This was my man, but I was to try him to the bottom, and indeed in that consisted my safety, for if he baulked I knew I was undone as surely as he was undone if he took me; and if I did not make some scruple about his fortune, it was the way to lead him to raise some about mine; and first therefore, I pretended on all occasions to doubt his sincerity, and told him perhaps he only courted me for my fortune; he stopped my mouth in that part with the thunder of his protestations as above, but still I pretended to doubt.
One morning he pulls off his diamond ring, and writes upon the glass of the sash in my chamber this line,
You I love, and you alone.
I read it and asked him to lend me the ring, with which I wrote under it thus,
And so in love says everyone.
He takes his ring again, and writes another line thus,
Virtue alone is an estate.
I borrowed it again and I wrote under it,
But money’s virtue, gold is fate.
He coloured as red as fire to see me turn so quick upon him, and in a kind of rage told me he would conquer me, and wrote again thus,
I scorn your gold, and yet I love.
I ventured all upon the last cast of poetry, as you’ll see, for I wrote boldly under his last, I’m poor: let’s see how kind you’ll prove.
This was a sad truth to me, whether he believed me or no I could not tell; I supposed then that he did not. However he flew to me, took me in his arms, and kissing me very eagerly, and with the greatest passion imaginable, he held me fast till he called for a pen and ink, and told me he could not wait the tedious writing on a glass, but pulling out a piece of paper he began and wrote again,
Be mine with all your poverty.
I took his pen, and followed immediately thus,
Yet secretly you hope I lie.
He told me that was unkind because it was not just, and that I put him upon contradicting me, which did not consist with good manners, and therefore since I had insensibly drawn him into this poetical scribble, he begged I would not oblige him to break it off, so he writes again,
Let love alone be our debate.
I wrote again,
She loves enough that does not hate.
This he took for a favour, and so laid down the cudgels, that is to say, the pen; I say he took it for a favour, and a mighty one it was if he had known all: however, he took it as I meant it, that is, to let him think I was inclined to go on with him, as indeed I had reason to do, for he was the best-humoured merry sort of a fellow that I ever met with; and I often reflected how doubly criminal it was to deceive such a man; but that necessity which pressed me to a settlement suitable to my condition was my authority for it, and certainly his affection to me and the goodness of his temper, however they might argue against using him ill, yet they strongly argued to me that he would better take the disappointment than some fiery tempered wretch, who might have nothing to recommend him but those passions which would serve only to make a woman miserable.
Besides, though I had jested with him (as he supposed it) so often about my poverty, yet when he found it to be true, he had foreclosed all manner of objection, seeing, whether he was in jest or in earnest, he had declared he took me without any regard to my portion, and, whether I was in jest or in earnest, I had declared myself to be very poor, so that, in a word, I had him fast both ways; and though he might say afterwards he was cheated yet he could never say that I had cheated him.
He pursued me close after this, and, as I saw there was no need to fear losing him, I played the indifferent part with him longer than prudence might otherwise have dictated to me: but I considered how much this caution and indifference would give me the advantage over him when I should come to own my circumstances to him; and I managed it the more warily because I found he inferred from thence that I had either the more money or the more judgment, and would not venture at all.
I took the freedom one day to tell him that it was true I had received the compliment of a lover from him, namely, that he would take me without enquiring into my fortune, and I would make him a suitable return in this, namely, that I would make as little enquiry into his as consisted with reason, but I hoped he would allow me to ask some questions which he should answer or not as he thought fit; one of these questions related to our manner of living, and the place where, because I had heard he had a great plantation in Virginia, and I told him I did not care to be transported.
He began from this discourse to let me voluntarily into all his affairs, and to tell me in a frank open way all his circumstances, by which I found he was very well to pass in the world; but that great part of his estate consisted of three plantations which he had in
Virginia, which brought him in a very good income of about £300 a year; but that if he was to live on them, would bring him in four times as much. Very well, thought I, you shall carry me thither then as soon as you please, though I won’t tell you so beforehand.
I jested with him about the figure he would make in Virginia; but found he would do anything I desired, so I turned my tale. I told him I had good reason not to desire to go there to live, because if his plantations were worth so much there, I had not a fortune suitable to a gentleman of £1,200 a year, as he said his estate would be.
He replied he did not ask what my fortune was, he had told me from the beginning he would not, and he would be as good as his word; but whatever it was, he assured me he would never desire me to go to Virginia with him, or go thither himself without me, unless I made it my choice.
All this, you may be sure, was as I wished, and indeed nothing could have happened more perfectly agreeable; I carried it on as far as this with a sort of indifferency that he often wondered at, and I mention it the rather to intimate again to the ladies that nothing but want of courage for such an indifferency makes our sex so cheap, and prepares them to be ill used as they are; would they venture the loss of a pretending fop now and then, who carries it high upon the point of his own merit, they would certainly be slighted less, and courted more; had I discovered really what my great fortune was, and that in all I had not full £500 when he expected £1,500, yet I hooked him so fast and played with him so long, that I was satisfied he would have had me in my worst circumstances; and indeed it was less a surprise to him when he learnt the truth than it would have been, because having not the least blame to lay on me who had carried it with an air of indifference to the last, he could not say one word except that indeed he thought it had been more, but that if it had been less, he did not repent his bargain; only that he should not be able to maintain me so well as he intended.
In short, we were married, and very happily married on my side, I assure you, as to the man: for he was the best humoured man that ever woman had, but his circumstances were not so good as I imagined, as on the other hand he had not bettered himself so much as he expected.
When we were married I was shrewdly put to it to bring him that little stock I had, and to let him see it was no more; but there was a necessity for it, so I took my opportunity one day when we were alone to enter into a short dialogue with him about it. “My dear,” said I, “we have been married a fortnight, is it not time to let you know whether you have got a wife with something or with nothing?”
“Your own time for that, my dear,” says he; “I am satisfied I have got the wife I love; I have not troubled you much,” says he, “with my enquiry after it.”
“That’s true,” said I, “but I have a great difficulty about it, which I scarce know how to manage.”
“What’s that, my dear?” says he.
“Why,”