Mr. B’s Testimony Corresponding to Pamela’s Abduction
Week 4
Williams is not an intelligent financial manager. He’s a good man who does his duties (usually) faithfully (usually). But he’d borrowed money from me nearly a year before and never repaid it. It was a good enough reason to throw him in gaol, an excellent way to bring him to heel.
I should have done it and let the issue drop, but I wanted to know how far Pamela had confided in him. I could not believe Pamela might be attracted to his bland personality or labored conversation or lack of wit. What I did next was beneath me, but I did it: I sent a letter to Williams offering him a living plus Pamela’s hand in marriage.
Mrs. Jewkes confirmed my suspicions. Upon receiving my offer, Williams confessed to her that he and Pamela already planned to marry. They’d been secreting notes to each other for several weeks.
I’ve never been so angry. All those protestations about needing her parents’ approval “and yet,” I wrote Pamela, “you could enter into an intrigue with a man you barely know,” especially when the ridiculous man’s livelihood depended on me. So I sent instructions to Mr. Shorter to have Williams arrested for his debt.
I decided to visit Lincolnshire even without Pamela’s permission but to wait a few weeks to regain my sangfroid. A bad temper runs in our family. My sister’s is worse, believe it or not. Instead of leaving immediately for Lincolnshire, I went to the Hargraves in Hertfordshire, and there, I nearly died.
Cross-Examination
Judge Hardcastle was now upset with Mr. Shorter: “You had Mr. Williams arrested?”
Mr. Shorter shrugged. “The debt was owed.”
“And you just do what you’re told,” Gary said derisively.
“Yes,” Mr. Shorter said without any defensiveness.
“Servitude creates mindlessness.”
Mr. Shorter blinked at that. “Hey!”
Mr. B said, “Mr. Shorter is a diligent attorney.”
“Meaning, he does what you want.”
“Meaning, he carries out his duties.” Mr. B paused, then said, “A servant or retainer should remonstrate his employer if he thinks that employer has behaved wrongly. Williams, you understand, never came to me, never verified Pamela’s story, never used his position to resolve the issue directly.”
“Would you have listened?”
“I don’t know, but he sabotaged the chance.”
Mr. Hatch said curiously, “Are you even friends with your, uh, employees?”
Mr. Shorter and Mr. B looked blankly at each other. Mr. Shorter shrugged as if to say: Ignore them.
The judge thought the conversation was getting off course. “Jailed for debt?” he said.
Leslie Quinn started to say something about “debtor’s prison” and “no such thing as overdraft protection,” but the judge threw up his hands and nodded to Mr. B.
Mr. B’s Testimony Corresponding to Pamela’s Abduction
Week 5
I visited my daughter before I went on to the Hargraves. Little Sally was in good health and as lively as ever. She’s an intelligent child who takes after her papa. Of course, she doesn’t know me by that title.
I planned to spend several weeks with the Hargraves. That Wednesday, I went hunting with Charles, the son of the family. We were fording a stream on the estate when the damned horse shied. I felt myself falling and swore; my right foot was still caught in the stirrup. I shook it loose and went into the water. The horse fell towards me. I rolled sideways. The horse didn’t strike me, but its collapse sent up a wave. I was tossed over, my face scrapping the gravel bed. I gasped like a fool and water flowed into my lungs. I pushed desperately upwards with my hands, met another wave of water, and everything went dark.
I woke from a nightmare. I didn’t remember it then, but I know what it was now because I dreamed it later over and over: the sensation of choking, large falling shapes that loomed towards me no matter which direction I twisted.
People were speaking in the room where I woke. I recognized my sister, Lady Davers’s voice: “Is he going to die?” I didn’t recognize the soothing voice that replied, but I praised it silently: “No, Lady Davers, the water is out of his lungs.” And then I heard Charles’s voice: “Only bumps and bruises, Lady Davers. He’ll be fine.”
“But fever—”
“Let him rest. He will be well.”
