fore-lappet of which as he leaned languishingly on me, he smilingly
pointed to me to observe, as it bellied out, or rose and fell,
according to the unruly starts of the motion behind it; but it was soon
fixed, for now taking off his shirt, and naked as a Cupid, he shewed it
me at so upright a stand, as prepared me indeed for his application to
me for instant ease; but, though the sight of its fine size was fit
enough to fire me, the cooling air, as I stood in this state of nature,
joined to the desire I had of bathing-first, enabled me to put him off,
and tranquillize him, with the remark, that a little suspense would
only set a keener edge on the pleasure. Leading them the way, and
shewing our friends an example of continency, which they were giving
signs of losing respect to, we went hand in hand into the stream, till
it took us up to our necks, where the no more than grateful coolness of
the water gave my senses a delicious refreshment from the sultriness of
the season, and made more alive, more happy in myself, and, in course,
more alert, and open to voluptuous impressions.
Here I laved and wantoned with the water, or sportively played with my
companion, leaving Emily to deal with hers at discretion. Mine, at
length, not content with making me take the plunge over head and ears,
kept splashing me, and provoking me with all the little playful tricks
he could devise, and which I strove not to remain in his debt for. We
gave, in short, a loose to mirth; and now, nothing would serve him but
giving his hand the regale of going over every part of me, neck,
breast, belly, thighs, and all the _et cætera_, so dear to the
imagination, under the pretext of washing and rubbing them; as we both
stood in the water, no higher now than the pit of our stomachs, and
which did not hinder him from feeling, and toying with that leak that
distinguishes our sex, and it so wonderfully water-tight: for his
fingers, in vain dilating and opening it, only let more flame than
water into it, be it said without a figure. At the same time he made me
feel his own engine, which was so well wound up, as to stand even the
working in water, and he accordingly threw one arm round my neck, and
was endeavouring to get the better of that harsher construction bred by
the surrounding fluid; and had in effect one his way so far as to make
me sensible of the pleasing stretch of those nether lips, from the
in-driving machine; when, independent of my not liking that awkward
mode of enjoyment, I could not help interrupting him, in order to
become joint spectators of a plan of joy, in hot operation between
Emily and her partner; who impatient of the fooleries and dalliance of
the bath, had led his nymph to one of the benches on the green bank,
where he was very cordially proceeding to teach her the difference
betwixt jest and earnest.
There, setting her on his knee, and gliding one hand over the surface
of that smooth polished snow-white skin of hers, which now doubly shone
with a dew-bright lustre, and presented to the touch something like
what one would imagine of animated ivory, especially in those
ruby-nippled globes, which the touch is so fond of and delights to make
love to, with the other he was lusciously exploring the sweet secret of
nature, in order to make room for a stately piece of machinery, that
stood up-reared, between her thighs, as she continued sitting on his
lap, and pressed hard for instant intromission, which the tender Emily,
in a fit of humour deliciously protracted, affected to decline, and
elude the very pleasure she sighed for, but in a style of waywardness,
so prettily put on, and managed, as to render it ten times more
poignant; then her eyes, all amidst the softest dying languishment,
expressed, ait once a mock denial and extreme desire, whilst her
sweetness was zested with a coyness so pleasingly provoking, her moods
of keeping him off were so attractive, that they redoubled the
impetuous rage with, which, he covered her with kisses: and kisses
that, whilst she seemed to shy from or scuffle for, the cunning wanton
contrived such sly returns, of, as were, doubtless the sweeter for the
gust she gave them, of being stolen ravished.
Thus Emily, who knew no art but that which nature itself, in favour of
her principal end, pleasure, had inspired her with, the art of
yielding, coy’d it indeed, but coy’d it to the purpose; for with all
her straining, her wrestling, and striving to break from the clasp of
his arms, she was so far wiser yet than to mean it, that in her
struggles, it was visible she aimed at nothing more than multiplying
points of touch with him, and drawing yet closer the folds that held
them every where entwined, like two tendrils of a vine intercurling:
together: so that the same effect, as when Louisa strove in good
earnest to disengage from the idiot, was now produced by different
motives.
