Memoirs of Fanny Hill
sublime enough to impeach me of any vanity in the advancement of the
proposal you have approved of. My father and mother were, and for aught
I know, are still, farmers in the country, not above forty miles from
town: their barbarity to me, in favour of a son, on whom alone they
vouchsafed to bestow their tenderness, had a thousand times determined
me to fly their house, and throw myself on the wide world; but, at
length, an accident forced me on this desperate attempt at the age of
fifteen. I had broken a chinabowl, the pride and idol of both their
hearts; and as an unmerciful beating was the least I had to depend on
at their hands, in the silliness of these tender years, I left the
house, and, at all adventures, took the road to London. How my loss was
resented I do not know, for till this instant I have not heard a
syllable about them. My whole stock was two broad pieces of my
godmother’s, a few shillings, silver shoe-buckles and a silver thimble.
Thus equipped, with no more clothes than the ordinary ones I had on my
back, and frightened at every foot or noise I heard behind me, I
hurried on; and I dare sweare, walked a dozen miles before I stopped,
through mere weariness and fatigue. At length I sat down on a style,
wept bitterly, and yet was still rather under increased impressions of
fear on the account of my escape; which made me dread, worse than
death, the going back to my unnatural parents. Refreshed by this little
repose, and relieved by my tears, I was proceeding onward, when I was
overtaken by a sturdy country lad, who was going to London to see what
he could do for himself there, and, like me, had given his friends the
slip. He could not be above seventeen, was ruddy, well featured enough,
with uncombed flaxen hair, a little flapped hat, kersey frock, yarn
stockings, in short, a perfect plough boy. I saw him come whistling
behind me, with a bundle tied to the end of a stick, his travelling
equipage. We walked by one another for some time without speaking; at
length we joined company, and agreed to keep together till we got to
our journey’s end; what his designs or ideas were, I know not: the
innocence of mine I can solemnly protest.
“As night drew on, it became us to look out for some inn or shelter; to
which perplexity another was added, and that was, what we should say
for ourselves, if we were questioned. After some puzzle, the young
fellow started a proposal, which I thought the finest that could be;
and what was that? why, that we should pass for husband and wife: I
never dreamed of consequences. We came presently, after having agreed
on this notable experience, to one of those hedge accommodations for
foot passengers, at the door of which stood an old crazy beldam, who
seeing us trudge by, invited us to lodge there. Glad of any cover, we
went in, and my fellow traveller, taking all upon him, called for what
the house afforded, and we supped together as man and wife; which,
considering our figures and ages, could not have passed on any one but
such as any thing could pass on. But when bed-time came on, we had
neither of us the courage to contradict our first account of ourselves;
and what was extremely pleasant, the young lad seemed as perplexed as I
was how to evade lying together, which was so natural for the state we
had pretended to. Whilst we were in this quandary, the landlady takes
the candles, and lights us to our apartment, through a long yard, at
the end of which it stood, separate from the body of the house. Thus we
suffered ourselves to be conducted, without saying a word in opposition
to it; and there, in a wretched room, with a bed answerable, we were
left to pass the night together, as a thing quite of course. For my
part, I was so incredibly innocent, as not even to think much more harm
of going into bed with the young man, than with one of our dairy
wenches; nor had he, perhaps, any other notions than those of
innocence, till such a fair occasion put them into his head.
“Before either of us undressed, however, he put out the candle; and the
bitterness of the weather made it a kind of necessity for me to go into
bed: slipping then my clothes off, I crept under the bedclothes, where
I found the young stripling already nestled, and the touch of his warm
flesh rather pleased than alarmed me. I was indeed too much disturbed
with the novelty of my condition to be able to sleep; but then I had
not the least thought of harm. But oh! how powerful are the instincts
of nature! how little is there wanting to set them in action! The young
man, sliding his arm under my body, drew me gently towards him, as if
to keep himself and me warmer; and the heat I felt from joining our
breasts, kindled another that I had hitherto never felt, and was, even
then, a stranger to the nature of. Emboldened, I suppose, by my
easiness, he ventured to kiss me, and I insensibly returned it; without
knowing the consequence of returning it: for, on this encouragement, he
slipped his hand all down from my breast to that part of me where the
sense of feeling is so exquisitely critical, as I then experienced by
its instant taking fire upon the touch, and glowing with a strange
tickling heat: there he pleased himself and me, by feeling, till
growing a little too bold with me, he hurt me, and made me complain.
