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First Letter
Part I
Madam,
I sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my considering your desires as
indispensable orders. Ungracious then as the task may be, I shall recall to view
those scandalous stages of my life, out of which I emerg'd, at length, to the
enjoyment of every blessing in the power of love, health, and fortune to bestow;
whilst yet in the flower of youth, and not too late to employ the leisure
afforded me by great ease and affluence, to cultivate an understanding,
naturally not a despicable one, and which had, even amidst the whirl of loose pleasures I had been tost in, exerted more observation on the characters and
manners of the world than what is common to those of my unhappy profession, who
looking on all thought or reflection as their capital enemy, keep it at as great
a distance as they can, or destroy it without mercy.
Hating, as I mortally do, all long unnecessary preface, I shall give you good
quarter in this, and use no farther apology, than to prepare you for seeing the
loose part of my life, wrote with the same liberty that I led it.
Truth! stark, naked truth, is the word; and I will not so much as take the
pains to bestow the strip of a gauze wrapper on it, but paint situations such as
they actually rose to me in nature, careless of violating those laws of decency
that were never made for such unreserved intimacies as ours; and you have too
much sense, too much knowledge of the ORIGINALS themselves, to sniff prudishly
and out of character at the PICTURES of them. The greatest men, those of the
first and most leading taste, will not scruple adorning their private closets
with nudities, though, in compliance with vulgar prejudices, they may not think
them decent decorations of the staircase, or salon.
This, and enough, premised, I go souse into my personal history. My maiden
name was Frances Hill. I was born at a small village near [Liverpool, in
Lancashire, of parents extremely poor, and, I piously believe, extremely
honest.
My father, who had received a maim on his limbs that disabled him from
following the more laborious branches of country-drudgery, got, by making of
nets, a scanty subsistence, which was not much enlarg'd by my mother's keeping a
little day-school for the girls in her neighbourhood. They had had several
children; but none lived to any age except myself, who had received from nature
a constitution perfectly healthy.
My education, till past fourteen, was no better than very vulgar; reading, or
rather spelling, an illegible scrawl, and a little ordinary plain work composed
the whole system of it; and then all my foundation in virtue was no other than a
total ignorance of vice, and the shy timidity general to our sex, in the tender
stage of life when objects alarm or frighten more by their novelty than anything
else. But then, this is a fear too often cured at the expence of innocence, when
Miss, by degrees, begins no longer to look on a man as a creature of prey that
will eat her.
My poor mother had divided her time so entirely between her scholars and her
little domestic cares, that she had spared very little of it to my instruction,
having, from her own innocence from all ill, no hint or thought of guarding me
against any.
I was now entering on my fifteenth year, when the worst of ills befell me in
the loss of my tender fond parents, who were both carried off by the small-pox,
within a few days of each other; my father dying first, and thereby hastening
the death of my mother; so that I was now left an unhappy friendless orphan (for
my father's coming to settle there was accidental, he being originally a
Kentishman). That cruel distemper which had proved so fatal to them, had indeed
seized me, but with such mild and favourable symptoms, that I was presently out
of danger, and, what I then did not know the value of, was entirely unmark'd. I
skip over here an account of the natural grief and affliction which I felt on
this melancholy occasion. A little time, and the giddiness of that age
dissipated, too soon, my reflections on that irreparable loss; but nothing
contributed more to reconcile me to it, than the notions that were immediately
put into my head, of going to London, and looking out for a service, in which I
was promised all assistance and advice from one Esther Davis, a young woman that
had been down to see her friends, and who, after the stay of a few days, was to
return to her place.
As I had now nobody left alive in the village who had concern enough about
what should become of me to start any objections to this scheme, and the woman
who took care of me after my parents; death rather encouraged me to pursue it, I
soon came to a resolution of making this launch into the wide world, by
repairing to London, in order to SEEK MY FORTUNE, a phrase which, by the bye,
has ruined more adventurers of both sexes, from the country, than ever it made
or advanced.
Nor did Esther Davis a little comfort and inspirit me to venture with her, by
piquing my childish curiosity with the fine sights that were to be seen in
London: the Tombs, the Lions, the King, the Royal Family, the fine Plays and
Operas, and, in short, all the diversions which fell within her sphere of life
to come at; the detail of all which perfectly turn'd the little head of me.
Nor can I remember, without laughing, the innocent admiration, not without a
spice of envy, with which we poor girls, whose church-going clothes did not rise
above dowlass shifts and stuff gowns, beheld Esther's scowered satin gowns, caps
border'd with an inch of lace, taudry ribbons, and shoes belaced with silver:
all which we imagined grew in London, and entered for a great deal into my
determination of trying to come in for my share of them.
