Даниэль Дефо - Roxana

I’ll tell you, says he , very plainly what I mean, and still he held me fast in his Arms; I intend from this time, never to trouble myself with any-more Business; so I shall never get one Shilling for you, more than I have already; all that you will lose one way; [282] one way : in that manner. next , I intend not to trouble myself with any of the Care or Trouble of managing what either you have for me, or what I have to add to it; but you shall e’en take it all upon yourself, as the Wives do in Holland, [283] as the Wives do in Holland : In Holland women in many trades still shared the burden of work with their husbands. so you will pay for it that way too; for all the Drudgery shall be yours; thirdly , I intend to condemn you to the constant Bondage of my impertinent Company, for I shall tie you like a Pedlar’s Pack, at my Back, I shall scarce ever be from you; for, I am sure, I can take Delight in nothing else in this World: Very well, says I , but I am pretty heavy, I hope you’ll set me down sometimes, when you are a-weary; as for that, says he , tire me if you can.

This was all Jest and Allegory; but it was all true, in the Moral of the Fable, as you shall hear in its Place: We were very merry the rest of the Day, but without any Noise, or Clutter; for he brought not one of his Acquaintance, or Friends, either English , or Foreigner: The honest QUAKER provided us a very noble Dinner indeed, considering how few we were to eat it; and every Day that Week she did the like, and wou’d, at last, have it be all at her own Charge, which I was utterly adverse to; first , because I knew her Circumstances not to be very great, tho’ not very low; and next , because she had been so true a Friend, and so chearful a Comforter to me, ay, and Counsellor too , in all this Affair, that I had resolv’d to make her a Present, that shou’d be some Help to her when all was over.

But to return to the Circumstances of our Wedding; after being very merry, as I have told you, Amy and the QUAKER, put us to-Bed, the honest QUAKER little-thinking we had been a-Bed together eleven Years before; nay, that was a Secret which, as it happen’d, Amy herself did not know: Amy grinn’d, and made Faces, as if she had been pleas’d; but it came out in so many Words, when he was not by, the Sum of her mumbling and muttering was, that this shou’d have been done ten or a dozen Years before; that it wou’d signifie little now; that was to say, in short , that her Mistress was pretty near Fifty, and too old to have any Children; I chid her; the QUAKER laugh’d; complimented me upon my not being so old as Amy pretended; that I cou’d not be above Forty, and might have a House-full of Children yet; but Amy and I too, knew better than she, how it was; for, in short , I was old enough to have done breeding, however I look’d; but I made her hold her Tongue.

In the Morning my QUAKER-Landlady came and visited us, before we were up, and made us eat Cakes, and drink Chocolate in-Bed; and then left us again, and bid us take a Nap upon it, which I believe we did; in short , she treated us so handsomly, and with such an agreeable Chearfulness, as well as Plenty, as made it appear to me, that QUAKERS may, and that this QUAKER did, understand Good-Manners, as well as any-other People.

I resisted her Offer, however , of treating us for the whole Week; and I oppos’d it so long, that I saw evidently that she took it ill, and wou’d have thought herself slighted, if we had not accepted it; so I said no more, but let her go on, only told her, I wou’d be even with her, and so I was : However, for that Week she treated us, as she said she wou’d , and did it so very fine, and with such a Profusion of all sorts of good things, that the greatest Burthen to her was, how to dispose of things that were left; for she never let any-thing, how dainty, or however large, be so much as seen twice among us.

I had some Servants indeed, which help’d her off a little; that is to say , two Maids, for Amy was now a Woman of Business, not a Servant, and eat always with us; I had also, a Coachman, and a Boy; my QUAKER had a Man-Servant too, but had but one Maid; but she borow’d two more of some of her Friends, for the. Occasion; and had a Man-Cook for dressing the Victuals.

She was only at a loss for Plate, which she gave me a Whisper of; and I made Amy fetch a large strong Box, which I had lodg’d in a safe Hand, in which was all the fine Plate, which I had provided on a worse Occasion, as is mention’d before ; and I put it into the QUAKER’S Hand, obliging her not to use it as mine, but as her own, for a Reason I shall mention presently.

I was now my LADY —, and I must own, I was exceedingly pleas’d with it; ’twas so Big, and so Great, to hear myself call’d Her Ladyship , and Your Ladyship, and the like ; that I was like the Indian King at Virginia , [284] the Indian King at Virginia : Opechancanough, who succeeded to the leadership of the ‘Confederacy’ or Indian empire alter the death of his kinsman Powhatan in 1618, had a house built for him by George Thorpe. Edward Waterhouse, the London Secretary of the Virginia Company, gave an account of the event in his Declaration of the State of the Colony… in Virginia (1622): Opechancanough ‘took such joy, especially in his lock and key, which he so admired as, locking and unlocking his door an hundred times a day, he thought no device in all the world was comparable to it’. (See H. C. Porter, The Inconstant Savage: England and the North American Indian: 1500–1660 (Duckworth, 1979), p. 457.) The story would have been known to Defoe from Captain John Smith’s account of ‘The Massacre upon the 22 March, 1622’ in the fourth book of his The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624). who having a House built for him by the English , and a Lock put upon the Door, wou’d sit whole Days together, with the Key in his Hand, locking and unlocking, and doublelocking the Door, with an unaccountable Pleasure at the Novelty; so I cou’d have sat a whole Day together, to hear Amy talk to me, and call me Your Ladyship at every word; but after a-while the Novelty wore off, and the Pride of it abated; till at last, truly, I wanted the other Title as much as I did that of Ladyship before.

We liv’d this Week in all the Innocent Mirth imaginable; and our good-humour’d QUAKER was so pleasant in her Way, that it was particularly entertaining to us: We had no Musick at-all, or Dancing; only I now and then sung a French Song, to divert my Spouse, who desir’d it, and the Privacy of our Mirth, greatly added to the Pleasure of it: I did not make many Cloaths for my Wedding, having always a great-many rich Cloaths by me, which with a little altering for the Fashion, were perfectly new: The next Day he press’d me to dress, tho’ we had no Company; at last, jesting with him, I told him, I believ’d I was able to dress me so, in one kind of Dress that I had by me, that he wou’d not know his Wife when he saw her, especially if any-body else was by: No ! he said, that was impossible ; and he long’d to see that Dress; I told him , I wou’d dress me in it, if he wou’d promise me never to desire me to appear in it before Company; he promis’d he wou’d not, but wanted to know why too; as Husands, you know, are inquisitive Creatures, and love to enquire after any-thing they think is kept from them; but I had an Answer ready for him; because, said I , it is not a decent Dress in this Country, and wou’d not look modest; neither indeed, wou’d it, for it was but one Degree off, from appearing in one’s Shift; but was the usual Wear in the Country where they were used: He was satisfy’d with my Answer, and gave me his Promise, never to ask me to be seen in it before Company: I then withdrew, taking only Amy and the QUAKER with me; and Amy dress’d me in my old Turkish Habit which I danc’d in formerly, &c. as before : The QUAKER was charm’d with the Dress, and merrily [285] merrily : facetiously. said , That if such a Dress shou’d come to be worn here, she shou’d not know what to do; she shou’d be tempted not to dress in the QUAKERS Way anymore.