I did not press him much, for since he had come so far to meet me and put himself to so much expense, it was but reasonable I should oblige him a little too; so I was easy as to that point.
After dinner we walked to see the town, to see the church, and to view the fields and the country, as is usual for strangers to do; and our landlord was our guide in going to see the church. I observed my gentleman inquired pretty much about the parson, and I took the hint immediately that he certainly would propose to be married; and it followed presently that, in short, I would not refuse him; for to be plain, with my circumstances I was in no condition now to say no; I had no reason now to run any more such hazards.
But while these thoughts run round in my head, which was the work but of a few moments, I observed my landlord took him aside and whispered to him, though not very softly neither, for so much I overheard: “Sir, if you shall have occasion—” The rest I could not hear, but it seems it was to this purpose: “Sir, if you shall have occasion for a minister, I have a friend a little way off that will serve you and be as private as you please.” My gentleman answered loud enough for me to hear, “Very well, I believe I shall.”
I was no sooner come back to the inn but he fell upon me with irresistible words, that since he had had the good fortune to meet me, and everything concurred, it would be hastening his felicity if I would put an end to the matter just there. “What do you mean?” says I, colouring a little. “What, in an inn, and on the road! Bless us all,” said I, “how can you talk so?” “Oh, I can talk so very well,” says he; “I came on purpose to talk so, and I’ll show you that I did”; and with that he pulls out a great bundle of papers. “You fright me,” said I. “What are all these?” “Don’t be frighted, my dear,” said he, and kissed me. This was the first time that he had been so free to call me my dear; then he repeated it: “Don’t be frighted; you shall see what it is all”; then he laid them all abroad. There was first the deed, or sentence, of divorce from his wife and the full evidence of her playing the whore; then there was the certificates of the minister and churchwardens of the parish where she lived, proving that she was buried, and intimating the manner of her death; the copy of the coroner’s warrant for a jury to sit upon her; and the verdict of the jury, who brought it in non compos mentis. All this was to give me satisfaction, though, by the way, I was not so scrupulous, had he known all, but that I might have taken him without it; however, I looked them all over as well as I could and told him that this was all very clear indeed, but that he need not have brought them out with him, for it was time enough. Well, he said, it might be time enough for me, but no time but the present time was time enough for him.
There were other papers rolled up, and I asked him what they were. “Why, aye,” says he, “that’s the question I wanted to have you ask me”; so he takes out a little shagreen case and gives me out of it a very fine diamond ring. I could not refuse it, if I had a mind to do so, for he put it upon my finger; so I only made him a curtsy. Then he takes out another ring. “And this,” says he, “is for another occasion,” and puts that into his pocket. “Well, but let me see it, though,” says I, and smiled. “I guess what it is; I think you are mad.” “I should have been mad if I had done less,” says he; and still he did not show it me, and I had a great mind to see it. So I says, “Well, but let me see it.” “Hold,” says he, “first look here.” Then he took up the roll again and read it, and behold! It was a licence for us to be married. “Why,” says I, “are you distracted? You were fully satisfied, sure, that I would yield at first word, or resolved to take no denial.” “The last is certainly the case,” said he. “But you may be mistaken,” said I. “No, no,” says he, “I must not be denied, I can’t be denied”; and with that he fell to kissing me so violently I could not get rid of him.
There was a bed in the room, and we were walking to and again, eager in the discourse; at last, he takes me by surprise in his arms and threw me on the bed, and himself with me, and holding me still fast in his arms, but without the least offer of any undecency, courted me to consent with such repeated entreaties and arguments, protesting his affection and vowing he would not let me go till I had promised him, that at last I said, “Why, you resolve not to be denied indeed, I think.” “No, no,” says he, “I must not be denied, I won’t be denied, I can’t be denied.” “Well, well,” said I, and giving him a slight kiss, “then you shan’t be denied; let me get up.”
He was so transported with my consent and the kind manner of it that I began to think once he took it for a marriage, and would not stay for the form; but I wronged him, for he took me by the hand, pulled me up again, and then, giving me two or three kisses, thanked me for my kind yielding to him, and was so overcome with the satisfaction of it that I saw tears stand in his eyes.
I turned from him, for it filled my eyes with tears too, and asked him leave to retire a little to my chamber. If I had a grain of true repentance for an abominable life of twenty-four years past, it was then. “Oh, what a felicity is it to mankind,” said I to myself, “that they cannot see into the hearts of one another! How happy had it been if I had been wife to a man of so much honesty and so much affection from the beginning!”
Then it occurred to me: “What an abominable creature am I! And how is this innocent gentleman going to be abused by me! How little does he think that having divorced a whore, he is throwing himself into the arms of another! That he is going to marry one that has lain with two brothers and has had three children by her own brother! One that was born in Newgate, whose mother was a whore, and is now a transported thief! One that has lain with thirteen men and has had a child since he saw me! Poor gentleman!” said I. “What is he going to do?” After this reproaching myself was over, it followed thus: “Well, if I must be his wife, if it please God to give me grace, I’ll be a true wife to him and love him suitably to the strange excess of his passion for me; I will make him amends, by what he shall see, for the abuses I put upon him, which he does not see.”
