MONDAY Morning
Alas! Alas! we have bad news from poor Mr Williams. He has had a sad mischance; fallen among rogues in his way home last night; but by good chance has saved my papers. This is the account he gives of it.
‘Good Mrs Jewkes,
‘I have had a sore misfortune in going from you. When I had got as near the town as the dam, and was going to cross the wooden bridge, two fellows got hold of me, and swore bitterly they would kill me, if I did not give them what I had. They rummaged my pockets, and took from me my snuff-box, my seal-ring,139 my corkscrew, and half a guinea, and some silver, and halfpence; also my handkerchief, and two or three letters I had in my pocket. By good fortune the letter Mrs Pamela gave me was in my bosom, and so that escaped; but they bruised my head and face, and cursing me for having no more money, tipped me into the dam, crying, “Lie there, parson, till to-morrow!” My shins and knees were bruised much in the fall against one of the stumps; and I had like to have been suffocated in water and mud. To be sure, I shall not be able to stir out this day or two: for I am a fearful spectacle! My hat and wig I was forced to leave behind me, and go home a mile and a half without; but they were found next morning, and brought me with my snuff-box, which the rogues must have dropped. My cassock is sadly torn, as is my band. You need not question, but that I was much frightened; for a robbery in these parts has not been known of many years. Diligent search is making after the rogues. My kindest respects to good Mrs Pamela. If she pities my misfortunes, I shall be the sooner well, and fit to wait on her and you. This did not hinder me writing a letter, though with great pain, as I do this; [To be sure, this good man can keep no secret!] and sending it away by a man and horse, this morning. I am, good Mrs Jewkes,
Your most obliged humble Servant.
‘Heaven be praised, it is no worse! I find I have got no cold, though miserably wet from head to foot. My fright, I believe, prevented me from catching cold; for I was not rightly myself for some hours, and know not how I got home. I will write a letter of thanks this night, if I am able, to my kind patron, for his inestimable goodness to me. I wish I was enabled to say all I hope, with regard to the better part of his bounty to me, incomparable Mrs Pamela.’
The brute laughed, when she had read this letter, till her fat sides shook. ‘I can but think,’ said she, ‘how the poor parson looked, after parting with his pretty mistress in such high spirits, when he found himself at the bottom of the dam! And what a figure he must cut in his tattered band and cassock, and without hat and wig! I warrant,’ added she, ‘he was in a sweet pickle140 when he got home.’ I said, I thought it was very barbarous to laugh at such a misfortune. But she replied, As he was safe, she laughed; otherwise she should have been sorry: and she was glad to see me so much concerned for him. It looked promising, she said.
I heeded not her reflection; but as I have been used to causes for mistrusts, I cannot help saying, that I don’t like this thing: and their taking his letters most alarms me. How happy it was, they missed my pacquet! I know not what to think of it! But why should I let every accident break my peace? Yet it will do so, while I stay here.
Mrs Jewkes is very earnest with me, to go with her in the chariot, to visit Mr Williams. She is so officious to bring on the affair between us, that being a cunning, artful woman, I know not what to make of it. I have refused her absolutely, urging, that except I intended to encourage his suit, I ought not to do it. And she is gone without me.
I have strange temptations to get away in her absence, notwithstanding all these fine appearances. ‘Tis sad to have nobody to advise with! I know not what to do. But, alas for me! I have no money, if I should get away, to buy any body’s civilities, or to pay for necessaries or lodging. But I will go into the garden, and resolve afterwards.
I have been in the garden, and to the back-door: and there I stood, my heart up at my mouth .141 I could not see I was watched: so this looks well. But now, if any thing should happen amiss; if my master should come down, and use me ill, I should never forgive myself for losing such an opportunity as this. Well, I will go down again, and see if all is clear, and how it looks out at the back-door in the pasture.
I have been down again, and ventured to open the door, and went out about a bow-shot into the pasture; but there stood that horrid bull, staring me full in the face, with fiery saucer eyes,142 as my antipathy to the creature made me think; and especially as the poor cook-maid’s misfortune came strongly into my mind. So I got in again for fear he should come at me. And here again I am at my pen. Nobody saw me, however.
Do you think there are such things as witches and spirits? If there be, I believe in my heart, Mrs Jewkes has got this bull on her side. But yet, what could I do without money or a friend? O this wicked woman, to trick me so! Then I know not one step of the way, nor how far to any house or cottage; or whether I could obtain protection if I got to a house: and now the robbers are abroad too, I may run into dangers as great as those I want to escape from; nay, much greater, if the present not unpromising appearances hold: and sure my master cannot be so black a creature, as that they should not! What can I do? I have a good mind to try for it once more; but then I may be pursued and taken; and it will be worse for me; and this wicked woman perhaps will again beat me, take my shoes away, and lock me up.
