The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2)

him, as the French callit, _a coup de baton_--that is to say, caned him very severely, as hedeserved; and that not satisfying him, or curing his insolence, he wasmet one night late upon the Pont Neuf, in Paris, by two men, who,muffling him up in a great cloak, carried him into a more private placeand cut off both his ears, telling him it was for talking impudently ofhis superiors; adding that he should take care to govern his tonguebetter and behave with more manners, or the next time they would cut histongue out of his head.

  This put a check to his sauciness that way; but he comes back to themerchant and threatened to begin a process against him for correspondingwith me, and being accessory to the murder of the jeweller, &c.

  The merchant found by his discourse that he supposed I was protected bythe said Prince de ----; nay, the rogue said he was sure I was in hislodgings at Versailles, for he never had so much as the least intimationof the way I was really gone; but that I was there he was certain, andcertain that the merchant was privy to it. The merchant bade himdefiance. However, he gave him a great deal of trouble and put him to agreat charge, and had like to have brought him in for a party to myescape; in which case he would have been obliged to have produced me,and that in the penalty of some capital sum of money.

  But the merchant was too many for him another way, for he brought aninformation against him for a cheat; wherein laying down the whole fact,how he intended falsely to accuse the widow of the jeweller for thesupposed murder of her husband; that he did it purely to get the jewelsfrom her; and that he offered to bring him (the merchant) in, to beconfederate with him, and to share the jewels between them; proving alsohis design to get the jewels into his hands, and then to have droppedthe prosecution upon condition of my quitting the jewels to him. Uponthis charge he got him laid by the heels; so he was sent to theConciergerie--that is to say, to Bridewell--and the merchant cleared. Hegot out of jail in a little while, though not without the help of money,and continued teasing the merchant a long while, and at last threateningto assassinate and murder him. So the merchant, who, having buried hiswife about two months before, was now a single man, and not knowing whatsuch a villain might do, thought fit to quit Paris, and came away toHolland also.

  It is most certain that, speaking of originals, I was the source andspring of all that trouble and vexation to this honest gentleman; and asit was afterwards in my power to have made him full satisfaction, anddid not, I cannot say but I added ingratitude to all the rest of myfollies; but of that I shall give a fuller account presently.

  I was surprised one morning, when, being at the merchant's house who hehad recommended me to in Rotterdam, and being busy in hiscounting-house, managing my bills, and preparing to write a letter tohim to Paris, I heard a noise of horses at the door, which is not verycommon in a city where everybody passes by water; but he had, it seems,ferried over the Maas from Willemstadt, and so came to the very door,and I, looking towards the door upon hearing the horses, saw a gentlemanalight and come in at the gate. I knew nothing, and expected nothing,to be sure, of the person; but, as I say, was surprised, and indeed morethan ordinarily surprised, when, coming nearer to me, I saw it was mymerchant of Paris, my benefactor, and indeed my deliverer.

  I confess it was an agreeable surprise to me, and I was exceeding gladto see him, who was so honourable and so kind to me, and who indeed hadsaved my life. As soon as he saw me he ran to me, took me in his arms,and kissed me with a freedom that he never offered to take with mebefore. "Dear Madam ----," says he, "I am glad to see you safe in thiscountry; if you had stayed two days longer in Paris you had beenundone." I was so glad to see him that I could not speak a good while,and I burst out into tears without speaking a word for a minute; but Irecovered that disorder, and said, "The more, sir, is my obligation toyou that saved my life;" and added, "I am glad to see you here, that Imay consider how to balance an account in which I am so much yourdebtor." "You and I will adjust that matter easily," says he, "now weare so near together. Pray where do you lodge?" says he.

  "In a very honest, good house," said I, "where that gentleman, yourfriend, recommended me," pointing to the merchant in whose house we thenwere.

  "And where you may lodge too, sir," says the gentleman, "if it suitswith your business and your other conveniency."

