Pamela, Volume II

She had tears of gratitude in her eyes, and taking off her spectacles,

"I cannot bear," she said, "so much goodness!—Oh! my lady!"

"Oh! my Pamela, say," replied I. "How often must I chide you for calling me any thing but your Pamela, when we are alone together?"

"My heart," said she, "will burst with your goodness! I cannot bear it!"

"But you must bear it, and bear still greater exercises to your grateful heart, I can tell you that. A pretty thing, truly! Here I, a poor helpless girl, raised from poverty and distress by the generosity of the best of men, only because I was young and sightly, shall put on lady-airs to a gentlewoman born, the wisdom of whose years, her faithful services, and good management, make her a much greater merit in this family, than I can pretend to have! And shall I return, in the day of my power, insult and haughtiness for the kindness and benevolence I received from her in that of my indigence!—Indeed, I won't forgive you, my dear Mrs. Jervis, if I think you capable of looking upon me in any other light than as your daughter; for you have been a mother to me, when the absence of my own could not afford me the comfort and good counsel I received every day from you."

Then moving my chair nearer, and taking her hand, and wiping, with my handkerchief in my other, her reverend cheek, "Come, my dear second mother," said I, "call me your daughter, your Pamela: I have passed many sweet hours with you under that name; and as I have but too seldom such an opportunity as this, open to me your worthy heart, and let me know, if I cannot make my second mother as easy and happy as our dear master has made my first."

She hung her head, and I waited till the discharge of her tears gave time for utterance to her words; provoking only her speech, by saying, "You used to have three grand-children to provide for in clothes and schooling. They are all living, I hope?"

"Yes, Madam, they are living: and your last bounty (twenty guineas was a great sum, and all at once!) made me very easy and very happy!"

"How easy and how happy, Mrs. Jervis?"

"Why, my dear lady, I paid five to one old creditor of my unhappy sons; five to a second; and two and a half to two others, in proportion to their respective demands; and with the other five I paid off all arrears of the poor children's schooling and maintenance; and all are satisfied and easy, and declare they will never do harsh things by me, if they are paid no more."

"But tell me, Mrs. Jervis, the whole you owe in the world; and you and I will contrive, with justice to our best friend, to do all we can to make you quite easy; for, at your time of life, I cannot bear that you shall have any thing to disturb you, which I can remove, and so, my dear Mrs. Jervis, let me know all. I know your debts (dear, just, good woman, as you are!) like David's sins, are ever before you: so come," putting my hand in her pocket, "let me be a friendly pick-pocket; let me take out your memorandum-book, and we will see how all matters stand, and what can be done. Come, I see you are too much moved; your worthy heart is too much affected" (pulling out her book, which she always had about her); "I will go to my closet, and return presently."

So I left her, to recover her spirits, and retired with the good woman's book to my closet.

Your dear brother stepping into the parlour just after I had gone out, "Where's your lady, Mrs. Jervis?" said he. And being told, came up to me:—"What ails the good woman below, my dear?" said he: "I hope you and she have had no words?"

"No, indeed, Sir," answered I. "If we had, I am sure it would have been my fault: but I have picked her pocket of her memorandum-book, in order to look into her private affairs, to see if I cannot, with justice to our common benefactor, make her as easy as you. Sir, have made my other dear parents."

"A blessing," said he, "upon my charmer's benevolent heart!—I will leave every thing to your discretion, my dear.—Do all the good you prudently can to your Mrs. Jervis."

I clasped my bold arms about him, the starting tear testifying my gratitude.—"Dearest Sir," said I, "you affect me as much as I did Mrs. Jervis; and if any one but you had a right to ask, what ails your Pamela? as you do, what ails Mrs. Jervis? I must say, I am hourly so much oppressed by your goodness, that there is hardly any bearing one's own joy."

He saluted me, and said, I was a dear obliging creature. "But," said he, "I came to tell you, that after dinner we'll take a turn, if you please, to Lady Arthur's: she has a family of London friends for her guests, and begs I will prevail upon you to give her your company, and attend you myself, only to drink tea with her; for I have told her we are to have friends to sup with us."

