Moll Flanders

by Daniel Defoe

  It was really a true, gallant spirit he was of, and it was the more grievous to me. ’Tis something of relief even to be undone by a man of honour, rather than by a scoundrel; but here the greatest disappointment was on his side, for he had really spent a great deal of money, and it was very remarkable on what poor terms she proceeded. First, the baseness of the creature herself is to be observed, who, for the getting £100 herself, could be content to let him spend three or four more, though perhaps it was all he had in the world and more than all; when she had not the least ground more than a little tea-table chat to say that I had any estate, or was a fortune, or the like. It is true the design of deluding a woman of fortune, if I had been so, was base enough; the putting the face of great things upon poor circumstances was a fraud and bad enough; but the case a little differed too, and that in his favour, for he was not a rake that made a trade to delude women and, as some have done, get six or seven fortunes after one another and then rifle and run away from them; but he was already a gentleman, unfortunate and low, but had lived well; and though if I had had a fortune I should have been enraged at the slut for betraying me, yet really for the man, a fortune would not have been ill-bestowed on him, for he was a lovely person indeed, of generous principles, good sense, and of abundance of good humour.

  We had a great deal of close conversation that night, for we neither of us slept much; he was as penitent for having put all those cheats upon me as if it had been felony and that he was going to execution; he offered me again every shilling of the money he had about him and said he would go into the army and seek for more.

  I asked him why he would be so unkind to carry me into Ireland when I might suppose he could not have subsisted me there. He took me in his arms. “My dear,” said he, “I never designed to go to Ireland at all, much less to have carried you thither, but came hither to be out of the observation of the people who had heard what I pretended to, and that nobody might ask me for money before I was furnished to supply them.”

  “But where, then,” said I, “were we to have gone next?”

  “Why, my dear,” said he, “I’ll confess the whole scheme to you as I had laid it: I purposed here to ask you something about your estate, as you see I did, and when you, as I expected you would, had entered into some account of the particulars, I would have made an excuse to have put off our voyage to Ireland for some time, and so have gone for London. Then, my dear,” says he, “I resolved to have confessed all the circumstances of my own affairs to you and let you know I had indeed made use of these artifices to obtain your consent to marry me, but had now nothing to do but to ask your pardon and to tell you how abundantly I would endeavour to make you forget what was past by the felicity of the days to come.”

  “Truly,” said I to him, “I find you would soon have conquered me; and it is my affliction now that I am not in a condition to let you see how easily I should have been reconciled to you, and have passed by all the tricks you had put upon me, in recompense of so much good humour. But, my dear,” said I, “what can we do now? We are both undone; and what better are we for our being reconciled, seeing we have nothing to live on?”

  We proposed a great many things, but nothing could offer where there was nothing to begin with. He begged me at last to talk no more of it, for, he said, I would break his heart; so we talked of other things a little, till at last he took a husband’s leave of me and so went to sleep.

  He rose before me in the morning; and indeed having lain awake almost all night, I was very sleepy and lay till near eleven o’clock. In this time he took his horses and three servants and all his linen and baggage, and away he went, leaving a short but moving letter for me on the table, as follows:

  My dear:

  I am a dog; I have abused you; but I have been drawn in to do it by a base creature contrary to my principle and the general practice of my life. Forgive me, my dear! I ask your pardon with the greatest sincerity; I am the most miserable of men in having deluded you. I have been so happy to possess you and am now so wretched as to be forced to fly from you. Forgive me, my dear; once more I say, forgive me! I am not able to see you ruined by me and myself unable to support you. Our marriage is nothing; I shall never be able to see you again; I here discharge you from it; if you can marry to your advantage, do not decline it on my account. I here swear to you on my faith, and on the word of a man of honour, I will never disturb your repose if I should know of it, which, however, is not likely. On the other hand, if you should not marry and if good fortune should befall me, it shall be all yours wherever you are.

  I have put some of the stock of money I have left into your pocket; take places for yourself and your maid in the stage-coach and go for London. I hope it will bear your charges thither without breaking into your own. Again I sincerely ask your pardon, and will do so as often as I shall ever think of you. Adieu, my dear, forever! I am yours most affectionately,

  J. E.

  Nothing that ever befell me in my life sunk so deep into my heart as this farewell. I reproached him a thousand times in my thoughts for leaving me, for I would have gone with him through the world if I had begged my bread. I felt in my pocket, and there I found ten guineas, his gold watch, and two little rings, one a small diamond ring worth only about £6 and the other a plain gold ring.

  I sat down and looked upon these things two hours together and scarce spoke a word till my maid interrupted me by telling me my dinner was ready. I eat but little, and after dinner I fell into a violent fit of crying, every now and then calling him by his name, which was James. “Oh, Jemmy!” said I. “Come back, come back. I’ll give you all I have; I’ll beg, I’ll starve with you.” And thus I run raving about the room several times, and then sat down between whiles, and then walking about again, called upon him to come back, and then cried again; and thus I passed the afternoon till about seven o’clock, when it was near dusk in the evening, being August, when to my unspeakable surprise he comes back into the inn and comes directly up into my chamber.

