Kabanata Kabanata 5 · 第5章

From this time my head ran 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 own

safety or 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.

After this attack 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 all gone a-visiting with their mother; his brother was out of

town; and as for his father, he had been in 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 maids 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 God knows 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.

However, as it were, 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 night or day till he had told me how he was

in love with me, and, if I was able to 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 a great while. After

this he thought he had heard somebody come upstairs, so 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 he put five guineas into my hand, and went away downstairs.

I was more confounded with the money than I was before with the love,

and began to be so elevated that I scarce knew the ground I stood on. I

am the more particular in this part, that if my story 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, ’tis natural to

expect the effects of it.

This young gentleman had 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 half an hour or

thereabouts, and falls to work with me again as 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 of 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, “’tis good to be sure, however”; and

so he sits down, and we began to talk. And now, though I was still all

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 mention such a thing till he came to this estate,

yet he was resolved to make me happy then, and himself too; that is to

say, to marry me, and abundance of such fine things, which I, poor

fool, did not understand the drift of, but acted as if there was no

such thing as any kind of love but that which tended to matrimony; and

if he had spoke of that, I had no room, as well as no power, to have

said no; but we were not come 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 being both well warmed,

he went farther 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, making 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 reflection. I had a most unbounded stock of

vanity and pride, and but a very little stock of virtue. I did indeed

case sometimes with myself what young master aimed at, but thought of

nothing but the fine words and the gold; whether he intended to marry

me, or not to marry me, seemed a matter of no great consequence to me;

nor did my thoughts so much as suggest to me the necessity of making

any capitulation for myself, till he came to make a kind of formal

proposal to me, as you shall hear presently.

Thus I gave up myself to a readiness of being ruined 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 require, this

gentleman had either desisted his attacks, finding no room to expect

the accomplishment of his design, or had made fair and honourable

proposals of marriage; in which case, whoever had 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. And if I had known his thoughts, and

how hard he thought I would be to be gained, I might have made my own

terms with him; 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 already rich to excess, besides what he had in

expectation; but I seemed wholly to have abandoned all such thoughts as

these, 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 and over a thousand times a

day. Never a 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; 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 suspect me, or to imagine that I had the

least correspondence with this young gentleman. I scarce ever looked

towards him in public, or answered if he spoke to me when anybody was

near us; 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, if he had known my

thoughts, 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

opportunity for that wickedness he invites to. It was one evening that

I was in the garden, with his two younger sisters and himself, and all

very innocently merry, when he found means to convey a note into my

hand, by which he directed me to understand that he would to-morrow

desire me publicly to go of an errand for him into the town, 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 his second sister. “Nay, sister,” says he very gravely, “if you

can’t spare Mrs. Betty to-day, any other time will do.” Yes, they said,

they could spare her well enough, and the sister begged pardon for

asking, which they did but of mere course, without any meaning. “Well,

but, brother,” 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 the

turnover that he showed, to see if they would 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 how merry they were to be, and very

formally asks 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; which, by the way, he had contrived on

purpose.