me, I am careful to think of him, it is but just that what expense you
have been obliged to be at, which was all on my account, should be
repaid you; and therefore," said I, "let me see--." And there I paused,
and began to reckon up what I had observed, from his own discourse, it
had cost him in the several disputes and hearings which he had with that
dog of a Jew, and I cast them up at something above 2130 crowns; so I
pulled out some bills which I had upon a merchant in Amsterdam, and a
particular account in bank, and was looking on them in order to give
them to him; when he, seeing evidently what I was going about,
interrupted me with some warmth, and told me he would have nothing of me
on that account, and desired I would not pull out my bills and papers on
that score; that he had not told me the story on that account, or with
any such view; that it had been his misfortune first to bring that ugly
rogue to me, which, though it was with a good design, yet he would
punish himself with the expense he had been at for his being so unlucky
to me; that I could not think so hard of him as to suppose he would take
money of me, a widow, for serving me, and doing acts of kindness to me
in a strange country, and in distress too; but he said he would repeat
what he had said before, that he kept me for a deeper reckoning, and
that, as he had told me, he would put me into a posture to even all that
favour, as I called it, at once, so we should talk it over another time,
and balance all together.
Now I expected it would come out, but still he put it off, as before,
from whence I concluded it could not be matter of love, for that those
things are not usually delayed in such a manner, and therefore it must
be matter of money. Upon which thought I broke the silence, and told
him, that as he knew I had, by obligation, more kindness for him than to
deny any favour to him that I could grant, and that he seemed backward
to mention his case, I begged leave of him to give me leave to ask him
whether anything lay upon his mind with respect to his business and
effects in the world; that if it did, he knew what I had in the world as
well as I did, and that, if he wanted money, I would let him have any
sum for his occasion, as far as five or six thousand pistoles, and he
should pay me as his own affairs would permit; and that, if he never
paid me, I would assure him that I would never give him any trouble for
it.
He rose up with ceremony, and gave me thanks in terms that sufficiently
told me he had been bred among people more polite and more courteous
than is esteemed the ordinary usage of the Dutch; and after his
compliment was over he came nearer to me, and told me he was obliged to
assure me, though with repeated acknowledgments of my kind offer, that
he was not in any want of money; that he had met with no uneasiness in
any of his affairs--no, not of any kind whatever, except that of the
loss of his wife and one of his children, which indeed had troubled him
much; but that this was no part of what he had to offer me, and by
granting which I should balance all obligations; but that, in short, it
was that, seeing Providence had (as it were for that purpose) taken his
wife from him, I would make up the loss to him; and with that he held me
fast in his arms, and, kissing me, would not give me leave to say no,
and hardly to breathe.
At length, having got room to speak, I told him that, as I had said
before, I could deny him but one thing in the world; I was very sorry he
should propose that thing only that I could not grant.
I could not but smile, however, to myself that he should make so many
circles and roundabout motions to come at a discourse which had no such
rarity at the bottom of it, if he had known all. But there was another
reason why I resolved not to have him, when, at the same time, if he had
courted me in a manner less honest or virtuous, I believe I should not
have denied him; but I shall come to that part presently.
He was, as I have said, long a-bringing it out, but when he had brought
it out he pursued it with such importunities as would admit of no
denial; at least he intended they should not; but I resisted them
obstinately, and yet with expressions of the utmost kindness and respect
for him that could be imagined, often telling him there was nothing else
in the world that I could deny him, and showing him all the respect, and
upon all occasions treating him with intimacy and freedom, as if he had
been my brother.
He tried all the ways imaginable to bring his design to pass, but I was
inflexible. At last he thought of a way which, he flattered himself,
would not fail; nor would he have been mistaken, perhaps, in any other
woman in the world but me. This was, to try if he could take me at an
advantage and get to bed to me, and then, as was most rational to think,
I should willingly enough marry him afterwards.
We were so intimate together that nothing but man and wife could, or at
least ought, to be more; but still our freedoms kept within the bounds
of modesty and decency. But one evening, above all the rest, we were
very merry, and I fancied he pushed the mirth to watch for his
advantage, and I resolved that I would at least feign to be as merry as
he; and that, in short, if he offered anything he should have his will
easily enough.