The idea however of having the company of a townswoman with her, was the
trivial, and all the motives that engaged Esther to take charge of me during my
journey to town, where she told me, after her manner and style, 'as how several
maids out of the country had made themselves and all their kin for ever: that by
preserving their VIRTUE, some had taken so with their masters, that they had
married them, and kept them coaches, and lived vastly grand and happy; and some,
may-hap, came to be Duchesses; luck was all, and why not I, as well as
another?'; with other almanacs to this purpose, which set me a tip-toe to begin
this promising journey, and to leave a place which, though my native one,
contained no relations that I had reason to regret, and was grown insupportable
to me, from the change of the tenderest usage into a cold air of charity, with
which I was entertain'd even at the only friend's house that I had the least
expectation of care and protection from. She was, however, so just to me, as to
manage the turning into money of the little matters that remained to me after
the debts and burial charges were accounted for, and, at my departure, put my
whole fortune into my hands; which consisted of a very slender wardrobe, pack'd
up in a very portable box, and eight guineas, with seventeen shillings in
silver; stowed up in a spring-pouch, which was a greater treasure than ever I
had yet seen together, and which I could not conceive there was a possibility of
running out; and indeed, I was so entirely taken up with the joy of seeing
myself mistress of such an immense sum, that I gave very little attention to a
world of good advice which was given me with it.
Places, then, being taken for Esther and me in the London waggon, I pass over
a very immaterial scene of leavetaking, at which I dropt a few tears betwixt
grief and joy; and, for the same reasons of insignificance, skip over all that
happened to me on the road, such as the waggoner's looking liquorish on me, the
schemes laid for me by some of the passengers, which were defeated by the
vigilance of my guardian Esther; who, to do her justice, took a motherly care of
me, at the same time that she taxed me for her protection by making me bear all
travelling charges, which I defrayed with the utmost cheerfulness, and thought
myself much obliged to her into the bargain.
She took indeed great care that we were not over-rated, or imposed on, as
well as of managing as frugally as possible; expensiveness was not her vice.
It was pretty late in a summer evening when we reached London-town, in our
slow conveyance, though drawn by six at length. As we passed through the
greatest streets that led to our inn, the noise of the coaches, the hurry, the
crowds of foot passengers, in short, the new scenery of the shops and houses, at
once pleased and amazed me.
But guess at my mortification and surprize when we came to the inn, and our
things were landed and deliver'd to us, when my fellow traveller and
protectress, Esther Davis, who had used me with the utmost tenderness during the
journey, and prepared me by no preceding signs for the stunning blow I was to
receive, when I say, my only dependence and friend, in this strange place, all
of a sudden assumed a strange and cool air towards me, as if she dreaded my
becoming a burden to her.
Instead, then, of proffering me the continuance of her assistance and good
offices, which I relied upon, and never more wanted, she thought herself, it
seems, abundantly acquitted of her engagements to me, by having brought me safe
to my journey's end; and seeing nothing in her procedure towards me but what was
natural and in order, began to embrace me by way of taking leave, whilst I was
so confounded, so struck, that I had not spirit or sense enough so much as to
mention my hopes or expectations from her experience, and knowledge of the place
she had brought me to.
Whilst I stood thus stupid and mute, which she doubtless attributed to
nothing more than a concern at parting, this idea procured me perhaps a slight
alleviation of it, in the following harangue: That now we were got safe to
London, and that she was obliged to go to her place, she advised me by all means
to get into one as soon as possible; that I need not fear getting one; there
were more places than parish-churches; that she advised me to go to an
intelligence office; that if she heard of any thing stirring, she would find me
out and let me know; that in the meantime, I should take a private lodging, and
acquaint her where to send to me; that she wish'd me good luck, and hoped I
should always have the grace to keep myself honest, and not bring a disgrace on
my parentage. With this, she took her leave of me, and left me, as it were, on
my own hands, full as lightly as I had been put into hers.
Left thus alone, absolutely destitute and friendless, I began then to feel
most bitterly the severity of this separation, the scene of which had passed in
a little room in the inn; and no sooner was her back turned, but the affliction
I felt at my helpless strange circumstances burst out into a flood of tears,
which infinitely relieved the oppression of my heart; though I still remained
stupefied, and most perfectly perplex'd how to dispose of myself.
One of the waiters coming in, added yet more to my uncertainty by asking me,
in a short way, if I called for anything? to which I replied innocently: 'No.'
But I wished him to tell me where I might get a lodging for that night. He said
he would go and speak to his mistress, who accordingly came, and told me drily,
without entering in the least into the distress she saw me in, that I might have
a bed for a shilling, and that, as she supposed I had some friends in town (here
I fetched a deep sigh in vain!) I might provide for myself in the morning.
'Tis incredible what trifling consolations the human mind will seize in its
greatest afflictions. The assurance of nothing more than a bed to lie on that
night, calmed my agonies; and being asham'd to acquaint the mistress of the inn
that I had no friends to apply to in town, I proposed to myself to proceed, the
very next morning, to an intelligence office, to which I was furnish'd with
written directions on the back of a ballad Esther had given me. There I counted
on getting information of any place that such a country girl as I might be fit
for, and where I could get into any sort of being, before my little stock should
be consumed; and as to a character, Esther had often repeated to me that I might
depend on her managing me one; nor, however affected I was at her leaving me
thus, did I entirely cease to rely on her, as I began to think, good-naturedly,
that her procedure was all in course, and that it was only my ignorance of life
that had made me take it in the light I at first did.
Accordingly, the next morning I dress'd myself as clean and as neat as my
rustic wardrobe would permit me; and having left my box, with special
recommendation, with the landlady, I ventured out by myself, and without any
more difficulty than can be supposed of a young country girl, barely fifteen,
and to whom every sign or shop was a gazing trap, I got to the wish'd-for
intelligence office.
