seen him first, and he could not have told me better news than to

tell me that what his grandmother had left me was entrusted in his

hands, who, I doubted not, now he knew who I was, would, as he said, do

me justice. I inquired then how long my mother had been dead, and where

she died, and told so many particulars of the family, that I left him

no room to doubt the truth of my being really and truly his mother.

My son then inquired where I was, and how I had disposed myself. I told

him I was on the Maryland side of the bay, at the plantation of a

particular friend who came from England in the same ship with me; that

as for that side of the bay where he was, I had no habitation. He told

me I should go home with him, and live with him, if I pleased, as long

as I lived; that as to his father, he knew nobody, and would never so

much as guess at me. I considered of that a little, and told him, that

though it was really no concern to me to live at a distance from him,

yet I could not say it would be the most comfortable thing in the world

to me to live in the house with him, and to have that unhappy object

always before me, which had been such a blow to my peace before; that

though I should be glad to have his company (my son), or to be as near

him as possible while I stayed, yet I could not think of being in the

house where I should be also under constant restraint for fear of

betraying myself in my discourse, nor should I be able to refrain some

expressions in my conversing with him as my son, that might discover

the whole affair, which would by no means be convenient.

He acknowledged that I was right in all this. “But then, dear mother,”

says he, “you shall be as near me as you can.” So he took me with him

on horseback to a plantation next to his own, and where I was as well

entertained as I could have been in his own. Having left me there he

went away home, telling me we would talk of the main business the next

day; and having first called me his aunt, and given a charge to the

people, who it seems were his tenants, to treat me with all possible

respect. About two hours after he was gone, he sent me a maid-servant

and a Negro boy to wait on me, and provisions ready dressed for my

supper; and thus I was as if I had been in a new world, and began

secretly now to wish that I had not brought my Lancashire husband from

England at all.

However, that wish was not hearty neither, for I loved my Lancashire

husband entirely, as indeed I had ever done from the beginning; and he

merited from me as much as it was possible for a man to do; but that by

the way.

The next morning my son came to visit me again almost as soon as I was

up. After a little discourse, he first of all pulled out a deerskin

bag, and gave it me, with five-and-fifty Spanish pistoles in it, and

told me that was to supply my expenses from England, for though it was

not his business to inquire, yet he ought to think I did not bring a

great deal of money out with me, it not being usual to bring much money

into that country. Then he pulled out his grandmother’s will, and read

it over to me, whereby it appeared that she had left a small

plantation, as he called it, on York River, that is, where my mother

lived, to me, with the stock of servants and cattle upon it, and given

it in trust to this son of mine for my use, whenever he should hear of

my being alive, and to my heirs, if I had any children, and in default

of heirs, to whomsoever I should by will dispose of it; but gave the

income of it, till I should be heard of, or found, to my said son; and

if I should not be living, then it was to him, and his heirs.

This plantation, though remote from him, he said he did not let out,

but managed it by a head-clerk (steward), as he did another that was

his father’s, that lay hard by it, and went over himself three or four

times a year to look after it. I asked him what he thought the

plantation might be worth. He said, if I would let it out, he would

give me about £60 a year for it; but if I would live on it, then it

would be worth much more, and, he believed, would bring me in about

£150 a year. But seeing I was likely either to settle on the other side

of the bay, or might perhaps have a mind to go back to England again,

if I would let him be my steward he would manage it for me, as he had

done for himself, and that he believed he should be able to send me as

much tobacco to England from it as would yield me about £100 a year,

sometimes more.

This was all strange news to me, and things I had not been used to; and

really my heart began to look up more seriously than I think it ever

did before, and to look with great thankfulness to the hand of

Providence, which had done such wonders for me, who had been myself the

greatest wonder of wickedness perhaps that had been suffered to live in

the world. And I must again observe, that not on this occasion only,

but even on all other occasions of thankfulness, my past wicked and

abominable life never looked so monstrous to me, and I never so

completely abhorred it, and reproached myself with it, as when I had a

sense upon me of Providence doing good to me, while I had been making

those vile returns on my part.

But I leave the reader to improve these thoughts, as no doubt they will

see cause, and I go on to the fact. My son’s tender carriage and kind

offers fetched tears from me, almost all the while he talked with me.

Indeed, I could scarce discourse with him but in the intervals of my

passion; however, at length I began, and expressing myself with wonder

at my being so happy to have the trust of what I had left, put into the

hands of my own child, I told him, that as to the inheritance of it, I

had no child but him in the world, and was now past having any if I

should marry, and therefore would desire him to get a writing drawn,

which I was ready to execute, by which I would, after me, give it

wholly to him and to his heirs. And in the meantime, smiling, I asked

him what made him continue a bachelor so long. His answer was kind and

ready, that Virginia did not yield any great plenty of wives, and that

since I talked of going back to England, I should send him a wife from

London.

This was the substance of our first day’s conversation, the pleasantest

day that ever passed over my head in my life, and which gave me the

truest satisfaction. He came every day after this, and spent a great

part of his time with me, and carried me about to several of his

friends’ houses, where I was entertained with great respect. Also I

dined several times at his own house, when he took care always to see

his half-dead father so out of the way that I never saw him, or he me.

I made him one present, and it was all I had of value, and that was one

of the gold watches, of which I mentioned above, that I had two in my

chest, and this I happened to have with me, and I gave it him at his

third visit. I told him I had nothing of any value to bestow but that,

and I desired he would now and then kiss it for my sake. I did not

indeed tell him that I had stole it from a gentlewoman’s side, at a

meeting-house in London. That’s by the way.