Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9)

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Is the girl mad? said my mother, interrupting me.

My sister, with the affectation of a whisper to my mother--This is--
This is spite, Madam, [very spitefully she spoke the word,] because
you commanded her to stay.

I only looked at her, and turning to my mother, Permit me, Madam, said
I, to repeat my request. I have no brother, no sister!--If I ever
lose my mamma's favour, I am lost for ever!

Mr. Solmes removed to his first seat, and fell to gnawing the head of
his hazel; a carved head, almost as ugly as his own--I did not think
the man was so sensible.

My sister rose, with a face all over scarlet; and stepping to the
table, where lay a fan, she took it up, and, although Mr. Solmes had
observed that the weather was cold, fanned herself very violently.

My mother came to me, and angrily taking my hand, led me out of that
parlour into my own; which, you know, is next to it--Is not this
behaviour very bold, very provoking, think you, Clary?

I beg your pardon, Madam, if it has that appearance to you. But
indeed, my dear Mamma, there seem to be snares laying in wait for me.
Too well I know my brother's drift. With a good word he shall have my
consent for all he wishes to worm me out of--neither he, nor my
sister, shall need to take half this pains--

My mother was about to leave me in high displeasure.

I besought her to stay: One favour, but one favour, dearest Madam,
said I, give me leave to beg of you--

What would the girl?

I see how every thing is working about.--I never, never can think of
Mr. Solmes. My papa will be in tumults when he is told that I cannot.
They will judge of the tenderness of your heart to a poor child who
seems devoted by every one else, from the willingness you have already
shewn to hearken to my prayers. There will be endeavours used to
confine me, and keep me out of your presence, and out of the presence
of every one who used to love me [this, my dear Miss Howe, is
threatened]. If this be effected; if it be put out of my power to
plead my own cause, and to appeal to you, and to my uncle Harlowe, of
whom only I have hope; then will every ear be opened against me, and
every tale encouraged--It is, therefore, my humble request, that,
added to the disgraceful prohibitions I now suffer under, you will
not, if you can help it, give way to my being denied your ear.

Your listening Hannah has given you this intelligence, as she does
many others.

My Hannah, Madam, listens not--My Hannah--

No more in Hannah's behalf--Hannah is known to make mischief--Hannah
is known--But no more of that bold intermeddler--'Tis true your father
threatened to confine you to your chamber, if you complied not, in
order the more assuredly to deprive you of the opportunity of
corresponding with those who harden your heart against his will. He
bid me tell you so, when he went out, if I found you refractory. But
I was loth to deliver so harsh a declaration; being still in hope that
you would come down to us in a compliant temper. Hannah has overheard
this, I suppose; and has told you of it; as also, that he declared he
would break your heart, rather than you should break his. And I now
assure you, that you will be confined, and prohibited making teasing
appeals to any of us: and we shall see who is to submit, you to us, or
every body to you.

Again I offered to clear Hannah, and to lay the latter part of the
intelligence to my sister's echo, Betty Barnes, who had boasted of it
to another servant: but I was again bid to be silent on that head. I
should soon find, my mother was pleased to say, that others could be
as determined as I was obstinate: and once for all would add, that
since she saw that I built upon her indulgence, and was indifferent
about involving her in contentions with my father, she would now
assure me, that she was as much determined against Mr. Lovelace, and
for Mr. Solmes and the family schemes, as any body; and would not
refuse her consent to any measures that should be thought necessary to
reduce a stubborn child to her duty.

I was ready to sink. She was so good as to lend me her arm to support
me.

And this, said I, is all I have to hope for from my Mamma?

It is. But, Clary, this one further opportunity I give you--Go in
again to Mr. Solmes, and behave discreetly to him; and let your father
find you together, upon civil terms at least.

My feet moved [of themselves, I think] farther from the parlour where
he was, and towards the stairs; and there I stopped and paused.

If, proceeded she, you are determined to stand in defiance of us all--
then indeed you may go up to your chamber (as you are ready to do)--
And God help you!

