THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES OF MOLL FLANDERS
185
world to me to live in the house with him, and to have that unhappy object always before me, which had been such a blow to my peace before; that, though I should be glad to have his company (my son), or to be as near him as possible, yet I could not think of being in the house where I should be also under constant restraint for fear of betraying myself in my discourse, nor should I be able to refrain some expressions in my conversing with him as my son, that might discover the whole affair, which would by no means be convenient.
He acknowledged that I was right in all this. 'But then, dear mother', says he, 'you shall be as near me as you can.' So he took me with him on horseback to a plantation, next to his own, and where I was as well entertained as I could have been in his own. Having left me there, he went away home, telling me he would talk of the main business the next day; and having first called me his aunt, and given a charge to the people, who it seems were his tenants, to treat me with all possible respect, about two hours after he was gone, he sent me a maid-servant and a negro boy to wait on me, and provisions ready dressed for my supper; and thus I was as if I had been in a new world, and began almost to wish that I had not brought my Lancashire husband from England at all.
However, that wish was not hearty neither, for I loved my Lancashire husband entirely, as I had ever done from the beginning; and he merited it as much as it was possible for a man to do; but that by the way.
The next morning my son came to visit me again, almost as soon as I was up. After a little discourse, he first of all pulled out a deerskin bag, and gave it me, with five-and-fifty Spanish pistoles in it, and told me that was to supply my expenses from England, for though it was not his business to inquire, yet he ought to think I did not bring a great deal of money out with me, it not being usual to bring much money into that country. Then he pulled out his grandmother's will, and read it over to me, whereby it appeared that she left a plantation on York River to me, with the stock of servants and cattle upon it, and had given it in trust to this son of mine for my use, whenever he should hear of me, and to my heirs, if I had any children, and in default of heirs, to whomsoever I should by will dispose of it; but gave the income of it, till I should be heard of, to my said son; and if I should not be living, then it was to him, and his heirs.
This plantation, though remote from him, he said he did not let out, but managed it by a head-clerk, as he did another that was his father's, that lay hard by it, and went over himself three or four times a year to look after it. I asked him what he thought the plantation might be worth. He said, if I would let it out, he would give me about £60 a year for it; but if I would live on it, then it would be worth much more, and he believed would bring me in about £150 a year. But, seeing I was likely either to settle on the other side the bay, or might perhaps have a mind to go back to England, if I would let him be my steward he would manage it for me, as he had done for himself, and that he believed he should be able to send me as much tobacco from it as would yield me about £100 a year, sometimes more.
This was all strange news to me, and things I had not been used to; and really my heart began to look up more seriously than I think it ever did before, and to look with great thankfulness to the hand of Providence, which had done such wonders for me, who had been myself the greatest