It was kept by an elderly woman, who sat at the receipt of custom, with a
book before her in great form and order, and several scrolls, ready made out, of
directions for places.
I made up then to this important personage, without lifting up my eyes or
observing any of the people round me, who were attending there on the same
errand as myself, and dropping her curtsies nine-deep, just made a shift to
stammer out my business to her.
Madam having heard me out, with all the gravity and brow of a petty minister
of State, and seeing at one glance over my figure what I was, made me no answer,
but to ask me the preliminary shilling, on receipt of which she told me places
for women were exceedingly scarce, especially as I seemed too slight built for
hard work; but that she would look over her book, and see what was to be done
for me, desiring me to stay a little till she had dispatched some other
customers.
On this I drew back a little, most heartily mortified at a declaration which
carried with it a killing uncertainty that my circumstances could not well
endure.
Presently, assuming more courage, and seeking some diversion from my uneasy
thoughts, I ventured to lift up my head a little, and sent my eyes on a course
round the room, wherein they met full tilt with those of a lady (for such my
extreme innocence pronounc'd her) sitting in a corner of the room, dress'd in a
velvet mantle (nota bene, in the midst of summer), with her bonnet off;
squab-fat, red-faced, and at least fifty.
She look'd as if she would devour me with her eyes, staring at me from head
to foot, without the least regard to the confusion and blushes her eyeing me so
fixedly put me to, and which were to her, no doubt, the strongest recommendation
and marks of my being fit for her purpose. After a little time, in which my air,
person and whole figure had undergone a strict examination, which I had, on my
part, tried to render favourable to me, by primming, drawing up my neck, and
setting my best looks, she advanced and spoke to me with the greatest
demureness:
'Sweet-heart, do you want a place?'
'Yes, and please you' (with a curtsy down to the ground).
Upon this she acquainted me that she was actually come to the office herself
to look out for a servant; that she believed I might do, with a little of her
instructions; that she could take my very looks for a sufficient character; that
London was a very wicked, vile place; that she hoped I would be tractable, and
keep out of bad company; in short, she said all to me that an old experienced
practitioner in town could think of, and which was much more than was necessary
to take in an artless inexperienced country-maid, who was even afraid of
becoming a wanderer about the streets, and therefore gladly jump'd at the first
offer of a shelter, especially from so grave and matron-like a lady, for such my
flattering fancy assured me this new mistress of mine was; I being actually
hired under the nose of the good woman that kept the office, whose shrewd smiles
and shrugs I could not help observing, and innocently interpreted them as marks
of her being pleased at my getting into place so soon; but, as I afterwards came
to know, these BELDAMS understood one another very well, and this was a market
where Mrs. Brown, my mistress, frequently attended, on the watch for any fresh
goods that might offer there, for the use of her customers, and her own
profit.
Madam was, however, so well pleased with her bargain, that fearing, I
presume, lest better advice or some accident might occasion my slipping through
her fingers, she would officiously take me in a coach to my inn, where, calling
herself for my box, it was, I being present, delivered without the least scruple
or explanation as to where I was going.
This being over, she bid the coachman drive to a shop in St. Paul's
Churchyard, where she bought a pair of gloves, which she gave me, and thence
renewed her directions to the coachman to drive to her house in *** street, who
accordingly landed us at her door, after I had been cheer'd up and entertain'd
by the way with the most plausible flams, without one syllable from which I
could conclude anything but that I was, by the greatest good luck, fallen into
the hands of the kindest mistress, not to say friend, that the varsal world
could afford; and accordingly I enter'd her doors with most compleat confidence
and exultation, promising myself that, as soon as I should be a little settled,
I would acquaint Esther Davis with my rare good fortune.
You may be sure the good opinion of my place was not lessen'd by the
appearance of a very handsome back parlour, into which I was led and which
seemed to me magnificently furnished, who had never seen better rooms than the
ordinary ones in inns upon the road. There were two gilt pierglasses, and a
buffet, on which a few pieces of plates, set out to the most shew, dazzled, and
altogether persuaded me that I must be got into a very reputable family.
Here my mistress first began her part, with telling me that I must have good
spirits, and learn to be free with her; that she had not taken me to be a common
servant, to do domestic drudgery, but to be a kind of companion to her; and that
if I would be a good girl, she would do more than twenty mothers for me; to all
which I answered only by the profoundest and the awkwardest curtsies, and a few
monosyllables, such as 'yes! no! to be sure!'
Presently my mistress touch'd the bell, and in came a strapping maid-servant,
who had let us in. 'Here, Martha,' said Mrs. Brown -- 'I have just hir'd this
young woman to look after my linen; so step up and shew her her chamber; and I
charge you to use her with as much respect as you would myself, for I have taken
a prodigious liking to her, and I do not know what I shall do for her.'
Martha, who was an arch-jade, and, being used to this decoy, had her cue
perfect, made me a kind of half curtsy, and asked me to walk up with her; and
accordingly shew'd me a neat room, two pair of stairs backwards, in which there
was a handsome bed, where Martha told me I was to lie with a young gentlewoman,
a cousin of my mistress's, who she was sure would be vastly good to me. Then she
ran out into such affected encomiums on her good mistress! her sweet mistress!
and how happy I was to light upon her! that I could not have bespoke a better;
with other the like gross stuff, such as would itself have started suspicions in
any but such an unpractised simpleton, who was perfectly new to life, and who
took every word she said in the very sense she laid out for me to take it; but
she readily saw what a penetration she had to deal with, and measured me very
rightly in her manner of whistling to me, so as to make me pleased with my cage,
and blind to the wires.