He was impatient for my coming out of my chamber, but finding me long, he went downstairs and talked with my landlord about the parson.
My landlord, an officious though well-meaning fellow, had sent away for the clergyman; and when my gentleman began to speak to him of sending for him, “Sir,” says he to him, “my friend is in the house”; so without any more words he brought them together. When he came to the minister, he asked him if he would venture to marry a couple of strangers that were both willing. The parson said that Mr. —— had said something to him of it; that he hoped it was no clandestine business; that he seemed to be a grave gentleman, and he supposed madam was not a girl, so that the consent of friends should be wanted. “To put you out of doubt of that,” says my gentleman, “read this paper”; and out he pulls the licence. “I am satisfied,” says the minister. “Where is the lady?” “You shall see her presently,” says my gentleman.
When he had said thus he comes upstairs, and I was by that time come out of my room; so he tells me the minister was below, and that upon showing him the licence, he was free to marry us with all his heart. “But he asks to see you”; so he asked if I would let him come up.
“’Tis time enough,” said I, “in the morning, is it not?” “Why,” said he, “my dear, he seemed to scruple whether it was not some young girl stolen from her parents, and I assured him we were both of age to command our own consent; and that made him ask to see you.” “Well,” said I, “do as you please”; so up they brings the parson, and a merry, good sort of gentleman he was. He had been told, it seems, that we had met there by accident; that I came in a Chester coach and my gentleman in his own coach to meet me; that we were to have met last night at Stony-Stratford, but that he could not reach so far. “Well, sir,” says the parson, “every ill turn has some good in it. The disappointment, sir,” says he to my gentleman, “was yours, and the good turn is mine, for if you had met at Stony-Stratford I had not had the honour to marry you. Landlord, have you a Common Prayer Book
?”
I started as if I had been frighted. “Sir,” says I, “what do you mean? What, to marry in an inn, and at night too!” “Madam,” says the minister, “if you will have it be in the church, you shall; but I assure you your marriage will be as firm here as in the church; we are not tied by the canons to marry nowhere but in the church; and as for the time of day, it does not at all weigh in this case; our princes are married in their chambers, and at eight or ten o’clock at night.”
I was a great while before I could be persuaded, and pretended not to be willing at all to be married but in the church. But it was all grimace; so I seemed at last to be prevailed on, and my landlord and his wife and daughter were called up. My landlord was father and clerk and all together, and we were married, and very merry we were; though I confess the self-reproaches which I had upon me before lay close to me and extorted every now and then a deep sigh from me, which my bridegroom took notice of and endeavoured to encourage me, thinking, poor man, that I had some little hesitations at the step I had taken so hastily.
We enjoyed ourselves that evening completely, and yet all was kept so private in the inn that not a servant in the house knew of it, for my landlady and her daughter waited on me and would not let any of the maids come upstairs. My landlady’s daughter I called my bridemaid; and sending for a shopkeeper the next morning, I gave the young woman a good suit of knots, as good as the town would afford, and finding it was a lace-making town, I gave her mother a piece of bone-lace for a head.
One reason that my landlord was so close was that he was unwilling the minister of the parish should hear of it: but for all that, somebody heard of it, so as that we had the bells set a-ringing the next morning early, and the music, such as the town would afford, under our window. But my landlord brazened it out that we were married before we came thither, only that, being his former guests, we would have our wedding-supper at his house.
We could not find in our hearts to stir the next day; for, in short, having been disturbed by the bells in the morning and having perhaps not slept overmuch before, we were so sleepy afterwards that we lay in bed till almost twelve o’clock.
I begged my landlady that we might have no more music in the town nor ringing of bells, and she managed it so well that we were very quiet; but an odd passage interrupted all my mirth for a good while. The great room of the house looked into the street, and I had walked to the end of the room, and it being a pleasant, warm day, I had opened the window and was standing at it for some air when I saw three gentlemen ride by and go into an inn just against us.
It was not to be concealed, nor did it leave me any room to question it, but the second of the three was my Lancashire husband. I was frighted to death; I never was in such a consternation in my life; I thought I should have sunk into the ground; my blood run chill in my veins, and I trembled as if I had been in a cold fit of an ague. I say, there was no room to question the truth of it; I knew his clothes, I knew his horse, and I knew his face.
The first reflection I made was that my husband was not by to see my disorder, and that I was very glad of. The gentlemen had not been long in the house but they came to the window of their room, as is usual; but my window was shut, you may be sure. However, I could not keep from peeping at them, and there I saw him again, heard him call to one of the servants for something he wanted, and received all the terrifying confirmations of its being the same person that were possible to be had.
My next concern was to know what was his business there; but that was impossible. Sometimes my imagination formed an idea of one frightful thing, sometimes of another; sometimes I thought he had discovered me and was come to upbraid me with ingratitude and breach of honour; then I fancied he was coming upstairs to insult me; and innumerable thoughts came into my head of what was never in his head, nor ever could be, unless the devil had revealed it to him.