"I will attend you, Sir," replied I, "most willingly; although I doubt I am to be made a shew of."

"Something like it," said he, "for she has promised them this favour."

"I need not dress otherwise than I am?"

"No," he was pleased to say, I was always what he wished me to be.

So he left me to my good works (those were his kind words) and I ran over Mrs. Jervis's accounts, and found a balance drawn of all her matters in one leaf, and a thankful acknowledgment to God, for her master's last bounty, which had enabled her to give satisfaction to others, and to do herself great pleasure, written underneath.

The balance of all was thirty-five pounds eleven shillings and odd pence; and I went to my escritoir, and took out forty pounds, and down I hasted to my good Mrs. Jervis, and I said to her, "Here, my dear good friend, is your pocket-book; but are thirty-five or thirty-six pounds all you owe, or are bound for in the world?"

"It is, Madam," said she, "and enough too. It is a great sum; but 'tis in four hands, and they are all in pretty good circumstances, and so convinced of my honesty, that they will never trouble me for it; for I have reduced the debt every year something, since I have been in my master's service."

"Nor shall it ever be in any body's power," said I, "to trouble you:

I'll tell you how we'll order it."

So I sat down, and made her sit by me. "Here, my dear Mrs. Jervis, is forty pounds. It is not so much to me now, as the two guineas were to you, that you would have given me at my going away from this house to my father's, as I thought. I will not give it you neither, at least at present, as you shall hear: indeed I won't make you so uneasy as that comes to. But take this, and pay the thirty-five pounds odd money to the utmost farthing; and the remaining four pounds odd will be a little fund in advance towards the children's schooling. And thus you shall repay it; I always designed, as our dear master added five guineas per annum to your salary, in acknowledgement of the pleasure he took in your services, when I was Pamela Andrews, to add five pounds per annum to it from the time I became Mrs. B. But from that time, for so many years to come, you shall receive no more than you did, till the whole forty pounds be repaid. So, my dear Mrs. Jervis, you won't have any obligation to me, you know, but for the advance; and that is a poor matter, not to be spoken of: and I will have leave for it, for fear I should die."

Had your ladyship seen the dear good woman's behaviour, on this occasion, you would never have forgotten it. She could not speak; tears ran down her cheeks in plentiful currents: her modest hand put gently from her my offering hand, her bosom heav'd, and she sobb'd with the painful tumult that seemed to struggle within her, and which, for some few moments, made her incapable of speaking.

At last, I rising, and putting my arm round her neck, wiping her eyes, and kissing her cheek, she cried, "My excellent lady! 'tis too much! I cannot bear all this."—She then threw herself at my feet; for I was not strong enough to hinder it; and with uplifted hands—"May God Almighty," said she—I kneeled by her, and clasping her hands in mine, both uplifted together—"May God Almighty," said I, drowning her voice with my louder voice, "bless us both together, for many happy years! And bless and reward the dear gentleman, who has thus enabled me to make the widow's heart to sing for joy!"

And thus, my lady, did I force upon the good woman's acceptance the forty pounds.

Permit me, Madam, to close this letter here, and to resume the subject in my next: till when I have the honour to be your ladyship's most obliged and faithful servant,

P.B.

LETTER XVIII

MY DEAR LADY,

I now resume my last subject where I left off, that your ladyship may have the whole before you at one view.

I went after dinner, with my dear benefactor, to Lady Arthur's; and met with fresh calls upon me for humility, having the two natural effects of the praises and professed admiration of that lady's guests, as well as my dear Mr. B.'s, and those of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur, to guard myself against: and your good brother was pleased to entertain me in the chariot, going and coming, with an account of the orders he had given in relation to the London house, which is actually taken, and the furniture he should direct for it; so that I had no opportunity to tell him what I had done in relation to Mrs. Jervis.

But after supper, retiring from company to my closet, when his friends were gone, he came up to me about our usual bedtime: he enquired kindly after my employment, which was trying to read in the French Telemachus: for, my lady, I'm learning French, I'll assure you! And who, do you think, is my master?—Why, the best I could have in the world, your dearest brother, who is pleased to say, I am no dunce: how inexcusable should I be, if I was, with such a master, who teaches me on his knee, and rewards me with a kiss whenever I do well, and says, I have already nearly mastered the accent and pronunciation, which he tells me is a great difficulty got over.