Mean while, their emersion out of the cold water had caused a general
glow, a tender suffusion of heightened carnation over their bodies;
both equally white and smooth-skinned; so that as their limbs were thus
amorously interwoven, in sweet confusion, it was scarce possible to
distinguish who they respectively belonged to, but for the brawnier,
bolder muscles of the stronger sex.
In a little time, however, the champion was fairly in with her, and had
tied at all points the true lover’s knot; when now, adieu all the
little refinements of a finessed reluctance; adieu the friendly feint!
She was presently driven forcibly out of the power of using any art;
and indeed, what art must not give way, when nature, corresponding with
her assailant, invaded in the heart of her capital and carried by
storm, lay at the mercy of the proud conqueror, who had made his entry
triumphantly and completely? Soon, however, to become a tributary: for
the engagement growing hotter and hotter, at close quarters, she
presently brought him to the pass of paying down the dear debt to
nature; which she had no sooner collected in, but, like a duellist who
has laid his antagonist at his feet, when he has himself received a
mortal wound, Emily had scarce time to plume herself upon her victory,
but, shot with the same discharge, she, in a loud expiring sigh, in the
closure of her eyes, the stretch-out of her limbs, and a remission of
her whole frame, gave manifest signs that all was as it should be.
For my part, who had not with the calmest patience stood in the water
all this time, to view this warm action, I leaned tenderly on my
gallant, and at the close of it, seemed to ask him with my eyes, what
he thought of it; but he, more eager to satisfy me by his actions than
by words or looks, as we shoaled the water towards the shore, showed me
the staff of love so intensely set up, that had not even charity,
beginning at home in this case, urged me to our mutual relief, it would
have been cruel indeed to have suffered the youth to burst with
straining, when the remedy was so obvious and so near at hand.
Accordingly we took a bench, whilst Emily and her spark, who belonged
it seems to the sea, stood at the side-board, drinking to our good
voyage: for, as the last observed, we were well under weigh, with a
fair wind up channel, and full-freighted; nor indeed were we long
before we finished our trip to Cythera, and unloaded in the old haven;
but, as the circumstances did not admit of much variation, I shall
spare you the description.
At the same time, allow me to place you here an excuse I am conscious
of owing you, for having, perhaps, too much affected the figurative
style; though surely, it can pass nowhere more allowable than in a
subject which is so properly the province of poetry, nay, is poetry
itself, pregnant with every flower of imagination and loving metaphors,
even were not the natural expressions, for respects of fashion and
sound, necessarily forbidden.
Resuming now my history, you may please to know, that what with a
competent number of repetitions, all in the same strain (and, by the
bye, we have a certain natural sense that those repetitions are very
much to the taste), what with a circle of pleasures delicately varied,
there was not a moment lost to joy all the time we staid there, till
late in the night we were re-escorted home by our esquires, who
delivered us safe to Mrs. Cole, with generous thanks for our company.
This too was Emily’s last adventure in our way: for scarce a week
after, she was, by an accident too trivial to detail to you the
particulars, found out by her parents, who were in good circumstances,
and who had been punished for their partiality to their son, in the
loss of him, occasioned by a circumstance of their over indulgence to
his appetite; upon which the so long engrossed stream of fondness,
running violently in favour of this lost and inhumanly abandoned child
whom if they had not neglected enquiry about, they might long before
have recovered, they were now so over-joyed at the retrieval of her,
that, I presume, it made them much less strict in examining the bottom
of things: for they seemed very glad to take for granted, in the lump,
every thing that the grave and decent Mrs. Cole was pleased to pass
upon them; and soon afterwards sent her, from the country, handsome
acknowledgment.
