Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress. Даниэль ДефоЧитать онлайн книгу.
down immediately, so that he knew nothing of what was done afterwards. The coachman was the only man that could say anything, and all his account amounted to no more than this, that one of them had soldier's clothes, but he could not remember the particulars of his mounting so as to know what regiment he belonged to; and as to their faces, that he could know nothing of, because they had all of them masks on.
I had him buried as decently as the place would permit a Protestant stranger to be buried, and made some of the scruples and difficulties on that account easy by the help of money to a certain person, who went impudently to the curate of the parish St. Sulpice in Paris and told him that the gentleman that was killed was a Catholic, that the thieves had taken from him a cross of gold set with diamonds, worth 6,000 livres, that his widow was a Catholic and had sent by him sixty crowns to the Church of ---- for Masses to be said for the repose of his soul. Upon all which, though not one word of it was true, he was buried with all the ceremonies of the Roman Church.
I think I almost cried myself to death for him, for I abandoned myself to all the excesses of grief, and indeed I loved him to a degree inexpressible; and considering what kindness he had shown me at first, and how tenderly he had used me to the last, what could I do less?
Then the manner of his death was terrible and frightful to me, and, above all, the strange notices I had of it. I had never pretended to the second sight or anything of that kind, but certainly if any one ever had such a thing, I had it at this time, for I saw him as plainly in all those terrible shapes as above. First, as a skeleton, not dead only, but rotten and wasted; secondly, as killed, and his face bloody; and thirdly, his clothes bloody; and all within the space of one minute, or indeed of a very few moments.
These things amazed me, and I was a good while as one stupid. However, after some time I began to recover and look into my affairs. I had the satisfaction not to be left in distress or in danger of poverty; on the contrary, besides what he had put into my hands fairly in his lifetime, which amounted to a very considerable value, I found above seven hundred pistoles in gold in his escritoire, of which he had given me the key, and I found foreign bills accepted for about 12,000 livres; so that, in a word, I found myself possessed of almost ten thousand pounds sterling in a very few days after the disaster.
The first thing I did upon this occasion was to send a letter to my maid (as I still called her) Amy, wherein I gave her an account of my disaster; how my husband as she called him (for I never called him so), was murdered, and as I did not know how his relations or his wife's friends might act upon that occasion, I ordered her to convey away all the plate, linen, and other things of value and to secure them in a person's hands that I directed her to, and then to sell or dispose the furniture of the house if she could, and so, without acquainting anybody with the reason of her going, withdraw, sending notice to his head manager at London that the house was quitted by the tenant, and they might come and take possession of it for the executors. Amy was so dexterous, and did her work so nimbly, that she gutted the house, and sent the key to the said manager almost as soon as he had notice of the misfortune that befell their master.
Upon their receiving the surprising news of his death, the head manager came over to Paris and came to the house. I made no scruple of calling myself Madame ----, the widow of Monsieur ----, the English jeweller; and as I spoke French naturally, I did not let him know but that I was his wife, married in France, and that I had not heard that he had any wife in England, but pretended to be surprised, and exclaimed against him for so base an action; and that I had good friends in Poitou, where I was born, who would take care to have justice done me in England out of his estate.
I should have observed that as soon as the news was public of a man being murdered, and that he was a jeweller, fame did me the favour as to publish presently that he was robbed of his casket of jewels, which he always carried about with him. I confirmed this, among my daily lamentations, for his disaster, and added that he had with him a fine diamond ring which he was known to wear frequently about him, valued at 100 pistoles, a gold watch, and a great quantity of diamonds of inestimable value in his casket, which jewels he was carrying to the Prince of ----, to show some of them to him; and the Prince owned that he had spoken to him to bring some such jewels to let him see them. But I sorely repented this part afterwards, as you shall hear.
This rumour put an end to all enquiry after his jewels, his ring, or his watch; and as for the 700 pistoles, that I secured. For the bills which were in hand, I owned I had them; but that as, I said, I brought my husband 30,000 livres portion, I claimed the said bills, which came to not above 12,000 livres, for my amende; and this, with the plate and the household stuff, was the principal of all his estate which they could come at. As to the foreign bill which he was going to Versailles to get accepted, it was really lost with him; but his manager, who had remitted the bill to him by way of Amsterdam, bringing over the second bill, the money was saved, as they called it, which would otherwise have been also gone. The thieves who robbed and murdered him were, to be sure, afraid to send anybody to get the bill accepted, for that would undoubtedly have discovered them.
By this time my maid Amy was arrived, and she gave me an account of her management and how she had secured everything, and that she had quitted the house and sent the key to the head manager of his business, and let me know how much she had made of everything, very punctually and honestly.
I should have observed in the account of his dwelling with me so long at ----, that he never passed for anything there but a lodger in the house, and though he was landlord, that did not alter the case; so that at his death, Amy coming to quit the house and give them the key, there was no affinity between that and the case of their master who was newly killed.
I got good advice at Paris from an eminent lawyer, a counsellor of the parliament there, and, laying my case before him, he directed me to make a process in dower upon the estate for making good my new fortune upon matrimony, which accordingly I did; and, upon the whole, the manager went back to England well satisfied that he had gotten the unaccepted bills of exchange, which was for £2,500, with some other things, which together amounted to 17,000 livres, and thus I got rid of him.
I was visited with great civility on this sad occasion of the loss of my husband (as they thought him) by a great many ladies of quality; and the Prince of ---- to whom it was reported he was carrying the jewels, sent his gentleman with a very handsome compliment of condolence to me; and his gentleman, whether with or without order, hinted as if His Highness did intend to have visited me himself, but that some accident, which he made a long story of, had prevented him.
By the concourse of ladies and others that thus came to visit me I began to be much known, and as I did not forget to set myself out with all possible advantage, considering the dress of a widow, which in those days was a most frightful thing--I say, as I did thus from my own vanity, for I was not ignorant that I was very handsome--I say, on this account I was soon made very public, and was known by the name of La belle veuve de Poitou, or 'The pretty widow of Poitou.' As I was very well pleased to see myself thus handsomely used in my affliction, it soon dried up all my tears; and though I appeared as a widow, yet, as we say in England, it was of a widow comforted. I took care to let the ladies see that I knew how to receive them, that I was not at a loss how to behave to any of them; and, in short, I began to be very popular there. But I had an occasion afterwards which made me decline that kind of management, as you shall hear presently.
About four days after I had received the compliments of condolence from the Prince of ----, the same gentleman he had sent before came to tell me that His Highness was coming to give me a visit. I was indeed surprised at that, and perfectly at a loss how to behave. However, as there was no remedy, I prepared to receive him as well as I could. It was not many minutes after but he was at the door, and came in, introduced by his own gentleman, as above, and after by my woman Amy.
He treated me with abundance of civility, and condoled handsomely the loss of my husband and likewise the manner of it. He told me he understood he was coming to Versailles, to himself, to show him some jewels; that it was true that he had discoursed with him about jewels, but could not imagine how any villains should hear of his coming at that time with them; that he had not ordered him to attend with them at Versailles, but told him that he would come to Paris by such a day, so that he was no way accessory to the disaster. I told him gravely I knew very well that all His Highness had