Pamela, Volume II

"I was resolved, however, not to be long without her; and Mrs. Jewkes having been recommended to me a little before, by a brother-rake, as a woman of tried fidelity, I asked her if she would be faithful, if I had occasion to commit a pretty girl to her care?

"She hoped, she said, it would be with the lady's own consent, and she should make no scruple in obeying me.

"So I thought I would way-lay the girl, and carry her first to a little village in Northamptonshire, to an acquaintance of Mrs. Jewkes's. And when I had brought her to be easy and pacified a little, I designed that Jewkes should attend her to Lincolnshire: for I knew there was no coming at her here, under my mother's wing, by her own consent, and that to offer terms to her, would be to blow up my project all at once. Besides, I was sensible, that Mrs. Jervis would stand in the way of my proceedings as well as my mother.

"The method I had contrived was quite easy, as I imagined, and such as could not have failed to answer my purpose, as to carrying her off; and I doubted not of making her well satisfied in her good fortune very quickly; for, having a notion of her affectionate duty to her parents, I was not displeased that I could make the terms very easy and happy to them all.

"What most stood in my way, was my mother's fondness for her: but supposing I had got her favourite in my hands, which appeared to me, as I said, a task very easy to be conquered, I had actually formed a letter for her to transcribe, acknowledging a love-affair, and laying her withdrawing herself so privately, to an implicit obedience to her husband's commands, to whom she was married that morning, and who, being a young gentleman of genteel family, and dependent on his friends, was desirous of keeping it all a profound secret; and begging, on that account, her lady not to divulge it, so much as to Mrs. Jervis.

"And to prepare for this, and make her escape the more probable, when matters were ripe for my plot, I came in one night, and examined all the servants, and Mrs. Jervis, the latter in my mother's hearing, about a genteel young man, whom I pretended to find with a pillion on the horse he rode upon, waiting about the back door of the garden, for somebody to come to him; and who rode off, when I came up to the door, as fast as he could. Nobody knew any thing of the matter, and they were much surprised at what I told them: but I begged Pamela might be watched, and that no one would say any thing to her about it.

"My mother said, she had two reasons not to speak of it to Pamela: one to oblige me: the other and chief, because it would break the poor innocent girl's heart, to be suspected. 'Poor dear child!' said she, 'whither can she go, to be so happy as with me? Would it not be inevitable ruin to her to leave me? There is nobody comes after her: she receives no letters, but now-and-then one from her father and mother, and those she shews me.'

"'Well,' replied I, 'I hope she can have no design; 'twould be strange if she had formed any to leave so good a mistress; but you can't be sure all the letters she receives are from her father; and her shewing to you those he writes, looks like a cloak to others she may receive from another hand. But it can be no harm to have an eye upon her. You don't know, Madam, what tricks there are in the world.'

"'Not I, indeed; but only this I know, that the girl shall be under no restraint, if she is resolved to leave me, well as I love her.'

"Mrs. Jervis said, she would have an eye upon Pamela, in obedience to my command, but she was sure there was no need; nor would she so much wound the poor child's peace, as to mention the matter to her.

"This I suffered to blow off, and seemed to my mother to have so good an opinion of her Pamela, that I was sorry, as I told her, I had such a surmise: saying, that though the fellow and the pillion were odd circumstances, yet I dared to say, there was nothing in it: for I doubted not, the girl's duty and gratitude would hinder her from doing a foolish or rash thing.

"This my mother heard with pleasure: although my motive was but to lay Pamela on the thicker to her, when she was to be told she had escaped.

"She was glad I was not an enemy to the poor child. 'Pamela has no friend but me,' continued she; 'and if I don't provide for her, I shall have done her more harm than good (as you and your aunt B. have often said,) in the accomplishments I have given her: and yet the poor girl, I see that,' added she, 'would not be backward to turn her hand to any thing for the sake of an honest livelihood, were she put to it; which, if it please God to spare me, and she continues good, she never shall be.'

