Mr. B's Testimony VI

Mr. B's Testimony Corresponding to the 6th Week of Pamela's Bondage continued
I took Pamela walking the next day. I tried to sit with her in an alcove in the garden, but she hunched when I kissed her. So we walked instead. I tried to talk to Pamela about love, but she answered shortly and finally snapped, "I will not talk of this with you, sir."

Round and round we go.

"Do you know where you are?" I said. "And to whom you speak?"

"I am in a place with no friends."

"And to whom do you speak?"

"Not my master," she said, "for no master demeans himself to his poor servant."

I groaned inwardly. Why couldn't Pamela see that life had changed for her? The same arguments no longer held.

I went to put my arms around her. She struggled and said, "To be sure you are Lucifer himself in the shape of my master."

That was too much. I was an ordinary squire, no prince of darkness. I released her.

"These are too great liberties," I said. "If you show no decency towards me, I'll have none to you. Get back here," for Pamela was running towards the house.

She came back, sullen and teary. I glowered at her.

"Lucifer indeed," I muttered. "I'm not so bad, Pamela."

"Forgive me."

"You should ask Lucifer to forgive you. You have given me a character, Pamela. Don't blame me if I act up to it."

"I really am sorry," she said, "but you don't use me like a gentleman."

That was an incorrect statement, but then, Pamela didn't know many gentlemen.

"I should have gone through with my plan Sunday night," I said, then wished I hadn't for she paled.

"Oh, we should end this," I said.

I half-expected her to take that as an invitation to leave Lincolnshire—which misinterpretation I would have to correct. But she stayed, watching me warily.

"I really am sorry," she said earnestly. "But what is left to me but words? I must protest actions that could lead to my undoing."

"What kind of apology is that?" I said. "If you continue to protest, how is that any improvement?"

"I will submit to anything except where my virtue is at stake."

I didn't believe her for a moment. Everything placed Pamela's virtue at stake which gave her, apparently, the right to protest everything I did.

I visited the stables after the mid-day meal. Pamela and Mrs. Jewkes were dining in the parlor when I re-entered the house. They rose when I came in, and I waved them to sit.

"How are you eating?" I said to Pamela.

"Very poorly indeed, sir," Mrs. Jewkes answered.

"Pretty well, considering," Pamela said with the faintest emphasis on considering.

"None of that," I said and tapped her cheek. She smiled faintly. I pulled up a chair and sat sideways, my legs stretched out. I watched Pamela play with her food.

"My mother said you were a nice carver," I said finally and pushed a chicken towards her. "Cut that up."

She did with intense concentration. When she was done, I took a wing and placed it on her plate.

"Eat it," I said.

"I've eaten," she said, but I saw Mrs. Jewkes shake her head slightly.

"For me," I said.

She ate carefully, watching me.

"I'll be in the garden," I said when she was done. "I'd like you to attend me there."

I went out to the pond. I don't know what I expected, but Pamela came.

I took her hand, and she didn't struggle, so I told her the truth:

"You have a good deal of wit and penetration. You are possessed of an open, frank, and generous mind and a lovely appearance. I cannot live without you, Pamela. I am not a profligate. Seizing you, bringing you here, is perhaps the worst I've done. Were I utterly given up to my passions, I should have gratified them already. I do not want to marry—" I'd seen my mother fade under my father's severity; I'd seen my sister's husband evade her shrewishness with drink and less innocuous pastimes; Pamela and I could damage each other beyond all that.

"Yet I must have you," I told her. "I cannot bear the thought of another man supplanting me in your affections. That is why I have used Williams in a manner unworthy of my station. I have told you my mind candidly. Tell me, with openness and candor, what you think I ought to do."

She blushed several times as I spoke, but she retreated when I finished, shaking off my hand.

"Let me go home," she said. "I won't marry at all if you think I shouldn't."

"That's not much of an answer."

"Once I'm gone, you will meet worthier women. You will overcome your regard for me."

I shook my head at her. I'd suffered far too many conversations with worthier women to believe that.

"If I were the first lady in the land instead of poor abject Pamela, I would, I could tell you—" she broke off. I tried hard not to smile. Pamela made a confused, hopeless gesture and sat on the damp grass. I knelt beside her.

"Tell me what you're thinking," I said.

"I overheard what you said to Mrs. Jewkes. I think I am in more danger now than ever in my life."

I pondered this. I couldn't imagine what I'd said to Mrs. Jewkes that would alarm Pamela so much unless, of course, she meant my vow to thaw her with kindness.

I supposed, on reflection, that Pamela was right to be nervous.

I said, "You have never found me a common liar. I can't answer for how long this kind mood will continue; my pride struggles hard within me. But at present, I am sincere."

"You will take advantage of my weakness," she said to her knees.

I sighed. "I've spent a lot of time on you, Pamela, and I'd hate to learn you'd given your heart elsewhere. What about Williams?"

She was annoyed. "That poor man—"

"Oh, shut up," I said.

She glared at the ground.

"You really never intended to marry him?" I said finally.

"I didn't know how else to get away. I asked him to apply to the gentry for my sake. They all refused. Then he decided we should marry. I declined, and he still agreed to assist me. For God's sake."

I thought about this and tried not to laugh. Pamela couldn't have found a less competent Knight Errant if she'd tried. A more subtle and intelligent man could have saved Pamela. Williams was neither.

"So you do prefer me to any other man?"

She pressed her mouth to her knees and shook her head.

"Can't you trust me?" I said.

"I have already said too much," she said, raising her chin. We eyed each other and then, to my pleasure and surprise, she blushed and pressed her face to my shoulder. I put my arms around her and smiled into her neck. I was happier then then I'd been in a long time.

She echoed me, saying, "I'd be so happy if—"

"I won't marry, Pamela," I said.

It was the wrong thing to say. She recoiled. "I am not so presumptuous," she said stiffly. "I would wish you happy in marriage to a lady of suitable degree."

I didn't believe her.

I considered luring Pamela into a sham marriage. I confess that. I even started to put the plan in motion. I knew a man who knew a man who would do the ceremony. Pamela would be satisfied, and we would live together—for years, perhaps—happy and content. I know, I know it was unworthy of me. Anyone who knows me knows how loathsome I find the idea. In others, that is. But there were so few solutions left to Pamela and me at that point. Except marriage. Except that.

Mr. B's Testimony Corresponding to the 7th week of Pamela's Bondage
I received a lecturing letter from my sister. My servants in Bedfordshire had hauled her into the problem of Pamela. She harangued me for seducing Pamela on the one hand and wanting to marry her on the other. I had no intention of marrying although I knew I should for the family line. In any case, if—when—I did marry, I'd marry whomever I damned well pleased.

I had to let the scheming servants go; you cannot have servants forming plots against you, especially servants idiotic enough to involve my sister. The servants included the bulk of the upper table at Bedfordshire: Longman, Mr. Jonathan, and Mrs. Jervis.

