Path: not-for-mail
From: "Nikki@P.U." <indexhtml@charter.net>
Newsgroups: alt.disgusting.stories.my-imagination
Subject: Fanny Hill (Mf, cons, incest)
Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 15:14:11 -0700
Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com
Message-ID: <10jsclhf9hl559c@corp.supernews.com>
Reply-To: <>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040804 Netscape/7.2 (ax)
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format="flowed"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com
Lines: 848
===================
Fanny Hill (Mf, cons, pedo, incest)
by John Cleland, 1749
Letter 1, 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.