Moll Flanders

“Explain yourself,” says the mother, “for I am surprised, I do not understand you. I hope you are not in earnest.”

“Why, madam,” says he, “the case is plain enough upon me, it explains itself; she won’t have me, she says. Is not that plain enough? I think ‘tis plain, and pretty rough too.”

“Well, but,” says the mother, “you talk of conditions, that you cannot grant. What does she want, a settlement? Her jointure ought to be according to her portion; what does she bring?”

“Nay, as to fortune,” says Robin, “she is rich enough; I am satisfied in that point; but ‘tis that I am not able to come up to her terms, and she is positive she will not have me without.”

Here the sisters put in. “Madam,” says the second sister, “‘tis impossible to be serious with him, he will never give a direct answer to anything; you had better let him alone, and talk no more of it, you know how to dispose of her out of his way.”

Robin was a little warmed with his sister’s rudeness, but he was even with her presently: “There are two sorts of people, madam,” says he, turning to his mother, “that there is no contending with, that is a wise body and a fool. ‘Tis a little hard I should engage with both of them together.”

The younger sister then put in, “We must be fools indeed,” says she, “in my brother’s opinion, that he should make us believe he has seriously asked Mrs. Betty to marry him, and she has refused him.”

“‘Answer, and answer not,’ says Solomon,” replied her brother. “When your brother had said that he had asked her no less than five times, and that she positively denied him, methinks a younger sister need not question the truth of it, when her mother did not.”

“My mother, you see, did not understand it,” says the second sister.

“There’s some difference,” says Robin, “between desiring me to explain it, and telling me she did not believe it.”

“Well, but son,” says the old lady, “if you are disposed to let us into the mystery of it, what were these hard conditions?”

“Yes, madam,” says Robin, “I had done it before now, if the teasers here had not worried me by way of interruption. The conditions are, that I bring my father and you to consent to it, and without that, she protests, she will never see me more upon that head; and the conditions, as I said, I suppose I shall never be able to grant. I hope my warm sisters will be answered now, and blush a little.”

This answer was surprising to them all, though less to the mother, because of what I had said to her. As to the daughters they stood mute a great while; but the mother said with some passion, “Well, I heard this before, but I could not believe it, but if it is so, then we have all done Betty wrong, and she has behaved better than I expected.”

“Nay,” says the eldest sister, “if it is so, she has acted handsomely indeed.”

“I confess,” says the mother, “it was none of her fault, if he was enough fool to take a fancy to her; but to give such an answer to him, shews more respect to us, than I can tell how to express; I shall value the girl the better for it, as long as I know her.”

“But I shall not,” says Robin, “unless you will give your consent.”

“I’ll consider of that awhile,” says the mother. “I assure you, if there were not some other objections, this conduct of hers would go a great way to bring me to consent.”

“I wish it would go quite through with it,” says Robin, “if you had as much thought about making me easy, as you have about making me rich, you would soon consent to it.”

“Why Robin,” says the mother again, “are you really in earnest? Would you fain have her?”

“Really, madam,” says Robin, “I think ‘tis hard you should question me again upon that head; I won’t say that I will have her, how can I resolve that point, when you see I cannot have her without your consent? But this I will say, I am earnest that I will never have anybody else, if I can help it; Betty or nobody is the word, and the question which of the two shall be in your breast to decide, madam, provided only, that my good-humoured sisters here may have no vote in it.”

All this was dreadful to me, for the mother began to yield, and Robin pressed her home in it. On the other hand, she advised with the eldest son, and he used all the arguments in the world to persuade her to consent; alleging his brother’s passionate love for me, and my generous regard to the family, in refusing my own advantages upon such a nice point of honour, and a thousand such things; and as to the father, he was a man in a hurry of public affairs, and getting money, seldom at home, thoughtful of the main chance, but left all those things to his wife.

You may easily believe, that when the plot was thus, as they thought, broke out: it was not so difficult, or so dangerous, for the elder brother, who nobody suspected of anything, to have a freer access than before. Nay, the mother, which was just as he wished, proposed it to him to talk with Mrs. Betty. “It may be, son,” said she, “you may see farther into the thing than I; and see if she has been so positive as Robin says she has been, or no.” This was as well as he could wish, and he, as it were, yielding to talk with me at his mother’s request, she brought me to him into her own chamber; told me her son had some business with me at her request, and then she left us together, and he shut the door after her.

He came back to me, and took me in his arms and kissed me very tenderly; but told me it was now come to that crisis, that I should make myself happy or miserable, as long as I lived: that if I could not comply to his desire, we should both be ruined. Then he told me the whole story between Robin, as he called him, and his mother, and his sisters, and himself, as above. “And now, dear child,” says he, “consider what it will be to marry a gentleman of a good family, in good circumstances, and with the consent of the whole house, and to enjoy all that the world can give you; and what on the other hand, to be sunk into the dark circumstances of a woman that has lost her reputation; and that though I shall be a private friend to you while I live, yet as I shall be suspected always, so you will be afraid to see me, and I shall be afraid to own you.”

