Pamela

by Samuel Richardson

  ‘What! art thou setting up for a family,309 creature as thou art? God give me patience! I suppose my brother’s folly, and his wickedness together, will, in a little while, occasion a search at the Herald’s Office,310 to set out thy wretched obscurity. Provoke me, Pamela; I desire thou wilt. One hundred guineas will I give thee, to say but thou thinkest thou art married to my brother.’

  ‘Your ladyship, I hope, won’t kill me. And since nothing I can say will please you; and your ladyship is resolved to be angry with me, let me beg of you to do whatever you design by me, and suffer me to depart your presence!’

  She slapt my hand, and reached to box my ear; but Mrs Jewkes, and her woman, hearkening without, they both came in at that instant; and Mrs Jewkes said, pushing herself in between us, ‘Your ladyship knows not what you do: indeed you don’t. My master would never forgive me, if I suffered, in his house, one he so dearly loves, to be so used; and it must not be, though you are Lady Davers.’

  Her woman too interposed, and told her, I was not worth her ladyship’s anger. But my lady was like a person beside herself.

  I offered to go out, but her kinsman again set his back against the door, and put his hand to his sword, and said, I should not go, till Lady Davers permitted it. He drew it half-way, and I was so terrified, that I cried out, ‘O the sword! the sword!’ And, not knowing what I did, ran to my lady, and clasped my arms about her, forgetting, just then, how much she was my enemy; and said, sinking on my knees, ‘Defend me, good your ladyship! The sword! the sword!’ Mrs Jewkes said, ‘My lady will fall into fits.’ But Lady Davers was herself so startled at the matter being carried so far, that she did not mind her words, and said, ‘Jackey, don’t draw your sword! You see, violent as her spirit is, she is but a coward.

  ‘Come,’ said she, ‘be comforted: I will try to overcome my anger, and will pity you. So, wench, rise up, and don’t be foolish.’ Mrs Jewkes held her salts to my nose. I did not faint. And my lady said, ‘Jewkes, if you wish to be forgiven, leave Pamela and me by ourselves; and, Jackey, do you withdraw; only you, Worden, stay.’

  I sat down in the window, trembling like a coward, as her ladyship called me, and as I am.

  ‘You should not sit in my lady’s presence, Mrs Pamela,’ again said her woman.

  ‘Yes, let her sit, till she is a little recovered,’ replied my lady. She sat down over-against me. ‘To be sure, Pamela,’ said she, ‘you have been very provoking with your tongue, to be sure you have, as well to my nephew, (who is a man of quality too) as to me.’ And, palliating her cruel usage, conscious she had carried the matter too far, she wanted to lay the fault upon me: ‘Own,’ said she, ‘you have been very saucy, and beg my pardon, and beg Jackey’s pardon; and I will try to pity you: for you would have been a sweet girl, after all, if you had but kept your innocence.’

  ‘’Tis injurious to me, madam,’ said I, ‘to imagine I have not!’ ‘Have you not been a-bed with my brother?’ said she. ‘Tell me that.’

  ‘Your ladyship,’ replied I, ‘asks your questions in a strange way, and in strange words!’

  ‘Oh! your delicacy is wounded, I suppose, by my plain question! This niceness will soon leave thee, wench: it will indeed. But answer me directly.’

  ‘Then your ladyship’s next question,’ said I, ‘will be – Am I married? And you won’t bear my answer to that – and will beat me again.’

  ‘I have not beat you yet; have I, Worden? So you want to make out a story, do you? But, indeed, I cannot bear thou shouldst so much as think thou art my sister. I know the whole trick of it; and so, ‘tis my opinion, dost thou. It is only thy little cunning, to serve for a cloak to thy yielding. Pr’ythee, pr’ythee, wench, thou seest I know the world a little; know it almost as much at thirty-two, as thou dost at sixteen.’311

  I arose from the window, and walking to the other end of the room, ‘Beat me again, if you please,’ said I; ‘but I must tell your ladyship, I scorn your words, and am as much married as your ladyship!’

  At that she ran to me, but her woman interposed again. ‘Let the vain creature go from your presence, madam,’ said she. ‘She is not worthy to be in it. She will but vex your ladyship.’

  ‘Stand away, Worden,’ said my lady. ‘That is an assertion that I would not take from my brother. I can’t bear it. As much married as I? Is that to be borne?’

  ‘But if the creature believes she is, madam,’ said her woman, ‘she is to be as much pitied for her credulity, as despised for her vanity.’

