by Daniel Defoe
by him was ready to throw me into fits; and this mademe see that there was an absolute necessity of breaking the case to himwithout any more delay, which, however, I did with all the caution andreserve imaginable.
He had continued his altered carriage to me near a month, and we beganto live a new kind of life with one another; and could I have satisfiedmyself to have gone on with it, I believe it might have continued aslong as we had continued alive together. One evening, as we weresitting and talking very friendly together under a little awning, whichserved as an arbour at the entrance from our house into the garden, hewas in a very pleasant, agreeable humour, and said abundance of kindthings to me relating to the pleasure of our present good agreement,and the disorders of our past breach, and what a satisfaction it was tohim that we had room to hope we should never have any more of it.
I fetched a deep sigh, and told him there was nobody in the world couldbe more delighted than I was in the good agreement we had always keptup, or more afflicted with the breach of it, and should be so still;but I was sorry to tell him that there was an unhappy circumstance inour case, which lay too close to my heart, and which I knew not how tobreak to him, that rendered my part of it very miserable, and took fromme all the comfort of the rest.
He importuned me to tell him what it was. I told him I could not tellhow to do it; that while it was concealed from him I alone was unhappy,but if he knew it also, we should be both so; and that, therefore, tokeep him in the dark about it was the kindest thing that I could do,and it was on that account alone that I kept a secret from him, thevery keeping of which, I thought, would first or last be my destruction.
It is impossible to express his surprise at this relation, and thedouble importunity which he used with me to discover it to him. Hetold me I could not be called kind to him, nay, I could not be faithfulto him if I concealed it from him. I told him I thought so too, andyet I could not do it. He went back to what I had said before to him,and told me he hoped it did not relate to what I had said in mypassion, and that he had resolved to forget all that as the effect of arash, provoked spirit. I told him I wished I could forget it all too,but that it was not to be done, the impression was too deep, and Icould not do it: it was impossible.
He then told me he was resolved not to differ with me in anything, andthat therefore he would importune me no more about it, resolving toacquiesce in whatever I did or said; only begged I should then agree,that whatever it was, it should no more interrupt our quiet and ourmutual kindness.
This was the most provoking thing he could have said to me, for Ireally wanted his further importunities, that I might be prevailed withto bring out that which indeed it was like death to me to conceal; so Ianswered him plainly that I could not say I was glad not to beimportuned, thought I could not tell how to comply. 'But come, mydear,' said I, 'what conditions will you make with me upon the openingthis affair to you?'
'Any conditions in the world,' said he, 'that you can in reason desireof me.' 'Well,' said I, 'come, give it me under your hand, that if youdo not find I am in any fault, or that I am willingly concerned in thecauses of the misfortune that is to follow, you will not blame me, useme the worse, do me any injury, or make me be the sufferer for thatwhich is not my fault.'
'That,' says he, 'is the most reasonable demand in the world: not toblame you for that which is not your fault. Give me a pen and ink,'says he; so I ran in and fetched a pen, ink, and paper, and he wrotethe condition down in the very words I had proposed it, and signed itwith his name. 'Well,' says he, 'what is next, my dear?'
'Why,' says I, 'the next is, that you will not blame me for notdiscovering the secret of it to you before I knew it.'
'Very just again,' says he; 'with all my heart'; so he wrote down thatalso, and signed it.
'Well, my dear,' says I, 'then I have but one condition more to makewith you, and that is, that as there is nobody concerned in it but youand I, you shall not discover it to any person in the world, exceptyour own mother; and that in all the measures you shall take upon thediscovery, as I am equally concerned in it with you, though as innocentas yourself, you shall do nothing in a passion, nothing to my prejudiceor to your mother's prejudice, without my knowledge and consent.'
This a little amazed him, and he wrote down the words distinctly, butread them over and over before he signed them, hesitating at themseveral times, and repeating them: 'My mother's prejudice! and yourprejudice! What mysterious thing can this be?' However, at last hesigned it.
'Well, says I, 'my dear, I'll ask you no more under your hand; but asyou are to hear the most unexpected and surprising thing that perhapsever befell any family in the world, I beg you to promise me you willreceive it with composure and a presence of mind suitable to a man ofsense.'
'I'll do my utmost,' says he, 'upon condition you will keep me nolonger in suspense, for you terrify me with all these preliminaries.'
'Well, then,' says I, 'it is this: as I told you before in a heat, thatI was not your lawful wife, and that our children were not legalchildren, so I must let you know now in calmness and in kindness, butwith affliction enough, that I am your own sister, and you my ownbrother, and that we are both the children of our mother now alive, andin the house, who is convinced of the truth of it, in a manner not tobe denied or contradicted.'
I saw him turn pale and look wild; and I said, 'Now remember yourpromise, and receive it with presence of mind; for who could have saidmore to prepare you for it than I have done?' However, I called aservant, and got him a little glass of rum (which is the usual dram ofthat country), for he was just fainting away. When he was a littlerecovered, I said to him, 'This story, you may be sure, requires a longexplanation, and therefore, have patience and compose your mind to hearit out, and I'll make it as short as I can'; and with this, I told himwhat I thought was needful of the fact, and particularly how my mothercame to discover it to me, as above. 'And now, my dear,' says I, 'youwill see reason for my capitulations, and that I neither have been thecause of this matter, nor could be so, and that I could know nothing ofit before now.'
'I am fully satisfied of that,' says he, 'but 'tis a dreadful surpriseto me; however, I know a remedy for it all, and a remedy that shall putan end to your difficulties, without your going to England.' 'Thatwould be strange,' said I, 'as all the rest.' 'No, no,' says he, 'I'llmake it easy; there's nobody in the way of it but myself.' He looked alittle disordered when he said this, but I did not apprehend anythingfrom it at that time, believing, as it used to be said, that they whodo those things never talk of them, or that they who talk of suchthings never do them.
But things were not come to their height with him, and I observed hebecame pensive and melancholy; and in a word, as I thought, a littledistempered in his head. I endeavoured to talk him into temper, and toreason him into a kind of scheme for our government in the affair, andsometimes he would be well, and talk with some courage about it; butthe weight of it lay too heavy upon his thoughts, and, in short, itwent so far that he made attempts upon himself, and in one of them hadactually strangled himself and had not his mother come into the room inthe very moment, he had died; but with the help of a Negro servant shecut him down and recovered him.
Things were now come to a lamentable height in the family. My pity forhim now began to revive that affection which at first I really had forhim, and I endeavoured sincerely, by all the kind carriage I could, tomake up the breach; but, in short, it had gotten too great a head, itpreyed upon his spirits, and it threw him into a long, lingeringconsumption, though it happened not to be mortal. In this distress Idid not know what to do, as his life was apparently declining, and Imight perhaps have married again there, very much to my advantage; ithad been certainly my business to have stayed in the country, but mymind was restless too, and uneasy; I hankered after coming to England,and nothing would satisfy me without it.
In short, by an unwearied importunity, my husband, who was apparentlydecaying, as I observed, was at last prevailed with; and so my own fatepushing m
e on, the way was made clear for me, and my mother concurring,I obtained a very good cargo for my coming to England.
When I parted with my brother (for such I am now to call him), weagreed that after I arrived he should pretend to have an account that Iwas dead in England, and so might marry again when he would. Hepromised, and engaged to me to correspond with me as a sister, and toassist and support me as long as I lived; and that if he died beforeme, he would leave sufficient to his mother to take care of me still,in the name of a sister, and he was in some respects careful of me,when he heard of me; but it was so oddly managed that I felt thedisappointments very sensibly afterwards, as you shall hear in its time.
I