About one o'clock in the morning--for so long we sat up together--I
said, "Come, 'tis one o'clock; I must go to bed." "Well," says he, "I'll
go with you." "No, no;" says I; "go to your own chamber." He said he
would go to bed with me. "Nay," says I, "if you will, I don't know what
to say; if I can't help it, you must." However, I got from him, left
him, and went into my chamber, but did not shut the door, and as he
could easily see that I was undressing myself, he steps to his own room,
which was but on the same floor, and in a few minutes undresses himself
also, and returns to my door in his gown and slippers.
I thought he had been gone indeed, and so that he had been in jest; and,
by the way, thought either he had no mind to the thing, or that he never
intended it; so I shut my door--that is, latched it, for I seldom locked
or bolted it--and went to bed. I had not been in bed a minute but he
comes in his gown to the door and opens it a little way, but not enough
to come in or look in, and says softly, "What! are you really gone to
bed?" "Yes, yes," says I; "get you gone." "No, indeed," says he, "I
shall not be gone; you gave me leave before to come to bed, and you
shan't say 'Get you gone' now." So he comes into my room, and then
turns about and fastens the door, and immediately comes to the bedside
to me. I pretended to scold and struggle, and bid him begone with more
warmth than before; but it was all one; he had not a rag of clothes on
but his gown and slippers and shirt, so he throws off his gown, and
throws open the bed, and came in at once.
I made a seeming resistance, but it was no more indeed; for, as above, I
resolved from the beginning he should lie with me if he would, and, for
the rest, I left it to come after.
Well, he lay with me that night, and the two next, and very merry we
were all the three days between; but the third night he began to be a
little more grave. "Now, my dear," says he, "though I have pushed this
matter farther than ever I intended, or than I believe you expected from
me, who never made any pretences to you but what were very honest, yet
to heal it all up, and let you see how sincerely I meant at first, and
how honest I will ever be to you, I am ready to marry you still, and
desire you to let it be done to-morrow morning; and I will give you the
same fair conditions of marriage as I would have done before."
This, it must be owned, was a testimony that he was very honest, and
that he loved me sincerely; but I construed it quite another way,
namely, that he aimed at the money. But how surprised did he look, and
how was he confounded, when he found me receive his proposal with
coldness and indifference, and still tell him that it was the only thing
I could not grant!
He was astonished. "What! not take me now," says he, "when I have been
abed with you!" I answered coldly, though respectfully still, "It is
true, to my shame be it spoken," says I, "that you have taken me by
surprise, and have had your will of me; but I hope you will not take it
ill that I cannot consent to marry for all that. If I am with child,"
said I, "care must be taken to manage that as you shall direct; I hope
you won't expose me for my having exposed myself to you, but I cannot go
any farther." And at that point I stood, and would hear of no matrimony
by any means.
Now, because this may seem a little odd, I shall state the matter
clearly, as I understood it myself. I knew that, while I was a mistress,
it is customary for the person kept to receive from them that keep; but
if I should be a wife, all I had then was given up to the husband, and I
was henceforth to be under his authority only; and as I had money
enough, and needed not fear being what they call a cast-off mistress, so
I had no need to give him twenty thousand pounds to marry me, which had
been buying my lodging too dear a great deal.
Thus his project of coming to bed to me was a bite upon himself, while
he intended it for a bite upon me; and he was no nearer his aim of
marrying me than he was before. All his arguments he could urge upon the
subject of matrimony were at an end, for I positively declined marrying
him; and as he had refused the thousand pistoles which I had offered him
in compensation for his expenses and loss at Paris with the Jew, and had
done it upon the hopes he had of marrying me, so when he found his way
difficult still, he was amazed, and, I had some reason to believe,
repented that he had refused the money.
But thus it is when men run into wicked measures to bring their designs
about. I, that was infinitely obliged to him before, began to talk to
him as if I had balanced accounts with him now, and that the favour of
lying with a whore was equal, not to the thousand pistoles only, but to
all the debt I owed him for saving my life and all my effects.