In the midst of these false explanations of the nature of my future service,
we were rung for down again, and I was reintroduced into the same parlour, where
there was a table laid with three covers; and my mistress had now got with her
one of her favourite girls, a notable manager of her house, and whose business
it was to prepare and break such young fillies as I was to the mounting-block;
and she was accordingly, in that view, allotted me for a bed-fellow; and, to
give her the more authority, she had the title of cousin conferr'd on her by the
venerable president of this college.
Here I underwent a second survey, which ended in the full approbation of Mrs.
Phoebe Ayres, the name of my tutoress elect, to whose care and instructions I
was affectionately recommended.
Dinner was now set on table, and in pursuance of treating me as a companion,
Mrs. Brown, with a tone to cut off all dispute, soon over-rul'd my most humble
and most confused protestations against sitting down with her LADYSHIP, which my
very short breeding just suggested to me could not be right, or in the order of
things.
At table, the conversation was chiefly kept up by the two madams, and carried
on in double-meaning expressions, interrupted every now and then by kind
assurance to me, all tending to confirm and fix my satisfaction with my present
condition: augment it they could not, so very a novice was I then.
It was here agreed that I should keep myself up and out of sight for a few
days, till such cloaths could be procured for me as were fit for the character I
was to appear in, of my mistress's companion, observing withal, that on the
first impressions of my figure much might depend; and, as they well judged, the
prospect of exchanging my country cloaths for London finery, made the clause of
confinement digest perfectly well with me. But the truth was, Mrs. Brown did not
care that I should be seen or talked to by any, either of her customers, or her
DOES (as they call'd the girls provided for them), till she had secured a good
market for my maidenhead, which I had at least all the appearances of having
brought into her LADYSHIP'S service.
To slip over minutes of no importance to the main of my story, I pass the
interval to bed-time, in which I was more and more pleas'd with the views that
opened to me, of an easy service under these good people; and after supper being
shew'd up to bed, Miss Phoebe, who observed a kind of reluctance in me to strip
and go to bed, in my shift, before her, now the maid was withdrawn, came up to
me, and beginning with unpinning my handkerchief and gown, soon encouraged me to
go on with undressing myself; and, still blushing at now seeing myself naked to
my shift, I hurried to get under the bedcloaths out of sight. Phoebe laugh'd and
was not long before she placed herself by my side. She was about five and
twenty, by her most suspicious account, in which, according to all appearances,
she must have sunk at least ten good years; allowance, too, being made for the
havoc which a long course of hackneyship and hot waters must have made of her
constitution, and which had already brought on, upon the spur, that stale stage
in which those of her profession are reduced to think of SHOWING company,
instead of SEEING it.
No sooner then was this precious substitute of my mistress's laid down, but
she, who was never out of her way when any occasion of lewdness presented
itself, turned to me, embraced and kiss'd me with great eagerness. This was new,
this was odd; but imputing it to nothing but pure kindness, which, for aught I
knew, it might be the London way to express in that manner, I was determin'd not
to be behind hand with her, and returned her the kiss and embrace, with all the
fervour that perfect innocence knew.
Encouraged by this, her hands became extremely free, and wander'd over my
whole body, with touches, squeezes, pressures, that rather warm'd and surpriz'd
me with their novelty, than they either shock'd or alarm'd me.
The flattering praises she intermingled with these invasions, contributed
also not a little to bribe my passiveness; and, knowing no ill, I feared none,
especially from one who had prevented all doubt of her womanhood by conducting
my hands to a pair of breasts that hung loosely down, in a size and volume that
full sufficiently distinguished her sex, to me at least, who had never made any
other comparison ...
I lay then all tame and passive as she could wish, whilst her freedom raised
no other emotions but those of a strange, and, till then, unfelt pleasure. Every
part of me was open and exposed to the licentious courses of her hands, which,
like a lambent fire, ran over my whole body, and thaw'd all coldness as they
went.
My breasts, if it is not too bold a figure to call so two hard, firm, rising
hillocks, that just began to shew themselves, or signify anything to the touch,
employ'd and amus'd her hands a-while, till, slipping down lower, over a smooth
track, she could just feel the soft silky down that had but a few months before
put forth and garnish'd the mount-pleasant of those parts, and promised to
spread a grateful shelter over the seat of the most exquisite sensation, and
which had been, till that instant, the seat of the most insensible innocence.
Her fingers play'd and strove to twine in the young tendrils of that moss, which
nature has contrived at once for use and ornament.
But, not contented with these outer posts, she now attempts the main spot,
and began to twitch, to insinuate, and at length to force an introduction of a
finger into the quick itself, in such a manner, that had she not proceeded by
insensible gradations that inflamed me beyond the power of modesty to oppose its
resistance to their progress, I should have jump'd out of bed and cried for help
against such strange assaults.
