chambermaid. "Dear madam," says Amy, "what! a'nt you with child yet?"
"No, Amy," says I; "nor any sign of it."
"Law, madam!" says Amy, "what have you been doing? Why, you have been
married a year and a half. I warrant you master would have got me with
child twice in that time." "It may be so, Amy," says I. "Let him try,
can't you?" "No," says Amy; "you'll forbid it now. Before, I told you he
should, with all my heart; but I won't now, now he's all your own."
"Oh," says I, "Amy, I'll freely give you my consent. It will be nothing
at all to me. Nay, I'll put you to bed to him myself one night or other,
if you are willing." "No, madam, no," says Amy, "not now he's yours."
"Why, you fool you," says I, "don't I tell you I'll put you to bed to
him myself?" "Nay, nay," says Amy, "if you put me to bed to him, that's
another case; I believe I shall not rise again very soon." "I'll venture
that, Amy," says I.
After supper that night, and before we were risen from table, I said to
him, Amy being by, "Hark ye, Mr. ----, do you know that you are to lie
with Amy to-night?" "No, not I," says he; but turns to Amy, "Is it so,
Amy?" says he. "No, sir," says she. "Nay, don't say no, you fool; did
not I promise to put you to bed to him?" But the girl said "No," still,
and it passed off.
At night, when we came to go to bed, Amy came into the chamber to
undress me, and her master slipped into bed first; then I began, and
told him all that Amy had said about my not being with child, and of her
being with child twice in that time. "Ay, Mrs. Amy," says he, "I believe
so too. Come hither, and, we'll try." But Amy did not go. "Go, you
fool," says I, "can't you? I freely give you both leave." But Amy would
not go. "Nay, you whore," says I, "you said, if I would put you to bed,
you would with all your heart." And with that I sat her down, pulled off
her stockings and shoes, and all her clothes piece by piece, and led her
to the bed to him. "Here," says I, "try what you can do with your maid
Amy." She pulled back a little, would not let me pull off her clothes at
first, but it was hot weather, and she had not many clothes on, and
particularly no stays on; and at last, when she saw I was in earnest,
she let me do what I would. So I fairly stripped her, and then I threw
open the bed and thrust her in.
I need say no more. This is enough to convince anybody that I did not
think him my husband, and that I had cast off all principle and all
modesty, and had effectually stifled conscience.
Amy, I dare say, began now to repent, and would fain have got out of bed
again; but he said to her, "Nay, Amy, you see your mistress has put you
to bed; 'tis all her doing; you must blame her." So he held her fast,
and the wench being naked in the bed with him, it was too late to look
back, so she lay still and let him do what he would with her.
Had I looked upon myself as a wife, you cannot suppose I would have been
willing to have let my husband lie with my maid, much less before my
face, for I stood by all the while; but as I thought myself a whore, I
cannot say but that it was something designed in my thoughts that my
maid should be a whore too, and should not reproach me with it.
Amy, however, less vicious than I, was grievously out of sorts the next
morning, and cried and took on most vehemently, that she was ruined and
undone, and there was no pacifying her; she was a whore, a slut, and she
was undone! undone! and cried almost all day. I did all I could to
pacify her. "A whore!" says I. "Well, and am not I a whore as well as
you?" "No, no," says Amy; "no, you are not, for you are married." "Not
I, Amy," says I; "I do not pretend to it. He may marry you to-morrow,
if he will, for anything I could do to hinder it. I am not married. I do
not look upon it as anything." Well, all did not pacify Amy, but she
cried two or three days about it; but it wore off by degrees.
But the case differed between Amy and her master exceedingly; for Amy
retained the same kind temper she always had; but, on the contrary, he
was quite altered, for he hated her heartily, and could, I believe, have
killed her after it, and he told me so, for he thought this a vile
action; whereas what he and I had done he was perfectly easy in, thought
it just, and esteemed me as much his wife as if we had been married from
our youth, and had neither of us known any other; nay, he loved me, I
believe, as entirely as if I had been the wife of his youth. Nay, he
told me it was true, in one sense, that he had two wives, but that I was
the wife of his affection, the other the wife of his aversion.
