Cross-Examination
“Sexual harassment creates an unequal and unsafe environment,” said Dr. Matchel.
Leslie Quinn said, “The eighteenth century didn’t have harassment laws.”
“People discussed the issue,” Dr. Matchel countered. “People were aware that masters pressured their servants,” and Leslie Quinn nodded. (“True. True.”)
“She was obviously repulsed,” Gary said.
Lonquist hooted. “Are you still going with the Pamela-as-lesbian theory?” he said, and Gary looked cross.
Mr. B said without rancor, “We only exchanged kisses. Pamela rather enjoyed them when she wasn’t remembering to be coy.”
“Says you,” Gary muttered.
To Judge Hardcastle’s surprise, out of all Gary’s remarks, this one earned a glare from Mr. B.
Mr. B snapped, “Pamela’s quite good at kissing,”
Leslie Quinn laughed. “Such noblesse oblige.”
“Which apparently extends to defending Pamela’s amatory proficiencies,” Judge Hardcastle said, feeling a little amused and a great deal nonplussed.
Mr. B shrugged and grimaced at the windows.
Dr. Matchel said, “Pamela’s ability in this area isn’t the point,” and the judge told Mr. B to continue.
Mr. B’s Testimony Corresponding to Letters XXVIII-XXXI
The ructions in my household continued. Longman, my steward, got wind of my threat to let Mrs. Jervis go and cornered me with homages to her housekeeping. This led to another meeting between me, Mrs. Jervis, and Pamela, this time with Longman hovering in the background. I’d never intended to let Mrs. Jervis go, but I made a point of telling her she could stay.
“Pamela needs to return home,” I said.
Pamela put on her demure routine, and Longman, who is a bit of an old fool about girls, praised her delicate behavior. That annoyed me. I goaded Pamela until she snapped at me, sending Longman into a dither. Pamela instantly put on a performance worthy of the most honest of Roman matrons, declaiming she had been “faulty and ungrateful to the very best of masters.”
I seemed to be the only one who heard the sarcasm.
“It’s a hard thing you’re doing,” Mrs. Jervis told me when I stopped by her parlor afterwards. “The girl tried scouring a pewter plate this morning and made a mess of it. She’s not made for hard-labor.”
“She was never taught it,” I said. “Pamela is quick. She’ll learn.”
But Mrs. Jervis still hoped to soften my heart towards Pamela. She invited me to sit in her closet again with some snacks while she and Pamela discussed Pamela’s packing. Pamela planned to leave behind all gifts to her from me and my mother. She didn’t want to be beholden to our family in any way.
 |
| A guinea circa 1700. |
| 4 guineas = £500-£5,000 (money |
| values pre-1900s are extremely |
| difficult to figure). Pamela would never |
| be able to pay it back. |
I leaned my head in my hands and listened to Pamela arguing, mostly with herself, that her work was worth four guineas, she didn’t need to repay the money, only she didn’t want anyone to think she’d taken what wasn’t hers, and so on and so on—so much mingled worry and fear and belligerence over so minor an issue.
I hatched a new plan.
The next day, I directed Pamela to come to my library where I tried once more to argue good sense into Pamela's head.
“Stay a fortnight longer while John carries word to your father that I wish to see him.”
I would employ her father or settle money on him, demonstrating to Pamela the benefits of my patronage. Once those benefits became real, she would see the wisdom of becoming my paramour.
Pamela shook her head. “Let me go tomorrow.”
“I intend no harm,” I told her. This was mostly true. Kindness was a better weapon with Pamela than harassment and a promise to mitigate her worst fears would go a long way towards overcoming her scruples.
I even promised to marry her off to a clergyman if she stayed.
I suppose it is no shock to you that she turned me down.
So I went ahead and kidnapped her.
Cross-Examination
Dr. Matchel rose. “Mr. B’s testimony confirms our worst fears. He admits he spied on Pamela, planned to kidnap her—”
Mr. Shorter came to his feet. “He is not excusing his conduct. He is placing events in context.”
“His so-called context engendered an environment of fear. Within such an environment, any decision on Pamela’s part to marry is suspect. The marriage should be annulled, and Pamela permanently placed in a more female-affirmative novel.”
Lonquist said, “She didn’t agree to marry him until almost seven weeks later.”
“After he imprisoned and thoroughly demoralized her!”
Judge Hardcastle banged his gavel. He said to Mr. B, “Did you really skulk about in a closet, eavesdropping on Pamela and Mrs. Jervis?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Knocking your head against the hangers?”
Mr. B looked blank. Leslie Quinn said, “A closet was a small room, Judge, like, uh, a breakfast nook. With a door. It often contained books and a desk.”
“I see. Of course, Mr. B, you were much younger.”
Mr. B smiled ruefully. “And far more foolish.”
“Yes. Please continue.” The judge waved down the objecting Dr. Matchel. “The subject of this hearing is the marriage, which has not yet occurred. Please wait until it does before you start demanding a decision.”
Mr. B’s Testimony Corresponding to Pamela’s Abduction
Weeks 1-3
I put my plan in motion that Thursday. Please remember, Pamela was my servant, not my peer. I had the right to arrange her place and type of employment.
