Memoirs Of Fanny Hill
by John Cleland
_A new and genuine edition from the original text (London, 1749)._
PARIS—ISIDORE LISEUX
Of this Edition, privately printed, there are
350 numbered copies, of which this is number 111.
Contents
LETTER THE FIRST
LETTER THE SECOND
LETTER THE FIRST
Madam,
I sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my considering your
desires as indispensable orders. Ungracious then as the task may be, I
shall recall to view those scandalous stages of my life, out of which I
emerged, at length, to the enjoyment of every blessing in the power of
love, health and fortune to bestow; whilst yet in the flower of youth,
and not too late to employ the leisure afforded me by great ease and
affluence, to cultivate an understanding, naturally not a despicable
one, and which had, even amidst the whirl of loose pleasures I had been
tossed in, exerted more observation on the characters and manners of
the world than what is common to those of my unhappy profession, who,
looking on all though or reflection as their capital enemy, keep it at
as great a distance as they can, or destroy it without mercy.
Hating, as I mortally do, all long unnecessary prefaces, I shall give
you good quarter in this, and use no farther apology, than to prepare
you for seeing the loose part of my life, written with the same liberty
that I led it.
Truth! stark, naked truth, is the word; and I will not so much as take
the pains to bestow the strip of a gauze wrapper on it, but paint
situations such as they actually rose to me in nature, careless of
violating those laws of decency that were never made for such
unreserved intimacies as ours; and you have too much sense, too much
knowledge of the originals, to sniff prudishly and out of character at
the pictures of them. The greatest men, those of the first and most
leading taste, will not scruple adorning their private closets with
nudities, though, in compliance with vulgar prejudices, they may not
think them decent decorations of the staircase, or salon.
This, and enough, premised, I go souse into my personal history. My
maiden name was Frances Hill. I was born at a small village near
Liverpool, in Lancashire, of parents extremely poor, and, I piously
believe, extremely honest.
My father, who had received a maim on his limbs, that disabled him from
following the more laborious branches of country drudgery, got, by
making nets, a scanty subsistence, which was not much enlarged by my
mother’s keeping a little day-school for the girls in her neighborhood.
They had had several children; but none lived to any age except myself,
who had received from nature a constitution perfectly healthy.
My education, till past fourteen, was no better than very vulgar:
reading, or rather spelling, an illegible scrawl, and a little ordinary
plain work, composed the whole system of it; and then all my foundation
in virtue was no other than a total ignorance of vice, and the shy
timidity general to our sex, in the tender age of life, when objects
alarm or frighten more by their novelty than anything else. But then,
this is a fear too often cured at the expense of innocence, when Miss,
by degrees, begins no longer to look on a man as a creature of prey
that will eat her.
My poor mother had divided her time so entirely between her scholars
and her little domestic cares, that she had spared very little to my
instruction, having, from her own innocence from all ill, no hint or
thought of guarding me against any.
I was now entering on my fifteenth year, when the worst of ills befell
me in the loss of my fond, tender parents, who were both carried off by
the small-pox, within a few days of each other; my father dying first,
and thereby by hastening the death of my mother: so that I was now left
an unhappy friendless orphan (for my father’s coming to settle there,
was accidental, he being originally a Kentisrman). That cruel distemper
which had proved so fatal to them, had indeed seized me, but with such
mild and favourable symptoms, that I was presently out of danger, and
what then I did not know the value of, was entirely unmarked I skip
over here an account of the natural grief and affliction which I felt
on this melancholy occasion. A little time, and the giddiness of that
age, dissipated too soon my reflections on that irreparable loss; but
nothing contributed more to reconcile me to it, than the notions that
were immediately put into my head, of going to London, and looking out
for a service, in which I was promised all assistance and advice from
one Esther Davis, a young woman that had beer down to see her friends,
and who, after the stay of a few days, was returned to her place.
As I had now nobody left alive in the village, who had concern enough
about what should become of me, to start any objections to this scheme,
and the woman who took care of me after my parents’ death, rather
encouraged me to pursue it, I soon came to a resolution of making this
launch into the wide world, by repairing to London, in order to seek my
fortune, a phrase which, by the bye, has ruined more adventurers of
both sexes, from the country, than ever it made or advanced.
Nor did Esther Davis a little comfort and inspirit me to venture with
her, by piquing my childish curiosity with the fine sights that were to
be seen in London: the Tombs, the Lions, the King, the Royal Family,
the fine Plays and Operas, and, in short, all the diversions which fell
within her sphere of life to come at; the detail of all which perfectly
turned the little head of me.
Nor can I remember, without laughing, the innocent admiration, not
without a spice of envy, with which we poor girls, whose church-going
clothes did not rise above dowlas shifts and stuff gowns, beplaced with
silver: all which we imagined grew in London, and entered for a great
deal into my determination of trying to come in for my share of them.