It bothered me that I would lose such fine servants. The whole matter was getting out of hand. I needed to let Pamela go home. I knew it, but I couldn't bring myself to say the words.

I was expected at a wedding ball, and I said goodbye to Pamela before I left. I instructed Mrs. Jewkes, in front of Pamela, to watch her closely. Since my sister had gotten involved, I was sure various schemes to free Pamela had been put in motion. If I freed Pamela, it would a considered decision, not something forced on me by interfering busybodies.

The ball was tedious. I don't usually mind social occasions, but my ribs still ached, and the fever came and went. The only highlight was talking to Lady Darnford, wife of Sir Simon, who is a placid, level-headed woman.

"Are you in love with your guest?" she asked me at the end of our dance but kindly, not salaciously.

"I guess I must be," I told her.

I went to Stamford the next day and freed Mr. Williams from gaol. He didn't mention Pamela once; the Knight Errant had been brought to heel.

I mentioned her. I said, "You will leave Miss Andrews alone, is that understood?" and he gulped and nodded.

Pamela had told me she wasn't interested in him, but I confess, I'd begun to doubt her veracity. Pamela will claim she was always honest with me—except for the occasional fib, the occasional untruth, the occasional downright lie. After all, she will say, I imprisoned her.

I knew, even at the time, that Pamela would do what she needed to protect herself. I knew she might have lied to me about Williams, hoping he would return and carry her off. Face to face with Williams, who is handsome enough if dull, I couldn't help but wonder.

When I arrived home on Saturday, Mrs. Jewkes met me carrying a packet of Pamela's letters. It appeared Pamela had been writing vociferously since she arrived at the Lincolnshire estate, then hiding what she wrote. Mrs. Jewkes had finally tracked down the bulk of Pamela's writing.

Pamela didn't want me to read it. She was suspicious when I carried the letters up to her in her chamber. I pointed out that her writing so far had impressed me with her wit and innocence.

She finally confessed she was worried she'd been too blunt in her letters. I couldn't imagine that Pamela could be blunter to the page than she was to my face, but I told her to have more confidence in me. I wanted the honest Pamela, not the Pamela who spoke round and round and round a topic, hiding her thoughts and motives. "I have read many of your saucy reflections," I said, "and yet, I've never upbraided you on that score—" at least, not very often.

"So long as you remember I wrote the truth from my heart," she said, "and that I had the right to escape this forced and illegal restraint."

"You have a powerful defendant in me," I said and went downstairs to read.

The packet contained not only Pamela's letters to her parents but letters from Williams and copies of her letters to him. I glowered over them. Pamela had certainly pleaded her case to Williams most affectingly, and he had certainly presented himself as more a Lancelot than a Galahad. I called Pamela down and taxed her about her "love letters."

"Do you find, sir, that I encouraged his proposal?"

"What about the letters that came before these?" I said. The packet I had started nearly two weeks after Pamela arrived in Lincolnshire, and I knew from Mrs. Jewkes that Pamela and Williams had corresponded before that.

"My father has them."

I remembered then that Mrs. Jewkes believed Pamela had given Williams a message for her parents. Mrs. Jewkes had tried to retrieve the message by arranging an attack on the poor man. I would not have condoned such a crude scheme, especially since it failed in its object.

"What about the letters that follow these?" I said, waving the packet at Pamela. The packet ended with a reference to the attack on Williams. "I like to read the fruits of your pen. You create a pretty air of romance around your troubles."

She set her chin. "You jeer at the misfortunes that you brought upon me."

"Considering the liberties you take with my character," I said, still waving the packet like a mad man, "we are equal there."

"I would not have taken those liberties if you had not given me cause. The cause, sir, is before the effect." Pamela's voice gets quite steely when she's riled. I held back a smile.

"You chop logic very prettily. What the deuce do men go to school for?"

"You wouldn't mock me if I were dull."

"I would not love you so well," I pointed out, and she flushed.

"I would be better off married to a plough-boy," she told the rug, which she knew and I knew wasn't true.

"One of us fox-hunters would have still found you," I said. I hoped that was true. I couldn't imagine never having met Pamela.

"Where have you hidden the rest of your writing?" I said. Mrs. Jewkes had located the current packet under the rose-bush in the garden.

She shook her head.

"Are they on your person?" I said and, when she remained silent, "You know criminals who don't confess are tortured."

"Torture is not used in England," she retorted.

"Oh, my torture will fit the crime," I said. "I'm going to have to strip you, Pamela." I crossed to her and began to slowly untie the handkerchief that masked her bosom. She gazed at me, open-mouth, and for a heart-stopping moment, I thought she wouldn't stop me. But she slapped my hand and darted backwards.

"You'll give me the letters?" I said.

"Yes," she said and fled.

I received a single note from her a few minutes later. She wanted permission to look the letters over. She wouldn't, she promised, make any revisions. I agreed—Pamela probably wanted to prepare herself for my reactions—so long as she delivered them to me the next day.

I was still unable to sleep through the night. The on-again, off-again fever made me restless. When I did sleep, my dreams woke me. Finally, I set sleep aside. Instead, I reread Pamela's letters and smiled over her disgust at Williams' naivety. I agreed with her that he was a man with "no discretion in the world." He certainly wasn't Pamela's equal for plotting or for comprehending people's characters.

I got up early the next morning and walked out to the pond. I was surprised when Pamela came to me there. I had expected another round of pleading.

"I should have taken the opportunity to strip you last night," I said, taking the packet. She made a dismissive gesture. What she wanted was another promise I wouldn't hold her boldness against her. I said I'd do my best and broke the seal on the packet. She would have gone back to the house, but I motioned her to stay.

I've mentioned Pamela's effusive style. I should state absolutely that she doesn't cry or collapse quite as often as she claims. I would never have stopped my ravishment if Pamela's fit that night had been simply one more of many.

Pamela's previous letters commented often on her "oppressions and distresses and fears," but I'd put those complaints down to Pamela's romancing. The letters she gave me that morning were different. Williams had proved unreliable, I'd sent my angry letter—I repented of that now—and Pamela had panicked. She decided to escape by wiggling out the window in her bedroom and throwing her upper-coat, handkerchief, and cap into the pond to put off any pursuers.

I knew about this part of the plan from Mrs. Jewkes. I didn't know the rest: Pamela tried to escape over the wall, but the bricks gave way and struck her on the head.

Her scar. I turned and looked at Pamela. She was gazing across the pond. She started when I lifted her chin but didn't pull back. The scar stretched under her hairline. I turned her head gently and lifted her cap to examine a second scar at the base of her skull. Her hair had been cut to help it heal.

I got up and went over to the brick wall. Pamela's narrative implied she'd been struck once or twice, but I counted at least five bricks lying on the grass.

I went back to the pond and put my arm around Pamela.

"It's a good thing you didn't get out," I said. "You would have been in great danger and alone, and," I added, trying to jolly her, "I would have caught you anyway."

She gave me a half-smile, and I turned back to her letters.

After being struck by bricks, Pamela considered taking her life.

