As to our remarks upon your behaviour, they have been much to your credit: but nevertheless, I will, to encourage you to enter into this requested correspondence with me, consult Lady Betty, and will go over your papers again, and try to find fault with your conduct, and if we see any thing censurable, will freely let you know our minds.
But, before-hand, I can tell you, we shall be agreed in one opinion; and that is, that we know not who would have acted as you have done, upon the whole. So, Pamela, you see I put myself upon the same foot of correspondence with you. Not that I will promise to answer every latter: no, you must not expect that. Your part will be a kind of narrative, purposely designed to entertain us here; and I hope to receive six, seven, eight, or ten letters, as it may happen, before I return one: but such a part I will bear in it, as shall let you know our opinion of your proceedings, and relations of things. And as you wish to be found fault with, you shall freely have it (though not in a splenetic or ill-natured way), as often as you give occasion. Now, Pamela, I have two views in this. One is to see how a man of my brother's spirit, who has not denied himself any genteel liberties (for it must be owned he never was a common town rake, and had always a dignity in his roguery), will behave himself to you, and in wedlock, which used to be freely sneered at by him; the next, that I may love you more and more as by your letters, I shall be more and more acquainted with you, as well as by conversation; so that you can't be off, if you would.
'I know, however, you will have one objection to this; and that is, that your family affairs will require your attention, and not give the time you used to have for this employment. But consider, child, the station you are raised to does not require you to be quite a domestic animal. You are lifted up to the rank of a lady, and you must act up to it, and not think of setting such an example, as will draw upon you the ill-will and censure of other ladies. For will any of our sex visit one who is continually employing herself in such works as either must be a reproach to herself, or to them?You'll have nothing to do but to give orders. You will consider yourself as the task-mistress, and the common herd of female servants as so many negroes directing themselves by your nod; or yourself as the master-wheel, in some beautiful pieces of mechanism, whose dignified grave motions is to set a-going all the under-wheels, with a velocity suitable to their respective parts. Let your servants, under your direction, do all that relates to household management; they cannot write to entertain and instruct as you can: so what will you have to do?I'll answer my own question: In the first place, endeavour to please your sovereign lord and master; and let me tell you, any other woman in England, be her quality ever so high, would have found enough to do to succeed in that. Secondly, to receive and pay visits, in order, for his credit as well as your own, to make your fashionable neighbours fond of you. Then, thirdly, you will have time upon your hands (as your monarch himself rises early, and is tolerably regular for such a brazen face as he has been) to write to me in the manner I have mentioned, and expect; and I see plainly, by your style, nothing can be easier for you than to do this.
Thus, and with reading, may your time be filled up with reputations to yourself, and delight to others, till a fourth employment puts itself upon you: and that is (shall I tell you boys, [Transcriber's note: text missing in original] to perpetuate a family, for many hundred years esteemed worthy and eminent, which, being now reduced, in the direct line, to him and me, expects it from you; or else let me tell you (nor will I baulk it), my brother, by descending to the wholesome cotexcuse me, Pamelawill want one apology for his conduct, be as excellent as you may.
I say this, child, not to reflect upon you, since the thing is done; for I love you dearly, and will love you more and morebut to let you know what is expected from you, and encourage you in the prospect already opening to you both, and to me, who have the welfare of the family I sprung from so much at heart, although I know this will be attended with some anxieties to a mind so thoughtful and apprehensive as yours seems to be.
O but this puts me in mind of your solicitude, lest the gentlemen should have seen every thing contained in your letters-But this I will particularly speak to in a third letter, having filled my paper on all sides: and am, till then, yours, &c.
B. DAVERS.
You see, and I hope will take it as a favour, that I break the ice, and begin first in the indispensably expected correspondence between us.
LETTER X
From the same.
And so, Pamela, you are solicitous to know, if the gentlemen have seen every part of your papers? I can't say but they have: nor, except in regard to the reputation of your saucy man, do I see why the part you hint at might not be read by those to whom the rest might be shewn.
I can tell you, Lady Betty, who is a very nice and delicate lady, had no objection to any part, though read before men: only now and then crying out, "O the vile man!See, Lord Davers, what wretches you men are!" And, commiserating you, "Ah! the poor Pamela!" And expressing her impatience to hear how you escaped at this time, and at that, and rejoicing in your escape. And now-and-then, "O, Lady Davers, what a vile brother you have!I hate him perfectly. The poor girl cannot be made amends for all this, though he has married her. Who, that knows these things of him, would wish him to be hers, with all his advantages of person, mind, and fortune?" and his wicked attempts.