The idea however of having the company of a towns-woman with her, was
the trivial, and all the motives that engaged Esther to take charge of
me during my journey to town, where she told me, after the manner and
style, “as how several maids out of the country had made themselves and
all their kind for ever: that by preserving their virtue, some had
taken so with their masters, that they had married them, and kept them
coaches, and lived vastly grand and happy; and some, may-hap, came to
be Duchesses; luck was all, and why not I, as well as another?”; with
other almanacs to this purpose, which set me a tip-toe to begin this
promising journey, and to leave a place which, though my native one,
contained no relations that I had reason to regret, and was grown
insupportable to me, from the change of the tenderest usage into a cold
air of charity, with which I was entertained, even at the only friend’s
house that I had the least expectation of care and protection from. She
was, however, so just to me, as to manage the turning into money the
little matters that remained to me after the debts and burial charges
were allowed for, and, at my departure, put my whole fortune into my
hands; which consisted of a very slender wardrobe, packed up in a very
portable box, and eight guineas, with seventeen shillings in silver,
stowed in a spring-pouch, which was a greater treasure than I ever had
seen together, and which I could not conceive there was a possibility
of running out; and indeed, I was so entirely taken up with the joy of
seeing myself mistress of such an immence sum, that I gave very little
attention to a world of good advice which was given me with it.
Places, then, being taken for Esther and me in the Chester waggon, I
pass over a very immaterial scene of leave-taking, at which I droped a
few tears betwixt grief and joy; and, for the same reasons of
insignificance, skip over all that happened to me on the road, such as
the waggoner’s looking liquorish on me, the schemes laid for me by some
of the passengers, which were defeated by the valiance of my guardian
Esther; who, to do her justice, took a motherly care of me, at the same
time that she taxed me for the protection by making me bear all
travelling charges, which I defrayed with the unmost cheerfulness, and
thought myself much obliged to her into the bargain.
She took indeed great care that we were not overrated, or imposed on,
as well as of managing as frugally as possible; expensiveness was not
her vice.
It was pretty late in a summer evening when we reached the town, in our
slow conveyance, though drawn by six at length. As we passed through
the greatest streets that led to our inn, the noise, of the coaches,
the hurry, the crowds of foot passengers, in short, the new scenery of
the shops and houses, at once pleased and amazed me.
But guess at my mortification and surprise when we came to the inn, and
our things were landed and delivered to us, when my fellow traveller
and protectress, Esther Davis, who had used me with the utmost
tenderness during the journey, and prepared me by no preceedings signs
for the stunning blow I was to receive, when I say, my only dependence
and friend, in this strange place, all of a sudden assumed a strange
and cool air towards me, as if she dreaded my becoming a burden to her.
Instead, then, of proffering me the continuance of her assistance and
good offices, which I relied upon, and never more wanted, she thought
herself, it seems, abundantly acquitted of her engagements to me, by
having brought me safe to my journey’s end, and seeing nothing in her
procedure towards me but what natural and in order, began to embrace me
by the way of taking leave, whilst I was so confounded, so struck, that
I had not spirit or sense enough so much as to mention my hopes or
expectations from her experience, and knowledge of the place she had
brought me to.
Whilst I stood thus stupid and mute, which she doubtless attributed to
nothing more than a concern at parting, this idea procured me perhaps a
slight alleviation of it, in the following harangue: “That now we were
got safe to London, and that she was obliged to go to her place, she
advised me by all means to get into one as soon as possible; that I
need not fear getting one; there were more places than parish-churches;
that she advised me to go to an intelligence office; that if she heard
of any thing stirring, she would find me out and let me know; that in
the meantime, I should take a private lodging, and acquaint her where
to send to me; that she wished me good luck, and hoped I should always
have the grace to keep myself honest, and not bringing a disgrace on my
parentage.” With this; she took her leave of me, and left me, as it
were, on my own hands, full as lightly as I had been put into hers.
Left thus alone, absolutely destitute and friendless I began then to
feel most bitterly the severity of this separation, the scene of which
had passed in a little room in the inn; and no sooner was her back
turned, but the affliction I felt at my helpless strange circumstances,
burst out into a flood of tears, which infinitely relieved the
oppression of my heart; though I still remained stupified, and most
perfectly perplexed how to dispose of myself.
One of the drawers coming in, added yet more to my uncertainty, by
asking me, in a short way, if I called for anything? to which I replied
innocently: “No.” But I wished him to tell me where I might get a
lodging for that night. He said he would go and speak to his mistress,
who accordingly came, and told me drily, without entering in the least
into the distress she saw me in, that I might have a bed for a
shilling, and that, as she supposed I had some friends in town (there I
fetched a deep sigh in vain!), I might provide for myself in the
morning.
It is incredible what trifling consolations the human mind will seize
in its greatest afflictions. The assurance of nothing more than a bed
to lie on that night, calmed my agonies; and being ashamed to acquaint
the mistress of the inn that I had no friends to apply to in town, I
proposed to myself to proceed, the very next morning, to an
intelligence office, to which I was furnished with written directions
on the back of a ballad, Esther had given me. There I counted on
getting information of any place that such a country girl as I might be
fit for, and where I could get into any sort of being, before my little
stock should be consumed; and as to a character, Esther had often
repeated to me, that I might depend on her managing me one; nor,
however affected I was at her leaving me thus, did I entirely cease to
rely on her, as I began to think, good-naturedly, that her procedure
was all in course, and that is was only my ignorance of life that had
made me take it in the light I at first did.
