Kitabı oku: «Pamela, Volume II», sayfa 4

LETTER XI

MY GOOD LADY,

I am honoured with your ladyship's three letters, the contents of which are highly obliging to me: and I should be inexcusable if I did not comply with your injunctions, and be very proud and thankful for your ladyship's condescension in accepting of my poor scribble, and promising such a rich and valuable return; of which you have already given such ample and delightful instances. I will not plead my defects, to excuse my obedience. I only fear that the awe which will be always upon me, when I write to your ladyship, will lay me under so great a restraint, that I shall fall short even of the merit my papers have already made for me, through your kind indulgence.—Yet, sheltering myself under your goodness, I will cheerfully comply with every thing your ladyship expects from me, that it is in my power to do.

You will give me leave, Madam, to put into some little method, the particulars of what you desire of me, that I may speak to them all: for, since you are so good as to excuse me from sending the rest of my papers (which indeed would not bear in many places), I will omit nothing that shall tend to convince you of my readiness to obey you in every thing else.

First, then, your ladyship would have the particulars of the happy fortnight we passed in Kent, on one of the most agreeable occasions that could befall me.

Secondly, an account of the manner in which your dear brother acquainted me with the affecting story of Miss Godfrey, and my behaviour upon it.

And, thirdly, I presume your ladyship, and Lady Betty, expect me to say something upon your welcome remarks on my conduct towards Mrs. Jewkes.

The other particulars your ladyship mentions, will naturally fall under one or other of these three heads—But expect not, my lady, though I begin in method thus, that I shall keep up to it. If you will not allow for me, and keep in view the poor Pamela Andrews in all I write, but have Mrs. B. in your eye, what will become of me?—But I promise myself so much improvement from this correspondence, that I enter upon it with a greater delight than I can express, notwithstanding the mingled awe and diffidence that will accompany me, in every part of the agreeable task. To begin with the first article:

Your dear brother and my honest parents (I know your ladyship will expect from me, that on all occasions I should speak of them with the duty that becomes a good child) with myself, set out on the Monday morning for Kent, passing through St. Albans to London, at both which places we stopped a night; for our dear benefactor would make us take easy journeys: and on Wednesday evening we arrived at the sweet place allotted for the good couple. We were attended only by Abraham and John, on horseback: for Mr. Colbrand, having sprained his foot, was in the travelling-coach, with the cook, the housemaid, and Polly Barlow, a genteel new servant, whom Mrs. Brooks recommended to wait on me.

Mr. Longman had been there a fortnight, employed in settling the terms of an additional purchase of this pretty well-wooded and well-watered estate: and his account of his proceedings was very satisfactory to his honoured principal. He told us, he had much ado to dissuade the tenants from pursuing a formed resolution of meeting their landlord on horseback, at some miles distance; for he had informed them when he expected us; but knowing how desirous Mr. B. was of being retired, he had ventured to assure them, that when every thing was settled, and the new purchase actually entered upon, they would have his presence among them often; and that he would introduce them all at different times to their worthy landlord, before we left the country.

The house is large, and very commodious; and we found every thing about it, and in it, exceeding neat and convenient; owing to the worthy Mr. Longman's care and direction. The ground is well-stocked, the barns and outhouses in excellent repair; and my poor parents have only to wish, that they and I may be deserving of half the goodness we experience from your bountiful brother.

But, indeed. Madam, I have the pleasure of discovering every day more and more, that there is not a better disposed and more generous man in the world than himself, for I verily think he has not been so careful to conceal his bad actions as his good ones. His heart is naturally beneficent, and his beneficence is the gift of God for the most excellent purposes, as I have often freely told him. Pardon me, my dear lady; I wish I may not be impertinently grave: but I find a great many instances of his considerate charity, which few knew of, and which, since I have been his almoner, could not avoid coming to my knowledge. But this, possibly, is no news to your ladyship. Every body knows the generous goodness of your own heart: every one wanting relief tasted the bounty of your excellent mother my late honoured lady: so that 'tis a family grace, and I have no need to speak of it to you. Madam.

