Pamela

by Samuel Richardson

  ‘No, Mr Longman,’ said I, ‘I cannot ask to stay; nor would I stay, if I might. All I desire, is, to return to my poor father and mother; and though I love you all, I won’t stay.’

  ‘O well-a-day,73 well-a-day!’ said the good old man, ‘I did not expect this! When I had got matters thus far, and had made all up for Mrs Jervis, I was in hopes to have got a double holiday of joy for all the family, in procuring your pardon too.’

  ‘Well,’ said my master, ‘this is a little specimen of what I told you, Mr Longman. You see there’s a spirit you did not expect.’

  Mrs Jervis went out. She told me after, that she could stay no longer, to hear me so hardly used; and must have spoken, had she stayed, what would have never been forgiven her.

  I looked after her, to go too; but my master said, ‘Come, Pamela, give another specimen, I desire you, to Mr Longman: I am sure you must, if you will but speak.’

  Was it not cruel, my dear father, to make such sport of a poor girl? ‘Well, sir,’ said I, ‘since it seems your greatness wants to be justified by my lowness, and I have no desire you should suffer in the sight of your family, I will say, on my bended knees,’ (and I kneeled down) ‘that I have been a very faulty, and a very ungrateful creature to the best of masters: I have been very perverse and saucy; and have deserved nothing at your hands, but to be turned out of your family with shame and disgrace. I therefore have nothing to say for myself, but that I am not worthy to stay, and so cannot wish to stay, and will not stay: and so God Almighty bless you, and you, Mr Longman, and good Mrs Jervis, and every living soul of the family! and I will pray for you as long as I live.’ And so I rose up, and was forced to lean upon my master’s elbow-chair,74 or I should have sunk down.

  The good old man wept more than I, and said, ‘Ads-bobbers, was ever the like heard!’ Tis too much, too much! I can’t bear it. As I hope to live, I am quite melted. Dear sir, forgive her: the poor thing prays for you; she prays for us all! She owns her fault, yet won’t be forgiven! I profess I know not what to make of it.’

  My master himself, hardened wretch as he was, seemed a little moved, and took his handkerchief out of his pocket, and walked to the window: ‘What sort of a day is it?’ said he. And then getting a little more hard-heartedness, he added, ‘Well, you may be gone from my presence! Thou art a strange medley of inconsistence! but you shan’t stay after your time in the house.’

  ‘Nay, pray, sir, pray, sir,’ said the good old man, ‘relent a little. Ads-heartlikins!75 you young gentlemen are made of iron and steel, I think: I’m sure,’ said he, ‘my heart’s melted, and is running away at my eyes. I never felt the like before.’ Said my cruel master, with an imperious tone, ‘Get out of my presence, girl! I can’t bear you in my sight.’

  Indeed I wanted to be out of his sight, as much as he did to have me gone: but I trembled so, that I was forced to go holding by the wainscot76 all the way with both my hands, and thought I should hardly have got to the door: but when I did, as I hoped this would be my last interview with this terrible hard-hearted master, I recovered presence of mind enough to turn about, and with a low court’sy, and my hands clasped, to say, ‘God bless you, sir! God bless you, Mr Longman!’ And I went into the lobby leading to the great hall, and dropped into the first chair; being unable to get further.

  I leave all these things to your reflection, my dear parents; but I can write no more. My heart is almost broken! indeed it is! O when shall I get away? Send me, good God, in safety, once more to my poor father’s peaceful cot!77 – and there the worst that can happen will be joy in perfection to what is now borne by

  Your distressed Daughter.

  LETTER XXIX

  I must write on, though I shall come so soon; for now I have hardly any thing else to do. I have finished all that lay upon me, and only wait the good time of setting out. Mrs Jervis said, ‘You must be low in pocket, Pamela, for what you have laid out’; and so would have presented me with two guineas of her five; but I could not take them of her, because, poor gentlewoman! she pays old debts for her children that were extravagant, and wants them herself. This, however, was very good of her.

  I am sorry I shall have but little to bring with me; but I know you will not. And I will work the harder, when I come home, if I can get a little plain-work,78 or any thing to do. But all your neighbourhood is so poor, that I fear I shall want work; except, perhaps, Dame Mumford can help me to something, from any of the good families she is acquainted with.