The voices faded. I slept and dreamed and woke, pushing frantically at the sheets. I was alone. I got up slowly and peeled off my nightshirt. My left side was a mass of dark bruises. I winced as I stood but lurched to the wardrobe. I was half-dressed when Sir Hargrave’s valet entered.
“Sir,” he said and looked uncomfortable. “Lady Davers will not be pleased you are up.”
“My sister does not rule me,” I said. “Come here.”
We managed to dress me, but I had to sit down when we finished. Breathing was more difficult than I’d anticipated. My ribs didn’t seem broken, but the throbbing on my left side was beginning to creep across my chest.
I groaned. “What time is it?”
“Friday evening, sir.”
I’d been in bed two days.
“Has the family supped?”
“Yes, sir.”
That was a boon. I’d never be able to sit through a meal.
“I’ll visit with the ladies and gentlemen,” I said.
There was much exclaiming when I appeared in the brightly lit parlor. My sister began to lecture me for rising but stopped when I turned away. Charles said, “I knew he would be fine! Hunting tomorrow?”
I smiled stiffly and sat beside Sir Hargrave. He pressed a drink into my hand and started a conversation with Charles about hounds. Intelligent man. I sipped my drink and retreated upstairs before my sister could maneuver me into a one-on-one diatribe.
She would insist on such an encounter eventually. Barbara, my sister, is more persistent than Pamela and far more obnoxious. Besides, Charles kept proclaiming that another hunting trip would set me up “good ’n proper.”
I was being suffocated by well-meaning people. I decided on Monday to leave for Lincolnshire where I would put an end to the problem of Pamela.
I started on Wednesday. Lincolnshire is less than a day’s ride from Hertfordshire, but I could only manage a few hours in the carriage. On Thursday, I lasted four hours before collapsing in a Cambridge Inn. I made it to the Lincolnshire estate the next evening.
Cross-Examination
Mr. Shorter spoke up: “I would like it on record that my client’s accident at the Hargraves resulted in weakness to his lungs. He was unwell for several weeks which made him light-headed and irrational.”
Even Mr. B looked doubtful at this defense but turned blank when Judge Hardcastle glanced at him.
The judge said dryly, “What a terribly modern attorney you are, Mr. Shorter, to blame your client’s shortcomings on his circumstances. I acknowledge Mr. B’s medical condition. Let’s move on. Mr. B—?”
Mr. B’s Testimony Corresponding to Pamela’s Abduction
Week 6
I sat in the shadowed parlor of the Lincolnshire estate while Mrs. Jewkes complained. She was full of tales of Pamela’s intransigence: how Pamela tried to escape, how Pamela had secrets, how Pamela called her names. I rested my head on my fists. I wanted sleep, except sleep brought dreams. I wanted rest from pain, but I didn’t want to get drunk. Loss of control has never appealed to me.
“Bring Pamela down,” I said.
I heard Mrs. Jewkes and Pamela on the stairs. “Come along,” Mrs. Jewkes was saying with brash good-humor. “Beg his honor’s forgiveness for all your faults.”
I rubbed my temples and considered that perhaps John Arnold was right: Mrs. Jewkes was not the best person to attend Pamela.
Pamela entered the long, gloomy room, looking belligerent, and I almost smiled at her until I remembered her conspiracy with Williams.
“Mrs. Jewkes,” I said, “you tell me Pamela remains sullen and eats nothing. I suppose she lives upon love. Her plots with sweet Mr. Williams keep her well.”
“That’s right,” Mrs. Jewkes said. “She’s slippery as an eel.”
Finally, Pamela spoke: “Hear me concerning this wicked woman’s usage—”
“I am satisfied she has done her duty,” I said. “You, however, are a wicked girl to tempt the parson to undo himself.”
“I have a strange tribunal to plead before,” Pamela said acidly. “The poor sheep in the fable was tried before the vulture on the accusation of the wolf.”