It was no melodramatic proclamation. She even acknowledged her tendency to romanticize and was ashamed of her momentary despair. She had honestly contemplated ending her life in the pond.

Drowned. Buried under water. Out of fear. Fear of me.

I got up, so Pamela couldn't see my face. It was like dreaming awake, only worse, because any follies I caused to myself, I could pay for. But if Pamela had taken her life, it would have been on my shoulders, and I wouldn't have wanted to live.

I turned back. She watched me curiously from the edge of the pond. "Don't sit there," I said, and she got up. I put her letters in my pocket and slid my arms around her.

"I'm sorry," I said, "for pushing you into so much danger and distress."

I felt her head come to rest against my shoulder.

"I will defy the world and the world's censures and make you amends," I said.

I meant marriage. If Williams had been there at that moment, I would have commanded him to wed us.

I felt Pamela withdraw even before she stepped out of my arms.

"Let me go home," she said.

I'd just offered her marriage, and she didn't care. She stood there, not meeting my eyes, and I knew she was thinking about Williams. She preferred a canting clergyman to a man who knew her, who liked her, who wanted to be more to her than a knight.

"Very well," I said and walked away.

I was almost to the house when she called, "One word," but I waved her off. It was time for Pamela to go home.

I ordered the carriage immediately and called in Mrs. Jewkes.

"Pamela is leaving today," I said and ordered her out before she could start expostulating. My head ached. Mrs. Jewkes came back a few minutes later, saying, "She wants her letters, sir." I shook my head and when she left, grumbling, I sat down and wrote to Pamela.

I was still furious over Pamela's rejection, but I knew, in my rational mind, that I was being unfair. She had been my prisoner for seven weeks. She had been so frightened, she'd tried to escape and contemplated suicide. I wished her well with all my heart, but I begged that she wouldn't marry in haste. She would be miserable with someone like Williams. I asked her to think of me as her first husband, to wait a year until her memory of me was ash before she considered another man. A pretty conceit worthy of Pamela, but I meant it. I also promised to return her letters when she reached her parents' home.

I called in Monsieur Colbrand and Robin, my coachman. I gave Robin the letter to give to Pamela the following day. They would be well out of Lincolnshire by then; Pamela would have no reason to fear any more action from me.

I sent the servants out and put my head in my hands. Once she was gone, maybe the fever would abate. I could turn my mind to other things.

I heard Pamela on the stairs with Mrs. Jewkes. As they passed the parlor, Mrs. Jewkes called peevishly, "Sir, you have nothing to say to this baggage before she goes?"

Why would Pamela want to stay when I let the woman speak to her so rudely?

"Who bid you refer to her like that?" I said. "She's offended only me. She deserves to go honest, and she shall go."

And then Pamela was at the door, looking at me with all the delight in her face I'd seen months ago when my mother was still alive.

"Thank you," she said. "God bless you for your goodness to me!"

I almost asked her to stay, but I knew I shouldn't, so I went into my study. Before I closed the door, I heard Pamela say, "And I will pray for you too, Mrs Jewkes, wicked wretch that you are," and I grinned to myself.

I leaned against the door, then sank to the floor. The headache was getting worse and finally, I lay down and closed my eyes against the pain.

I woke near twilight. The room was not quite dark. The headache had lessened, but the fever was back with a vengeance. I made my way to the desk and lit a candle. I considered calling the servants, but the idea tired me too much.

My seat was uncomfortable: I was sitting half-on, half-off my coat. I jerked it loose and realized that Pamela's letters were still in my pocket. I pulled them out and flattened them on the desk. There was no point reading more; they would only remind me that Pamela was gone, no longer upstairs writing furiously in her closet, getting ready to lecture me.

I couldn't help myself. I read.

Pamela had been sorry to hear about my accident, even after my horrible letter to her. She described my aborted ravishment in detail. I winced. But she went on to detail how hard it was for her to resist me—only she didn't trust me.

What did I expect? I'd given her no reason to trust me, not from the moment my mother died. I should have courted her in earnest from the beginning. I should have known then that marriage to Pamela would satisfy all my desires.

The candle guttered and went on, and I sat in the dark, thinking of Pamela, missing Pamela.

Mrs. Jewkes pounded on the door and asked me if I wanted tea.

"No," I said, and she went away.

I went back over Pamela's letters, and an odd coincidence struck me. I'd almost drowned the same day Pamela tried to escape.

As if we were bound to the same fate; if she had died, I would surely have perished in Hertfordshire, whatever the doctor told my sister.

Soul of my soul.

I'd been a fool to let her go.

I lit another candle and wrote a letter, begging Pamela to return "for I find I cannot live a day without you." I asked her to "forgive the man who loves you more than himself" and promised to make her happy.

I went to the stables, hugging the wall because the fever was making me dizzy. I woke Thomas, only remembering after he was up that it was past midnight. But since he was up—

"Prepare a horse," I told him. "I want you to ride after the carriage. I have a letter for Miss Andrews."

As he got ready, I considered that Pamela would never believe I meant her no ill. I went into the back-parlor and wrote a letter to Monsieur Colbrand confirming that Pamela was only to be returned if she wished to come. He could show my letter to him to Pamela.

I gave both letters to Thomas, and he rode off.

The rest of that day is a blur. I fell asleep in the back-parlor. I vaguely remember being half-escorted, half-carried to my chamber above. Towards daylight, someone forced me to drink broth. Later, I heard Mumford's voice—he's the local doctor—and then my arm ached: I'd been blooded, which must have helped because I fell asleep again. But I dreamed of lurching shapes, and I thrashed awake to be given another cup of broth. Finally, towards evening, I slept thoroughly.

I woke to late morning light. Mrs. Jewkes was standing by my bed, arms akimbo.

"Well, she's here," she said. I gazed at her blurrily.

"Pamela," she said. "And in quite a taking because I didn't wake you earlier. I told her—"

"She came back?"

"Yes, and I wouldn't let her wake—"

"Already?"

"They drove all night at her precious command. And she's been up two hours, fretting."

"Ask her if she would so good as to visit me," I said. "Or I could visit her."

"You must stay abed, sir," she said. "I'll tell her."

"Don't urge her," I said, remembering certain passages from Pamela's letters. Mrs. Jewkes took my commands possibly more seriously than any servant ever had.

She rolled her eyes as she turned away. I didn't bother to rebuke her. I sat up and combed my fingers through my hair. I heard feet in the corridor.

"Is she come?" I said, and "Yes," Pamela said.

She looked tired but happy. She came over to the bed and took the hand I held out. I kissed her wrist.

"You do me too much honor," I said.

"I'm sorry you've been ill," she said.

"I can't be ill while you are with me," I said. Yes, I know, but remember, I was feverish. "I hardly dared hope you would oblige me," I added.

She sat beside the bed. I leaned back and watched her talk about the inn she'd stopped at the day before and the ride back. I watched her smile to herself as she talked, watched her eyes gleam as she reflected. I held her hand until I fell asleep.