Then he took my hand, which he guided, not unwillingly on my side,
between the twist of his closed thighs, which were extremely warm;
there he lodged and pressed it, till raising it by degrees, he made me
feel the proud distinction of his sex from mine. I was frightened at
the novelty, and drew back my hand; yet, pressed and spurred on by
sensations of a strange pleasure, I could not help asking him what that
was for? He told me he would shew me if I would let him; and without
waiting for my answer, which he prevented by stopping my mouth with
kisses I was far from disrelishing, he got upon me, and inserting one
of his thighs between mine, opened them so as to make way for himself,
and fixed me to his purpose; whilst I was so much out of my usual
sense, so subdued by the present power of a new one, that, between far
and desire, I lay utter passive, till the piercing pain rouzed and made
me cry out. But it was too late: he was too firm fixed in the saddle
for me to compass flinging him, with all the struggles I could use,
some of which only served to further his point, and at length an
irresistible thrust murdered at once my maidenhead, and almost me. I
now lay a bleeding witness of the necessity imposed on our sex, to
gather the first honey off the thorns.
“But the pleasure rising as the pain subsided, I was soon reconciled to
fresh trials, and before morning, nothing on earth could be dearer to
me than this rifler of my virgin sweets: he was every thing to me now.
“How we agreed to join fortunes: how we came up to town together, where
we lived some time, till necessity-parted us, and drove me into this
course of life, to which I had been long ago bettered and torn to
pieces before I came to this age, as much through my easiness, as
through inclination, had it not been for my finding refuge in this
house: these are all circumstances which pass the mark I proposed, so
that here my narrative ends.”
In the order of our sitting, it was Harriet’s turn to go on. Amongst
all the beauties of our sex, that I had before, or have since seen, few
indeed were the forms that could dispute excellence with her’s; it was
not delicate, but delicacy itself incarnate, such was the symmetry of
her small but exactly fashioned limbs. Her complexion, fair as it was,
appeared yet more fair, from the effect of two black eyes, the
brilliancy of which gave her face more vivacity than belonged to the
colour of it, which was only defended from paleness, by a sweetly
pleasing blush in her cheeks, that grew fainter and fainter, till at
length it died away insensibly into the overbearing white. Then her
miniature features joined to finish the extreme sweetness of it, which
was not belied by that of a temper turned to indolence, languor, and
the pleasures of love. Pressed to subscribe her contingent, she smiled,
blushed a little, and thus complied with our desires:
“My father was neither better nor worse than a miller near the city of
York; and both he and my mother dying whilst I was an infant, I fell
under the care of a widow and childless aunt, housekeeper to my lord
N..., at his seat in the county of..., where she brought me up with all
imaginable tenderness. I was not seventeen, as I am not now eighteen,
before I had, on account of my person purely (for fortune I had
notoriously none), several advantageous proposals; but whether nature
was slow in making me sensible in her favourite passion, or that I had
not seen any of the other sex who had stirred up the least emotion or
curiosity to be better acquainted with it, I had, till that age,
preserved a perfect innocence, even of thought: whilst my fears of I
did not now well know what, made me no more desirous of marrying than
of dying. My aunt, good woman, favoured my timorousness, which she
looked on as childish affection, that her own experience might
probably assure her would wear off in time, and gave my suitors proper
answers for me.
“The family had not been down at that seat for years, so that it was
neglected, and committed entirely to my aunt, and two old domestics to
take care of it. Thus I had the full range of a spacious lonely house
and gardens, situated at about half a mile distance from any other
habitation, except, perhaps, a straggling cottage or so.
“Here, in tranquillity and innocence, I grew up without any memorable
accident, till one fatal day I had, as I had often done before, left my
aunt asleep, and secure for some hours, after dinner; and resorting to
a kind of ancient summer house, at some distance from the house, I
carried my work with me, and sat over a rivulet, which its door and
window faced upon. Here I fell into a gentle breathing slumber, which
stole upon my senses, as they fainted under the excessive heat of the
season at that hour; a cane couch, with my work basked for a pillow,
were all the conveniences of my short repose; for I was soon awaked and
alarmed by a flounce, and noise of splashing in the water. I got up to
see what was the matter; and what indeed should it be but the son of a
neighbouring gentleman, as I afterwards found (for I had never seen him
before), who had strayed that way with his gun, and heated by his
sport, and the sultriness of the day, had been tempted by the freshness
of the clear stream; so that presently stripping, he jumped into it on
the other side, which bordered on a wood, some trees whereof, inclined
down to the water, formed a pleasing shady recess, commodious to
undress and leave his clothes under.
“My first emotions at the sight of this youth, naked in the water,
were, with all imaginable respect to truth, those of surprise and fear;
and, in course, I should immediately have run out, had not my modesty,
fatally for itself, interposed the objection of the door and window
being so situated, that it was scarce possible to get out, and make my
way along the bank to the house, without his seeing me: which I could
not bear the thought of, so much ashamed and confounded was I at having
seen him. Condemned then to stay till his departure should release me,
I was greatly embarrassed how to dispose of myself: I kept some time
betwixt terror and modesty, even from looking through the window, which
being an old fashioned casement, without any light behind me, could
hardly betray any one’s being there to him from within; then the door
was so secure, that without violence, or my own consent, there was no
opening it from without.
“But now, by my own experience, I found it too true, that objects which