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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
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 be appointed
to wait on me. This was so very kind, that I could not but
accept of it, and thank her; 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 a while.
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 peoples going over to those countries to settle,
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 this 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 very few years be certain to 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 of #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, if we lived, we
might be in a posture to leave our plantations 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 circumstances in London.
In short, I pressed him so to it, that he almost agreed to it, but
still something or other broke it off again; till at last he turned
the tables, and he began to talk almost to the same purpose of
Ireland.
He told me that a man that could confine himself to country
life, and that could find but stock to enter upon any land,
should have farms there for #50 a year, as good as were here
let 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 sell my little income as I
called it, and turn it 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 possibility 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 further than this. However, those
consultations entertained us near a month, during which I
enjoyed his company, which indeed was the most entertaining
that ever I met in my life before. In this time he let me into
the whole 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 say 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 some
time afterwards.
I gave him a direction how to write to me, though still I
reserved the grand secret, and never broke my resolution,
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, by the way, I had
not, neither could I procure any.
I had taken care all this while to preserve a correspondence
with my honest 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, which
he sent, conveyed to me; and during my recess at St. Jones's
received a very obliging letter from him, assuring me that his
process for a divorce from his wife went on with success,
though he met with some difficulties in it that he did not expect.
I was not displeased with the news that his process was more
tedious than he expected; for though I was in no condition to
have him yet, not being so foolish to marry him when I knew
myself to be with child by another man, as some I know have
ventured to do, yet I was not willing to lose him, and, in a
word, resolved to have him if he continued in the same mind,
as soon as I was up again; for I saw apparently I should hear
no more from my husband; and as he had all along pressed to
marry, and had assured me he would not be at all disgusted at
it, or ever offer to claim me again, so I made no scruple to
resolve to do it if I could, and if my other friend stood to his
bargain; and I had a great deal of reason to be assured that he
would stand to it, by the letters he wrote to me, which were
the kindest and most obliging that could be.
I now grew big, and the people where I lodged perceived it,
and began to take notice of it to me, and, as far as civility
would allow, intimated that I must think of removing. This
put me to extreme perplexity, and I grew very melancholy, for
indeed I knew not what course to take. I had money, but no
friends, and was like to have a child upon my hands to keep,
which was a difficulty I had never had upon me yet, as the
particulars of my story hitherto make appear.
In the course of this affair I fell very ill, and my melancholy
really increased my distemper; my illness proved at length to
be only an ague, but my apprehensions were really that I should
miscarry. I should not say apprehensions, for indeed I would
have been glad to miscarry, but I could never be brought to
entertain so much as a thought of endeavouring to miscarry,
or of taking any thing to make me miscarry; I abhorred, I say,
so much as the thought of it.
However, speaking of it in the house, the gentlewoman who
kept the house proposed to me to send for a midwife. I
scrupled it at first, but after some time consented to it, but
told her I had no particular acquaintance with any midwife,
and so left it to her.
It seems the mistress of the house was not so great a stranger
to such cases as mine was as I thought at first she had been,
as will appear presently, and she sent for a midwife of the
right sort--that is to say, the right sort for me.
The woman appeared to be an experienced woman in her
business, I mean as a midwife; but she had another calling too,
in which she was as expert as most women if not more. My
landlady had told her I was very melancholy, and that she
believed that had done me harm; and once, before me, said to
her, 'Mrs. B----' (meaning the midwife), 'I believe this lady's
trouble is of a kind that is pretty much in your way, and
therefore if you can do anything for her, pray do, for she is a
very civil gentlewoman'; and so she went out of the room.
I really did not understand her, but my Mother Midnight began
very seriously to explain what she mean, as soon as she was
gone. 'Madam,' says she, 'you seem not to understand what
your landlady means; and when you do understand it, you need
not let her know at all that you do so.
'She means that you are under some circumstances that may
render your lying in difficult to you, and that you are not willing
to be exposed. I need say no more, but to tell you, that if you
think fit to communicate so much of your case to me, if it be so,
as is necessary, for I do not desire to pry into those things, I
perhaps may be in a position to help you and to make you
perfectly easy, and remove all your dull thoughts upon that
subject.'
Every word this creature said was a cordial to me, and put
new life and new spirit into my heart; my blood began to
circulate immediately, and I was quite another body; I ate my
victuals again, and grew better presently after it. She said a
great deal more to the same purpose, and then, having pressed
me to be free with her, and promised in the solemnest manner
to be secret, she stopped a little, as if waiting to see what
impression it made on me, and what I would say.
I was too sensible to the want I was in of such a woman, not
to accept her offer; I told her my case was partly as she
guessed, and partly not, for I was really married, and had a
husband, though he was in such fine circumstances and so
remote at that time, as that he could not appear publicly.
She took me short, and told me that was none of her business;
all the ladies that came under her care were married women
to her. 'Every woman,' she says, 'that is with child has a father
for it,' and whether that father was a husband or no husband,
was no business of hers; her business was to assist me in my
present circumstances, whether I had a husband or no. 'For,
madam,' says she, 'to have a husband that cannot appear, is
to have no husband in the sense of the case; and, therefore,
whether you are a wife or a mistress is all one to me.'
I found presently, that whether I was a whore or a wife, I was
to pass for a whore here, so I let that go. I told her it was
true, as she said, but that, however, if I must tell her my case,
I must tell it her as it was; so I related it to her as short as I
could, and I concluded it to her thus. 'I trouble you with all
this, madam,' said I, 'not that, as you said before, it is much
to the purpose in your affair, but this is to the purpose, namely,
that I am not in any pain about being seen, or being public or
concealed, for 'tis perfectly indifferent to me; but my difficulty
is, that I have no acquaintance in this part of the nation.'
