Memoirs of Fanny Hill
much to the taste), what with a circle of pleasures delicately varied,
there was not a moment lost to joy all the time we staid there, till
late in the night we were re-escorted home by our esquires, who
delivered us safe to Mrs. Cole, with generous thanks for our company.
This too was Emily’s last adventure in our way: for scarce a week
after, she was, by an accident too trivial to detail to you the
particulars, found out by her parents, who were in good circumstances,
and who had been punished for their partiality to their son, in the
loss of him, occasioned by a circumstance of their over indulgence to
his appetite; upon which the so long engrossed stream of fondness,
running violently in favour of this lost and inhumanly abandoned child
whom if they had not neglected enquiry about, they might long before
have recovered, they were now so over-joyed at the retrieval of her,
that, I presume, it made them much less strict in examining the bottom
of things: for they seemed very glad to take for granted, in the lump,
every thing that the grave and decent Mrs. Cole was pleased to pass
upon them; and soon afterwards sent her, from the country, handsome
acknowledgment.
But it was not so easy to replace to our community the loss of so sweet
a member of it: for, not to mention her beauty, she was one of those
mild, pliant characters, that if one does not entirely esteem, one can
scarce help loving, which is not such a bad compensation neither. Owing
all her weaknesses to good nature, and an indolent facility that kept
her too much at the mercy of first impressions, she had just sense
enough to know that she wanted leading strings, and thought herself so
much obliged to any who would take the pains to think for her, and
guide her, that with a very little management, she was capable of being
made a most agreeable, nay a most virtuous wife: for vice, it is
probable, had never been her choice, or her fate, if it had not been
for occasion, or example, or had she not depended less upon herself
than upon her circumstances. This presumption her conduct afterwards
verified: for presently meeting with a match, that was ready cut and
dry for her, with a neighbour’s son of her own rank, and a young man of
sense and order, who took as the widow of one lost at sea (for so it
seems one of her gallants, whose name she had made free with, really
was), she naturally struck into all the duties of her domestic life,
with as much simplicity of affection, with as much constancy and
regularity, as if she had never swerved from a state of undebauched
innocence from her youth.
These desertions had, however, now so far thinned Mrs. Cole’s cluck
that she was left with only me, like a hen with one chicken; but though
she was earnestly entreated and encouraged to recruit her crops, her
growing infirmities, and, above all, the tortures, of a stubborn hip
gout, which she found would yield to no remedy, determined her to break
up her business, and retire with a decent pittance into the country,
where I promised myself, nothing so sure, as my going down to live with
her, as soon as I had seen a little more of life, and improved my small
matters into a competency that would create in me an independence on
the world: for I was now, thanks to Mrs. Cole, wise enough to keep that
essential in view.
Thus was I then to lose my faithful preceptress, as did the
philosophers of the town the white crow of her profession. For besides
that she never ransacked her customers, whose tastes too she ever
studiously consulted, she never racked her pupils with unconscionable
extortions, nor ever put their hard earnings, as she called them, under
the contribution of poundage. She was a severe enemy to the seduction
for innocence, and confined her acquisitions solely to those
unfortunate young women, who, having lost it, were but the juster
objects of compassion: among these, indeed, she picked out such as
suited her views and taking them under her protection, rescued them
from the danger of the public sinks of ruin and misery, to place, or
for them, well or ill, in the manner you have seen. Having then settled
her affairs, she set out on her journey, after taking the most tender
leave of me, and at the end of some excellent instructions,
recommending me to myself, with an anxiety perfectly maternal. In
short, she affected me so much, that I was not presently reconciled to
myself for suffering her at any rate to go without me; but fate had, it
seems, otherwise disposed of me.
I had, on my separation from Mrs. Cole, taken a pleasant convenient
house at Marylebone, but easy to rent and manage from its smallness,
which I furnished neatly and modestly. There, with a reserve of eight
hundred pounds, the fruit of my deference to Mrs. Cole’s counsels,
exclusive of clothes, some jewels, and some plate, I saw myself in
purse for a long time, to wait without impatience for what the chapter
of accidents might produce in my favour.
Here, under the new character of a young gentlewoman whose husband was
gone to sea, I had marked me out such lines of life and conduct, as
leaving me a competent liberty to pursue my views either out of
pleasure or fortune, bounded me nevertheless strictly within the rules
of decency and discretion: a disposition, in which you cannot escape
observing a true pupil of Mrs. Cole.
