The Fortunate Mistress Part 18

I seemed in a little hurry while Amy came and went so every day at first, but when that was over I lived here perfectly retired, and with a most pleasant and agreeable lady; I must call her so, for, though a Quaker, she had a full share of good breeding, sufficient to her if she had been a d.u.c.h.ess; in a word, she was the most agreeable creature in her conversation, as I said before, that ever I met with.

I pretended, after I had been there some time, to be extremely in love with the dress of the Quakers, and this pleased her so much that she would needs dress me up one day in a suit of her own clothes; but my real design was to see whether it would pa.s.s upon me for a disguise.

Amy was struck with the novelty, though I had not mentioned my design to her, and when the Quaker was gone out of the room says Amy, "I guess your meaning; it is a perfect disguise to you. Why, you look quite another body; I should not have known you myself. Nay," says Amy, "more than that, it makes you look ten years younger than you did."

Nothing could please me better than that, and when Amy repeated it, I was so fond of it that I asked my Quaker (I won't call her landlady; 'tis indeed too coa.r.s.e a word for her, and she deserved a much better)--I say, I asked her if she would sell it. I told her I was so fond of it that I would give her enough to buy her a better suit. She declined it at first, but I soon perceived that it was chiefly in good manners, because I should not dishonour myself, as she called it, to put on her old clothes; but if I pleased to accept of them, she would give me them for my dressing-clothes, and go with me, and buy a suit for me that might be better worth my wearing.

But as I conversed in a very frank, open manner with her, I bid her do the like with me; that I made no scruples of such things, but that if she would let me have them I would satisfy her. So she let me know what they cost, and to make her amends I gave her three guineas more than they cost her.

This good (though unhappy) Quaker had the misfortune to have had a bad husband, and he was gone beyond sea. She had a good house, and well furnished, and had some jointure of her own estate which supported her and her children, so that she did not want; but she was not at all above such a help as my being there was to her; so she was as glad of me as I was of her.

However, as I knew there was no way to fix this new acquaintance like making myself a friend to her, I began with making her some handsome presents and the like to her children. And first, opening my bundles one day in my chamber, I heard her in another room, and called her in with a kind of familiar way. There I showed her some of my fine clothes, and having among the rest of my things a piece of very fine new holland, which I had bought a little before, worth about 9s. an ell, I pulled it out: "Here, my friend," says I, "I will make you a present, if you will accept of it;" and with that I laid the piece of Holland in her lap.

I could see she was surprised, and that she could hardly speak. "What dost thou mean?" says she. "Indeed I cannot have the face to accept so fine a present as this;" adding, "'Tis fit for thy own use, but 'tis above my wear, indeed." I thought she had meant she must not wear it so fine because she was a Quaker. So I returned, "Why, do not you Quakers wear fine linen neither?" "Yes," says she, "we wear fine linen when we can afford it, but this is too good for me." However, I made her take it, and she was very thankful too. But my end was answered another way, for by this I engaged her so, that as I found her a woman of understanding, and of honesty too, I might, upon any occasion, have a confidence in her, which was, indeed, what I very much wanted.

By accustoming myself to converse with her, I had not only learned to dress like a Quaker, but so used myself to "thee" and "thou" that I talked like a Quaker too, as readily and naturally as if I had been born among them; and, in a word, I pa.s.sed for a Quaker among all people that did not know me. I went but little abroad, but I had been so used to a coach that I knew not how well to go without one; besides, I thought it would be a farther disguise to me, so I told my Quaker friend one day that I thought I lived too close, that I wanted air. She proposed taking a hackney-coach sometimes, or a boat; but I told her I had always had a coach of my own till now, and I could find in my heart to have one again.

She seemed to think it strange at first, considering how close I lived, but had nothing to say when she found I did not value the expense; so, in short, I resolved I would have a coach. When we came to talk of equipages, she extolled the having all things plain. I said so too; so I left it to her direction, and a coachmaker was sent for, and he provided me a plain coach, no gilding or painting, lined with a light grey cloth, and my coachman had a coat of the same, and no lace on his hat.