I had my coachman convey Pamela to my Lincolnshire estate. My servants in Lincolnshire were less inclined to independent action; they would not be susceptible to Pamela’s appeals for advocacy.
I’d kept back Pamela’s last three letters detailing my latest overtures; I’d warned her not to cross the line into gossip. In lieu of her letters, I wrote her father, advising him that Pamela was betrothed to my chaplain and that she was safe. There was no reason her parents should be worried when she failed to appear at their door.
I didn’t expect her father to appear at my door.
More precisely, he appeared in Mrs. Jervis’s parlor. He was about fifty and terribly poor: the grooms mistook him for a beggar. I leaned against the parlor wall and studied him. He was a big man. If he’d walked all night, he would have plenty of stamina. His hands were calloused, his neck darkly bronzed. A hard worker.
I said, “Your daughter is well cared for.”
“How can I be sure?” he said, scowling sideways at me. It was a look I recognized. I also recognized the steely voice. Pamela comes fairly by her barrister’s mind.
“Recollect who I am,” I said. “Why ask me questions if you won’t believe my answers?”
“I wish only to know her whereabouts, sir.”
“She’ll write you,” I said, “unless she’s negligent. I can’t answer for that.”
I had no doubt Pamela would write. Whether I would let anyone see her letters was a separate issue.
He seemed assuaged, and I instructed Mrs. Jervis to feed him and give him money before he left. I sent a letter to Pamela, asking her to copy an innocuous message I’d enclosed which I would send on to her parents. I truly didn’t want the rustics to suffer.
Pamela sent the copied message back with a belligerent missive to me. Kidnapping hadn’t quelled her spirit. She even annotated the message, adding phrases like “vilely tricked” but the content was more or less the same, so I handed it over to Mrs. Jervis to send to Mr. and Mrs. Andrews.
Young John Arnold, who brought the mail from Lincolnshire, approached me diffidently. “Pamela’s not safe, sir, if you pardon me mentioning it. Mrs. Jewkes doesn’t treat her well.”
Mrs. Jewkes is the Lincolnshire housekeeper, a somewhat crass but loyal woman.
“Pamela’s used to being treated better than her station,” I pointed out, and he nodded glumly and went away.
I considered his complaint, however. Mrs. Jewkes is a hard woman, harder than Mrs. Jervis, being more cynical and more exacting. Pamela would be chafing under her eagle eye.
I wrote Pamela, assuring her that Mrs. Jewkes was meant to treat her well. I also promised not to visit until Pamela invited me to Lincolnshire—as if she were truly mistress of my house there.
I did not know then what schemes were being hatched between Pamela and my chaplain.
That’s right—my chaplain, a man dependent on me for a living, entered into a conspiracy with Pamela. She began it. Mr. Williams isn’t clever or cool-headed enough to “save” a kidnapped girl, but once Pamela incited him, he did plenty of damage.
I first learned of the conspiracy when Sir Simon, whose estate is near mine in Lincolnshire, visited me in Bedfordshire. “Did you know,” he said, “your chaplain fella is spreading all kinds of rumors about you in our county?”
Williams didn’t have the imagination to spread rumors about me. I nearly said so until a qualm struck.
“What rumors?” I said warily.
“Something about you keeping some chippy locked up in your house. I told him he was out of bounds, engaging in a scheme against his friend and patron.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t care if you have ten chippies locked up in your house—it’s got nothing to do with me. I told him so. But you might want to bring him to heel.”
“Yes,” I said, and I knew how to do it.
Cross-Examination
“Why on earth,” Judge Hardcastle said, “would this priest, Williams, answer to you for his behavior?”
“He wasn’t a priest—” Mr. B began.
Leslie Quinn interrupted. “Mr. Williams would have taken orders—been ordained—but until he was given a parish, he would not be known as a priest.”
The judge gnawed on that. “If he didn’t have a parish, why does Mr. B speak of him as if he were an employee?”
“It would be in Mr. B’s power to give Mr. Williams a living—that is, a parish.”
Gary muttered, “CEO arrogance,” and Leslie Quinn atypically snapped, “It’s not that type of relationship at all.”
Mr. B said, “I planned to offer Williams a specific living when its current incumbent died. The post is a good one, about three hundred per year, enough to establish Williams as a gentleman of some leisure.”
“That sounds rather like a CEO-employee relationship,” the judge said, and Leslie Quinn looked resigned.
Mr. Hatch muttered, “Not exactly separation of church and state.”
“You understand what that means?” Gary said to Mr. B, as if addressing a dim college freshman.
“I have encountered the idea.”
“The American Revolution will begin while Mr. B is still alive,” Leslie Quinn said. “He might even be a supporter.”
Mr. B shrugged. “The colonies are too closely regulated. But I’m not really interested in foreign affairs. I think Englishmen and women spend too much time abroad.”
“Provincialism,” Gary said weakly. Mr. B’s sanguine attitude regarding possible revolution clearly surprised him.
The judge, on the other hand, was beginning to wonder if Mr. B was the best educated person in the room. Unfortunately, exploring American history from an eighteenth-century English point of view, however fascinating, wasn’t going to get them through the story any faster.
“What did you do with Mr. Williams?”
