Memoirs of Fanny Hill
despair, when my landlady came in, and observing a death-like dejection
in my countenance, still in pursuance of her plan, put on a false pity,
and bidding me be of good heart: “Things,” she said, “would be but my
own friend”; and closed with telling me “she had brought a very
honourable gentleman to drink tea with me, who would give me the best
advice how to get rid of all my troubles.” Upon which, without waiting
for a reply, she goes out, and returns with this very honourable
gentleman, whose very honourable procuress she had been, on this, as
well as other occasions.
The gentleman, on his entering the room, made me a very civil bow,
which I had scarce strength, or presence of mind enough to return a
curtsey to; when the landlady, taking upon her to do all the honours of
the first interview (for I had never, that I remember, seen the
gentleman before), sets a chair for him, another for herself. All this
while not a word on either side; a stupid stare was all the face I
could put on this strange visit.
The tea was made, and the landlady, unwilling, I suppose, to lose any
time, observing my silence and shyness before this entire stranger:
“Come, Miss Fanny,” says she, in a coarse familiar style, and tone of
authority, “hold up your head, child, and do not let sorrow spoil that
pretty face of yours. What! sorrows are only for a time; come, be free,
here is a worthy gentleman who has heard of your misfortunes, and is
willing to serve you; you must be better acquainted with him, do not
you now stand upon your punctilios, and this and that, but make your
market while you may.”
At this so delicate, and eloquent harangue, the gentleman, who saw I
looked frighted and amazed, and, indeed, incapable of answering, took
her up for breaking things in so abrupt a manner, as rather to shock
than incline me to an acceptance of the good he intended me then,
addressing himself to me, told me “he was perfectly acquainted with my
whole story, and every circumstance of my distress which he owned was a
cruel plunge for one of my youth and beauty to fall into.... that he
had long taken a liking to my person, for which he appealed to Mrs.
Jones, there present; but finding me so deeply engaged to another, he
had lost all hopes of succeeding, till he had heard the sudden reverse
of fortune that had happened to me, on which he had given particular
orders to my landlady to see that I should want for nothing; and that,
had he not been forced abroad to the Hague, on affairs he could not
refuse himself to, he would himself have attended me during my
sickness;... that on his return, which was the day before, he had, on
learning my recovery, desired my landlady’s good offices to introduce
him to me, and was as angry, at least, as I was shocked, at the manner
in which she had conducted herself towards obtaining him that
happiness; but, that to show me how much he disdained her procedure,
and how far he was from taking any ungenerous advantage of my
situation, and from exacting any security for my gratitude, he would
before my face, that instant, discharge my debt entirely to my
landlady, and give me her receipt in full; after which I should be at
liberty either to reject or grant his suit, as he was much above
putting any force upon my inclinations.”
Whilst he was exposing his sentiments to me, I ventured just to look up
to him, and observed his figure, which was that of a very well-looking
gentleman, well made, of about forty, dressed in a suit of plain
clothes, with a large diamond ring on one of his fingers, the lustre of
which played in my eyes as he waved his hand in talking, and raised my
notions of his importance. In short, he might pass for what is commonly
called a comely black man, with an air of distinction natural to his
birth and condition.
To all his speeches, however, I answered only in tears that flower
plentifully to my relief, and choking up my voice, excused me from
speaking, very luckily, for I should not have known what to say.
The sight, however, moved him, as he afterwards told me, irresistibly,
and by way of giving me some reason to be less powerfully afflicted, he
drew out his purse, and calling for pen and ink, which the landlady was
prepared for, paid her every farthing of her demand, independent of a
liberal gratification which was to follow unknown to me, and taking a
receipt in full, very tenderly forced me to secure it, by guiding my
hand, which he had thrust it into, so as to make me passively put it
into my pocket.
Still I continued in a state of stupidity, or melancholic despair, as
my spirits could not yet recover from the violent shocks that they had
received; and the accommodating landlady had actually left the room,
and me alone with this strange gentleman, before I had observed it, and
then I observed it without alarm, for I was now lifeless, and
indifferent to every thing.
The gentleman, however, no novice in affairs of this sort, drew near
me; and, under the pretence of comforting me, first with his
handkerchief dried my tears as they ran down my cheeks: presently he
ventured to kiss me on my part, neither resistance nor compliance. I
sat stock still; and now looking on myself as bought by the payment
that had been transacted before me.
