The World's Greatest Books - Volume 7 Part 18

_Sunday night_. Well, my dear parents, here I am at an inn in a little village. And Robin, the coachman, a.s.sures me he has orders to carry me to you. O, that he may say truth and not deceive me again!

"I have proofs," said my master to Mrs. Jewkes, when I left the house, "that her virtue is all her pride. Shall I rob her of that? No, let her go, perverse and foolish as she is; but she deserves to go away virtuous, and she shall."

I think I was loth to leave the house. Can you believe it? I felt something so strange and my heart was so heavy.

_IV.--Virtue Triumphant--Pamela's Journal_

_Monday Morning, eleven o'clock._ We are just come in here, to the inn kept by Mr. Jewkes's relations.

Just as I sat down, before setting out to pursue my journey, comes my master's groom, all in a foam, man and horse, with a letter for me, as follows:

"I find it in vain, my Pamela, to struggle against my affection for you, and as I flatter myself you may be brought to _love_ me, I begin to regret parting with you; but, G.o.d is my witness, from no dishonourable motives, but the very contrary.

"You cannot imagine the obligation your return will lay me under to your goodness, and if you are the generous Pamela I imagine you to be let me see by your compliance the further excellency of your disposition. Spare me, my dearest girl, the confusion of following you to your father's, which I must do if you go on--for I find I cannot live without you, and I must be--

"Yours, and only yours."

What, my dear parents, will you say to this letter? I am resolved to return to my master, and am sending this to you by Thomas the coachman.

It was one o'clock when we reach'd my master's gate. Everybody was gone to rest. But one of the helpers got the keys from Mrs. Jewkes, and open'd the gates. I was so tired when I went to get out of the chariot that I fell down, and two of the maids coming soon after helped me to get up stairs.

It seems my master was very ill, and had been upon the bed most of the day; but being in a fine sleep, he heard not the chariot come in.

_Tuesday Morning_. Mrs. Jewkes, as soon as she got up, went to know how my master did, and he had had a good night. She told him he must not be surprised--that Pamela was come back. He raised himself up.

"Can it be?" said he. "What, already? Ask her if she will be so good as to make me a visit. If she will not, I will rise and attend her."

Mrs. Jewkes came to tell me, and I went with her. As soon as he saw me, he said:

"Oh, my Pamela, you have made me quite well!"

How kind a dispensation is sickness sometimes! He was quite easy and pleased with me.

The next day my master was so much better that he would take a turn after breakfast in the chariot, handing me in before all the servants, as if I had been a lady. At first setting out, he kissed me a little too often, that he did; but he was exceedingly kind to me in his words as well.

At last, he said:

"My sister, Lady Davers, threatens to renounce me, and I shall incur the censures of the world if I act up to my present intentions. For it will be said by everyone that Mr. B. has been drawn in by the eye, to marry his mother's waiting maid. Not knowing, perhaps, that to her mind, to her virtue, as well as to the beauties of her person, she owes her well-deserved conquest; and that there is not a lady in the kingdom who will better support the condition to which she will be raised if I should marry her." And added he, putting his arm round me: "I pity my dear girl, too, for her part in this censure, for here she will have to combat the pride and slights of the neighbouring gentry all around us.

Lady Davers and the other ladies will not visit you; and you will, with a merit superior to them all, be treated as if unworthy their notice.

Should I now marry my Pamela, how will my girl relish all this? Will not these be cutting things to my fair one?"

"Oh, sir," said I, "your poor servant has a much greater difficulty than this to overcome."

"What is that?" said he a little impatiently. "I will not forgive your doubts now."

"No, sir," said I, "I cannot doubt; but it is, how I shall _support_, how I shall _deserve, your_ goodness to me!"

"Dear girl!" said he, and press'd me to his bosom. "I was afraid you would again have given me reason to think you had doubts of my honour, and this at a time when I was pouring out my whole soul to you, I could not so easily have forgiven."

