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Still more and more strange things to write! A messenger is returned, and now all is out! O wretched, wretched Pamela! What, at last, will become of me!--Such strange turns and trials sure never poor creature, of my years, experienced. He brought two letters, one to Mrs. Jewkes, and one to me: but, as the greatest wits may be sometimes mistaken, they being folded and sealed alike, that for me was directed to Mrs. Jewkes; and that for her was directed to me. But both are stark naught, abominably bad! She brought me up that directed for me, and said, Here's a letter for you: Long-looked-for is come at last. I will ask the messenger a few questions, and then I will read mine. So she went down, and I broke it open in my closet, and found it directed To MRS. PAMELA ANDREWS. But when I opened it, it began, Mrs. Jewkes. I was quite confounded; but, thought I, this may be a lucky mistake; I may discover something: And so I read on these horrid contents:
'MRS. JEWKES,
'What you write me, has given me no small disturbance. This wretched fool's play-thing, no doubt, is ready to leap at any thing that offers, rather than express the least sense of gratitude for all the benefits she has received from my family, and which I was determined more and more to heap upon her. I reserve her for my future resentment; and I charge you double your diligence in watching her, to prevent her escape. I send this by an honest Swiss, who attended me in my travels; a man I can trust; and so let him be your assistant: for the artful creature is enough to corrupt a nation by her seeming innocence and simplicity; and she may have got a party, perhaps, among my servants with you, as she has here. Even John Arnold, whom I confided in, and favoured more than any, has proved an execrable villain; and shall meet his reward for it.
'As to that college novice, Williams, I need not bid you take care he sees not this painted bauble: for I have ordered Mr. Shorter, my attorney, to throw him instantly into gaol, on an action of debt, for money he has had of me, which I had intended never to carry to account against him; for I know all his rascally practices, besides what you write me of his perfidious intrigue with that girl, and his acknowledged contrivances for her escape; when he knew not, for certain, that I designed her any mischief; and when, if he had been guided by a sense of piety, or compassion for injured innocence, as he pretends, he would have expostulated with me, as his function, and my friendship for him, might have allowed him. But to enter into a vile intrigue with the amiable gewgaw, to favour her escape in so base a manner, (to say nothing of his disgraceful practices against me, in Sir Simon Darnford's family, of which Sir Simon himself has informed me), is a conduct that, instead of preferring the ungrateful wretch, as I had intended, shall pull down upon him utter ruin.
'Monsieur Colbrand, my trusty Swiss, will obey you without reserve, if my other servants refuse.
'As for her denying that she encouraged his declaration, I believe it not. It is certain the speaking picture, with all that pretended innocence and bashfulness, would have run away with him. Yes, she would run away with a fellow that she had been acquainted with (and that not intimately, if you were as careful as you ought to be) but a few days; at a time when she had the strongest assurances of my honour to her.
'Well, I think, I now hate her perfectly: and though I will do nothing to
her myself, yet I can bear, for the sake of my revenge, and my injured
honour and slighted love, to see any thing, even what she most fears, be
done to her; and then she may be turned loose to her evil destiny, and
echo to the woods and groves her piteous lamentations for the loss of her
fantastical innocence, which the romantic ideot makes such a work about.
I shall go to London, with my sister Davers; and the moment I can
disengage myself, which, perhaps, may be in three weeks from this time, I
will be with you, and decide her fate, and put an end to your trouble.
Mean time be doubly careful; for this innocent, as I have warned you, is
full of contrivances. I am
'Your friend.'
I had but just read this dreadful letter through, when Mrs. Jewkes came up in a great fright, guessing at the mistake, and that I had her letter, and she found me with it open in my hand, just sinking away. What business, said she, had you to read my letter? and snatched it from me. You see, said she, looking upon it, it says Mrs. Jewkes, at top: You ought, in manners, to have read no further. O add not, said I, to my afflictions! I shall be soon out of all your ways! This is too much! too much! I never can support this--and threw myself upon the couch, in my closet, and wept most bitterly. She read it in the next room, and came in again afterwards. Why, this, said she, is a sad letter indeed: I am sorry for it: But I feared you would carry your niceties too far!-- Leave me, leave me, Mrs. Jewkes, said I, for a while: I cannot speak nor talk.--Poor heart! said she; Well, I'll come up again presently, and hope to find you better. But here, take your own letter; I wish you well; but this is a sad mistake! And so she put down by me that which was intended for me: But I have no spirit to read it at present. O man! man! hard- hearted, cruel man! what mischiefs art thou not capable of, unrelenting persecutor as thou art!
