Pamela, Samuel Richardson [free ebook reader for ipad .txt] 📗

I was so weak all day on Monday, that I could not get out of my bed. My master shewed great tenderness for me; and I hope he is really sorry, and that this will be his last attempt; but he does not say so neither.

He came in the morning, as soon as he heard the door open and I began to be fearful. He stopped short of the bed, and said, Rather than give you apprehensions, I will come no farther. I said, Your honour, sir, and your mercy, is all I have to beg. He sat himself on the side of the bed, and asked kindly, how I did?—begged me to be composed; said, I still looked a little wildly. And I said, Pray, good sir, let me not see this infamous Mrs. Jewkes; I doubt I cannot bear her sight. She shan’t come near you all this day, if you’ll promise to compose yourself. Then, sir, I will try. He pressed my hand very tenderly, and went out. What a change does this shew!—O may it be lasting!—But, alas! he seems only to have altered his method of proceeding; and retains, I doubt, his wicked purpose.

On Tuesday, about ten o’clock, when my master heard I was up, he sent for me down into the parlour. As soon as he saw me, he said, Come nearer to me, Pamela. I did so, and he took my hand, and said, You begin to look well again: I am glad of it. You little slut, how did you frighten me on Sunday night.

Sir, said I, pray name not that night; and my eyes overflowed at the remembrance, and I turned my head aside.

Said he, Place some little confidence in me: I know what those charming eyes mean, and you shall not need to explain yourself: for I do assure you, that as soon as I saw you change, and a cold sweat bedew your pretty face, and you fainted away, I quitted the bed, and Mrs. Jewkes did so too. And I put on my gown, and she fetched her smelling-bottle, and we both did all we could to restore you; and my passion for you was all swallowed up in the concern I had for your recovery; for I thought I never saw a fit so strong and violent in my life: and feared we should not bring you to life again; for what I saw you in once before was nothing to it. This, said he, might be my folly, and my unacquaintedness with what passion your sex can shew when they are in earnest. But this I repeat to you, that your mind may be entirely comforted—Whatever I offered to you, was before you fainted away, and that, I am sure, was innocent.

Sir, said I, that was very bad: and it was too plain you had the worst designs. When, said he, I tell you the truth in one instance, you may believe me in the other. I know not, I declare, beyond this lovely bosom, your sex: but that I did intend what you call the worst is most certain: and though I would not too much alarm you now, I could curse my weakness, and my folly, which makes me own, that I love you beyond all your sex, and cannot live without you. But if I am master of myself, and my own resolution, I will not attempt to force you to any thing again.

Sir, said I, you may easily keep your resolution, if you’ll send me out of your way, to my poor parents; that is all I beg.

‘Tis a folly to talk of it, said he. You must not, shall not go! And if I could be assured you would not attempt it, you should have better usage, and your confinement should be made easier to you.

But to what end, sir, am I to stay? said I: You yourself seem not sure you can keep your own present good resolutions; and do you think, if I was to stay, when I could get away, and be safe, it would not look, as if either I confided too much in my own strength, or would tempt my ruin? And as if I was not in earnest to wish myself safe, and out of danger?— And then, how long am I to stay? And to what purpose? And in what light must I appear to the world? Would not that censure me, although I might be innocent? And you will allow, sir, that, if there be any thing valuable or exemplary in a good name, or fair reputation, one must not despise the world’s censure, if one can avoid it.

Well, said he, I sent not for you on this account, just now; but for two reasons. The first is, That you promise me, that for a fortnight to come you will not offer to go away without my express consent; and this I expect for your own sake, that I may give you a little more liberty. And the second is, That you will see and forgive Mrs. Jewkes: she takes on much, and thinks that, as all her fault was her obedience to me, it would be very hard to sacrifice her, as she calls it, to your resentment.

As to the first, sir, said I, it is a hard injunction, for the reasons I have mentioned. And as to the second, considering her vile, unwomanly wickedness, and her endeavours to instigate you more to ruin me, when your returning goodness seemed to have some compassion upon me, it is still harder. But, to shew my obedience to your commands, (for you know, my dear parents, I might as well make a merit of my compliance, when my refusal would stand me in no stead,) I will consent to both; and to every thing else, that you shall be pleased to enjoin, which I can do, with innocence.

