Kitabı oku: «Pamela, Volume II», sayfa 31

"I will therefore. Sir, dear as you are to me—(Don't look with such tender surprise upon me!) give up your person to the happier, to my worthier rival. For since such is your will, and seem to be your engagements, what avails it to me to oppose them?

"I have only to beg, that you will be so good as to permit me to go down to Kent, to my dear parents, who, with many more, are daily rejoicing in your favour and bounty. I will there" (holding up my folded hands) "pray for you every hour of my life; and for every one who shall be dear to you, not excepting the charming Countess.

"I will never take your name into my lips, nor suffer any other in my hearing, but with reverence and gratitude, for the good I and mine have reaped at your hands: nor wish to be freed from my obligations to you, except you shall choose to be divorced from me; and if so I will give your wishes all the forwardness I honourably can, with regard to my own character and yours, and that of your beloved baby.

"But you must give me something worth living for along with you; your Billy and mine!—Unless it is your desire to kill me quite! and then 'tis done, and nothing will stand in your happy Countess's way, if you tear from my arms my second earthly good, after I am deprived of you, my first.

"I will there, Sir, dedicate all my time to my first duties; happier far, than once I could have hoped to be! And if, by any accident, and misunderstanding between you, you should part by consent, and you will have it so, my heart shall be ever yours, and my hopes shall be resumed of being an instrument still for your future good, and I will receive your returning ever-valued heart, as if nothing had happened, the moment I can be sure it will be wholly mine.

"For, think not, dear Sir, whatever be your notions of polygamy, that I will, were my life to depend upon it, consent to live with a gentleman, dear as, God is my witness," (lifting up my tearful eyes) "you are to me, who lives in what I cannot but think open sin with another! You know, Sir, and I appeal to you for the purity, and I will aver piety of my motives, when I say this, that I would not; and as you do know this, I cannot doubt but nay proposal will be agreeable to you both. And I beg of you, dear Sir, to take me at my word; and don't let me be tortured, as I have been so many weeks, with such anguish of mind, that nothing but religious considerations can make supportable to me."

"And are you in earnest, Pamela?" coming to me, and folding me in his arms over the chair's back, the seat of which supported my trembling knees, "Can you so easily part with me?"

"I can, Sir, and I will!—rather than divide my interest in you, knowingly, with any lady upon earth. But say not, can I part with you. Sir; it is you that part with me: and tell me, Sir, tell me but what you had intended should become of me?"

"You talk to me, my dearest life, as if all you had heard against me was true; and you would have me answer you, (would you?) as if it was."

"I want nothing to convince me, Sir, that the Countess loves you: you know the rest of my information: judge for me, what I can, what I ought to believe!—You know the rumours of the world concerning you: Even I, who stay so much at home, and have not taken the least pains to find out my wretchedness, nor to confirm it, since I knew it, have come to the hearing of it; and if you know the licence taken with both your characters, and yet correspond so openly, must it not look to me that you value not your honour in the world's eye, nor my lady hers? I told you, Sir, the answer she made to her uncle."

"You told me, my dear, as you were told. Be tender of a lady's reputation—for your own sake. No one is exempted from calumny; and even words said, and the occasion of saying them not known, may bear a very different construction from 'what they would have done, had the occasion been told."

"This may be all true. Sir: I wish the lady would be as tender of her reputation as I would be, let her injure me in your affections as she will. But can you say, Sir, that there is nothing between you, that should not be, according to my notions of virtue and honour, and according to your own, which I took pride in, before that fatal masquerade?

"You answer me not," continued I; "and may I not fairly presume you cannot as I wish to be answered? But come, dearest Sir," (and I put my arms around his neck) "let me not urge you too boldly. I will never forget your benefits, and your past kindnesses to me. I have been a happy creature: no one, till within these few weeks, was ever so happy as I. I will love you still with a passion as ardent as ever I loved you. Absence cannot lessen such a love as mine: I am sure it cannot.

"I see your difficulties. You have gone too far to recede. If you can make it easy to your conscience, I will wait with patience my happier destiny; and I will wish to live (if I can be convinced you wish me not to die) in order to pray for you, and to be a directress to the first education of my dearest baby.

"You sigh, dear Sir; repose your beloved face next to my fond heart. 'Tis all your own: and ever shall be, let it, or let it not, be worthy of the honour in your estimation.

