Pamela - Samuel Richardson (read aloud txt) 📗

ready to break to see his grief; for it is a touching thing to see a man cry), Tell me the worst! Is my master coming? No, no, said he, and sobbed.—Well, said I, is there any news of my poor father and mother? How do they do?—I hope well, said he, I know nothing to the contrary. There is no mishap, I hope, to Mrs. Jervis or to Mr. Longman, or my fellow-servants!—No—said he, poor man! with a long N—o, as if his heart would burst. Well, thank God then! said I.

The man’s a fool, said Mrs. Jewkes, I think: What ado is here! Why, sure thou’rt in love, John. Dost thou not see young madam is well? What ails thee, man? Nothing at all, said he; but I am such a fool as to cry for joy to see good Mrs. Pamela: But I have a letter for you.

I took it, and saw it was from my master; so I put it in my pocket. Mrs. Jewkes, said I, you need not, I hope, see this. No, no, said she, I see whose it is, well enough; or else, may be, I must have insisted on reading it.

And here is one for you, Mrs. Jewkes, said he; but yours, said he to me, requires an answer, which I must carry back early in the morning, or tonight, if I can.

You have no more, John, said Mrs. Jewkes, for Mrs. Pamela, have you? No, said he, I have not, but every body’s kind love and service. Ay, to us both, to be sure, said she. John, said I, I will read the letter, and pray take care of yourself; for you are a good man, God bless you! and I rejoice to see you, and hear from you all. But I longed to say more; only that nasty Mrs. Jewkes.

So I went up, and locked myself in my closet, and opened the letter; and this is a copy of it:

 

‘My DEAREST PAMELA,

‘I send purposely to you on an affair that concerns you very much, and me somewhat, but chiefly for your sake. I am conscious that I have proceeded by you in such a manner as may justly alarm your fears, and give concern to your honest friends: and all my pleasure is, that I can and will make you amends for the disturbance I have given you. As I promised, I sent to your father the day after your departure, that he might not be too much concerned for you, and assured him of my honour to you; and made an excuse, such an one as ought to have satisfied him, for your not coming to him. But this was not sufficient, it seems; for he, poor man! came to me next morning, and set my family almost in an uproar about you.

‘O my dear girl! what trouble has not your obstinacy given me, and yourself too! I had no way to pacify him, but to promise that he should see a letter written from you to Mrs. Jervis, to satisfy him you are well.

‘Now all my care in this case is for your aged parents, lest they should be touched with too fatal a grief; and for you, whose duty and affection for them I know to be so strong and laudable; for this reason I beg you will write a few lines to them, and let me prescribe the form; which I have done, putting myself as near as I can in your place, and expressing your sense, with a warmth that I doubt will have too much possessed you.

‘After what is done, and which cannot now be helped, but which, I assure you, shall turn out honourably for you, I expect not to be refused; because I cannot possibly have any view in it, but to satisfy your parents; which is more your concern than mine; and so I must beg you will not alter one tittle of the underneath. If you do, it will be impossible for me to send it, or that it should answer the good end I propose by it.

‘I have promised, that I will not approach you without your leave. If I find you easy, and not attempting to dispute or avoid your present lot, I will keep to my word, although it is a difficulty upon me. Nor shall your restraint last long: for I will assure you, that I am resolved very soon to convince you of my good intentions, and with what ardour I am ‘Yours, etc.’

 

The letter he prescribed for me was as this:

 

‘DEAR Mrs. JERVIS,

‘I have, instead of being driven by Robin to my dear father’s, been carried off, where I have no liberty to tell. However, at present, I am not used hardly; and I write to beg you to let my dear father and mother, whose hearts must be well nigh broken, know that I am well; and that I am, and, by the grace of God, ever will be, their honest, as well as dutiful daughter, and ‘Your obliged friend.’

‘I must neither send date nor place; but have most solemn assurances of honourable usage.’

 

I knew not what to do on this most strange request and occasion. But my heart bled so much for you, my dear father, who had taken the pains to go yourself, and inquire after your poor daughter, as well as for my dear mother, that I resolved to write, and pretty much in the above form, that it might be sent to pacify you, till I could let you, somehow or other, know the true state of the matter. And I wrote thus to my strange wicked master himself:

 

‘SIR,

‘If you knew but the anguish of my mind, and how much I suffer by your dreadful usage of me, you would surely pity me, and consent to my deliverance. What have I done, that I should be the only mark of your cruelty? I can have no hope, no desire of living left me, because I cannot have the least dependence, after what has passed, upon your solemn assurances.—It is impossible they should be consistent with the dishonourable methods you take.