"I wonder not, Pamela, at your tears on this occasion. Your lady was an excellent woman, and deserved this tribute to her memory. All my pleasure now is, that she knew not half my wicked pranks, and that I did not vex her worthy heart in the prosecution of this scheme; which would have given me a severe sting, inasmuch as I might have apprehended, with too much reason, that I had shortened her days by the knowledge of the one and the other.

"I had thus every thing ready for the execution of my project: but my mother's ill state of health gave me too much concern, to permit me to proceed. And, now-and-then, as my frequent attendance in her illness gave me an opportunity of observing more and more of the girl; her affectionate duty, and continual tears (finding her often on her knees, praying for her mistress,) I was moved to pity her; and while those scenes of my mother's illness and decline were before me, I would resolve to conquer, if possible, my guilty passion, as those scenes taught me, while their impressions held, justly to call it; and I was much concerned to find it so difficult a task; for, till now, I thought it principally owing to my usual enterprising temper, and a love of intrigue; and that I had nothing to do but to resolve against it, and to subdue it.

"But I was greatly mistaken: for I had insensibly brought myself to admire her in every thing she said or did; and there was so much gracefulness, humility, and innocence in her whole behaviour, and I saw so many melting scenes between her lady and her, that I found I could not master my esteem for her.

"My mother's illness increasing beyond hopes of recovery, and having settled all her greater affairs, she talked to me of her servants; I asked what she would have done for Pamela and Mrs. Jervis.

"'Make Mrs. Jervis, my dear son, as happy as you can: she is a gentlewoman born, you know; let her always be treated as such; but for your own sake, don't make her independent; for then you'll want a faithful manager. Yet if you marry, and your lady should not value her as she deserves, allow her a competency for the rest of her life, and let her live as she pleases.

"'As for Pamela, I hope you will be her protector!—She is a good girl: I love her next to you and your dear sister. She is just arriving at a trying time of life. I don't know what to say for her. What I had designed was, that if any man of a genteel calling should offer, I would give her a little pretty portion, had God spared my life till then. But were she made independent, some idle fellow might snap her up; for she is very pretty: or if she should carry what you give her to her poor parents, as her duty would lead her to do, they are so unhappily involved, that a little matter would be nothing to them, and the poor girl might be to seek again. Perhaps Lady Davers will take her. But I wish she was not so pretty! She may be the bird for which some wicked fowler will spread his snares; or, it may be, every lady will not choose to have such a waiting-maid. You are a young gentleman, and I am sorry to say, not better than I wish you to be—Though I hope my Pamela would not be in danger from her master, who owes all his servants protection, as much as the king does to his subjects. Yet I don't know how to wish her to stay with you, for your own reputation's sake, my dear son;—for the world will censure as it lists.—Would to God!' said she, 'the dear girl had the small-pox in a mortifying manner: she'd be lovely though in the genteelness of her person and the excellencies of her mind; and more out of danger of suffering from the transcient beauties of countenance. Yet I think,' added she, 'she might be safe and happy under Mrs. Jervis's care; and if you marry, and your lady parts with Mrs. Jervis, let 'em go together, and live as they like. I think that will be the best for both. And you have a generous spirit enough: I will not direct you in the quantum. But, my dear son, remember that I am the less concerned, that I have not done for the poor girl myself, because I depend upon you: the manner how fitly to provide for her, has made me defer it till now, that I have so much more important concerns on my hands; life and strength ebbing so fast, that I am hardly fit for any thing, or to wish for any thing, but to receive the last releasing stroke.'"

Here he stopped, being under some concern himself, and we in much more. At last he resumed the subject.

