Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded

by Samuel Richardson

So here I am again, and here likely to be; for I have no courage to help myself any where else. O why are poor foolish maidens tried with such dangers, when they have such weak minds to grapple with them!—I will, since it is so, hope the best: but yet I cannot but observe how grievously every thing makes against me: for here are the robbers; though I fell not into their hands myself, yet they gave me as much terror, and had as great an effect upon my fears, as if I had: And here is the bull; it has as effectually frightened me, as if I had been hurt by it instead of the cook-maid; and so these joined together, as I may say, to make a very dastard of me. But my folly was the worst of all, because that deprived me of my money: for had I had that, I believe I should have ventured both the bull and the robbers.

Monday afternoon.

So, Mrs. Jewkes is returned from her visit: Well, said she, I would have you set your heart at rest; for Mr. Williams will do very well again. He is not half so bad as he fancied. O these scholars, said she, they have not the hearts of mice! He has only a few scratches on his face; which, said she, I suppose he got by grappling among the gravel at the bottom of the dam, to try to find a hole in the ground, to hide himself from the robbers. His shin and his knee are hardly to be seen to ail any thing. He says in his letter, he was a frightful spectacle: He might be so, indeed, when he first came in a doors; but he looks well enough now: and, only for a few groans now and then, when he thinks of his danger, I see nothing is the matter with him. So, Mrs. Pamela, said she, I would have you be very easy about it. I am glad of it, said I, for all your jokes, to Mrs. Jewkes.

Well, said she, he talks of nothing but you: and when I told him I would fain have persuaded you to come with me, the man was out of his wits with his gratitude to me: and so has laid open all his heart to me, and told me all that has passed, and was contriving between you two. This alarmed me prodigiously; and the rather, as I saw, by two or three instances, that his honest heart could keep nothing, believing every one as undesigning as himself. I said, but yet with a heavy heart, Ah! Mrs. Jewkes, Mrs. Jewkes, this might have done with me, had he had any thing that he could have told you of. But you know well enough, that had we been disposed, we had no opportunity for it, from your watchful care and circumspection. No, said she, that’s very true, Mrs. Pamela; not so much as for that declaration that he owned before me, he had found opportunity, for all my watchfulness, to make you. Come, come, said she, no more of these shams with me! You have an excellent head-piece for your years; but may be I am as cunning as you.—However, said she, all is well now; because my watchments are now over, by my master’s direction. How have you employed yourself in my absence?

I was so troubled at what might have passed between Mr. Williams and her, that I could not hide it; and she said, Well, Mrs. Pamela, since all matters are likely to be so soon and so happily ended, let me advise you to be a little less concerned at his discoveries; and make me your confidant, as he has done, and I shall think you have some favour for me, and reliance upon me; and perhaps you might not repent it.

She was so earnest, that I mistrusted she did this to pump me; and I knew how, now, to account for her kindness to Mr. Williams in her visit to him; which was only to get out of him what she could. Why, Mrs. Jewkes, said I, is all this fishing about for something, where there is nothing, if there be an end of your watchments, as you call them? Nothing, said she, but womanish curiosity, I’ll assure you; for one is naturally led to find out matters, where there is such privacy intended. Well, said I, pray let me know what he has said; and then I’ll give you an answer to your curiosity. I don’t care, said she, whether you do or not for I have as much as I wanted from him; and I despair of getting out of you any thing you ha’n’t a mind I should know, my little cunning dear.—Well, said I, let him have said what he would, I care not: for I am sure he can say no harm of me; and so let us change the talk.

I was the easier, indeed, because, for all her pumps, she gave no hints of the key and the door, etc. which, had he communicated to her, she would not have forborne giving me a touch of.—And so we gave up one another, as despairing to gain our ends of each other. But I am sure he must have said more than he should.—And I am the more apprehensive all is not right, because she has now been actually, these two hours, shut up a writing; though she pretended she had given me up all her stores of papers, etc. and that I should write for her. I begin to wish I had ventured every thing and gone off, when I might. O when will this state of doubt and uneasiness end!

She has just been with me, and says she shall send a messenger to Bedfordshire; and he shall carry a letter of thanks for me, if I will write it for my master’s favour to me. Indeed, said I, I have no thanks to give, till I am with my father and mother: and besides, I sent a letter, as you know; but have had no answer to it. She said, she thought that his letter to Mr. Williams was sufficient; and the least I could do was to thank him, if but in two lines. No need of it, said I; for I don’t intend to have Mr. Williams: What then is that letter to me? Well, said she, I see thou art quite unfathomable!

I don’t like all this. O my foolish fears of bulls and robbers!—For now all my uneasiness begins to double upon me. O what has this incautious man said! That, no doubt, is the subject of her long letter.

I will close this day’s writing, with just saying, that she is mighty silent and reserved, to what she was: and says nothing but No, or Yes, to what I ask. Something must be hatching, I doubt!—I the rather think so, because I find she does not keep her word with me, about lying by myself, and my money; to both which points she returned suspicious answers, saying, as to the one, Why, you are mighty earnest for your money; I shan’t run away with it. And to the other, Good-lack! you need not be so willing, as I know of, to part with me for a bed-fellow, till you are sure of one you like better. This cut me to the heart; and, at the same time, stopped my mouth.