He gave me no time to reply, but went on with me thus: “What has happened between us, child, so long as we both agree to do so, may be buried and forgotten: I shall always be your sincere friend, without inclination to nearer intimacy, when you become my sister; and we shall have all the honest part of conversation without any reproaches between us, of having done amiss: I beg of you to consider it, and do not stand in the way of your own safety and prosperity; and to satisfy you that I am sincere,” added he, “I here offer you five hundred pounds to make you some amends for the freedoms I have taken with you, which we shall look upon as some of the follies of our lives, which ‘tis hoped we may repent of.”

He spoke this in so much more moving terms than it is possible for me to express, that you may suppose as he held me above an hour and a half in that discourse, so he answered all my objections, and fortified his discourse with all the arguments that human wit and art could devise.

I cannot say, however, that anything he said made impression enough upon me, so as to give me any thought of the matter, till he told me at last very plainly, that if I refused, he was sorry to add, that he could never go on with me in that station as we stood before; that though he loved me as well as ever, and that I was as agreeable to him; yet the sense of virtue had not so forsaken him as to suffer him to lie with a woman that his brother courted to make his wife; that if he took his leave of me, with a denial from me in this affair, whatever he might do for me in the point of support, grounded on his first engagement of maintaining me, yet he would not have me be surprised, that he was obliged to tell me, he could not allow himself to see me any more, and that indeed I could not expect it of him.

I received this last part with some tokens of surprise and disorder, and had much ado to avoid sinking down, for indeed I loved him to an extravagance not easy to imagine; but he perceived my disorder, and entreated me to consider seriously of it, assured me that it was the only way to preserve our mutual affection; that in this station we might love as friends, with the utmost passion, and with a love of relation untainted, free from our own just reproaches, and free from other people’s suspicions: that he should ever acknowledge his happiness owing to me; that he would be debtor to me as long as he lived, and would be paying that debt as long as he had breath. Thus he wrought me up, in short, to a kind of hesitation in the matter; having the dangers on one side represented in lively figures, and indeed heightened by my imagination of being turned out to the wide world, a mere cast-off whore, for it was no less, and perhaps exposed as such; with little to provide for myself; with no friend, no acquaintance in the whole world, out of that town, and there I could not pretend to stay; all this terrified me to the last degree, and he took care upon all occasions to lay it home to me, in the worst colours; on the other hand, he failed not to set forth the easy prosperous life, which I was going to live.

He answered all that I could object from affection, and from former engagements, with telling me the necessity that was before us of taking other measures now; and as to his promises of marriage, the nature of things, he said, had put an end to that, by the probability of my being his brother’s wife, before the time to which his promises all referred.

Thus, in a word, I may say, he reasoned me out of my reason; he conquered all my arguments, and I began to see a danger that I was in, which I had not considered of before, and that was, of being dropped by both of them, and left alone in the world to shift for myself.

This, and his persuasion, at length prevailed with me to consent, though with so much reluctance, that it was easy to see I should go to church like a bear to the stake; I had some little apprehensions about me too, lest my new spouse, who, by the way, I had not the least affection for, should be skilful enough to challenge me on another account, upon our first coming to bed together; but whether he did it with design or not, I know not; but his elder brother took care to make him very much fuddled before he went to bed, so that I had the satisfaction of a drunken bedfellow the first night. How he did it I know not, but I concluded that he certainly contrived it, that his brother might be able to make no judgment of the difference between a maid and a married woman, nor did he ever entertain any notions of it, or disturb his thoughts about it.

I should go back a little here, to where I left off. The elder brother having thus managed me, his next business was to manage his mother, and he never left till he had brought her to acquiesce, and be passive even without acquainting the father, other than by post letters: so that she consented to our marrying privately, leaving her to manage the father afterwards.

Then he cajoled with his brother, and persuaded him what service he had done him, and how he had brought his mother to consent, which though true, was not indeed done to serve him, but to serve himself; but thus diligently did he cheat him, and had the thanks of a faithful friend for shifting off his whore into his brother’s arms for a wife. So naturally do men give up honour and justice and even Christianity to secure themselves.

I must now come back to Brother Robin, as we always called him, who having got his mother’s consent, as above, came big with the news to me, and told me the whole story of it, with a sincerity so visible, that I must confess it grieved me that I must be the instrument to abuse so honest a gentleman; but there was no remedy, he would have me, and I was not obliged to tell him that I was his brother’s whore, though I had no other way to put him off; so I came gradually into it, and behold we were married.

