The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2)

by Daniel Defoe

cease to allow when you please. If I am the less valued for such aconfidence, I shall be injured in a manner that I will endeavour not todeserve."

  He told me that he would make it evident to me that he did not seek meby way of bargain, as such things were often done; that as I had treatedhim with a generous confidence, so I should find I was in the hands of aman of honour, and one that knew how to value the obligation; and uponthis he pulled out a goldsmith's bill for L300, which (putting it intomy hand), he said, he gave me as a pledge that I should not be a loserby my not having made a bargain with him.

  This was engaging indeed, and gave me a good idea of our futurecorrespondence; and, in short, as I could not refrain treating him withmore kindness than I had done before, so one thing begetting another, Igave him several testimonies that I was entirely his own by inclinationas well as by the common obligation of a mistress, and this pleased himexceedingly.

  Soon after this private engagement I began to consider whether it werenot more suitable to the manner of life I now led to be a little lesspublic; and, as I told my lord, it would rid me of the importunities ofothers, and of continual visits from a sort of people who he knew of,and who, by the way, having now got the notion of me which I reallydeserved, began to talk of the old game, love and gallantry, and tooffer at what was rude enough--things as nauseous to me now as if I hadbeen married and as virtuous as other people. The visits of these peoplebegan indeed to be uneasy to me, and particularly as they were alwaysvery tedious and impertinent; nor could my Lord ---- be pleased withthem at all if they had gone on. It would be diverting to set down herein what manner I repulsed these sort of people; how in some I resentedit as an affront, and told them that I was sorry they should oblige meto vindicate myself from the scandal of such suggestions by telling themthat I could see them no more, and by desiring them not to givethemselves the trouble of visiting me, who, though I was not willing tobe uncivil, yet thought myself obliged never to receive any visit fromany gentleman after he had made such proposals as those to me. But thesethings would be too tedious to bring in here. It was on this account Iproposed to his lordship my taking new lodgings for privacy; besides, Iconsidered that as I might live very handsomely, and yet not sopublicly, so I needed not spend so much money by a great deal; and if Imade L500 a year of this generous person, it was more than I had anyoccasion to spend by a great deal.

  My lord came readily into this proposal, and went further than Iexpected, for he found out a lodging for me in a very handsome house,where yet he was not known--I suppose he had employed somebody to findit out for him--and where he had a convenient way to come into thegarden by a door that opened into the park, a thing very rarely allowedin those times.

  By this key he could come in at what time of night or day he pleased;and as we had also a little door in the lower part of the house whichwas always left upon a lock, and his was the master-key, so if it wastwelve, one, or two o'clock at night, he could come directly into mybedchamber. _N.B._--I was not afraid I should be found abed with anybodyelse, for, in a word, I conversed with nobody at all.

  It happened pleasantly enough one night, his lordship had stayed late,and I, not expecting him that night, had taken Amy to bed with me, andwhen my lord came into the chamber we were both fast asleep. I think itwas near three o'clock when he came in, and a little merry, but not atall fuddled or what they call in drink; and he came at once into theroom.

  Amy was frighted out of her wits, and cried out. I said calmly, "Indeed,my lord, I did not expect you to-night, and we have been a littlefrighted to-night with fire." "Oh!" says he, "I see you have got abedfellow with you." I began to make an apology. "No, no," says my lord,"you need no excuse, 'tis not a man bedfellow, I see;" but then, talkingmerrily enough, he catched his words back: "But, hark ye," says he, "nowI think on 't, how shall I be satisfied it is not a man bedfellow?""Oh," says I, "I dare say your lordship is satisfied 'tis poor Amy.""Yes," says he, "'tis Mrs. Amy; but how do I know what Amy is? it may beMr. Amy for aught I know; I hope you'll give me leave to be satisfied."I told him, yes, by all means, I would have his lordship satisfied; butI supposed he knew who she was.

