Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded
bold-face or insolent, which you call me, but when your commands are
contrary to that first duty which shall ever be the principle of my
life!
He seemed to be moved, and rose up, and walked into the great chamber
two or three turns, leaving me on my knees; and I threw my apron over
my face, and laid my head on a chair, and cried as if my heart would
break, having no power to stir.
At last he came in again, but, alas! with mischief in his heart! and
raising me up, he said, Rise, Pamela, rise; you are your own enemy.
Your perverse folly will be your ruin: I tell you this, that I am very
much displeased with the freedoms you have taken with my name to my
housekeeper, as also to your father and mother; and you may as well
have real cause to take these freedoms with me, as to make my name
suffer for imaginary ones. And saying so, he offered to take me on his
knee, with some force. O how I was terrified! I said, like as I had
read in a book a night or two before, Angels and saints, and all the
host of heaven, defend me! And may I never survive one moment that
fatal one in which I shall forfeit my innocence! Pretty fool! said he,
how will you forfeit your innocence, if you are obliged to yield to a
force you cannot withstand? Be easy, said he; for let the worst happen
that can, you will have the merit, and I the blame; and it will be a
good subject for letters to your father and mother, and a tale into the
bargain for Mrs. Jervis.
He by force kissed my neck and lips; and said, Whoever blamed Lucretia?
All the shame lay on the ravisher only and I am content to take all the
blame upon me, as I have already borne too great a share for what I
have not deserved.
May I, said I, Lucretia like, justify myself with my death, if I am
used barbarously! O my good girl! said he, tauntingly, you are well
read, I see; and we shall make out between us, before we have done, a
pretty story in romance, I warrant ye.
He then put his hand in my bosom, and indignation gave me double
strength, and I got loose from him by a sudden spring, and ran out of
the room! and the next chamber being open, I made shift to get into it,
and threw to the door, and it locked after me; but he followed me so
close, he got hold of my gown, and tore a piece off, which hung without
the door; for the key was on the inside.
I just remember I got into the room; for I knew nothing further of the
matter till afterwards; for I fell into a fit with my terror, and there
I lay, till he, as I suppose, looking through the key-hole, spyed me
upon the floor, stretched out at length, on my face; and then he called
Mrs. Jervis to me, who, by his assistance, bursting open the door, he
went away, seeing me coming to myself; and bid her say nothing of the
matter, if she was wise.
Poor Mrs. Jervis thought it was worse, and cried over me like as if she
was my mother; and I was two hours before I came to myself; and just as
I got a little up on my feet, he coming in, I fainted away again with
the terror; and so he withdrew: but he staid in the next room to let
nobody come near us, that his foul proceedings might not be known.
Mrs. Jervis gave me her smelling-bottle, and had cut my laces, and set
me in a great chair, and he called her to him: How is the girl? said
he: I never saw such a fool in my life. I did nothing at all to her.
Mrs. Jervis could not speak for crying. So he said, She has told you,
it seems, that I was kind to her in the summer-house, though I’ll
assure you, I was quite innocent then as well as now; and I desire you
to keep this matter to yourself, and let me not be named in it.
O, sir, said she, for your honour’s sake, and for Christ’s sake!—But he
would not hear her, and said—For your own sake, I tell you, Mrs.
Jervis, say not a word more. I have done her no harm. And I won’t have
her stay in my house; prating, perverse fool, as she is! But since she
is so apt to fall into fits, or at least pretend to do so, prepare her
to see me to-morrow after dinner, in my mother’s closet, and do you be
with her, and you shall hear what passes between us.
And so he went out in a pet, and ordered his chariot and four to be got
ready, and went a visiting somewhere.
Mrs. Jervis then came to me, and I told her all that had happened, and
said, I was resolved not to stay in the house: And she replying, He
seemed to threaten as much; I said, I am glad of that; then I shall be
easy. So she told me all he had said to her, as above.
Mrs. Jervis is very loath I should go; and yet, poor woman! she begins
to be afraid for herself; but would not have me ruined for the world.
She says to be sure he means no good; but may be, now he sees me so
resolute, he will give over all attempts; and that I shall better know
what to do after to-morrow, when I am to appear before a very bad
judge, I doubt.
O how I dread this to-morrow’s appearance! But be as assured, my dear
parents, of the honesty of your poor child, as I am of your prayers for
Your dutiful DAUGHTER.
O this frightful to-morrow; how I dread it!
LETTER XVI
MY DEAR PARENTS,
I know you longed to hear from me soon; and I send you as soon as I
could.
Well, you may believe how uneasily I passed the time, till his
appointed hour came. Every minute, as it grew nearer, my terrors
increased; and sometimes I had great courage, and sometimes none at
all; and I thought I should faint when it came to the time my master
had dined. I could neither eat nor drink, for my part; and do what I
could, my eyes were swelled with crying.
At last he went up to the closet, which was my good lady’s
dressing-room; a room I once loved, but then as much hated.
Don’t your heart ache for me?—I am sure mine fluttered about like a
new-caught bird in a cage. O Pamela, said I to myself, why art thou so
foolish and fearful? Thou hast done no harm! What, if thou fearest an
unjust judge, when thou art innocent, would’st thou do before a just
one, if thou wert guilty? Have courage, Pamela, thou knowest the worst!