‘Nothing but your promise of not seeing me here in my deplorable bondage, can give me the least ray of hope.

‘Don’t, I beseech you, drive the poor distressed Pamela upon a rock, that may be the destruction both of her soul and body! You don’t know, sir, how dreadfully I dare, weak as I am of mind and intellect, when my virtue is in danger. And, O! hasten my deliverance, that a poor unworthy creature, below the notice of such a gentleman as you, may not be made the sport of a high condition, for no reason in the world, but because she is not able to defend herself, nor has a friend that can right her.

‘I have, sir, in part to shew my obedience to you, but indeed, I own, more to give ease to the minds of my poor distressed parents, whose poverty, one would think, should screen them from violences of this sort, as well as their poor daughter, followed pretty much the form you have prescribed for me, in the letter to Mrs. Jervis; and the alterations I have made (for I could not help a few) are of such a nature, as, though they shew my concern a little, yet must answer the end you are pleased to say you propose by this letter.

‘For God’s sake, good sir, pity my lowly condition, and my present great misery; and let me join with all the rest of your servants to bless that goodness, which you have extended to every one but the poor afflicted, heart-broken ‘PAMELA.’

 

I thought, when I had written this letter, and that which he had prescribed, it would look like placing a confidence in Mrs. Jewkes, to shew them to her; and I shewed her, at the same time, my master’s letter to me; for I believed the value he expressed for me, would give me credit with one who professed in every thing to serve him, right or wrong; though I had so little reason, I fear, to pride myself in it: and I was not mistaken; for it has seemed to influence her not a little, and she is at present mighty obliging, and runs over in my praises; but is the less to be minded, because she praises as much the author of my miseries, and his honourable intentions, as she calls them; for I see, that she is capable of thinking, as I fear he does, that every thing that makes for his wicked will is honourable, though to the ruin of the innocent. Pray God I may find it otherwise! Though, I hope, whatever the wicked gentleman may intend, that I shall be at last rid of her impertinent bold way of talk, when she seems to think, from his letter, that he means honourably.

 

I am now come to MONDAY, the 5th Day of my Bondage and Misery.

I was in hope to have an opportunity to see John, and have a little private talk with him, before he went away; but it could not be. The poor man’s excessive sorrow made Mrs. Jewkes take it into her head, to think he loved me; and so she brought up a message to me from him this morning that he was going. I desired he might come up to my closet, as I called it, and she came with him. The honest man, as I thought him, was as full of concern as before, at taking leave and I gave him two letters, the one for Mrs. Jervis, enclosed in another for my master: but Mrs. Jewkes would see me seal them up, lest I should enclose any thing else.— I was surprised, at the man’s going away, to see him drop a bit of paper, just at the head of the stairs, which I took up without being observed by Mrs. Jewkes: but I was a thousand times more surprised, when I returned to my closet, and opening it read as follows:

 

‘GOOD MRS. PAMELA,

‘I am grieved to tell you how much you have been deceived and betrayed, and that by such a vile dog as I. Little did I think it would come to this. But I must say, if ever there was a rogue in the world, it is me. I have all along shewed your letters to my master: He employed me for that purpose; and he saw every one, before I carried them to your father and mother; and then scaled them up, and sent me with them. I had some business that way, but not half so often as I pretended: and as soon as I heard how it was, I was ready to hang myself. You may well think I could not stand in your presence. O vile, vile wretch, to bring you to this! If you are ruined, I am the rogue that caused it. All the justice I can do you, is to tell you, you are in vile hands; and I am afraid will be undone in spite of all your sweet innocence; and I believe I shall never live, after I know it. If you can forgive me, you are exceeding good; but I shall never forgive myself, that’s certain. Howsomever, it will do you no good to make this known; and may-hap I may live to do you service. If I can, I will: I am sure I ought.—Master kept your last two or three letters, and did not send them at all. I am the most abandoned wretch of wretches. ‘J. ARNOLD.’

‘You see your undoing has been long hatching. Pray take