Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded
I was brightened up at once with these welcome words, and I threw
myself upon my knees at his feet, with a most sincere glad heart; and I
said, May your honour be for ever blessed for your resolution! Now I
shall be happy. And permit me, on my bended knees, to thank you for all
the benefits and favours you have heaped upon me; for the opportunities
I have had of improvement and learning, through my good lady’s means,
and yours. I will now forget all your honour has offered me: and I
promise you, that I will never let your name pass my lips, but with
reverence and gratitude: and so God Almighty bless your honour, for
ever and ever! Amen.
Then rising from my knees, I went away with another-guise sort of heart
than I came into his presence with: and so I fell to writing this
letter. And thus all is happily over.
And now, my dearest father and mother, expect to see soon your poor
daughter, with an humble and dutiful mind, returned to you: and don’t
fear but I know how to be as happy with you as ever: for I will be in
the loft, as I used to do; and pray let my little bed be got ready; and
I have a small matter of money, which will buy me a suit of clothes,
fitter for my condition than what I have; and I will get Mrs. Mumford
to help me to some needle-work: and fear not that I shall be a burden
to you, if my health continues. I know I shall be blessed, if not for
my own sake, for both your sakes, who have, in all your trials and
misfortunes, preserved so much integrity as makes every body speak well
of you both. But I hope he will let good Mrs. Jervis give me a
character, for fear it should be thought that I was turned away for
dishonesty.
And so, my dear parents, may you be blest for me, and I for you! And I
will always pray for my master and Mrs. Jervis. So good night; for it
is late, and I shall be soon called to bed.
I hope Mrs. Jervis is not angry with me. She has not called me to
supper: though I could eat nothing if she had. But I make no doubt I
shall sleep purely to-night, and dream that I am with you, in my dear,
dear, happy loft once more.
So good night again, my dear father and mother, says
Your poor honest DAUGHTER.
Perhaps I mayn’t come this week, because I must get up the linen, and
leave in order every thing belonging to my place. So send me a line, if
you can, to let me know if I shall be welcome, by John, who will call
for it as he returns. But say nothing of my coming away to him, as yet:
for it will be said I blab every thing.
v LETTER XVII
MY DEAREST DAUGHTER,
Welcome, welcome, ten times welcome shall you be to us; for you come to
us innocent, and happy, and honest; and you are the staff of our old
age, and our comfort. And though we cannot do for you as we would, yet,
fear not, we shall live happily together; and what with my diligent
labour, and your poor mother’s spinning, and your needle-work, I make
no doubt we shall do better and better. Only your poor mother’s eyes
begin to fail her; though, I bless God, I am as strong and able, and
willing to labour as ever; and, O my dear child! your virtue has made
me, I think, stronger and better than I was before. What blessed things
are trials and temptations, when we have the strength to resist and
subdue them!
But I am uneasy about those same four guineas; I think you should give
them back again to your master; and yet I have broken them. Alas! I
have only three left; but I will borrow the fourth, if I can, part upon
my wages, and part of Mrs. Mumford, and send the whole sum back to you,
that you may return it, against John comes next, if he comes again
before you.
I want to know how you come. I fancy honest John will be glad to bear
you company part of the way, if your master is not so cross as to
forbid him. And if I know time enough, your mother will go one five
miles, and I will go ten on the way, or till I meet you, as far as one
holiday will go; for that I can get leave to make on such an occasion.
And we shall receive you with more pleasure than we had at your birth,
when all the worst was over; or than we ever had in our lives.
And so God bless you till the happy time comes! say both your mother
and I, which is all at present, from
Your truly loving PARENTS.
LETTER XVIII
DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,
I thank you a thousand tines for your goodness to me, expressed in your
last letter. I now long to get my business done, and come to my new old
lot again, as I may call it. I have been quite another thing since my
master has turned me off: and as I shall come to you an honest
daughter, what pleasure it is to what I should have had, if I could not
have seen you but as a guilty one. Well, my writing-time will soon be
over, and so I will make use of it now, and tell you all that has
happened since my last letter.
I wondered Mrs. Jervis did not call me to sup with her, and feared she
was angry; and when I had finished my letter, I longed for her coming
to bed. At last she came up, but seemed shy and reserved; and I said,
My dear Mrs. Jervis, I am glad to see you: you are not angry with me, I
hope. She said she was sorry things had gone so far; and that she had a
great deal of talk with my master, after I was gone; that he seemed
moved at what I said, and at my falling on my knees to him, and my
prayer for him, at my going away. He said I was a strange girl; he knew
not what to make of me. And is she gone? said he: I intended to say
something else to her; but she behaved so oddly, that I had not power
to stop her. She asked, if she should call me again? He said, Yes; and
then, No, let her go; it is best for her and me too; and she shall go,
now I have given her warning. Where she had it, I can’t tell; but I
never met with the fellow of her in any life, at any age. She said, he
had ordered her not to tell me all: but she believed he would never
offer any thing to me again; and I might stay, she fancied, if I would
beg it as a favour; though she was not sure neither.