When all was ready I dressed myself in the dress I bought of her, and said, "Come, I'll be a Quaker to-day, and you and I'll go abroad;" which we did, and there was not a Quaker in the town looked less like a counterfeit than I did. But all this was my particular plot, to be the more completely concealed, and that I might depend upon being not known, and yet need not be confined like a prisoner and be always in fear; so that all the rest was grimace.

We lived here very easy and quiet, and yet I cannot say I was so in my mind; I was like a fish out of water. I was as gay and as young in my disposition as I was at five-and-twenty; and as I had always been courted, flattered, and used to love it, so I missed it in my conversation; and this put me many times upon looking back upon things past.

I had very few moments in my life which, in their reflection, afforded me anything but regret: but of all the foolish actions I had to look back upon in my life, none looked so preposterous and so like distraction, nor left so much melancholy on my mind, as my parting with my friend, the merchant of Paris, and the refusing him upon such honourable and just conditions as he had offered; and though on his just (which I called unkind) rejecting my invitation to come to him again, I had looked on him with some disgust, yet now my mind run upon him continually, and the ridiculous conduct of my refusing him, and I could never be satisfied about him. I flattered myself that if I could but see him I could yet master him, and that he would presently forget all that had pa.s.sed that might be thought unkind; but as there was no room to imagine anything like that to be possible, I threw those thoughts off again as much as I could.

However, they continually returned, and I had no rest night or day for thinking of him, who I had forgot above eleven years. I told Amy of it, and we talked it over sometimes in bed, almost whole nights together. At last Amy started a thing of her own head, which put it in a way of management, though a wild one too. "You are so uneasy, madam," says she, "about this Mr. ----, the merchant at Paris; come," says she, "if you'll give me leave, I'll go over and see what's become of him."

"Not for ten thousand pounds," said I; "no, nor if you met him in the street, not to offer to speak to him on my account." "No," says Amy, "I would not speak to him at all; or if I did, I warrant you it shall not look to be upon your account. I'll only inquire after him, and if he is in being, you shall hear of him; if not, you shall hear of him still, and that may be enough."

"Why," says I, "if you will promise me not to enter into anything relating to me with him, nor to begin any discourse at all unless he begins it with you, I could almost be persuaded to let you go and try."

Amy promised me all that I desired; and, in a word, to cut the story short, I let her go, but tied her up to so many particulars that it was almost impossible her going could signify anything; and had she intended to observe them, she might as well have stayed at home as have gone, for I charged her, if she came to see him, she should not so much as take notice that she knew him again; and if he spoke to her, she should tell him she was come away from me a great many years ago, and knew nothing what was become of me; that she had been come over to France six years ago, and was married there, and lived at Calais; or to that purpose.

Amy promised me nothing, indeed; for, as she said, it was impossible for her to resolve what would be fit to do, or not to do, till she was there upon the spot, and had found out the gentleman, or heard of him; but that then, if I would trust her, as I had always done, she would answer for it that she would do nothing but what should be for my interest, and what she would hope I should be very well pleased with.

With this general commission, Amy, notwithstanding she had been so frighted at the sea, ventured her carca.s.s once more by water, and away she goes to France. She had four articles of confidence in charge to inquire after for me, and, as I found by her, she had one for herself--I say, four for me, because, though her first and princ.i.p.al errand was to inform myself of my Dutch merchant, yet I gave her in charge to inquire, second, after my husband, who I left a trooper in the _gens d'armes_; third, after that rogue of a Jew, whose very name I hated, and of whose face I had such a frightful idea that Satan himself could not counterfeit a worse; and, lastly, after my foreign prince. And she discharged herself very well of them all, though not so successful as I wished.

Amy had a very good pa.s.sage over the sea, and I had a letter from her, from Calais, in three days after she went from London. When she came to Paris she wrote me an account, that as to her first and most important inquiry, which was after the Dutch merchant, her account was, that he had returned to Paris, lived three years there, and quitting that city, went to live at Rouen; so away goes Amy for Rouen.

But as she was going to bespeak a place in the coach to Rouen, she meets very accidentally in the street with her gentleman, as I called him--that is to say, the Prince de ----'s gentleman, who had been her favourite, as above.

