Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded

at the bottom of the dam, to try to find a hole in the ground, to hide himself from the robbers. His shin and his knee are hardly to be seen to ail any thing. He says in his letter, he was a frightful spectacle: He might be so, indeed, when he first came in a doors; but he looks well enough now: and, only for a few groans now and then, when he thinks of his danger, I see nothing is the matter with him. So, Mrs. Pamela, said she, I would have you be very easy about it. I am glad of it, said I, for all your jokes, to Mrs. Jewkes. Well, said she, he talks of nothing but you: and when I told him I would fain have persuaded you to come with me, the man was out of his wits with his gratitude to me: and so has laid open all his heart to me, and told me all that has passed, and was contriving between you two. This alarmed me prodigiously; and the rather, as I saw, by two or three instances, that his honest heart could keep nothing, believing every one as undesigning as himself. I said, but yet with a heavy heart, Ah! Mrs. Jewkes, Mrs. Jewkes, this might have done with me, had he had any thing that he could have told you of. But you know well enough, that had we been disposed, we had no opportunity for it, from your watchful care and circumspection. No, said she, that’s very true, Mrs. Pamela; not so much as for that declaration that he owned before me, he had found opportunity, for all my watchfulness, to make you. Come, come, said she, no more of these shams with me! You have an excellent head-piece for your years; but may be I am as cunning as you.—However, said she, all is well now; because my watchments are now over, by my master’s direction. How have you employed yourself in my absence? I was so troubled at what might have passed between Mr. Williams and her, that I could not hide it; and she said, Well, Mrs. Pamela, since all matters are likely to be so soon and so happily ended, let me advise you to be a little less concerned at his discoveries; and make me your confidant, as he has done, and I shall think you have some favour for me, and reliance upon me; and perhaps you might not repent it. She was so earnest, that I mistrusted she did this to pump me; and I knew how, now, to account for her kindness to Mr. Williams in her visit to him; which was only to get out of him what she could. Why, Mrs. Jewkes, said I, is all this fishing about for something, where there is nothing, if there be an end of your watchments, as you call them? Nothing, said she, but womanish curiosity, I’ll assure you; for one is naturally led to find out matters, where there is such privacy intended. Well, said I, pray let me know what he has said; and then I’ll give you an answer to your curiosity. I don’t care, said she, whether you do or not for I have as much as I wanted from him; and I despair of getting out of you any thing you ha’n’t a mind I should know, my little cunning dear.—Well, said I, let him have said what he would, I care not: for I am sure he can say no harm of me; and so let us change the talk. I was the easier, indeed, because, for all her pumps, she gave no hints of the key and the door, etc. which, had he communicated to her, she would not have forborne giving me a touch of.—And so we gave up one another, as despairing to gain our ends of each other. But I am sure he must have said more than he should.—And I am the more apprehensive all is not right, because she has now been actually, these two hours, shut up a writing; though she pretended she had given me up all her stores of papers, etc. and that I should write for her. I begin to wish I had ventured every thing and gone off, when I might. O when will this state of doubt and uneasiness end! She has just been with me, and says she shall send a messenger to Bedfordshire; and he shall carry a letter of thanks for me, if I will write it for my master’s favour to me. Indeed, said I, I have no thanks to give, till I am with my father and mother: and besides, I sent a letter, as you know; but have had no answer to it. She said, she thought that his letter to Mr. Williams was sufficient; and the least I could do was to thank him, if but in two lines. No need of it, said I; for I don’t intend to have Mr. Williams: What then is that letter to me? Well, said she, I see thou art quite unfathomable! I don’t like all this. O my foolish fears of bulls and robbers!—For now all my uneasiness begins to double upon me. O what has this incautious man said! That, no doubt, is the subject of her long letter. I will close this day’s writing, with just saying, that she is mighty silent and reserved, to what she was: and says nothing but No, or Yes, to what I ask. Something must be hatching, I doubt!—I the rather think so, because I find she does not keep her word with me, about lying by myself, and my money; to both which points she returned suspicious answers, saying, as to the one, Why, you are mighty earnest for your money; I shan’t run away with it. And to the other, Good-lack! you need not be so willing, as I know of, to part with me for a bed-fellow, till you are sure of one you like better. This cut me to the heart; and, at the same time, stopped my mouth. Tuesday, Wednesday. Mr. Williams has been here; but we have had no opportunity to talk together: He seemed confounded at Mrs. Jewkes’s change of temper, and reservedness, after her kind visit, and their freedom with one another, and much more at what I am going to tell you. He asked, If I would take a turn in the garden with Mrs. Jewkes and him. No, said she, I can’t go. Said he, May not Mrs. Pamela take a walk?