  I was in the greatest confusion imaginable, and so was he too. I could not imagine what should be the occasion of it, and began to be at odds with myself whether to be glad or sorry; but my affection biased all the rest, and it was impossible to conceal my joy, which was too great for smiles, for it burst out into tears. He was no sooner entered the room but he run to me and took me in his arms, holding me fast and almost stopping my breath with his kisses, but spoke not a word. At length I began: “My dear,” said I, “how could you go away from me?”—to which he gave no answer, for it was impossible for him to speak.

  When our ecstasies were a little over, he told me he was gone above fifteen miles, but it was not in his power to go any farther without coming back to see me again and to take his leave of me once more.

  I told him how I had passed my time and how loud I had called him to come back again. He told me he heard me very plain upon Delamere Forest, at a place about twelve miles off. I smiled. “Nay,” says he, “do not think I am in jest, for if ever I heard your voice in my life, I heard you call me aloud, and sometimes I thought I saw you running after me.” “Why,” said I, “what did I say?”—for I had not named the words to him. “You called aloud,” says he, “and said, Oh, Jemmy! Oh, Jemmy! Come back, come back.”

  I laughed at him. “My dear,” says he, “do not laugh, for, depend upon it, I heard your voice as plain as you hear mine now; if you please, I’ll go before a magistrate and make oath of it.” I then began to be amazed and surprised and indeed frighted, and told him what I had really done and how I had called after him, as above. When we had amused ourselves a while about this, I said to him, “Well, you shall go away from me no more; I’ll go all over the world with you rather.” He told me it would be a very difficult thing for him to leave me, but since it must be, he hoped I would make it as easy to me as I could; but as for him, it would be his destruction—that he foresaw.

  However, he told me that he had considered he had left me to travel to London alone,
which was a long journey; and that as he might as well go that way as any way else, he was resolved to see me thither or near it; and if he did go away then without taking his leave, I should not take it ill of him; and this he made me promise.

  He told me how he had dismissed his three servants, sold their horses, and sent the fellows away to seek their fortunes, and all in a little time at a town on the road, I know not where; “and,” says he, “it cost me some tears all alone by myself to think how much happier they were than their master, for they could go to the next gentleman’s house to see for a service, whereas,” said he, “I knew not whither to go or what to do with myself.”

  I told him I was so completely miserable in parting with him that I could not be worse; and that now he was come again, I would not go from him if he would take me with him, let him go whither he would. And in the meantime I agreed that we would go together to London; but I could not be brought to consent he should go away at last and not take his leave of me, but told him, jesting, that if he did, I would call him back again as loud as I did before. Then I pulled out his watch and gave it him back, and his two rings, and his ten guineas; but he would not take them, which made me very much suspect that he resolved to go off upon the road and leave me.

  The truth is, the circumstances he was in, the passionate expressions of his letter, the kind, gentlemanly treatment I had from him in all the affair, with the concern he showed for me in it, his manner of parting with that large share which he gave me of his little stock left—all these had joined to make such impressions on me that I could not bear the thoughts of parting with him.

  Two days after this we quitted Chester, I in the stage-coach and he on horse-back. I dismissed my maid at Chester. He was very much against my being without a maid, but she being hired in the country (keeping no servant at London), I told him it would have been barbarous to have taken the poor wench and have turned her away as soon as I came to town, and it would also have been a needless charge on the road; so I satisfied him and he was easy on that score.

  He came with me as far as Dunstable, within thirty miles of London, and then he told me fate and his own misfortunes obliged him to leave me and that it was not convenient for him to go to London, for reasons which it was of no value to me to know, and I saw him preparing to go. The stage-coach we were in did not usually stop at Dunstable, but I desiring it for a quarter of an hour, they were content to stand at an inn-door awhile, and we went into the house.

  Being in the inn, I told him I had but one favour more to ask him, and that was that since he could not go any farther, he would give me leave to stay a week or two in the town with him, that we might in that time think of something to prevent such a ruinous thing to us both as a final separation would be, and that I had something of moment to offer to him, which perhaps he might find practicable to our advantage.

  This was too reasonable a proposal to be denied, so he called the landlady of the house and told her his wife was taken ill, and so ill that she could not think of going any farther in the stage-coach, which had tired her almost to death, and asked if she could not get us a lodging for two or three days in a private house where I might rest me a little, for the journey had been too much for me. The landlady, a good sort of a woman, well bred and very obliging, came immediately to see me, told me she had two or three very good rooms in a part of the house quite out of the noise, and if I saw them she did not doubt but I would like them, and I should have one of her maids, that should do nothing else but wait on me. This was so very kind that I could not but accept of it; so I went to look on the rooms and liked them very well, and indeed they were extraordinarily furnished and very pleasant lodgings; so we paid the stage-coach, took out our baggage, and resolved to stay here awhile.