You may be sure there were several other kind things happened between Amy and him, as you shall hear afterwards; but the two main things were, first, that Amy inquired about his lord, and had a full account of him, of which presently; and, in the next place, telling him whither she was going and for what, he bade her not go yet, for that he would have a particular account of it the next day from a merchant that knew him; and, accordingly, he brought her word the next day that he had been for six years before that gone for Holland, and that he lived there still.

This, I say, was the first news from Amy for some time--I mean about my merchant. In the meantime Amy, as I have said, inquired about the other persons she had in her instructions. As for the prince, the gentleman told her he was gone into Germany, where his estate lay, and that he lived there; that he had made great inquiry after me; that he (his gentleman) had made all the search he had been able for me, but that he could not hear of me; that he believed, if his lord had known I had been in England, he would have gone over to me; but that, after long inquiry, he was obliged to give it over; but that he verily believed, if he could have found me, he would have married me; and that he was extremely concerned that he could hear nothing of me.

I was not at all satisfied with Amy's account, but ordered her to go to Rouen herself, which she did, and there with much difficulty (the person she was directed to being dead)--I say, with much difficulty she came to be informed that my merchant had lived there two years, or something more, but that, having met with a very great misfortune, he had gone back to Holland, as the French merchant said, where he had stayed two years; but with this addition, viz., that he came back again to Rouen, and lived in good reputation there another year; and afterwards he was gone to England, and that he lived in London. But Amy could by no means learn how to write to him there, till, by great accident, an old Dutch skipper, who had formerly served him, coming to Rouen, Amy was told of it; and he told her that he lodged in St.

Laurence Pountney's Lane, in London, but was to be seen every day upon the Exchange, in the French walk.

This, Amy thought, it was time enough to tell me of when she came over; and, besides, she did not find this Dutch skipper till she had spent four or five months and been again in Paris, and then come back to Rouen for farther information. But in the meantime she wrote to me from Paris that he was not to be found by any means; that he had been gone from Paris seven or eight years; that she was told he had lived at Rouen, and she was agoing thither to inquire, but that she had heard afterwards that he was gone also from thence to Holland, so she did not go.

This, I say, was Amy's first account; and I, not satisfied with it, had sent her an order to go to Rouen to inquire there also, as above.

While this was negotiating, and I received these accounts from Amy at several times, a strange adventure happened to me which I must mention just here. I had been abroad to take the air as usual with my Quaker, as far as Epping Forest, and we were driving back towards London, when, on the road between Bow and Mile End, two gentlemen on horseback came riding by, having overtaken the coach and pa.s.sed it, and went forwards towards London.

They did not ride apace though they pa.s.sed the coach, for we went very softly; nor did they look into the coach at all, but rode side by side, earnestly talking to one another and inclining their faces sideways a little towards one another, he that went nearest the coach with his face from it, and he that was farthest from the coach with his face towards it, and pa.s.sing in the very next tract to the coach, I could hear them talk Dutch very distinctly. But it is impossible to describe the confusion I was in when I plainly saw that the farthest of the two, him whose face looked towards the coach, was my friend the Dutch merchant of Paris.

If it had been possible to conceal my disorder from my friend the Quaker I would have done it, but I found she was too well acquainted with such things not to take the hint. "Dost thou understand Dutch?" said she.

"Why?" said I. "Why," says she, "it is easy to suppose that thou art a little concerned at somewhat those men say; I suppose they are talking of thee." "Indeed, my good friend," said I, "thou art mistaken this time, for I know very well what they are talking of, but 'tis all about s.h.i.+ps and trading affairs." "Well," says she, "then one of them is a man friend of thine, or somewhat is the case; for though thy tongue will not confess it, thy face does."

I was going to have told a bold lie, and said I knew nothing of them; but I found it was impossible to conceal it, so I said, "Indeed, I think I know the farthest of them; but I have neither spoken to him or so much as seen him for about eleven years." "Well, then," says she, "thou hast seen him with more than common eyes when thou didst see him, or else seeing him now would not be such a surprise to thee." "Indeed," said I, "it is true I am a little surprised at seeing him just now, for I thought he had been in quite another part of the world; and I can a.s.sure you I never saw him in England in my life." "Well, then, it is the more likely he is come over now on purpose to seek thee." "No, no," said I, "knight-errantry is over; women are not so hard to come at that men should not be able to please themselves without running from one kingdom to another." "Well, well," says she, "I would have him see thee for all that, as plainly as thou hast seen him." "No, but he shan't," says I, "for I am sure he don't know me in this dress, and I'll take care he shan't see my face, if I can help it;" so I held up my fan before my face, and she saw me resolute in that, so she pressed me no farther.