But it was not so easy to replace to our community the loss of so sweet
a member of it: for, not to mention her beauty, she was one of those
mild, pliant characters, that if one does not entirely esteem, one can
scarce help loving, which is not such a bad compensation neither. Owing
all her weaknesses to good nature, and an indolent facility that kept
her too much at the mercy of first impressions, she had just sense
enough to know that she wanted leading strings, and thought herself so
much obliged to any who would take the pains to think for her, and
guide her, that with a very little management, she was capable of being
made a most agreeable, nay a most virtuous wife: for vice, it is
probable, had never been her choice, or her fate, if it had not been
for occasion, or example, or had she not depended less upon herself
than upon her circumstances. This presumption her conduct afterwards
verified: for presently meeting with a match, that was ready cut and
dry for her, with a neighbour’s son of her own rank, and a young man of
sense and order, who took as the widow of one lost at sea (for so it
seems one of her gallants, whose name she had made free with, really
was), she naturally struck into all the duties of her domestic life,
with as much simplicity of affection, with as much constancy and
regularity, as if she had never swerved from a state of undebauched
innocence from her youth.
These desertions had, however, now so far thinned Mrs. Cole’s cluck
that she was left with only me, like a hen with one chicken; but though
she was earnestly entreated and encouraged to recruit her crops, her
growing infirmities, and, above all, the tortures, of a stubborn hip
gout, which she found would yield to no remedy, determined her to break
up her business, and retire with a decent pittance into the country,
where I promised myself, nothing so sure, as my going down to live with
her, as soon as I had seen a little more of life, and improved my small
matters into a competency that would create in me an independence on
the world: for I was now, thanks to Mrs. Cole, wise enough to keep that
essential in view.
Thus was I then to lose my faithful preceptress, as did the
philosophers of the town the white crow of her profession. For besides
that she never ransacked her customers, whose tastes too she ever
studiously consulted, she never racked her pupils with unconscionable
extortions, nor ever put their hard earnings, as she called them, under
the contribution of poundage. She was a severe enemy to the seduction
for innocence, and confined her acquisitions solely to those
unfortunate young women, who, having lost it, were but the juster
objects of compassion: among these, indeed, she picked out such as
suited her views and taking them under her protection, rescued them
from the danger of the public sinks of ruin and misery, to place, or
for them, well or ill, in the manner you have seen. Having then settled
her affairs, she set out on her journey, after taking the most tender
leave of me, and at the end of some excellent instructions,
recommending me to myself, with an anxiety perfectly maternal. In
short, she affected me so much, that I was not presently reconciled to
myself for suffering her at any rate to go without me; but fate had, it
seems, otherwise disposed of me.
I had, on my separation from Mrs. Cole, taken a pleasant convenient
house at Marylebone, but easy to rent and manage from its smallness,
which I furnished neatly and modestly. There, with a reserve of eight
hundred pounds, the fruit of my deference to Mrs. Cole’s counsels,
exclusive of clothes, some jewels, and some plate, I saw myself in
purse for a long time, to wait without impatience for what the chapter
of accidents might produce in my favour.
Here, under the new character of a young gentlewoman whose husband was
gone to sea, I had marked me out such lines of life and conduct, as
leaving me a competent liberty to pursue my views either out of
pleasure or fortune, bounded me nevertheless strictly within the rules
of decency and discretion: a disposition, in which you cannot escape
observing a true pupil of Mrs. Cole.
I was scarce, however, well warm in my new abode, when going out one
morning pretty early to enjoy the freshness of it, in the pleasing
outlet of the fields, accompanied only by a maid, whom I had newly
hired, as we were carelessly walking among the trees, we were alarmed
with the noise of a violent coughing: turning our heads towards which,
we distinguished a plain well dressed elderly gentleman, who, attacked
with a sudden fit, was so much overcome, as to be forced to give way to
it and sit down at the foot of a tree, where he seemed suffocating with
the severity of it, being perfectly black in the face; not less moved
than frightened with which, I flew on the instant to his relief, and
using the rote of practice I had observed on the like occasion, I
loosened his cravat and clapped him on the back; but whether to any
purpose, or whether the cough had had its course, I know not, but the
fit immediately went off; and now recovered to his speech and legs, he
returned me thanks with as much emphasis as if I had saved his life.
This naturally engaging a conversation, he acquainted me where he
lived, which was at a considerable distance from where I met him, and
where he had strayed insensibly on the same intention of a morning
walk.
He was, as I afterwards learned in the course of the intimacy which
this little accident gave birth to, an old bachelor, turned of sixty,
but of a fresh vigorous complexion, insomuch that he scarce marked five
and forty, having never racked his constitution by permitting his
desires to over-tax his ability.