I requested him to render for me into English two or three places that were beyond my reach; and when he had done it, he asked me, in French, what I had done for Mrs. Jervis.

I said, "Permit me, Sir (for I am not proficient enough to answer you in my new tongue), in English, to say, I have made the good woman quite happy; and if I have your approbation, I shall be as much so myself in this instance, as I am in all others."

"I dare answer for your prudence, my dear," he was pleased to say: "but this is your favourite: let me know, when you have so bountiful a heart to strangers, what you do for your favourites?"

I then said, "Permit my bold eye, Sir, to watch yours, as I obey you; and you know you must not look full upon me then; for if you do, how shall I look at you again; how see, as I proceed, whether you are displeased? for you will not chide me in words, so partial have you the goodness to be to all I do."

He put his arm round me, and looked down now and then, as I desired! for O! Madam, he is all condescension and goodness to his unworthy, yet grateful Pamela! I told him all I have written to you about the forty pounds.—"And now, dear Sir," said I, half hiding my face on his shoulder, "you have heard what I have done, chide or beat your Pamela, if you please: it shall be all kind from you, and matter of future direction and caution."

He raised my head, and kissed me two or three times, saying, "Thus then I chide, I beat, my angel!—And yet I have one fault to find with you, and let Mrs. Jervis, if not in bed, come up to us, and hear what it is; for I will expose you, as you deserve before her."—My Polly being in hearing, attending to know if I wanted her assistance to undress, I bade her call Mrs. Jervis. And though I thought from his kind looks, and kind words, as well as tender behaviour, that I had not much to fear, yet I was impatient to know what my fault was, for which I was to be exposed.

The good woman came; and as she entered with all that modesty which is so graceful in her, he moved his chair further from me, and, with a set aspect, but not unpleasant, said, "Step in, Mrs. Jervis: your lady" (for so, Madam, he will always call me to Mrs. Jervis, and to the servants) "has incurred my censure, and I would not tell her in what, till I had you face to face."

She looked surprised—now on me, now on her dear master; and I, not knowing what he would say, looked a little attentive. "I am sorry—I am very sorry for it, Sir," said she, curtseying low:—"but should be more sorry, if I were the unhappy occasion."

"Why, Mrs. Jervis, I can't say but it is on your account that I must blame her."

This gave us both confusion, but especially the good woman; for still I hoped much from his kind behaviour to me just before—and she said, "Indeed, Sir, I could never deserve–"

He interrupted her—"My charge against you, Pamela," said he, "is that of niggardliness, and no other; for I will put you both out of your pain: you ought not to have found out the method of repayment.

"The dear creature," said he, to Mrs. Jervis, "seldom does any thing that can be mended; but, I think, when your good conduct deserved an annual acknowledgment from me, in addition to your salary, the lady should have shewed herself no less pleased with your service than the gentleman. Had it been for old acquaintance-sake, for sex-sake, she should not have given me cause to upbraid her on this head. But I will tell you, that you must look upon the forty pounds you have, as the effect of just distinction on many accounts: and your salary from last quarter-day shall be advanced, as the dear niggard intended it some years hence; and let me only add, that when my Pamela first begins to shew a coldness to her Mrs. Jervis, I shall then suspect she is beginning to decline in that humble virtue, which is now peculiar to herself and makes her the delight of all who converse with her."

He was thus pleased to say: thus, with the most graceful generosity, and a nobleness of mind truly peculiar to himself, was he pleased to act: and what could Mrs. Jervis or I say to him?—Why, indeed, nothing at all!—We could only look upon one another, with our eyes and our hearts full of a gratitude that would not permit either of us to speak, but which expressed itself at last in a manner he was pleased to call more elegant than words—with uplifted folded hands, and tears of joy.

