Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded
your unworthiness, believing you a mirror of bashful modesty and
unspotted innocence; and that no perfidious designs lurked in so fair a
bosom. But now I have found you out, you specious hypocrite! and I see,
that though you could not repose the least confidence in one you had
known for years, and who, under my good mother’s misplaced favour for
you, had grown up in a manner with you; when my passion, in spite of my
pride, and the difference of our condition, made me stoop to a meanness
that now I despise myself for; yet you could enter into an intrigue
with a man you never knew till within these few days past, and resolve
to run away with a stranger, whom your fair face, and insinuating arts,
had bewitched to break through all the ties of honour and gratitude to
me, even at a time when the happiness of his future life depended upon
my favour.
‘Henceforth, for Pamela’s sake, whenever I see a lovely face, will I
mistrust a deceitful heart; and whenever I hear of the greatest
pretences to innocence, will I suspect some deep-laid mischief. You
were determined to place no confidence in me, though I have solemnly,
over and over, engaged my honour to you. What, though I had alarmed
your fears in sending you one way, when you hoped to go another; yet,
had I not, to convince you of my resolution to do justly by you,
(although with great reluctance, such then was my love for you,)
engaged not to come near you without your own consent? Was not this a
voluntary demonstration of the generosity of my intention to you? Yet
how have you requited me? The very first fellow that your charming
face, and insinuating address, could influence, you have practised
upon, corrupted too, I may say, (and even ruined, as the ungrateful
wretch shall find,) and thrown your forward self upon him. As,
therefore, you would place no confidence in me, my honour owes you
nothing; and, in a little time, you shall find how much you have erred,
in treating, as you have done, a man who was once
‘Your affectionate and kind friend.’
‘Mrs. Jewkes has directions concerning you: and if your lot is now
harder than you might wish, you will bear it the easier, because your
own rash folly has brought it upon you.’
Alas! for me, what a fate is mine, to be thus thought artful, and
forward, and ungrateful; when all I intended was to preserve my
innocence; and when all the poor little shifts, which his superior
wicked wit and cunning have rendered ineffectual, were forced upon me
in my own necessary defence!
When Mrs. Jewkes came up to me again, she found me bathed in tears. She
seemed, as I thought, to be moved to some compassion; and finding
myself now entirely in her power, and that it is not for me to provoke
her, I said, It is now, I see, in vain for me to contend against my
evil destiny, and the superior arts of my barbarous master. I will
resign myself to the Divine will, and prepare to expect the worst. But
you see how this poor Mr. Williams is drawn in and undone: I am sorry I
am made the cause of his ruin. Poor, poor man!—to be thus involved, and
for my sake too!—But if you’ll believe me, said I, I gave no
encouragement to what he proposed, as to marriage; nor would he have
proposed it, I believe, but as the only honourable way he thought was
left to save me: And his principal motive to it at all, was virtue and
compassion to one in distress. What other view could he have? You know
I am poor and friendless. All I beg of you is, to let the poor
gentleman have notice of my master’s resentment; and let him fly the
country, and not be thrown into gaol. This will answer my master’s end
as well; for it will as effectually hinder him from assisting me, as if
he was in a prison.
Ask me, said she, to do any thing that is in my power, consistent with
my duty and trust, and I will do it: for I am sorry for you both. But,
to be sure, I shall keep no correspondence with him, nor let you. I
offered to talk of a duty superior to that she mentioned, which would
oblige her to help distressed innocence, and not permit her to go the
lengths enjoined by lawless tyranny; but she plainly bid me be silent
on that head: for it was in vain to attempt to persuade her to betray
her trust:—All I have to advise you, said she, is to be easy; lay aside
all your contrivances and arts to get away, and make me your friend, by
giving me no reason to suspect you; for I glory in my fidelity to my
master: And you have both practised some strange sly arts, to make such
a progress as he has owned there was between you, so seldom as I
thought you saw one another; and I must be more circumspect than I have
been.
This doubled my concern; for I now apprehended I should be much closer
watched than before.
Well, said I, since I have, by this strange accident, discovered my
hard destiny; let me read over again that fearful letter of yours, that
I may get it by heart, and with it feed my distress, and make calamity
familiar to me. Then, said she, let me read yours again. I gave her
mine, and she lent me hers: and so I took a copy of it, with her leave;
because, as I said I would, by it, prepare myself for the worst. And
when I had done, I pinned it on the head of the couch: This, said I, is
the use I shall make of this wretched copy of your letter; and here you
shall always find it wet with my tears.
She said she would go down to order supper; and insisted upon my
company to it. I would have excused myself; but she began to put on a
commanding air, that I durst not oppose. And when I went down, she took
me by the hand, and presented me to the most hideous monster I ever saw
in my life. Here, Monsieur Colbrand, said she, here is your pretty ward
and mine; let us try to make her time with us easy. He bowed, and put
on his foreign grimaces, and seemed to bless himself; and, in broken
English, told me, I was happy in de affections of de finest gentleman
in de varld!—I was quite frightened, and ready to drop down; and I will
describe him to you, my dear father and mother, if now you will ever
see this: and you shall judge if I had not reason, especially not
knowing he was to be there, and being apprised, as I was, of his hated
employment, to watch me closer.