I stay! dear Mrs. Jervis; said I; why it is the best news that could
have come to me, that he will let me go. I do nothing but long to go
back again to my poverty and distress, as he threatened I should; for
though I am sure of the poverty, I shall not have half the distress I
have had for some months past, I’ll assure you.
Mrs. Jervis, dear good soul! wept over me, and said, Well, well,
Pamela, I did not think I had shewn so little love to you, as that you
should express so much joy upon leaving me. I am sure I never had a
child half so dear to me as you are.
I went to hear her so good to me, as indeed she has always been, and
said, What would you have me to do, dear Mrs. Jervis? I love you next
to my own father and mother, and to leave you is the chief concern I
have at quitting this place; but I am sure it is certain ruin if I
stay. After such offers, and such threatenings, and his comparing
himself to a wicked ravisher in the very time of his last offer; and
turning it into a jest, that we should make a pretty story in a
romance; can I stay and be safe? Has he not demeaned himself twice? And
it behoves me to beware of the third time, for fear he should lay his
snares surer; for perhaps he did not expect a poor servant would resist
her master so much. And must it not be looked upon as a sort of warrant
for such actions, if I stay after this? For, I think, when one of our
sex finds she is attempted, it is an encouragement to the attempter to
proceed, if one puts one’s self in the way of it, when one can help it:
’Tis neither more nor less than inviting him to think that one
forgives, what, in short, ought not to be forgiven: Which is no small
countenance to foul actions, I’ll assure you.
She hugged me to her, and said I’ll assure you! Pretty-face, where
gottest thou all thy knowledge, and thy good notions, at these years?
Thou art a miracle for thy age, and I shall always love thee.—But, do
you resolve to leave us, Pamela?
Yes, my dear Mrs. Jervis, said I; for, as matters stand, how can I do
otherwise?—But I’ll finish the duties of my place first, if I may; and
hope you’ll give me a character, as to my honesty, that it may not be
thought I was turned away for any harm. Ay, that I will, said she; I
will give thee such a character as never girl at thy years deserved.
And I am sure, said I, I will always love and honour you, as my
third-best friend, wherever I go, or whatever becomes of me.
And so we went to bed; and I never waked till ’twas time to rise; which
I did as blithe as a bird, and went about my business with great
pleasure.
But I believe my master is fearfully angry with me; for he passed by me
two or three times, and would not speak to me; and towards evening, he
met me in the passage, going into the garden, and said such a word to
me as I never heard in my life from him to man, woman, or child; for he
first said, This creature’s always in the way, I think. I said,
standing up as close as I could, (and the entry was wide enough for a
coach too,) I hope I shan’t be long in your honour’s way. D—mn you!
said he, (that was the hard word,) for a little witch; I have no
patience with you.
I profess I trembled to hear him say so; but I saw he was vexed; and,
as I am going away, I minded it the less. Well! I see, my dear parents,
that when a person will do wicked things, it is no wonder he will speak
wicked words. May God keep me out of the way of them both!
Your dutiful DAUGHTER.
LETTER XIX
DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,
Our John having an opportunity to go your way, I write again, and send
both letters at once. I can’t say, yet, when I shall get away, nor how
I shall come, because Mrs. Jervis shewed my master the waistcoat I am
flowering for him, and he said, It looks well enough: I think the
creature had best stay till she has finished it.
There is some private talk carried on betwixt him and Mrs. Jervis, that
she don’t tell me of; but yet she is very kind to me, and I don’t
mistrust her at all. I should be very base if I did. But to be sure she
must oblige him, and keep all his lawful commands; and other, I dare
say, she won’t keep: She is too good; and loves me too well; but she
must stay when I am gone, and so must get no ill will.
She has been at me again to ask to stay, and humble myself. But what
have I done, Mrs. Jervis? said I: If I have been a sauce-box, and a
bold-face, and a pert, and a creature, as he calls me, have I not had
reason? Do you think I should ever have forgot myself, if he had not
forgot to act as my master? Tell me from your own heart, dear Mrs.
Jervis, said I, if you think I could stay and be safe: What would you
think, or how would you act in my case?
My dear Pamela, said she, and kissed me, I don’t know how I should act,
or what I should think. I hope I should act as you do. But I know
nobody else that would. My master is a fine gentleman; he has a great
deal of wit and sense, and is admired, as I know, by half a dozen
ladies, who would think themselves happy in his addresses. He has a
noble estate; and yet I believe he loves my good maiden, though his
servant, better than all the ladies in the land; and he has tried to
overcome it, because you are so much his inferior; and ’tis my opinion
he finds he can’t; and that vexes his proud heart, and makes him
resolve you shan’t stay; and so he speaks so cross to you, when he sees
you by accident.
Well, but, Mrs. Jervis, said I, let me ask you, if he can stoop to like
such a poor girl as me, as perhaps he may, (for I have read of things
almost as strange, from great men to poor damsels,) What can it be
for?—He may condescend, perhaps, to think I may be good enough for his
harlot; and those things don’t disgrace men that ruin poor women, as