The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders
Page 12
are disposed to let usinto the mystery of it, what were these hard conditions?' 'Yes, madam,'says Robin, 'I had done it before now, if the teasers here had notworried me by way of interruption. The conditions are, that I bring myfather and you to consent to it, and without that she protests she willnever see me more upon that head; and to these conditions, as I said, Isuppose I shall never be able to grant. I hope my warm sisters will beanswered now, and blush a little; if not, I have no more to say till Ihear further.'
This answer was surprising to them all, though less to the mother,because of what I had said to her. As to the daughters, they stoodmute a great while; but the mother said with some passion, 'Well, I hadheard this before, but I could not believe it; but if it is so, then wehave all done Betty wrong, and she has behaved better than I everexpected.' 'Nay,' says the eldest sister, 'if it be so, she has actedhandsomely indeed.' 'I confess,' says the mother, 'it was none of herfault, if he was fool enough to take a fancy to her; but to give suchan answer to him, shows more respect to your father and me than I cantell how to express; I shall value the girl the better for it as longas I know her.' 'But I shall not,' says Robin, 'unless you will giveyour consent.' 'I'll consider of that a while,' says the mother; 'Iassure you, if there were not some other objections in the way, thisconduct of hers would go a great way to bring me to consent.' 'I wishit would go quite through it,' says Robin; 'if you had as much thoughtabout making me easy as you have about making me rich, you would soonconsent to it.'
'Why, Robin,' says the mother again, 'are you really in earnest? Wouldyou so fain have her as you pretend?' 'Really, madam,' says Robin, 'Ithink 'tis hard you should question me upon that head after all I havesaid. I won't say that I will have her; how can I resolve that point,when you see I cannot have her without your consent? Besides, I am notbound to marry at all. But this I will say, I am in earnest in, that Iwill never have anybody else if I can help it; so you may determine forme. Betty or nobody is the word, and the question which of the twoshall be in your breast to decide, madam, provided only, that mygood-humoured sisters here may have no vote in it.'
All this was dreadful to me, for the mother began to yield, and Robinpressed her home on it. On the other hand, she advised with the eldestson, and he used all the arguments in the world to persuade her toconsent; alleging his brother's passionate love for me, and my generousregard to the family, in refusing my own advantages upon such a nicepoint of honour, and a thousand such things. And as to the father, hewas a man in a hurry of public affairs and getting money, seldom athome, thoughtful of the main chance, but left all those things to hiswife.
You may easily believe, that when the plot was thus, as they thought,broke out, and that every one thought they knew how things werecarried, it was not so difficult or so dangerous for the elder brother,whom nobody suspected of anything, to have a freer access to me thanbefore; nay, the mother, which was just as he wished, proposed it tohim to talk with Mrs. Betty. 'For it may be, son,' said she, 'you maysee farther into the thing than I, and see if you think she has been sopositive as Robin says she has been, or no.' This was as well as hecould wish, and he, as it were, yielding to talk with me at hismother's request, she brought me to him into her own chamber, told meher son had some business with me at her request, and desired me to bevery sincere with him, and then she left us together, and he went andshut the door after her.
He came back to me and took me in his arms, and kissed me verytenderly; but told me he had a long discourse to hold with me, and itwas not come to that crisis, that I should make myself happy ormiserable as long as I lived; that the thing was now gone so far, thatif I could not comply with his desire, we would both be ruined. Thenhe told the whole story between Robin, as he called him, and his motherand sisters and himself, as it is above. 'And now, dear child,' sayshe, 'consider what it will be to marry a gentleman of a good family, ingood circumstances, and with the consent of the whole house, and toenjoy all that the world can give you; and what, on the other hand, tobe sunk into the dark circumstances of a woman that has lost herreputation; and that though I shall be a private friend to you while Ilive, yet as I shall be suspected always, so you will be afraid to seeme, and I shall be afraid to own you.'