I sat ruminating, when I had a little come to myself, upon the terms of this wicked letter; and had no inclination to look into my own. The bad names, fool's play-thing, artful creature, painted bauble, gewgaw, speaking picture, are hard words for your poor Pamela! and I began to think whether I was not indeed a very naughty body, and had not done vile things: But when I thought of his having discovered poor John, and of Sir Simon's base officiousness, in telling him of Mr. Williams, with what he had resolved against him in revenge for his goodness to me, I was quite dispirited; and yet still more about that fearful Colbrand, and what he could see done to me: for then I was ready to gasp for breath, and my heart quite failed me. Then how dreadful are the words, that he will decide my fate in three weeks! Gracious Heaven, said I, strike me dead, before that time, with a thunderbolt, or provide some way for my escaping these threatened mischiefs! God forgive me, if I sinned!
At last, I took up the letter directed for Mrs. Jewkes, but designed for me; and I find that little better than the other. These are the hard terms it contains:
'Well have you done, perverse, forward, artful, yet foolish Pamela, to convince me, before it was too late, how ill I had done to place my affections on so unworthy an object: I had vowed honour and love to your unworthiness, believing you a mirror of bashful modesty and unspotted innocence; and that no perfidious designs lurked in so fair a bosom. But now I have found you out, you specious hypocrite! and I see, that though you could not repose the least confidence in one you had known for years, and who, under my good mother's misplaced favour for you, had grown up in a manner with you; when my passion, in spite of my pride, and the difference of our condition, made me stoop to a meanness that now I despise myself for; yet you could enter into an intrigue with a man you never knew till within these few days past, and resolve to run away with a stranger, whom your fair face, and insinuating arts, had bewitched to break through all the ties of honour and gratitude to me, even at a time when the happiness of his future life depended upon my favour.
'Henceforth, for Pamela's sake, whenever I see a lovely face, will I
mistrust a deceitful heart; and whenever I hear of the greatest pretences
to innocence, will I suspect some deep-laid mischief. You were
determined to place no confidence in me, though I have solemnly, over and
over, engaged my honour to you. What, though I had alarmed your fears in
sending you one way, when you hoped to go another; yet, had I not, to
convince you of my resolution to do justly by you, (although with great
reluctance, such then was my love for you,) engaged not to come near you
without your own consent? Was not this a voluntary demonstration of the
generosity of my intention to you? Yet how have you requited me? The
very first fellow that your charming face, and insinuating address, could
influence, you have practised upon, corrupted too, I may say, (and even
ruined, as the ungrateful wretch shall find,) and thrown your forward
self upon him. As, therefore, you would place no confidence in me, my
honour owes you nothing; and, in a little time, you shall find how much
you have erred, in treating, as you have done, a man who was once
'Your affectionate and kind friend.'
'Mrs. Jewkes has directions concerning you: and if your lot is now harder than you might wish, you will bear it the easier, because your own rash folly has brought it upon you.'
Alas! for me, what a fate is mine, to be thus thought artful, and forward, and ungrateful; when all I intended was to preserve my innocence; and when all the poor little shifts, which his superior wicked wit and cunning have rendered ineffectual, were forced upon me in my own necessary defence!