Instead of which, her lascivious touches had lighted up a new fire that
wanton'd through all my veins, but fix'd with violence in that center appointed
them by nature, where the first strange hands were now busied in feeling,
squeezing, compressing the lips, then opening them again, with a finger between,
till an 'Oh!' express'd her hurting me, where the narrowness of the unbroken
passage refused it entrance to any depth.
In the meantime, the extension of my limbs, languid stretchings, sighs, short
heavings, all conspired to assure that experienced wanton that I was more
pleased than offended at her proceedings, which she seasoned with repeated
kisses and exclamations, such as 'Oh! what a charming creature thou art! ...
What a happy man will he be that first makes a woman of you! ... Oh! that I were
a man for your sake! ... with the like broken expressions, interrupted by
kisses as fierce and fervent as ever I received from the other sex.
For my part, I was transported, confused, and out of myself; feelings so new
were too much for me. My heated and alarm'd senses were in a tumult that robbed
me of all liberty of thought; tears of pleasure gush'd from my eyes, and
somewhat assuaged the fire that rag'd all over me. Phoebe, herself, the
hackney'd, thorough-bred Phoebe, to whom all modes and devices of pleasure were
known and familiar, found, it seems, in this exercise of her art to break young
girls, the gratification of one of those arbitrary tastes, for which there is no
accounting. Not that she hated men, or did not even prefer them to her own sex;
but when she met with such occasions as this was, a satiety of enjoyments in the
common road, perhaps too, a secret bias, inclined her to make the most of
pleasure, wherever she could find it, without distinction of sexes. In this
view, now well assured that she had, by her touches, sufficiently inflamed me
for her purpose, she roll'd down the bed-cloaths gently, and I saw myself
stretched nak'd, my shift being turned up to my neck, whilst I had no power or
sense to oppose it. Even my glowing blushes expressed more desire than modesty,
whilst the candle, left (to be sure not undesignedly) burning, threw a full
light on my whole body.
'No!' says Phoebe, 'you must not, my sweet girl, think to hide all these
treasures from me. My sight must be feasted as well as my touch ... I must
devour with my eyes this springing BOSOM ... Suffer me to kiss it ... I have not
seen it enough ... Let me kiss it once more ... What firm, smooth, white flesh
is here! ... How delicately shaped! ... Then this delicious down! Oh! let me
view the small, dear, tender cleft! ... This is too much, I cannot bear it! ...
I must ... I must . . .' Here she took my hand, and in a transport carried it
where you will easily guess. But what a difference in the state of the same
thing! ... A spreading thicket of bushy curls marked the full-grown, complete
woman. Then the cavity to which she guided my hand easily received it; and as
soon as she felt it within her, she moved herself to and fro, with so rapid a
friction that I presently withdrew it, wet and clammy, when instantly Phoebe
grew more composed, after two or three sighs, and heart-fetched Oh's! and giving
me a kiss that seemed to exhale her soul through her lips, she replaced the
bed-cloaths over us. What pleasure she had found I will not say; but this I
know, that the first sparks of kindling nature, the first ideas of pollution,
were caught by me that night; and that the acquaintance and communication with
the bad of our own sex, is often as fatal to innocence as all the seductions of
the other. But to go on. When Phoebe was restor'd to that calm, which I was far
from the enjoyment of myself, she artfully sounded me on all the points
necessary to govern the designs of my virtuous mistress on me, and by my
answers, drawn from pure undissembled nature, she had no reason but to promise
herself all imaginable success, so far as it depended on my ignorance, easiness,
and warmth of constitution.
After a sufficient length of dialogue, my bedfellow left me to my rest, and I
fell asleep, through pure weariness from the violent emotions I had been led
into, when nature (which had been too warmly stir'd and fermented to subside
without allaying by some means or other) relieved me by one of those luscious
dreams, the transports of which are scarce inferior to those of waking real
action.
We breakfasted, and the tea things were scarce removed, when in were brought
two bundles of linen and wearing apparel: in short, all the necessaries for
rigging me out, as they termed it, completely.
In the morning I awoke about ten, perfectly gay and refreshed. Phoebe was up
before me, and asked me in the kindest manner how I did, how I had rested, and
if I was ready for breakfast, carefully, at the same time, avoiding to increase
the confusion she saw I was in, at looking her in the face, by any hint of the
night's bed scene. I told her if she pleased I would get up, and begin any work
she would be pleased to set me about. She smil'd; presently the maid brought in
the tea-equipage, and I had just huddled my cloaths on, when in waddled my
mistress. I expected no less than to be told of, if not chid for, my late
rising, when I was agreeably disappointed by her compliments on my pure and
fresh looks. I was 'a bud of beauty' (this was her style), 'and how vastly all
the fine men would admire me!' to all which my answer did not, I can assure you,
wrong my breeding; they were as simple and silly as they could wish, and, no
doubt, flattered them infinitely more than had they proved me enlightened by
education and a knowledge of the world.
Imagine to yourself, Madam, how my little coquette heart flutter'd with joy
at the sight of a white lute-string, flower'd with silver, scoured indeed, but
passed on me for spick-and-span new, a Brussels lace cap, braided shoes, and the
rest in proportion, all second-hand finery, and procured instantly for the
occasion, by the diligence and industry of the good Mrs. Brown, who had already
a chapman for me in the house, before whom my charms were to pass in review; for
he had not only, in course, insisted on a previous sight of the premises, but
also on immediate surrender to him, in case of his agreeing for me; concluding
very wisely that such a place as I was in was of the hottest to trust the
keeping of such a perishable commodity in as a maidenhead.
