Kabanata Kabanata 32 · 第32章

Here I told him I would live with him now till all my money was spent,

but would not let him spend a shilling of his own. We had some kind

squabble about that, but I told him it was the last time I was like to

enjoy his company, and I desired he would let me be master in that

thing only, and he should govern in everything else; so he acquiesced.

Here one evening, taking a walk into the fields, I told him I would now

make the proposal to him I had told him of; accordingly I related to

him how I had lived in Virginia, that I had a mother I believed was

alive there still, though my husband was dead some years. I told him

that had not my effects miscarried, which, by the way, I magnified

pretty much, I might have been fortune good enough to him to have kept

us from being parted in this manner. Then I entered into the manner of

peoples going over to those countries to settle, how they had a

quantity of land given them by the Constitution of the place; and if

not, that it might be purchased at so easy a rate that it was not worth

naming.

I then gave him a full and distinct account of the nature of planting;

how with carrying over but two or three hundred pounds value in English

goods, with some servants and tools, a man of application would

presently lay a foundation for a family, and in a very few years be

certain to raise an estate.

I let him into the nature of the product of the earth; how the ground

was cured and prepared, and what the usual increase of it was; and

demonstrated to him, that in a very few years, with such a beginning,

we should be as certain of being rich as we were now certain of being

poor.

He was surprised at my discourse; for we made it the whole subject of

our conversation for near a week together, in which time I laid it down

in black and white, as we say, that it was morally impossible, with a

supposition of any reasonable good conduct, but that we must thrive

there and do very well.

Then I told him what measures I would take to raise such a sum of £300

or thereabouts; and I argued with him how good a method it would be to

put an end to our misfortunes and restore our circumstances in the

world, to what we had both expected; and I added, that after seven

years, if we lived, we might be in a posture to leave our plantations

in good hands, and come over again and receive the income of it, and

live here and enjoy it; and I gave him examples of some that had done

so, and lived now in very good circumstances in London.

In short, I pressed him so to it, that he almost agreed to it, but

still something or other broke it off again; till at last he turned the

tables, and he began to talk almost to the same purpose of Ireland.

He told me that a man that could confine himself to country life, and

that could find but stock to enter upon any land, should have farms

there for £50 a year, as good as were here let for £200 a year; that

the produce was such, and so rich the land, that if much was not laid

up, we were sure to live as handsomely upon it as a gentleman of £3000

a year could do in England and that he had laid a scheme to leave me in

London, and go over and try; and if he found he could lay a handsome

foundation of living suitable to the respect he had for me, as he

doubted not he should do, he would come over and fetch me.

I was dreadfully afraid that upon such a proposal he would have taken

me at my word, viz. to sell my little income as I called it, and turn

it into money, and let him carry it over into Ireland and try his

experiment with it; but he was too just to desire it, or to have

accepted it if I had offered it; and he anticipated me in that, for he

added, that he would go and try his fortune that way, and if he found

he could do anything at it to live, then, by adding mine to it when I

went over, we should live like ourselves; but that he would not hazard

a shilling of mine till he had made the experiment with a little, and

he assured me that if he found nothing to be done in Ireland, he would

then come to me and join in my project for Virginia.

He was so earnest upon his project being to be tried first, that I

could not withstand him; however, he promised to let me hear from him

in a very little time after his arriving there, to let me know whether

his prospect answered his design, that if there was not a possibility

of success, I might take the occasion to prepare for our other voyage,

and then, he assured me, he would go with me to America with all his

heart.

I could bring him to nothing further than this. However, those

consultations entertained us near a month, during which I enjoyed his

company, which indeed was the most entertaining that ever I met in my

life before. In this time he let me into the whole story of his own

life, which was indeed surprising, and full of an infinite variety

sufficient to fill up a much brighter history, for its adventures and

incidents, than any I ever saw in print; but I shall have occasion to

say more of him hereafter.

We parted at last, though with the utmost reluctance on my side; and

indeed he took his leave very unwillingly too, but necessity obliged

him, for his reasons were very good why he would not come to London, as

I understood more fully some time afterwards.

