The Fortunate Mistress Part 25

We spent half-an-hour in these extravagances, and brought nothing out of them neither; for indeed we could do nothing or say nothing that was to the purpose; for if anything was to come out-of-the-way, there was no hindering it, or help for it; so after thus giving a vent to myself by crying, I began to reflect how I had left my spouse below, and what I had pretended to come up for; so I changed my gown that I pretended the candle fell upon, and put on another, and went down.

When I had been down a good while, and found my spouse did not fall into the story again, as I expected, I took heart, and called for it. "My dear," said I, "the fall of the candle put you out of your history, won't you go on with it?" "What history?" says he. "Why," says I, "about the captain." "Oh," says he, "I had done with it. I know no more than that the captain told a broken piece of news that he had heard by halves, and told more by halves than he heard it,--namely, of your being with child, and that you could not go the voyage."

I perceived my husband entered not into the thing at all, but took it for a story, which, being told two or three times over, was puzzled, and come to nothing, and that all that was meant by it was what he knew, or thought he knew already--viz., that I was with child, which he wished might be true.

His ignorance was a cordial to my soul, and I cursed them in my thoughts that should ever undeceive him; and as I saw him willing to have the story end there, as not worth being farther mentioned, I closed it too, and said I supposed the captain had it from his wife; she might have found somebody else to make her remarks upon; and so it pa.s.sed off with my husband well enough, and I was still safe there, where I thought myself in most danger. But I had two uneasinesses still; the first was lest the captain and my spouse should meet again, and enter into farther discourse about it; and the second was lest the busy impertinent girl should come again, and when she came, how to prevent her seeing Amy, which was an article as material as any of the rest; for seeing Amy would have been as fatal to me as her knowing all the rest.

As to the first of these, I knew the captain could not stay in town above a week, but that his ship being already full of goods, and fallen down the river, he must soon follow, so I contrived to carry my husband somewhere out of town for a few days, that they might be sure not to meet.

My greatest concern was where we should go. At last I fixed upon North Hall; not, I said, that I would drink the waters, but that I thought the air was good, and might be for my advantage. He, who did everything upon the foundation of obliging me, readily came into it, and the coach was appointed to be ready the next morning; but as we were settling matters, he put in an ugly word that thwarted all my design, and that was, that he had rather I would stay till afternoon, for that he should speak to the captain the next morning if he could, to give him some letters, which he could do, and be back again about twelve o'clock.

I said, "Ay, by all means." But it was but a cheat on him, and my voice and my heart differed; for I resolved, if possible, he should not come near the captain, nor see him, whatever came of it.

In the evening, therefore, a little before we went to bed, I pretended to have altered my mind, and that I would not go to North Hall, but I had a mind to go another way, but I told him I was afraid his business would not permit him. He wanted to know where it was. I told him, smiling, I would not tell him, lest it should oblige him to hinder his business. He answered with the same temper, but with infinitely more sincerity, that he had no business of so much consequence as to hinder him going with me anywhere that I had a mind to go. "Yes," says I, "you want to speak with the captain before he goes away." "Why, that's true,"

says he, "so I do," and paused awhile; and then added, "but I'll write a note to a man that does business for me to go to him; 'tis only to get some bills of loading signed, and he can do it." When I saw I had gained my point, I seemed to hang back a little. "My dear," says I, "don't hinder an hour's business for me; I can put it off for a week or two rather than you shall do yourself any prejudice." "No, no," says he, "you shall not put it off an hour for me, for I can do my business by proxy with anybody but my wife." And then he took me in his arms and kissed me. How did my blood flush up into my face when I reflected how sincerely, how affectionately, this good-humoured gentleman embraced the most cursed piece of hypocrisy that ever came into the arms of an honest man! His was all tenderness, all kindness, and the utmost sincerity; mine all grimace and deceit;--a piece of mere manage and framed conduct to conceal a past life of wickedness, and prevent his discovering that he had in his arms a she-devil, whose whole conversation for twenty-five years had been black as h.e.l.l, a complication of crime, and for which, had he been let into it, he must have abhorred me and the very mention of my name. But there was no help for me in it; all I had to satisfy myself was that it was my business to be what I was, and conceal what I had been; that all the satisfaction I could make him was to live virtuously for the time to come, not being able to retrieve what had been in time past; and this I resolved upon, though, had the great temptation offered, as it did afterwards, I had reason to question my stability. But of that hereafter.

