Pamela

by Samuel Richardson

  He raised me, and as I bent towards the door, led me to the stairs foot; and saluting me there again, left me to go up to my closet, where I threw myself on my knees, and blessed that gracious God, who had thus changed my distress to happiness, and so abundantly rewarded me for all the sufferings I had passed through. And oh! how light, how very light, do all those sufferings now appear, which then my repining mind made so grievous to me! Hence, in every state of life, and in all the changes and chances of it, for the future, will I trust in Providence, who knows what is best for its creatures, and frequently makes the very evils we most dread, the cause of our happiness, and of our deliverance from greater. My experiences, young as I am, as to this great point of reliance on Heaven, are strong, though my judgment in general may be weak; but you’ll excuse these reflections, because they are your daughter’s; and, so far as they are not amiss, are owing to the examples set me by you both; and to my late good lady’s instructions.

  I have written a vast deal in a little time: and shall conclude this delightful Wednesday, with saying, that in the afternoon my master was so well, that he rode out on horseback, and came home about nine at night; and then stepped up to me, and seeing me with pen and ink before me in my closet, was pleased to say, ‘I come only to tell you I am very well, my Pamela; and since I have a letter or two to write, I will leave you to proceed in your’s, as I suppose that was your employment’; for I had put by my papers at his coming up. He saluted me, bid me good-night, and went down; and I finished up to this place before I went to-bed. Mrs Jewkes told me, if it were agreeable to me, she would lie in another room; but I said, ‘No, Mrs Jewkes; pray let me have your company.’ And she made me a fine curt’sy, and thanked me. How times are altered!

  THURSDAY

  This morning my master came up to me, and talked to me on various subjects for a good while together in the most kind manner. Among other things he asked me, If I chose to order any new clothes against my marriage. (O how my heart flutters when he mentions this subject so freely!) I said, I left everything to his good pleasure, only repeating my request, for the reasons I gave yesterday, that I might not be too fine.

  He said, ‘I think, my dear, the ceremony shall be very privately performed: I hope you are not afraid of a sham-marriage; and pray get the service by heart, that you may see nothing is omitted.’

  I glowed between bashfulness and delight. O how I felt my cheeks burn!

  I answered, I feared nothing, I apprehended nothing, but my own unworthiness. ‘I think,’ said he, ‘the ceremony shall be performed within these fourteen days, at this house.’ O how I trembled! but not with grief, you may believe! ‘What says my girl? Have you to object against any day of the next fourteen, because my affairs require me to go to my other house, and I think not to stir from this, till I am happy with you?’

  ‘I have no will but your’s,’ said I (all glowing like the fire, as I could feel): ‘but, sir, did you say in the house?’ ‘Ay,’ said he; ‘for I care not how privately it be done; and it must be very public, if we go to church.’ ‘It is a holy rite, sir,’ said I, ‘and would be better, methinks, solemnized in a holy place’

  ‘I see’ (said he, most kindly) ‘my lovely maid’s confusion; and your trembling tenderness shews I ought to oblige you all I may. Therefore I will order my own little chapel, which has not been used for two generations for any thing but a lumber-room, because our family seldom resided here long together, to be got ready for the ceremony it if you dislike your own chamber or mine.’

  ‘sir,’ said I, ‘that will be better than a chamber; and I hope it will never be lumbered again, but kept to the use, for which, as I presume, it has been consecrated.’ ‘O yes,’ said he, ‘it has been consecrated, and that several ages ago, in my great-great-grand-father’s time, who built that and the good old house together.

  ‘But now, my dear girl, if I do not too much add to your sweet confusion, shall it be in the first seven days, or the second of the next fortnight?’ I looked down, quite out of countenance. ‘Tell me,’ said he.

  ‘In the second seven days, if you please sir,’ said I. ‘As you please,’ returned he, most kindly; ‘but I should thank you, Pamela, if you would choose the first.’ ‘I’d rather, sir, if you please,’ replied I, ‘it should be in the second.’ ‘Well,’ said he, ‘be it so; but don’t defer it till the last day of the fourteen.’