"But yet, my dear Mr. B., if one could as easily, in the prime of sensual youth, look twenty years backward, what an empty vanity, what a mere nothing, will be all those grosser satisfactions, that now give wings of desire to our debased appetites!

"Motives of religion will have their due force upon your mind one day, I hope; as, blessed be God, they have enabled me to talk to you on such a touching point (after infinite struggles, I own,) with so much temper and resignation; and then, my dearest Mr. B., when we come to that last bed, from which the piety of our friends shall lift us, but from which we shall never be able to raise ourselves; for, dear Sir, your Countess, and you, and your poor Pamela, must all come to this!—we shall find what it is will give us true joy, and enable us to support the pangs of the dying hour. Think you, my dearest Sir," (and I pressed my lips to his forehead, as his head was reclined on my throbbing bosom,) "that then, in that important moment, what now gives us the greatest pleasure, will have any part in our consideration, but as it may give us woe or comfort in the reflection?

"But I will not, O best beloved of my soul, afflict you farther. Why should I thus sadden all your gaudy prospects? I have said enough to such a heart as yours, if Divine grace touches it. And if not, all I can say will be of no avail!—I will leave you therefore to that, and to your own reflections. And after giving you ten thousand thanks for your indulgent patience with me, I will only beg, that I may set out in a week for Kent, with my dear Billy; that you will receive one letter at least, from me, of gratitude and blessings; it shall not be of upbraidings and exclamations.

"But my child you must not deny me; for I shall haunt, like his shadow, every place wherein you shall put my Billy, if you should be so unkind to deny him to me!—And if you will permit me to have the dear Miss Goodwin with me, as you had almost led me to hope, I will read over all the books of education, and digest them, as well as I am able, in order to send you my scheme, and to show you how fit, I hope your indulgence, at least, will make you think me, of having two such precious trusts reposed in me!"

I was silent, waiting in tears his answer. But his generous heart was touched, and seemed to labour within him for expression.

He came round to me at last, and took me in his arms; "Exalted creature!" said he: "noble-minded Pamela! Let no bar be put between us henceforth! No wonder, when one looks back to your first promising dawn of excellence, that your fuller day should thus irresistibly dazzle such weak eyes as mine. Whatever it costs me, and I have been inconsiderately led on by blind passion for an object too charming, but which I never thought equal to my Pamela, I will (for it is yet, I bless God, in my power), restore to your virtue a husband all your own."

"O Sir, Sir," (and I should have sunk with joy, had not his kind arms supported me,) "what have you said?—Can I be so happy as to behold you innocent as to deed! God, of his infinite goodness, continue you both so!—And, Oh! that the dear lady would make me as truly love her, for the graces of her mind, as I admire her for the advantages of her person!"

"You are virtue itself, my dearest life; and from this moment I will reverence you as my tutelary angel. I shall behold you with awe, and implicitly give up myself to all your dictates: for what you say, and what you do, must be ever right. But I will not, my dearest life, too lavishly promise, lest you should think it the sudden effects of passions thus movingly touched, and which may subside again, when the soul, as you observed in your own case, sinks to its former level: but this I promise (and I hope you believe me, and will pardon the pain I have given you, which made me fear more than once, that your head was affected, so uncommon, yet so like yourself, has been the manner of your acting,) that I will break off a correspondence that has given you so much uneasiness: and my Pamela may believe, that if I can be as good as my word in this point, she will never more be in danger of any rival whatever.

"But say, my dear love," added he, "say you forgive me; and resume but your former cheerfulness, and affectionate regards to me, else I shall suspect the sincerity of your forgiveness: and you shall indeed go to Kent, but not without me, nor your boy neither; and if you insist upon it, the poor child you have wished so often and so generously to have, shall be given up absolutely to your disposal."

Do you think. Madam, I could speak any one distinct sentence? No indeed I could not. I was just choked with my joy; I never was so before. And my eyes were in a manner fixed, as he told me afterwards; and that he was a little startled, seeing nothing but the whites; for the sight was out of its orbits, in a manner lifted up to heaven—in ecstasy for a turn so sudden, and so unexpected!

We were forced to separate soon after; for there was no bearing each other, so excessive was my Joy, and his goodness. He left me, and went down to his own closet.