O my dear lady! how many opportunities have the beneficent rich to make themselves, as well as their fellow-creatures, happy! All that I could think, or say, or act, was but my duty before; what a sense of obligation then must I lie under to this most generous of men!

But here let me put an end to this tedious subject; the principal part of which can have no excuse, if it may not serve as a proof of my cheerful compliance with your ladyship's commands, that I recite every thing of concern to me, and with the same freedom as I used to do to my dear parents.

I have done it, and at the same time offered what I had to plead in behalf of my conduct to the two housekeepers, which you expected from me; and I shall therefore close this my humble defence, if I may so call it, with the assurance that I am, my dearest lady, your obliged and faithful servant,

P.B.

LETTER XIX

From Lady Davers to Mrs. B. in answer to the six last Letters.

"Where she had it, I can't tell I but I think I never met with the fellow of her in my life, at any age;" are, as I remember, my brother's words, speaking of his Pamela in the early part of your papers. In truth, thou art a surprising creature; and every letter we have from you, we have new subjects to admire you for.—"Do you think, Lady Betty," said I, when I had read to the end of the subject about Mrs. Jervis, "I will not soon set out to hit this charming girl a box of the ear or two?"—"For what, Lady Davers?" said she.

"For what!" replied I.—"Why, don't you see how many slaps of the face the bold slut hits me! I'll LADY-AIRS her! I will. I'll teach her to reproach me, and so many of her betters, with her cottage excellencies, and improvements, that shame our education."

Why, you dear charming Pamela, did you only excel me in words, I could forgive you: for there may be a knack, and a volubility, as to words, that a natural talent may supply; but to be thus out-done in thought and in deed, who can bear it? And in so young an insulter too!

Well, Pamela, look to it, when I see you: you shall feel the weight of my hand, or—the pressure of my lip, one or t'other, depend on it, very quickly; for here, instead of my stooping, as I thought I would be, to call you sister, I shall be forced to think, in a little while, that you ought not to own me as yours, till I am nearer your standard.

But to come to business, I will summarily take notice of the following particulars in all your obliging letters, in order to convince you of my friendship, by the freedom of my observations on the subjects you touch upon.

First, then, I am highly pleased with what you write of the advantages you received from the favour of my dear mother; and as you know many things of her by your attendance upon her the last three or four years of her life, I must desire you will give me, as opportunity shall offer, all you can recollect in relation to the honoured lady, and of her behaviour and kindness to you, and with a retrospect to your own early beginnings, the dawnings of this your bright day of excellence: and this not only I, but the countess, and Lady Betty, with whom I am going over your papers again, and her sister, Lady Jenny, request of you.

2. I am much pleased with your Kentish account; though we wished you had been more particular in some parts of it; for we are greatly taken with your descriptions: and your conversation pieces: yet I own, your honest father's letters, and yours, a good deal supply that defect.

3. I am highly delighted with your account of my brother's breaking to you the affair of Sally Godfrey, and your conduct upon it. 'Tis a sweet story as he brought it in, and as you relate it. The wretch has been very just in his account of it. We are in love with your charitable reflections in favour of the poor lady; and the more, as she certainly deserved them, and a better mother too than she had, and a faithfuller lover than she met with.

4. You have exactly hit his temper in your declared love of Miss Goodwill. I see, child, you know your man; and never fear but you'll hold him, if you can go on thus to act, and outdo your sex. But I should think you might as well not insist upon having her with you; you'd better see her now and then at the dairy-house, or at school, than have her with you. But this I leave to your own discretion.

5. You have satisfactorily answered our objections to your behaviour to Mrs. Jewkes. We had not considered your circumstances quite so thoroughly as we ought to have done. You are a charming girl, and all your motives are so just, that we shall be a little more cautious for the future how we censure you.

In short, I say with the countess, "This good girl is not without her pride; but it is the pride that becomes, and can only attend the innocent heart; and I'll warrant," said her ladyship, "nobody will become her station so well, as one who is capable of so worthy a pride as this."

But what a curtain-lecture hadst thou, Pamela! A noble one, dost thou call it?—Why, what a wretch hast thou got, to expect thou shouldst never expostulate against his lordly will, even when in the wrong, till thou hast obeyed it, and of consequence, joined in the evil he imposes!

