Даниэль Дефо – Moll Flanders (страница 16)

But the consequence even of that too amounts to no more than this, that women ought to be the more nice; for how do we know the just character of the man that makes the offer? To say that the woman should be the more easy on this occasion is to say we should be the forwarder to venture, because of the greatness of the danger, which is very absurd.

On the contrary, the women have ten thousand times the more reason to be wary and backward, by how much the hazard of being betrayed is the greater, and would the ladies act the wary part, they would discover every cheat that offered; for, in short, the lives of very few men now-a-days will bear a character; and if the ladies do but make a little enquiry, they would soon be able to distinguish the men and deliver themselves: as for women that do not think their own safety worth their own thought, that impatient of their present state run into matrimony as a horse rushes into the battle, I can say nothing to them but this, that they are a sort of ladies that are to be prayed for among the rest of distempered people, and they look like people that venture their estates in a lottery where there is a hundred thousand blanks to one prize.

No man of common sense will value a woman the less for not giving up herself at the first attack, or for not accepting his proposal without enquiring into his person or character; on the contrary, he must think her the weakest of all creatures, as the rate of men now goes: in short, he must have a very contemptible opinion of her capacities, that having but one cast for her life shall cast that life away at once, and make matrimony like death, be a leap in the dark.

I would fain have the conduct of my sex a little regulated in this particular, which is the same thing in which of all the parts of life I think at this time we suffer most in: ‘tis nothing but lack of courage, the fear of not being married at all, and of that frightful state of life, called an old maid. This, I say, is the woman’s snare; but would the ladies once but get above that fear and manage rightly, they would more certainly avoid it by standing their ground in a case so absolutely necessary to their felicity, than by exposing themselves as they do; and if they did not marry so soon, they would make themselves amends by marrying safer; she is always married too soon who gets a bad husband, and she is never married too late who gets a good one: in a word, there is no woman, deformity or lost reputation excepted, but if she manages well may be married safely one time or other; but if she precipitates herself it is ten thousand to one but she is undone.

But I come now to my own case, in which there was at this time no little nicety. The circumstances I was in made the offer of a good husband the most necessary thing in the world to me; but I found soon that to be made cheap and easy, was not the way: it soon began to be found that the widow had no fortune, and to say this was to say all that was ill of me: being well bred, handsome, witty, modest, and agreeable; all which I had allowed to my character, whether justly or no is not to the purpose: I say, all these would not do without the dross. In short, the widow, they said, had no money!

I resolved therefore that it was necessary to change my station and make a new appearance in some other place, and even to pass by another name if I found occasion.

I communicated my thoughts to my intimate friend the captain’s lady, who I had so faithfully served in her case with the captain, and who was as ready to serve me in the same kind as I could desire: I made no scruple to lay my circumstances open to her; my stock was but low, for I had made but about £540 at the close of my last affair, and I had wasted some of that: however, I had about £460 left, a great many very rich clothes, a gold watch and some jewels, though of no extraordinary value, and about £30 or £40 left in linen not disposed of.

My dear and faithful friend, the captain’s wife, was so sensible of the service I had done her in the affair above that she was not only a steady friend to me, but knowing my circumstances she frequently made me presents as money came into her hands; such as fully amounted to a maintenance, so that I spent none of my own; and at last she made this unhappy proposal to me, namely, that as we had observed, as above, how the men made no scruple to set themselves out as persons meriting a woman of fortune of their own, it was but just to deal with them in their own way, and if it was possible to deceive the deceiver.

The captain’s lady, in short, put this project into my head, and told me if I would be ruled by her I should certainly get a husband of fortune without leaving him any room to reproach me with want of my own. I told her that I would give up myself wholly to her directions, and that I would have neither tongue to speak, or feet to step in that affair, but as she should direct me; depending that she would extricate me out of every difficulty that she brought me into, which she said she would answer for.

The first step she put me upon was to call her cousin, and go to a relation’s house of hers in the country where she directed me, and where she brought her husband to visit me, and calling me cousin, she worked matters so about that her husband and she together invited me most passionately to come to town and live with them, for they now lived in a quite different place from where they were before. In the next place she tells her husband that I had at least £1,500 fortune, and that I was like to have a great deal more.

It was enough to tell her husband this, there needed nothing on my side; I was but to sit still and wait the event, for it presently went all over the neighbourhood that the young widow at Captain —’s was a fortune, that she had at least £1,500, and perhaps a great deal more, and that the captain said so, and if the captain was asked at any time about me he made no scruple to affirm it, though he knew not one word of the matter other than that his wife had told him so; and in this he thought no harm, for he really believed it to be so. With the reputation of this fortune, I presently found myself blessed with admirers enough, and that I had my choice of men, as they said they were, which, by the way, confirms what I was saying before: this being my case, I who had a subtle game to play, had nothing now to do but to single out from them all the properest man that might be for my purpose; that is to say, the man who was most likely to depend upon the hearsay of fortune, and not enquire too far into the particulars; and unless I did this I did nothing, for my case would not bear much enquiry.

I picked out my man without much difficulty by the judgment I made of his way of courting me: I had let him run on with his protestations that he loved me above all the world; that if I would make him happy, that was enough; all which I knew was upon supposition that I was very rich, though I never told him a word of it myself.

This was my man, but I was to try him to the bottom, and indeed in that consisted my safety, for if he baulked I knew I was undone as surely as he was undone if he took me; and if I did not make some scruple about his fortune, it was the way to lead him to raise some about mine; and first therefore, I pretended on all occasions to doubt his sincerity, and told him perhaps he only courted me for my fortune; he stopped my mouth in that part with the thunder of his protestations as above, but still I pretended to doubt.

One morning he pulls off his diamond ring, and writes upon the glass of the sash in my chamber this line,

You I love, and you alone.

I read it and asked him to lend me the ring, with which I wrote under it thus,

And so in love says everyone.

He takes his ring again, and writes another line thus,

Virtue alone is an estate.

I borrowed it again and I wrote under it,

But money’s virtue, gold is fate.

He coloured as red as fire to see me turn so quick upon him, and in a kind of rage told me he would conquer me, and wrote again thus,

I scorn your gold, and yet I love.

I ventured all upon the last cast of poetry, as you’ll see, for I wrote boldly under his last, I’m poor: let’s see how kind you’ll prove.

This was a sad truth to me, whether he believed me or no I could not tell; I supposed then that he did not. However he flew to me, took me in his arms, and kissing me very eagerly, and with the greatest passion imaginable, he held me fast till he called for a pen and ink, and told me he could not wait the tedious writing on a glass, but pulling out a piece of paper he began and wrote again,

Be mine with all your poverty.

I took his pen, and followed immediately thus,

Yet secretly you hope I lie.

He told me that was unkind because it was not just, and that I put him upon contradicting me, which did not consist with good manners, and therefore since I had insensibly drawn him into this poetical scribble, he begged I would not oblige him to break it off, so he writes again,