He is a giant of a man for stature; taller by a good deal than Harry
Mowlidge, in your neighbourhood, and large boned, and scraggy; and has
a hand!—I never saw such an one in my life. He has great staring eyes,
like the bull’s that frightened me so; vast jaw-bones sticking out:
eyebrows hanging over his eyes; two great scars upon his forehead, and
one on his left cheek; and two large whiskers, and a monstrous wide
mouth; blubber lips; long yellow teeth, and a hideous grin. He wears
his own frightful long hair, tied up in a great black bag; a black
crape neckcloth about a long ugly neck: and his throat sticking out
like a wen. As to the rest, he was dressed well enough, and had a sword
on, with a nasty red knot to it; leather garters, buckled below his
knees; and a foot—near as long as my arm, I verily think.
He said, he fright de lady; and offered to withdraw; but she bid him
not; and I told Mrs. Jewkes, That as she knew I had been crying, she
should not have called me to the gentleman without letting me know he
was there. I soon went up to my closet; for my heart ached all the time
I was at table, not being able to look upon him without horror; and
this brute of a woman, though she saw my distress, before this addition
to it, no doubt did it on purpose to strike more terror into me. And
indeed it had its effect: for when I went to bed, I could think of
nothing but his hideous person, and my master’s more hideous actions:
and thought them too well paired; and when I dropt asleep, I dreamed
they were both coming to my bed-side, with the worst designs; and I
jumped out of my bed in my sleep, and frightened Mrs. Jewkes; till,
waking with the terror, I told her my dream; and the wicked creature
only laughed, and said, All I feared was but a dream, as well as that;
and when it was over, and I was well awake, I should laugh at it as
such!
And now I am come to the close of Wednesday, the 27th day of my
distress.
Poor Mr. Williams is actually arrested, and carried away to Stamford.
So there is an end of all my hopes from him, poor gentleman! His
over-security and openness have ruined us both! I was but too well
convinced, that we ought not to have lost a moment’s time; but he was
half angry, and thought me too impatient; and then his fatal
confessions, and the detestable artifice of my master!—But one might
well think, that he who had so cunningly, and so wickedly, contrived
all his stratagems hitherto, that it was impossible to avoid them,
would stick at nothing to complete them. I fear I shall soon find it
so!
But one stratagem I have just invented, though a very discouraging one
to think of; because I have neither friends nor money, nor know one
step of the way, if I was out of the house. But let bulls, and bears,
and lions, and tigers, and, what is worse, false, treacherous,
deceitful men, stand in my way, I cannot be in more danger than I am;
and I depend nothing upon his three weeks: for how do I know, now he is
in such a passion, and has already begun his vengeance on poor Mr.
Williams, that he will not change his mind, and come down to
Lincolnshire before he goes to London?
My stratagem is this: I will endeavour to get Mrs. Jewkes to go to bed
without me, as she often does, while I sit locked up in my closet: and
as she sleeps very sound in her first sleep, of which she never fails
to give notice by snoring, if I can but then get out between the two
bars of the window, (for you know I am very slender, and I find I can
get my head through,) then I can drop upon the leads underneath, which
are little more than my height, and which leads are over a little
summer-parlour, that juts out towards the garden; and as I am light, I
can easily drop from them; for they are not high from the ground: then
I shall be in the garden; and then, as I have the key of the back-door,
I will get out. But I have another piece of cunning still: Good Heaven,
succeed to me my dangerous, but innocent devices!—I have read of a
great captain, who, being in danger, leaped overboard into the sea, and
his enemies, as he swam, shooting at him with bows and arrows, he
unloosed his upper garment, and took another course, while they stuck
that full of their darts and arrows; and so he escaped, and lived to
triumph over them all. So what will I do, but strip off my upper
petticoat, and throw it into the pond, with my neckhandkerchief! For to
be sure, when they miss me, they will go to the pond first, thinking I
have drowned myself: and so, when they see some of my clothes floating
there, they will be all employed in dragging the pond, which is a very
large one; and as I shall not, perhaps, be missed till the morning,
this will give me opportunity to get a great way off; and I am sure I
will run for it when I am out. And so I trust, that Providence will
direct my steps to some good place of safety, and make some worthy body
my friend; for sure, if I suffer ever so, I cannot be in more danger,
nor in worse hands, than where I am; and with such avowed bad designs.
O my dear parents! don’t be frightened when you come to read this!—But
all will be over before you can see it; and so God direct me for the
best! My writings, for fear I should not escape, I will bury in the
garden; for, to be sure, I shall be searched and used dreadfully if I
can’t get off. And so I will close here, for the present, to prepare
for my plot. Prosper thou, O gracious Protector of oppressed innocence!
this last effort of thy poor handmaid! that I may escape the crafty
devices and snares that have begun to entangle my virtue; and from