But he drew himself into it, and though it was a dear bargain, yet it
was a bargain of his own making; he could not say I had tricked him into
it. But as he projected and drew me in to lie with him, depending that
was a sure game in order to a marriage, so I granted him the favour, as
he called it, to balance the account of favours received from him, and
keep the thousand pistoles with a good grace.
He was extremely disappointed in this article, and knew not how to
manage for a great while; and as I dare say, if he had not expected to
have made it an earnest for marrying me, he would not have attempted me
the other way, so, I believed, if it had not been for the money which he
knew I had, he would never have desired to marry me after he had lain
with me. For where is the man that cares to marry a whore, though of his
own making? And as I knew him to be no fool, so I did him no wrong when
I supposed that, but for the money, he would not have had any thoughts
of me that way, especially after my yielding as I had done; in which it
is to be remembered that I made no capitulation for marrying him when I
yielded to him, but let him do just what he pleased, without any
previous bargain.
Well, hitherto we went upon guesses at one another's designs; but as he
continued to importune me to marry, though he had lain with me, and
still did lie with me as often as he pleased, and I continued to refuse
to marry him, though I let him lie with me whenever he desired it; I
say, as these two circumstances made up our conversation, it could not
continue long thus, but we must come to an explanation.
One morning, in the middle of our unlawful freedoms--that is to say,
when we were in bed together--he sighed, and told me he desired my
leave to ask me one question, and that I would give him an answer to it
with the same ingenious freedom and honesty that I had used to treat him
with. I told him I would. Why, then, his question was, why I would not
marry him, seeing I allowed him all the freedom of a husband. "Or," says
he, "my dear, since you have been so kind as to take me to your bed, why
will you not make me your own, and take me for good and all, that we may
enjoy ourselves without any reproach to one another?"
I told him, that as I confessed it was the only thing I could not comply
with him in, so it was the only thing in all my actions that I could not
give him a reason for; that it was true I had let him come to bed to me,
which was supposed to be the greatest favour a woman could grant; but it
was evident, and he might see it, that, as I was sensible of the
obligation I was under to him for saving me from the worst circumstance
it was possible for me to be brought to, I could deny him nothing; and
if I had had any greater favour to yield him, I should have done it,
that of matrimony only excepted, and he could not but see that I loved
him to an extraordinary degree, in every part of my behaviour to him;
but that as to marrying, which was giving up my liberty, it was what
once he knew I had done, and he had seen how it had hurried me up and
down in the world, and what it had exposed me to; that I had an aversion
to it, and desired he would not insist upon it. He might easily see I
had no aversion to him; and that, if I was with child by him, he should
see a testimony of my kindness to the father, for that I would settle
all I had in the world upon the child.
He was mute a good while. At last says he, "Come, my dear, you are the
first woman in the world that ever lay with a man and then refused to
marry him, and therefore there must be some other reason for your
refusal; and I have therefore one other request, and that is, if I guess
at the true reason, and remove the objection, will you then yield to
me?" I told him if he removed the objection I must needs comply, for I
should certainly do everything that I had no objection against.
"Why then, my dear, it must be that either you are already engaged or
married to some other man, or you are not willing to dispose of your
money to me, and expect to advance yourself higher with your fortune.
Now, if it be the first of these, my mouth will be stopped, and I have
no more to say; but if it be the last, I am prepared effectually to
remove the objection, and answer all you can say on that subject."
I took him up short at the first of these, telling him he must have base
thoughts of me indeed, to think that I could yield to him in such a
manner as I had done, and continue it with so much freedom as he found I
did, if I had a husband or were engaged to any other man; and that he
might depend upon it that was not my case, nor any part of my case.
"Why then," said he, "as to the other, I have an offer to make to you
that shall take off all the objection, viz., that I will not touch one
pistole of your estate more than shall be with your own voluntary
consent, neither now or at any other time, but you shall settle it as
you please for your life, and upon who you please after your death;"
that I should see he was able to maintain me without it, and that it was
not for that that he followed me from Paris.