Much good may such a husband do you, says Lady Betty!—Every body will admire you, but no one will have reason to envy you upon those principles.

6. I am pleased with your promise of sending what you think I shall like to see, out of those papers you choose not to shew me collectively: this is very obliging. You're a good girl; and I love you dearly.

7. We have all smiled at your paradox, Pamela, that his marrying you was an instance of his pride.—The thought, though, is pretty enough, and ingenious; but whether it will hold or not, I won't just now examine.

8. Your observation on the forget and forgive we are much pleased with.

9. You are very good in sending me a copy of Miss Darnford's letter. She is a charming young lady. I always had a great opinion of her merit; her letter abundantly confirms me in it. I hope you'll communicate to me every letter that passes between you, and pray send in your next a copy of your answer to her letter: I must insist upon it, I think.

10. I am glad, with all my heart, to hear of poor Jewkes's reformation: Your example carries all before it. But pray oblige me with your answer to her letter, don't think me unreasonable: 'tis all for your sake.

Pray—have you shewn Jewkes's letter to your good friend?—Lady Betty wants to know (if you have) what he could say to it? For, she says, it cuts him to the quick. And I think so too, if he takes it as he ought: but, as you say, he's above loving virtue for virtue's sake.

11. Your manner of acting by Mrs. Jervis, with so handsome a regard to my brother's interest, her behaviour upon it, and your relation of the whole, and of his generous spirit in approving, reproving, and improving, your prudent generosity, make no inconsiderable figure in your papers. And Lady Betty says, "Hang him, he has some excellent qualities too.—It is impossible not to think well of him; and his good actions go a great way towards atoning for his bad." But you, Pamela, have the glory of all.

12. I am glad you are learning French: thou art a happy girl in thy teacher, and he is a happy man in his scholar. We are pleased with your pretty account of his method of instructing and rewarding. 'Twould be strange, if you did not thus learn any language quickly, with such encouragements, from the man you love, were your genius less apt than it is. But we wished you had enlarged on that subject: for such fondness of men to their wives, who have been any time married, is so rare, and so unexpected from my brother, that we thought you should have written a side upon that subject at least.

What a bewitching girl art thou! What an exemplar to wives now, as well as thou wast before to maidens! Thou canst tame lions, I dare say, if thoud'st try.—Reclaim a rake in the meridian of his libertinism, and make such an one as my brother, not only marry thee, but love thee better at several months' end, than he did the first day, if possible!

Now, my dear Pamela, I think I have taken notice of the most material articles in your letters, and have no more to say to you; but write on, and oblige us; and mind to send me the copy of your letter to Miss Darnford, of that you wrote to poor penitent Jewkes, and every article I have written about, and all that comes into your head, or that passes, and you'll oblige yours, &c,

B. DAVERS.

LETTER XX

MY DEAR LADY,

I read with pleasure your commands, in your last kind and obliging letter: and you may be sure of a ready obedience in every one of them, that is in my power.

That which I can most easily do, I will first do; and that is, to transcribe the answer I sent to Miss Darnford, and that to Mrs. Jewkes, the former of which, (and a long one it is) is as follows:

"DEAR MISS DARNFORD,

"I begin now to be afraid I shall not have the pleasure and benefit I promised myself of passing a fortnight or three weeks at the Hall, in your sweet conversation, and that of your worthy family, as well as those others in your agreeable neighbourhood, whom I must always remember with equal honour and delight.

"The occasion will be principally, that we expect, very soon, Lord and Lady Davers, who propose to tarry here a fortnight at least; and after that, the advanced season will carry us to London, where Mr. B. has taken a house for his winter residence, and in order to attend parliament: a service he says, which he has been more deficient in hitherto, than he can either answer to his constituents, or to his own conscience; for though he is but one, yet if any good motion should be lost by one, every absent member, who is independent, has to reproach himself with the consequence of the loss of that good which might otherwise redound to the commonwealth. And besides, he says, such excuses as he could make, every one might plead; and then public affairs might as well be left to the administration, and no parliament be chosen.