บทที่ บทที่ 4 · 第4章

But my new generous mistress, for she exceeded the good woman I was

with before, in everything, as well as in the matter of estate; I say,

in everything except honesty; and for that, though this was a lady most

exactly just, yet I must not forget to say on all occasions, that the

first, though poor, was as uprightly honest as it was possible for any

one to be.

I was no sooner carried away, as I have said, by this good gentlewoman,

but the first lady, that is to say, the Mayoress that was, sent her two

daughters to take care of me; and another family which had taken notice

of me when I was the little gentlewoman, and had given me work to do,

sent for me after her, so that I was mightily made of, as we say; nay,

and they were not a little angry, especially madam the Mayoress, that

her friend had taken me away from her, as she called it; for, as she

said, I was hers by right, she having been the first that took any

notice of me. But they that had me would not part with me; and as for

me, though I should have been very well treated with any of the others,

yet I could not be better than where I was.

Here I continued till I was between seventeen and eighteen years old,

and here I had all the advantages for my education that could be

imagined; the lady had masters home to the house to teach her daughters

to dance, and to speak French, and to write, and other to teach them

music; and I was always with them, I learned as fast as they; and

though the masters were not appointed to teach me, yet I learned by

imitation and inquiry all that they learned by instruction and

direction; so that, in short, I learned to dance and speak French as

well as any of them, and to sing much better, for I had a better voice

than any of them. I could not so readily come at playing on the

harpsichord or spinet, because I had no instrument of my own to

practice on, and could only come at theirs in the intervals when they

left it, which was uncertain; but yet I learned tolerably well too, and

the young ladies at length got two instruments, that is to say, a

harpsichord and a spinet too, and then they taught me themselves. But

as to dancing, they could hardly help my learning country-dances,

because they always wanted me to make up even number; and, on the other

hand, they were as heartily willing to learn me everything that they

had been taught themselves, as I could be to take the learning.

By this means I had, as I have said above, all the advantages of

education that I could have had if I had been as much a gentlewoman as

they were with whom I lived; and in some things I had the advantage of

my ladies, though they were my superiors; but they were all the gifts

of nature, and which all their fortunes could not furnish. First, I was

apparently handsomer than any of them; secondly, I was better shaped;

and, thirdly, I sang better, by which I mean I had a better voice; in

all which you will, I hope, allow me to say, I do not speak my own

conceit of myself, but the opinion of all that knew the family.

I had with all these the common vanity of my sex, viz. that being

really taken for very handsome, or, if you please, for a great beauty,

I very well knew it, and had as good an opinion of myself as anybody

else could have of me; and particularly I loved to hear anybody speak

of it, which could not but happen to me sometimes, and was a great

satisfaction to me.

Thus far I have had a smooth story to tell of myself, and in all this

part of my life I not only had the reputation of living in a very good

family, and a family noted and respected everywhere for virtue and

sobriety, and for every valuable thing; but I had the character too of

a very sober, modest, and virtuous young woman, and such I had always

been; neither had I yet any occasion to think of anything else, or to

know what a temptation to wickedness meant.

But that which I was too vain of was my ruin, or rather my vanity was

the cause of it. The lady in the house where I was had two sons, young

gentlemen of very promising parts and of extraordinary behaviour, and

it was my misfortune to be very well with them both, but they managed

themselves with me in a quite different manner.

The eldest, a gay gentleman that knew the town as well as the country,

and though he had levity enough to do an ill-natured thing, yet had too

much judgment of things to pay too dear for his pleasures; he began

with the unhappy snare to all women, viz. taking notice upon all

occasions how pretty I was, as he called it, how agreeable, how

well-carriaged, and the like; and this he contrived so subtly, as if he

had known as well how to catch a woman in his net as a partridge when

he went a-setting; for he would contrive to be talking this to his

sisters when, though I was not by, yet when he knew I was not far off

but that I should be sure to hear him. His sisters would return softly

to him, “Hush, brother, she will hear you; she is but in the next

room.” Then he would put it off and talk softlier, as if he had not

known it, and begin to acknowledge he was wrong; and then, as if he had

forgot himself, he would speak aloud again, and I, that was so well

pleased to hear it, was sure to listen for it upon all occasions.