  Here, what a sad thing it is! I have been brought up wrong, as matters stand. For you know that my good lady, now in heaven, loved singing and dancing; and, as she would have it I had a voice, she made me learn both; and often and often has she made me sing her an innocent song, and a good psalm too, and dance before her: And I must learn to flower and draw too, and to work fine work with my needle; why, all this too I have got pretty tolerably at my fingers end, as they say; and she used to praise me, and was a good judge of such matters.

  Well now, what is all this to the purpose, as things have turned about?

  Why, no more nor less, than that I am like the grasshopper in the fable,79 which I have read of in my lady’s books, as follows:

  ‘As the ants were airing their provisions one winter, a hungry grass-hopper, (as suppose it was poor me) begged a charity of them. They told him, that he should have wrought in summer, if he would not have wanted in winter. “Well,” says the grasshopper, “but I was not idle neither; for I sung out the whole season.” “Nay, then,” said they, “you’ll e’en do well to make a merry year of it, and dance in winter to the tune you sung in summer.” ’

  So I shall make a fine figure with my singing and dancing, when I come home to you! To be sure, I had better, as things stand, have learned to wash and scour, and brew and bake, and such like. But I hope, if I can’t get work, and can meet with a place, to learn these soon, if any body will have the goodness to bear with me till then: for, notwithstanding what my master says, I am strangely mistaken in myself, if I have not an humble and a teachable mind; and next to God’s grace, that is all my comfort: for I shall think nothing too mean that is honest. It may be a little hard at first; but woe to my proud heart, if I find it so, on trial; for I will make it bend to its condition, or break it.

  I have read of a good bishop80 that was to be burnt for his religion; and he tried how he could bear it, by putting his fingers into the lighted candle: so I t’other day tried, when Rachel’s back was turned, if I could not scour a pewter plate she had begun. I see I could do it by degrees; it only blistered my hand in two places.

  All the matter is, if I could get plain-work enough, I need not spoil my fingers. But if I can’t, I will make my hands as red as a blood-pudding,81 and as hard as a beechen trencher,82 but I will accommodate them to my condition. I must break off; here’s somebody coming.

  ’Tis only our Hannah with a message from Mrs Jervis. But here is somebody else. Well, it is only Rachel.

  I am as much frighted as were the city mouse and the country mouse,83 in the same book of Fables, at every thing that stirs. Oh! I have a power of these things to entertain you with in winter evenings, when I come home. If I can but get work, with a little time for reading, I hope we shall be very happy, over our peat fires.

  What made me hint to you, that I should bring but little with me, is this:

  You must know, I did intend to do, as I have done this afternoon: and that is, I took all my clothes, and all my linen, and I divided them into three parcels, as I had before told Mrs Jervis I intended to do; and I said, ‘It is now Monday, Mrs Jervis, and I am to go away on Thursday morning betimes;84 so though I know you don’t doubt my honesty, I beg you will look over my poor matters, and let every one have what belongs to them; for,’ said I, ‘you know I am resolved to take with me only what I can properly call my own.’

  ‘Let your things,’ said she, ‘be brought down into the greenroom, and I will do any thing you would have me do.’

  I did not know her d
rift then; to be sure she meant well; but I did not thank her for it, when I did know it.

  I fetched them down, and laid them in three parcels, as before; and when I had done, I went to call her to look at them.

  Now in this green-room is a closet, with a sash-door85 and a curtain before it; for there she puts her sweet-meats and such things; and into this closet my master had got unknown to me; I suppose while I went to call Mrs Jervis: and she has since owned, it was at his desire, when she told him something of what I intended, or else she would not have done it: though I have reason, I’m sure, to remember the last closet-work.

  So I said, when she came up, ‘Here, Mrs Jervis, is the first parcel. I will spread it all before you. These are the things my good lady gave me. In the first place,’ said I – and so I went on describing the clothes and linen, mingling blessings, as I proceeded, on my lady’s memory for her goodness to me: and when I had turned over that parcel, I said, ‘Well, so much for the first parcel, Mrs Jervis, containing my lady’s gifts.’