I was indeed surprised at that part of his offer, and he might easily
perceive it; it was not only what I did not expect, but it was what I
knew not what answer to make to. He had, indeed, removed my principal
objection--nay, all my objections, and it was not possible for me to
give any answer; for, if upon so generous an offer I should agree with
him, I then did as good as confess that it was upon the account of my
money that I refused him; and that though I could give up my virtue and
expose myself, yet I would not give up my money, which, though it was
true, yet was really too gross for me to acknowledge, and I could not
pretend to marry him upon that principle neither. Then as to having
him, and make over all my estate out of his hands, so as not to give him
the management of what I had, I thought it would be not only a little
Gothic and inhuman, but would be always a foundation of unkindness
between us, and render us suspected one to another; so that, upon the
whole, I was obliged to give a new turn to it, and talk upon a kind of
an elevated strain, which really was not in my thoughts, at first, at
all; for I own, as above, the divesting myself of my estate and putting
my money out of my hand was the sum of the matter that made me refuse to
marry; but, I say, I gave it a new turn upon this occasion, as
follows:--
I told him I had, perhaps, different notions of matrimony from what the
received custom had given us of it; that I thought a woman was a free
agent as well as a man, and was born free, and, could she manage herself
suitably, might enjoy that liberty to as much purpose as the men do;
that the laws of matrimony were indeed otherwise, and mankind at this
time acted quite upon other principles, and those such that a woman gave
herself entirely away from herself, in marriage, and capitulated, only
to be, at best, but an upper servant, and from the time she took the man
she was no better or worse than the servant among the Israelites, who
had his ears bored--that is, nailed to the door-post--who by that act
gave himself up to be a servant during life; that the very nature of the
marriage contract was, in short, nothing but giving up liberty, estate,
authority, and everything to the man, and the woman was indeed a mere
woman ever after--that is to say, a slave.
He replied, that though in some respects it was as I had said, yet I
ought to consider that, as an equivalent to this, the man had all the
care of things devolved upon him; that the weight of business lay upon
his shoulders, and as he had the trust, so he had the toil of life upon
him; his was the labour, his the anxiety of living; that the woman had
nothing to do but to eat the fat and drink the sweet; to sit still and
look around her, be waited on and made much of, be served and loved and
made easy, especially if the husband acted as became him; and that, in
general, the labour of the man was appointed to make the woman live
quiet and unconcerned in the world; that they had the name of subjection
without the thing; and if in inferior families they had the drudgery of
the house and care of the provisions upon them, yet they had indeed much
the easier part; for, in general, the women had only the care of
managing--that is, spending what their husbands get; and that a woman
had the name of subjection, indeed, but that they generally commanded,
not the men only, but all they had; managed all for themselves; and
where the man did his duty, the woman's life was all ease and
tranquillity, and that she had nothing to do but to be easy, and to make
all that were about her both easy and merry.
I returned, that while a woman was single, she was a masculine in her
politic capacity; that she had then the full command of what she had,
and the full direction of what she did; that she was a man in her
separate capacity, to all intents and purposes that a man could be so to
himself; that she was controlled by none, because accountable to none,
and was in subjection to none. So I sung these two lines of Mr. ----'s:--
"Oh! 'tis pleasant to be free,
The sweetest Miss is Liberty."
I added, that whoever the woman was that had an estate, and would give
it up to be the slave of a great man, that woman was a fool, and must be
fit for nothing but a beggar; that it was my opinion a woman was as fit
to govern and enjoy her own estate without a man as a man was without a
woman; and that, if she had a mind to gratify herself as to sexes, she
might entertain a man as a man does a mistress; that while she was thus
single she was her own, and if she gave away that power she merited to
be as miserable as it was possible that any creature could be.
All he could say could not answer the force of this as to argument;
only this, that the other way was the ordinary method that the world was
guided by; that he had reason to expect I should be content with that
which all the world was contented with; that he was of the opinion that
a sincere affection between a man and his wife answered all the
objections that I had made about the being a slave, a servant, and the
like; and where there was a mutual love there could be no bondage, but
that there was but one interest, one aim, one design, and all conspired
to make both very happy.
