if you can, if ever I pretended to you that I had an estate; and
why, if I had, should I come down into this country with you
on purpose to spare that little I had, and live cheap?’ She
could not deny one word, but said she had been told in London
that I had a very great fortune, and that it lay in the Bank of
England.
‘And now, dear sir,’ said I, turning myself to my new spouse
again, ‘be so just to me as to tell me who has abused both you
and me so much as to make you believe I was a fortune, and
prompt you to court me to this marriage?’ He could not speak
a word, but pointed to her; and, after some more pause, flew
out in the most furious passion that ever I saw a man in my
life, cursing her, and calling her all the whores and hard names
he could think of; and that she had ruined him, declaring that
she had told him I had #15,000, and that she was to have #500
of him for procuring this match for him. He then added,
directing his speech to me, that she was none of his sister, but
had been his whore for two years before, that she had had #100
of him in part of this bargain, and that he was utterly undone
if things were as I said; and in his raving he swore he would
let her heart’s blood out immediately, which frightened her
and me too. She cried, said she had been told so in the house
where I lodged. But this aggravated him more than before,
that she should put so far upon him, and run things such a
length upon no other authority than a hearsay; and then, turning
to me again, said very honestly, he was afraid we were both
undone. ‘For, to be plain, my dear, I have no estate,’ says he;
‘what little I had, this devil has made me run out in waiting
on you and putting me into this equipage.’ She took the
opportunity of his being earnest in talking with me, and got
out of the room, and I never saw her more.
I was confounded now as much as he, and knew not what to
say. I thought many ways that I had the worst of it, but his
saying he was undone, and that he had no estate neither, put
me into a mere distraction. ‘Why,’ says I to him, ‘this has
been a hellish juggle, for we are married here upon the foot
of a double fraud; you are undone by the disappointment, it
seems; and if I had had a fortune I had been cheated too, for
you say you have nothing.’
‘You would indeed have been cheated, my dear,’ says he, ‘but
you would not have been undone, for #15,000 would have
maintained us both very handsomely in this country; and I
assure you,’ added he, ‘I had resolved to have dedicated every
groat of it to you; I would not have wronged you of a shilling,
and the rest I would have made up in my affection to you, and
tenderness of you, as long as I lived.’
This was very honest indeed, and I really believe he spoke
as he intended, and that he was a man that was as well qualified
to make me happy, as to his temper and behaviour, as any
man ever was; but his having no estate, and being run into debt
on this ridiculous account in the country, made all the prospect
dismal and dreadful, and I knew not what to say, or what to
think of myself.
I told him it was very unhappy that so much love, and so much
good nature as I discovered in him, should be thus precipitated
into misery; that I saw nothing before us but ruin; for as to me,
it was my unhappiness that what little I had was not able to
relieve us week, and with that I pulled out a bank bill of #20
and eleven guineas, which I told him I had saved out of my