I got up around noon. I wanted to make sure the servants understood Pamela should be treated like a guest, not a prisoner. She could go where she liked, even town: my carriage was at her disposal. I also told Pamela that Williams was free. I thought she should know.

"We'll take a ride tomorrow," I told her and went back to bed. I didn't dream at all that night.

The Fundamental Reality of Romance Novels

A common criticism of romance novels is that they support the worst excesses of patriarchy: heroes who think they have the right to "protect" women by overmastering and seducing them.

Defenders of romance novels will often argue, among other things, that (1) women readers are simply acting out the female version of the male fantasy:

THE MALE FANTASY
Leonard Hofstadter: If we do get a new friend, he should be a guy you can trust. A guy who has your back.
Howard Wolowitz: And he should have a lot of money and live in a cool place down by the beach where we could throw parties.
Sheldon Cooper: He should share our love of technology.
Howard Wolowitz: And he should know a lot of women.
Leonard Hofstadter: Let's see: money, women, technology. Okay, we're agreed. Our new friend is going to be . . . Iron Man.

(2) Women readers are actually critiquing the patriarchal model as they read; as readers, women readers exercise control over the hero and heroine, over what they (the readers) will accept/agree to: the hero is at the mercy of the reader; (3) women readers may participate in the heroine's subjugation to the male, but they do so knowing that the heroine does truly agree since they know her thoughts.

I think all of these are valid arguments and mostly true, but I also think they totally miss a really important point. Romances have nothing to do with patriarchy. They have everything to do with biology.

My personal yen is for cerebral, shortish men. I am not automatically attracted to the tall, looming, massively muscled, broad-shouldered hero of romances, and there are several romances where, despite being told that the hero is tall-looming-broad-shouldered-massively-muscled, I simply don't see him that way because his character dovetails far more neatly with, say, Patrick Jane (in fact, this disconnect is so common that I often get the impression that the writers have their own individual images in mind as they write and stick in the iconic image to make the publisher happy).

I also tend to read romance novels which focus less on the overbearing moments and more on the building relationship moments.

But, having said that, I must tell you about my reaction to Vincent D'Onofrio on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

First, Vincent D'Onofrio is HUGE. He is 6'3" and, well, HUGE. In the first season, whenever he (as Goren) walks into an interrogation room, he basically fills the room and overwhelms the suspect. If he gets physical, all he has to do is pluck the bad guy out of his chair by his collar and swing him around.

I think this may have created a tension problem in the scripts because in later seasons, all the villains suddenly became at least 6' tall (though Goren's nemesis, Nicole Wallace, is an itty-bitty woman.)

Still, I must admit, this HUGE/effortless physicality is impossibly sexy.

Goren's sidekick, Eames, is played by Kathryn Erbe who is my height, 5'2". The writers make it clear that Eames is more stable than Goren and can more than hold her own (and that Goren relies on her as a constant, dependable presence). But when I first watched Season 1, I became very aware that I--a Libertarian feminist--found Goren's mere physical presence utterly satisfying and comforting. If the villains get crazy, he just has to nudge them, and they are out of the game. Eames is safe.

This does not mean I would appreciate this kind of protection in my personal life. And it also doesn't mean that when I watch Season 1, I am imbibing, interacting with, or considering sexist/patriarchal principles. My reaction is purely atavistic.

Protection--whether it be financial, physical, technological/cerebral, or emotional--is hugely attractive to women. The most telling aspect of romances is not that the heroines are overwhelmed sexually, it is that the heroines can rely on the heroes: the heroes perceive the heroines as a responsibility.

Consider history: Anarchy kills women and children before it kills men and boys. A large part of human history has been the history of anarchy or dictatorships/kingdoms descending into anarchy. Being safe, therefore, is high on a woman/wife/mother's genetic priority list. And, I'm sorry, people-who-get-worried-about-patriarchy, you can't just undo thousands of years of basic evolutionary need with a few decades of enlightened Western culture.

Especially when so many women believe they are still in danger. Since I am not that paranoid, I don't. But I can understand women who feel threatened by war, pedophiles coming onto their children, crime, belligerent politicians, being left/abandoned, poor economies, having to balance work and family, etc. etc. etc. Yes, they should hold their own, but several biological realities still leave women more vulnerable than men to the environment (I mean that in the social AND in the volcanoes/hurricanes sense). Let's not kid ourselves.

The answer is not to blame the patriarchy. What possible good would that do? Herland (and the falsehood of the perfect matriarchy) aside, the biological realities will still exist, whatever the social construct. Squawking,  "But the government--" which is still male-dominated--"should do something!" is nicely Victorian but hardly feminist-oriented and not terribly helpful.

Herland included, Gilman and Paglia have always been right: the male cannot be ignored or bypassed. Thank goodness romances are still doing the hard task of making sure he isn't.

Ruminations of Mr. B: V

NOTE: This section includes the attempted rape of Pamela by Mr. B. For a modern audience, this scene makes the later romance between Pamela and Mr. B a near impossibility. However, our modern sensibilities are somewhat unfair to Richardson. Richardson wasn't interested in rape, per se; he was interested in the issue of integrity, i.e. whether female servants had the right to claim it (and many people, including Henry Fielding, thought they didn't: a female servant was automatically considered vulgar and sluttish). He was also, I think, interested in the issue of "fallen" women. He had to make the seduction of both Pamela and Clarissa as close to rape as possible (to make clear how totally innocent they were), but I do think seduction is what he was aiming for. This is one aspect of the BBC Clarissa that makes zero sense. I always thought Lovelace's triumph was that Clarissa succumbed--even if only for the time it took to do "the deed." After all, if he is just going to rape her, why doesn't he do it earlier?

In an effort to place the scene in context, I have added dialog below between Mr. B and the grad student.

Corresponding to the Onset of the 6th Week of Pamela's Bondage
I started on Friday; Lincolnshire is less than day's ride from Hertfordshire. I sent letters ahead that I would arrive Monday or Tuesday. On Monday, I lasted four hours in the carriage and then collapsed in a Cambridge Inn. I made it to the Lincolnshire estate the next evening.

I sat in a chair in the parlor while Mrs. Jewkes talked my ear off. She was full of Pamela's intransigence: How Pamela kept trying to escape, how Pamela had secrets, how Pamela called her names. I might as well have stayed in Hertfordshire.

"Get my supper ready," I said and went up to Pamela's bedroom.

She was kneeling on the floor when I came in, ready for a melodramatic scene, no doubt, and I was suddenly tired of all women. 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.

"You should be ashamed," I told Pamela. "Come in, Mrs. Jewkes, and see this woman I once thought as innocent as an angel of light. I now have no patience with her."

Mrs. Jewkes bustled over to Pamela. "Come on," she said with brash good-humor. "Learn to know your best friend, confess your unworthy behavior, and beg his honor's forgiveness of all your faults."