"Ay," said I, "that is the thing I complain of. The pretence of
affection takes from a woman everything that can be called herself; she
is to have no interest, no aim, no view; but all is the interest, aim,
and view of the husband; she is to be the passive creature you spoke
of," said I. "She is to lead a life of perfect indolence, and living by
faith, not in God, but in her husband, she sinks or swims, as he is
either fool or wise man, unhappy or prosperous; and in the middle of
what she thinks is her happiness and prosperity, she is engulfed in
misery and beggary, which she had not the least notice, knowledge, or
suspicion of. How often have I seen a woman living in all the splendour
that a plentiful fortune ought to allow her, with her coaches and
equipages, her family and rich furniture, her attendants and friends,
her visitors and good company, all about her to-day; to-morrow
surprised with a disaster, turned out of all by a commission of
bankrupt, stripped to the clothes on her back; her jointure, suppose she
had it, is sacrificed to the creditors so long as her husband lived, and
she turned into the street, and left to live on the charity of her
friends, if she has any, or follow the monarch, her husband, into the
Mint, and live there on the wreck of his fortunes, till he is forced to
run away from her even there; and then she sees her children starve,
herself miserable, breaks her heart, and cries herself to death! This,"
says I, "is the state of many a lady that has had £10,000 to her
portion."
He did not know how feelingly I spoke this, and what extremities I had
gone through of this kind; how near I was to the very last article
above, viz., crying myself to death; and how I really starved for almost
two years together.
But he shook his head, and said, where had I lived? and what dreadful
families had I lived among, that had frighted me into such terrible
apprehensions of things? that these things indeed might happen where men
run into hazardous things in trade, and, without prudence or due
consideration, launched their fortunes in a degree beyond their
strength, grasping at adventures beyond their stocks, and the like; but
that, as he was stated in the world, if I would embark with him, he had
a fortune equal with mine; that together we should have no occasion of
engaging in business any more, but that in any part of the world where I
had a mind to live, whether England, France, Holland, or where I would,
we might settle, and live as happily as the world could make any one
live; that if I desired the management of our estate, when put together,
if I would not trust him with mine, he would trust me with his; that we
would be upon one bottom, and I should steer. "Ay," says I, "you'll
allow me to steer--that is, hold the helm--but you'll con the ship, as
they call it; that is, as at sea, a boy serves to stand at the helm, but
he that gives him the orders is pilot."
He laughed at my simile. "No," says he; "you shall be pilot then; you
shall con the ship." "Ay," says I, "as long as you please; but you can
take the helm out of my hand when you please, and bid me go spin. It is
not you," says I, "that I suspect, but the laws of matrimony puts the
power into your hands, bids you do it, commands you to command, and
binds me, forsooth, to obey. You, that are now upon even terms with me,
and I with you," says I, "are the next hour set up upon the throne, and
the humble wife placed at your footstool; all the rest, all that you
call oneness of interest, mutual affection, and the like, is courtesy
and kindness then, and a woman is indeed infinitely obliged where she
meets with it, but can't help herself where it fails."
Well, he did not give it over yet, but came to the serious part, and
there he thought he should be too many for me. He first hinted that
marriage was decreed by Heaven; that it was the fixed state of life,
which God had appointed for man's felicity, and for establishing a legal
posterity; that there could be no legal claim of estates by inheritance
but by children born in wedlock; that all the rest was sunk under
scandal and illegitimacy; and very well he talked upon that subject
indeed.
But it would not do; I took him short there. "Look you, sir," said I,
"you have an advantage of me there indeed, in my particular case, but it
would not be generous to make use of it. I readily grant that it were
better for me to have married you than to admit you to the liberty I
have given you, but as I could not reconcile my judgment to marriage,
for the reasons above, and had kindness enough for you, and obligation
too much on me to resist you, I suffered your rudeness and gave up my
virtue. But I have two things before me to heal up that breach of honour
without that desperate one of marriage, and those are, repentance for
what is past, and putting an end to it for time to come."