After my husband had kindly thus given up his measures to mine, we resolved to set out in the morning early. I told him that my project, if he liked it, was to go to Tunbridge, and he, being entirely pa.s.sive in the thing, agreed to it with the greatest willingness; but said if I had not named Tunbridge, he would have named Newmarket, there being a great court there, and abundance of fine things to be seen. I offered him another piece of hypocrisy here, for I pretended to be willing to go thither, as the place of his choice, but indeed I would not have gone for a thousand pounds; for the court being there at that time, I durst not run the hazard of being known at a place where there were so many eyes that had seen me before. So that, after some time, I told my husband that I thought Newmarket was so full of people at that time, that we should get no accommodation; that seeing the court and the crowd was no entertainment at all to me, unless as it might be so to him, that if he thought fit, we would rather put it off to another time; and that if, when we went to Holland, we should go by Harwich, we might take a round by Newmarket and Bury, and so come down to Ipswich, and go from thence to the seaside. He was easily put off from this, as he was from anything else that I did not approve; and so, with all imaginable facility, he appointed to be ready early in the morning to go with me for Tunbridge.

I had a double design in this, viz., first, to get away my spouse from seeing the captain any more; and secondly, to be out of the way myself, in case this impertinent girl, who was now my plague, should offer to come again, as my friend the Quaker believed she would, and as indeed happened within two or three days afterwards.

Having thus secured my going away the next day, I had nothing to do but to furnish my faithful agent the Quaker with some instructions what to say to this tormentor (for such she proved afterwards), and how to manage her, if she made any more visits than ordinary.

I had a great mind to leave Amy behind too, as an a.s.sistant, because she understood so perfectly well what to advise upon any emergence; and Amy importuned me to do so. But I know not what secret impulse prevailed over my thoughts against it; I could not do it for fear the wicked jade should make her away, which my very soul abhorred the thoughts of; which, however, Amy found means to bring to pa.s.s afterwards, as I may in time relate more particularly.

It is true I wanted as much to be delivered from her as ever a sick man did from a third-day ague; and had she dropped into the grave by any fair way, as I may call it, I mean, had she died by any ordinary distemper, I should have shed but very few tears for her. But I was not arrived to such a pitch of obstinate wickedness as to commit murder, especially such as to murder my own child, or so much as to harbour a thought so barbarous in my mind. But, as I said, Amy effected all afterwards without my knowledge, for which I gave her my hearty curse, though I could do little more; for to have fallen upon Amy had been to have murdered myself. But this tragedy requires a longer story than I have room for here. I return to my journey.

My dear friend the Quaker was kind, and yet honest, and would do anything that was just and upright to serve me, but nothing wicked or dishonourable. That she might be able to say boldly to the creature, if she came, she did not know where I was gone, she desired I would not let her know; and to make her ignorance the more absolutely safe to herself, and likewise to me, I allowed her to say that she heard us talk of going to Newmarket, &c. She liked that part, and I left all the rest to her, to act as she thought fit; only charged her, that if the girl entered into the story of the Pall Mall, she should not entertain much talk about it, but let her understand that we all thought she spoke of it a little too particularly; and that the lady (meaning me) took it a little ill to be so likened to a public mistress, or a stage-player, and the like; and so to bring her, if possible, to say no more of it.

However, though I did not tell my friend the Quaker how to write to me, or where I was, yet I left a sealed paper with her maid to give her, in which I gave her a direction how to write to Amy, and so, in effect, to myself.