Judge my employment you will, I am sure, my dear lady. I had new ecstasy to be blest with, in a thankfulness so exalted, that it left me all light and pleasant, as if I had shook off body, and trod in air; so much heaviness had I lost, and so much joy had I received. From two such extremes, how was it possible I could presently hit the medium? For when I had given up my beloved husband, as lost to me, and had dreaded the consequences to his future state: to find him not only untainted as to deed, but, in all probability, mine upon better and surer terms than ever—O, Madam! must not this give a joy beyond all joy, and surpassing all expression!

About eight o'clock Mr. B. sent me up these lines from his closet, which will explain what I meant, as to the papers I must beg your ladyship to return me.

"My dear Pamela,

"I have so much real concern at the anguish I have given you, and am so much affected with the recollection of the uncommon scenes which passed between us, just now, that I write, because I know not how to look so excellent a creature in the face—You must therefore sup without me, and take your Mrs. Jervis to bed with you; who, I doubt not, knows all this affair; and you may tell her the happy event.

"You must not interfere with me just now, while writing upon a subject which takes up all my attention; and which, requiring great delicacy, I may, possibly, be all night before I can please myself in it.

"I am determined to make good my promise to you. But if you have written to your mother, Miss Darnford, or to Lady Davers, anything of this affair, you must shew me the copies, and let me into every tittle how you came by your information. I solemnly promise you, on my honour (that has not yet been violated to you, and I hope never will), that not a soul shall know or suffer by the communication, not even Turner; for I am confident he has had some hand in it. This request you must comply with, if you can confide in me; for I shall make some use of it (as prudent a one as I am able), for the sake of every one concerned, in the conclusion of the correspondence between the lady and myself. Whatever you may have said in the bitterness of your heart, in the letters I require to see, or whatever any of those, to whom they are directed, shall say, on the bad prospect, shall be forgiven, and looked upon as deserved, by your ever-obliged and faithful, &c."

I returned the following:

"Dearest, dear Sir,

"I will not break in upon you, while you are so importantly employed. Mrs. Jervis has indeed seen my concern for some time past, and has heard rumours, as I know by hints she has given me; but her prudence, and my reserves, have kept us from saying anything to one another of it. Neither my mother nor Miss Darnford know a tittle of it from me. I have received a letter of civility from Miss, and have answered it, taking and giving thanks for the pleasure of each other's company, and best respects from her, and the Lincolnshire families, to your dear self. These, my copy, and her original, you shall see when you please. But, in truth, all that has passed, is between Lady Davers and me, and I have not kept copies of mine; but I will dispatch a messenger to her ladyship for them, if you please, in the morning, before it is light, not doubting your kind promise of excusing everything and everybody.

"I beg, dear Sir, you will take care your health suffers not by your sitting up; for the nights are cold and damp.

"I will, now you have given me the liberty, let Mrs. Jervis know how happy you have made me, by dissipating my fears, and the idle rumours, as I shall call them to her, of calumniators.

"God bless you, dear Sir, for your goodness and favour to your ever-dutiful

P.B."

He was pleased to return me this:

"MY DEAR LIFE,

"You need not be in such haste to send. If you write to Lady Davers how the matter has ended, let me see the copy of it: and be very particular in your, or rather, my trial. It shall be a standing lesson to me for my future instruction; as it will be a fresh demonstration of your excellence, which every hour I more and more admire. I am glad Lady Davers only knows the matter. I think I ought to avoid seeing you, till I can assure you, that every thing is accommodated to your desire. Longman has sent me some advices, which will make it proper for me to meet him at Bedford or Gloucester. I will not go to Tunbridge, till I have all your papers; and so you'll have three days to procure them. Your boy, and your penmanship, will find you no disagreeable employment till I return. Nevertheless, on second thoughts, I will do myself the pleasure of breakfasting with you in the morning, to re-assure you of my unalterable purpose to approve myself, my dearest life, ever faithfully yours."

Thus, I hope, is happily ended this dreadful affair. My next shall give the particulars of our breakfast conversation. But I would not slip this post, without acquainting you with this blessed turn; and to beg the favour of you to send me back my letters; which will lay a new obligation upon, dear Madam, your obliged sister, and humble servant, P.B.

LETTER LXXV

MY DEAREST LADY,

Your joyful correspondent has obtained leave to get every thing: ready to quit London by Friday next, when your kind brother promises to carry me down to Kent, and allows me to take my charmer with me. There's happiness for you, Madam! To see, as I hope I shall see, upon one blessed spot, a dear faithful husband, a beloved child, and a father and mother, whom I so much love and honour!

