w to repent, and would fain have got out of bed
again; but he said to her, "Nay, Amy, you see your mistress has put you
to bed; 'tis all her doing; you must blame her." So he held her fast,
and the wench being naked in the bed with him, it was too late to look
back, so she lay still and let him do what he would with her.
Had I looked upon myself as a wife, you cannot suppose I would have been
willing to have let my husband lie with my maid, much less before my
face, for I stood by all the while; but as I thought myself a whore, I
cannot say but that it was something designed in my thoughts that my
maid should be a whore too, and should not reproach me with it.
Amy, however, less vicious than I, was grievously out of sorts the next
morning, and cried and took on most vehemently, that she was ruined and
undone, and there was no pacifying her; she was a whore, a slut, and she
was undone! undone! and cried almost all day. I did all I could to
pacify her. "A whore!" says I. "Well, and am not I a whore as well as
you?" "No, no," says Amy; "no, you are not, for you are married." "Not
I, Amy," says I; "I do not pretend to it. He may marry you to-morrow,
if he will, for anything I could do to hinder it. I am not married. I do
not look upon it as anything." Well, all did not pacify Amy, but she
cried two or three days about it; but it wore off by degrees.
But the case differed between Amy and her master exceedingly; for Amy
retained the same kind temper she always had; but, on the contrary, he
was quite altered, for he hated her heartily, and could, I believe, have
killed her after it, and he told me so, for he thought this a vile
action; whereas what he and I had done he was perfectly easy in, thought
it just, and esteemed me as much his wife as if we had been married from
our youth, and had neither of us known any other; nay, he loved me, I
believe, as entirely as if I had been the wife of his youth. Nay, he
told me it was true, in one sense, that he had two wives, but that I was
the wife of his affection, the other the wife of his aversion.
I was extremely concerned at the aversion he had taken to my maid Amy,
and used my utmost skill to get it altered; for though he had, indeed,
debauched the wench, I knew that I was the principal occasion of it; and
as he was the best-humoured man in the world, I never gave him over till
I prevailed with him to be easy with her, and as I was now become the
devil's agent, to make others
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