It was but a few days after I was gone, but the impatient girl came to my lodgings on pretence to see how I did, and to hear if I intended to go the voyage, and the like. My trusty agent was at home, and received her coldly at the door; but told her that the lady, which she supposed she meant, was gone from her house.

This was a full stop to all she could say for a good while; but as she stood musing some time at the door, considering what to begin a talk upon, she perceived my friend the Quaker looked a little uneasy, as if she wanted to go in and shut the door, which stung her to the quick; and the wary Quaker had not so much as asked her to come in; for seeing her alone she expected she would be very impertinent, and concluded that I did not care how coldly she received her.

But she was not to be put off so. She said if the Lady ---- was not to be spoken with, she desired to speak two or three words with her, meaning my friend the Quaker. Upon that the Quaker civilly but coldly asked her to walk in, which was what she wanted. Note.--She did not carry her into her best parlour, as formerly, but into a little outer room, where the servants usually waited.

By the first of her discourse she did not stick to insinuate as if she believed I was in the house, but was unwilling to be seen; and pressed earnestly that she might speak but two words with me; to which she added earnest entreaties, and at last tears.

"I am sorry," says my good creature the Quaker, "thou hast so ill an opinion of me as to think I would tell thee an untruth, and say that the Lady ---- was gone from my house if she was not! I a.s.sure thee I do not use any such method; nor does the Lady ---- desire any such kind of service from me, as I know of. If she had been in the house, I should have told thee so."

She said little to that, but said it was business of the utmost importance that she desired to speak with me about, and then cried again very much.

"Thou seem'st to be sorely afflicted," says the Quaker, "I wish I could give thee any relief; but if nothing will comfort thee but seeing the Lady ----, it is not in my power."

"I hope it is," says she again; "to be sure it is of great consequence to me, so much that I am undone without it."

"Thou troublest me very much to hear thee say so," says the Quaker; "but why, then, didst thou not speak to her apart when thou wast here before?"

"I had no opportunity," says she, "to speak to her alone, and I could not do it in company; if I could have spoken but two words to her alone, I would have thrown myself at her foot, and asked her blessing."

"I am surprised at thee; I do not understand thee," says the Quaker.

"Oh!" says she, "stand my friend if you have any charity, or if you have any compa.s.sion for the miserable; for I am utterly undone!"

"Thou terrifiest me," says the Quaker, "with such pa.s.sionate expressions, for verily I cannot comprehend thee!"

"Oh!" says she, "she is my mother! she is my mother! and she does not own me!"

"Thy mother!" says the Quaker, and began to be greatly moved indeed. "I am astonished at thee: what dost thou mean?"

"I mean nothing but what I say," says she. "I say again, she is my mother, and will not own me;" and with that she stopped with a flood of tears.

"Not own thee!" says the Quaker; and the tender good creature wept too.

"Why," says she, "she does not know thee, and never saw thee before."

"No," says the girl, "I believe she does not know me, but I know her; and I know that she is my mother."

"It's impossible, thou talk'st mystery!" says the Quaker; "wilt thou explain thyself a little to me?"

"Yes, yes," says she, "I can explain it well enough. I am sure she is my mother, and I have broke my heart to search for her; and now to lose her again, when I was so sure I had found her, will break my heart more effectually."

"Well, but if she be thy mother," says the Quaker, "how can it be that she should not know thee?"

"Alas!" says she, "I have been lost to her ever since I was a child; she has never seen me."

"And hast thou never seen her?" says the Quaker.

"Yes," says she, "I have seen her; often enough I saw her; for when she was the Lady Roxana I was her housemaid, being a servant, but I did not know her then, nor she me; but it has all come out since. Has she not a maid named Amy?" Note.--The honest Quaker was--nonplussed, and greatly surprised at that question.

"Truly," says she, "the Lady ---- has several women servants, but I do not know all their names."

"But her woman, her favourite," adds the girl; "is not her name Amy?"