After he had thus baited his hook, and found easily enough the method

how to lay it in my way, he played an opener game; and one day, going

by his sister’s chamber when I was there, doing something about

dressing her, he comes in with an air of gaiety. “Oh, Mrs. Betty,” said

he to me, “how do you do, Mrs. Betty? Don’t your cheeks burn, Mrs.

Betty?” I made a curtsy and blushed, but said nothing. “What makes you

talk so, brother?” says the lady. “Why,” says he, “we have been talking

of her below-stairs this half-hour.” “Well,” says his sister, “you can

say no harm of her, that I am sure, so ’tis no matter what you have

been talking about.” “Nay,” says he, “’tis so far from talking harm of

her, that we have been talking a great deal of good, and a great many

fine things have been said of Mrs. Betty, I assure you; and

particularly, that she is the handsomest young woman in Colchester;

and, in short, they begin to toast her health in the town.”

“I wonder at you, brother,” says the sister. “Betty wants but one

thing, but she had as good want everything, for the market is against

our sex just now; and if a young woman have beauty, birth, breeding,

wit, sense, manners, modesty, and all these to an extreme, yet if she

have not money, she’s nobody, she had as good want them all for nothing

but money now recommends a woman; the men play the game all into their

own hands.”

Her younger brother, who was by, cried, “Hold, sister, you run too

fast; I am an exception to your rule. I assure you, if I find a woman

so accomplished as you talk of, I say, I assure you, I would not

trouble myself about the money.”

“Oh,” says the sister, “but you will take care not to fancy one, then,

without the money.”

“You don’t know that neither,” says the brother.

“But why, sister,” says the elder brother, “why do you exclaim so at

the men for aiming so much at the fortune? You are none of them that

want a fortune, whatever else you want.”

“I understand you, brother,” replies the lady very smartly; “you

suppose I have the money, and want the beauty; but as times go now, the

first will do without the last, so I have the better of my neighbours.”

“Well,” says the younger brother, “but your neighbours, as you call

them, may be even with you, for beauty will steal a husband sometimes

in spite of money, and when the maid chances to be handsomer than the

mistress, she oftentimes makes as good a market, and rides in a coach

before her.”

I thought it was time for me to withdraw and leave them, and I did so,

but not so far but that I heard all their discourse, in which I heard

abundance of the fine things said of myself, which served to prompt my

vanity, but, as I soon found, was not the way to increase my interest

in the family, for the sister and the younger brother fell grievously

out about it; and as he said some very disobliging things to her upon

my account, so I could easily see that she resented them by her future

conduct to me, which indeed was very unjust to me, for I had never had

the least thought of what she suspected as to her younger brother;

indeed, the elder brother, in his distant, remote way, had said a great

many things as in jest, which I had the folly to believe were in

earnest, or to flatter myself with the hopes of what I ought to have

supposed he never intended, and perhaps never thought of.

It happened one day that he came running upstairs, towards the room

where his sisters used to sit and work, as he often used to do; and

calling to them before he came in, as was his way too, I, being there

alone, stepped to the door, and said, “Sir, the ladies are not here,

they are walked down the garden.” As I stepped forward to say this,

towards the door, he was just got to the door, and clasping me in his

arms, as if it had been by chance, “Oh, Mrs. Betty,” says he, “are you

here? That’s better still; I want to speak with you more than I do with

them”; and then, having me in his arms, he kissed me three or four

times.

I struggled to get away, and yet did it but faintly neither, and he

held me fast, and still kissed me, till he was almost out of breath,

and then, sitting down, says, “Dear Betty, I am in love with you.”

His words, I must confess, fired my blood; all my spirits flew about my

heart and put me into disorder enough, which he might easily have seen

in my face. He repeated it afterwards several times, that he was in

love with me, and my heart spoke as plain as a voice, that I liked it;

nay, whenever he said, “I am in love with you,” my blushes plainly

replied, “Would you were, sir.”

However, nothing else passed at that time; it was but a surprise, and

when he was gone I soon recovered myself again. He had stayed longer

with me, but he happened to look out at the window and see his sisters

coming up the garden, so he took his leave, kissed me again, told me he

was very serious, and I should hear more of him very quickly, and away

he went, leaving me infinitely pleased, though surprised; and had there

not been one misfortune in it, I had been in the right, but the mistake

lay here, that Mrs. Betty was in earnest and the gentleman was not.