The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2)

generally ended to the disadvantage ofmy merchant; so that, in short, I resolved to drop him, and give him afinal answer at his next coming; namely, that something had happened inmy affairs which had caused me to alter my measures unexpectedly, and,in a word, to desire him to trouble himself no farther.

  I think, verily, this rude treatment of him was for some time the effectof a violent fermentation in my blood; for the very motion which thesteady contemplation of my fancied greatness had put my spirits into hadthrown me into a kind of fever, and I scarce knew what I did.

  I have wondered since that it did not make me mad; nor do I now think itstrange to hear of those who have been quite lunatic with their pride,that fancied themselves queens and empresses, and have made theirattendants serve them upon the knee, given visitors their hand to kiss,and the like; for certainly, if pride will not turn the brain, nothingcan.

  However, the next time my gentleman came, I had not courage enough, ornot ill nature enough, to treat him in the rude manner I had resolved todo, and it was very well I did not; for soon after, I had another letterfrom Amy, in which was the mortifying news, and indeed surprising to me,that my prince (as I, with a secret pleasure, had called him) was verymuch hurt by a bruise he had received in hunting and engaging with awild boar, a cruel and desperate sport which the noblemen of Germany, itseems, much delight in.

  This alarmed me indeed, and the more because Amy wrote me word that hisgentleman was gone away express to him, not without apprehensions thathe should find his master was dead before his coming home; but that he(the gentleman) had promised her that as soon as he arrived he wouldsend back the same courier to her with an account of his master'shealth, and of the main affair; and that he had obliged Amy to stay atParis fourteen days for his return; she having promised him before tomake it her business to go to England and to find me out for his lord ifhe sent her such orders; and he was to send her a bill for fiftypistoles for her journey. So Amy told me she waited for the answer.

  This was a blow to me several ways; for, first, I was in a state ofuncertainty as to his person, whether he was alive or dead; and I wasnot unconcerned in that part, I assure you; for I had an inexpressibleaffection remaining for his person, besides the degree to which it wasrevived by the view of a firmer interest in him. But this was not all,for in losing him I forever lost the prospect of all the gaiety andglory that had made such an impression upon my imagination.

  In this state of uncertainty, I say, by Amy's letter, I was like stillto remain another fortnight; and had I now continued the resolution ofusing my merchant in the rude manner I once intended, I had made perhapsa sorry piece of work of it indeed, and it was very well my heart failedme as it did.

  However, I treated him with a great many shuffles, and feigned storiesto keep him off from any closer conferences than we had already had,that I might act afterwards as occasion might offer, one way or other.But that which mortified me most was, that Amy did not write, though thefourteen days were expired. At last, to my great surprise, when I was,with the utmost impatience, looking out at the window, expecting thepostman that usually brought the foreign letters--I say I was agreeablysurprised to see a coach come to the yard-gate where we lived, and mywoman Amy alight out of it and come towards the door, having thecoachman bringing several bundles after her.

  I flew like lightning downstairs to speak to her, but was soon dampedwith her news. "Is the prince alive or dead, Amy?" says I. She spokecoldly and slightly. "He is alive, madam," said she. "But it is not muchmatter; I had as lieu he had been dead." So we went upstairs again to mychamber, and there we began a serious discourse of the whole matter.

  First, she told me a long story of his being hurt by a wild boar, and ofthe condition he was reduced to, so that every one expected he shoulddie, the anguish of the wound having thrown him into a fever, withabundance of circumstances too long to relate here; how he recovered ofthat extreme danger, but continued very weak; how the gentleman had been_homme de parole_, and had sent back the courier as punctually as if ithad been to the king; that he had given a long account of his lord, andof his illness and recovery; but the sum of the matter, as to me, was,that as to the lady, his lord was turned penitent, was under some vowsfor his recovery, and could not think any more on that affair; andespecially, the lady being gone, and that it had not been offered toher, so there was no breach of honour; but that his lord was sensible ofthe good offices of Mrs. Amy, and had sent her the fifty pistoles forher trouble, as if she had really gone the journey.