That’s my good girl! said he, and kissed me: This is quite prudent, and shews me, that you don’t take insolent advantage of my favour for you; and will, perhaps, stand you in more stead than you are aware of.

So he rung the bell, and said, Call down Mrs. Jewkes. She came down, and he took my hand, and put it into hers; and said, Mrs. Jewkes, I am obliged to you for all your diligence and fidelity to me; but Pamela, I must own, is not; because the service I employed you in was not so very obliging to her, as I could have wished she would have thought it: and you were not to favour her, but obey me. But yet I’ll assure you, at the very first word, she has once obliged me, by consenting to be friends with you; and if she gives me no great cause, I shall not, perhaps, put you on such disagreeable service again.—Now, therefore, be you once more bed-fellows and board-fellows, as I may say, for some days longer; and see that Pamela sends no letters nor messages out of the house, nor keeps a correspondence unknown to me, especially with that Williams; and, as for the rest, shew the dear girl all the respect that is due to one I must love, if she will deserve it, as I hope she will yet; and let her be under no unnecessary or harsh restraints. But your watchful care is not, however, to cease: and remember that you are not to disoblige me, to oblige her; and that I will not, cannot, yet part with her.

Mrs. Jewkes looked very sullen, and as if she would be glad still to do me a good turn, if it lay in her power.

I took courage then to drop a word or two for poor Mr. Williams; but he was angry with me for it, and said he could not endure to hear his name in my mouth; so I was forced to have done for that time.

All this time, my papers, that I buried under the rose-bush, lay there still; and I begged for leave to send a letter to you. So I should, he said, if he might read it first. But this did not answer my design; and yet I would have sent you such a letter as he might see, if I had been sure my danger was over. But that I cannot; for he now seems to take another method, and what I am more afraid of, because, may be, he may watch an opportunity, and join force with it, on occasion, when I am least prepared: for now he seems to abound with kindness, and talks of love without reserve, and makes nothing of allowing himself in the liberty of kissing me, which he calls innocent; but which I do not like, and especially in the manner he does it: but for a master to do it at all to a servant, has meaning too much in it, not to alarm an honest body.

Wednesday morning.

I find I am watched and suspected still very close; and I wish I was with you; but that must not be, it seems, this fortnight. I don’t like this fortnight; and it will be a tedious and a dangerous one to me, I doubt.

My master just now sent for me down to take a walk with him in the garden: but I like him not at all, nor his ways; for he would have, all the way, his arm about my waist, and said abundance of fond things to me, enough to make me proud, if his design had not been apparent. After walking about, he led me into a little alcove, on the farther part of the garden; and really made me afraid of myself, for he began to be very teasing, and made me sit on his knee; and was so often kissing me, that I said, Sir, I don’t like to be here at all, I assure you. Indeed you make me afraid!—And what made me the more so, was what he once said to Mrs. Jewkes, and did not think I heard him, and which, though always uppermost with me, I did not mention before, because I did not know how to bring it in, in my writing.

She, I suppose, had been encouraging him in his wickedness; for it was before the last dreadful trial: and I only heard what he answered.

Said he, I will try once more; but I have begun wrong for I see terror does but add to her frost; but she is a charming girl, and may be thawed by kindness; and I should have melted her by love, instead of freezing her by fear.

Is he not a wicked, sad man for this?—To be sure, I blush while I write it. But I trust, that that God, who has delivered me from the paw of the lion and the bear; that is, his and Mrs. Jewkes’s violences, will soon deliver me from this Philistine, that I may not defy the commands of the living God!

But, as I was saying, this expression coming into my thoughts, I was of opinion, I could not be too much on my guard, at all times: more especially when he took such liberties: for he professed honour all the time with his mouth, while his actions did not correspond. I begged and prayed he would let me go: and had I not appeared quite regardless of all he said, and resolved not to stay, if I could help it, I know not how far he would have proceeded; for I was forced to fall down upon my knees.

At last he walked out with me, still bragging of his honour and his love. Yes, yes, sir, said I, your honour is