We had several discourses upon the subject, but still I let her know I was resolved he should not know me; but at last I confessed so much, that though I would not let him know who I was or where I lived, I did not care if I knew where he lived and how I might inquire about him. She took the hint immediately, and her servant being behind the coach, she called him to the coach-side and bade him keep his eye upon that gentleman, and as soon as the coach came to the end of Whitechapel he should get down and follow him closely, so as to see where he put up his horse, and then to go into the inn and inquire, if he could, who he was and where he lived.

The fellow followed diligently to the gate of an inn in Bishopsgate Street, and seeing him go in, made no doubt but he had him fast; but was confounded when, upon inquiry, he found the inn was a thoroughfare into another street, and that the two gentlemen had only rode through the inn, as the way to the street where they were going; and so, in short, came back no wiser than he went.

My kind Quaker was more vexed at the disappointment, at least apparently so, than I was; and asking the fellow if he was sure he knew the gentleman again if he saw him, the fellow said he had followed him so close and took so much notice of him, in order to do his errand as it ought to be done, that he was very sure he should know him again; and that, besides, he was sure he should know his horse.

This part was, indeed, likely enough; and the kind Quaker, without telling me anything of the matter, caused her man to place himself just at the corner of Whitechapel Church wall every Sat.u.r.day in the afternoon, that being the day when the citizens chiefly ride abroad to take the air, and there to watch all the afternoon and look for him.

It was not till the fifth Sat.u.r.day that her man came, with a great deal of joy, and gave her an account that he had found out the gentleman; that he was a Dutchman, but a French merchant; that he came from Rouen, and his name was ----, and that he lodged at Mr. ----'s, on Laurence Pountney's Hill. I was surprised, you may be sure, when she came and told me one evening all the particulars, except that of having set her man to watch. "I have found out thy Dutch friend," says she, "and can tell thee how to find him too." I coloured again as red as fire. "Then thou hast dealt with the evil one, friend," said I very gravely. "No, no," says she, "I have no familiar; but I tell thee I have found him for thee, and his name is So-and-so, and he lives as above recited."

I was surprised again at this, not being able to imagine how she should come to know all this. However, to put me out of pain, she told me what she had done. "Well," said I, "thou art very kind, but this is not worth thy pains; for now I know it, 'tis only to satisfy my curiosity; for I shall not send to him upon any account." "Be that as thou wilt,"

says she. "Besides," added she, "thou art in the right to say so to me, for why should I be trusted with it? Though, if I were, I a.s.sure thee I should not betray thee." "That's very kind," said I, "and I believe thee; and a.s.sure thyself, if I do send to him, thou shalt know it, and be trusted with it too."

During this interval of five weeks I suffered a hundred thousand perplexities of mind. I was thoroughly convinced I was right as to the person, that it was the man. I knew him so well, and saw him so plain, I could not be deceived. I drove out again in the coach (on pretence of air) almost every day in hopes of seeing him again, but was never so lucky as to see him; and now I had made the discovery I was as far to seek what measures to take as I was before.

To send to him, or speak to him first if I should see him, so as to be known to him, that I resolved not to do, if I died for it. To watch him about his lodging, that was as much below my spirit as the other. So that, in a word, I was at a perfect loss how to act or what to do.

At length came Amy's letter, with the last account which she had at Rouen from the Dutch skipper, which, confirming the other, left me out of doubt that this was my man; but still no human invention could bring me to the speech of him in such a manner as would suit with my resolutions. For, after all, how did I know what his circ.u.mstances were?

whether married or single? And if he had a wife, I knew he was so honest a man he would not so much as converse with me, or so much as know me if he met me in the street.

In the next place, as he entirely neglected me, which, in short, is the worst way of slighting a woman, and had given no answer to my letters, I did not know but he might be the same man still; so I resolved that I could do nothing in it unless some fairer opportunity presented, which might make my way clearer to me; for I was determined he should have no room to put any more slights upon me.