  I was, I confess, hardly able to bear the first surprise of thisdisappointment. Amy saw it, and gapes out (as was her way), "Lawd,madam! never be concerned at it; you see he is gotten among the priests,and I suppose they have saucily imposed some penance upon him, and, itmay be, sent him of an errand barefoot to some Madonna or Notredame, orother; and he is off of his amours for the present. I'll warrant youhe'll be as wicked again as ever he was when he is got thorough well,and gets but out of their hands again. I hate this out-o'-seasonrepentance. What occasion had he, in his repentance, to be off of takinga good wife? I should have been glad to see you have been a princess,and all that; but if it can't be, never afflict yourself; you are richenough to be a princess to yourself; you don't want him, that's the bestof it."

  Well, I cried for all that, and was heartily vexed, and that a greatwhile; but as Amy was always at my elbow, and always jogging it out ofmy head with her mirth and her wit, it wore off again.

  Then I told Amy all the story of my merchant, and how he had found meout when I was in such a concern to find him; how it was true that helodged in St. Laurence Pountney's Lane; and how I had had all the storyof his misfortune, which she had heard of, in which he had lost aboveL8000 sterling; and that he had told me frankly of it before she hadsent me any account of it, or at least before I had taken any noticethat I had heard of it.

  Amy was very joyful at that part. "Well, madam, then," says Amy, "whatneed you value the story of the prince, and going I know not whitherinto Germany to lay your bones in another world, and learn the devil'slanguage, called High Dutch? You are better here by half," says Amy."Lawd, madam!" says she; "why, are you not as rich as Croesus?"

  Well, it was a great while still before I could bring myself off of thisfancied sovereignty; and I, that was so willing once to be mistress to aking, was now ten thousand times more fond of being wife to a prince.

  So fast a hold has pride and ambition upon our minds, that when once itgets admission, nothing is so chimerical but, under this possession, wecan form ideas of in our fancy and realise to our imagination. Nothingcan be so ridiculous as the simple steps we take in such cases; a man ora woman becomes a mere _malade imaginaire_, and, I believe, may aseasily die with grief or run mad with joy (as the affair in his fancyappears right or wrong) as if all was real, and actually under themanagement of the person.

  I had indeed two assistants to deliver me from this snare, and thesewere, first, Amy, who knew my disease, but was able to do nothing as tothe remedy; the second, the merchant, who really brought the remedy, butknew nothing of the distemper.

  I remember, when all these disorders were upon my thoughts, in one ofthe visits my friend the merchant made me, he took notice that heperceived I was under some unusual disorder; he believed, he said, thatmy distemper, whatever it was, lay much in my head, and it being summerweather and very hot, proposed to me to go a little way into the air.

  I started at his expression. "What!" says I; "do you think, then, that Iam crazed? You should, then, propose a madhouse for my cure." "No, no,"says he, "I do not mean anything like that; I hope the head may bedistempered and not the brain." Well, I was too sensible that he wasright, for I knew I had acted a strange, wild kind of part with him; buthe insisted upon it, and pressed me to go into the country. I took himshort again. "What need you," says I, "send me out of your way? It is inyour power to be less troubled with me, and with less inconvenience tous both."

  He took that ill, and told me I used to have a better opinion o
f hissincerity, and desired to know what he had done to forfeit my charity.I mention this only to let you see how far I had gone in my measures ofquitting him--that is to say, how near I was of showing him how base,ungrateful, and how vilely I could act; but I found I had carried thejest far enough, and that a little matter might have made him sick of meagain, as he was before; so I began by little and little to change myway of talking to him, and to come to discourse to the purpose again aswe had done before.

  A while after this, when we were very merry and talking familiarlytogether, he called me, with an air of particular satisfaction, hisprincess. I coloured at the word, for it indeed touched me to the quick;but he knew nothing of the reason of my being touched with it. "Whatd'ye mean by that?" said I. "Nay," says he, "I mean nothing but that youare a princess to