And how easy a choice poverty and honesty is, rather than plenty and
wickedness.
So I cheered myself; but yet my poor heart sunk, and my spirits were
quite broken. Everything that stirred, I thought was to call me to my
account. I dreaded it, and yet I wished it to come.
Well, at last he rung the bell: O, thought I, that it was my
passing-bell! Mrs. Jervis went up, with a full heart enough, poor good
woman! He said, Where’s Pamela? Let her come up, and do you come with
her. She came to me: I was ready to go with my feet; but my heart was
with my dear father and mother, wishing to share your poverty and
happiness. I went up, however.
O how can wicked men seem so steady and untouched with such black
hearts, while poor innocents stand like malefactors before them!
He looked so stern, that my heart failed me, and I wished myself any
where but there, though I had before been summoning up all my courage.
Good Heaven, said I to myself, give me courage to stand before this
naughty master! O soften him, or harden me!
Come in, fool, said he, angrily, as soon as he saw me; (and snatched my
hand with a pull;) you may well be ashamed to see me, after your noise
and nonsense, and exposing me as you have done. I ashamed to see you!
thought I: Very pretty indeed!—But I said nothing.
Mrs. Jervis, said he, here you are both together. Do you sit down; but
let her stand, if she will. Ay, thought I, if I can; for my knees beat
one against the other. Did you not think, when you saw the girl in the
way you found her in, that I had given her the greatest occasion for
complaint, that could possibly be given to a woman? And that I had
actually ruined her, as she calls it? Tell me, could you think any
thing less? Indeed, said she, I feared so at first. Has she told you
what I did to her, and all I did to her, to occasion all this folly, by
which my reputation might have suffered in your opinion, and in that of
all the family.—Inform me, what she has told you?
She was a little too much frightened, as she owned afterwards, at his
sternness, and said, Indeed she told me you only pulled her on your
knee, and kissed her.
Then I plucked up my spirits a little. Only! Mrs. Jervis? said I; and
was not that enough to shew me what I had to fear? When a master of his
honour’s degree demeans himself to be so free as that to such a poor
servant as me, what is the next to be expected?—But your honour went
farther, so you did; and threatened me what you would do, and talked of
Lucretia, and her hard fate.—Your honour knows you went too far for a
master to a servant, or even to his equal; and I cannot bear it. So I
fell a crying most sadly.
Mrs. Jervis began to excuse me, and to beg he would pity a poor maiden,
that had such a value for her reputation. He said, I speak it to her
face, I think her very pretty, and I thought her humble, and one that
would not grow upon my favours, or the notice I took of her; but I
abhor the thoughts of forcing her to any thing. I know myself better,
said he, and what belongs to me: And to be sure I have enough demeaned
myself to take notice of such a one as she; but I was bewitched by her,
I think, to be freer than became me; though I had no intention to carry
the jest farther.
What poor stuff was all this, my dear mother, from a man of his sense!
But see how a bad cause and bad actions confound the greatest wits!—It
gave me a little more courage then; for innocence, I find, in a low
fortune, and weak mind, has many advantages over guilt, with all its
riches and wisdom.
So I said, Your honour may call this jest or sport, or what you please;
but indeed, sir, it is not a jest that becomes the distance between a
master and a servant. Do you hear, Mrs. Jervis? said he: do you hear
the pertness of the creature? I had a good deal of this sort before in
the summer-house, and yesterday too, which made me rougher with her
than perhaps I had otherwise been.
Says Mrs. Jervis, Pamela, don’t be so pert to his honour: you should
know your distance; you see his honour was only in jest.—O dear Mrs.
Jervis, said I, don’t you blame me too. It is very difficult to keep
one’s distance to the greatest of men, when they won’t keep it
themselves to their meanest servants.
See again! said he; could you believe this of the young baggage, if you
had not heard it? Good your honour, said the well-meaning gentlewoman,
pity and forgive the poor girl; she is but a girl, and her virtue is
very dear to her; and I will pawn my life for her, she will never be
pert to your honour, if you’ll be so good as to molest her no more, nor
frighten her again. You saw, sir, by her fit, she was in terror; she
could not help it; and though your honour intended her no harm, yet the
apprehension was almost death to her: and I had much ado to bring her
to herself again. O the little hypocrite! said he; she has all the arts
of her sex; they were born with her; and I told you awhile ago you did
not know her. But this was not the reason principally of my calling you
before me together. I find I am likely to suffer in my reputation by
the perverseness and folly of this girl. She has told you all, and
perhaps more than all; nay, I make no doubt of it; and she has written
letters (for I find she is a mighty letter-writer!) to her father and
mother, and others, as far as I know, in which representing herself as
an angel of light, she makes her kind master and benefactor, a devil
incarnate—(O how people will sometimes, thought I, call themselves by
their right names!)—And all this, added he, I won’t hear; and so I am
resolved she shall return to the distresses and poverty she was taken
from; and let her be careful how she uses my name with freedom, when
she is gone from me.