God help me, indeed! for I cannot give hope of what I cannot intend--
But let me have your prayers, my dear Mamma!--Those shall have mine,
who have brought me into all this distress.

I was moving to go up--

And will you go up, Clary?

I turned my face to her: my officious tears would needs plead for me:
I could not just then speak, and stood still.

Good girl, distress me not thus!--Dear, good girl, do not thus
distress me! holding out her hand; but standing still likewise.

What can I do, Madam?--What can I do?

Go in again, my child--Go in again, my dear child!--repeated she; and
let your father find you together.

What, Madam, to give him hope?--To give hope to Mr. Solmes?

Obstinate, perverse, undutiful Clarissa! with a rejecting hand, and
angry aspect; then take your own way, and go up!--But stir not down
again, I charge you, without leave, or till your father's pleasure be
known concerning you.

She flung away from me with high indignation: and I went up with a
very heavy heart; and feet as slow as my heart was heavy.

***

My father is come home, and my brother with him. Late as it is, they
are all shut up together. Not a door opens; not a soul stirs.
Hannah, as she moves up and down, is shunned as a person infected.

***

The angry assembly is broken up. My two uncles and my aunt Hervey are
sent for, it seems, to be here in the morning to breakfast. I shall
then, I suppose, know my doom. 'Tis past eleven, and I am ordered not
to go to bed.

TWELVE O'CLOCK.

This moment the keys of every thing are taken from me. It was
proposed to send for me down: but my father said, he could not bear to
look upon me.--Strange alteration in a few weeks!--Shorey was the
messenger. The tears stood in her eyes when she delivered her
message.

You, my dear, are happy--May you always be so--and then I can never be
wholly miserable. Adieu, my beloved friend!

CL. HARLOWE.

LETTER XXII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 5.

Hannah has just brought me from the private place in the garden-wall,
a letter from Mr. Lovelace, deposited last night, signed also by Lord
M.

He tells me in it, 'That Mr. Solmes makes it his boast, that he is to
be married in a few days to one of the shyest women in England: that
my brother explains his meaning: This shy creature, he says, is me;
and he assures every one, that his younger sister is very soon to be
Mr. Solmes's wife. He tells me of the patterns bespoken which my
mother mentioned to me.'

Not one thing escapes him that is done or said in this house.

'My sister, he says, reports the same things; and that with such
particular aggravations of insult upon him, that he cannot but be
extremely piqued, as well at the manner, as from the occasion; and
expresses himself with great violence upon it.

'He knows not, he says, what my relations' inducements can be to
prefer such a man as Solmes to him. If advantageous settlements be
the motive, Solmes shall not offer what he will refuse to comply with.

'As to his estate and family; the first cannot be excepted against:
and for the second, he will not disgrace himself by a comparison so
odious. He appeals to Lord M. for the regularity of his life and
manners ever since he has made his addresses to me, or had hope of my
favour.'

I suppose he would have his Lordship's signing to this letter to be
taken as a voucher for him.

'He desires my leave (in company with my Lord), in a pacific manner,
to attend my father and uncles, in order to make proposals that must
be accepted, if they will see him, and hear what they are: and tells
me, that he will submit to any measures that I shall prescribe, in
order to bring about a reconciliation.'

He presumes to be very earnest with me, 'to give him a private meeting
some night, in my father's garden, attended by whom I please.'

Really, my dear, were you to see his letter, you would think I had
given him great encouragement, and that I am in direct treaty with
him; or that he is sure that my friends will drive me into a foreign
protection; for he has the boldness to offer, in my Lord's name, an
asylum to me, should I be tyrannically treated in Solmes's behalf.

I suppose it is the way of this sex to endeavour to entangle the
thoughtless of ours by bold supposals and offers, in hopes that we
shall be too complaisant or bashful to quarrel with them; and, if not
checked, to reckon upon our silence, as assents voluntarily given, or
concessions made in their favour.

There are other particulars in this letter which I ought to mention to
you: but I will take an opportunity to send you the letter itself, or
a copy of it.