"You will too naturally think, my lord—and you, my good ladies—that the mind must be truly diabolical, that could break through the regard due to the solemn injunctions of a dying parent. They did hold me a good while indeed; and as fast as I found any emotions of a contrary nature rise in my breast, I endeavoured for some time to suppress them, and to think and act as I ought; but the dear bewitching girl every day rose in her charms upon me: and finding she still continued the use of her pen and ink, I could not help entertaining a jealousy, that she was writing to somebody who stood well in her opinion; and my love for her, and my own spirit of intrigue, made it a sweetheart of course. And I could not help watching her emotions; and seeing her once putting a letter she had just folded up, into her bosom, at my entrance into my mother's dressing-room, I made no doubt of detecting her, and her correspondent; and so I took the letter from her stays, she trembling and curtseying with a sweet confusion: and highly pleased I was to find it contained only innocence and duty to the deceased mistress, and the loving parents, expressing her joy that, in the midst of her grief for losing the one, she was not obliged to return to be a burden to the other; and I gave it her again, with words of encouragement, and went down much better satisfied than I had been with her correspondence.

"But when I reflected upon the innocent simplicity of her style, I was still more in love with her, and formed a stratagem, and succeeded in it, to come at her other letters, which I sent forward, after I had read them, all but three or four, which I kept back, when my plot began to ripen for execution; although the little slut was most abominably free with my character to her parents.

"You will censure me, no doubt, that my mother's injunctions made not a more lasting impression. But really I struggled hard with myself to give them their due force: and the dear girl, as I said, every day grew lovelier, and more accomplished. Her letters were but so many links to the chains in which she had bound me; and though once I had resolved to part with her to Lady Davers, and you, Madam, had an intention to take her, I could not for my life give her up; and thinking more honourably then of the state of a mistress than I have done since, I could not persuade myself (since I intended to do as handsomely by her as ever man did to a lady in that situation) but that I should do better for her than my mother had wished me to do, and so more than answer all her injunctions, as to the providing for her: and I could not imagine I should meet with a resistance I had seldom encountered from persons much her superiors as to descent; and was amazed at it; for it confounded me in all the notions I had of her sex, which, like a true libertine, I supposed wanted nothing but importunity and opportunity, a bold attempter, and a mind not ungenerous. Sometimes I admired her for her virtue; at other times, impetuous in my temper, and unused to control, I could have beat her. She well, I remember, describes the tumults of my soul, repeating what once passed between us, in words like, these:—'Take the little witch from me, Mrs. Jervis.—I can neither bear, nor forbear her—But stay-you shan't go—Yet be gone!—No, come back again.'—She thought I was mad, she says in her papers. Indeed I was little less. She says, I took her arm, and griped it black and blue, to bring her back again; and then sat down and looked at her as silly as such a poor girl as she!—Well did she describe the passion I struggled with; and no one can conceive how much my pride made me despise myself at times for the little actions my love for her put me upon, and yet to find that love increasing every day, as her charms and her resistance increased.—I have caught myself in a raging fit, sometimes vowing I would have her, and, at others, jealous that, to secure herself from my attempts, she would throw herself into the arms of some menial or inferior, whom otherwise she would not have thought of.

"Sometimes I soothed, sometimes threatened her; but never was such courage, when her virtue seemed in danger, mixed with so much humility, when her fears gave way to her hopes of a juster treatment.—Then I would think it impossible (so slight an opinion had I of woman's virtue) that such a girl as this, cottage-born, who owed every thing to my family, and had an absolute dependence upon my pleasure: myself not despicable in person or mind, as I supposed; she unprejudiced in any man's favour, at an age susceptible of impressions, and a frame and constitution not ice or snow: 'Surely,' thought I, 'all this frost must be owing to the want of fire in my attempts to thaw it: I used to dare more, and succeed better. Shall such a girl as this awe me by her rigid virtue? No, she shall not.'

"Then I would resolve to be more in earnest. Yet my love was a traitor, that was more faithful to her than to me; it had more honour in it at bottom than I had designed. Awed by her unaffected innocence, and a virtue I had never before encountered, so uniform and immovable, the moment I saw her I was half disarmed; and I courted her consent to that, which, though I was not likely to obtain, yet it went against me to think of extorting by violence. Yet marriage was never in my thoughts: I scorned so much as to promise it.

"To what numberless mean things did not this unmanly passion subject me!—I used to watch for her letters, though mere prittle-prattle and chit-chat, received them with delight, though myself was accused in them, and stigmatized as I deserved.

