protested to me, that when he became first acquainted with
me, and even to the very night when we first broke in upon
our rules, he never had the least design of lying with me; that
he always had a sincere affection for me, but not the least real
inclination to do what he had done. I assured him I never
suspected him; that if I had I should not so easily have yielded
to the freedom which brought it on, but that it was all a surprise,
and was owing to the accident of our having yielded too far to
our mutual inclinations that night; and indeed I have often
observed since, and leave it as a caution to the readers of this
story, that we ought to be cautious of gratifying our inclinations
in loose and lewd freedoms, lest we find our resolutions of
virtue fail us in the junction when their assistance should be
most necessary.
It is true, and I have confessed it before, that from the first
hour I began to converse with him, I resolved to let him lie
with me, if he offered it; but it was because I wanted his help
and assistance, and I knew no other way of securing him than
that. But when were that night together, and, as I have said,
had gone such a length, I found my weakness; the inclination
was not to be resisted, but I was obliged to yield up all even
before he asked it.
However, he was so just to me that he never upbraided me
with that; nor did he ever express the least dislike of my
conduct on any other occasion, but always protested he was
as much delighted with my company as he was the first hour
we came together: I mean, came together as bedfellows.
It is true that he had no wife, that is to say, she was as no
wife to him, and so I was in no danger that way, but the just
reflections of conscience oftentimes snatch a man, especially
a man of sense, from the arms of a mistress, as it did him at
last, though on another occasion.
On the other hand, though I was not without secret reproaches
of my own conscience for the life I led, and that even in the
greatest height of the satisfaction I ever took, yet I had the
terrible prospect of poverty and starving, which lay on me as
a frightful spectre, so that there was no looking behind me.
But as poverty brought me into it, so fear of poverty kept me
in it, and I frequently resolved to leave it quite off, if I could
but come to lay up money enough to maintain me. But these
were thoughts of no weight, and whenever he came to me they
vanished; for his company was so delightful, that there was no
being melancholy when he was there; the reflections were all
the subject of those hours when I was alone.
I lived six years in this happy but unhappy condition, in which
time I brought him three children, but only the first of them
lived; and though I removed twice in those six years, yet I came
back the sixth year to my first lodgings at Hammersmith.
Here it was that I was one morning surprised with a kind but
melancholy letter from my gentleman, intimating that he was
very ill, and was afraid he should have another fit of sickness,
but that his wife’s relations being in the house with him, it
would not be practicable to have me with him, which, however,
he expressed his great dissatisfaction in, and that he wished I
could be allowed to tend and nurse him as I did before.
I was very much concerned at this account, and was very
impatient to know how it was with him. I waited a fortnight
or thereabouts, and heard nothing, which surprised me, and I
began to be very uneasy indeed. I think, I may say, that for
the next fortnight I was near to distracted. It was my particular
difficulty that I did not know directly when he was; for I