  "With all my heart," says he. "Then, madam," adds he, turning to me, "Ishall be near you, and have time to tell you a story which will be verylong, and yet many ways very pleasant to you; how troublesome thatdevilish fellow, the Jew, has been to me on your account, and what ahellish snare he had laid for you, if he could have found you."

  "I shall have leisure too, sir," said I, "to tell you all my adventuressince that, which have not been a few, I assure you."

  In short, he took up his lodgings in the same house where I lodged, andthe room he lay in opened, as he was wishing it would, just opposite tomy lodging-room, so we could almost call out of bed to one another; andI was not at all shy of him on that score, for I believed him perfectlyhonest, and so indeed he was; and if he had not, that article was atpresent no part of my concern.

  It was not till two or three days, and after his first hurries ofbusiness were over, that we began to enter into the history of ouraffairs on every side, but when we began, it took up all ourconversation for almost a fortnight. First, I gave him a particularaccount of everything that happened material upon my voyage, and how wewere driven into Harwich by a very terrible storm; how I had left mywoman behind me, so frighted with the danger she had been in that shedurst not venture to set her foot into a ship again any more, and that Ihad not come myself if the bills I had of him had not been payable inHolland; but that money, he might see, would make a woman go anywhere.

  He seemed to laugh at all our womanish fears upon the occasion of thestorm, telling me it was nothing but what was very ordinary in thoseseas, but that they had harbours on every coast so near that they wereseldom in danger of being lost indeed. "For," says he, "if they cannotfetch one coast, they can always stand away for another, and run aforeit," as he called it, "for one side or other." But when I came to tellhim what a crazy ship it was, and how, even when they got into Harwich,and into smooth water, they were fain to run the ship on shore, or shewould have sunk in the very harbour; and when I told him that when Ilooked out at the cabin-door I saw the Dutchmen, one upon his kneeshere, and another there, at their prayers, then indeed he acknowledged Ihad reason to be alarmed; but, smiling, he added, "But you, madam," sayshe, "are so good a lady, and so pious, you would but have gone to heavena little the sooner; the difference had not been much to you."

  I confess when he said this it made all the blood turn in my veins, andI thought I should have fainted. "Poor gentleman," thought I, "you knowlittle of me. What would I give to be really what you really think me tobe!" He perceived the disorder, but said nothing till I spoke; when,shaking my head, "Oh, sir!" said I, "death in any shape has some terrorin it, but in the frightful figure of a storm at sea and a sinking ship,it comes with a double, a treble, and indeed an inexpressible horror;and if I were that saint you think me to be (which God knows I am not),it is still very dismal. I desire to die in a calm, if I can." He said agreat many good things, and very prettily ordered his discourse betweenserious reflection and compliment, but I had too much guilt to relish itas it was meant, so I turned it off to something else, and talked of thenecessity I had on me to come to Holland, but I wished myself safe onshore in England again.

  He told me he was glad I had such an obligation upon me to come overinto Holland, however, but hinted that he was so interested in mywelfare, and, besides, had such further designs upon me, that if I hadnot so happily been found in Holland he was resolved to have gone toEngland to see me, and that it was one of the principal reasons of hisleaving Paris.

  I told him I was extremely obliged to him for so far interesting himselfin my affairs, but that I had been so far his debtor before that I knewnot how anything could increase the debt; for I owed my life to himalready, and I could not be in debt for anything more val
uable thanthat. He answered in the most obliging manner possible, that he wouldput it in my power to pay that debt, and all the obligations besidesthat ever he had, or should be able to lay upon me.

  I began to understand him now, and to see plainly that he resolved tomake love to me, but I would by no means seem to take the hint; and,besides, I knew that he had a wife with him in Paris; and I had, justthen at least, no gust to any more intriguing. However, he surprised meinto a sudden notice of the thing a little while after by sayingsomething in his discourse that he did, as he said, in his wife's days.I started at that word, "What mean you by that, sir?" said I. "Have younot a wife at Paris?" "No, madam, indeed," said he; "my wife died thebeginning of September last," which, it