In these thoughts I pa.s.sed away near three months; till at last, being impatient, I resolved to send for Amy to come over, and tell her how things stood, and that I would do nothing till she came. Amy, in answer, sent me word she would come away with all speed, but begged of me that I would enter into no engagement with him, or anybody, till she arrived; but still keeping me in the dark as to the thing itself which she had to say; at which I was heartily vexed, for many reasons.

But while all these things were transacting, and letters and answers pa.s.sed between Amy and I a little slower than usual, at which I was not so well pleased as I used to be with Amy's despatch--I say, in this time the following scene opened.

It was one afternoon, about four o'clock, my friendly Quaker and I sitting in her chamber upstairs, and very cheerful, chatting together (for she was the best company in the world), when somebody ringing hastily at the door, and no servant just then in the way, she ran down herself to the door, when a gentleman appears, with a footman attending, and making some apologies, which she did not thoroughly understand, he speaking but broken English, he asked to speak with me, by the very same name that I went by in her house, which, by the way, was not the name that he had known me by.

She, with very civil language, in her way, brought him into a very handsome parlour below stairs, and said she would go and see whether the person who lodged in her house owned that name, and he should hear farther.

I was a little surprised, even before I knew anything of who it was, my mind foreboding the thing as it happened (whence that arises let the naturalists explain to us); but I was frighted and ready to die when my Quaker came up all gay and crowing. "There," says she, "is the Dutch French merchant come to see thee." I could not speak one word to her nor stir off of my chair, but sat as motionless as a statue. She talked a thousand pleasant things to me, but they made no impression on me. At last she pulled me and teased me. "Come, come," says she, "be thyself, and rouse up. I must go down again to him; what shall I say to him?"

"Say," said I, "that you have no such body in the house." "That I cannot do," says she, "because it is not the truth. Besides, I have owned thou art above. Come, come, go down with me." "Not for a thousand guineas," said I. "Well," says she, "I'll go and tell him thou wilt come quickly." So, without giving me time to answer her, away she goes.

A million of thoughts circulated in my head while she was gone, and what to do I could not tell; I saw no remedy but I must speak with him, but would have given 500 to have shunned it; yet had I shunned it, perhaps then I would have given 500 again that I had seen him. Thus fluctuating and unconcluding were my thoughts, what I so earnestly desired I declined when it offered itself; and what now I pretended to decline was nothing but what I had been at the expense of 40 or 50 to send Amy to France for, and even without any view, or, indeed, any rational expectation of bringing it to pa.s.s; and what for half a year before I was so uneasy about that I could not be quiet night or day till Amy proposed to go over to inquire after him. In short, my thoughts were all confused and in the utmost disorder. I had once refused and rejected him, and I repented it heartily; then I had taken ill his silence, and in my mind rejected him again, but had repented that too. Now I had stooped so low as to send after him into France, which if he had known, perhaps, he had never come after me; and should I reject him a third time! On the other hand, he had repented too, in his turn, perhaps, and not knowing how I had acted, either in stooping to send in search after him or in the wickeder part of my life, was come over hither to seek me again; and I might take him, perhaps, with the same advantages as I might have done before, and would I now be backward to see him! Well, while I was in this hurry my friend the Quaker comes up again, and perceiving the confusion I was in, she runs to her closet and fetched me a little pleasant cordial; but I would not taste it. "Oh," says she, "I understand thee. Be not uneasy; I'll give thee something shall take off all the smell of it; if he kisses thee a thousand times he shall be no wiser." I thought to myself, "Thou art perfectly acquainted with affairs of this nature; I think you must govern me now;" so I began to incline to go down with her. Upon that I took the cordial, and she gave me a kind of spicy preserve after it, whose flavour was so strong, and yet so deliciously pleasant, that it would cheat the nicest smelling, and it left not the least taint of the cordial on the breath.

Well, after this, though with some hesitation still, I went down a pair of back-stairs with her, and into a dining-room, next to the parlour in which he was; but there I halted, and desired she would let me consider of it a little. "Well, do so," says she, and left me with more readiness than she did before. "Do consider, and I'll come to thee again."