"I would listen meanly at her chamber-door, try to overhear her little conversation; in vain attempted to suborn Mrs. Jervis to my purposes, inconsistently talking of honour, when no one step I took, or action I attempted, shewed any thing like it: lost my dignity among my servants; made a party in her favour against me, of every body, but whom my money corrupted, and that hardly sufficient to keep my partisans steady to my interest; so greatly did the virtue of the servants triumph over the vice of the master, when confirmed by such an example!

"I have been very tedious, ladies and my Lord Davers, in my narration: but I am come within view of the point for which I now am upon my trial at your dread tribunal (bowing to us all).

"After several endeavours of a smooth and rough nature, in which my devil constantly failed me, and her good angel prevailed, I had talked to Mrs. Jervis to seduce the girl (to whom, in hopes of frightening her, I had given warning, but which she rejected to take, to my great disappointment) to desire to stay; and suspecting Mrs. Jervis played me booty, and rather confirmed her in her coyness, and her desire of leaving me, I was mean enough to conceal myself in the closet in Mrs. Jervis's room, in order to hear their private conversation; but really not designing to make any other use of my concealment, than to tease her a little, if she should say any thing I did not like; which would give me a pretence to treat her with greater freedoms than I had ever yet done, and would be an introduction to take off from her unprecedented apprehensiveness another time.

"But the dear prattler, not knowing I was there, as she undressed herself, begun such a bewitching chit-chat with Mrs. Jervis, who, I found, but ill kept my secret, that I never was at such a loss what to resolve upon. One while I wished myself, unknown to them, out of the closet, into which my inconsiderate passion had meanly led me; another time I was incensed at the freedom with which I heard myself treated: but then, rigidly considering that I had no business to hearken to their private conversation, and it was such as became them, while I ought to have been ashamed to give occasion for it, I excused them both, and admired still more and more the dear prattler.

"In this suspense, the undesigned rustling of my night-gown, from changing my posture, alarming the watchful Pamela, she in a fright came towards the closet to see who was there. What could I then do, but bolt out upon the apprehensive charmer; and having so done, and she running to the bed, screaming to Mrs. Jervis, would not any man have followed her thither, detected as I was? But yet, I said, if she forbore her screaming, I would do her no harm; but if not, she should take the consequence. I found, by their exclamations, that this would pass with both for an attempt of the worst kind; but really I had no such intentions as they feared. When I found myself detected; when the dear frightened girl ran to the bed; when Mrs. Jervis threw herself about her; when they would not give over their hideous squallings; when I was charged by Mrs. Jervis with the worst designs; it was enough to make me go farther than I designed; and could I have prevailed upon Mrs. Jervis to go up, and quiet the maids, who seemed to be rising, upon the other screaming, I believe, had Pamela kept out of her fit, I should have been a little freer with her, than ever I had been; but, as it was, I had no thought but of making as honourable a retreat as I could, and to save myself from being exposed to my whole family: and I was not guilty of any freedoms, that her modesty, unaffrighted, could reproach herself with having suffered; and the dear creature's fainting fits gave me almost as great apprehensions as I could give her.

"Thus, ladies—and, my lord—have I tediously, and little enough to my own reputation, given you my character, and told you more against myself than any one person could accuse me of. Whatever redounds to the credit of my Pamela, redounds in part to my own; and so I have the less regret to accuse myself, since it exalts her. But as to a formed intention to hide myself in the closet, in order to attempt the girl by violence, and in the presence of a good woman, as Mrs. Jervis is, which you impute to me, bad as I was, I was not so vile, so abandoned as that.

"Love, as I said before, subjects its inconsiderate votaries to innumerable meannesses, and unlawful passion to many more. I could not live without this dear girl. I hated the thoughts of matrimony with any body: and to be brought to the state by my mother's waiting-maid.—'Forbid it, pride!' thought I; 'forbid it, example! forbid it, all my past sneers, and constant ridicule, both on the estate, and on those who descended to inequalities in it! and, lastly, forbid it my family spirit, so visible in Lady Davers, as well as in myself, to whose insults, and those of all the world, I shall be obnoxious, if I take such a step!'