Accordingly, the next morning I dressed myself as clean and as neat as
my rustic wardrobe would permit me; and having left my box, with
special recommendation, with the landlady, I ventured out by myself,
and without any more difficulty than can be supposed of a young country
girl, barely fifteen, and to whom every sign or shop was a gazing trap,
I got to the wished for intelligence office.
It was kept by an elderly woman, who sat at the receipt of custom, with
a book before her in great form and order, and several scrolls made
out, of directions for places.
I made up then to this important personage, without lifting up my eyes
or observing any of the people round me, who were attending there on
the same errand as myself, and dropping her curtsies nine deep, just
made a shift to stammer out my business to her.
Madam heard me out, with all the gravity and brow of a petty minister
of State, and seeing at one glance over my figure what I was, made me
no answer, but to ask me the preliminary shilling, on receipt of which
she told me places for women too slight built for hard work: but that
she would look over her book, and see what was to be done for me,
desiring me to stay a little, till she had dispatched some other
customers.
On this I drew back a little, most heartily mortified at a declaration
which carried with it a killing uncertainly, that my circumstances
could not well endure.
Presently, assuming more courage, and seeking some diversion from my
uneasy thoughts, I ventured to lift up my head a little, and sent my
eyes on a course round the room, where they met full tilt with those of
a lady (for such my extreme innocence pronounced her) sitting in a
corner of the room, dressed in a velvet mantle (in the midst of
summer), with her bonnet off; squat, fat, red-faced, and at least
fifty.
She looked as if she would devour me with her eyes, staring at me from
head to foot, without the least regard to the confusion and blushes her
eyeing me so fixedly put me to, and which were to her, no doubt, the
strongest recommendation and marks of my being fit for her purpose.
After a little time, in which my air, person and whole figure had
undergone a strict examination, which I had, on my part, tried to
render favourable to me, by primming, drawing up my neck, and setting
my best looks, she advanced and spoke to me with the greatest
demureness:
“Sweet-heart, do you want a place?
“Yes, and please you,” (with a curtsey down to the ground).
Upon this she acquainted me she was actually come to the office
herself, to look out for a servant; that she believed I might do, with
a little of her instruction; that she could take my very looks for a
sufficient character; that London was a very wicked, vile, place; that
she hoped I would be tractable, and keep out of bad company; in short,
she said all to me that an old experienced practitioner in town could
think of, and which was much more than was necessary to take in an
artless inexperienced country maid, who was even afraid of becoming a
wanderer about the streets, and therefore gladly jumped at the first
offer of a shelter, especially from so grave and matron-like a lady,
for such my flattering fancy assured me this new mistress of mine was,
I being actually hired under the nose of the good woman that kept the
office, whose shrewed smiles and shrugs I could not help observing, and
innocently interpreted them as marks of being pleased at my getting
into place so soon: but, as I afterwards came to know, these Beldams
understood one another very well, and this was a market where Mrs.
Brown, my mistress, frequently attended, on the watch for any fresh
goods that might offer there, for the use of her customers, and her own
profit.
Madam was, however, so well pleased with her bargain that fearing I
presume, lest better advice or some accident might occasion my slipping
through her fingers, she would officiously take me in a coach to my
inn, where, calling herself for my box, it was, I being present,
delivered without the least scruple or explanation as to where I was
going.
This being over, she bid the coachman drive to a shop in St. Paul’s
Churchyard, where she bought a pair of gloves, which she gave me, and
thence renewed her directions to the coachman to drive to her house in
——— street, who accordingly landed us at the door, after I had been
cheered up and entertained by the way with the most plausible flams,
without one syllable from which I could conclude anything but that I
was, by the greatest luck, fallen into the hands of kindest mistress,
not to say friend, that the vast world could afford; and accordingly I
entered her doors with most complete confidence and exultation,
promising, myself that, as soon as I could be a little settled, I would
acquaint Esther Davis with my rare good fortune.
You may be sure the good opinion of my place was not lessened by the
appearance of a very handsome back parlor, into which I was led and
which seemed to me magnificently furnished, who had never seen better
rooms than the ordinary ones in inns upon the road. There were two gilt
pier-glasses, and a buffet, on which a few pieces of plate, set out to
the most shew, dazzled, and altogether persuaded me that I must be got
into a very reputable family.
Here my mistress first began her part, with telling me that I must have
good spirits, and learn to be free with her; that she had not taken me
to be a common servant, to do domestic drudgery, but to be a kind of
companion to her; and that if I would be a good girl, she would do more
than twenty mothers for me; to all which I answered only by the
profoundest and the awkwardest curtsies, and a few monosyllables, such
as “’yes! no! to be sure!”