  Here I told him I would live with him now till all my money was spent, but would not let him spend a shilling of his own. We had some kind squabble about that, but I told him it was the last time I was like to enjoy his company, and I desired he would let me be master in that thing only and he should govern in everything else; so he acquiesced.

  Here one evening, taking a walk into the fields, I told him I would now make the proposal to him I had told him of; accordingly I related to him how I had lived in Virginia, that I had a mother I believed was alive there still, though my husband was dead some years. I told him that had not my effects miscarried, which, by the way, I magnified pretty much, I might have been fortune good enough to him to have kept us from being parted in this manner. Then I entered into the manner of people’s settling in those countries, how they had a quantity of land given them by the constitution of the place, and if not, that it might be purchased at so easy a rate that it was not worth naming.

  I then gave him a full and distinct account of the nature of planting, how with carrying over but two or three hundred pounds’ value in English goods, with some servants and tools, a man of application would presently lay a foundation for a family and in a few years would raise an estate.

  I let him into the nature of the product of the earth, how the ground was cured and prepared, and what the usual increase of it was, and demonstrated to him that in a very few years, with such a beginning, we should be as certain of being rich as we were now certain of being poor.

  He was surprised at my discourse, for we made it the whole subject of our conversation for near a week together, in which time I laid it down in black and white, as we say, that it was morally impossible, with a supposition of any reasonable good conduct, but that we must thrive there and do very well.

  Then I told him what measures I would take to raise such a sum as £300 or thereabouts; and I argued with him how good a method it would be to put an end to our misfortunes and restore our circumstances in the world to what we had both expected; and I added that after seven years we might be in a posture to leave our plantation in good hands and come over again and receive the income of it and live here and enjoy it; and I gave him examples of some that had done so and lived now in very good figure in London.

  In short, I pressed him so to it that he almost agreed to it, but still something or other broke it off; till at last he turned the tables and began to talk almost to the same purpose of Ireland.

  He told me that a man that could confine himself to a country life, and that could but find stock to enter upon any land, should have farms there for £50 a year as good as were let here for £200 a year; that the produce was such, and so rich the land, that if much was not laid up, we were sure to live as handsomely upon it as a gentleman of £3000 a year could do in England; and that he had laid a scheme to leave me in London and go over and try; and if he found he could lay a handsome foundation of living suitable to the respect he had for me, as he doubted not he should do, he would come over and fetch me.

  I was dreadfully afraid that upon such a proposal he would have taken me at my word, viz., to turn my little income into money and let him carry it over into Ireland and try his experiment with it; but he was too just to desire it or to have accepted it if I had offered it; and he anticipated me in that, for he added that he would go and try his fortune that way, and if he found he could do anything at it to live, then by adding mine to it when I went over we should live like ourselves; but that he would not hazard a shilling of mine till he had made the experiment with a little, and he assured me that if he found nothing to be done in Ireland, he would then come to me and join in my project for Virginia.

  He was so earnest upon his project being to be tried first that I could not withstand him; however, he promised to let me hear from him in a very little time after his arriving there to let me know whether his prospect answered his design; that if there was not a probability of success, I might take the occasion to prepare for our other voyage, and then, he assured me, he would go with me to America with all his heart.

  I could bring him to nothing farther than this, and which entertained us near a month, during which I enjoyed his company, which was the most entertaining that ever I met with in my l
ife before. In this time he let me into part of the story of his own life, which was indeed surprising and full of an infinite variety, sufficient to fill up a much brighter history for its adventures and incidents than any I ever saw in print; but I shall have occasion to say more of him hereafter.

  We parted at last, though with the utmost reluctance on my side; and indeed he took his leave very unwillingly too, but necessity obliged him, for his reasons were very good why he would not come to London, as I understood more fully afterwards.

  I gave him a direction how to write to me, though still I reserved the grand secret, which was not to let him ever know my true name, who I was, or where to be found; he likewise let me know how to write a letter to him so that, he said, he would be sure to receive it.

  I came to London the next day after we parted, but did not go directly to my old lodgings, but for another nameless reason took a private lodging in St. John’s Street, or as it is vulgarly called, St. Jones’s, near Clerkenwell; and here, being perfectly alone, I had leisure to sit down and reflect seriously upon the last seven months’ ramble I had made, for I had been abroad no less. The pleasant hours I had with my last husband I looked back on with an infinite deal of pleasure; but that pleasure was very much lessened when I found, some time after, that I was really with child.

  This was a perplexing thing because of the difficulty which was before me where I should get leave to lie in, it being one of the nicest things in the world at that time of day for a woman that was a stranger and had no friends to be entertained in that circumstance without security, which I had not; neither could I procure any.

  I had taken care all this while to preserve a correspondence with my friend at the bank, or rather he took care to correspond with me, for he wrote to me once a week; and though I had not spent my money so fast as to want any from him, yet I often wrote also to let him know I was alive. I had left directions in Lancashire, so that I had these letters conveyed to me; and during my recess at St. Jones’s I received a very obliging letter from him, assuring me that his process for a divorce went on with success, though he met with some difficulties in it that he did not expect.