"All this tends to demonstrate the strength of my passion: I could not conquer my love; so I conquered a pride, which every one thought unconquerable; and since I could not make an innocent heart vicious, I had the happiness to follow so good an example; and by this means, a vicious heart is become virtuous. I have the pleasure of rejoicing in the change, and hope I shall do so still more and more; for I really view with contempt my past follies; and it is now a greater wonder to me how I could act as I did, than that I should detest those actions, which made me a curse, instead of a benefit to society. I am not yet so pious as my Pamela; but that is to come; and it is one good sign, that I can truly say, I delight in every instance of her piety and virtue: and now I will conclude my tedious narration."

Thus he ended his affecting relation: which in the course of it gave me a thousand different emotions; and made me often pray for him, that God will entirely convert a heart so generous and worthy, as his is on most occasions. And if I can but find him not deviate, when we go to London, I shall greatly hope that nothing will affect his morals again.

I have just read over again the foregoing account of himself. As near as I remember (and my memory is the best faculty I have), it is pretty exact; only he was fuller of beautiful similitudes, and spoke in a more flowery style, as I may say. Yet don't you think, Miss (if I have not done injustice to his spirit), that the beginning of it, especially, is in the saucy air of a man too much alive to such notions? For so the ladies observed in his narration.—Is it very like the style of a true penitent?—But indeed he went on better, and concluded best of all.

But don't you observe what a dear good lady I had? A thousand blessings on her beloved memory! Were I to live to see my children's children, they should be all taught to lisp her praises before they could speak. My gratitude should always be renewed in their mouths; and God, and my dear father and mother, my lady, and my master that was, my best friend that is, but principally, as most due, the FIRST, who inspired all the rest, should have their morning, their noontide, and their evening praises, as long as I lived!

I will only observe farther, as to this my third conversation-piece, that my Lord Davers offered to extenuate some parts of his dear brother-in-law's conduct, which he did not himself vindicate; and Mr. B. was pleased to say, that my lord was always very candid to him, and kind in his allowances for the sallies of ungovernable youth. Upon which my lady said, a little tartly, "Yes, and for a very good reason, I doubt not; for who cares to condemn himself?"

"Nay," said my lord pleasantly, "don't put us upon a foot, neither: for what sallies I made before I knew your ladyship, were but like those of a fox, which now and then runs away with a straggling pullet, when nobody sees him, whereas those of my brother were like the invasions of a lion, breaking into every man's fold, and driving the shepherds, as well as the sheep, before him."—"Ay," said my lady, "but I can look round me, and have reason, perhaps, to think the invading lion has come off, little as he deserved it, better than the creeping fox, who, with all his cunning, sometimes suffers for his pilfering theft."

O, my dear, these gentlemen are strange creatures!—What can they think of themselves? for they say, there is not one virtuous man in five; but I hope, for our sex's sake, as well as for the world's sake, all is not true that evil fame reports; for you know every man-trespasser must find or make a woman-trespasser!—And if so, what a world is this!—And how must the innocent suffer from the guilty! Yet, how much better is it to suffer one's self, than to be the cause of another's sufferings? I long to hear of you, and must shorten my future accounts, or I shall do nothing but write, and tire you into the bargain, though I cannot my dear father and mother. I am, my dear Miss, always yours, P.B.

LETTER XXXI

From Miss Darnford to Mrs. B.

DEAR MRS. B.,

Every post you more and more oblige us to admire and love you: and let me say, I will gladly receive your letters upon your own terms: only when your worthy parents have perused them, see that I have every line of them again.

Your account of the arrival of your noble guests, and their behaviour to you, and yours to them; your conversation, and wise determination, on the offered title of Baronet; the just applauses conferred upon you by all, particularly the good countess; your breakfast conversation, and the narrative of your saucy abominable master, though amiable husband; all delight us beyond expression.