Presently my mistress touched the bell, and in came a strapping
maid-servant, who had let us in. “Here, Martha,” said Mrs. Brown, “I
have just hired this young woman to look after my linen; so step up and
show her her chamber; and I charge you to use her with as much respect
as you would myself, for I have taken a prodigious liking to her, and I
do not know what I shall do for her.”
Martha, who was an arch-jade, and, being used to this decoy, had her
cue perfect, made me a kind of half curtsy, and asked me to walk up
with her; and accordingly showed me a neat room, two pair of stairs
backwards, in which there was a handsome bed, where Martha told me I
was to lie with a young gentlewoman, a cousin of my mistress, who she
was sure would be vastly good to me. Then she ran out into such
affected encomiums on her good mistress! her sweet mistress! and how
happy I was to light upon her! and that I could not have bespoke a
better; with other the like gross stuff, such as would itself have
started suspicions in any but such an unpractised simpleton, who was
perfectly new to life, and who took every word she said in the very
sense she laid out for me to take it; but she readily saw what a
penetration she had to deal with, and measured me very rightly in her
manner of whistling to me, so as to make me pleased with my cage, and
blind to the wires.
In the midst of these false explanations of the nature of my future
service, we were rung for down again, and I was reintroduced into the
same parlour, where there was a table laid with three covers; and my
mistress had now got with her one of her favourite girls, a notable
manager of her house, and whose business it was to prepare and break
such young fillies as I was to the mounting block; and she was
accordingly, in that view, alloted me for a bed-fellow, and, to give
her the more authority, she had the title of cousin conferred on her by
the venerable president of this college.
Here I underwent a second survey, which ended in the full approbation
of Mrs. Phœbe Ayres, the name of my tutoress elect, to whose care and
instruction I was affectionately recommended.
Dinner was now set on table, and in pursuance of treating me as a
companion, Mrs. Brown, with a tone to cut off all dispute, soon
over-ruled my most humble and most confused protestations against
sitting down with her Ladyship, which my very short breeding just
suggested to me could not be right, or in the order of things.
At table, the conversation was chiefly kept up by the two madams and
carried on in double meaning expressions, interrupted every now and
then by kind assurances to me, all tending to confirm and fix my
satisfaction with my present condition: augment it they could not, so
very a novice was I then.
It was here agreed that I should keep myself up and out of sight for a
few days, till such clothes could be procured for me as were fit for
the character I was to appear in, of my mistress’s companion, observing
withal, that on the first impressions of my figure much might depend;
and, as they rightly judged, the prospect of exchanging my country
clothes for London finery, made the clause of confinement digest
perfectly well with me. But the truth was, Mrs. Brown did not care that
I should be seen or talked to by any, either of her customers, or her
Does (as they called the girls provided for them), till she secured a
good market for my maidenhead, which I had at least all the appearances
of having brought into her Ladyship’s service.
To slip over minutes of no importance to the main of my story, I pass
the interval to bed time, in which I was more and more pleased with the
views that opened to me, of an easy service under these good people;
and after supper being shewed up to bed, Miss Phœbe, who observed a
kind of reluctance in me to strip and go to bed, in my shift, before
her, now the maid was withdrawn, came up to me, and beginning with
unpinning my handkerchief and gown, soon encouraged me to go on with
undressing myself; and, blushing at now seeing myself naked to my
shift, I hurried to get under the bed-clothes out of sight.
Phœbe laughed and was not long before she placed herself by my side.
She was about five and twenty, by her most suspicious account, in
which, according to all appearances, she must have sunk at least ten
good years; allowance, too, being made for the havoc which a long
course of hackneyship and hot waters must have made of her
constitution, and which had already brought on, upon the spur, that
stale stage in which those of her profession are reduced to think of
showing company, instead of seeing it.
No sooner then was this precious substitute of my mistress laid down,
but she, who was never out of her way when any occasion of lewdness
presented itself, turned to me, embraced and kissed me with great
eagerness. This was new, this was odd; but imputing it to nothing but
pure kindness, which, for ought I knew, it might be the London way to
express in that manner, I was determined not to be behind-hand with
her, and returned her the kiss and embrace, with all the fervour that
perfect innocence knew.
Encouraged by this, her hands became extremely free, and wandered over
my whole body, with touches, squeezes, pressures, that rather warmed
and surprised me with their novelty, than they either shocked or
alarmed me.
The flattering praises she intermingled with these invasions,
contributed also not a little to bribe my passiveness; and, knowing no
ill, I feared none, especially from one who had prevented all doubts of
her womanhood, by conducting my hands to a pair of breasts that hung
loosely down, in a size and volume that full sufficiently distinguished
her sex, to me at least, who had never made any other comparison.
I lay then all tame and passive as she could wish, whilst her freedom
raised no other emotion but those of a strange, and, till then, unfelt
pleasure. Every part of me was open and exposed to the licentious
courses of her hands, which, like a lambent fire, ran over my whole
body, and thawed all coldness as they went.