I was scarce, however, well warm in my new abode, when going out one
morning pretty early to enjoy the freshness of it, in the pleasing
outlet of the fields, accompanied only by a maid, whom I had newly
hired, as we were carelessly walking among the trees, we were alarmed
with the noise of a violent coughing: turning our heads towards which,
we distinguished a plain well dressed elderly gentleman, who, attacked
with a sudden fit, was so much overcome, as to be forced to give way to
it and sit down at the foot of a tree, where he seemed suffocating with
the severity of it, being perfectly black in the face; not less moved
than frightened with which, I flew on the instant to his relief, and
using the rote of practice I had observed on the like occasion, I
loosened his cravat and clapped him on the back; but whether to any
purpose, or whether the cough had had its course, I know not, but the
fit immediately went off; and now recovered to his speech and legs, he
returned me thanks with as much emphasis as if I had saved his life.
This naturally engaging a conversation, he acquainted me where he
lived, which was at a considerable distance from where I met him, and
where he had strayed insensibly on the same intention of a morning
walk.
He was, as I afterwards learned in the course of the intimacy which
this little accident gave birth to, an old bachelor, turned of sixty,
but of a fresh vigorous complexion, insomuch that he scarce marked five
and forty, having never racked his constitution by permitting his
desires to over-tax his ability.
As to his birth and conditions, his parents, honest and failed
mechanics, had, by the best traces he could get of them, left him an
infant orphan on the parish; so that it was from a charity-school,
that, by honesty and industry, he made his way into a merchant’s
counting house, from whence, being sent to a house in Cadiz, he there,
by his talents and activity, acquired not only a fortune, but an
immense one, with which he returned to his native country; where he
could not, however, fish out so much as one single relation out of the
obscurity he was born in. Taking then a taste for refinement, and
pleased to enjoy life, like a mistress in the dark, he flowed his days
in all the ease of opulence, without the least parade of it; and,
rather studying the concealment than the shew of a fortune, looked down
on a world he perfectly knew himself, to his wish, unknown and unmarked
by.
But, as I propose to devote a letter entirely to the pleasure of
retracing to you all the particulars of my acquaintance with this ever,
to me, memorable friend, I shall, in this, transiently touch on no more
than may serve, as mortar, to cement, or form the connection of my
history, and to obviate your surprise that one of my blood and relish
of life, should count a gallant of three score such a catch.
Referring then to a more explicit narrative, to explain by what
progressions our acquaintance, certainly innocent at first, insensibly
changed nature, and run into unplatonic length, as might well be
expected from one of my condition of life, and above all, from that
principle of electricity that scarce ever fails of producing fire when
the sexes meet. I shall only here acquaint you, that as age had not
subdued his tenderness for our sex, neither had it robbed him of the
power of pleasing, since whatever he wanted in the bewitching charms of
youth, he atoned for, or supplemented with the advantages of
experience, the sweetness of his manners, and above all, his flattering
address in touching the heart, by an application to the understanding.
From him it was I first learned, to any purpose, and not without
infinite pleasure, that I had such a portion of me worth bestowing some
regard on; from him I received my first essential encouragement, and
instructions how to put it in that train of cultivation, which I have
since pushed to the little degree of improvement you see it at; he it
was, who first taught me to be sensible that the pleasures of the mind
were superior to those of the body; at the same time, that they were so
far from obnoxious to, or, incompatible with each other, that, besides
the sweetness in the variety and transition, the one served to exalt
and perfect the taste of the other, to a degree that the senses alone
can never arrive at.
Himself a rational pleasurist; as being much too wise to be ashamed of
the pleasures of humanity, loved me indeed, but loved me with dignity;
in a mean equally removed from the sourness, of forwardness, by which
age is unpleasingly characterized, and from that childish silly dotage
that so often disgraces it, and which he himself used to turn into
ridicule, and compare to an old goat affecting the frisk of a young
kid.
In short, every thing that is generally unamiable in his season of
life, was, in him, repaired by so many advantages, that he existed a
proof, manifest at least to me, that it is not out of the power of age
to please, if it lays out to please, and if, making just allowance,
those in that class do not forget, that if must cost them more pains
and attention, than what youth, the natural spring-time of joy, stands
in need of: as fruits out of season require proportionally more skill
and cultivation, to force them.
With this gentleman, who took me home soon after our acquaintance
commenced, I lived near eight months in which time, my constant
complaisance and docility, my attention to deserve his confidence and
love, and a conduct, in general, devoid of the least art and founded on
my sincere regard and esteem for him, won and attached him so firmly to
me, that, after having generously trusted me with a genteel,
independent settlement, proceeding to heap marks of affection on me, he
appointed me, by an authentic will, his sole heiress and executrix: a
disposition which he did not outlive two months, being taken from me by
a violent cold that he contracted, as he unadvisedly ran to the window,
on an alarm of fire at some streets distant, and stood there
naked-breasted, and exposed to the fatal impressions of a damp night
air.
After acquitting myself of the duty towards my deceased benefactor, and
paying him a tribute of un-feigned sorrow, which a little time changed
into a most tender, graceful memory of him, which I shall ever retain,
I grew somewhat comforted by the prospect that now opened to me, if not
of happiness, at least of affluence and independence.