As to his birth and conditions, his parents, honest and failed
mechanics, had, by the best traces he could get of them, left him an
infant orphan on the parish; so that it was from a charity-school,
that, by honesty and industry, he made his way into a merchant’s
counting house, from whence, being sent to a house in Cadiz, he there,
by his talents and activity, acquired not only a fortune, but an
immense one, with which he returned to his native country; where he
could not, however, fish out so much as one single relation out of the
obscurity he was born in. Taking then a taste for refinement, and
pleased to enjoy life, like a mistress in the dark, he flowed his days
in all the ease of opulence, without the least parade of it; and,
rather studying the concealment than the shew of a fortune, looked down
on a world he perfectly knew himself, to his wish, unknown and unmarked
by.
But, as I propose to devote a letter entirely to the pleasure of
retracing to you all the particulars of my acquaintance with this ever,
to me, memorable friend, I shall, in this, transiently touch on no more
than may serve, as mortar, to cement, or form the connection of my
history, and to obviate your surprise that one of my blood and relish
of life, should count a gallant of three score such a catch.
Referring then to a more explicit narrative, to explain by what
progressions our acquaintance, certainly innocent at first, insensibly
changed nature, and run into unplatonic length, as might well be
expected from one of my condition of life, and above all, from that
principle of electricity that scarce ever fails of producing fire when
the sexes meet. I shall only here acquaint you, that as age had not
subdued his tenderness for our sex, neither had it robbed him of the
power of pleasing, since whatever he wanted in the bewitching charms of
youth, he atoned for, or supplemented with the advantages of
experience, the sweetness of his manners, and above all, his flattering
address in touching the heart, by an application to the understanding.
From him it was I first learned, to any purpose, and not without
infinite pleasure, that I had such a portion of me worth bestowing some
regard on; from him I received my first essential encouragement, and
instructions how to put it in that train of cultivation, which I have
since pushed to the little degree of improvement you see it at; he it
was, who first taught me to be sensible that the pleasures of the mind
were superior to those of the body; at the same time, that they were so
far from obnoxious to, or, incompatible with each other, that, besides
the sweetness in the variety and transition, the one served to exalt
and perfect the taste of the other, to a degree that the senses alone
can never arrive at.
Himself a rational pleasurist; as being much too wise to be ashamed of
the pleasures of humanity, loved me indeed, but loved me with dignity;
in a mean equally removed from the sourness, of forwardness, by which
age is unpleasingly characterized, and from that childish silly dotage
that so often disgraces it, and which he himself used to turn into
ridicule, and compare to an old goat affecting the frisk of a young
kid.
In short, every thing that is generally unamiable in his season of
life, was, in him, repaired by so many advantages, that he existed a
proof, manifest at least to me, that it is not out of the power of age
to please, if it lays out to please, and if, making just allowance,
those in that class do not forget, that if must cost them more pains
and attention, than what youth, the natural spring-time of joy, stands
in need of: as fruits out of season require proportionally more skill
and cultivation, to force them.
With this gentleman, who took me home soon after our acquaintance
commenced, I lived near eight months in which time, my constant
complaisance and docility, my attention to deserve his confidence and
love, and a conduct, in general, devoid of the least art and founded on
my sincere regard and esteem for him, won and attached him so firmly to
me, that, after having generously trusted me with a genteel,
independent settlement, proceeding to heap marks of affection on me, he
appointed me, by an authentic will, his sole heiress and executrix: a
disposition which he did not outlive two months, being taken from me by
a violent cold that he contracted, as he unadvisedly ran to the window,
on an alarm of fire at some streets distant, and stood there
naked-breasted, and exposed to the fatal impressions of a damp night
air.
After acquitting myself of the duty towards my deceased benefactor, and
paying him a tribute of un-feigned sorrow, which a little time changed
into a most tender, graceful memory of him, which I shall ever retain,
I grew somewhat comforted by the prospect that now opened to me, if not
of happiness, at least of affluence and independence.