I watched her patting Pamela and considered that perhaps John had been right, and Mrs. Jewkes was not precisely the right person to watch over Pamela.

Pamela finally looked up. "God forgive you, sir!" she said after a deep breath.

Forgive me? I almost smacked her. But I checked myself and tried to remember that Pamela was probably imagining herself as Lucretia. Or Cordelia. Or some other wronged lady from the theater.

"When she's finished acting," I said, "perhaps I will see her again," and I went downstairs.

The Lincolnshire house is shadowed and quiet. There are less servants that at the Bedfordshire estate, and the servants are less jolly. I sat in the parlor and had only my thoughts for company. Frankly, Pamela's over-acting was better than nothing.

"Tell Mrs. Jewkes to bring Pamela down to serve me," I told Monsieur Colbrand who I'd sent to the estate the week before. He would valet me in Lincolnshire.

She came down, head lowered, shoulders hunched. She served my wine and stood behind me. Mrs. Jewkes watched from the far end of the table, arms akimbo.

"Mrs. Jewkes," I said, "you tell me Pamela remains very sullen and eats nothing."

"Not so much as will keep life and soul together."

"I suppose she lives upon love," I said. "Her villainous plots with sweet Mr. Williams have kept her alive and well."

"That's right," Mrs. Jewkes said. "She's slippery as an eel."

And finally, Pamela spoke: "Have mercy and 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 heard her sigh, then, "I have a strange tribunal to plead before. The poor sheep in the fable was tried before the vulture on the accusation of the wolf."

I was a little surprised that I wasn't cast as the wolf, but I tried to follow Pamela's line of reasoning: "So, Mrs. Jewkes," I said, "you are the wolf, I the vulture, and here is the poor innocent lamb."

"Oh," Mrs. Jewkes snorted. "That is nothing to what she has called me: Jezebel, a London prostitute—and now, you are a vulture—"

I grinned at my chicken as Pamela burst out, "I wasn't comparing—"

"Don't quibble, girl," I said, and Mrs. Jewkes agreed.

Pamela said, "There is a righteous Judge who knows the secrets of all hearts and to him I appeal."

Calling down the fire of heaven on us, in fact.

I finished dinner and turned to look at Pamela. She was crying, but she looked fit to strike something. If we ever did have children, I pitied them their tempers.

Even tearful, though, she looked beautiful if too thin. The direct glare was still there, the thin saucy quirk to the lips. 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 hadn't encouraged Williams. Had she endowed him with Galahad scruples? Oh, Pamela.

She walked away from me and pressed her face against the wainscot.

"Come back here, hussy," I said. "We have a reckoning to make." When she didn't come, I went and slipped my arms around her shoulders. "How can I forgive you?" I said to her hair. She had caused disturbances in my households, brought discredit on me, corrupted my servants, conspired with Williams. I kissed her head and tried to stroke her.

She broke away then. "I would die before I would be used thus," she said and the rage 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 heaved me into bed: "You have a 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" rather shortly. He obviously expected to dine, so while he strode in the garden, I pulled out my proposal to Pamela and sent it up to her by Mrs. Jewkes.

I'd be working on the proposal since before I packed Pamela off to Lincolnshire. Once Pamela became my mistress, I would give her the immediate gift of 500 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.

I suppose you are not surprised that Pamela refused. I no longer knew what to expect. I will say that her answer to my proposal was the most straightforward Pamela had been with me in many weeks.

"I will not trifle with you nor act like a person doubtful of her own mind," she wrote. She assured me she had not encouraged Williams. She disdained my offers of money, proclaiming that her "honest parents" would never agree to any proposal that involved the "prostitution of their poor daughter." I wondered if her parents would be so high-handed if approached directly, but, remembering Mr. Andrews, thought perhaps they would be. She continued in the same melodramatic vein, pronouncing that she had "greater pride in her poverty and meanness than in dress and finery," which is a lie. Pamela has never been proud of being poor. She ended by pointing out that if she did become my mistress for a year, at the end of it, she would hardly merit marriage with a gentleman.

There is, as I've mentioned previously, a great deal of the lawyer about Pamela.

There was one passage, however, that gave me pause. "I know not the man breathing I would wish to marry," Pamela had written, "except one and that is the gentleman who, above all others, seeks my everlasting dishonor."

She wanted me. Her refusal was foolhardy, pointless. God would hardly hold her accountable for merely trying to better herself. Her parents would hardly complain because their daughter put their comfort above her own misguided morality. I stomped around my study, my head throbbing.

"It's your own fault for being so tender," Mrs. Jewkes said, and I was beginning to think she was right. Pamela needed a fait accompli. The issue needed to be resolved. "I'll bed her tomorrow," I said and instructed Mrs. Jewkes to not let Pamela escape. She bustled out. I heard her and Pamela yelling at each other in Pamela's bedroom. Pamela wanted the keys to the room; Mrs. Jewkes wouldn't give them up.

I went to bed and didn't sleep.

Interruption
"You realize," the grad student said to Mr. B., "that your decision to rape--"

"Seduce," said the lanky man. "Rape is your parlance, not mine."

"So no one in the 18th century was raped?"

"Of course they were. But female servants--" Mr. B. shrugged. "Even Pamela was more concerned with her virginity than her rights."

"I don't think she saw a difference."

"But a modern woman would." Mr. B grinned faintly. "I did repent the decision. I'm no Lovelace. He was a cad."

"You came very close to being one yourself."

"And Pamela would have survived. She was no Clarissa." He twitched, straightening up and clasping his hands between his knees. "You are forcing me to justify an action I long ago regretted. Just remember, action and intent were not the same to us as they are to you moderns. I was no sociopath, not even particularly bad. Pamela was my servant, she was female, she had no prospects, and little protection. I was the god of my estates. Didn't Eros kidnap Psyche?"

"Psyche never regretted her seduction."

"I was convinced Pamela wouldn't either. Let us grant that I was wrong. But don't forget why I believed I was right."

Corresponding to the Middle of the 6th Week of Pamela's Bondage
I went to church the next morning with two texts sent to me by Pamela through Mrs. Jewkes. "The prayers of this congregation are earnestly desired for a gentleman of great worth and honor who labors under a temptation to exert his great power to ruin a poor, distressed, worthless maiden," read one. The second was not much different.

Typical Pamela and very clever, but I was tired of the game. "Tell her the reckoning is not far off," I said and left the house. As I got into the carriage, I saw Pamela's face at the window. She looked solemn.

Church was exasperating. Parson Peters was there to plead with me for Williams's release: Williams didn't realize he owed me money; he thought the sum I gave him was salary for three years and so on and so forth. "It was a bit much putting the fella in gaol," Sir Simon chimed in.

"I'll resolve the matter," I said and left them.

But I knew then how to arrange matters with Pamela. I sent the carriage home plus a letter to Mrs. Jewkes advising her that I'd gone to Stamford to deal with Williams. She was to tell Pamela the same. I then walked home, cutting across the pasture, so I could enter through the rear. I ran into Monsieur Colbrand and used him to send a second message to Mrs. Jewkes. I then rested on a seat outside the back door, watching the sky mellow and getting my breath back. The stage was set. By the same time the next day, Pamela's fate would be decided. Finally.