  ‘Pray, sir,’ said I, ‘since you embolden me to talk on this important subject, may I not send my father and mother word of my happiness?’ ‘You may,’ replied he; ‘but charge them to keep it secret, till you or I direct the contrary. I told you,’ added he, ‘that I would see no more of your papers; I meant I would not without your consent: but if you will shew me what you have written, since the last I saw, (and now I have no other motive for my curiosity, but the pleasure I take in reading what you write) I shall acknowledge it as a favour.’

  ‘If, sir,’ returned I, ‘you will be pleased to let me write over again one sheet, I will; and yet, relying on your word, I have not written with the least precaution.’ ‘For that very reason,’ said he, ‘I am the more desirous to see what you write: but what is the subject of the sheet you mean to transcribe? And yet before-hand, I tell you, I cannot consent that you should with-hold it from me.’

  ‘What I am loth you should see, sir,’ returned I, ‘are very severe reflections on the letter I received by the gypsey, when I apprehended your design of the sham-marriage; though there are other things; but those reflections are the worst.’ ‘They can’t be worse, my dear sauce-box,’ replied he, ‘than what I have seen already; and I will allow of your treating me freely on that occasion, because, from the contents of that letter, I must have a very black appearance with you at that time.’ ‘Well, sir,’ said I, ‘I think I will obey you, and send you my papers before night.’ ‘But don’t alter a word in them,’ said he. ‘I won’t, sir,’ replied I, ‘since you command me not.’

  While we were talking, Mrs Jewkes came up, and told my master, that Thomas was returned. ‘Let him,’ said he, ‘bring up the papers.’ For he hoped, and so did I, that you had sent them by him. But it was a great disappointment when he came up, and said, ‘Sir, Mr Andrews did not care to deliver them; and would have it, that his daughter was forced to write that letter to him: and in apprehensions for his daughter, on her turning back, when on her way to them, (as I told him she did,’ said Thomas) ‘he took on sadly.’

  I began to be afraid now, that all would be bad for me again.

  ‘Well, Tom,’ said he, ‘don’t mince the matter. Tell me what Mr and Mrs Andrews said.’ ‘Why, sir, they both, after they had withdrawn, to consult together upon their daughter’s letter, came out, weeping so bitterly, that grieved my very heart; and they said, Now all was over with their poor daughter; and either she had written that letter by compulsion, or –’ and there Thomas stopt.

  ‘Or what?’ said my master, ‘speak out.’ ‘Or had yielded to your honour, so they said, and was, or would be ruined!’

  My master seemed vexed, as I feared. And I said, ‘Pray, sir, be so good to excuse the fears of my honest parents! They cannot know your goodness to me.’

  ‘And so,’ said my master, (without answering to what I said) ‘they refused to deliver the papers?’ ‘Yes, and please your honour,’ said Thomas, ‘though I told them, that their daughter, of her own accord, on a letter I had brought her, very chearfully wrote what I carried. But Mr Andrews said, “Why, wife, there are in these papers twenty things nobody should see but ourselves, and especially not the ’squire. O the poor girl! She has had many, very many stratagems to struggle with! And now, at last, has met with one that has been too hard for her!” And then, and please your honour, the good old couple sat themselves down, and hand-in-hand, leaning upon each other’s shoulder, did nothing but lament. I was piteously grieved; but all I could say could not comfort them; nor would they give me the papers, though I told them I should deliver them into their daughter’s own hands. And so, and
please your honour, I was forced to come away without them.’

  My good master saw me all bathed in tears at this description of your distress and fears for me, and he said, ‘I am not angry with your father. He is a good man; and I would have you write out of hand, and it shall be sent by the post to Mr Atkins, who lives within two miles of your father, and I’ll inclose it in a cover of mine, in which I will desire Mr Atkins, the moment it comes to his hand, to convey it safely to your father. But say nothing in what you write of sending hither the papers, since they are so scrupulous about them. I want not now to see them on any other score than that of mere curiosity; and that will be answered at any other time.’ And so saying, he was pleased to dry my eyes with my own handkerchief, before Thomas; and turning to him, said, ‘The worthy couple don’t know my honourable intentions by their dear daughter; who, Tom, will in a little time, be your mistress; though I shall keep the matter private for some days, and would not have it spoken of by my servants out of the house.’