This cannot, I hope, be construed as if I would hereby suppose ourselves less obliged. I know nothing so godlike in human nature as this disposition to do good to our fellow-creatures: for is it not following immediately the example of that generous Providence which every minute is conferring blessings upon us all, and by giving power to the rich, makes them but the dispensers of its benefits to those that want them? Yet, as there are but too many objects of compassion, and as the most beneficent cannot, like Omnipotence, do good to all, how much are they obliged who are distinguished from others!-And this being kept in mind, will always contribute to make the benefited receive, as thankfully as they ought, the favours of the obliger.

I know not if I write to be understood, in all I mean; but my grateful heart is so over-filled when on this subject, that methinks I want to say a great deal more at the same time that I am apprehensive I say too much. Yet, perhaps, the copies of the letters I here inclose (that marked [I.] written by me to my parents, on our return to Kent; that marked [II.] from my dear father in answer to it; and that marked [III.] mine in reply to his) will (at the same time that they may convince your ladyship that I will conceal nothing from you in the course of this correspondence, which may in the least amuse and divert you, or better explain our grateful sentiments), in a great measure, answer what your ladyship expects from me, as to the happy fortnight we passed in Kent.

I will now conclude, choosing to suspend the correspondence, till I know from your ladyship, whether it will not be too low, too idle for your attention; whether you will not dispense with your own commands when you see I am so little likely to answer what you may possibly expect from me: or whether, if you insist upon my scribbling, you would have me write in any other way, be less tedious, less serious-in short, less or more any thing. For all that is in my power, your ladyship may command from, Madam, your obliged and faithful servant.

P.B.

Your dearest brother, from whose knowledge I would not keep any thing that shall take up any considerable portion of my time, gives me leave to proceed in this correspondence, if you command it; and is pleased to say, he will content himself to see such parts of it, and only such parts, as I shall shew him, or read to him.—Is not this very good, Madam?—O, my lady, you don't know how happy I am!

LETTER XII

From Lady Davers to Mrs. B.

My dear Pamela,

You very much oblige me by your cheerful compliance with my request: I leave it entirely to you to write as you shall be in the humour, when you take up your pen; and then I shall have you write with less restraint: for, you must know, that what we admire in you, are truth and nature, not studied or elaborate epistles. We can hear at church, or read in our closets, fifty good things that we expect not from you: but we cannot receive from any body else the pleasure of sentiments flowing with that artless ease, which so much affects us when we read your letters. Then, my sweet girl, your gratitude, prudence, integrity of heart, your humility, shine so much in all your letters and thoughts, that no wonder my brother loves you as he does.

But I shall make you proud, I doubt, and so by praise ruin those graces which we admire, and, but for that, cannot praise you too much. In my conscience, if thou canst hold as thou hast begun, I believe thou wilt have him all to thyself; and that was more than I once thought any woman on this side the seventieth year of his age would ever be able to say. The letters to and from your parents, we are charmed with, and the communicating of them to me, I take to be as great an instance of your confidence in me, as it is of your judgment and prudence; for you cannot but think, that we, his relations, are a little watchful over your conduct, and have our eyes upon you, to observe what use you are likely to make of your power over your man, with respect to your own relations.

Hitherto all is unexampled prudence, and you take the right method to reconcile even the proudest of us to your marriage, and make us not only love you, but respect your parents: for their honesty will, I perceive, be their distinguishing character, and they will not forget themselves, nor their former condition.

I can tell you, you are exactly right; for if you were to be an encroacher, as the good old man calls it, my brother would be the first to see it, and would gradually think less and less of you, till possibly he might come to despise you, and to repent of his choice: for the least shadow of an imposition, or low cunning, or mere selfishness, he cannot bear.

In short, you are a charming girl; and Lady Betty says so too; and moreover adds, that if he makes you not the best and faithfullest of husbands, he cannot deserve you, for all his fortune and birth. And in my heart, I begin to think so too.