Towards evening, I went upstairs to my room to change and from there to Pamela's bedroom. She and Mrs. Jewkes were in the downstairs parlor. I sat in the elbow-chair in the darkest corner and covered my face with an apron and my legs with a petticoat. I was pretending to be the maid. I dozed off and on until I heard Mrs. Jewkes and Pamela come upstairs. Mrs. Jewkes was teasing Pamela about her writing. Pamela was complaining about me. She checked the closets--I smiled to myself--and finally went to bed, still talking rapidly, feverishly. Pamela is no fool. She knew something wasn't right.

They doused the light and after a few minutes, I got up and undressed. I sat down on the edge of the bed closest to Pamela. I slid under the covers.

"Are you alright?" she said, thinking I was the maid.

I suppose no red-blooded gentleman will believe me, but for a long moment, I just wanted to sleep--there, next to Pamela with my arm across her middle. Sleep away dreams, sleep away thoughts of drowning. I suppose I was already drowning, and Pamela was the only way out, the only way up. I slid closer until her arm was under my shoulders and clasped her around the waist.

I kissed her full-mouth before she could scream and then I came up for air, and she did scream. Mrs. Jewkes was somewhere on the periphery, shouting, "Don't dilly-dally, sir." And Pamela was still screaming, and I was trying to explain that this was it, she might as well accept my proposals, and then she went limp, completely limp, like something dead.

"She's had a fit," I said, getting up.

"Ah, she's faking, sir," Mrs. Jewkes said.

"No, she isn't," I said and lit a candle. Pamela lay on the bed, white and motionless. Mrs. Jewkes leaned over her.

"She's breathing, sir," she said while I pulled on my gown and slippers. I brought another candle to the bed and sat on the free side.

"Can you wake her?" I said.

Mrs. Jewkes, nonplussed, waved smelling-salts under Pamela's nose. Pamela jerked awake. She looked at me, and I knew that look, I read it from my own experience. She was terrified of drowning. She sat up, edging backward until she struck the headboard.

"Pamela," I said gently. "Pamela."

She watched me warily like something wild and injured. I leaned forward, speaking softly, and she put her hand on my mouth. We gazed at each other over her palm.

"Did I suffer any distress?"

"No," I said. "I promise you I did nothing."

"Well, you could now she's well," Mrs. Jewkes said stolidly.

Pamela's eyes rolled back in her head. She was pressed sideways against the bed's headboard and would have fallen to the floor if I hadn't caught her.

"Get out of here," I said to Mrs. Jewkes. "Send the maid in."

I laid Pamela flat on the bed; she was light, too light. She hadn't been eating as Mrs. Jewkes claimed. I touched her cheek, and it was cold. There was a scar along her hairline. I didn't remember it from Bedfordshire.

The maid showed up, blinking her eyes.

"What's your name?" I said.

"Nan, sir."

"Sit down there. You'll be sleeping here tonight."

Nan agreed, wide-eyed. I waited, holding Pamela's hand, watching her face. Nan waved the smelling salts, and Pamela came to slowly. Her eyes fixed on me.

"Nan will sleep here tonight," I said. "Mrs. Jewkes has been sent to sleep in her bed."

"Won't the same thing happen again? Only with Nan to encourage you?"

"No," I said. "I will not come in again tonight. Say you forgive me, Pamela," and I kissed her hand.

"God forgive you, sir," she said.

I had to be content with that.

She was still weak the next morning. She tensed under the bedclothes when I entered the room, and I stopped just inside the door.

"I don’t want Mrs. Jewkes," she said.

"She won't come near you today," I said, "if you promise to compose yourself," and Pamela nodded.

She was better the next morning and agreed to see me in the parlor. She was still careful and tense, not the Pamela I knew.

My fault.

"I will not attempt to force you again," I told her.

"Send me away."

I couldn't do it. I was sorry, I truly was. I never thought Pamela could be so frightened. But to send her away would leave me to the water and the dark, and I couldn’t do it.

I would coax her back to happiness and ease.

"Your confinement will get easier," I said.

"To what end? How long am I to stay? And to what purpose?"

"Give me a fortnight," I said, "and try to forgive Mrs. Jewkes," who'd been complaining vociferously for the last two days. "She was only being obedient to me."

Pamela's jaw set, and I saw the woman I knew again. "She is unwomanly and wicked and vile," she said fiercely, and I half-smiled. This seemed to calm her a little, and she knit her brows, thinking.

"I consent to anything you enjoin that I may do innocently."

"Good girl," I said and kissed her. She didn't struggle. She just watched me through half-lids. I wasn't sure I'd gained anything, but I called Mrs. Jewkes and abjured her and Pamela to be friends.

"Can I send a letter to my parents?" Pamela said.

"No," I said.

"You're too kind to her," Mrs. Jewkes said when Pamela left the room.

"I began wrong," I told her. "She may be thawed by kindness, melted by love rather than frozen by fear."

Mrs. Jewkes sniffed and went away, and I sat down to consider a better strategy than the ones I'd used so far. I was still feverish, but I put that down to Sunday's drama and its aftermath.

Y is for Yawny Yarn (Yancy)

What I read: The Highly Effective Detective by Richard Yancey.

As stated in an earlier post, the books on this list are not (always) books I have finished. This is one I didn't finish even though I got it out of the library twice plus it is reasonably well-written with clever dialog, clearly established characters, and humorous situations. I would probably try to keep going if it wasn't due Monday.

I'm just as happy to send it back; it bores me. After some thought, I've decided that this is because it is detective rather than mystery fiction.

I enjoy mysteries, and I enjoy cop/lawyer shows, but I have never cared for American P.I. fiction. This is not because I consider P.I. fiction to be too hard-hitting. Granted, I am partial to the "cozy," but I also like Law & Order (specifically Seasons 1-4 when it still felt gritty).

Still, despite my high opinion of both Humphrey Bogart and Patrick Stewart, I've never cared much for Bogart's Raymond Chandler-type movies or for Star Trek NG's Dixon Hill episodes. I think my lack of interest is that P.I. plots are almost always gangster-oriented, and gang stories (with the exception of The Freshmen with Matthew Boderick and Marlon Brando) really bore me. The moment I see the word "gang" or "Mafia" in a book or film summary, my brain goes to sleep. I've never seen The Godfather and can't imagine a circumstance where I would--voluntarily at least. (I even skip Law & Order gang-related episodes.)

As for why gangs don't interest me, I think it is because the collective doesn't interest me. Gang stuff always seems to be about the individual P.I. or gang member versus THE GROUP or SOCIETY: environment to the max. Even with Star Trek, my interest in the Borg has always been in the ex-Borg, not the Borg itself. Collective history doesn't interest me either. I need an individual to latch onto. Even if we are all products of collective DNA or collective social pressures . . . who cares?