The care of dressing, and tricking me out for the market, was then left to
Phoebe, who acquitted herself, if not well, at least perfectly to the
satisfaction of every thing but my impatience of seeing myself dress'd. When it
was over, and I view'd myself in the glass, I was, no doubt, too natural, too
artless, to hide my childish joy at the change; a change, in the real truth, for
much the worse, since I must have much better become the neat easy simplicity of
my rustic dress than the awkward, untoward, taudry finery that I could not
conceal my strangeness to.
Phoebe's compliments, however, in which her own share in dressing me was not
forgot, did not a little confirm me in the first notions I had ever entertained
concerning my person; which, be it said without vanity, was then tolerable to
justify a taste for me, and of which it may not be out of place here to sketch
you an unflatter'd picture.
I was tall, yet not too tall for my age, which, as I before remark'd, was
barely turned of fifteen; my shape perfectly straight, thin waisted, and light
and free, without owing any thing to stays; my hair was a glossy auburn, and as
soft as silk, flowing down my neck in natural buckles, and did not a little set
off the whiteness of a smooth skin; my face was rather too ruddy, though its
features were delicate, and the shape a roundish oval, except where a pit on my
chin had far from a disagreeable effect; my eyes were as black as can be
imagin'd, and rather languishing than sparkling, except on certain occasions,
when I have been told they struck fire fast enough; my teeth, which I ever
carefully perserv'd, were small, even and white; my bosom was finely rais'd, and
one might then discern rather the promise, than the actual growth, of the round,
firm breasts, that in a little time made that promise good. In short, all the
points of beauty that are most universally in request, I had, or at least my
vanity forbade me to appeal from the decision of our sovereign judges the men,
who all, that I ever knew at least, gave it thus highly in my favour; and I met
with, even in my own sex, some that were above denying me that justice, whilst
others praised me yet more unsuspectedly, by endeavouring to detract from me, in
points of person and figure that I obviously excelled in. This is, I own, too
strong of self praise; but should I not be ungrateful to nature, and to a form
to which I owe such singular blessings of pleasure and fortune, were I to
suppress, through and affectation of modesty, the mention of such valuable
gifts?
Well then, dress'd I was, and little did it then enter into my head that all
this gay attire was no more than decking the victim out for sacrifice, whilst I
innocently attributed all to mere friendship and kindness in the sweet good Mrs.
Brown; who, I was forgetting to mention, had, under pretence of keeping my money
safe, got from me, without the least hesitation, the driblet (so I now call it)
which remained to me after the expences of my journey.
After some little time most agreeably spent before the glass, in scarce
self-admiration, since my new dress had by much the greatest share in it, I was
sent for down to the parlour, where the old lady saluted me, and wished me joy
of my new cloaths, which she was not asham'd to say, fitted me as if I had worn
nothing but the finest all my life-time; but what was it she could not see me
silly enough to swallow? At the same time, she presented me to another cousin of
her own creation, an elderly gentleman, who got up, at my entry into the room,
and on my dropping a curtsy to him, saluted me, and seemed a little affronted
that I had only presented my cheek to him; a mistake, which, if one, he
immediately corrected, by glewing his lips to mine, with an ardour which his
figure had not at all disposed me to thank him for; his figure, I say, than
which nothing could be more shocking or detestable: for ugly, and disagreeable,
were terms too gentle to convey a just idea of it.
Imagine to yourself a man rather past threescore, short and ill-made, with a
yellow cadaverous hue, great goggling eyes that stared as if he was strangled;
and out-mouth from two more properly tusks than teeth, livid-lips, and breath
like a jake's: then he had a peculiar ghastliness in his grin that made him
perfectly frightful, if not dangerous to women with child; yet, made as he was
thus in mock of man, he was so blind to his own staring deformities as to think
himself born for pleasing, and that no woman could see him with impunity: in
consequence of which idea, he had lavish'd great sums on such wretches as could
gain upon themselves to pretend love to his person, whilst to those who had not
art or patience to dissemble the horror it inspir'd, he behaved even brutally.
Impotence, more than necessity, made him seek in variety the provocative that
was wanting to raise him to the pitch of enjoyment, which too he often saw
himself baulked of, by the failure of his powers: and this always threw him into
a fit of rage, which he wreak'd, as far as he durst, on the innocent objects of
his fit of momentary desire.
This then was the monster to which my conscientious benefactress, who had
long been his purveyor in this way, had doom'd me, and sent for me down
purposely for his examination. Accordingly she made me stand up before him,
turn'd me round, unpinn'd my handkerchief, remark'd to him the rise and fall,
the turn and whiteness of a bosom just beginning to fill; then made me walk, and
took even a handle from the rusticity of my gait, to inflame the inventory of my
charms: in short, she omitted no point of jockeyship; to which he only answer'd
by gracious nods of approbation, whilst he look'd goats and monkies at me: for I
sometimes stole a corner glance at him, and encountering his fiery, eager stare,
looked another way from pure horror and affright, which he, doubtless in
character, attributed to nothing more than maiden modesty, or at least the
affectation of it.