  I was in hopes to have slipped out at the door; but she caught hold of my gown, and pulled me back. ‘Pray, your ladyship,’ said I, very much afraid of her, (for I have a strange notion of the fury of a woman of quality when provoked) ‘don’t kill me! I have done no harm.’ She locked the door, and put the key in her pocket. And I, seeing Mrs Jewkes before the window, lifted up the sash, and said, ‘Mrs Jewkes, I believe it would be best for the chariot to go to your master, and let him know, that Lady Davers is here; and I cannot leave her ladyship.’

  She was resolved to be displeased, let me say what I would.

  ‘No, no,’ said she; ‘he’ll then think, that I make the creature my companion, and know not how to part with her.’

  ‘I thought your ladyship,’ replied I, ‘could not have taken exceptions at this message.’

  ‘Thou knowest nothing, wench,’ said she, ‘of what belongs to people of condition: how shouldst thou?’

  Nor, thought I, do I desire it at this rate.

  ‘What shall I say, madam, to your brother ?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ replied she; ‘let him expect his dearest love, and be disappointed; it is but adding a few more hours, and every one will be a day in his amorous account.’

  Mrs Jewkes coming nearer me, and my lady walking about the room, being then at the end, I whispered, ‘Let Robert stay at the elms; I’ll have a struggle for’t by-and-by.’

  ‘ As much married as I!’ repeated she. ‘The insolence of the creature!’ Talking to herself, to her woman, and now-and-then to me, as she walked; but seeing I could not please her, I thought I had better be silent.

  And then it was, ‘Am I not worthy of an answer?’

  ‘If I speak,’ replied I, ‘your ladyship is angry with me, though it be ever so respectfully: would to Heaven I knew how to please your ladyship!’

  ‘Confess the truth,’ answered she, ‘that thou art an undone creature; hast been in bed with thy master; and art sorry for it, and for the mischief thou hast caused between him and me; and then I will pity thee, and persuade him to pack thee off, with a hundred or two of guineas; and some honest farmer may patch up thy shame, for the sake of the money: or, if nobody will have thee, thou must vow penitence, and be as humble as I once thought thee.’

  I was quite sick at heart, at all this passionate extravagance, and the more as I was afraid of incurring displeasure, by not being where I was expected: and seeing it was no hard matter to get out of the window, into the front-yard, the parlour floor being almost even with the yard, I resolved to attempt it; and to have a fair run for it. Accordingly, having seen my lady at the other end of the room, in her walks backward and forward, and having not pulled down the sash, which I put up when I spoke to Mrs Jewkes, I got upon the seat, and whipped out in a moment, and ran away as fast as I could; my lady at one window, and her woman at another, calling after me to return.

  Two of her servants appeared at her crying out; and she bidding them stop me, I said, ‘Touch me at your peril, fellows! ‘But their lady’s commands would have prevailed, had not Mr Colbrand, who, it seems, had been ordered by Mrs Jewkes, when she saw how I was treated, to be within call, come up, and put on one of his deadly fierce looks, the only time, I thought, it ever became him, and said, He would chine312 the man, (that was his word) who offered to touch his lady; and so he ran alongside of me; and I heard my lady say, ‘The creature flies like a bird.’ Indeed, Mr Colbrand, with his huge strides, could hardly keep pace with me. I never stopped till I got to
the chariot. Robert had got down from his seat, seeing me running at a distance, and held the door in his hand, with the step ready down; and in I jumped, without touching the step, saying, ‘Drive me, drive me, as fast as you can, out of my lady’s reach!’ He mounted his seat, and Colbrand said, ‘Don’t be frightened, madam; nobody shall hurt you.’ He shut the door, and away Robert drove; but I was quite out of breath, and did not recover it, and my fright, all the way.

  Mr Colbrand was so kind (but I did not know it till the chariot stopped at Sir Simon’s) to step up behind it, lest, as he said, Lady Davers should send after me: and he told Mrs Jewkes, when he got home, that he never saw such a runner in his life.

  This cruel lady detained me till about six o’clock. Miss Darnford, as soon as the chariot stopped, ran out to me. ‘Welcome! ten times welcome, my dear!’ said she: ‘but you’ll be beat, I can tell you; for Mr B. has been here these two hours, and is very angry with you.’

  ‘That’s hard indeed!’ said I. ‘Indeed I can’t afford it!’ hardly knowing what I said, having not recovered my fright. ‘Let me sit down, any where: I have been hardly treated.’