  Well, he fell foul of poor Amy, and indeed I thought once he would havecarried the jest on before my face, as was once done in a like case; buthis lordship was not so hot neither, but he would know whether Amy wasMr. Amy or Mrs. Amy, and so, I suppose, he did; and then being satisfiedin that doubtful case, he walked to the farther end of the room, andwent into a little closet and sat down.

  In the meantime Amy and I got up, and I bid her run and make the bed inanother chamber for my lord, and I gave her sheets to put into it; whichshe did immediately, and I put my lord to bed there, and when I haddone, at his desire went to bed to him. I was backward at first to cometo bed to him, and made my excuse because I had been in bed with Amy,and had not shifted me; but he was past those niceties at that time; andas long as he was sure it was Mrs. Amy, and not Mr. Amy, he was verywell satisfied, and so the jest passed over. But Amy appeared no moreall that night, or the next day, and when she did, my lord was so merrywith her upon his eclaircissement, as he called it, that Amy did notknow what to do with herself.

  Not that Amy was such a nice lady in the main, if she had been fairlydealt with, as has appeared in the former part of this work; but now shewas surprised, and a little hurried, that she scarce knew where she was;and besides, she was, as to his lordship, as nice a lady as any in theworld, and for anything he knew of her she appeared as such. The restwas to us only that knew of it.

  I held this wicked scene of life out eight years, reckoning from myfirst coming to England; and though my lord found no fault, yet I found,without much examining, that any one who looked in my face might see Iwas above twenty years old; and yet, without flattering myself, Icarried my age, which was above fifty, very well too.

  I may venture to say that no woman ever lived a life like me, ofsix-and-twenty years of wickedness, without the least signals ofremorse, without any signs of repentance, or without so much as a wishto put an end to it; I had so long habituated myself to a life of vice,that really it appeared to be no vice to me. I went on smooth andpleasant, I wallowed in wealth, and it flowed in upon me at such a rate,having taken the frugal measures that the good knight directed, so thatI had at the end of the eight years two thousand eight hundred poundscoming yearly in, of which I did not spend one penny, being maintainedby my allowance from my Lord ----, and more than maintained by aboveL200 per annum; for though he did not contract for L500 a year, as Imade dumb signs to have it be, yet he gave me money so often, and thatin such large parcels, that I had seldom so little as seven to eighthundred pounds a year of him, one year with another.

  THE DUTCH MERCHANT CALLS ON ROXANA

  _"There," says she (ushering him in), "is the person who, I suppose,thou inquirest for"_

  PAGE 338]

  I must go back here, after telling openly the wicked things I did, tomention something which, however, had the face of doing good. Iremembered that when I went from England, which was fifteen yearsbefore, I had left five little children, turned out as it were to thewide world, and to the charity of their father's relations; the eldestwas not six years old, for we had not been married full seven years whentheir father went away.

  After my coming to England I was greatly desirous to hear how thingsstood with them, and whether they were all alive or not, and in whatmanner they had been maintained; and yet I resolved not to discovermyself to them in the least, or to let any of the people that had thebreeding of them up know that there was such a body left in the world astheir mother.

  Amy was the only body I could trust with such a commission, and I senther into Spitalfields, to the old aunt and to the poor woman that wereso instrumental in disposing the relations to take some care of thechildren, but they were both gone, dead and buried some years. The nextinquiry she made was at the house where she carried the poor children,and turned them in at the door. When she came there she found the houseinhabited by other peop
le, so that she could make little or nothing ofher inquiries, and came back with an answer that indeed was no answer tome, for it gave me no satisfaction at all. I sent her back to inquire inthe neighbourhood what was become of the family that lived in thathouse; and if they were removed, where they lived, and whatcircumstances they were in; and, withal, if she could, what became ofthe poor children, and how they lived, and where; how they had beentreated; and the like.

  She brought me back word upon this second going, that she heard, as tothe family, that the husband, who, though but uncle-in-law to thechildren, had yet been kindest to them, was dead; and that the widow wasleft but in mean circumstances--that is to say, she did not want, butthat she was not so well in the world as she was thought to be when herhusband was alive; that, as to the poor children, two of them, it seems,had been kept by her,