Moll Flanders

Now was I a poor gentlewoman indeed, and I was just that very night to be turned into the wide world; for the daughter removed all the goods, and I had not so much as a lodging to go to, or a bit of bread to eat: but it seems some of the neighbours took so much compassion of me, as to acquaint the lady in whose family I had been; and immediately she sent her maid to fetch me; and away I went with them bag and baggage, and with a glad heart you may be sure: the fright of my condition had made such an impression upon me, that I did not want now to be a gentlewoman, but was very willing to be a servant, and that any kind of servant they thought fit to have me be.

But my new generous mistress had better thoughts for me. I call her generous, for she exceeded the good woman I was with before in everything, as in 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.

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 daughters to take care of me; and another family which had taken notice of me when I was the little gentlewoman, sent for me after her, so that I was mightily made of; nay, and they were not a little angry, especially the Mayoress, that her friend had taken me away from her; 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 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 teach her daughters to dance, and to speak French, and to write, and others to teach them music; and as 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 enquiry, 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 the harpsichord or spinnet, because I had no instrument of my own to practise on, and could only come at theirs in the intervals when they left it; but yet I learned tolerably well, and the young ladies at length got two instruments, that is to say, a harpsichord and a spinnet 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, 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, viz., that mine 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 sung 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, 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 happened often, 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 extraordinary parts and 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 that 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 so 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 open game; and one day going by his sister’s chamber when I was there, he comes in with an air of gaiety, “O! 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 it is no matter what you have been talking about.”

“Nay,” says he, “it is 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 has beauty, birth, breeding, wit, sense, manners, modesty, and all to an extreme; yet if she has not money, she’s nobody, she had as good want them all; 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 won’t trouble myself about the money.”

“O,” 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 about 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, so I have the better of my neighbours.”

“Well,” says the younger brother, “but your neighbours 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 I did so; but not so far, but that I heard all their discourse, in which I heard abundance of fine things said of myself, which prompted 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; 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.

It happened one day that he came running upstairs, towards the room where his sister 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, he was just got to the door, and clasping me in his arms, as if it had been by chance, “O! 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 out of breath, and, sitting down, says he, “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. 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 I soon recovered myself. 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 infinitely pleased, 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.

From this time my head run 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 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.

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 gone a-visiting with their mother; his brother was out of town, and as for his father he had been at 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 maid 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 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.

Well, 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 till he had told me how he was in love with me, and if I could 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 me a great while; after this he thought he had heard somebody come upstairs, so he 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 put five guineas into my hand, and went 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, that if it 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, it is natural to expect the effects of it.

This gentleman had now 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 about half an hour, and falls to work with me again just as he did 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 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, “it is good to be sure however,” and so he sits down and we began to talk; and now, though I was still 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 till he came to his estate, yet he was resolved to make me happy then, and himself too; that is to say, to marry me, and abundance of such things, which I, poor fool, did not understand the drift of, but acted as if there was no kind of love but that which tended to matrimony; and if he had spoken of that, I had no room, as well as no power, to have said no; but we were not come to 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 he went further 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 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 reflections: I had a most unbounded stock of vanity and pride, and but a very little stock of virtue: I did indeed cast sometimes with myself what my young master aimed at, but thought of nothing but the fine words and the gold; whether he intended to marry me or not seemed a matter of no great consequence to me; nor did I so much as think of making any capitulation for myself, until he made a kind of formal proposal to me, as you shall hear presently.

Thus I gave up myself to ruin 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 required, he had either desisted his attacks, finding no room to expect the end of his design, or had made fair and honourable proposals of marriage; in which case, whoever 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: on the other hand, if I had known his thoughts, and how hard he supposed I would be to be gained, I might have made my own terms, 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 rich to excess, besides what he had in expectation; but I had wholly abandoned all such thoughts, 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 a thousand times a day: never 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; and 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 imagine that I had the least correspondence with him; I scarce ever looked towards him in public, or answered if he spoke to me; when, 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 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 an opportunity for the wickedness he invites to: it was one evening that I was in the garden, with his two younger sisters and himself, when he found means to convey a note into my hand, by which he told me that he would tomorrow desire me publicly to go of an errand for him, 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 the second sister.

“Nay, sister,” says he, very gravely, “if you can’t spare Mrs. Betty today, any other time will do.”

Yes, they said, they could spare her well enough, and the sister begged pardon for asking.

“Well, but,” 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 that turnover that he showed, and if they would not 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 very formally asked 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, all which by the way he had contrived on purpose.

He had scarce done speaking, but his man came up to tell him that Sir W — H —’s coach stopped at the door; so he runs down, and comes up again immediately. “Alas!” says he aloud, “there’s all my mirth spoiled at once; Sir W — has sent his coach for me, and desires to speak with me.” It seems this Sir W — was a gentleman who lived about three miles off, to whom he had spoke on purpose to lend him his chariot for a particular occasion, and had appointed it to call for him, as it did, about three o’clock.