However, I was soon dismiss'd, and reconducted to my room by Phoebe, who
stuck close to me, not leaving me alone and at leisure to make such reflections
as might naturally rise to any one, not an idiot, on such a scene as I had just
gone through; but to my shame be it confess'd, such was my invincible stupidity,
or rather portentous innocence, that I did not yet open my eyes to Mrs. Brown's
designs, and saw nothing in this titular cousin of hers but a shocking hideous
person which did not at all concern me, unless that my respect to all her
cousinhood.
Phoebe, however, began to sift the state and pulses of my heart towards this
monster, asking me how I should approve of such a fine gentleman for a husband?
(fine gentleman, I suppose she called him, from his being daubed with lace). I
answered her very naturally, that I had no thoughts of a husband, but that if I
was to choose one, it should be among my own degree, sure! So much had my
aversion to that wretch's hideous figure indisposed me to all 'fine gentlemen,'
and confounded my ideas, as if those of that rank had been necessarily cast in
the same mould that he was! But Phoebe was not to be beat off so, but went on
with her endeavours to melt and soften me for the purposes of my reception into
that hospitable house: and whilst she talked of the sex in general, she had no
reason to despair of a compliance, which more than one reason shewed her would
be easily enough obtained of me; but then she had too much experience not to
discover that my particular fix'd aversion to that frightful cousin would be a
block not so readily to be removed, as suited the consummation of their bargain,
and sale of me.
Mother Brown had in the mean time agreed the terms with this liquorish old
goat, which I afterwards understood were to be fifty guineas peremptory for the
liberty of attempting me, and a hundred more at the compleat gratification of
his desires, in the triumph over my virginity: and as for me, I was to be left
entirely at the discretion of his liking and generosity. This unrighteous
contract being thus settled, he was so eager to be put in possession, that he
insisted on being introduc'd to drink tea with me that afternoon, when we were
to be left alone; nor would he hearken to the procuress's remonstrances, that I
was not sufficiently prepared and ripened for such an attack; that I was too
green and untam'd, having been scarce twenty-four hours in the house: it is the
character of lust to be impatient, and his vanity arming him against any
supposition of other than the common resistance of a maid on those occasions,
made him reject all proposals of a delay, and my dreadful trial was thus fix'd,
unknown to me, for that very evening.
At dinner, Mrs. Brown and Phoebe did nothing but run riot in praises of this
wonderful cousin, and how happy that woman would be that he would favour with
his addresses; in short my two gossips exhausted all their rhetoric to persuade
me to accept them: 'that the gentleman was violently smitten with me at first
sight ... that he would make my fortune if I would be a good girl and not stand
in my own light ... that I should trust his honour ... that I should be made for
ever, and have a chariot to go abroad in ... ,' with all such stuff as was fit
to turn the head of such a silly ignorant girl as I then was: but luckily here
my aversion had taken already such deep root in me, my heart was so strongly
defended from him by my senses, that wanting the art to mask my sentiments, I
gave them no hopes of their employer's succeeding, at least very easily, with
me. The glass too march'd pretty quick, with a view, I suppose, to make a friend
of the warmth of my constitution, in the minutes of the imminent attack.
Thus they kept me pretty long at table, and about six in the evening, after I
was retired to my own apartment, and the tea board was set, enters my venerable
mistress, follow'd close by that satyr, who came in grinning in a way peculiar
to him, and by his odious presence confirm'd me in all the sentiments of
detestation which his first appearance had given birth to.
He sat down fronting me, and all tea time kept ogling me in a manner that
gave me the utmost pain and confusion, all the marks of which he still explained
to be my bashfulness, and not being used to see company.
Tea over, the commoding old lady pleaded urgent business (which indeed was
true) to go out, and earnestly desir'd me to entertain her cousin kindly till
she came back, both for my own sake and her's; and then with a 'Pray, sir, be
very good, be very tender of the sweet child,' she went out of the room, leaving
me staring, with my mouth open, and unprepar'd, by the suddenness of her
departure, to oppose it.
We were now alone; and on that idea a sudden fit of trembling seiz'd me. I
was so afraid, without a precise notion of why, and what I had to fear, that I
sat on the settee, by the fire-side, motionless, and petrified, without life or
spirit, not knowing how to look or how to stir.
But long I was not suffered to remain in this state of stupefaction: the
monster squatted down by me on the settee, and without farther ceremony or
preamble, flings his arms about my neck, and drawing me pretty forcibly towards
him, oblig'd me to receive, in spite of my struggles to disengage from him, his
pestilential kisses, which quite overcame me. Finding me then next to senseless,
and unresisting, he tears off my neck handkerchief, and laid all open there to
his eyes and hands: still I endur'd all without flinching, till embolden'd by my
sufferance and silence, for I had not the power to speak or cry out, he
attempted to lay me down on the settee, and I felt his hand on the lower part of
my naked thighs, which were cross'd, and which he endeavoured to unlock ... Oh
then! I was roused out of my passive endurance, and springing from him with an
activity he was not prepar'd for, threw myself at his feet, and begg'd him, in
the most moving tone, not to be rude, and that he would not hurt me: -- 'Hurt
you, my dear?' says the brute; 'I intend you no harm ... has not the old lady
told you that I love you? ... that I shall do handsomely by you?' 'She has
indeed, sir,' said I; 'but I cannot love you, indeed I can not! ... pray let me
alone ... yes! I will love you dearly if you will let me alone, and go away ...