Modesty forbids me to reveal the secrets of the marriage bed, but nothing could have happened more suitable to my circumstances than that, as above, my husband was so fuddled when he came to bed, that he could not remember in the morning, whether he had had any conversation with me or no, and I was obliged to tell him he had, though in reality he had not, that I might be sure he could make no inquiry about anything else.

It concerns the story in hand very little to enter into the farther particulars of the family, or of myself, for the five years that I lived with this husband, only to observe that I had two children by him, and that at the end of the five years he died. He had been really a very good husband to me, and we lived very agreeably together; but as he had not received much from them, and had in the little time he lived acquired no great matters, so my circumstances were not great, nor was I much mended by the match. Indeed, I had preserved the elder brother’s bonds to me, to pay me £500, which he offered me for my consent to marry his brother; and this, with what I had saved of the money he formerly gave me, and about as much more by my husband, left me a widow with about £1,200 in my pocket.

My two children were indeed taken happily off of my hands, by my husband’s father and mother, and that was all they got by Mrs. Betty.

I confess I was not suitably affected with the loss of my husband; nor can I say that I ever loved him as I ought to have done, or was suitable to the good usage I had from him, for he was a tender, kind, good-humoured man as any woman could desire; but his brother being so always in my sight, at least while we were in the country, was a continual snare to me; and I never was in bed with my husband, but I wished myself in the arms of his brother; and though his brother never offered me the least kindness that way, after our marriage, but carried it just as a brother ought to do; yet it was impossible for me to do so to him: in short, I committed adultery and incest with him every day in my desires, which without doubt was as effectually criminal.

Before my husband died, his elder brother was married, and we being then removed to London, were written to by the old lady to come and be at the wedding; my husband went, but I pretended indisposition, so I stayed behind; for, in short, I could not bear the sight of his being given to another woman, though I knew I was never to have him myself.

I was now, as above, left loose to the world, and being still young and handsome, as everybody said of me, and I assure you I thought myself so, and with a tolerable fortune in my pocket, I put no small value upon myself. I was courted by several very considerable tradesmen, and particularly very warmly by one, a linen draper, at whose house, after my husband’s death, I took a lodging, his sister being my acquaintance; here I had all the liberty and opportunity to be gay, and appear in company that I could desire; my landlord’s sister being one of the maddest, gayest things alive, and not so much mistress of her virtue as I thought at first she had been. She brought me into a world of wild company, and even brought home several persons, such as she liked well enough to gratify, to see her pretty widow. Now as fame and fools make an assembly, I was here wonderfully caressed; had abundance of admirers, and such as called themselves lovers; but I found not one fair proposal among them all; as for their common design, that I understood too well to be drawn into any more snares of that kind. The case was altered with me, I had money in my pocket, and had nothing to say to them. I had been tricked once by that cheat called Love, but the game was over. I was resolved now to be married or nothing, and to be well married or not at all.

I loved the company, indeed, of men of mirth and wit, and was often entertained with such, as I was also with others; but I found by just observation, that the brightest men came upon the dullest errand, that is to say, the dullest as to what I aimed at; on the other hand, those who came with the best proposals were the dullest and most disagreeable part of the world. I was not averse to a tradesman, but then I would have a tradesman, forsooth, that was something of a gentleman too; that when my husband had a mind to carry me to the court, or to the play, he might become a sword, and look as like a gentleman as another man; and not like one that had the mark of his apron-strings upon his coat, or the mark of his hat upon his periwig; that should look as if he was set on to his sword, when his sword was put on to him, and that carried his trade in his countenance.

Well, at last I found this amphibious creature, this land-waterthing, called a gentleman-tradesman, and as a just plague upon my folly, I was catched in the very snare which, as I might say, I laid for myself.

This was a draper too, for though my comrade would have bargained for me with her brother; yet when they came to the point, it was it seems for a mistress, and I kept true to this notion, that a woman should never be kept for a mistress, that had money to make herself a wife.

Thus my pride, not my principle, my money, not my virtue, kept me honest; though, as it proved, I found I had much better have been sold by my she comrade, to her brother, than have sold myself as I did to a tradesman that was rake, gentleman, shopkeeper, and beggar all together.

But I was hurried on (by my fancy to a gentleman) to ruin myself in the grossest manner that ever woman did; for my new husband, coming to a lump of money at once, fell into such a profusion of expense, that all I had, and all he had, would not have held it out above one year.

He was very fond of me for about a quarter of a year, and what I got by that, was, that I had the pleasure of seeing a great deal of my money spent upon myself. “Come, my dear,” says he to me one day, “shall we go and take a turn into the country for a week?”

“Ay, my dear,” says I. “Whither would you go?”

“I care not whither,” says he, “but I have a mind to look like quality for a week, we’ll go to Oxford,” says he.

“How,” says I, “shall we go? I am no horse-woman, and ‘tis too far for a coach.”

“Too far?” says he; “no place is too far for a coach and six. If I carry you out, you shall travel like a duchess.”