  Thomas said, ‘God bless your honour! You know best.’ And I said, ‘O sir, you are all goodness! How kind is this, to forgive the disappointment, instead of being angry, as I feared you would be!’

  Thomas then withdrew. And my master said, ‘I need not remind you, Pamela, of writing immediately, to make the good couple easy. I will leave you to yourself for that purpose; only send me down such of your papers, as you are willing I should see, with which I shall entertain myself for an hour or two. But one thing,’ added he, ‘I forgot to tell you: the neighbouring gentry I mentioned, will be here to-morrow to dine with me.’ ‘And must I, sir,’ said I, ‘be shewn to them?’ ‘O yes,’ replied he. ‘The chief reason of their coming is to see you. And don’t be concerned: you will see nobody equal to yourself.’

  I opened my papers as soon as my master had left me, and laid out those which contain the following particulars:

  They begin on the Thursday morning on which he set out for Stamford, and give an account of the morning visit he made me before I arose: of his strict instructions to Mrs Jewkes, but in a good-natured way, to be watchful over me, because of some private intimations he had received, that an access would be attempted to be made to me, by somebody: of the letter cunningly contrived to be put into my hands by a gypsey, informing me of a design of a sham-marriage to be set on foot against me: of my heavy reflections upon it, in which I call him a truly diabolical man, and am otherwise very severe upon him: of his return on Saturday, and of the terror he put me in by an offer he made to search me for the papers which followed those he had got by Mrs Jewkes’s means; and to prevent which I was forced to give them up: of his behaviour to me after he had read them, and great kindness to me, because of the dangers I had escaped, and the troubles I had undergone: and how I, unseasonably, in the midst of his goodness, (having the intelligence of the sham-marriage, from the gypsey, in my thoughts) expressed my desire of being permitted to go home to you: of his being enraged on this occasion, and turning me that very Sunday out of his house, and sending me on my way to you: of the grief I had at parting with him, and of my free acknowledgment to you, that I found I loved him too well, and could not help it: of his sending after me to beg my return; but yet generously leaving me at my liberty, when he might have forced me back: of my resolution to oblige him: of my concern to find him very ill on my return: of his kind reception of me: the copy of Lady Davers’s angry letter to him, upbraiding him with his behaviour to me, and desiring him to set me free, and to give me a sum of money in marriage with some one of my own degree, threatening to renounce him as a brother, if he should degrade himself by marrying me himself; and then follow my serious reflections on this letter, &c. (all which, I hope, with the others, you will shortly see). And this carried matters down to Tuesday night last.

  And here I thought it best to stop; for the rest of my narrative being a relation of our charming chariot conference, on Wednesday morning, and of his great goodness to me ever since, I was a little ashamed to let him see all that I had written on those tender and most agreeable subjects; though his generous favours deserve all the acknowledgments I can possibly make.

  When I had looked these out, I carried them down into the parlour to him, and said, putting them into his hands, ‘Your allowances, good sir, as heretofore; and if I have been too open and free in my reflections or declarations, let my apprehensions on one side, and my sincerity on the other, be my excuse.’ ‘You are very obliging, my good girl,’ said he. ‘You have nothing now to apprehend either from my thoughts or actions.’

  I then went up, and wrote the letter to you, briefly acquainting you with my present happy prospects, and expressing the gratitude which I owe to the most generous of men; requesting (notwithstanding his kind dispensing with the sight of them) the papers you have; and assuring you, that I should soon have the pleasure of sending to you, not only those, but all that succeeded them to this time, as I know you delight to amuse yourself in your leisure hours with my scribble.

  I carried down this letter, before I sealed it, to my master. ‘Will you please, sir,’ said I, ‘to take the trouble of reading what I have written to my father and mother?’ He was pleased to thank me, and putting his arm round me234 while he read it, seemed much pleased with the contents; and giving it me again, ‘You are very happy, my beloved girl,’ said he, ‘in your expressions: and the affectionate things you say of me, are inexpressibly obliging; and with this kiss do I confirm for truth all that you have promised for my intentions in this letter.’

