by Daniel Defoe
did not seem gladto have me undervalue his plantations, so I turned my tale. I told himI had good reason not to go there to live, because if his plantationswere worth so much there, I had not a fortune suitable to a gentlemanof #1200 a year, as he said his estate would be.
He replied generously, he did not ask what my fortune was; he had toldme from the beginning he would not, and he would be as good as hisword; but whatever it was, he assured me he would never desire me to goto Virginia with him, or go thither himself without me, unless I wasperfectly willing, and made it my choice.
All this, you may be sure, was as I wished, and indeed nothing couldhave happened more perfectly agreeable. I carried it on as far as thiswith a sort of indifferency that he often wondered at, more than atfirst, but which was the only support of his courtship; and I mentionit the rather to intimate again to the ladies that nothing but want ofcourage for such an indifferency makes our sex so cheap, and preparesthem to be ill-used as they are; would they venture the loss of apretending fop now and then, who carries it high upon the point of hisown merit, they would certainly be less slighted, and courted more.Had I discovered really and truly what my great fortune was, and thatin all I had not full #500 when he expected #1500, yet I had hooked himso fast, and played him so long, that I was satisfied he would have hadme in my worst circumstances; and indeed it was less a surprise to himwhen he learned the truth than it would have been, because having notthe least blame to lay on me, who had carried it with an air ofindifference to the last, he would not say one word, except that indeedhe thought it had been more, but that if it had been less he did notrepent his bargain; only that he should not be able to maintain me sowell as he intended.
In short, we were married, and very happily married on my side, Iassure you, as to the man; for he was the best-humoured man that everywoman had, but his circumstances were not so good as I imagined, as, onthe other hand, he had not bettered himself by marrying so much as heexpected.
When we were married, I was shrewdly put to it to bring him that littlestock I had, and to let him see it was no more; but there was anecessity for it, so I took my opportunity one day when we were alone,to enter into a short dialogue with him about it. 'My dear,' said I,'we have been married a fortnight; is it not time to let you knowwhether you have got a wife with something or with nothing?' 'Your owntime for that, my dear,' says he; 'I am satisfied that I have got thewife I love; I have not troubled you much,' says he, 'with my inquiryafter it.'
'That's true,' says I, 'but I have a great difficulty upon me about it,which I scarce know how to manage.'
'What's that, m' dear?' says he.
'Why,' says I, ''tis a little hard upon me, and 'tis harder upon you.I am told that Captain ----' (meaning my friend's husband) 'has toldyou I had a great deal more money than I ever pretended to have, and Iam sure I never employed him to do so.'
'Well,' says he, 'Captain ---- may have told me so, but what then? Ifyou have not so much, that may lie at his door, but you never told mewhat you had, so I have no reason to blame you if you have nothing atall.'
'That's is so just,' said I, 'and so generous, that it makes my havingbut a little a double affliction to me.'
'The less you have, my dear,' says he, 'the worse for us both; but Ihope your affliction you speak of is not caused for fear I should beunkind to you, for want of a portion. No, no, if you have nothing,tell me plainly, and at once; I may perhaps tell the captain he hascheated me, but I can never say you have cheated me, for did you notgive it under your hand that you were poor? and so I ought to expectyou to be.'
'Well,' said I, 'my dear, I am glad I have not been concerned indeceiving you before marriage. If I deceive you since, 'tis ne'er theworse; that I am poor is too true, but not so poor as to have nothingneither'; so I pulled out some bank bills, and gave him about #160.'There's something, my dear,' said I, 'and not quite all neither.'
I had brought him so near to expecting nothing, by what I had saidbefore, that the money, though the sum was small in itself, was doublywelcome to him; he owned it was more than he looked for, and that hedid not question by my discourse to him, but that my fine clothes, goldwatch, and a diamond ring or two, had been all my fortune.
I let him please himself with that #160 two or three days, and then,having been abroad that day, and as if I had been to fetch it, Ibrought him #100 more home in gold, and told him there was a littlemore portion for him; and, in short, in about a week more I brought him#180 more, and about #60 in linen, which I made him believe I had beenobliged to take with the #100 which I gave him in gold, as acomposition for a debt of #600, being little more than five shillingsin the pound, and overvalued too.
'And now, my dear,' says I to him, 'I am very sorry to tell you, thatthere is all, and that I have given you my whole fortune.' I added,that if the person who had my #600 had not abused me, I had been worth#1000 to him, but that as it was, I had been faithful to him, andreserved nothing to myself, but if it had been more he should have hadit.
He was so obliged by the manner, and so pleased with the sum, for hehad been in a terrible fright lest it had been nothing at all, that heaccepted it very thankfully. And thus I got over the fraud of passingfor a fortune without money, and cheating a man into marrying me onpretence of a fortune; which, by the way, I take to be one of the mostdangerous steps a woman can take, and in which she runs the most hazardof being ill-used afterwards.
My husband, to give him his due, was a man of infinite good nature, buthe was no fool; and finding his income not suited to the manner ofliving which he had intended, if I had brought him what he expected,and being under a disappointment in his return of his plantations inVirginia, he discovered many times his inclination of going over toVirginia, to live upon his own; and often would be magnifying the wayof living there, how cheap, how plentiful, how pleasant, and the like.
I began presently to understand this meaning, and I took him up veryplainly one morning, and told him that I did so; that I found hisestate turned to no account at this distance, compared to what it woulddo if he lived upon the spot, and that I found he had a mind to go andlive there; and I added, that I was sensible he had been disappointedin a wife, and that finding his expectations not answered that way, Icould do no less, to make him amends, than tell him that I was verywilling to go over to Virginia with him and live there.
He said a thousand kind things to me upon the subject of my making sucha proposal to him. He told me, that however he was disappointed in hisexpectations of a fortune, he was not disappointed in a wife, and thatI was all to him that a wife could be, and he was more than satisfiedon the whole when the particulars were put together, but that thisoffer was so kind, that it was more than he could express.
To bring the story short, we agreed to go. He told me that he had avery good house there, that it was well furnished, that his mother wasalive and lived in it, and one sister, which was all the relations hehad; that as soon as he came there, his mother would remove to anotherhouse, which was her own for life, and his after her decease; so that Ishould have all the house to myself; and I found all this to be exactlyas he had said.
To make this part of the story short, we put on board the ship which wewent in, a large quantity of good furniture for our house, with storesof linen and other necessaries, and a good cargo for sale, and away wewent.
To give an account of the manner of our voyage, which was long and fullof dangers, is out of my way; I kept no journal, neither did myhusband. All that I can say is, that after a terrible passage,frighted twice with dreadful storms, and once with what was still moreterrible, I mean a pirate who came on board and took away almost allour provisions; and which would have been beyond all to me, they hadonce taken my husband to go along with them, but by entreaties wereprevailed with to leave him;--I say, after all these terrible things,we arrived in York River in Virginia, and coming to our plantation, wewere received with all the demonstrations of tenderness and affection,by my husband's mother, that were possible to be expressed.
We lived here all together, my mother-in-law, at my entreaty,continuing in the house, for she was too kind a mother to be partedwith; my husband likewise continued the same as at first, and I thoughtmyself the happiest creature alive, when an odd and surprising eventput an end to all that felicity in a moment, and rendered my conditionthe most uncomfortable, if not the most miserable, in the world.
My mother was a mighty cheerful, good-humoured old woman --I may callher old woman, for her son was above thirty; I say she was verypleasant, good company, and used to entertain me, in particular, withabundance of stories to divert me, as well of the country we were inas of the people.
Among the rest, she often told me how the greatest part of theinhabitants of the colony came thither in very