I was extremely concerned at the aversion he had taken to my maid Amy,
and used my utmost skill to get it altered; for though he had, indeed,
debauched the wench, I knew that I was the principal occasion of it; and
as he was the best-humoured man in the world, I never gave him over till
I prevailed with him to be easy with her, and as I was now become the
devil's agent, to make others as wicked as myself, I brought him to lie
with her again several times after that, till at last, as the poor girl
said, so it happened, and she was really with child.
She was terribly concerned at it, and so was he too. "Come, my dear,"
says I, "when Rachel put her handmaid to bed to Jacob, she took the
children as her own. Don't be uneasy; I'll take the child as my own. Had
not I a hand in the frolic of putting her to bed to you? It was my fault
as much as yours." So I called Amy, and encouraged her too, and told her
that I would take care of the child and her too, and added the same
argument to her. "For," says I, "Amy, it was all my fault. Did not I
drag your clothes off your back, and put you to bed to him?" Thus I,
that had, indeed, been the cause of all the wickedness between them,
encouraged them both, when they had any remorse about it, and rather
prompted them to go on with it than to repent it.
When Amy grew big she went to a place I had provided for her, and the
neighbours knew nothing but that Amy and I was parted. She had a fine
child indeed, a daughter, and we had it nursed; and Amy came again in
about half a year to live with her old mistress; but neither my
gentleman, or Amy either, cared for playing that game over again; for,
as he said, the jade might bring him a houseful of children to keep.
We lived as merrily and as happily after this as could be expected,
considering our circumstances; I mean as to the pretended marriage, &c.;
and as to that, my gentleman had not the least concern about him for it.
But as much as I was hardened, and that was as much as I believe ever
any wicked creature was, yet I could not help it, there was and would be
hours of intervals and of dark reflections which came involuntarily in,
and thrust in sighs into the middle of all my songs; and there would be
sometimes a heaviness of heart which intermingled itself with all my
joy, and which would often fetch a tear from my eye. And let others
pretend what they will, I believe it impossible to be otherwise with
anybody. There can be no substantial satisfaction in a life of known
wickedness; conscience will, and does often, break in upon them at
particular times, let them do what they can to prevent it.
But I am not to preach, but to relate; and whatever loose reflections
were, and how often soever those dark intervals came on, I did my utmost
to conceal them from him; ay, and to suppress and smother them too in
myself; and, to outward appearance, we lived as cheerfully and agreeably
as it was possible for any couple in the world to live.
After I had thus lived with him something above two years, truly I found
myself with child too. My gentleman was mightily pleased at it, and
nothing could be kinder than he was in the preparations he made for me,
and for my lying-in, which was, however, very private, because I cared
for as little company as possible; nor had I kept up my neighbourly
acquaintance, so that I had nobody to invite upon such an occasion.
I was brought to bed very well (of a daughter too, as well as Amy), but
the child died at about six weeks old, so all that work was to do over
again--that is to say, the charge, the expense, the travail, &c.
The next year I made him amends, and brought him a son, to his great
satisfaction. It was a charming child, and did very well. After this my
husband, as he called himself, came to me one evening, and told me he
had a very difficult thing happened to him, which he knew not what to do
in, or how to resolve about, unless I would make him easy; this was,
that his occasions required him to go over to France for about two
months.
"Well, my dear," says I, "and how shall I make you easy?"
"Why, by consenting to let me go," says he; "upon which condition, I'll
tell you the occasion of my going, that you may judge of the necessity
there is for it on my side." Then, to make me easy in his going, he told
me he would make his will before he went, which should be to my full
satisfaction.
I told him the last part was so kind that I could not decline the first
part, unless he would give me leave to add that, if it was not for
putting him to an extraordinary expense, I would go over along with him.
He was so pleased with this offer that he told me he would give me full
satisfaction for it, and accept of it too; so he took me to London with
him the next day, and there he made his will, and showed it to me, and
sealed it before proper witnesses, and then gave it to me to keep. In
this will he gave a thousand pounds to a person that we both knew very
well, in trust, to pay it, with the interest from the time of his
decease, to me or my assigns; then he willed the payment of my jointure,
as he called it, viz., his bond of five hundred pounds after his death;
also, he gave me all my household stuff, plate, &c.