But I can tell you this, that except one had heard every tittle of your danger, how near you were to ruin, and how little he stood upon taking any measures to effect his vile purposes, even daring to attempt you in the presence of a good woman, which was a wickedness that every wicked man could not be guilty of; I say, except one had known these things, one could not have judged of the merit of your resistance, and how shocking those attempts were to your virtue, for that life itself was endangered by them: nor, let me tell you, could I, in particular, have so well justified him for marrying you (I mean with respect to his own proud and haughty temper of mind), if there had been room to think he could have had you upon easier terms.
It was necessary, child, on twenty accounts, that we, your and his well-wishers and his relations, should know that he had tried every stratagem to subdue you to his purpose, before he married you: and how would it have answered to his intrepid character, and pride of heart, had we not been particularly led into the nature of those attempts, which you so nobly resisted, as to convince us all, that you have deserved the good fortune you have met with, as well as all the kind and respectful treatment he can possibly shew you?
Nor ought you to be concerned who sees any the most tender parts of your story, except, as I said, for his sake; for it must be a very unvirtuous mind that can form any other ideas from what you relate than those of terror and pity for you. Your expressions are too delicate to give the nicest ear offence, except at him. You paint no scenes but such as make his wickedness odious: and that gentleman, much more lady, must have a very corrupt heart, who could from such circumstances of distress, make any reflections, but what should be to your honour, and in abhorrence of such actions. I am so convinced of this, that by this rule I would judge of any man's heart in the world, better than by a thousand declarations and protestations. I do assure you, rakish as Jackey is, and freely as I doubt not that Lord Davers has formerly lived (for he has been a man of pleasure), they gave me, by their behaviour on these tender occasions, reason to think they had more virtue than not to be very apprehensive for your safety; and my lord often exclaimed, that he could not have thought his brother such a libertine, neither.
Besides, child, were not these things written in confidence had not recited all you could recite, would there not have been room for any one, who saw what you wrote, to imagine they had been still worse? And how could the terror be supposed to have had such effects upon you, as to endanger your life, without imagining you had undergone the worst a vile man could offer, unless you had told us what that was which he did offer, and so put a bound, as it were, to one's fears of what you suffered, which otherwise must have been injurious to your purity, though you could not help it?
Moreover, Pamela, it was but doing justice to the libertine himself to tell your mother the whole truth, that she might know he was not so very abandoned, but he could stop short of the execution of his wicked purposes, which he apprehended, if pursued, would destroy the life, that, of all lives, he would choose to preserve; and you owed also thus much to your parents' peace of mind, that, after all their distracting fears for you, they might see they had reason to rejoice in an uncontaminated daughter. And one cannot but reflect, now he has made you his wife, that it must be satisfaction to the wicked man, as well as to yourself, that he was not more guilty than he was, nor took more liberties than he did.
For my own part, I must say, that I could not have accounted for your fits, by any descriptions short of those you give; and had you been less particular in the circumstances, I should have judged he had been still worse, and your person, though not your mind, less pure, than his pride would expect from the woman he should marry; for this is the case of all rakes, that though they indulge in all manner of libertinism themselves, there is no class of men who exact greater delicacy from the persons they marry, though they care not how bad they make the wives, the sisters, and daughters of others.
I will only add (and send all my three letters together), that we all blame you in some degree for bearing the wicked Jewkes in your sight, after her most impudent assistance in his lewd attempt; much less, we think, ought you to have left her in her place, and rewarded her; for her vileness could hardly be equalled by the worst actions of the most abandoned procuress.
I know the difficulties you labour under, in his arbitrary will, and intercession for her: but Lady Betty rightly observes, that he knew what a vile woman she was, when he put you into her power, and no doubt employed her, being sure she would answer all his purposes: and that therefore she should have had very little opinion of the sincerity of his reformation, while he was so solicitous in keeping her, and having her put upon a foot, in the present on your nuptials, with honest Jervis.
She would, she says, had she been in your case, have had one struggle for her dismission, let it have been taken as it would; and he that was so well pleased with your virtues, must have thought this a natural consequence of it, if he was in earnest to reclaim.