—No, said she; I desire she won’t. Why, Mrs. Jewkes? said he: I am afraid I have somehow disobliged you. Not at all, replied she; but I suppose you will soon be at liberty to walk together as much as you please: and I have sent a messenger for my last instructions, about this and more weighty matters; and when they come I shall leave you to do as you both will; but, till then, it is no matter how little you are together. This alarmed us both; and he seemed quite struck of a heap, and put on, as I thought, a self-accusing countenance. So I went behind her back, and held my two hands together, flat, with a bit of paper, I had, between them, and looked at him: and he seemed to take me as I intended; intimating the renewing of the correspondence by the tiles. I left them both together, and retired to my closet to write a letter for the tiles; but having no time for a copy, I will give you the substance only. I expostulated with him on his too great openness and easiness to fall into Mrs. Jewkes’s snares: told him my apprehensions of foul play; and gave briefly the reasons which moved me: begged to know what he had said; and intimated, that I thought there was the highest reason to resume our prospect of the escape by the back-door. I put this in the usual place in the evening; and now wait with impatience for an answer. Thursday. I have the following answer: ‘DEAREST MADAM, ‘I am utterly confounded, and must plead guilty to all your just reproaches. I wish I were master of all but half your caution and discretion! I hope, after all, this is only a touch of this ill woman’s temper, to shew her power and importance: For I think Mr. B—— neither can nor dare deceive me in so black a manner. I would expose him all the world over if he did. But it is not, cannot be in him. I have received a letter from John Arnold, in which he tells me, that his master is preparing for his London journey; and believes, afterwards, he will come into these parts: But he says, Lady Davers is at their house, and is to accompany her brother to London, or meet him there, he knows not which. He professes great zeal and affection to your service: and I find he refers to a letter he sent me before, but which is not come to my hand. I think there can be no treachery; for it is a particular friend at Gainsborough, that I have ordered him to direct to; and this is come safe to my hands by this means; for well I know, I durst trust nothing to Brett, at the post-house here. This gives me a little pain; but I hope all will end well, and we shall soon hear, if it be necessary to pursue our former intentions. If it be, I will lose no time to provide a horse for you, and another for myself; for I can never do either God or myself better service, though I were to forego all my expectations for it here, I am ‘Your most faithful humble servant.’ ‘I was too free indeed with Mrs. Jewkes, led to it by her dissimulation, and by her pretended concern to make me happy with you. I hinted, that I would not have scrupled to have procured your deliverance by any means; and that I had proposed to you, as the only honourable one, marriage with me. But I assured her, though she would hardly believe me, that you discouraged my application: which is too true! But not a word of the back-door key, etc.’ Mrs. Jewkes continues still sullen and ill-natured, and I am almost afraid to speak to her. She watches me as close as ever, and pretends to wonder why I shun her company as I do. I have just put under the tiles these lines inspired by my fears, which are indeed very strong; and, I doubt, not without reason. ‘SIR, ‘Every thing gives me additional disturbance. The missed letter of John Arnold’s makes me suspect a plot. Yet am I loath to think myself of so much importance, as to suppose every one in a plot against me. Are you sure, however, the London journey is not to be a Lincolnshire one? May not John, who has been once a traitor, be so again?—Why need I be thus in doubt?—If I could have this horse, I would turn the reins on his neck, and trust to Providence to guide him for my safeguard! For I would not endanger you, now just upon the edge of your preferment. Yet, sir, I fear your fatal openness will make you suspected as accessary, let us be ever so cautious. ‘Were my life in question, instead of my honesty, I would not wish to involve you, or any body, in the least difficulty, for so worthless a poor creature. But, O sir! my soul is of equal importance with the soul of a princess; though my quality is inferior to that of the meanest slave. ‘Save then my innocence, good Heaven! and preserve my mind spotless; and happy shall I be to lay down my worthless life; and see an end to all my troubles and anxieties. ‘Forgive my impatience: But my presaging mind bodes horrid mischiefs! Every thing looks dark around me; and this woman’s impenetrable sullenness and silence, without any apparent reason, from a conduct so very contrary, bid me fear the worst.—blame me, sir, if you think me wrong; and let me have your advice what to do; which will oblige ‘Your most afflicted servant.’ Friday. I have this half-angry answer; but, what is more to me than all the letters in the world could be, yours, my dear father, enclosed. ‘MADAM, ‘I think you are too apprehensive by much; I am sorry for your uneasiness. You may depend upon me, and all I can do. But I make no doubt of the London journey, nor of John’s contrition and fidelity. I have just received, from my Gainsborough friend, this letter, as I suppose, from your good father, in a cover, directed for me, as I had desired. I hope it contains nothing to add to your uneasiness. Pray, dearest madam, lay aside your fears, and wait a few days for the issue of Mrs. Jewkes’s letter, and mine of thanks to Mr. B——. Things, I hope, must be better than you expect. Providence will not desert such piety and innocence: and be this your comfort and reliance: Which is the best advice that can at present be given, by ‘Your most faithful humble servant.’ N. B. The father’s letter was as follows: ‘My DEAREST DAUGHTER,