He gave me no time to reply, but went on with me thus: 'What hashappened between us, child, so long as we both agree to do so, may beburied and forgotten. I shall always be your sincere friend, withoutany inclination to nearer intimacy, when you become my sister; and weshall have all the honest part of conversation without any reproachesbetween us of having done amiss. I beg of you to consider it, and tonot stand in the way of your own safety and prosperity; and to satisfyyou that I am sincere,' added he, 'I here offer you #500 in money, tomake you some amends for the freedoms I have taken with you, which weshall look upon as some of the follies of our lives, which 'tis hopedwe may repent of.'
He spoke this in so much more moving terms than it is possible for meto express, and with so much greater force of argument than I canrepeat, that I only recommend it to those who read the story, tosuppose, that as he held me above an hour and a half in that discourse,so he answered all my objections, and fortified his discourse with allthe arguments that human wit and art could devise.
I cannot say, however, that anything he said made impression enoughupon me so as to give me any thought of the matter, till he told me atlast very plainly, that if I refused, he was sorry to add that he couldnever go on with me in that station as we stood before; that though heloved me as well as ever, and that I was as agreeable to him as ever,yet sense of virtue had not so far forsaken him as to suffer him to liewith a woman that his brother courted to make his wife; and if he tookhis leave of me, with a denial in this affair, whatever he might do forme in the point of support, grounded on his first engagement ofmaintaining me, yet he would not have me be surprised that he wasobliged to tell me he could not allow himself to see me any more; andthat, indeed, I could not expect it of him.
I received this last part with some token of surprise and disorder, andhad much ado to avoid sinking down, for indeed I loved him to anextravagance not easy to imagine; but he perceived my disorder. Heentreated me to consider seriously of it; assured me that it was theonly way to preserve our mutual affection; that in this station wemight love as friends, with the utmost passion, and with a love ofrelation untainted, free from our just reproaches, and free from otherpeople's suspicions; that he should ever acknowledge his happinessowing to me; that he would be debtor to me as long as he lived, andwould be paying that debt as long as he had breath. Thus he wrought meup, in short, to a kind of hesitation in the matter; having the dangerson one side represented in lively figures, and indeed, heightened by myimagination of being turned out to the wide world a mere cast-offwhore, for it was no less, and perhaps exposed as such, with little toprovide for myself, with no friend, no acquaintance in the whole world,out of that town, and there I could not pretend to stay. All thisterrified me to the last degree, and he took care upon all occasions tolay it home to me in the worst colours that it could be possible to bedrawn in. On the other hand, he failed not to set forth the easy,prosperous life which I was going to live.
He answered all that I could object from affection, and from formerengagements, with telling me the necessity that was before us of takingother measures now; and as to his promises of marriage, the nature ofthings, he said, had put an end to that, by the probability of my beinghis brother's wife, before the time to which his promises all referred.
Thus, in a word, I may say, he reasoned me out of my reason; heconquered all my arguments, and I began to see a danger that I was in,which I had not considered of before, and that was, of being dropped byboth of them and left alone in the world to shift for myself.
This, and his persuasion, at length prevailed with me to consent,though with so much reluctance, that it was easy to see I should go tochurch like a bear to the stake. I had some little apprehensions aboutme, too, lest my new spouse, who, by the way, I had not the leastaf
fection for, should be skillful enough to challenge me on anotheraccount, upon our first coming to bed together. But whether he did itwith design or not, I know not, but his elder brother took care to makehim very much fuddled before he went to bed, so that I had thesatisfaction of a drunken bedfellow the first night. How he did it Iknow not, but I concluded that he certainly contrived it, that hisbrother might be able to make no judgment of the difference between amaid and a married woman; nor did he ever entertain any notions of it,or disturb his thoughts about it.
I should go back a little here to where I left off. The elder brotherhaving thus managed me, his next business was to manage his mother, andhe never left till he had brought her to acquiesce and be passive