When Mrs. Jewkes came up to me again, she found me bathed in tears. She seemed, as I thought, to be moved to some compassion; and finding myself now entirely in her power, and that it is not for me to provoke her, I said, It is now, I see, in vain for me to contend against my evil destiny, and the superior arts of my barbarous master. I will resign myself to the Divine will, and prepare to expect the worst. But you see how this poor Mr. Williams is drawn in and undone: I am sorry I am made the cause of his ruin. Poor, poor man!--to be thus involved, and for my sake too!--But if you'll believe me, said I, I gave no encouragement to what he proposed, as to marriage; nor would he have proposed it, I believe, but as the only honourable way he thought was left to save me: And his principal motive to it at all, was virtue and compassion to one in distress. What other view could he have? You know I am poor and friendless. All I beg of you is, to let the poor gentleman have notice of my master's resentment; and let him fly the country, and not be thrown into gaol. This will answer my master's end as well; for it will as effectually hinder him from assisting me, as if he was in a prison.
Ask me, said she, to do any thing that is in my power, consistent with my duty and trust, and I will do it: for I am sorry for you both. But, to be sure, I shall keep no correspondence with him, nor let you. I offered to talk of a duty superior to that she mentioned, which would oblige her to help distressed innocence, and not permit her to go the lengths enjoined by lawless tyranny; but she plainly bid me be silent on that head: for it was in vain to attempt to persuade her to betray her trust: --All I have to advise you, said she, is to be easy; lay aside all your contrivances and arts to get away, and make me your friend, by giving me no reason to suspect you; for I glory in my fidelity to my master: And you have both practised some strange sly arts, to make such a progress as he has owned there was between you, so seldom as I thought you saw one another; and I must be more circumspect than I have been.
This doubled my concern; for I now apprehended I should be much closer watched than before.
Well, said I, since I have, by this strange accident, discovered my hard destiny; let me read over again that fearful letter of yours, that I may get it by heart, and with it feed my distress, and make calamity familiar to me. Then, said she, let me read yours again. I gave her mine, and she lent me hers: and so I took a copy of it, with her leave; because, as I said I would, by it, prepare myself for the worst. And when I had done, I pinned it on the head of the couch: This, said I, is the use I shall make of this wretched copy of your letter; and here you shall always find it wet with my tears.
She said she would go down to order supper; and insisted upon my company to it. I would have excused myself; but she began to put on a commanding air, that I durst not oppose. And when I went down, she took me by the hand, and presented me to the most hideous monster I ever saw in my life. Here, Monsieur Colbrand, said she, here is your pretty ward and mine; let us try to make her time with us easy. He bowed, and put on his foreign grimaces, and seemed to bless himself; and, in broken English, told me, I was happy in de affections of de finest gentleman in de varld!--I was quite frightened, and ready to drop down; and I will describe him to you, my dear father and mother, if now you will ever see this: and you shall judge if I had not reason, especially not knowing he was to be there, and being apprised, as I was, of his hated employment, to watch me closer.
He is a giant of a man for stature; taller by a good deal than Harry Mowlidge, in your neighbourhood, and large boned, and scraggy; and has a hand!--I never saw such an one in my life. He has great staring eyes, like the bull's that frightened me so; vast jaw-bones sticking out: eyebrows hanging over his eyes; two great scars upon his forehead, and one on his left cheek; and two large whiskers, and a monstrous wide mouth; blubber lips; long yellow teeth, and a hideous grin. He wears his own frightful long hair, tied up in a great black bag; a black crape neckcloth about a long ugly neck: and his throat sticking out like a wen. As to the rest, he was dressed well enough, and had a sword on, with a nasty red knot to it; leather garters, buckled below his knees; and a foot--near as long as my arm, I verily think.
He said, he fright de lady; and offered to withdraw; but she bid him not; and I told Mrs. Jewkes, That as she knew I had been crying, she should not have called me to the gentleman without letting me know he was there. I soon went up to my closet; for my heart ached all the time I was at table, not being able to look upon him without horror; and this brute of a woman, though she saw my distress, before this addition to it, no doubt did it on purpose to strike more terror into me. And indeed it had its effect: for when I went to bed, I could think of nothing but his hideous person, and my master's more hideous actions: and thought them too well paired; and when I dropt asleep, I dreamed they were both coming to my bedside, with the worst designs; and I jumped out of my bed in my sleep, and frightened Mrs. Jewkes; till, waking with the terror, I told her my dream; and the wicked creature only laughed, and said, All I feared was but a dream, as well as that; and when it was over, and I was well awake, I should laugh at it as such!
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