Of course that’s not how The Times puts it, at least not in the headline or intro – using instead “lost lover” and “Deb the maid” … and they wonder why they have trouble getting and keeping women readers.
Nonetheless, there is an interesting story, even if it is one, quite likely, of continuing abuse by a much older man of a young woman almost entirely within his power.
Research now shows that Pepys re-established contact with the maid’s family three years later and suggests that the dirty diarist had the opportunity to resume the affair….
Willet married Jeremiah Wells, a theology graduate, in January 1670. Wells soon wrote to Pepys to ask if the writer could use his contacts in the Royal Navy to get him a job. Pepys obliged, securing Wells a job as a ship’s chaplain. The diarist therefore knew not only where his old flame lived, but also that her husband was away at sea.
Dr Loveman said that there was no direct evidence that Pepys returned to his mistress, but it would not have been out of character. “Given Pepys’s past obsession with Deb, his continued contact with her family raises suspicions about the nature of their relationship,†she said.
About