I saw myself then in the full bloom and pride of youth (for I was not
yet nineteen), actually at the head of so large a fortune, as it would
have been even the height of impudence in me to have raised my wishes,
much more my hopes to; and that this unexpected elevation did not turn
my head, I owed to the pains my benefactor had taken to form and
prepare me for it, as I owed his opinion of my management of the vast
possessions he left me, to what he had observed of the prudential
economy I had learned under Mrs. Cole, the reserve of which he saw I
had made, was a proof and encouragement to him.
But, alas! how easily in the enjoyment of the greatest sweets in life,
in present possession, poisoned by the regret of an absent one! But my
regret was a mighty and just one, since it had my only truly beloved
Charles for its object.
Given him up I had, indeed, completely, having never once heard from
him since our separation; which, as I found afterwards, had been my
misfortune, and not his neglect, for he wrote me several letters which
had all miscarried; but forgotten him I never had. And amidst all my
personal infidelities, not one had made a pin’s point impression on a
heart impenetrable to the true love passion, but for him.
As soon, however, as I was mistress of this unexpected fortune, I felt
more than ever how dear he was to me, from its insufficiency to make me
happy, whilst he was not to share it with me. My earliest care,
consequently, was to endeavour at getting some account of him; but all
my researches produced me no more light, than that his father had been
dead for some time, not so well as even with the world; and that
Charles had reached his port of destination in the South Seas, where,
finding the estate he was sent to recover, dwindled to a trifle, by the
loss of two ships in which the bulk of his uncle’s fortune lay, he was
come away with the small remainder, and might, perhaps, according to
the best advice, in a few months return to England, from whence he had,
at the time of this my inquiry, been absent two years and seven months.
A little eternity in love!
You cannot conceive with what joy I embraced the hopes thus given me of
seeing the delight of my heart again. But, as the term of months was
assigned it, in order to divert and amuse my impatience for his return,
after settling my affairs with much ease and security, I set out on a
journey for Lancashire, with an equipage suitable to my fortune, and
with a design purely to revisit my place of nativity, for which I could
not help retaining a great tenderness; and might naturally not be sorry
to shew myself there, to the advantage I was now in pass to do, after
the report Esther Davis had spread of my being spirited away to the
plantations; for on no other supposition could she account for the
suppression of myself to her, since her leaving me so abruptly at the
inn. Another favourite intention I had, to look out for my relations,
though I had none but distant ones, and prove a benefactress to them.
Then Mrs. Cole’s place of retirement lying in my way, was not amongst
the least of the pleasures I had proposed to myself in this expedition.
I had taken nobody with me but a discreet decent woman, to figure it as
my companion, besides my servants; and was scarce got into an inn,
about twenty miles from London, where I was to sup and pass the night,
when such a storm of wind and rain come on, as made me congratulate
myself on having got under shelter before it began.
This had continued a good half an hour, when bethinking me of some
directions to be given to the coachman, I sent for him, not caring that
his shoes should soil the very clean parlour, in which the cloth was
laid, I stept into the hall kitchen, where he was, and where, whilst I
was talking to him, I slantingly observed two horsemen driven in by the
weather, and both wringing wet; one of whom was asking if they could
not be assisted with a change, while their clothes were dried. But,
heavens! who can express what I felt at the sound of a voice, ever
present to my heart, and that it now rebounded at! or when pointing my
eyes towards the person it came from, they confirmed its information,
in spite of so long an absence, and of a dress one would have studied
for a disguise: a horseman’s great coat, with a stamp-up cape, and his
hat flapped... but what could escape the alertness of a sense truly
guided by love? A transport then like mine was above all consideration,
or schemes of surprise; and I, that instant, with the rapidity of the
emotions that I felt the spur of, shot into his arms, crying out, as I
threw mine round his neck: “My life!... my soul!... my Charles!..” and
without further power of speech, swooned away, under the pressing
agitation of joy and surprise.
Recovered out of my entrancement, I found myself in my charmer’s arms,
but in the parlour, surrounded by a crowd which this event had gathered
round us, and which immediately, on a signal from the discreet
landlady, who currently took him for my husband, cleared the room, and
desirably left us alone to the raptures of this reunion; my joy at
which had like to have proved, at the expense of my life, its power
superior to that of grief at our fatal separation.