I know not whether you shew him all I write: but I have written this last part in the cover, as well for want of room, as that you may keep it from him, if you please. Though if you think it will serve any good end, I am not against shewing to him all I write. For I must ever speak my mind, though I were to smart for it; and that nobody can or has the heart to make me do, but my bold brother. So, Pamela, for this time, Adieu.
LETTER XI
MY GOOD LADY,
I am honoured with your ladyship's three letters, the contents of which are highly obliging to me: and I should be inexcusable if I did not comply with your injunctions, and be very proud and thankful for your ladyship's condescension in accepting of my poor scribble, and promising such a rich and valuable return; of which you have already given such ample and delightful instances. I will not plead my defects, to excuse my obedience. I only fear that the awe which will be always upon me, when I write to your ladyship, will lay me under so great a restraint, that I shall fall short even of the merit my papers have already made for me, through your kind indulgence.Yet, sheltering myself under your goodness, I will cheerfully comply with every thing your ladyship expects from me, that it is in my power to do.
You will give me leave, Madam, to put into some little method, the particulars of what you desire of me, that I may speak to them all: for, since you are so good as to excuse me from sending the rest of my papers (which indeed would not bear in many places), I will omit nothing that shall tend to convince you of my readiness to obey you in every thing else.
First, then, your ladyship would have the particulars of the happy fortnight we passed in Kent, on one of the most agreeable occasions that could befall me.
Secondly, an account of the manner in which your dear brother acquainted me with the affecting story of Miss Godfrey, and my behaviour upon it.
And, thirdly, I presume your ladyship, and Lady Betty, expect me to say something upon your welcome remarks on my conduct towards Mrs. Jewkes.
The other particulars your ladyship mentions, will naturally fall under one or other of these three headsBut expect not, my lady, though I begin in method thus, that I shall keep up to it. If you will not allow for me, and keep in view the poor Pamela Andrews in all I write, but have Mrs. B. in your eye, what will become of me?But I promise myself so much improvement from this correspondence, that I enter upon it with a greater delight than I can express, notwithstanding the mingled awe and diffidence that will accompany me, in every part of the agreeable task. To begin with the first article:
Your dear brother and my honest parents (I know your ladyship will expect from me, that on all occasions I should speak of them with the duty that becomes a good child) with myself, set out on the Monday morning for Kent, passing through St. Albans to London, at both which places we stopped a night; for our dear benefactor would make us take easy journeys: and on Wednesday evening we arrived at the sweet place allotted for the good couple. We were attended only by Abraham and John, on horseback: for Mr. Colbrand, having sprained his foot, was in the travelling-coach, with the cook, the housemaid, and Polly Barlow, a genteel new servant, whom Mrs. Brooks recommended to wait on me.
Mr. Longman had been there a fortnight, employed in settling the terms of an additional purchase of this pretty well-wooded and well-watered estate: and his account of his proceedings was very satisfactory to his honoured principal. He told us, he had much ado to dissuade the tenants from pursuing a formed resolution of meeting their landlord on horseback, at some miles distance; for he had informed them when he expected us; but knowing how desirous Mr. B. was of being retired, he had ventured to assure them, that when every thing was settled, and the new purchase actually entered upon, they would have his presence among them often; and that he would introduce them all at different times to their worthy landlord, before we left the country.
The house is large, and very commodious; and we found every thing about it, and in it, exceeding neat and convenient; owing to the worthy Mr. Longman's care and direction. The ground is well-stocked, the barns and outhouses in excellent repair; and my poor parents have only to wish, that they and I may be deserving of half the goodness we experience from your bountiful brother.
But, indeed. Madam, I have the pleasure of discovering every day more and more, that there is not a better disposed and more generous man in the world than himself, for I verily think he has not been so careful to conceal his bad actions as his good ones. His heart is naturally beneficent, and his beneficence is the gift of God for the most excellent purposes, as I have often freely told him. Pardon me, my dear lady; I wish I may not be impertinently grave: but I find a great many instances of his considerate charity, which few knew of, and which, since I have been his almoner, could not avoid coming to my knowledge. But this, possibly, is no news to your ladyship. Every body knows the generous goodness of your own heart: every one wanting relief tasted the bounty of your excellent mother my late honoured lady: so that 'tis a family grace, and I have no need to speak of it to you. Madam.