'I understand you, madam' says she; 'you have no security to
bring to prevent the parish impertinences usual in such cases,
and perhaps,' says she, 'do not know very well how to dispose
of the child when it comes.' 'The last,' says I, 'is not so much
my concern as the first.' 'Well, madam,' answered the midwife,
'dare you put yourself into my hands? I live in such a place;
though I do not inquire after you, you may inquire after me.
My name is B----; I live in such a street'--naming the street--
'at the sign of the Cradle. My profession is a midwife, and I
have many ladies that come to my house to lie in. I have given
security to the parish in general terms to secure them from any
charge from whatsoever shall come into the world under my
roof. I have but one question to ask in the whole affair, madam,'
says she, 'and if that be answered you shall be entirely easy for
all the rest.'
I presently understood what she meant, and told her, 'Madam,
I believe I understand you. I thank God, though I want friends
in this part of the world, I do not want money, so far as may
be necessary, though I do not abound in that neither': this I
added because I would not make her expect great things.
'Well, madam,' says she, 'that is the thing indeed, without
which nothing can be done in these cases; and yet,' says she,
'you shall see that I will not impose upon you, or offer anything
that is unkind to you, and if you desire it, you shall know
everything beforehand, that you may suit yourself to the
occasion, and be neither costly or sparing as you see fit.'
I told her she seemed to be so perfectly sensible of my condition,
that I had nothing to ask of her but this, that as I had told her
that I had money sufficient, but not a great quantity, she would
order it so that I might be at as little superfluous charge as
possible.
She replied that she would bring in an account of the expenses
of it in two or three shapes, and like a bill of fare, I should
choose as I pleased; and I desired her to do so.
The next day she brought it, and the copy of her three bills
was a follows:--
1. For three months' lodging in her house, including
my diet, at 10s. a week . . . . . . . . . . . 6#, 0s., 0d.
2. For a nurse for the month, and use of childbed
linen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1#, 10s., 0d.
3. For a minister to christen the child, and to the
godfathers and clerk . . . . . . . . . . . . 1#, 10s., 0d.
4. For a supper at the christening if I had five friends
at it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1#, 0s., 0d.
For her fees as a midwife, and the taking off the
trouble of the parish . . . . . . . . . . . . 3#, 3s., 0d.
To her maid servant attending . . . . . . . . 0#, 10s., 0d.
________________
13#, 13s., 0d.
This was the first bill; the second was the same terms:--
1. For three months' lodging and diet, etc., at 20s.
per week . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13#, 0s., 0d.
2. For a nurse for the month, and the use of linen
and lace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2#, 10s., 0d.
3. For the minister to christen the child, etc., as
above . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2#, 0s., 0d.
4. For supper and for sweetmeats
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3#, 3s., 0d.
For her fees as above . . . . . . . . . . . . 5#, 5s., 0d.
For a servant-maid . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1#, 0s., 0d.
_______________
26#, 18s., 0d.
This was the second-rate bill; the third, she said, was for
a degree higher, and when the father or friends appeared:--
1. For three months' lodging and diet, having two
rooms and a garret for a servant . . . . . . 30#, 0s., 0d.,
2. For a nurse for the month, and the finest suit
of childbed linen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4#, 4s., 0d.
3. For the minister to christen the child, etc. 2#, 10s., 0d.
4. For a supper, the gentlemen to send in the
wine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6#, 0s., 0d.
For my fees, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10#, 10s., 0d.
The maid, besides their own maid, only
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0#, 10s., 0d.
_________________
53#, 14s., 0d.
I looked upon all three bills, and smiled, and told her I did not
see but that she was very reasonable in her demands, all things
considered, and for that I did not doubt but her accommodations
were good.
She told me I should be judge of that when I saw them. I told
her I was sorry to tell her that I feared I must be her lowest-
rated customer. 'And perhaps, madam,' said I, 'you will make
me the less welcome upon that account.' 'No, not at all,' said
she; 'for where I have one of the third sort I have two of the
second, and four to one of the first, and I get as much by them
in proportion as by any; but if you doubt my care of you, I will
allow any friend you have to overlook and see if you are well
waited on or no.'
Then she explained the particulars of her bill. 'In the first place,
madam,' said she, 'I would have you observe that here is three
months' keeping; you are but ten shillings a week; I undertake
to say you will not complain of my table. I suppose,' says she,
'you do not live cheaper where you are now?' 'No, indeed,'
said I, 'not so cheap, for I give six shillings per week for my
chamber, and find my own diet as well as I can, which costs
me a great deal more.'
'Then, madam,' says she, 'if the child should not live, or should
be dead-born, as you know sometimes happens, then there is
the minister's article saved; and if you have no friends to come
to you, you may save the expense of a supper; so that take those
articles out, madam,' says she, 'your lying in will not cost you
above #5, 3s. in all more than your ordinary charge of living.'
This was the most reasonable thing that I ever heard of; so I
smiled, and told her I would come and be her customer; but I
told her also, that as I had two months and more to do, I might
perhaps be obliged to stay longer with her than three months,
and desired to know if she would not be obliged to remove me
before it was proper. No, she said; her house was large, and
besides, she never put anybody to remove, that had lain in, till
they were willing to go; and if she had more ladies offered, she
was not so ill-beloved among her neighbours but she could
provide accommodations for twenty, if there was occasion.
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