There is something in that, may be, said she: but, indeed, Pamela, he is very angry with you too; and calls you twenty perverse things; wonders at his own folly, to have shewn you so much favour, as he calls it; which he was first inclined to, he says, for his mother’s sake, and would have persisted to shew you for your own, if you was not your own enemy.
Nay, now I shan’t love you, Mrs. Jervis, said I; you are going to persuade me to ask to stay, though you know the hazards I run.—No, said she, he says you shall go; for he thinks it won’t be for his reputation to keep you: but he wished (don’t speak of it for the world, Pamela,) that he knew a lady of birth, just such another as yourself, in person and mind, and he would marry her to-morrow.
I coloured up to the ears at this word: but said, Yet, if I was the lady of birth, and he would offer to be rude first, as he has twice done to poor me, I don’t know whether I would have him: For she that can bear an insult of that kind, I should think not worthy to be a gentleman’s wife: any more than he would be a gentleman that would offer it.
Nay, now, Pamela, said she, thou carriest thy notions a great way. Well, dear Mrs. Jervis, said I, very seriously, for I could not help it, I am more full of fears than ever. I have only to beg of you, as one of the best friends I have in the world, to say nothing of my asking to stay. To say my master likes me, when I know what end he aims at, is abomination to my ears; and I shan’t think myself safe till I am at my poor father’s and mother’s.
She was a little angry with me, till I assured her that I had not the least uneasiness on her account, but thought myself safe under her protection and friendship. And so we dropt the discourse for that time.
I hope to have finished this ugly waistcoat in two days; after which I have only some linen to get up, and shall then let you know how I contrive as to my passage; for the heavy rains will make it sad travelling on foot: but may be I may get a place to which is ten miles of the way, in farmer Nichols’s close cart; for I can’t sit a horse well at all, and may be nobody will be suffered to see me on upon the way. But I hope to let you know more. From, etc.
LETTER XXII
MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,
All my fellow-servants have now some notion that I am to go away; but can’t imagine for what. Mrs. Jervis tells them, that my father and mother, growing in years, cannot live without me; and so I go home to them, to help to comfort their old age; but they seem not to believe it.
What they found it out by was; the butler heard him say to me, as I passed by him, in the entry leading to the hall, Who’s that? Pamela, sir, said I. Pamela! said he, How long are you to stay here?—Only, please your honour, said I, till I have done the waistcoat; and it is almost finished.—You might, says he, (very roughly indeed,) have finished that long enough ago, I should have thought. Indeed, and please your honour, said I, I have worked early and late upon it; there is a great deal of work in it.—Work in it! said he; You mind your pen more than your needle; I don’t want such idle sluts to stay in my house.