“What!” cries she, “you would make bad blood between two cousins, to the ruin and disgrace of one, merely to save the expense of some beggarly fees! I’ll hear no more. Go at once, or I will send for my servants to carry you out by force.”
He stood some moments in deliberation, and then he says, with a certain dignity unusual to him, “I will go.” Then he casts his eye slowly round the room, with a lingering regard for his piles of documents and precious boxes of title deeds, as if he were bidding a last farewell to all that was dear to him on earth, and grotesque as his appearance might be, there was yet something pathetic in it. But even at this moment his ruling passion prevailed.
“There is no need,” says he, “to burst these goodly locks by force. I do bethink me the keys are here” (opening a drawer, and laying them upon the table). Then dropping his head, he goes slowly to the door, but there he turns, lifting his head and fixing his rheumy eyes on Moll. “I will take nothing from this house, not even the chattels that belong to me, bought from the mean wage I have allowed myself. So shalt thou judge of my honesty. They shall stand here till I return, for that I shall return I am as fully persuaded as that a just God doth dispose of his creatures. Thee hast might on thy side, woman, but whether thee hast right as well, shall yet be proven—not by the laws of man, which are an invention of the devil to fatten rogues upon the substance of fools, but by the law of Heaven, to which I do appeal with all my soul” (lifting high his shaking hands). “Morning and night I will pray that God shall smite with heavy hand which of us two hath most wronged the other. Offer the same prayer if thee darest.”
I do confess that this parting shot went home to my conscience, and troubled my mind considerably; for feeling that he was in the right of it as regarded our relative honesty, I was constrained to think that his prophecy might come true also to our shame and undoing. But Moll was afflicted with no such qualms, her spirit being very combative and high, and her conscience (such as it was) being hardened by our late discussion to resist sharper slaps than this. Nay, maintaining that Simon must be dishonest by the proof we had of his hypocrisy and double dealing, she would have me enter upon my office at once by sending letters to all her tenants, warning them to pay no rent to any one lately in her service, but only to me; and these letters (which kept my pen going all that afternoon) she signed with the name of Judith Godwin, which seemed to me a very bold, dangerous piece of business; but she would have it so, and did her signature with a strong hand and a flourish of loops beneath like any queen.
Nor was this all; for the next morning she would have me go to that Mr. Goodman, who had offered to buy her farm for ready money, and get what I could from him, seeing that she must furnish herself with fresh gowns and make other outlay for her coming marriage. So to him I go, and after much haggling (having learnt from Simon that the land was worth more than he offered for it), I brought him to give six thousand pounds instead of five, and this was clearly better business on his side than on mine at that, for that the bargain might not slip from his hands he would have me take three thousand pounds down as a handsell, leaving the rest to be paid when the deed of transference was drawn up.
And now as I jogged home with all this gold chinking in my pockets, I did feel that I had thrust my head fairly into a halter, and no chance left of drawing it out. Look at it how I might, this business wore a most curst aspect, to be sure; nor could I regard myself as anything but a thoroughpaced rogue.
“For,” thinks I, “if old Simon’s prayer be answered, what will become of this poor Mr. Goodman? His title deeds will be wrested from him, for they are but stolen goods he is paying for, and thus an innocent, honest man will be utterly ruined. And for doing this villany I may count myself lucky if my heels save my neck.”
With this weight on my mind, I resolved to be very watchful and careful of my safety, and before I fell asleep that night I had devised a dozen schemes for making good my escape as soon as I perceived danger; nevertheless, I could dream of nothing but prisons, scourgings, etc., and in every vision I perceived old Simon in his leather skull-cap sitting on the top of Tyburn tree, with his handkercher a-hanging down ready to strangle me.
CHAPTER XXV.
A table of various accidents.
As your guide, showing you an exhibition of paintings, will linger over the first room, and then pass the second in hurried review to come the quicker to a third of greater interest, so I, having dwelt, may be, at undue length upon some secondary passages in this history, must economise my space by touching lightly on the events that came immediately before Moll’s marriage, and so get to those more moving accidents which followed. Here, therefore, will I transcribe certain notes (forming a brief chronicle) from that secret journal which, for the clearer understanding of my position, I began to keep the day I took possession of Simon’s lodge and entered upon my new office.
December 8. Very busy all this forenoon setting my new house in order, conveying, with the help of the gardener, all those domestic and personal goods that belong to Simon into the attick; but Lord! so few these things, and they so patched and worn, that altogether they are not worth ten shillings of anybody’s money. I find the house wondrous neat and clean in every part, but so comfortless and prison-like, that I look forward with little relish to living here when the time comes for me to leave the Court. After this to examining books, papers, etc., and the more closely I look into these, the more assured I am that never was any servant more scrupulous, exact, and honest in his master’s service than this old steward, which puts me to the hope that I may be only half as faithful to my trust as he, but I do fear I shall not.
Conversing privily with Don Sanchez after dinner, he gave me his opinion that we had done a very unwise thing in turning out old Simon, showing how by a little skill I might have persuaded Moll to leave this business to Mr. Godwin as the proper ruler of her estate; how by such delay Mr. Godwin’s resentment would have abated and he willing to listen to good argument in the steward’s favour; how then we should have made Simon more eager than ever to serve us in order to condone his late offence, and how by abusing our opportunities we had changed this useful servant to a dangerous enemy whose sole endeavour must be to undo us and recover his former position, etc.… “Why, what have we to fear of this miserable old man?” says I. “Unless he fetch Mrs. Godwin from Barbary, he cannot disprove Moll’s right to the estate, and what else can he do?”
“There’s the mischief of it,” answers he. “’Tis because you know not how he may attack you that you have no means of defending yourself. ’Tis ever the unseen trifle in our path which trips us up.” And dismissing this part of the subject with a hunch of his shoulders, he advises me seriously to sell as many more farms as I may for ready money, and keep it in some secret convenient corner where I may lay hands on it at a moment’s warning.
This discourse coming atop of a night’s ill rest, depressed my mind to such a degree that I could take no interest in my work, but sat there in my naked room with my accounts before me, and no spirit to cast ’em up, Nor was I much happier when I gave up work and returned to the Court. For, besides having to wait an hour later than usual for dinner, Moll’s treatment of me was none of the best—she being particularly perverse and contrary, for having dressed herself in her best in expectation of her lover’s return, and he not coming when at last she permitted supper to be dished. We were scarcely seated, however, when she springs up with a cry of joy and runs from the room, crying she hears her Richard’s step, which was indeed true, though we had heard nothing more pleasant than the rattle of our plates. Presently they come in, all radiant with happiness, hand in hand, and thenceforth nought but sweetness and mirth on the part of Mistress Moll, who before had been all frown and pout. At supper Mr. Godwin tells us how his sweetheart hath certainly dispelled the clouds that have hung so long over him, he having heard in London that Sir Peter Lely, on seeing one of his pieces, desires to see him at Hatfield (where he is painting) on good business, and to Hatfield he will go to discharge this matter before his marriage; which joyeth Moll less than me, I being pleased