"Why, truly," says the Quaker, with a very happy turn of wit, "I do not like to be examined; but lest thou shouldest take up any mistakes by reason of my backwardness to speak, I will answer thee for once, that what her woman's name is I know not, but they call her Cherry."

_N.B._--My husband gave her that name in jest on our wedding-day, and we had called her by it ever after; so that she spoke literally true at that time.

The girl replied very modestly that she was sorry if she gave her any offence in asking; that she did not design to be rude to her, or pretend to examine her; but that she was in such an agony at this disaster that she knew not what she did or said; and that she should be very sorry to disoblige her, but begged of her again, as she was a Christian and a woman, and had been a mother of children, that she would take pity on her, and, if possible, a.s.sist her, so that she might but come to me and speak a few words to me.

The tender-hearted Quaker told me the girl spoke this with such moving eloquence that it forced tears from her; but she was obliged to say that she neither knew where I was gone or how to write to me; but that if she did ever see me again she would not fail to give me an account of all she had said to her, or that she should yet think fit to say, and to take my answer to it, if I thought fit to give any.

Then the Quaker took the freedom to ask a few particulars about this wonderful story, as she called it; at which the girl, beginning at the first distresses of my life, and indeed of her own, went through all the history of her miserable education, her service under the Lady Roxana, as she called me, and her relief by Mrs. Amy, with the reasons she had to believe that as Amy owned herself to be the same that lived with her mother, and especially that Amy was the Lady Roxana's maid too, and came out of France with her, she was by those circ.u.mstances, and several others in her conversation, as fully convinced that the Lady Roxana was her mother, as she was that the Lady ---- at her house (the Quaker's) was the very same Roxana that she had been servant to.

My good friend the Quaker, though terribly shocked at the story, and not well knowing what to say, yet was too much my friend to seem convinced in a thing which she did not know to be true, and which, if it was true, she could see plainly I had a mind should not be known; so she turned her discourse to argue the girl out of it. She insisted upon the slender evidence she had of the fact itself, and the rudeness of claiming so near a relation of one so much above her, and of whose concern in it she had no knowledge, at least no sufficient proof; that as the lady at her house was a person above any disguises, so she could not believe that she would deny her being her daughter, if she was really her mother; that she was able sufficiently to have provided for her if she had not a mind to have her known; and, therefore, seeing she had heard all she had said of the Lady Roxana, and was so far from owning herself to be the person, so she had censured that sham lady as a cheat and a common woman; and that 'twas certain she could never be brought to own a name and character she had so justly exposed.

Besides, she told her that her lodger, meaning me, was not a sham lady, but the real wife of a knight-baronet; and that she knew her to be honestly such, and far above such a person as she had described. She then added that she had another reason why it was not very possible to be true. "And that is," says she, "thy age is in the way; for thou acknowledgest that thou art four-and twenty years old, and that thou wast the youngest of three of thy mother's children; so that, by thy account, thy mother must be extremely young, or this lady cannot be thy mother; for thou seest," says she, "and any one may see, she is but a young woman now, and cannot be supposed to be above forty years old, if she is so much; and is now big with child at her going into the country; so that I cannot give any credit to thy notion of her being thy mother; and if I might counsel thee, it should be to give over that thought, as an improbable story that does but serve to disorder thee, and disturb thy head; for," added she, "I perceive thou art much disturbed indeed."

But this was all nothing; she could be satisfied with nothing but seeing me; but the Quaker defended herself very well, and insisted on it that she could not give her any account of me; and finding her still importunate, she affected at last being a little disgusted that she should not believe her, and added, that indeed, if she had known where I was gone, she would not have given any one an account of it, unless I had given her orders to do so. "But seeing she has not acquainted me,"

says she, "where she has gone, 'tis an intimation to me she was not desirous it should be publicly known;" and with this she rose up, which was as plain a desiring her to rise up too and begone as could be expressed, except the downright showing her the door.