I did not care what became of my wretched body: and wanting life,
spirits, or courage to oppose the least struggle, even that of the
modesty of my sex, I suffered, tamely, whatever the gentleman pleased;
who proceeding insensibly from freedom to freedom, insinuating his hand
between my handkerchief and bosom, which he handled at discretion:
finding thus no repulse, and that every thing favoured, beyond
expectation, the completion of his desires, he took me in his arms, and
bore me, without life or motion, to the bed, on which laying me gently
downed, and having me at what advantage he pleased, I did not so much
as know what he was about, till recovering from a trance of lifeless
insensibility, I found him buried in me, whilst I lay passive and
innocent of the least sensations of pleasure: a death-cold corpse could
scarce have less life or sense in it. As soon as he had thus pacified a
passion which had too little respected the condition I was in, he got
off, and after recomposing the disorder of my clothes, employed himself
with the utmost tenderness to calm the transports of remorse and
madness at myself, with which I was seized, too late, I confess, for
having suffered on that bed, the embraces of an utter stranger I tore
my hair, wrung my hands, and beat my breast like a mad woman. But when
my new master, for in that light I then viewed him, applied himself to
appease me, as my whole rage was levelled at myself, no part of which I
thought myself permitted to aim at him, I begged of him with more
submission than anger, to leave me alone, that I might, at least, enjoy
my affliction in quiet. This he positively refused, for fear, as he
pretended, I should do myself a mischief. Violent passions seldom last
long, and those of women least of any. A dead still calm succeeded this
storm, which ended in a profuse shower of tears.
Had any one, but a few instants before, told me that I should have ever
known any man but Charles, I would have spit in his face or had I been
offered infinitely a greater sum of money than that I saw paid for me,
I had spurned the proposal in cold blood. But our virtues and our vices
depend too much on our circumstances; unexpectedly beset as I was,
betrayed by a mind weakened by a long severe affliction, and stunned
with the terrors of a goal, my defeat will appear the more excusable,
since I certainly was not present at, or a party in any sense to it.
However, as the first enjoyment is decisive, and he was now over the
bar, I thought I had no longer a right to refuse the caresses of one
that had got that advantage over me, no matter how obtained; conforming
myself then to this maxim, I considered myself as so much in his power,
that I endured his kisses and embraces without affecting struggles or
anger; not that he, as yet, gave me any pleasure, or prevailed over the
aversion of my soul, to give myself up to any sensation of that sort;
what I suffered, I suffered out of a kind of gratitude, and as a matter
of course what had passed.
He was, however, so regardful as not to attempt the renewal of those
extremities which had thrown me, just before, into such violent
agitations; but, now secure of possession, contented himself with
bringing me to temper by degrees, and waiting at the hand of time for
those fruits of generosity and courtship, which he since often
reproached himself with having gathered much too green, when, yielding
to the inability to resist him, and overborne by desires, he had
wreaked his passion on a mere lifeless, spiritless body, dead to all
purpose of joy, since taking none, it ought to be supposed incapable of
giving any. This is, however, certain; my heart never thoroughly
forgave him the manner in which I had fallen to him, although, in point
of interest, I had fallen to him, I had reason to be pleased that he
found, in my person, wherewithal to keep him from leaving me as easily
as he had had me.
The evening was, in the mean time, so far advanced, that the maid came
in to lay the cloth for supper, when I understood, with joy, that my
landlady, whose sight was present poison to me, was not to be with us.
Presently a neat and elegant supper was introduced, and a bottle of
Burgundy, with the other necessaries, were set on a dumb-waiter.
The maid quitting the room, the gentleman insisted, with a tender
warmth, that I should sit up in the elbow chair by the fire, and see
him eat, if I could not be prevailed on to eat myself. I obeyed with a
heart full or affliction, at the comparison it made between those
delicious _tête-à-têtes_ with my very dear youth, and this forced
situation, this new awkward scene, imposed and obtruded on me a cruel
necessity.
At supper, after a great many arguments used to comfort and reconcile
me to my fate, he told me that his name was H..., brother to the Earl
of L.... and that having, by the suggestions of my landlady, been led
to see me, he had found me perfectly to his taste, and given her a
commission to procure me at any rate, and that at length he had
succeeded, as much to his satisfaction as he passionately wished it
might be to mine adding, withal, some flattering assurances, that I
should have no cause to repent my knowledge of him.
I had now got down at least half a partridge, and three or four glasses
of wine, which he compelled me to drink by way of restoring nature, but
whether there was any thing extraordinary put into the wine, or whether
there wanted no more to revive the natural warmth of my constitution,
and give fire to the old train, I began no longer to look with that
constraint, not to say disguise, on Mr. H...., which I had hitherto
done but, withal, there was not the least grain of love mixed with this
softening of my sentiments: any other man would have been just the same
to me as Mr. H..., that stood in the same circumstances, and had done
for me, and with me, what he had done.
There are not, on earth at least, eternal griefs; mine were, if not at
an end, at least suspended: my heart, which had been so long overloaded
with anguish and vexation, began to dilate and open to the last gleam
of diversion or amusement. I wept a little, and my tears relieved me; I
sighed, and my sighs seemed to lighten me of a load that oppressed me;
my countenance grew, if not cheerful, at least more composed and free.
Mr. H..., who had watched, perhaps brought on this change, knew too
well not to seize it: he thrust the table imperceptibly from between
us, and bringing his chair to face me, he soon began, after preparing