“Hum,” says I, “my dear, ‘tis a frolic, but if you have a mind to it, I don’t care.”

Well, the time was appointed, we had a rich coach, very good horses, a coachman, postillion, and two footmen in very good liveries; a gentleman on horseback, and a page with a feather in his hat upon another horse; the servants all called him “My Lord,” and I was “Her Honour, the Countess,” and thus we travelled to Oxford, and a pleasant journey we had; for give him his due, not a beggar alive knew better how to be a lord than my husband. We saw all the rarities at Oxford, talked with two or three Fellows of Colleges, about putting a nephew, that was left to his lordship’s care, to the University, and of their being his tutors; we diverted ourselves with bantering several other poor scholars, with the hopes of being at least his lordship’s chaplain and putting on a scarf; and thus having lived like quality indeed, as to expense, we went away for Northampton, and in a word, in about twelve days’ ramble came home again, to the tune of about £93 expense.

Vanity is the perfection of a fop; my husband had this excellence, that he valued nothing of expense; as his history, you may be sure, has very little weight in it, ‘tis enough to tell you, that in about two years and a quarter he broke, got into a Spunging-House, being arrested in an action too heavy for him to give bail, so he sent for me to come to him.

It was no surprise to me, for I had foreseen something before that all was going to wreck, and had been taking care to reserve something if I could for myself. But when he sent for me, he behaved much better than I expected: he told me plainly, he had played the fool, and suffered himself to be surprised, which he might have prevented: that now he foresaw he could not stand it, and therefore he would have me go home, and in the night take away everything I had in the house of any value, and secure it; and alter that, he told me, that if I could get away £100 or £200 in goods out of the shop, I should do it. “Only,” says he, “let me know nothing of it, neither what you take, or whither you carry it; for as for me,” says he, “I am resolved to get out of this house and be gone; and if you never hear of me more, my dear,” says he, “I wish you well; I am only sorry for the injury I have done you.” He said some very handsome things to me indeed at parting; for I told you he was a gentleman, and that was all the benefit I had of his being so; that he used me very handsomely, even to the last, only spent all I had, and left me to rob the creditors for something to subsist on.

However, I did as he bade me, that you may be sure, and having thus taken my leave of him I never saw him more; for he found means to break out of the bailiff’s house that night or the next: how I knew not, for I could come at no knowledge of anything more than this, that he came home about three o’clock in the morning, caused the rest of his goods to be removed into the Mint and the shop to be shut up; and having raised what money he could he got over to France, from whence I had one or two letters from him and no more.

I did not see him when he came home, for he having given me such instructions as above and I having made the best of my time, I had no more business back again at the house, not knowing but

I might have been stopped there by the creditors; for a Commission of Bankrupt being soon after issued, they might have stopped me by orders from the Commissioners. But my husband having desperately got out from the bailiff’s by letting himself down from almost the top of the house to the top of another building and leaping from thence, which was almost two stories, and which was enough indeed to have broken his neck: he came home and got away his goods before the creditors could come to seize, that is to say, before they could get out the commission and be ready to send their officers to take possession.

My husband was so civil to me, for still I say he was much of a gentleman, that in the first letter he wrote me he let me know where he had pawned twenty pieces of fine holland for £30 which were worth above £90, and enclosed me the token for the taking them up, paying the money, which I did, and made in time above £100 of them, having leisure to cut them and sell them to private families, as opportunity offered.

However, with all this and all that I had secured before, I found upon casting things up, my case was very much altered and my fortune much lessened; for including the hollands and a parcel of fine muslins, which I carried off before, and some plate and other things, I found I could hardly muster up £500, and my condition was very odd, for though I had no child (I had had one by my gentleman draper but it was buried), yet I was a widow bewitched, I had a husband and no husband, and I could not pretend to marry again, though I knew well enough my husband would never see England any more, if he lived fifty years. Thus, I say, I was limited from marriage, what offer soever might be made me; and I had not one friend to advise with in the condition I was in, at least, not one who I could trust the secret of my circumstances to, for if the commissioners were to have been informed where I was, I should have been fetched up and all I had saved be taken away.

Upon these apprehensions the first thing I did was to go quite out of my knowledge, and go by another name. This I did effectually, for I went into the Mint too, took lodgings in a very private place, dressed me up in the habit of a widow, and called myself Mrs. Flanders.

Here, however, I concealed myself and though my new acquaintance knew nothing of me, yet I soon got a great deal of company about me; and whether it be that women are scarce among the people that generally are to be found there, or that some consolations in the miseries of that place are more requisite than on other occasions, I soon found that an agreeable woman was exceedingly valuable among the sons of affliction there; and that those that could not pay half a crown in the pound to their creditors and run in debt at the Sign of the Bull for their dinners, would yet find money for a supper if they liked the woman.