--- title: Section Thirteen Metadescription: Mr H catches Fanny with Will and turns her off with fifty pieces, and Mrs Cole takes her in and lodges her beside her Covent Garden shop. book: Fanny Hill author: John Cleland section: 13 of 28 canonical: https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-13 previous: https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-12 next: https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/fanny-hill/section-14 --- Token estimate: ~3,500 # Section Thirteen My happiness, however, with him did not last long, but found an end from my own imprudent neglect. After having taken even superfluous precautions against a discovery, our success in repeated meetings emboldened me to omit the barely necessary ones. About a month after our first intercourse, one fatal morning (the season Mr. H.... rarely or never visited me in) I was in my closet, where my toilet stood, in nothing but my shift, a bed gown and under petticoat. Will was with me, and both ever too well disposed to baulk an opportunity. For my part, a whim, a wanton toy had just taken me, and I had challenged my man to execute it on the spot, who hesitated not to comply with my humour: I was set in the arm chair, my shift and petticoat up, my thighs wide spread and mounted over the arms of the chair, presenting the fairest mark to Will’s drawn weapon, which he stood in act to plunge into me, when, having neglected to secure the chamber door, and that of the closet standing a-jar, Mr. H.... stole in upon us, before either of us was aware, and saw us precisely in these convicting attitudes. I gave a great scream, and dropped my petticoat: the thunder-struck lad stood trembling and pale, waiting his sentence of death. Mr. H.... looked sometimes at one, sometimes at the other, with a mixture of indignation and scorn; and, without saying a word, spun upon his heel and went out. As confused as I was, I heard him very distinctly turn the key, and lock the chamber door upon us, so that there was no escape but through the dining room, where he himself was walking about with distempered strides, stamping in a great chafe, and doubtless debating what he would do with us. In the mean time, poor William was frightened out of his senses, and, as much need as I had of spirits myself, I was obliged to employ them all to keep his a little up. The misfortune I had now brought upon him, endeared him the more to me, and I could have joyfully suffered any punishment he had not shared in. I watered, plentifully, with my tears, the face of the frightened youth, who sat, not having strength to stand, as cold and as lifeless as a statue. Presently Mr. H.... comes in to us again, and made us go before him into the dining room, trembling and dreading the issue, Mr. H.....sat down on a chair whilst we stood like criminals under examination; and, beginning with me, asked me, with an even firm tone of voice, neither soft nor severe, but cruelly indifferent, what I could say for myself, for having abused him in so unworthy a manner, with his own servant too, and how he had deserved this of me? Without adding to the guilt of my infidelity, that of an audacious defence of it, in the old style of a common kept miss, my answer was modest, and often interrupted by my tears, in substance as follows: “That I never had a single thought of wronging him” (which was true), “till I had seen him taking the last liberties with my servant wench” (here he coloured prodigiously), “and that my resentment at that, which I was over-awed from giving vent to by complaints, or explanations with him, had driven me to a course that I did not pretend to justify; but that as to the young man, he was entirely faultless; for that, in the view of making him the instrument of my revenge, I had down right seduced him to what he had done; and therefore hoped, whatever he determined about me, he would distinguish between the guilty and the innocent; and that; for the rest, I was entirely at his mercy.” Mr. H.... on hearing what I said, hung his head a little; but instantly recovering himself, he said to me, as near as I can retain, to the following purpose: “Madam, I owe shame to myself, and confess you have fairly turned the tables upon me. It is not with one of your cast of breeding and sentiments, that I allow you so much reason on your side, as great difference of the provocations: be it sufficient that I should enter into a discussion of the very to have changed my resolution, in consideration of what you reproach me with; and I own, too, that your clearing that rascal there, is fair and honest in you. Renew with you I cannot: the affront is too gross. I give you a week’s warning to get out of these lodgings; whatever I have given you, remains to you; and as I never intend to see you more, the landlord will pay you fifty pieces on my account, with which, and every debt paid, I hope you will own I do not leave you in a worse condition than what I took you up in, or that you deserve of me. Blame yourself only that it is no better.” Then, without giving me time to reply, he addressed himself to the young fellow: “For you, spark, I shall, for your father’s sake, take care of you: the town is no place for such an easy fool as thou art; and to-morrow you shall set out, under the charge of one of my men, well recommended, in my name, to your father, not to let you return and be spoil’d here.” At these words he went out, after my vainly attempting to stop him, by throwing myself at his feet. He shook me off, though he seemed greatly moved too, and took Will away with him, who, I dare swear, thought himself very cheaply off. I was now once more a-drift, and left upon my own hands, by a gentleman whom I certainly did not deserve. And all the letters, arts, friends, entreaties that I employed within the week of grace in my lodging, could never win on him so much as to see me again. He had irrevocably pronounced my doom, and submission to it was my only part. Soon after he married a lady of birth and fortune, to whom, I have heard he proved an irreproachable husband. As for poor Will, he was immediately sent down to the country to his father, who was an easy farmer, where he was not four months before an inn-keepers’ buxom young widow, with a very good stock, both in money and trade, fancied, and perhaps pre-acquainted with his secret excellencies, married him: and I am sure there was, at least, one good foundation for their living happily together. Though I should have been charmed to see him before he went, such measures were taken, by Mr. H....’s orders, that it was impossible; otherwise I should certainly have endeavoured to detain him in town, and would have spared neither offers nor expense to have procured myself the satisfaction of keeping him with me. He had such powerful holds upon my inclinations as were not easily to be shaken off, or replaced; as to my heart, it was quite out of the question: glad, however, I was from my soul, that