  I sat down, and was quite sick with the hurry of my spirits, and leaned upon her arm.

  ‘Your lord and master,’ said she, ‘came in very moody; and when he had staid an hour, and you not come, he began to fret, and said, He did not expect so little complaisance from you. And he is now sat down, with great persuasions, to a game at loo.313 Come, you must make your appearance, lady fair; for he’s too sullen to attend you, I doubt.’

  ‘You have no strangers, have you, madam?’ asked I. ‘Only two women relations from Stamford,’ replied she, ‘and an humble servant of one of them.’ ‘Only all the world, Miss Darnford!’ replied I: ‘what shall I do? I cannot bear his anger.’

  Just as I had said so, in came Lady Darnford and Mrs Jones, to chide me, as they said, for not coming sooner. And before I could speak, came in Mr B. I ran to him. ‘How do you, Pamela?’ said he, and saluted me, with a little more formality than I could well bear. ‘I expected, my dear, that you would have been here to dinner.’

  ‘Dear sir,’ said I, ‘pray, pray, hear me; and then you’ll pity me! Mrs Jewkes will tell you, that as soon as I had read your kind letter, I said I would obey you, and come to dinner with these good ladies; and prepared myself instantly to attend them.’ ‘Look you, stately one,’ said Miss Damford, ‘did I not tell you, that something must have happened? O these tyrants! these men!’

  ‘Why, what hindered you, my dear? Give yourself time; you seem out of breath.’ ‘Out of breath, sir! well I may: for, just as I was ready to come away, who should drive into the court-yard, but Lady Davers!’ ‘Lady Davers! Nay, then, my dear,’ said he, and saluted me more tenderly, ‘have you had a trial indeed, from one of the haughtiest women in England, though my sister! For she, too, my Pamela, was spoiled by my mother! But have you seen her?’

  ‘Yes, sir, and more than seen her!’ ‘Why, sure,’ said he, ‘she has not had the insolence –’ ‘But tell me, sir,’ interrupted I, ‘that you forgive me; for indeed I could not come sooner: do you and these good ladies but excuse me; and I’ll tell you all another time.’

  ‘But say, my dear, was Lady Davers insolent to you? Did Lady Davers offer –’ ‘Lady Davers, sir,’ interrupted I, ‘is your sister, and I must not tell you all; but she has treated me a little severely.’

  ‘Did you tell her,’ said he, ‘you were married?’ ‘Yes, sir, I did at last: but she will have it, ‘tis a sham-marriage, and that I am a vile creature: and she was ready to beat me, when I said so; for she could not have patience, she said, that I should be deemed her sister.’

  ‘How unlucky it was,’ replied he, ‘that I was not at home! Why did you not send to me here?’ ‘Send, sir! I was kept prisoner by force. They would not let me stir, or do you think I would have been hindered from obeying you? Nay, I told them, that I had a pre-engagement; but she ridiculed me, and said, “ Waiting-wenches talk of pre-engagements!” and then I shewed her your kind letter! And she made a thousand remarks upon it, and made me wish I had kept it to myself. In short, whatever I could do or say, there was no pleasing her; and I was a creature, a wench, and all that was naught. But I must entreat you not to be angry with her on my account’

  ‘Well, but,’ said he, ‘I suppose she hardly asked you to dine with her, for she came before dinner, I presume, if it was soon after you had my letter?’ ‘Dine with my lady! No, indeed! Why, she would have made me wait at table upon her, with her woman, because she would not expose herself and me by her anger, before the men-servants; which, you know, sir, was very considerate in her ladyship.’

  ‘Well,’ said he, ‘but did you wait at table upon her?’ ‘Would you have had me, sir?’ ‘Only, Pamela,’ replied he, ‘I hope you knew what belonged to your character, as my wife.’ ‘I refused to wait at table on that consideration, sir,’ said I, ‘as my lady must intend an indignity by it. Else I could have waited on my knees upon your sister.’

  He expressed his approbation of my conduct; and said, She was an insolent woman, and should dearly repent her usage of me. ‘But, sir, she is to be excused,’ said I, ‘because she will not believe that I am indeed married: be not, therefore, very angry at her ladyship.’

  Lady Darnford went in to the company, and told them the cause of my detention; for, it seems, my dear master loved me too well to keep to himself the disappointment my not being here to receive him, was to him; and they had all given the two Miss Boroughs’s, and Mr Perry, the Stamford guests, such a character of me as made them impatient to see me.