I gave him a direction how to write to me, though still I reserved the

grand secret, and never broke my resolution, which was not to let him

ever know my true name, who I was, or where to be found; he likewise

let me know how to write a letter to him, so that, he said, he would be

sure to receive it.

I came to London the next day after we parted, but did not go directly

to my old lodgings; but for another nameless reason took a private

lodging in St. John’s Street, or, as it is vulgarly called, St.

Jones’s, near Clerkenwell; and here, being perfectly alone, I had

leisure to sit down and reflect seriously upon the last seven months’

ramble I had made, for I had been abroad no less. The pleasant hours I

had with my last husband I looked back on with an infinite deal of

pleasure; but that pleasure was very much lessened when I found some

time after that I was really with child.

This was a perplexing thing, because of the difficulty which was before

me where I should get leave to lie in; it being one of the nicest

things in the world at that time of day for a woman that was a

stranger, and had no friends, to be entertained in that circumstance

without security, which, by the way, I had not, neither could I procure

any.

I had taken care all this while to preserve a correspondence with my

honest friend at the bank, or rather he took care to correspond with

me, for he wrote to me once a week; and though I had not spent my money

so fast as to want any from him, yet I often wrote also to let him know

I was alive. I had left directions in Lancashire, so that I had these

letters, which he sent, conveyed to me; and during my recess at St.

Jones’s received a very obliging letter from him, assuring me that his

process for a divorce from his wife went on with success, though he met

with some difficulties in it that he did not expect.

I was not displeased with the news that his process was more tedious

than he expected; for though I was in no condition to have him yet, not

being so foolish to marry him when I knew myself to be with child by

another man, as some I know have ventured to do, yet I was not willing

to lose him, and, in a word, resolved to have him if he continued in

the same mind, as soon as I was up again; for I saw apparently I should

hear no more from my husband; and as he had all along pressed to marry,

and had assured me he would not be at all disgusted at it, or ever

offer to claim me again, so I made no scruple to resolve to do it if I

could, and if my other friend stood to his bargain; and I had a great

deal of reason to be assured that he would stand to it, by the letters

he wrote to me, which were the kindest and most obliging that could be.

I now grew big, and the people where I lodged perceived it, and began

to take notice of it to me, and, as far as civility would allow,

intimated that I must think of removing. This put me to extreme

perplexity, and I grew very melancholy, for indeed I knew not what

course to take. I had money, but no friends, and was like to have a

child upon my hands to keep, which was a difficulty I had never had

upon me yet, as the particulars of my story hitherto make appear.

In the course of this affair I fell very ill, and my melancholy really

increased my distemper; my illness proved at length to be only an ague,

but my apprehensions were really that I should miscarry. I should not

say apprehensions, for indeed I would have been glad to miscarry, but I

could never be brought to entertain so much as a thought of

endeavouring to miscarry, or of taking any thing to make me miscarry; I

abhorred, I say, so much as the thought of it.

However, speaking of it in the house, the gentlewoman who kept the

house proposed to me to send for a midwife. I scrupled it at first, but

after some time consented to it, but told her I had no particular

acquaintance with any midwife, and so left it to her.

It seems the mistress of the house was not so great a stranger to such

cases as mine was as I thought at first she had been, as will appear

presently, and she sent for a midwife of the right sort—that is to say,

the right sort for me.

The woman appeared to be an experienced woman in her business, I mean

as a midwife; but she had another calling too, in which she was as

expert as most women if not more. My landlady had told her I was very

melancholy, and that she believed that had done me harm; and once,

before me, said to her, “Mrs. B——” (meaning the midwife), “I believe

this lady’s trouble is of a kind that is pretty much in your way, and

therefore if you can do anything for her, pray do, for she is a very

civil gentlewoman”; and so she went out of the room.

I really did not understand her, but my Mother Midnight began very

seriously to explain what she meant, as soon as she was gone. “Madam,”

says she, “you seem not to understand what your landlady means; and

when you do understand it, you need not let her know at all that you do

so.