My breasts, if it is not too bold a figure to call so two hard, firm,
rising hillocks, that just began to shew themselves, or signify
anything to the touch, employed and amused her hands awhile, till,
slipping down lower, over a smooth track, she could just feel the soft
silky down that had but a few months before put forth and garnished the
mount-pleasant of those parts, and promised to spread a grateful
shelter over the sweet seat of the most exquisite sensation, and which
had been, till that instant, the seat of the most insensible innocence.
Her fingers played and strove to twine in the young tendrils of that
moss, which nature has contrived at once for use and ornament.
But, not contented with these outer posts, she now attempts the main
spot, and began to twitch, to insinuate, and at length to force an
introduction of a finger into the quick itself, in such a manner, that
had she not proceeded by insensible gradations that inflamed me beyond
the power of modesty to oppose its resistance to their progress, I
should have jumped out of bed and cried for help against such strange
assaults.
Instead of which, her lascivious touches had lighted up a new fire that
wantoned through all my veins, but fixed with violence in that center
appointed them by nature, where the first strange hands were now busied
in feeling, squeezing, compressing the lips, then opening them again,
with a finger between, till an “Oh!” expressed her hurting me, where
the narrowness of the unbroken passage refused it entrance to any
depth.
In the meantime, the extension of my limbs, languid stretching, sighs,
short heavings, all conspired to assure that experienced wanton that I
was more pleased than offended at her proceedings, which she seasoned
with repeated kisses and exclamations, such as “Oh! what a charming
creature thou art! What a happy man will he be that first makes a woman
of you! Oh! that I were a man for your sake!” with the like broken
expressions, interrupted by kisses as fierce and salacious as ever I
received from the other sex.
For my part, I was transported, confused, and out of myself; feelings
so new were too much for me. My heated and alarmed senses were in a
tumult that robbed me of all liberty of thought; tears of pleasure
gushed from my eyes, and somewhat assuaged the fire that raged all over
me.
Phœbe, herself, the hackneyed, thorough-bred Phœbe, to whom all modes
and devices of pleasure were known and familiar, found, it seems, in
this exercise her those arbitrary tastes, for which there is no
accounting. Not that she hated men, or did not even prefer them to her
own sex; but when she met with such occasions as this was, a satiety of
enjoyments in the common road, perhaps, too a great secret bias,
inclined her to make the most of pleasure, wherever she could find it,
without distinction of sexes. In this view, now well assured that she
had, by her touches, sufficiently inflamed me for her purpose, she
rolled down the bed clothes gently, and I saw myself stretched naked,
my shift being turned up to my neck, whilst I had no power or sense to
oppose it. Even my growing blushes expressed more desire than modesty,
whilst the candle, left (to be sure not undesignedly) burning, threw a
full light on my whole body.
“No!” says Phœbe, “you must not, my sweet girl, think to hide all these
treasures from me. My sight must be feasted as my touch. I must devour
with my eyes this springing bosom. Suffer me to kiss it. I have not
seen it enough. Let me kiss it once more. What firm, smooth, white
flesh is here! How delicately shaped! Then this delicious down! Oh! let
me view the small, dear, tender cleft! This is too much, I cannot bear
it! I must! I must!” Here she took my hand, and in a transport carried
it where you will easily guess. But what a difference in the state of
the same thing! A spreading thicket of bushy curls marked the full
grown, complete woman. Then the cavity to which she guided my hand
easily received it; and as soon as she felt it within her, she moved
herself to and fro, with so rapid a friction, that I presently withdrew
it, wet and clammy, when instantly Phœbe grew more composed, after two
or three sighs, and heart-fetched Oh’s! and giving me a kiss that
seemed to exhale her soul through her lips, she replaced the
bed-clothes over us. What pleasure she had found I will not say; but
this I know, that the first sparks of kindling nature, the first ideas
of pollution, were caught by me that night; and that the acquaintance
and communication with the bad of our sex, is often as fatal to
innocence as all the seductions of the other. But to go on. When Phœbe
was restored to that calm, which I was far from the enjoyment of
myself, she artfully sounded me on all the points necessary to govern
the designs of my virtuous mistress on me, and by my answers, drawn
from pure undissembled nature, she had no reason but to promise herself
all imaginable success, so far as it depended on my ignorance, easiness
and warmth of constitution.
After a sufficient length of dialogue, my bedfellow left me to my rest,
and I fell asleep, through pure weariness, from the violent emotions I
had been led into, when nature which had been too warmly stirred and
fermented to subside without allaying by some means or other relieved
me by one of those luscious dreams, the transports of which are scarce
inferior to those of waking real action.
