The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

I had many melancholy hours at the Bath after the company was gone; for

though I went to Bristol sometime for the disposing my effects, and for

recruits of money, yet I chose to come back to Bath for my residence,

because being on good terms with the woman in whose house I lodged in

the summer, I found that during the winter I lived rather cheaper there

than I could do anywhere else. Here, I say, I passed the winter as

heavily as I had passed the autumn cheerfully; but having contracted a

nearer intimacy with the said woman in whose house I lodged, I could

not avoid communicating to her something of what lay hardest upon my

mind and particularly the narrowness of my circumstances, and the loss

of my fortune by the damage of my goods at sea. I told her also, that

I had a mother and a brother in Virginia in good circumstances; and as

I had really written back to my mother in particular to represent my

condition, and the great loss I had received, which indeed came to

almost #500, so I did not fail to let my new friend know that I

expected a supply from thence, and so indeed I did; and as the ships

went from Bristol to York River, in Virginia, and back again generally

in less time from London, and that my brother corresponded chiefly at

Bristol, I thought it was much better for me to wait here for my

returns than to go to London, where also I had not the least

acquaintance.

My new friend appeared sensibly affected with my condition, and indeed

was so very kind as to reduce the rate of my living with her to so low

a price during the winter, that she convinced me she got nothing by me;

and as for lodging, during the winter I paid nothing at all.

When the spring season came on, she continued to be as kind to me as

she could, and I lodged with her for a time, till it was found

necessary to do otherwise. She had some persons of character that

frequently lodged in her house, and in particular the gentleman who, as

I said, singled me out for his companion the winter before; and he came

down again with another gentleman in his company and two servants, and

lodged in the same house. I suspected that my landlady had invited him

thither, letting him know that I was still with her; but she denied it,

and protested to me that she did not, and he said the same.

In a word, this gentleman came down and continued to single me out for

his peculiar confidence as well as conversation. He was a complete

gentleman, that must be confessed, and his company was very agreeable

to me, as mine, if I might believe him, was to him. He made no

professions to be but of an extraordinary respect, and he had such an

opinion of my virtue, that, as he often professed, he believed if he

should offer anything else, I should reject him with contempt. He soon

understood from me that I was a widow; that I had arrived at Bristol

from Virginia by the last ships; and that I waited at Bath till the

next Virginia fleet should arrive, by which I expected considerable

effects. I understood by him, and by others of him, that he had a

wife, but that the lady was distempered in her head, and was under the

conduct of her own relations, which he consented to, to avoid any

reflections that might (as was not unusual in such cases) be cast on

him for mismanaging her cure; and in the meantime he came to the Bath

to divert his thoughts from the disturbance of such a melancholy

circumstance as that was.