But won't you oblige me with the sequel of your letter to your father? For, you promise, my dear charming scribbler, in that you sent me, to write again to his letter; and I long to see how you answer the latter part of it, about your relations desiring already to come and live with him. I know what I expect from you. But let it be what it will, send it to me exactly as you wrote it; and I shall see whether I have reason to praise or reprove you. For surely, Pamela, you must leave one room to blame you for something. Indeed I can hardly bear the thought, that you should so much excel as you do, and have more prudence, by nature, as it were, than the best of us get in a course of the genteelest educations and with fifty advantages, at least, in conversation, that you could not have, by reason of my mother's retired life, while you were with her, and your close attendance on her person.

But I'll tell you what has been a great improvement to you; it is your own writings. This itch of scribbling has been a charming help. For here, having a natural fund of good sense, and prudence above your years, you have, with the observations these have enabled you to make, been flint and steel too, as I may say, to yourself: so that you have struck fire when you pleased, wanting nothing but a few dry leaves, like the first pair in old Du Bartas, to serve as tinder to catch your animating sparks. So that reading constantly, and thus using yourself to write, and enjoying besides a good memory, every thing you heard and read became your own; and not only so, but was improved by passing through more salubrious ducts and vehicles; like some fine fruit grafted upon a common free-stock, whose more exuberant juices serve to bring to quicker and greater perfection the downy peach, or the smooth nectarine, with its crimson blush.

Really, Pamela, I believe, I, too, shall improve by writing to you-Why, you dear saucy-face, at this rate, you'll make every one that converses with you, better, and wiser, and wittier too, as far as I know, than they ever before thought there was room for 'em to be.

As to my own part, I begin to like what I have written myself, I think; and your correspondence may revive the poetical ideas that used to fire my mind, before I entered into the drowsy married life; for my good Lord Davers's turn happens not to be to books; and so by degrees my imagination was in a manner quenched, and I, as a dutiful wife should, endeavoured to form my taste by that of the man I chose.—But, after all, Pamela, you are not to be a little proud of my correspondence; and I could not have thought it ever would have come to this; but you will observe, that I am the more free and unreserved, to encourage you to write without restraint: for already you have made us a family of writers and readers; so that Lord Davers himself is become enamoured of your letters, and desires of all things he may hear read every one that passes between us. Nay, Jackey, for that matter, who was the most thoughtless, whistling, sauntering fellow you ever knew, and whose delight in a book ran no higher than a song or a catch, now comes in with an enquiring face, and vows he'll set pen to paper, and turn letter-writer himself; and intends (if my brother won't take it amiss, he says) to begin to you, provided he could be sure of an answer.

I have twenty things still to say; for you have unlocked all our bosoms. And yet I intended not to write above ten or a dozen lines when I began; only to tell you, that I would have you take your own way, in your subjects, and in your style. And if you will but give me hope, that you are in the way I so much wish to have you in, I will then call myself your affectionate sister; but till then, it shall only barely be your correspondent,

B. DAVERS. You'll proceed with the account of your Kentish affair, I doubt not.

LETTER XIII

MY DEAR GOOD LADY,

What kind, what generous things are you pleased to say of your happy correspondent! And what reason have I to value myself on such an advantage as is now before me, if I am capable of improving it as I ought, from a correspondence with so noble and so admired a lady! To be praised by such a genius, and my honoured benefactor's worthy sister, whose favour, next to his, it was always my chief ambition to obtain, is what would be enough to fill with vanity a steadier and a more equal mind than mine.

I have heard from my late honoured lady, what a fine pen her beloved daughter was mistress of, when she pleased to take it up. But I never could have presumed, but from your ladyship's own motion, to hope to be in any manner the subject of it, much less to be called your correspondent.

Indeed, Madam, I am very proud of this honour, and consider it as such a heightening to my pleasures, as only that could give; and I will set about obeying your ladyship without reserve.

But, first, permit me to disclaim any merit, from my own poor writings, to that improvement which your goodness imputes to me. What I have to boast, of that sort, is owing principally, if it deserves commendation, to my late excellent lady.