In the morning I awoke about ten, perfectly gay and refreshed. Phœbe
was up before me, and asked me in the kindest manner how I did, how I
had rested, and if I was ready for breakfast? carefully, at the same
time, avoiding to increase the confusion she saw I was in, at looking
her in the face, by any hint of the night’s bed scene. I told her if
she pleased I would get up, and begin any work she would be pleased to
set me about. She smiled; presently the maid brought in the tea
equipage, and I just huddled my clothes on, when in waddled my
mistress. I expected no less than to be told of, if not chid for, my
late rising, when I was most agreeably disappointed by her compliments
on my pure and fresh looks. I was “a bud of beauty” (this was her
style), “and how vastly all the fine men would admire me!” to all which
my answers did not, I can assure you, wrong my breeding; they were as
simple and silly as they could wish, and, no doubt, flattered them
infinitely more than had they proved me enlightened by education and a
knowledge of the world.
We breakfasted, and the tea things were scarce removed, when in were
brought two bundles of linen and wearing apparel: in short, all the
necessaries for rigging me out, as they termed it, completely.
Imagine to yourself, Madam, how my little coquet heart fluttered with
joy at the sight of a white lutestring, flowered with silver, scoured
indeed, but passed on me for spick and span new, a Brussels lace cap,
braited shoes, and the rest in proportion, all second-hand finery, and
procured instantly for the occasion, by the diligence and industry of
the good Mrs. Brown, who had already a chapman for me in the house,
before whom my charms were to pass in review; for he had not only, in
course, insisted on a previous sight of the premises, but also on
immediate surrendering to him, in case of his agreeing for me;
concluding very wisely, that such a place as I was in, was of the
hottest to trust the keeping of such a perishable commodity in, as a
maidenhead.
The care of dressing and tricking me out for the market, was then left
to Phœbe, who acquitted herself, if not well, at least perfectly to the
satisfaction of everything but my impatience of seeing myself dressed.
When it was over, and I viewed myself in the glass, I was no doubt, too
natural, too artless, to hide my childish joy at the change: a change,
in the real truth, for much the worse, since I must have much better
become the neat easy simplicity of my rustic dress than the awkward,
untoward, tawdry finery that I could not conceal my strangeness to.
Phœbe’s compliments, however, in which her own share in dressing me was
not forgot, did not a little confirm me in the first notions I had ever
entertained concerning my person; which, be it said without vanity, was
then tolerable to justify a taste for me, and of which it may not be
out of place here to sketch you an unflattered picture.
I was tall, yet not too tall for my age, which, as I before remarked,
was barely turned of fifteen; my shape perfectly straight, thin
waisted, and light and free without owing anything to stays; my hair
was a glossy auburn, and as soft as silk, flowing down my neck in
natural curls, and did not a little to set off the whiteness of a
smooth skin; my face was rather too ruddy, though its features were
delicate, and the shape was a roundish oval, except where a pit on my
chin had far from a disagreeable effect; my eyes were as black as can
be imagined, and rather languishing than sparkling, except on certain
occasions, when I have been told they struck fire fast enough; my
teeth, which I ever carefully preserved, were small, even and white; my
bosom was finely raised, and one might then discern rather the promise
than the actual growth of the round, firm breast, that in a little time
made that promise good. In short, all the points of beauty that are
most universally in request, I had, or at least my vanity forbid me to
appeal from the decision of our sovereign judges the men, who all, that
I ever knew at last, gave it thus highly in my favour; and I met with,
even in my own sex, some that were above denying me that justice,
whilst others praised me yet more unsuspectedly, by endeavouring to
detract from me, in points of person and figure that I obviously
excelled in. This is, I own, too strong of self praise; but I should be
ungrateful to nature, and to a form to which I owe such singular
blessings of pleasure and fortune, were I to suppress, through an
affectation of modesty, the mention of such valuable gifts.
Well then, dressed I was, and little did it then enter into my head
that all this gay attire was no more than decking the victim out for
sacrifice, whilst I innocently attributed all to mere friendship and
kindness in the sweet good Mrs. Brown; who, I was forgetting to
mention, had, under pretence of keeping my money safe, got from me,
without the least hesitation, the driblet (so I now call it) which
remained to me after the expenses of my journey.
After some little time most agreebly spent before the glass, in scarce
self-admiration, since my new dress had by much the greatest share in
it, I was sent for down to the parlour, where the old lady saluted me,
and wished me joy of my new clothes, which she was not ashamed to say,
fitted me as if I had worn nothing but the finest all my life-time; but
what was it she could not see me silly enough to swallow? At the same
time, she presented me to another cousin of her own creation, an
elderly gentleman, who got up, at my entry into the room, and on my
dropping a curtsy to him, saluted me, and seemed a little affronted
that I had only presented my cheek to him: a mistake, which, if one, he
immediately corrected, by gluing his lips to mine, with an ardour which
his figure had not at all disposed me to thank him for: his figure, I
say, than which nothing could be more shocking or detestable: for ugly
and disagreeable were terms too gentle to convey a just idea of it.