But after all, if my master should mean well, he cannot be angry at my fears, were I to get away; and nobody can blame me; and I can more easily be induced, when I am with you, and when all my apprehensions are over, to consider his proposal of Mr Williams for me, than I could do, here; and he pretends, as you have read in his letter, he will leave me to my choice: why then should I be afraid? I will go down again, I think! Direct me, O Thou who art the preserver of the innocent! direct me what to do!
I went down resolved to get away, if possible; but the gardener was at work in sight of the door. I loitered about, in hopes he would leave that quarter: but he continued digging there. So I came up again. Fool that I was! could I not have thought of some errand to send him out of the way? As I continue writing here, when I ought to act, that will shew you my strange irresolution, and how I am distressed between my hopes and my fears!143 But I will go down again, and contrive to send this busy gardener with a message, that will keep Mrs Jewkes still longer with Mr Williams, in hopes of my fetching her home, with the maid Nan to bear me company. What a contriver is your Pamela become! Necessity is truly said to be the mother of invention.
Well, here I am, come back again! frighted, like a fool, out of all my purposes! The gardener was in another part of the garden, far enough from the back-door; and I had unlocked it, and actually got a good way over the pasture; when I looked, and saw the horrid bull, as I thought, making to get between me and the door, and another bull coming towards me the other way. Well, thought I, here seems to be the spirit of my master in one bull, and Mrs Jewkes’s in the other; and now I am gone for certain! ‘O help!’ cried I, like a fool, nobody near me! and ran back to the door as swift as if I flew. When I had got the door in my hand, I ventured to look back, to see if these supposed bulls were coming; and I saw they were only two poor cows, grazing in distant places, that my fears had made so terrible to me.
But as every thing is so frightful to me, and as things have not so black an appearance as they had at first, I will not think of escaping: and, indeed, if I were to attempt it, and were to have got at distance from this house, I should too probably be as much terrified at the first strange man that I met with. I have heard it said, That there can be no prudence without apprehension:144 but I am persuaded, that fear brings one into more dangers, than the caution, that goes along with it, delivers one from.
I then locked the door, and put the key in my pocket; and was but just come from the door, when the maid Nan appeared in sight, and made my escape impossible, if I would have attempted it.
Do I not appear to you, my dear parents, to be weaker even than a child, to be thus terrified by the bull and the robbers? But had I had my money, I sho
uld have had more courage, as that would have probably made me a protecting friend, till I had got to you. But this, however, I think, that had I supposed my case as desperate as I lately thought it, I dare say that I should have reasoned myself into courage enough to venture not only the bull, but the robbers.
MONDAY Afternoon
Mrs Jewkes is returned from her visit. ‘I would have you set your heart at rest,’ said she to me; ‘for Mr Williams will do very well again. He is not half so bad as he fancied. O these scholars! they have not the hearts of mice! He has only a few scratches on his face; which I suppose he got by grabbling145 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 when he first came in-a-doors; but, only for a few groans when he thinks of his danger, or tells his story, I see nothing is the matter with him. So, Mrs Pamela, I would have you be very easy about it.’
‘I am glad of it,’ said I, ‘for all your jokes, Mrs Jewkes.’
‘Well,’ continued 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 all that was contrived between you two.’
This alarmed me prodigiously; and the more, as I had seen, in two or three instances, that his honest heart could keep nothing, believing every one as undesigning as himself.
‘Ah! Mrs Jewkes, Mrs Jewkes,’ said I, ‘this might have done, had he had any thing that he could have told you of. But you know well enough, that had we been disposed to hold the most innocent conversation with each other, we had no opportunity for it.’
‘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 to make you. Come, come, no more of these shams with me! Perhaps I am as cunning as you. However,’ added 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 could not conceal my apprehensions of what might have passed between Mr Williams and her; 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 confident, as he has done, and I shall think you have some favour for me, and reliance upon me, and perhaps you will not repent it.’
She was so earnest, that I mistrusted that her kindness to Mr Williams in her visit to him 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,146 as you call them?’
‘Nothing,’ said she, ‘but womanish curiosity, I assure you; for one is naturally led to find out matters, where there is such privacy affected.’
‘Let me know, Mrs Jewkes, what he has told you; and then I’ll give 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, my little dear, any thing you have not a mind I should know.’
‘Well,’ said I, ‘let him have said what he will, 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 she gave me no hint of the key and the door, which she would have done, had he told her every thing. And so she gave up me, and I her, 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, because she has now been actually, these two hours, writing; though she pretended she had given me up all her stores of paper, and that I should write for her.
