Page:Moll Flanders (1906 edition).djvu/439

Rh When she had quite gone through her long relation, 'Well, madam', says he, 'now let me see if I cannot tell how far she has told the truth in relation to you. When I first became acquainted with you, it was on the sale of those jewels, in which I stood so much your friend, at a time that you were in the greatest distress, your substance being in the hands of the Jew; you then passed for a jeweller's widow; this agrees with her saying you ran away with a jeweller. In the next place, you would not consent to marry me about twelve years ago; I suppose then your real husband was living, for nothing else could tally with your condescension to me in everything except marriage. Since that time, your refusing to come to Holland in the vessel I had provided for you, under a distant prospect of your being with child, though in reality it was your having a child too much, as the captain told me of, when I, being ignorant of the case, did not understand him. Now', continued he, 'she says that you are the identical Lady Roxana which made so much noise in the world, and has even described the robe and head-dress you wore on that occasion, and in that I know she is right; for, to my own knowledge, you have that very dress by you now; I having seen you dressed in it at our lodging at the Quaker's. From all these circumstances', says he, 'I may be assured that you have imposed grossly upon me, and, instead of being a woman of honour as I took you for, I find that you have been an abandoned wretch, and had nothing to recommend you but a sum of money and a fair countenance, joined to a false unrelenting heart.'

These words of my lord's struck such a damp upon my spirits, as made me unable to speak in my turn. But at last, I spoke as follows: 'My lord, I have most patiently stood to hear all it was possible for you to allege against me, which has no other proof than imagination. That I was the wife of a brewer, I have no reason now to deny, neither had I any occasion before to acknowledge it. I brought him a handsome fortune, which, joined to his, made us appear in a light far superior to our neighbours. I had also five children by him, two sons and three daughters, and had my husband been as wise as rich, we might have lived happily together now. But it was not so, for he minded nothing but sporting, in almost every branch; and, closely following of it soon run out all his substance, and then left me in an unhappy, helpless condition. I did not send my children to my relations till the greatest necessity drove me, and after that, hearing my husband was dead, I married the jeweller, who was afterwards murdered. If I had owned how many children I had, the jeweller would not have married me, and the way of life I was in would not keep my family, so I was forced to deny them in order to get them bread. Neither can I say that I have either heard or known anything of my children since, excepting that I heard they were all taken care of; and this was the very reason I would not marry you, when you offered it some years since, for these children lay seriously at my heart, and, as I did not want money, my inclination was to come to England, and not entail five children upon you the day of marriage.'

'Pray, madam', said my lord, interrupting me, 'I do not find that you kept up to your resolutions when you got there; you were so far from doing your duty as a parent, that you even neglected the civility of acquaintances, for they would have asked after them, but your whole scheme has been to conceal yourself as much as possible, and even when you were found out, denied yourself, as witness the case of your daughter