' But I was talking to the wind; for whether my tears, my attitude, or the
disorder of my dress prov'd fresh incentives, or whether he was not under the
dominion of desires he could not bridle, but snorting and foaming with lust and
rage, he renews his attack, seizes me, and again attempts to extend and fix me
on the settee: in which he succeeded so far as to lay me along, and even to toss
my petticoats over my head, and lay my thighs bare, which I obstinately kept
close, nor could he, though he attempted with his knee to force them open,
effect it so as to stand fair for being master of the main avenue; he was
unbuttoned, both waistcoat and breeches, yet I only felt the weight of his body
upon me, whilst I lay struggling with indignation, and dying with terror; but he
stopped all of a sudden, and got off, panting, blowing, cursing, and repeating
'old and ugly!' for so I had very naturally called him in the heat of my
defence.
The brute had, it seems, as I afterwards understood, brought on, by his
eagerness and struggle, the ultimate period of his hot fit of lust, which his
power was too short liv'd to carry him through the full execution of; of which
my thighs and linen received the effusion.
When it was over he bid me, with a tone of displeasure, get up, saying that
he would not do me the honour to think of me any more ... that the old bitch
might look out for another cully ... that he would not be fool'd so by e'er a
country mock modesty in England ... that he supposed I had left my maidenhead
with some hobnail in the country, and was come to dispose of my skin-milk in
town, with a volley of the like abuse; which I listened to with more pleasure
than ever fond woman did to protestations of love from her darling minion: for,
incapable as I was of receiving any addition to my perfect hatred and aversion
to him, I look'd on this railing as my security against his renewing his most
odious caresses.
Yet, plain as Mrs. Brown's views were now come out, I had not the heart or
spirit to open my eyes to them: still I could not part with my dependence on
that beldam, so much did I think myself her's, soul and body: or rather, I
sought to deceive myself with the continuation of my good opinion of her, and
chose to wait the worst at her hands sooner than be turn'd out to starve in the
streets, without a penny of money or a friend to apply to: these fears were my
folly.
Whilst this confusion of ideas was passing in my head, and I sat pensive by
the fire, with my eyes brimming with tears, my neck still bare, and my cap
fall'n off in the struggle, so that my hair was in the disorder you may guess,
the villain's lust began, I suppose, to be again in flow, at the sight of all
that bloom of youth which presented itself to his view, a bloom yet unenjoy'd,
and of course not yet indifferent to him.
After some pause, he ask'd me, with a tone of voice mightily softened,
whether I would make it up with him before the old lady returned and all should
be well; he would restore me his affections, at the same time offering to kiss
me and feel my breasts. But now my extreme aversion, my fears, my indignation,
all acting upon me, gave me a spirit not natural to me, so that breaking loose
from him, I ran to the bell and rang it, before he was aware, with such violence
and effect as brought up the maid to know what was the matter, or whether the
gentleman wanted any thing; and before he could proceed to greater extremities,
she bounc'd into the room, and seeing me stretch'd on the floor, my hair all
dishevell'd, my nose gushing out blood, which did not a little tragedize the
scene, and my odious persecutor still intent of pushing his brutal point,
unmoved by all my cries and distress, she was herself confounded and did not
know what to say.
As much, however, as Martha might be prepared and hardened to transactions of
this sort, all womanhood must have been out of her heart, could she have seen
this unmov'd. Besides that, on the face of things, she imagined that matters had
gone greater lengths than they really had, and that the courtesy of the house
had been actually consummated on me, and flung me into the condition I was in:
in this notion she instantly took my part, and advis'd the gentleman to go down
and leave me to recover myself, and 'that all would be soon over with me ...
that when Mrs. Brown and Phoebe, who were gone out, were return'd, they would
take order for every thing to his satisfaction ... that nothing would be lost by
a little patience with the poor tender thing ... that for her part she was ...
frighten'd ... she could not tell what to say to such doings ... but that she
would stay by me till my mistress came home.' As the wench said all this in a
resolute tone, and the monster himself began to perceive that things would not
mend by his staying, he took his hat and went out of the room, murmuring, and
pleating his brows like an old ape, so that I was delivered from the horrors of
his detestable presence.
As soon as he was gone, Martha very tenderly offered me her assistance in any
thing, and would have got me some hartshorn drops, and put me to bed; which
last, I at first positively refused, in the fear that the monster might return
and take me at that advantage. However, with much persuasion, and assurances
that I should not be molested that night, she prevailed on me to lie down; and
indeed I was so weakened by my struggles, so dejected by my fearful
apprehensions, so terror-struck, that I had not power to sit up, or hardly to
give answers to the questions with which the curious Martha ply'd and perplex'd
me.
Such too, and so cruel was my fate, that I dreaded the sight of Mrs. Brown,
as if I had been the criminal and she the person injur'd; a mistake which you
will not think so strange, on distinguishing that neither virtue nor principles
had the least share in the defence I had made, but only the particular aversion
I had conceiv'd against the first brutal and frightful invader of my tender
innocence.
I pass'd then the time till Mrs. Brown's return home, under all the
agitations of fear and despair that may easily be guessed.