It is hard to be imagined what pains her ladyship took with her poor servant. Besides making me keep a book of her charities dispensed by me, I always set down, in my way, the cases of the distressed, their griefs from misfortunes, and their joys of her bountiful relief; and so I entered early into the various turns that affected worthy hearts, and was taught the better to regulate my own, especially by the help of her fine observations, when I read what I wrote. For many a time has her generous heart overflowed with pleasure at my remarks, and with praises; and I was her good girl, her dear Pamela, her hopeful maiden; and she would sometimes snatch my hand with transport, and draw me to her, and vouchsafe to kiss me; and always was saying, what she would do for me, if God spared her, and I continued to be deserving.

O my dear lady! you cannot think what an encouragement this condescending behaviour and goodness was to me. Madam, you cannot think it.

I used to throw myself at her feet, and embrace her knees; and, my eyes streaming with tears of joy, would often cry, "O continue to me, my dearest lady, the blessing of your favour, and kind instructions, and it is all your happy Pamela can wish for."

But I will proceed to obey your ladyship, and write with as much freedom as I possibly can: for you must not expect, that I can entirely divest myself of that awe which will necessarily lay me under a greater restraint, than if writing to my parents, whose partiality for their daughter made me, in a manner, secure of their good opinions.

To shorten the work before me, in the account I am to give of the sweet fortnight that we passed in Kent, I enclose not only the copy of the letter your ladyship requested, but my father's answer to it.

The letters I sent before, and those I now send, will afford several particulars; such as a brief description of the house and farm, and your honoured brother's intentions of retiring thither now-and-then; of the happiness and gratitude of my dear parents, and their wishes to be able to deserve the comfort his goodness has heaped upon them; and that in stronger lights than I am able to set them; I will only, in a summary manner, mention the rest; and, particularly, the behaviour of my dear benefactor to me, and my parents. He seemed always to delight in being particularly kind to them before strangers, and before the tenants, and before Mr. Sorby, Mr. Bennet, and Mr. Shepherd, three of the principal gentlemen in the neighbourhood, who, with their ladies, came to visit us, and whose visits we all returned; for your dear brother would not permit my father and mother to decline the invitation of those worthy families.

Every day we rode out, or walked a little about the grounds; and while we were there, he employed hands to cut a vista through a coppice, as they call it, or rather a little wood, to a rising ground, which, fronting an old-fashioned balcony, in the middle of the house, he ordered it to be planted like a grove, and a pretty alcove to be erected on its summit, of which he has sent them a draught, drawn by his own hand. This and a few other alterations, mentioned in my letter to my father, are to be finished against we go down next.

The dear gentleman was every hour pressing me, while there, to take one diversion or other, frequently upbraiding me, that I seemed not to choose any thing, urging me to propose sometimes what I could wish he should oblige me in, and not always to leave it to him to choose for me: saying, he was half afraid that my constant compliance with every thing he proposed, laid me sometimes under a restraint: and he would have me have a will of my own, since it was impossible, that it could be such as he should not take a delight in conforming to it.

I will not trouble your ladyship with any further particulars relating to this happy fortnight, which was made up all of white and unclouded days, to the very last; and your ladyship will judge better than I can describe, of the parting between my dear parents, and their honoured benefactor and me.

We set out, attended with the good wishes of crowds of persons of all degrees; for your dear brother left behind him noble instances of his bounty; it being the first time, as he bid Mr. Longman say, that he had been down among them since that estate had been in his hands.

But permit me to observe, that I could not forbear often, very often, in this happy period, to thank God in private, for the blessed terms upon which I was there, to what I should have been, had I gracelessly accepted of those which formerly were tendered to me; for your ladyship will remember, that the Kentish estate was to be part of the purchase of my infamy.

We returned through London, by the like easy journeys, but tarried not to see any thing of that vast metropolis, any more than we did in going through it before; your beloved brother only stopping at his banker's, and desiring him to look out for a handsome house, which he proposes to take for his winter residence. He chooses it to be about the new buildings called Hanover Square; and he left Mr. Longman there to see one, which his banker believed would be fit for him.

And thus, my dear lady, I have answered your first commands, by the help of the letters which passed between my dear parents and me; and conclude this with the assurance that I am, with high respect, your ladyship's most obliged and faithful servant,

P.B.