The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his Friend, Mr. Abraham Abrams/Book I, Chapter IV

CHAPTER IV.

_What happened after their journey to London._

No sooner was young Andrews arrived at London than he began to scrape an

acquaintance with his party-coloured brethren, who endeavoured to make

him despise his former course of life. His hair was cut after the newest

fashion, and became his chief care; he went abroad with it all the

morning in papers, and drest it out in the afternoon. They could not,

however, teach him to game, swear, drink, nor any other genteel vice the

town abounded with. He applied most of his leisure hours to music, in

which he greatly improved himself; and became so perfect a connoisseur

in that art, that he led the opinion of all the other footmen at an

opera, and they never condemned or applauded a single song contrary to

his approbation or dislike. He was a little too forward in riots at the

play-houses and assemblies; and when he attended his lady at church

(which was but seldom) he behaved with less seeming devotion than

formerly: however, if he was outwardly a pretty fellow, his morals

remained entirely uncorrupted, though he was at the same time smarter

and genteeler than any of the beaus in town, either in or out of livery.

His lady, who had often said of him that Joey was the handsomest and

genteelest footman in the kingdom, but that it was pity he wanted

spirit, began now to find that fault no longer; on the contrary, she was

frequently heard to cry out, "Ay, there is some life in this fellow."

She plainly saw the effects which the town air hath on the soberest

constitutions. She would now walk out with him into Hyde Park in a

morning, and when tired, which happened almost every minute, would lean

on his arm, and converse with him in great familiarity. Whenever she

stept out of her coach, she would take him by the hand, and sometimes,

for fear of stumbling, press it very hard; she admitted him to deliver

messages at her bedside in a morning, leered at him at table, and

indulged him in all those innocent freedoms which women of figure may

permit without the least sully of their virtue.

But though their virtue remains unsullied, yet now and then some small

arrows will glance on the shadow of it, their reputation; and so it fell

out to Lady Booby, who happened to be walking arm-in-arm with Joey one

morning in Hyde Park, when Lady Tittle and Lady Tattle came accidentally

by in their coach. "Bless me," says Lady Tittle, "can I believe my eyes?

Is that Lady Booby?"--"Surely," says Tattle. "But what makes you

surprized?"--"Why, is not that her footman?" replied Tittle. At which

Tattle laughed, and cried, "An old business, I assure you: is it

possible you should not have heard it? The whole town hath known it this

half-year." The consequence of this interview was a whisper through a

hundred visits, which were separately performed by the two ladies[A] the

same afternoon, and might have had a mischievous effect, had it not been

stopt by two fresh reputations which were published the day afterwards,

and engrossed the whole talk of the town.

[A] It may seem an absurdity that Tattle should visit, as she actually

did, to spread a known scandal: but the reader may reconcile this by

supposing, with me, that, notwithstanding what she says, this was

her first acquaintance with it.

But, whatever opinion or suspicion the scandalous inclination of

defamers might entertain of Lady Booby's innocent freedoms, it is

certain they made no impression on young Andrews, who never offered to

encroach beyond the liberties which his lady allowed him,--a behaviour

which she imputed to the violent respect he preserved for her, and which

served only to heighten a something she began to conceive, and which

the next chapter will open a little farther.