  ‘Now I come to the presents of my dear virtuous master: Hay, you know, closet for that, Mrs Jervis!’

  She laughed, and said, ‘I never saw such a comical girl in my life! But go on.’ ‘I will, Mrs Jervis,’ said I, ‘as soon as I have opened the bundle’; for I was as brisk and as pert as could be, little thinking who heard me.

  ‘Now here, Mrs Jervis,’ said I, ‘are my ever-worthy master’s presents’; and then I particularized all those in the second bundle.

  After which, I turned to my own, and said:

  ‘Now comes poor Pamela’s bundle, and a little one it is, to the others. First, here is a callico night-gown, that I used to wear o’ mornings. It will be rather too good for me when I get home; but I must have something. Then there is a quilted calimanco86 coat, and my straw hat with green strings; and a piece of Scots cloth, which will make two shirts and two shifts, the same I have on, for my poor father and mother. And here are four other shifts; and here are two pair of shoes; I have taken the lace off, which I will burn,87 and this, with an old silver buckle or two, will fetch me some little matter at a pinch.

  ‘What do you laugh for, Mrs Jervis?’ said I. ‘Why you are like an April day; you cry and laugh in a breath.

  ‘Here are two cotton handkerchiefs and two pair of stockings, which I bought of the pedlar’; (I write the very words I said) ‘and here too are my new-bought knit mittens: and this is my new flannel coat, the fellow to that I have on. And in this parcel pinned together are several pieces of printed callico, remnants of silks, and such-like, that, if good luck should happen, and I should get work, would serve for robings and facings, and such-like uses. And here too are a pair of pockets, and two pair of gloves. Bless me!’ said I, ‘I did not think I had so many good things!

  ‘Well, Mrs Jervis,’ said I, ‘you have seen all my store, and I will now sit down, and tell you a piece of my mind.’

  ‘Be brief, then,’ said she, ‘my good girl’; for she was afraid, she said afterwards, that I should say too much.

  ‘Why then the case is this: I am to enter upon a point of equity and conscience, Mrs Jervis, and I must beg, if you love me, you will let me have my own way. Those things there of my lady’s I can have no claim to, so as to take them away; fór she gave them me, supposing I was to wear them in her service, and to do credit to her bountiful heart. But since I am to be turned away, you know, I cannot wear them at my poor father’s; for I should bring all the little village upon my back: and so I resolve not to have them.

  ‘Then, Mrs Jervis, I have far less right to these of my worthy master’s: for you see what was his intention in giving them to me. So they were to be the price of my shame, and if I could make use of them, I should think I should never prosper with them. So in conscience, in honour, in every thing, I have nothing to say to thee, thou second, wicked bundle!

  ‘But,’ said I, ‘come to my arms, my dear third parcel, the companion of my poverty, and the witness of my honesty; and may I never have, as I shall never deserve, the least rag that is contained in thee, when I forfeit a title to that innocence which I hope will ever be the pride of my life! and then I am sure it will be my highest comfort at my death, when all the riches and pomp in the world will be more contemptible than the vilest rags that can be worn by beggars! ‘And so I hugged my third bundle.

  ‘But,’ said I, ‘Mrs Jervis,’ (and she wept to hear me) ‘one thing more I have to trouble you with, and that’s all.

  ‘There are four guineas, you know, that came out of my good lady’s pocket, when she died, that, with some silver, my master ordered me: now these same four guineas I sent to my poor father and mother, and they have broken them; but would make them up, if I would: and if you think it should be so, it shall. But pray tell me honestly your mind: as to the three years before my lady’s death, do you think, as I had no wages, I may be supposed to be quits? By quits, I cannot mean that my poor services should be equal to my lady’s goodness; for that is impossible. But as all her learning, and education of me, as matters have turned, will be of little service to me now; for to be sure it had been better for me to have been brought up to hard labour, since that I must turn to at last, if I can’t get a place: so I say, by quits I only mean, as I return all the good things she gave me, whether I may not set my little services against my keeping; and I am sure my dear good lady would have thought so, had she lived: but that is now out of the question. Well then, I would ask, whether, in above this year that I have lived with my master, as I am resolved to leave all his gifts behind me, I may not have earned, besides my keeping, these four guineas, and these poor clothes here upon my back, and in my third bundle? Now tell me your mind, freely, without favour or affection.’

