Memoirs of Fanny Hill: A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749)Cleland, John
General
Memoirs of Fanny Hill: A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749)
Cleland, John
England -- Fiction; Erotic fiction; Prostitutes -- Fiction
It is peculiar to vice to tremble at the enquiries of justice; and Mrs.
Brown, whose conscience was not entirely clear upon my account, as
knowing as she was of the town as hackneyed as she was in bluffing
through all the dangers of her vocation, could not help being alarmed
at the questions, especially when he went on to talk of a Justice of
peace, Newgate, the Old Bailey, indictments for keeping a disorderly
house, pillory, carting, and the whole process of that nature. She,
who, it is likely, imagined I had lodged an information against her
house, looked extremely blank, and began to make a thousand
protestations and excuses. However, to abridge, they brought away
triumphantly my box of things, which, had she not ben under an awe, she
might have disputed with them; and not only that, but a clearance and
discharge of any demands on the house, at the expense of no more than a
bowl of arrack-punch, the treat of which, together with the choice of
the house conveniences, was offered and not accepted. Charles all the
time acted the chance companion of the lawyer, who had brought him
there, as he knew the house, and appeared in no wise interested in the
issue; but he had the collateral pleasure of hearing all that I told
him verified, as far as the bawd’s fears would give her leave to enter
into my history, which, if one may guess by the composition she so
readily came into, were not small.
Phœbe, my kind tutoress Phœbe, was at the time gone out, perhaps in
search of me, or their cooked-up story had not, it is probable, passed
smoothly.
This negociation had, however, taken up some time, which would have
appeared much longer to me, left as I was, in a strange house, if the
landlady, a motherly sort of a woman, to whom Charles had liberally
recommended me, had not come up and borne me company. We drank tea, and
her chat helped to pass away the time very agreeably, since he was our
theme; but as the evening deepened, and the hour set for his return was
elapsed, I could not dispel the gloom of impatience, and tender fears
which gathered upon me, and which our timid sex are apt to feel in
proportion to their love.
Long, however, I did not suffer: the sight of him over-paid me; and the
soft reproach I had prepared for him, expired before it reached my
lips.
I was still a-bed, yet unable to use my legs otherwise than awkwardly,
and Charles flew to me, catches me in his arms, raised and extending
mine to meet his dear embrace, and gives me an account, interrupted by
many a sweet parenthesis of kisses, of the success of his measures.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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