Memoirs of Fanny Hill
It is 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 ashamed 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 furnished 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 is was only my ignorance of life that had
made me take it in the light I at first did.
Accordingly, the next morning I dressed 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 wished 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 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 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 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 uncertainly, 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, where they met full tilt with those of
a lady (for such my extreme innocence pronounced her) sitting in a
corner of the room, dressed in a velvet mantle (in the midst of
summer), with her bonnet off; squat, fat, red-faced, and at least
fifty.
She looked 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 curtsey down to the ground).
Upon this she acquainted me 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 instruction; 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 jumped 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 shrewed smiles and shrugs I could not help observing, and
innocently interpreted them as marks of 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 the door, after I had been
cheered up and entertained by the way with the most plausible flams,
without one syllable from which I could conclude anything but that I
was, by the greatest luck, fallen into the hands of kindest mistress,
not to say friend, that the vast world could afford; and accordingly I
entered her doors with most complete confidence and exultation,
promising, myself that, as soon as I could 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 lessened by the
appearance of a very handsome back parlor, 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
pier-glasses, and a buffet, on which a few pieces of plate, 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 touched the bell, and in came a strapping
maid-servant, who had let us in. “Here, Martha,” said Mrs. Brown, “I
have just hired this young woman to look after my linen; so step up and
show 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 showed 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, 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! and 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, alloted me for a bed-fellow, and, to give
her the more authority, she had the title of cousin conferred on her by
the venerable president of this college.
Here I underwent a second survey, which ended in the full approbation
of Mrs. Phœbe Ayres, the name of my tutoress elect, to whose care and
instruction 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-ruled 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 assurances 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 clothes 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 rightly judged, the prospect of exchanging my country
clothes 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 called the girls provided for them), till she 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 pleased with the
views that opened to me, of an easy service under these good people;
and after supper being shewed up to bed, Miss Phœbe, 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, blushing at now seeing myself naked to my
shift, I hurried to get under the bed-clothes out of sight.
Phœbe laughed 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 laid down,
but she, who was never out of her way when any occasion of lewdness
presented itself, turned to me, embraced and kissed me with great
eagerness. This was new, this was odd; but imputing it to nothing but
pure kindness, which, for ought I knew, it might be the London way to
express in that manner, I was determined not to be behind-hand with