Which isn't to say that The Highly Effective Detective is about gangs. It doesn't appear to be at all. But there is that "P.I. investigating the world" aspect. I need an individual body--and if it is in a manor house or library, all the better!

Ruminations of Mr. B: IV

Corresponding to Letters XXXI to the 5th Week of Pamela's Bondage
I put my plan into motion that Thursday. I suppose my actions will appall your modern sensibilities, but remember, Pamela was my servant, not my peer. I arranged to have my coachman from Lincolnshire take her to my estate there. The servants in Lincolnshire are less inclined to independent action; they would not be susceptible to Pamela's complaints.

I'd kept back three of Pamela's last letters; I'd warned her what would happen if she crossed the line into gossip. I sent my own letter to her father in lieu of Pamela's letters advising him that Pamela was betrothed to my chaplain, I was working to arrange the marriage, and Pamela was safe. There was no reason her parents should be worried when she didn't show up.

I didn't expect her father to actually appear at my door.

More precisely, he appeared in Mrs. Jervis' parlor. He is about fifty and terribly poor: the grooms mistook him for a beggar. I leaned in the doorway and watched him. He was a big man and, despite his distress over his daughter, tough. If he'd walked all night, he would have plenty of stamina. His hands were calloused, his neck darkly bronzed. A hard worker. I wondered what he and Pamela ever found to talk about.

"Your daughter," I told him, "has made a great racket in my family."

He sighed. "Where is she?"

"She is well taken care of."

"How shall I know this?" he said. I guess Pamela came fairly by her lawyer's mind.

"Recollect who I am," I told him. "If I am not to be believed, what's the point in asking me questions?"

"I just wish to know her whereabouts, sir."

"She'll write to 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 one I'd composed for her that would allay her parents' fears. I truly didn't want the rustics to suffer.

Pamela sent the copied letter back with an angry missive to me. Kidnapping hadn't quelled her spirit. She'd even annotated the copied letter, 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 the parents.

"Is she going to marry your chaplain?" Mrs. Jervis asked me then, and I shrugged. I suppose I would once Pamela relented. Clergymen are supposed to rescue fallen women. I didn't know then how angry this particular clergyman was going to make me.

John Arnold had brought Pamela's letters from Lincolnshire plus messages from Mrs. Jewkes, the Lincolnshire housekeeper; he approached me later in the stables, looking worried.

"It's not nice, sir," he said. "Pamela's not safe, if you pardon me mentioning it. That Mrs. Jewkes doesn't treat her well."

"Pamela is used to being treated better than her station," I pointed out, and he nodded glumly and went away.

I thought about his complaint, however. Mrs. Jewkes is a harder woman that Mrs. Jervis, being more cynical, not to forget more exacting. It occurred to me that Pamela would be chafing at her eagle eye: I'd instructed her to watch Pamela very carefully.

I wrote Pamela, assuring her that Mrs. Jewkes was meant to treat her well. I also promised not to visit until Pamela herself invited me to Lincolnshire as if she were truly mistress of the house. 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. I've no doubt she began it; Mr. Williams isn't clever, alert, or cool-headed enough to "save" a kidnapped girl. But once Pamela got him going, he did plenty of damage.

I first learned of Williams's damage when Sir Simon visited Bedfordshire. "Do you know," he said to me, "your chaplain fella is spreading all kinds of rumors about you in Lincolnshire?"

Williams didn't have the imagination to spread rumors about me. I nearly said so until a qualm struck me.

"About what?" I said warily.

"You keeping some chippy locked up in your house. I told him he was out of bounds, engaging in an affair against his friend and patron."

"Yes."

"I don't care if you have ten chippies locked up in your house--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.

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. He'd probably forgotten, and he probably didn't have enough money to cover the entire sum anyway. It was a good enough reason to throw him in gaol, an excellent way to bring him to heel.

And I probably should have just done it and let the issue drop, but I wanted to know how far Pamela had confided in him. I confess, I was jealous. I could not believe Pamela would 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 Mr. Fownes' living plus Pamela's hand in marriage.

Mrs. Jewkes' next message to me confirmed my suspicions: upon receipt of my offer, Williams--the fool--immediately confessed his and Pamela's conspiracy. He was so grateful that he had been beforehand in his declarations to Pamela. In fact, they had been secreting notes to each other for over two weeks. Even after I assured Pamela that I wouldn't come down to Lincolnshire until she asked, she'd been urging Williams to help her "escape." I suppose you think I would have gone down eventually anyway, and I did, but not until Pamela proved false.

I wrote two letters, one to Pamela and one to Mrs. Jewkes. I've never been so angry. To Mrs. Jewkes, I called Pamela every name I could think of, and I wrote her directly that she was a hypocrite. All those protestations about needing her parents' approval and "yet," I wrote, "you could enter into an intrigue with a man you never knew till these last few days, and resolve to run away with a stranger you bewitched to break his ties of honor and gratitude," especially when the ridiculous man's livelihood depended on me. I sent instructions to my attorney to have Williams arrested for the debt.

I intended to go to Lincolnshire, but if I'd gone after writing those letters, I can't trust what would have happened. A bad temper runs in our family--my sister's is worse, believe it or not. I went instead to the Hargraves in Hertfordshire, and there, I nearly died.

Corresponding to the 5th and 6th Weeks of Pamela's Bondage
I'd planned to visit the Hargraves, go on to London and after that, Lincolnshire. An accident at the Hargraves altered my itinerary. I went hunting on Wednesday with Bertram Hargrave. We were fording the stream on the estate when the damn horse shied. I felt myself falling and swore; my right foot was still caught in the stirrups. I shook it loose and went into the water. The horse fell towards me. I rolled sideways. I remember 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 pressed down with my hands, pushing my body desperately upwards. I met only another wave of water, and then everything went dark.

I woke from a dream. I didn't remember my dream 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 over me no matter which direction I twisted.

People were speaking--not in the dream but in the room. I lay in a bed. I recognized my sister'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 Bertram'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 thankfully 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 made my way to the wardrobe. I was half-dressed when my valet entered.

"Sir," he said and looked uncomfortable. "Lady Davers will not be pleased you are up."

"My sister does not control me," I said. "Get over here."

We managed to dress me, but I had to sit down when we finished. Breathing was more difficult than I'd anticipated. I probed my ribs carefully. They didn't seem broken, but the bruises on the left-side were beginning to creep across my chest. I groaned.

"Sir--"

"What time is it?"

"Friday evening, sir."

I'd been in bed two days.

"Has the family eaten?"

"Yes, sir."

That was a blessing. I would 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 sitting room. My sister began to lecture me for rising but stopped when I turned away. Bertram said, "I knew he would be fine! Hunting tomorrow?"

I smiled and sat beside Sir Hargrave. He pressed a drink into my hand and started a conversation with Bertram 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 while Bertram kept proclaiming that another hunting trip would set me up "good and proper." I decided on Thursday that my trip to London could be postponed. It was time to visit Lincolnshire, to put an end to the problem of Pamela.