This was a most engaging thing for a man to do to one under my
circumstances; and it would have been hard, as I told him, to deny him
anything, or to refuse to go with him anywhere. So we settled everything
as well as we could, left Amy in charge with the house, and for his
other business, which was in jewels, he had two men he intrusted, who he
had good security for, and who managed for him, and corresponded with
him.
Things being thus concerted, we went away to France, arrived safe at
Calais, and by easy journeys came in eight days more to Paris, where we
lodged in the house of an English merchant of his acquaintance, and was
very courteously entertained.
My gentleman's business was with some persons of the first rank, and to
whom he had sold some jewels of very good value, and received a great
sum of money in specie; and, as he told me privately, he gained three
thousand pistoles by his bargain, but would not suffer the most intimate
friend he had there to know what he had received; for it is not so safe
a thing in Paris to have a great sum of money in keeping as it might be
in London.
We made this journey much longer than we intended, and my gentleman sent
for one of his managers in London to come over to us in Paris with some
diamonds, and sent him back to London again to fetch more. Then other
business fell into his hands so unexpectedly that I began to think we
should take up our constant residence there, which I was not very averse
to, it being my native country, and I spoke the language perfectly well.
So we took a good house in Paris, and lived very well there; and I sent
for Amy to come over to me, for I lived gallantly, and my gentleman was
two or three times going to keep me a coach, but I declined it,
especially at Paris, but as they have those conveniences by the day
there, at a certain rate, I had an equipage provided for me whenever I
pleased, and I lived here in a very good figure, and might have lived
higher if I pleased.
But in the middle of all this felicity a dreadful disaster befell me,
which entirely unhinged all my affairs, and threw me back into the same
state of life that I was in before; with this one happy exception,
however, that whereas before I was poor, even to misery, now I was not
only provided for, but very rich.
My gentleman had the name in Paris for a rich man, and indeed he was so,
though not so immensely rich as people imagined; but that which was
fatal to him was, that he generally carried a shagreen case in his
pocket, especially when he went to court, or to the houses of any of the
princes of the blood, in which he had jewels of very great value.
It happened one day that, being to go to Versailles to wait upon the
Prince of ----, he came up into my chamber in the morning, and laid out
his jewel-case, because he was not going to show any jewels, but to get
a foreign bill accepted, which he had received from Amsterdam; so, when
he gave me the case, he said, "My dear, I think I need not carry this
with me, because it may be I may not come back till night, and it is too
much to venture." I returned, "Then, my dear, you shan't go." "Why?"
says he. "Because, as they are too much for you, so you are too much for
me to venture, and you shall not go, unless you will promise me not to
stay so as to come back in the night."
"I hope there's no danger," said he, "seeing that I have nothing about
me of any value; and therefore, lest I should, take that too," says he,
and gives me his gold watch and a rich diamond which he had in a ring,
and always wore on his finger.
"Well, but, my dear," says I, "you make me more uneasy now than before;
for if you apprehend no danger, why do you use this caution? and if you
apprehend there is danger, why do you go at all?"
"There is no danger," says he, "if I do not stay late, and I do not
design to do so."
"Well, but promise me, then, that you won't," says I, "or else I cannot
let you go."
"I won't indeed, my dear," says he, "unless I am obliged to it. I assure
you I do not intend it; but if I should, I am not worth robbing now, for
I have nothing about me but about six pistoles in my little purse and
that little ring," showing me a small diamond ring, worth about ten or
twelve pistoles, which he put upon his finger, in the room of the rich
one he usually wore.
