It happened pleasantly enough one night, his lordship had stayed late, and I, not expecting him that night, had taken Amy to bed with me, and when my lord came into the chamber we were both fast asleep. I think it was near three o'clock when he came in, and a little merry, but not at all fuddled or what they call in drink; and he came at once into the room.
Amy was frighted out of her wits, and cried out. I said calmly, "Indeed, my lord, I did not expect you to-night, and we have been a little frighted to-night with fire." "Oh!" says he, "I see you have got a bedfellow with you." I began to make an apology. "No, no," says my lord, "you need no excuse, 'tis not a man bedfellow, I see;" but then, talking merrily enough, he catched his words back: "But, hark ye," says he, "now I think on 't, how shall I be satisfied it is not a man bedfellow?" "Oh," says I, "I dare say your lordship is satisfied 'tis poor Amy." "Yes," says he, "'tis Mrs. Amy; but how do I know what Amy is? it may be Mr. Amy for aught I know; I hope you'll give me leave to be satisfied." I told him, yes, by all means, I would have his lordship satisfied; but I supposed he knew who she was.
Well, he fell foul of poor Amy, and indeed I thought once he would have carried the jest on before my face, as was once done in a like case; but his lordship was not so hot neither, but he would know whether Amy was Mr. Amy or Mrs. Amy, and so, I suppose, he did; and then being satisfied in that doubtful case, he walked to the farther end of the room, and went into a little closet and sat down.
In the meantime Amy and I got up, and I bid her run and make the bed in another chamber for my lord, and I gave her sheets to put into it; which she did immediately, and I put my lord to bed there, and when I had done, at his desire went to bed to him. I was backward at first to come to bed to him, and made my excuse because I had been in bed with Amy, and had not shifted me; but he was past those niceties at that time; and as long as he was sure it was Mrs. Amy, and not Mr. Amy, he was very well satisfied, and so the jest passed over. But Amy appeared no more all that night, or the next day, and when she did, my lord was so merry with her upon his eclaircissement, as he called it, that Amy did not know what to do with herself.
Not that Amy was such a nice lady in the main, if she had been fairly dealt with, as has appeared in the former part of this work; but now she was surprised, and a little hurried, that she scarce knew where she was; and besides, she was, as to his lordship, as nice a lady as any in the world, and for anything he knew of her she appeared as such. The rest was to us only that knew of it.
I held this wicked scene of life out eight years, reckoning from my first coming to England; and though my lord found no fault, yet I found, without much examining, that any one who looked in my face might see I was above twenty years old; and yet, without flattering myself, I carried my age, which was above fifty, very well too.
I may venture to say that no woman ever lived a life like me, of six-and-twenty years of wickedness, without the least signals of remorse, without any signs of repentance, or without so much as a wish to put an end to it; I had so long habituated myself to a life of vice, that really it appeared to be no vice to me. I went on smooth and pleasant, I wallowed in wealth, and it flowed in upon me at such a rate, having taken the frugal measures that the good knight directed, so that I had at the end of the eight years two thousand eight hundred pounds coming yearly in, of which I did not spend one penny, being maintained by my allowance from my Lord ——, and more than maintained by above £200 per annum; for though he did not contract for £500 a year, as I made dumb signs to have it be, yet he gave me money so often, and that in such large parcels, that I had seldom so little as seven to eight hundred pounds a year of him, one year with another.
THE DUTCH MERCHANT CALLS ON ROXANA
"There," says she (ushering him in), "is the person who, I suppose, thou inquirest for"