Imagine to yourself, a man rather past threescore, short and ill-made,
with a yellow cadaverous hue, great goggle eyes, that stared as if he
was strangled; an out-mouth from two more properly tusks than teeth,
livid lips, and breath like a Jake’s: then he had a peculiar
ghastliness in his grin, that made him perfectly frightful, if not
dangerous to women with child; yet, made as he was thus in mock of man,
he was so blind to his own staring deformities, as to think himself
born to please, and that no woman could see him with impunity: in
consequence of which idea, he had lavished great sums on such wretches
as could gain upon themselves to pretend love to his person, whilst to
those who had not art or patience to dissemble the horror it inspired,
he behaved even brutally. Impotence, more than necessity, made him seek
in variety, the provocative that was wanting to raise him to the pitch
of enjoyment, which he too often saw himself baulked of, by the failure
of his powers: and this always threw him into a fit of rage, which he
wreaked, as far as he durst, on the innocent objects of his fit of
momentary desire.
This then was the master to which my conscientious benefactress, who
had long been his purveyor in this way, had doomed me, and sent for me
down purposely for his examination. Accordingly she made me stand up
before him, turned me round, unpinned my handkerchief, remarked to him
the rise and fall, the turn and whiteness of a bosom just beginning to
fill; then made me walk, and took even a handle from the rusticity of
my charms: in short, she omitted no point of jockeyship; to which he
only answered by gracious nods of approbation, whilst he looked goats
and monkeys at me: for I sometimes stole a corner glance at him, and
encountering his fiery, eager stare, looked another way from pure
horror and affright, which he, characteristically, attributed to
nothing more than maiden modesty, or at least the affectation of it.
However, I was soon dismissed, and reconducted to my room by Phœbe, who
stuck close to me, not leaving me alone, and at leisure to make such
reflections as might naturally rise to any one, not an idiot, on such a
scene as I had just gone through; but to my shame be it confessed, that
just was my invincible stupidity, or rather portentous innocence, that
I did not yet open my eyes to Mrs. Brown’s designs, and saw nothing in
this titular cousin of hers but a shockingly hideous person, which did
not at all concern me, unless that my gratitude for my benefactress
made me extend my respect to all her cousinhood.
Phœbe, however, began to sift the state and pulses of my heart toward
this monster, asking me how I should approve of such a fine gentelman
for a husband. (Fine gentleman, I suppose she called him, from his
being daubed with lace.) I answered her very naturally, that I had no
thoughts of a husband, but that if I was to choose one, it should be
among my own degree, sure! so much had my aversion to that wretch’s
hideous figure indisposed me to all “fine gentlemen,” and confounded my
ideas, as if those of that rank had been necessarily cast in the same
mould that he was. But Phœbe was not to be put off so, but went on with
her endeavours to melt and soften me for the purposes of my reception
into that hospitable house: and whilst she talked of the sex in
general, she had no reason to despair of a compliance, which more than
one reason showed her would be easily enough obtained of me; but then
she had too much experience not to discover that my particular fixed
aversion to that frightful cousin would be a block not so readily to be
removed, as suited the consummation of their bargain, and sale of me.
Mother Brown had in the meantime agreed the terms with this loquorice
old goat, which I afterwards understood were to be fifty guineas
peremptory, for the liberty of attempting me, and a hundred more at the
complete gratification of his desires, in the triumph over my
virginity: and as for me, I was to be left entirely at the discretion
of his liking and generosity. This unrighteous contract being thus
settled, he was so eager to be put in possession, that he insisted on
being introduced to drink tea with me that afternoon, when we were to
be left alone; nor would he hearken to the procuress’s remonstrances,
that I was not sufficiently prepared, and ripened for such an attack;
that I was too green and untamed, having been scarce twenty-four hours
in the house: it is the character of lust to be impatient, and his
vanity arming him against any supposition of other than the common
resistance of a maid on those occasions, made him reject all proposals
of a delay, and my dreadful trial was thus fixed, unknown to me, for
that very evening.
At dinner, Mrs. Brown and Phœbe did nothing but run riot in praise of
this wonderful cousin, and how happy that woman would be that he would
favour with his addresses; in short my two gossips exhausted all their
rhetoric to persuade me to accept them: “that the gentleman was
violently smitten with me at first sight; that he would make my fortune
if I would be a good girl and not stand in my own light; that I should
trust his honour; that I should be made for ever, and have a chariot to
go abroad in,” with all such stuff as was fit to turn the head of such
a silly ignorant girl as I then was: but luckily here my aversion had
taken already such deep root in me, my heart was so strongly defended
from him by my senses, that wanting the art to mask my sentiments, I
gave them no hopes of their employer succeeding, at least very easily,
with me. The glass too marched pretty quick, with a view, I suppose, to
make a friend of the warmth of my constitution, in the minutes of the
imminent attack.
Thus they kept me pretty long at table, and about six in the evening,
after I had retired to my apartment, and the tea board was set, enters
my venerable mistress, followed close by that satyr, who came in
grinning in a way peculiar to him, and by his odious presence,
confirmed me in all the sentiments of detestation which his first
appearance had given birth to.
