He took me at my word immediately, and after that there was no
resisting him; neither indeed had I any mind to resist him any more,
let what would come of it.
Thus the government of our virtue was broken, and I exchanged the place
of friend for that unmusical, harsh-sounding title of whore. In the
morning we were both at our penitentials; I cried very heartily, he
expressed himself very sorry; but that was all either of us could do at
that time, and the way being thus cleared, and the bars of virtue and
conscience thus removed, we had the less difficult afterwards to
struggle with.
It was but a dull kind of conversation that we had together for all the
rest of that week; I looked on him with blushes, and every now and then
started that melancholy objection, 'What if I should be with child now?
What will become of me then?' He encouraged me by telling me, that as
long as I was true to him, he would be so to me; and since it was gone
such a length (which indeed he never intended), yet if I was with
child, he would take care of that, and of me too. This hardened us
both. I assured him if I was with child, I would die for want of a
midwife rather than name him as the father of it; and he assured me I
should never want if I should be with child. These mutual assurances
hardened us in the thing, and after this we repeated the crime as often
as we pleased, till at length, as I had feared, so it came to pass, and
I was indeed with child.
After I was sure it was so, and I had satisfied him of it too, we began
to think of taking measures for the managing it, and I proposed
trusting the secret to my landlady, and asking her advice, which he
agreed to. My landlady, a woman (as I found) used to such things, made
light of it; she said she knew it would come to that at last, and made
us very merry about it. As I said above, we found her an experienced
old lady at such work; she undertook everything, engaged to procure a
midwife and a nurse, to satisfy all inquiries, and bring us off with
reputation, and she did so very dexterously indeed.
When I grew near my time she desired my gentleman to go away to London,
or make as if he did so. When he was gone, she acquainted the parish
officers that there was a lady ready to lie in at her house, but that
she knew her husband very well, and gave them, as she pretended, an
account of his name, which she called Sir Walter Cleve; telling them he
was a very worthy gentleman, and that she would answer for all
inquiries, and the like. This satisfied the parish officers presently,
and I lay in with as much credit as I could have done if I had really
been my Lady Cleve, and was assisted in my travail by three or four of
the best citizens' wives of Bath who lived in the neighbourhood, which,
however, made me a little the more expensive to him. I often expressed
my concern to him about it, but he bid me not be concerned at it.