Barney Miller, Cults, Mind-Control, and Patty Hearst

In an episode of Barney Miller, "Abduction," parents hire a deprogrammer to save their 20-years-old child from a Hare Krishna type cult (led by a bearded guy in sandals who runs an extremely profitable organic health-food restaurant). The cops prevent the kidnapping, and the young woman and her parents end up at the 12th precinct. The cult leader eventually shows up. Towards the end of the episode, in which the young woman insists on her right to have a different life from her parents, the leader sends the young woman back to the restaurant (to finish her shift) and then comments to the parents, "You know, there's a high turnover at our place," i.e. the young woman will be back to her normal life in a few months, just wait it out.

This episode (filmed in 1977) is remarkably prescient. It prefigures a book called Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare by David G. Bromley and Anson D. Shupe, Jr. which was published in 1981. In this book, Bromley and Shupe examine the six great cults of the 1980s, including the Hare Kishnas, and then examine each cult's theology, membership, and so-called brainwashing techniques. They then examine anticultists and practice of deprogramming.

The most remarkable point they make is the "high turnover" mentioned in Barney Miller. This point dovetails with their overall point, which they make again and again and again: nothing is as monolithic as it seems. When Bromley and Shupe actually visited the various cults/communes, they discovered a great deal of variation among members (and ex-members); everyone had what could be called a personal theology. (Bromley and Shupe argue that Jonestown--where members of The People's Temple drank cyanide mixed with koolaid--was the result of Jones desperately consolidating a position he was about to lose rather than the result of mindless worship. Bromley and Shupe also argue that this cult was the strangest and, arguably, the only dangerous cult amongst the six they studied and not representative of other cults or religions.)

This appearance of monolithic agreement is emphasized by communal living. Frankly, I find the idea of communal living unappealing in the extreme. However, many people find it attractive. Communal living also tends to intensify the feelings and appearance of belonging, especially when a commune feels persecuted. Still, as anyone who has studied the Transcendentalists or other 19th century groups can tell you, few communes last with any degree of success. They certainly don't recruit with sustainable long-term results. There's just too much darn work involved.

Bromley and Shupe's most important point--a point that has now become commonplace--is that the brainwashing necessarily for monolithic "thought-control" just isn't that easy, if even possible. (Interestingly enough, although Bromley and Shupe detest the violence and mentally coercive techniques of deprogrammers, they also argue against the supposed "brainwashing" of deprogramming.) It is relatively easy for people to confabulate memories. It is not relatively easy, or even all that possible, to make people believe things they don't want to believe. In other words, even confabulation works because people want it to work. False memories, for instance, almost always bring with them a supposed full explanation of the past, self-justification, extreme individuation (my family doesn't understand me!), and the spotlight. (The truth is, people rarely forget real trauma.)

Even when deprogramming has seemed to work, Bromley and Shupe point out that the deprogrammee (who was never brainwashed to begin with) simply stacks already existent doubts and grievances against the gains of his or her former life "and chooses to play the game" (their emphasis). In other words, the deprogrammee has something personal to gain from being deprogrammed.

I think this goes a long way towards explaining Patty Hearst. I just finished a book about her trial. I was amazed at the willingness of so many people, including the writer, to confuse sympathy for her kidnapping (which I believe did happen) with a desire to let her off for the bank robber(ies). What is most remarkable, however, is Patty Hearst's own desperate desire to ingratiate or deprogram herself back into "normal" society.

Bromley and Shupe believe that this pressure is strongest in families that have the most to lose. They point out that anticultist organizations are often led by people with strong political, financial, and social ties. They desperately need to believe that their children are VICTIMS: neither they nor their children are to blame for the child's rejection of the aforementioned ties. It MUST be brainwashing; therefore, the children MUST be deprogrammed.

The Hearsts had this type of motivation. I consider the writer of the book about Patty Hearst, Shana Alexander, to be rather gullible, but her reporting is complete and honest. She records numerous interviews (with lawyers, psychologists, etc.) in which the interviewees argue that the Hearsts caused Patty more trauma by insisting on the trial than by going for a plea. But going for a plea would land a Hearst in jail. Of course, going for the trial did anyway, but the trial meant the family could go on refusing to admit that Patty actually WANTED to rob banks with the SLA.

Having said that, I don't believe that Patty Hearst was a villain or criminal in the classic sense of the word. I don't believe she would have gone out and robbed banks on her own or even felt compelled to if she'd belonged to a different socioeconomic class. The kidnapping was a catalytic factor. I think it was simply easier for her to live the life she had been introduced to than to think, "I should go home" OR (especially), "I should go do something else on my own." But that doesn't mean she wasn't a free agent, and I think the prosecutor was right to insist that she was.

The truth is: mind-control is something people do to themselves.

Jonathan Creek: Why Season 4 is Better Than Season 3

The major challenge with Jonathan Creek is how to create a mystery show that doesn't rely on deux ex machina explanations.

The whole idea behind a magic trick is that it is a deception. The patter misleads the audience into believing the set-up is legitimate when it isn't. But in a mystery, if it turns out that the entire set-up was a deception (the mystery never happened the way it was explained in the first place), the audience feels cheated.

My immediate response to Jonathan Creek was, "How are they going to avoid the problem of the narrator lying?" After all, the best way to get around most of the mysteries is for Jonathan simply to declare, "The person telling us all this is a huge liar."

I was impressed by how competently the first two seasons dealt with this problem. The mysteries are truly clever with truly clever solutions.

However, in Season 3, reliance on deception/false set-ups becomes too large a component. The end result is complicated, even Gothic narratives that Jonathan uncovers versus clever tricks that he unveils.

The same is true of Season 4. However, Season 4 has two things going for it. One, I quite like Julia Sawalha (I quite like Caroline Quinten too; it's always a toss-up when a replacement comes up, and Sawalha does more than an adequate job; in fact, I think the dialog exchanges between her and Davies are stronger than between Quinten and Davies).

The other thing that Season 4 has going for it is Adam (played by Stuart Milligan). The stunts Adam pulls in Season 4--and the subplots involving Adam--are totally hilarious. Stuart Milligan does a fantastic job playing a complete egoist who is, nevertheless, rather sweet and unpretentious. Oddly enough, I think Stuart Milligan does a better job than Anthony Head would have done even though, in many ways, Milligan is playing "Giles." But Anthony Head, although good as Adam, gave him a creepier edge than Milligan does. Milligan's Adam is really completely guileless with absolutely no dark side.

Milligan does good spots in Seasons 1-2 (he is almost entirely absent from Season 3). He takes over major plotlines in Season 4 and, on more than one occasion, utterly steals the show.

The entire series is worth watching, but if you watch Seasons 1-2, then skip to 4 (like I did because the library didn't have Season 3 at that time, so I ended up watching it later), don't worry, you aren't missing (as much) with Season 3 (although watching Davies is always worth the effort).