12
THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES OF MOLL FLANDERS
would to-morrow desire me publicly to go of an errand for him, and that I should see him somewhere by the way.
Accordingly, after dinner, he very gravely says to me, his sisters being all by, 'Mrs Betty, I must ask a favour of you.' 'What's that?' says the second sister. 'Nay, sister', says he very gravely, 'if you can't spare Mrs Betty to-day, any other time will do.' Yes, they said, they could spare her well enough; and the sister begged pardon for asking. 'Well, but', says the eldest sister, 'you must tell Mrs Betty what it is; if it be any private business that we must not hear, you may call her out. There she is.' 'Why, sister', says the gentleman very gravely, 'what do you mean? I only desire her to go into the High Street' (and then he pulls out a turnover) 'to such a shop'; and then he tells them a long story of two fine neckcloths he had bid money for, and he wanted to have me go and make an errand to buy a neck to that turnover that he showed, and if they would not take my money for the neckcloths, to bid a shilling more, and haggle with them; and then he made more errands, and so continued to have such petty business to do that I should be sure to stay a good while.
When he had given me my errands, he told them a long story of a visit he was going to make to a family they all knew, and where was to be such-and-such gentlemen, and very formally asked his sisters to go with him, and they as formally excused themselves, because of company that they had notice was to come and visit them that afternoon; all which, by the way, he had contrived on purpose.
He had scarce done speaking but his man came up to tell him that Sir W H's coach stopped at the door; so he runs down, and comes up again immediately. 'Alas!' says he aloud, 'there's all my mirth spoiled at once; Sir W has sent his coach for me, and desires to speak with me.' It seems this Sir W was a gentleman who lived about three miles off, to whom he had spoke on purpose to lend him his chariot for a particular occasion, and had appointed it to call for him, as it did, about three o'clock.
Immediately he calls for his best wig, hat, and sword, and, ordering his man to go to the other place to make his excuse—that was to say, he made an excuse to send his man away—he prepares to go into the coach. As he was going, he stopped awhile, and speaks mighty earnestly to me about his business, and finds an opportunity to say very softly 'Come away, my dear, as soon as ever you can.' I said nothing, but made a curtsey, as if I had done so to what he said in public. In about a quarter of an hour I went out too; I had no dress other than before, except that I had a hood, a mask, a fan, and a pair of gloves in my pocket: so that there was not the least suspicion in the house. He waited for me in a back-lane which he knew I must pass by, and the coachman knew whither to go, which was to a certain place, called Mile End, where lived a confidant of his, where we went in, and where was all the convenience in the world to be as wicked as we pleased.
When we were together he began to talk very gravely to me, and to tell me he did not bring me there to betray me; that his passion for me would not suffer him to abuse me; that he resolved to marry me as soon as he came to his estate; that in the meantime, if I would grant his request, he would maintain me very honourably; and made me a thousand protestations of his sincerity and of his affection to me; and that he would never abandon me, and, as I may say, made a thousand more preambles than he need to have done.
