Pamela - Samuel Richardson (read aloud txt) 📗

‘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 bedside, 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,