  O my dear father and mother! What a happy creature is your girl! God continue my present prospects! A change now would kill me quite.

  He went out in his chariot in the afternoon; and returning in the evening, sent to desire me to take a little walk with him in the garden: and down I went that very moment.

  He came to meet me. ‘So,’ said he, ‘how does my girl now? Who do you think I have seen since I have been out?’ ‘I don’t know, sir,’ answered I. ‘There is a turning in the road,’ said he, ‘about five miles off, which goes round a meadow, that has a pleasant footway, on the banks of a little brook, and a double row of limes on each side, where the gentry in the neighbourhood sometimes walk and converse; and sometimes angle. (I’ll shew it you in our next airing.) I stepped out of my chariot to walk across this meadow, and bid Robin meet me with it on the further part of it. And who should I ‘spy there walking, with a book in his hand, but your humble servant, Williams? Don’t blush, Pamela. His back was towards me. I thought I would speak to the man; and before he saw me, “How do you do, old acquaintance?” said I.

  ‘We were of one college for a twelvemonth, you have heard. The man gave such a start at hearing my voice, and seeing me so near him, that I thought he would have leapt into the brook.’

  ‘Poor man!’ said I. ‘Ay,’ said he, ‘but not too much of your poor man, in that soft accent, neither, Pamela. “What are you reading, Mr Williams?” said I. “Sir,” answered he, “it is, it is,” stammering with surprize, “it is the French Telemachus.235 I am about perfecting myself in the French tongue.” (Better so, thought I, than perfecting my Pamela in it.) “Don’t you think, that yonder cloud may give us a small shower?” (It did a little begin to wet). He believed not, was his answer.

  ‘“If,” said I, “you are for the village, I’ll give you a cast,236 for I shall call at Sir Simon Darnford’s, in my way home.” “It would be too great an honour,” the man too modestly said. “Let us walk to the further opening there,” replied I, “and we shall meet my chariot.”

  ‘So, Pamela,’ continued my master, ‘we fell into conversation, as we walked. He said, he was very sorry he had incurred my displeasure; and the more, as he had been told by Mrs Jones, who had it from Sir Simon’s family, that I had more honourable views than at first were apprehended. “We men of fortune, Mr Williams,” said I, “take a little more liberty with the world than we ought to do; wantoning, very probably, as you contemplative folks would say, in the sun-beams of a dangerou
s affluence; and cannot think of confining ourselves to the common paths, though the safest and most eligible. And you may believe, I could not very well like to be supplanted in a view that lay next my heart; and that by an old acquaintance, whose good, before this affair, I was studious to promote.”

  ‘“I would only say, sir,” answered he, “that my first motive was entirely such as became my function: and I am very sure, that however inexcusable I might seem in the progress of the matter, you would have been sorry to have had it said, that you had cast your thoughts on a person, that nobody could have wished for but yourself.”

  ‘“I see, Mr Williams,” replied I, “that you are a gallant as well as religious man: but what I took most amiss was, that, if you thought me doing a wrong thing, you did not expostulate with me upon it, as your function might have allowed you to do; but immediately determined to circumvent me, and to secure to yourself, and that from my own house, a young creature, who held, as you must think, a first place in my heart; and by whom you knew not but I might do honourably at last, as I actually intend to do. But the matter is happily at an end, and my resentments too.”

  ‘“I am sorry, sir,” said he, “that I should take any step to disoblige you; but I rejoice in your honourable intentions; and give me leave to say, that if you make young Mrs Andrews your lady, she will do credit to your choice with every body that sees and knows her.”

  ‘In this manner,’ continued my master, ‘did Mr Williams and I confabulate,237 and I set him down at his lodgings in the village. But he kept your secret, Pamela, and would not own, that you gave any encouragement to his addresses.’

  ‘Indeed, sir,’ replied I, ‘he could not say that I did; and I hope you believe me.’ ‘I do,’ said he: ‘but ’tis still my opinion, that if I had not detected him as I did, the correspondence between you would have ended in the manner I have supposed.’