Mr. B. told me this voluntarily, this morning at breakfast; and then, in the kindest manner, took leave of me, and set out for Bedfordshire.

But I should, according to my promise, give you a few particulars of our breakfast conference.

I bid Polly withdraw, when her master came up to breakfast; and I ran to the door to meet him, and threw myself on my knees: "O forgive me, dearest, dear Sir, all my boldness of yesterday!—My heart was strangely affected—or I could not have acted as I did. But never fear, my dearest Mr. B., that my future conduct shall be different from what it used to be, or that I shall keep up to a spirit, which you hardly thought had place in the heart of your dutiful Pamela, till she was thus severely tried."—"I have weighed well your conduct, my dear life," raising me to his bosom; "and I find an uniformity in it, that is surprisingly just."

He led me to the tea-table, and sat down close by me. Polly came in. "If every thing," said he, "be here, that your lady wants, you may withdraw; and let Colbrand and Abraham know I shall be with them presently. Nobody shall wait upon me but you, my dear." Polly withdrew.

"I always loved you, my dearest," added he, "and that with a passionate fondness, which has not, I dare say, many examples in the married life: but I revere you now. And so great is my reverence for your virtue, that I chose to sit up all night, to leave you for a few days, until, by disengaging myself from all intercourses that have given you uneasiness, I can convince you, that I have rendered myself as worthy as I can be, of you upon your own terms. I will account to you for every step I shall take, and will reveal to you every step I have taken: for this I can do, because the lady's honour is untainted, and wicked rumour has treated her worse than she could deserve."

I told him, that since he had named the lady, I would take the liberty to say, I was glad, for her own sake, to hear that. Changing the subject a little precipitately, as if it gave him pain, he told me, as above, that I might prepare on Friday for Kent; and I parted with him with greater pleasure than ever I did in my life. So necessary sometimes are afflictions, not only to teach one how to subdue one's passions, and to make us, in our happiest states, know we are still on earth, but even when they are overblown to augment and redouble our joys!

I am now giving orders for my journey, and quitting this undelightful town, as it has been, and is, to me. My next will be from Kent, I hope; and I may then have an opportunity to acquaint your ladyship with the particulars, and (if God answers my prayers), the conclusion of the affair, which has given me so much uneasiness.

Meantime, I am, with the greatest gratitude, for the kind share you have taken in my past afflictions, my good lady, your ladyship's most obliged sister and servant,

P.B.

LETTER LXXVI

My dearest Pamela,

Inclosed are all the letters you send for. I rejoice with you upon the turn this afflicting affair has taken, through your inimitable prudence, and a courage I thought not in you. A wretch!—to give you so much discomposure!—But I will not, if he be good now, rave against him, as I was going to do. I am impatient to hear what account he gives of the matter. I hope he will be able to abandon this—I won't call her names; for she loves the wretch; and that, if he be just to you, will be her punishment.

What care ought these young widows to take of their reputation?—And how watchful ought they to be over themselves!—She was hardly out of her weeds, and yet must go to a masquerade, and tempt her fate, with all her passions about her, with an independence, and an affluence of fortune, that made her able to think of nothing but gratifying them.

She has good qualities—is generous—is noble—but has strong passions, and is thoughtless and precipitant.

My lord came home last Tuesday, with a long story of my brother and her: for I had kept the matter as secret as I could, for his sake and yours. It seems he had it from Sir John–, uncle to the young Lord C., who is very earnest to bring on a treaty of marriage between her and his nephew, who is in love with her, and is a fine young gentleman; but has held back, on the liberties she has lately given herself with my brother.

I hope she is innocent, as to fact; but I know not what to say to it. He ought to be hanged, if he did not say she was. Yet I have great opinion of his veracity: and yet he is so bold a wretch!—And her inconsideration is so great!

But lest I should alarm your fears, I will wait till I have the account he gives you of this dark affair; till when, I congratulate you upon the leave you have obtained to quit the town, and on your setting out for a place so much nearer to Tunbridge. Forgive me, Pamela; but he is an intriguing wretch, and I would not have you to be too secure, lest the disappointment should be worse for you, than what you knew before: but assure yourself, that I am in all cases and events, your affectionate sister and admirer,

B. DAVERS.