  ‘Alas! my dear maiden,’ said she, ‘you make me unable to speak to you at all: to be sure it will be the highest affront that can be offered, for you to leave any of these things behind you. And it is impossible but my master must know that you do.’

  ‘Well, well, Mrs Jervis,’ said I, ‘I don’t care; I shall mean no affront: but I have been too much used to be snubbed and hardly treated by my master, of late. I have done him no harm; and I shall always pray for him, and wish him happy. But I don’t deserve these things, I know I don’t. Then I cannot wear them if I should take them: so they can be of no use to me: And I trust I shall not want the poor pittance, that is all I desire to keep life and soul together. Bread and water I can live upon, Mrs Jervis, with content. Water I shall get any where; there is nourishment in water, Mrs Jervis: and if I can’t get me bread, I will live like a bird in winter upon hips and haws, and at other times upon pig-nuts,88 and potatoes, or turneps, or any thing. So what occasion have I for these things? But all I ask is about these four guineas, and if you think I need return them?’

  ‘To be sure, my dear, you need not,’ said she; ‘you well earned them by that waistcoat only.’

  ‘No, I think not so, in that only; but in the linen, and other things that have passed under my hands, do you think I have?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said she, ‘and more.’

  ‘And my keeping allowed for, I mean,’ said I, ‘and these poor clothes that I have on, besides? Remember that, Mrs Jervis.’

  ‘Yes, my dear odd one, no doubt but you have!’

  ‘Well then,’ said I, ‘I am as happy as a princess! I am quite as rich as I wish to be! And, once more, my dear third bundle, I will hug thee to my bosom. And I beg you will say nothing of all this till I am gone, that my master may not be so angry, since he has so far undervalued himself, as to take notice of such a poor girl as I, but that I may go in peace; for my heart, without other matters, will be ready to break to part with you all.’ And then I was forced to wipe my eyes; and good Mrs Jervis wept till she sobbed again.

  ‘Now, Mrs Jervis,’ proceeded I, ‘as to one matter more: and that is, my master’s last usage of me, before Mr Longman.’

  ‘Pr’ythee, dear Pamela,’ said she, ‘step to my parlour, and fetch me a paper I left on my
table. I have something to shew you in it.’

  ‘I will,’ said I, and stepped down; but that, it seems, was only a fetch89 to take the orders of my master. She afterwards told me, that he said he thought two or three times to have burst out upon me; but he supposed he should hardly have had patience with the prattler, as he called me; and bid her not let me know he was there. And so went away. But I tripped up again so nimbly (for there was no paper) that I just saw his back, as if coming out of that greenroom, and going into the next that was open. I whipped in, and shut the door, and bolted it. ‘O Mrs Jervis,’ said I, ‘what have you done by me? I see I can’t confide in any body. I am beset on all hands! Wretched Pamela! where shalt thou expect a friend, if Mrs Jervis joins to betray me?’ She was surprized, but made so many protestations of her good intentions, that I forgave her. She told me all, and that he owned I had made him wipe his eyes two or three times. She hoped good effects from this incident; and reminded me, that I had said nothing but what would rather move compassion than resentment. But O that I was safe from this house! for never poor creature sure was so terrified as I have been for months together! I am called down from this most tedious scribble. I wonder what will next befal

  Your dutiful Daughter.

  Mrs Jervis says, she is sure I shall have the chariot to carry me home to you. Though this will look too great for me, yet it will shew as if I was not turned away quite in disgrace. The travelling chariot is come from Lincolnshire, and I fancy I shall go in that; for the other is quite grand.

  LETTER XXX

  I write again, though I shall probably bring to you what I write in my pocket; for I shall have no writing, nor, I hope, writing time, when I come to you. This is Wednesday morning, and I am to set out to you to-morrow morning: but I have had more trials, and more vexation; but of another nature, though all from the same quarter.