"But, good sir," said I, "my greatest concern will be for the rude jests you will have yourself to encounter for thus stooping beneath yourself.

For as to _me_ I shall have the pride to place more than half the ill will of the ladies to their envying my happiness."

"You are very good, my dearest girl," said he. "But how will you bestow your _time_, when you will have no visits to receive or pay? No parties of pleasure to join in? No card-tables to employ your winter evenings?"

"In the first place, sir, if you will give me leave, I will myself look into all such parts of the family management as may befit the mistress of it to inspect. Then I will a.s.sist your housekeeper, as I used to do, in the making of jellies, sweetmeats, marmalades, cordials; and to pot and candy and preserve, for the use of the family; and to make myself all the fine linen of it. Then, sir, if you will indulge me with your company, I will take an airing in your chariot now and then; and I have no doubt of so behaving as to engage you frequently to fill up some part of my time in your instructive conversation."

"Proceed, my dear girl," said he. "I love to hear you talk !"

"Music, which my good lady also had me instructed in, will also fill up some intervals if I should have any. Then, sir, you know, I love reading and scribbling, and tho' most of the latter will be employed in the family accounts, yet reading, in proper books, will be a pleasure to me, which I shall be unwilling to give up for the best company in the world when I cannot have yours."

"What delight do you give me, my beloved Pamela, in this sweet foretaste of my happiness! I will now defy the saucy, busy censures of the world."

_Ten days later_. Your happy, thrice happy Pamela, is at last married, my dearest parents.

This morning we entered the private chapel at this house, and my master took my hand and led me up to the altar. Mr. Peters, the good rector, gave me away, and the curate read the service. I trembled so, I could hardly stand.

And thus the dear, once haughty, a.s.sailer of Pamela's innocence, by a blessed turn of Providence, is become the kind, the generous protector and rewarder of it.

Clarissa Harlowe

"Clarissa Harlowe," written after "Pamela," brought Richardson a European reputation. The first four volumes of the novel appeared in 1747, the last four in 1748, and during the next few years translations were being executed in French and German. Like "Pamela," the story itself is thin and simple, but the characters are drawn with a bolder and surer touch.

"No work had appeared before," says Scott, "perhaps none has appeared since, containing so many direct appeals to the pa.s.sions." Yet opinions were singularly divided as to its merits. Dr. Johnson said that the novel "enlarged the knowledge of human nature."

_I.--At Harlowe Place_

CLARISSA is persecuted by her family to marry Mr. Roger Solmes, but favours Richard Lovelace, who is in love with her. That her grandfather had left Clarissa a considerable estate accounts mainly for the hostility of the family to Clarissa's desire for independence.

Clarissa writes to her friend, Miss Howe:

"_January_ 15. The moment, my dear, that Mr. Lovelace's visits were mentioned to my brother on his arrival from Scotland he expressed his disapprobation, declaring he had ever hated him since he had known him at college, and would never own me for a sister if I married him.

"This antipathy I have heard accounted for in this manner:

"Mr. Lovelace was always noted for his vivacity and courage, and for the surprising progress he made in literature, while for diligence in study he had hardly his equal. This was his character at the university, and it gained him many friends, while those who did not love him, feared him, by reason of the offence his vivacity made him too ready to give, and of the courage he showed in supporting it. My brother's haughtiness could not bear a superiority; and those whom we fear more than love we are not far from hating. Having less command of his pa.s.sions than the other, he was evermore the subject of his ridicule, so that they never met without quarrelling, and everybody siding with Lovelace, my brother had an uneasy time of it, while both continued in the same college.

"Then on my brother's return he found my sister (to whom Lovelace had previously paid some attention) ready to join him in his resentment against the man he hated. She utterly disclaimed all manner of regard for him.

"Their behaviour to him when they could not help seeing him was very disobliging, and at last they gave such loose rein to their pa.s.sion that, instead of withdrawing when he came, they threw themselves in his way to affront him.