  ‘Whom, my dear,’ said Mr B., ‘had my sister with her, besides her woman?’ ‘Her nephew, sir.’

  ‘That nephew is a coxcomb,’ replied he: ‘how did he behave to you? ‘’ Not extraordinarily well, sir.’

  ‘By heaven ! ‘resumed he, ‘if I knew he behaved unhandsomely to my love, I will send him home to his uncle without his ears.’ ‘Indeed, sir,’ returned I, ‘I was even with him, for I thought I ought not to bear with him as with her ladyship.’

  ‘But, sure, my dear, you might have got away, when you went to your own dinner?’ ‘Indeed, sir, her ladyship locked me in, and would not let me stir.’ ‘You have not dined then?’ ‘No, indeed, sir, nor had a stomach to dine.’ ‘But, then, how got you away at last?’

  I told him briefly how, and the kind part that not only Mr Colbrand, but Mrs Jewkes likewise, took on the occasion.

  He called me sweet creature, and said, I loved to speak well of every body. ‘But come,’ said he, ‘we will now join the company, and try to forget all you have suffered, for two or three hours; and resume the subject as we go home.’

  ‘But you forgive me, sir, and are not angry?’

  ‘Forgive you, my dear! I hope you forgive me! I shall never make you amends for what you have suffered from me, and for me!’ And with those words he led me in to the company.

  He very kindly presented me to the two stranger ladies, and the gentleman; and Sir Simon, who was at cards, rose from table, and saluted me: ‘Adad! madam,’ said he, ‘I’m glad to see you here. What, it seems, you have been a prisoner! ’Tis well you was, or Mr B. and I should have sat in judgment upon you, and condemned you to a fearful punishment for your first crime of Lœsœ Majestatis.’ [I had this explained to me afterwards, as a sort of treason against my liege lord and husband.] ‘We husbands, in this neighbourhood,’ proceeded he, ‘are resolved to turn over a new leaf with our wives, and your lord and master shall shew us the way, I can tell you. But I see by your eyes, my sweet culprit,’ added he, ‘and by your heightened complexion, that you have had sour sauce to your sweet meat.’

  ‘I think we are obliged to our lovely guest, at last,’ said Miss Darnford; ‘for she was forced to jump out at a window to come to us.’ ‘Indeed!’ said Mrs Peters. And my master’s back being turned, ‘Lady Davers,’ added she, ‘when a maiden, was always passionate; but very good when her anger was over. She would make noth
ing of slapping her maids about, and begging their pardons afterwards, if they took it patiently; otherwise she used to say, The creatures were even with her.’

  ‘All my fear is,’ said I, ‘that I took too impatiently, though so much provoked, her treatment of me: but I should have been unworthy of the rank I am raised to, had I not shewn some spirit. Some I did shew for her brother’s sake, and have reason to think myself happy, that I escaped a good cuffing.’

  Miss Boroughs, and her sister, and Mr Perry, seemed to look at me with pleasure; and Miss Darnford, addressing herself to me, was pleased to say, ‘These, our friends, Mrs B. are strangely admiring you. Mr Perry says, you are the loveliest woman he ever saw; and says it to his own mistress’s face, too, I assure you!’ ‘If he said otherwise,’ answered Miss Boroughs, ‘I should think he greatly flattered me.’

  I curtseyed to her.

  Miss Nanny Boroughs made me a still higher compliment; and I said, ‘Lady Davers was very cruel to keep me from such company.’

  ‘It is our loss, my dear neighbour,’ said Miss Darnford. ‘I’ll allow it,’ returned I, ‘in degree; for you have all been deprived, several hours, of an humble admirer.’

  Mr Perry attributed to me high things: and mentioning the word shining – ‘O sir!’ said I, (my master coming up just then, but not in his hearing) ‘mine is but a borrowed shine, like that of the moon: here is the sun, to whose fervent generosity I owe all the faint lustre that your goodness is pleased to look upon with so much kind distinction.’

  ‘Mr B.,’ said Mr Perry, ‘I will pronounce you the happiest man in England.’

  ‘I know not your subject,’ said the dear generous man; ‘but if you believe me so, for a single instance of this dear girl’s goodness, what must I think, who experience it on every occasion? I assure you, that my Pamela’s person, lovely as you see it, is far short of her mind. It was indeed her person that first attracted me, and made me her lover: but they were the beauties of her mind, that made me her husband.’