He sat down fronting me, and all tea time kept ogling me in a manner
that gave me the utmost pain and confusion, all the mark of which he
still explained to be my bashfulness, and not being used to see
company.
Tea over, the commoding old lady pleady urgent business (which indeed
was true) to go out, and earnestly desired me to entertain her cousin
kindly till she came back, both for my own sake and her; and then, with
a “Pray, sir, be very good, be very tender to the sweet child,” she
went out of the room, leaving me staring, with my mouth open, and
unprepared by the suddenness of her departure, to oppose it.
We were now alone; and on that idea a sudden fit of trembling seized
me. I was so afraid, without a precise notion of why, and what I had to
fear, that I sat on the settee, by the fire side, motionless and
petrified, without life or spirit, not knowing how to look or how to
stir.
But long I was not suffered to remain in this state of stupefaction:
the monster squatted down by me on the settee, and without farther
ceremony or preamble, flings his arms about my neck, and drawing me
pretty forcibly towards him, obliged me to receive, in spite of my
struggles to disengage from him, his pestilential kisses, which quite
overcame me. Finding me then next to senseless, and unresisting, he
tears off my neck handkerchief, and laid all open there, to his eyes
and hands: still I endured all without flinching, till emboldened by my
sufferance and silence, for I had not the power to speak or cry out, he
attempted to lay me down on the settee, and I felt his hand on the
lower part of my naked thighs, which were crossed, and which he
endeavoured to unlock. Oh then! I was roused out of my passive
endurance, and springing from him with an activity he was not prepared
for, threw myself at his feet, and begged him, in the most moving tone,
not to be rude, and that he would not hurt me. “Hurt you, my dear?”
says the brute, “I intend you no harm. Has not the old lady told you
that I love you? that I shall do handsomely by you?”
“She has indeed, sir,” said I, “but I cannot love you, indeed I cannot!
pray let me alone! yes! I will love you dearly if you will let me alone
and go away.” But I was talking to the wind, for whether my tears, my
attitude, or the disorder of my dress proved fresh incentives, or
whether he was now under the dominion of desires he could not bridle,
but snorting and foaming with lust and rage, he renews his attack,
seizes me, and again attempts to extend and fix me on the settee: in
which he succeeded so far as to lay me along, and even to toss my
petticoats over my head, and lay my thighs bare, which I obstinately
kept close, nor could he, though he attempted with his knee to force
them open, effect it so as to stand fair for being master of the main
avenue; he was unbuttoned, both waistcoat and breeches, yet I only felt
the weight of his body upon me, whilst I lay struggling with
indignation, and dying with terrors; but he stopped all of a sudden,
and got off, panting, blowing, cursing, and repeating “old and ugly!”
for so I had very naturally called him in the heat of my defence.
The brute had, it seems, as I afterwards understood, brought on, by his
eagerness and struggle, the ultimate period of his hot fit of lust,
which his power was too short-lived to carry him through the full
execution of; of which my thighs and linen received the effusion.
When it was over he bid me, with a tone of displeasure, get up: “that
he would not do me the honour to think of me any more; that the old
b——h might look out for another cully; that he would not be fooled so
by ever a country mock modesty in England; that he supposed I had left
my maidenhead with some hobnail in the country, and was come to dispose
of my skim-milk in town” with a volley of the like abuse; which I
listened to with more pleasure than ever fond woman did to
protestations of love from her darling minion: for, incapable as I was
of receiving any addition to my perfect hatred and aversion to him, I
looked on this railing, as my security against his renewing his most
odious caress.
Yet, plain as Mrs. Brown’s views were now come out, I had not the
heart, or spirit to open my eyes to them: still I could not part with
my dependence on that beldam, so much did I think myself hers, soul and
body: or rather, I sought to deceive myself with the continuation of my
good opinion of her, and choose to wait the worst at her hands, sooner
than be turned out to starve in the streets, without a penny of money
or a friend to apply to these fears were my folly.
While this confusion of ideas was passing in my head, and I sat
pensively by the fire, with my eyes brimming with tears, my neck still
bare, and my cap fallen off in the struggle, so that my hair was in the
disorder you may guess, the villain’s lust began, I suppose, to be
again in flow, at the sight of all that bloom of youth which presented
itself to his view, a bloom yet unenjoyed, and of course not yet
indifferent to him.
After some pause, he asked me with a tone of voice mightily softer,
whether I would make it up with him before the old lady returned, and
all should be well; he would restore me to his affections, at the same
time offering to kiss me and feel my breasts. But now my extreme
aversion, my fears, my indignation, all acting upon me, gave me a
spirit not natural to me, so that breaking loose from him, I ran to the
bell and rang it, with such violence and effect as to bring up the maid
to know what was the matter, or whether the gentleman wanted anything;
and before he could proceed to greater extremities, she bounced into
the room, and seeing me stretched on the floor, my hair all
dishevelled, my nose gushing out blood, which did not a little
tragedize the scene, and my odious persecutor still intent of pushing
his brutal point, unmoved by all my cries and distress, she was herself
confounded and did not know what to do.