I begin to wish I had ventured every thing, and gone off when I might To what evils does a cowardly heart expose one! 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. ‘I have no thanks to give,’ said I, ‘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 her master’s letter to Mr Williams was sufficient; and the least I could do, was to thank him, if but in two lines. ‘No need of that,’ replied 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. What can this uncautious man have said! What she has got out of him, is, no doubt, the subject of her long letter.
She is now 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! the rather, as she does not keep her word about my lying by myself, and restoring 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, ‘Goodlack! you need not be so willing 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.
TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY
Mr Williams has been here; but we have had no opportunity to talk together: he seemed confounded at Mrs Jewkes’s change of temper and reservedness, after her kind visit; and much more at what I am going to tell you.
He asked, if I would take a turn in the garden with Mrs Jewkes and him. ‘No,’ said she, ‘I can’t go.’ ‘May not Mrs Pamela,’ said he, ‘take a walk?’ ‘No,’ replied she, ‘I desire she won’t.’ ‘Why, Mrs Jewkes?’ said he; ‘I am afraid I have somehow disobliged you.’ ‘Not at all,’ answered she; ‘but I suppose you will soon be at liberty to walk together as much as you will: and I have sent a messenger for my last instructions, about this and more weighty matters; and when they come, I shall leave you to do as you think fit; but till then, it is no matter how little you are together.’
This alarmed us both; and he put on, as I thought, a self-accusing countenance. So I went behind her back, and held my two hands together, flat, with a bit of paper I had, between them, and looked at him. He seemed to take me, as I intended, intimating the renewing of the correspondence by the tiles.
I left them together, and retired to my closet, to write a letter for the tiles; but having no time for a copy, I will give you the substance only.
I expostulated with him in it on his too great openness and easiness to fall into Mrs Jewkes’s snares; told him my apprehensions; and gave briefly the reasons for my fears; I desired to know what he had told her; and intimated, that I thought there was the highest reason to resume our project of escaping by the back-door.
I put this in the usual place, in the evening, and now wait with impatience for an answer.
THURSDAY
I have the following answer:
‘Dear Mrs Pamela,
‘I am utterly confounded, and must plead guilty to all your just reproaches. I wish I were master of but half your discretion. I hope, after all, this is only a touch of this ill-woman’s temper, to shew her power and importance: for I think Mr B. neither can nor dare deceive me in so black a manner. I would expose him all the world over, if he did. But it is not, cannot be in him. I have received a letter from John Arnold, in which he tells me, that his master is preparing for his London journey; and believes, he will come into these parts afterwards: but he says, Lady Davers is, at their house, and is to accompany her brother to London, or meet him there, he knows not which. John professes great zeal to serve you: and I find he refers to a letter he sent me before, but which is not come to my hand. I think there can be no treachery; for it is a particular friend at Gainsborough147 to whom I have ordered him to direct;
and this letter of John’s is come safe to my hands by this conveyance; for well I know, I durst trust nothing to Brett, at the post-house here. I own I am in a little pain, at present; for I was, indeed, too open with Mrs Jewkes; led to it by her dissimulation, and by her warm wishes to make me happy with you. I hinted, that I would not have scrupled to have procured your deliverance by any means: and that I had proposed to you, as the only honourable one, marriage with me. But I assured her, though she would hardly believe me, that you discouraged my application. Which is too true! But not a word did I mention to her of the back-door, or key.
‘But don’t be too much concerned. I hope all will end well: we shall soon hear, whether it will be necessary to resume our former scheme. If it be, I will lose no time to provide a horse for you, and another for myself; for I can never do either God or myself better service, though I were to forego all my expectations for it in this world. I am
Your most faithful humble Servant.’
Mrs Jewkes continues still sullen and ill-natured, and I am almost afraid to speak to her. She watches me as close as ever, and pretends to wonder why I shun her company as I do.
I have just put under the tiles this earnest letter:
’Reverend Sir,
‘Every thing gives me additional disturbance. The miscarried letter of John Arnold makes me suspect a trick. Yet am I loth to think myself of so much importance, as to suppose every one in a plot against me. Are you sure, however, that the London journey is not to be a Lincolnshire one? May not John, who has been once a traitor, be so again? Why need I be thus in doubt? If I could have the hoped for horse, I would, rather than live thus in terror, throw the reins on his neck, and trust to Providence as my only safeguard. I am loth to think of embroiling you; now just upon the edge of your preferment. Yet, sir, I fear your fatal openness will make you suspected as an accessary to my escape, were I to be able to effect it, even without you.