[Illustration: THE JEWELLER IS ABOUT TO LEAVE FOR VERSAILLES
_And gives me his gold watch and a rich diamond which he had in a ring,
and always wore on his finger_]
I still pressed him not to stay late, and he said he would not. "But if
I am kept late," says he, "beyond my expectation, I'll stay all night,
and come next morning." This seemed a very good caution; but still my
mind was very uneasy about him, and I told him so, and entreated him
not to go. I told him I did not know what might be the reason, but that
I had a strange terror upon my mind about his going, and that if he did
go, I was persuaded some harm would attend him. He smiled, and returned,
"Well, my dear, if it should be so, you are now richly provided for; all
that I have here I give to you." And with that he takes up the casket or
case, "Here," says he, "hold your hand; there is a good estate for you
in this case; if anything happens to me 'tis all your own. I give it
you for yourself;" and with that he put the casket, the fine ring, and
his gold watch all into my hands, and the key of his scrutoire besides,
adding, "And in my scrutoire there is some money; it is all your own."
I stared at him as if I was frighted, for I thought all his face looked
like a death's-head; and then immediately I thought I perceived his head
all bloody, and then his clothes looked bloody too, and immediately it
all went off, and he looked as he really did. Immediately I fell
a-crying, and hung about him. "My dear," said I, "I am frighted to
death; you shall not go. Depend upon it some mischief will befall you."
I did not tell him how my vapourish fancy had represented him to me;
that, I thought, was not proper. Besides, he would only have laughed at
me, and would have gone away with a jest about it; but I pressed him
seriously not to go that day, or, if he did, to promise me to come home
to Paris again by daylight. He looked a little graver then than he did
before, told me he was not apprehensive of the least danger, but if
there was, he would either take care to come in the day, or, as he had
said before, would stay all night.
But all these promises came to nothing, for he was set upon in the open
day and robbed by three men on horseback, masked, as he went; and one of
them, who, it seems, rifled him while the rest stood to stop the coach,
stabbed him into the body with a sword, so that he died immediately. He
had a footman behind the coach, who they knocked down with the stock or
butt-end of a carbine. They were supposed to kill him because of the
disappointment they met with in not getting his case or casket of
diamonds, which they knew he carried about him; and this was supposed
because, after they had killed him, they made the coachman drive out of
the road a long way over the heath, till they came to a convenient
place, where they pulled him out of the coach and searched his clothes
more narrowly than they could do while he was alive. But they found
nothing but his little ring, six pistoles, and the value of about seven
livres in small moneys.
This was a dreadful blow to me, though I cannot say I was so surprised
as I should otherwise have been, for all the while he was gone my mind
was oppressed with the weight of my own thoughts, and I was as sure
that I should never see him any more that I think nothing could be like
it. The impression was so strong that I think nothing could make so deep
a wound that was imaginary; and I was so dejected and disconsolate that,
when I received the news of his disaster, there was no room for any
extraordinary alteration in me. I had cried all that day, ate nothing,
and only waited, as I might say, to receive the dismal news, which I had
brought to me about five o'clock in the afternoon.
I was in a strange country, and, though I had a pretty many
acquaintances, had but very few friends that I could consult on this
occasion. All possible inquiry was made after the rogues that had been
thus barbarous, but nothing could be heard of them; nor was it possible
that the footman could make any discovery of them by his description,
for they knocked him down immediately, so that he knew nothing of what
was done afterwards. The coachman was the only man that could say
anything, and all his account amounted to no more than this, that one of
them had soldier's clothes, but he could not remember the particulars of
his mounting, so as to know what regiment he belonged to; and as to
their faces, that he could know nothing of, because they had all of them
masks on.
I had him buried as decently as the place would permit a Protestant
stranger to be buried, and made some of the scruples and difficulties on
that account easy by the help of money to a certain person, who went
impudently to the curate of the parish of St. Sulpitius, in Paris, and
told him that the gentleman that was killed was a Catholic; that the
thieves had taken from him a cross of gold, set with diamonds, worth six
thousand livres; that his widow was a Catholic, and had sent by him
sixty crowns to the church of ----, for masses to be said for the repose
of his soul. Upon all which, though not one word was true, he was buried
with all the ceremonies of the Roman Church.
I think I almost cried myself to death for him, for I abandoned myself
to all the excesses of grief; and indeed I loved him to a degree
inexpressible; and considering what kindness he had shown me at first,
and how tenderly he had used me to the last, what could I do less?