nothing worse, and as things turned out, nothing better could have happened to him. As to Mr. H..., though views of conveniency made me, at first, exert myself to regain his affection, I was giddy and thoughtless enough to be much easier reconciled to my failure than I ought to have been; but as I never had loved him, and his leaving me gave me a sort of liberty that I had often longed for, I was soon comforted; and flattering myself, that the stock of youth and beauty I was going to trade with, could hardly fail of procuring me a maintenance, I saw myself under the necessity of trying my fortune with them, rather, with pleasure and gaiety, than with the least idea of despondency. In the mean time, several of my acquaintances among the sisterhood, who had soon got wind of my misfortune, flocked to insult me with their malicious consolations. Most of them had long envied me the affluence and splendour I had been maintained in; and though there was scarce one of them that did not at least deserve to be in my case, and would probably, sooner or later, come to it, it was equally easy to remark, even in their affected pity, their secret pleasure at seeing me thus discarded, and their secret grief that it was no worse with me. Unaccountable malice of the human heart! and which is not confined to the class of life they were of. But as the time approached for me to come to some resolution how to dispose of myself, and I was considering, round where to shift my quarters to, Mrs. Cole, a middle aged discreet sort of woman, who had been brought into my acquaintance by one of the misses that visited me, upon learning my situation, came to offer her cordial advice and service to me; and as I had always taken to her more than to any of my female acquaintances, I listened the easier to her proposals. And, as it happened, I could not have put myself into worse, or into better hands in all London: into worse, because keeping a house of conveniency, there were no lengths in lewdness she would not advise me to go, in compliance with her customers; no schemes, or pleasure, or even unbounded debauchery, she did not take even a delight in promoting: into a better, because nobody having had more experience of the wicked part of the town than she had, was fitter to advise and guard one against the worst dangers of our profession; and what was rare to be met with in those of her’s, she contented herself with a moderate living profit upon her industry and good offices, and had nothing of their greedy rapacious turn. She was really too a gentlewoman born and bred, but through a train of accidents reduced to this course, which she pursued, partly through necessity, partly through choice, as never woman delighted more in encouraging a brisk circulation of the trade, for the sake of the trade itself, or better understood all the mysteries and refinements of it, than she did; so that she was consummately at the top of her profession, and dealt only with customers of distinction: to answer the demands of whom she kept a competent number of her daughters in constant recruit (so she called those whom their youth and personal charms recommended to her adoption and management: several of whom, by her means, and through her tuition and instructions, succeeded very well in the world). This useful gentlewoman upon whose protection I now threw myself, having her reasons of state, respecting Mr. H...., for not appearing too much in the thing herself, sent a friend of her’s, on the day appointed for my removal, to conduct me to my new lodgings at a brush-maker’s in E—— street, Covent Garden, the very next door to her own house, where she had no conveniences to lodge me herself: lodgings that, by having been for several successions tenanted by ladies of pleasures, the landlord of them was familiarized to their ways; and provided the rent was paid, every thing else was as easy and commodious as one could desire. The fifty guineas promised me by Mr. H...., at his parting with me, having been duly paid me, all my clothes and moveables chested up, which were at least of two hundred pounds value, I had them conveyed into a coach, where I soon followed them, after taking a civil leave of the landlord and his family, with whom I had never lived in a degree of familiarity enough to regret the removal; but still, the very circumstance of its being a removal, drew tears from me. I left, too, a letter of thanks for Mr. H...., from whom I concluded myself, as I really was, irretrievably separated. My maid I had discharged the day before, not only because I had her of Mr. H...., but that I suspected her of having some how or other been the occasion of his discovering me, in revenge, perhaps, for my not having trusted her with him. We soon got to my lodgings, which, though not so handsomely furnished, nor so showy as those I left, were to the full as convenient, and at half price, though on the first floor. My trunks were safely landed, and stowed in my apartments, where my neighbour, and now gouvernante, Mrs. Cole, was ready with my landlord to receive me, to whom she took care to set me out in the most favourable light, that of one from whom there was the clearest reason to expect the regular payment of his rent: all the cardinal virtues attributed to me, would not have had half the weight of that recommendation alone. I was now settled in lodgings of my own, abandoned to my own conduct, and turned loose upon the town, to sink or swim, as I could manage with the current of it; and what were the consequences, together with the number of adventures which befell me in the exercise of my new profession, will compose the mater of another letter: for surely it is high time to put a period! to this. I am, MADAM, Yours, etc., etc., etc. ## THE END OF THE FIRST LETTER --- ## Forthcoming **The Rise of Lucia** by Dan Edwards The nineteen-year-old Emmeline Smith, before she became the formidable Lucia. A prequel to E.F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia series. [Read an extract](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/mapp-and-lucia-prequel/chapter-01) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/books/mapp-and-lucia-prequel/chapter-01.md)) ## Articles - [Writing advice from Jane Austen's teacher](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/articles/writing-advice-from-jane-austens-teacher) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/articles/writing-advice-from-jane-austens-teacher.md)) - Hugh Blair wrote the composition textbook Jane Austen's generation learned from. His rules for clear, unaffected prose read like a modern style guide. - [The sex scenes from Fanny Hill](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/articles/fanny-hill-sex-scenes) ([Markdown](https://fourhandspress.co.uk/articles/fanny-hill-sex-scenes.md)) - The eleven substantial sex scenes from Fanny Hill (1748), verbatim and in order. Explicit throughout, but Cleland never uses a coarse word. 14,000 words.