I was a little surprised I wasn’t cast as the wolf, but I tried to follow Pamela’s line of reasoning: “So, Mrs. Jewkes,” I said, “I am a vulture, and here is a poor innocent lamb.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Jewkes snorted. “That is nothing to what she has called me: Jezebel, London prostitute—”
I grinned as Pamela burst out, “I wasn’t comparing—”
“Don’t quibble, girl,” I said, and Mrs. Jewkes agreed.
Pamela said, “I appeal to the righteous judge who knows the secrets of all hearts.”
Calling down the fire of heaven on us, in fact, and Pamela looked fit to strike something. If we ever did have children, I pitied them their tempers.
Even tearful, she looked beautiful if too thin. The inquisitive glance was still there, the mocking quirk to the lips, and I wondered what had led Williams to think he could handle Pamela in the first place. But then, she can be quite persuasive when she wants to be.
“It’s no wonder the poor parson was infatuated,” I said. “I blame him less than I do her.”
And Pamela’s expression changed, became bewildered, helpless. For the first time, I wondered if she had encouraged Williams. Had she endowed my chaplain with the scruples of a Galahad?
She turned and pressed her face against the parlor’s paneled wall. I got up and slipped an arm around her shoulders. “How can I forgive you?” I said. She had caused disturbances in my households, corrupted my servants, conspired with Williams. I kissed her hair.
She broke away then. “I will die before I will be used thus,” she said, and the indignation was back.
“Consider where you are, Pamela,” I said. “Don’t be a fool.”
She wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I sent her upstairs with Mrs. Jewkes.
I collapsed then. Monsieur Colbrand, my Swiss servant, heaved me to bed. “You have fever, sir,” he said, and I said, “I’ll be better in the morning.”
I didn’t sleep, and the next morning, I was still warm, but I dressed without help. Sir Simon came to welcome me to the county. “Can I see the chippy?” he asked, and I said, “No” shortly.
He obviously expected to stay for dinner, so while he strode in the garden, I pulled out my proposal and had Mrs. Jewkes take it up to Pamela.
I’d begun the proposal before I packed Pamela off to Lincolnshire. Once Pamela became my paramour, I would give her the immediate gift of five-hundred guineas, the income from my property in Kent with her father as manager, a promise to care for any of her relations (I hoped there weren’t many; she’d never suggested she came from a large family), four sets of clothes plus several pieces of high quality jewelry, and the right to command my servants. Lastly, I promised to marry her in a year.
I doubted Pamela would care about the last provision once she had exposure to the rest. It was a generous settlement.
Cross-Examination
“Very generous,” Judge Hardcastle said. “Was this comparable to a pre-nuptial agreement?”
“More like wages for a hooker,” Gary said.
Mr. B turned white. “I never perceived Pamela as a street-walker,” he said, teeth gritted.
Dr. Matchel said, “Really, Gary!”
“That was uncalled for,” Mr. Hatch added.
Leslie Quinn said, “The position Mr. B was offering Pamela was something closer to, ah, a geisha.”
The judge, who only oversaw trials of Western literature, looked doubtful.
“Tarted-up analogy,” Gary muttered, twitching when Mr. B glowered at him.
Leslie Quinn said, “Watch out, Professor. Mr. B might challenge you to a duel.”
Everyone looked startled except Mr. B, who looked vaguely embarrassed.
 |
| The "Italian Duel" that Mr. B |
| fought (and won) would have |
| been with swords, not pistols. |
The judge said quickly, “That would be most inappropriate.”
Technically, a duel—as an established eighteenth-century custom—would be allowable, but it would also be messy and time-consuming.
Mr. B’s smile was understanding. “I don’t fight duels anymore,” he told the judge pacifically.
“Anymore? You did fight duels?” Gary sounded rather awe-struck.
“Once abroad. I won. I was much younger, of course. I wouldn’t fight a duel now. Taking people to court,” Mr. B said, “is much more civilized.” He winked at Leslie Quinn.
The judge glanced around the court. Mr. B had finally rendered even the CLF speechless. It was time to move on.
“How did Pamela react to your proposal?”