Then the manner of his death was terrible and frightful to me, and,
above all, the strange notices I had of it. I had never pretended to the
second-sight, or anything of that kind, but certainly, if any one ever
had such a thing, I had it at this time, for I saw him as plainly in all
those terrible shapes as above; first, as a skeleton, not dead only, but
rotten and wasted; secondly, as killed, and his face bloody; and,
thirdly, his clothes bloody, and all within the space of one minute, or
indeed of a very few moments.
These things amazed me, and I was a good while as one stupid. However,
after some time I began to recover, and look into my affairs. I had the
satisfaction not to be left in distress, or in danger of poverty. On the
contrary, besides what he had put into my hands fairly in his lifetime,
which amounted to a very considerable value, I found above seven hundred
pistoles in gold in his scrutoire, of which he had given me the key; and
I found foreign bills accepted for about twelve thousand livres; so
that, in a word, I found myself possessed of almost ten thousand pounds
sterling in a very few days after the disaster.
The first thing I did upon this occasion was to send a letter to my
maid, as I still called her, Amy, wherein I gave her an account of my
disaster, how my husband, as she called him (for I never called him so),
was murdered; and as I did not know how his relations, or his wife's
friends might act upon that occasion, I ordered her to convey away all
the plate, linen, and other things of value, and to secure them in a
person's hands that I directed her to, and then to sell or dispose of
the furniture of the house, if she could, and so, without acquainting
anybody with the reason of her going, withdraw; sending notice to his
head manager at London that the house was quitted by the tenant, and
they might come and take possession of it for the executors. Amy was so
dexterous, and did her work so nimbly, that she gutted the house, and
sent the key to the said manager, almost as soon as he had notice of the
misfortune that befell their master.
Upon their receiving the surprising news of his death, the head manager
came over to Paris, and came to the house. I made no scruple of calling
myself Madame ----, the widow of Monsieur ----, the English jeweller.
And as I spoke French naturally, I did not let him know but that I was
his wife, married in France, and that I had not heard that he had any
wife in England, but pretended to be surprised, and exclaim against him
for so base an action; and that I had good friends in Poictou, where I
was born, who would take care to have justice done me in England out of
his estate.
I should have observed that, as soon as the news was public of a man
being murdered, and that he was a jeweller, fame did me the favour as to
publish presently that he was robbed of his casket of jewels, which he
always carried about him. I confirmed this, among my daily lamentations
for his disaster, and added that he had with him a fine diamond ring,
which he was known to wear frequently about him, valued at one hundred
pistoles, a gold watch, and a great quantity of diamonds of inestimable
value in his casket, which jewels he was carrying to the Prince of
----, to show some of them to him; and the prince owned that he had
spoken to him to bring some such jewels, to let him see them. But I
sorely repented this part afterward, as you shall hear.
This rumour put an end to all inquiry after his jewels, his ring, or his
watch; and as for the seven hundred pistoles, that I secured. For the
bills which were in hand, I owned I had them, but that, as I said I
brought my husband thirty thousand livres portion, I claimed the said
bills, which came to not above twelve thousand livres, for my _amende_;
and this, with the plate and the household stuff, was the principal of
all his estate which they could come at. As to the foreign bill which he
was going to Versailles to get accepted, it was really lost with him;
but his manager, who had remitted the bill to him, by way of Amsterdam,
bringing over the second bill, the money was saved, as they call it,
which would otherwise have been also gone; the thieves who robbed and
murdered him were, to be sure, afraid to send anybody to get the bill
accepted, for that would undoubtedly have discovered them.
By this time my maid Amy was arrived, and she gave me an account of her
management, and how she had secured everything, and that she had quitted
the house, and sent the key to the head manager of his business, and
let me know how much she had made of everything very punctually and
honestly.
I should have observed, in the account of his dwelling with me so long
at ----, that he never passed for anything there but a lodger in the
house; and though he was landlord, that did not alter the case. So that
at his death, Amy coming to quit the house and give them the key, there
was no affinity between that and the case of their master who was newly
killed.