I remained in the fright near two hours and scarce ever kept my eye from the window or door of the inn where they were. At last, hearing a great clutter in the passage of their inn, I run to the window, and to my great satisfaction I saw them all three go out again and travel on westward. Had they gone towards London, I should have been still in a fright lest I should meet him again and that he should know me; but he went the contrary way, and so I was eased of that disorder.
We resolved to be going the next day, but about six o’clock at night we were alarmed with a great uproar in the street and people riding as if they had been out of their wits; and what was it but a hue and cry after three highwaymen that had robbed two coaches and some travellers near Dunstable Hill, and notice had, it seems, been given that they had been seen at Brickhill at such a house, meaning the house where those gentlemen had been.
The house was immediately beset and searched, but there were witnesses enough that the gentlemen had been gone above three hours. The crowd having gathered about, we had the news presently; and I was heartily concerned now another way. I presently told the people of the house that I durst say those were honest persons, for that I knew one of the gentlemen to be a very honest person and of a good estate in Lancashire.
The constable who came with the hue and cry was immediately informed of this, and came over to me to be satisfied from my own mouth; and I assured him that I saw the three gentlemen as I was at the window; that I saw them afterwards at the windows of the room they dined in; that I saw them take horse, and I would assure him I knew one of them to be such a man, that he was a gentleman of a very good estate and an undoubted character in Lancashire, from whence I was just now upon my journey.
The assurance with which I delivered this gave the mob gentry a check and gave the constable such satisfaction that he immediately sounded a retreat, told his people these were not the men, but that he had an account they were very honest gentlemen; and so they went all back again. What the truth of the matter was I knew not, but certain it was that the coaches were robbed at Dunstable Hill and £560 in money taken; besides, some of the lace-merchants that always travel that way had been visited too. As to the three gentlemen, that remains to be explained hereafter.
Well, this alarm stopped us another day, though my spouse told me it was always safest travelling after a robbery, for that the thieves were sure to be gone far enough off when they had alarmed the country; but I was uneasy, and indeed principally lest my old acquaintance should be upon the road still and should chance to see me.
I never lived four pleasanter days together in my life. I was a mere bride all this while, and my new spouse strove to make me easy in everything. Oh, could this state of life have continued, how had all my past troubles been forgot and my future sorrows been avoided! But I had a past life of a most wretched kind to account for, some of it in this world as well as in another.
We came away the fifth day; and my landlord, because he saw me uneasy, mounted himself, his son, and three honest country-fellows with good fire-arms and, without telling us of it, followed the coach and would see us safe into Dunstable.
We could do no less than treat them very handsomely at Dunstable, which cost my spouse about ten or twelve shillings, and something he gave the men for their time too, but my landlord would take nothing for himself.
This was the most happy contrivance for me that could have fallen out; for had I come to London unmarried, I must either have come to him for the first night’s entertainment, or have discovered to him that I had not one acquaintance in the whole city of London that could receive a poor bride for the first night’s lodging with her spouse. But now I made no scruple of going directly home with him, and there I took possession at once of a house well furnished and a husband in very good circumstances, so that I had a prospect of a very happy life if I knew how to manage it; and I had leisure to consider of the real value of the life I was likely to live. How different it was to be from the loose part I had acted before, and how much happier a life of virtue and sobriety is than that which we call a life of pleasure!
Oh, had this particular scene of li
fe lasted, or had I learnt from that time I enjoyed it to have tasted the true sweetness of it, and had I not fallen into that poverty which is the sure bane of virtue, how happy had I been, not only here but perhaps forever! For while I lived thus I was really a penitent for all my life past. I looked back on it with abhorrence, and might truly be said to hate myself for it. I often reflected how my lover at the Bath, struck by the hand of God, repented and abandoned me and refused to see me any more, though he loved me to an extreme; but I, prompted by that worst of devils, poverty, returned to the vile practice and made the advantage of what they call a handsome face be the relief to my necessities, and beauty be a pimp to vice.
Now I seemed landed in a safe harbour after the stormy voyage of life past was at an end, and I began to be thankful for my deliverance. I sat many an hour by myself and wept over the remembrance of past follies and the dreadful extravagances of a wicked life, and sometimes I flattered myself that I had sincerely repented.
But there are temptations which it is not in the power of human nature to resist, and few know what would be their case if driven to the same exigences. As covetousness is the root of all evil, so poverty is the worst of all snares. But I waive that discourse till I come to the experiment.
I lived with this husband in the utmost tranquillity; he was a quiet, sensible, sober man; virtuous, modest, sincere, and in his business diligent and just. His business was in a narrow compass, and his income sufficient to a plentiful way of living in the ordinary way. I do not say to keep an equipage and make a figure, as the world calls it, nor did I expect it or desire it; for as I abhorred the levity and extravagance of my former life, so I chose now to live retired, frugal, and within ourselves. I kept no company, made no visits, minded my family, and obliged my husband; and this kind of life became a pleasure to me.