For my own part, I am very uneasy to think how I have been drawn on
one hand, and driven on the other, into a clandestine, in short, into
a mere loverlike correspondence, which my heart condemns.

It is easy to see, if I do not break it off, that Mr. Lovelace's
advantages, by reason of my unhappy situation, will every day
increase, and I shall be more and more entangled. Yet if I do put an
end to it, without making it a condition of being freed from Mr.
Solmes's address--May I, my dear, is it best to continue it a little
longer, in order to extricate myself out of the other difficulty, by
giving up all thoughts of Mr. Lovelace?--Whose advice can I now ask
but yours.

All my relations are met. They are at breakfast together. Mr. Solmes
is expected. I am excessively uneasy. I must lay down my pen.

***

They are all going to church together. Grievously disordered they
appear to be, as Hannah tells me. She believes something is resolved
upon.

SUNDAY NOON.

What a cruel thing is suspense!--I will ask leave to go to church this
afternoon. I expect to be denied. But, if I do not ask, they may
allege, that my not going is owing to myself.

***

I desired to speak with Shorey. Shorey came. I directed her to carry
to my mother my request for permission to go to church this afternoon.
What think you was the return? Tell her, that she must direct herself
to her brother for any favour she has to ask.--So, my dear, I am to be
delivered up to my brother!

I was resolved, however, to ask of him this favour. Accordingly, when
they sent me up my solitary dinner, I gave the messenger a billet, in
which I made it my humble request through him to my father, to be
permitted to go to church this afternoon.

This was the contemptuous answer: 'Tell her, that her request will be
taken into consideration to-morrow.'

Patience will be the fittest return I can make to such an insult. But
this method will not do with me; indeed it will not! And yet it is
but the beginning, I suppose, of what I am to expect from my brother,
now I am delivered up to him.

On recollection, I thought it best to renew my request. I did. The
following is a copy of what I wrote, and what follows that, of the
answer sent me.

SIR,

I know not what to make of the answer brought to my request of being
permitted to go to church this afternoon. If you designed to shew
your pleasantry by it, I hope that will continue; and then my request
will be granted.

You know, that I never absented myself, when well, and at home, till
the two last Sundays; when I was advised not to go. My present
situation is such, that I never more wanted the benefit of the public
prayers.

I will solemnly engage only to go thither, and back again.

I hope it cannot be thought that I would do otherwise.

My dejection of spirits will give a too just excuse on the score of
indisposition for avoiding visits. Nor will I, but by distant
civilities, return the compliments of any of my acquaintances. My
disgraces, if they are to have an end, need not be proclaimed to the
whole world. I ask this favour, therefore, for my reputation's sake,
that I may be able to hold up my head in the neighbourhood, if I live
to see an end of the unmerited severities which seem to be designed
for

Your unhappy sister,
CL. HARLOWE.

TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

For a girl to lay so much stress upon going to church, and yet resolve
to defy her parents, in an article of the greatest consequence to
them, and to the whole family, is an absurdity. You are recommended,
Miss, to the practice of your private devotions. May they be
efficacious upon the mind of one of the most pervicacious young
creatures that ever was heard of! The intention is, I tell you
plainly, to mortify you into a sense of your duty. The neighbours you
are so solicitous to appear well with, already know, that you defy
that. So, Miss, if you have a real value for your reputation, shew it
as you ought. It is yet in your own power to establish or impair it.

JA. HARLOWE.

Thus, my dear Miss Howe, has my brother got me into his snares; and I,
like a poor silly bird, the more I struggle, am the more entangled.

LETTER XXIII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
MONDAY MORNING, MARCH 6.

They are resolved to break my heart. My poor Hannah is discharged--
disgracefully discharged!--Thus it was.

Within half an hour after I had sent the poor girl down for my
breakfast, that bold creature Betty Barnes, my sister's confidant and
servant, (if a favourite maid and confidant can be deemed a servant,)
came up.

What, Miss, will you please to have for breakfast?

I was surprised. What will I have for breakfast, Betty!--How!--What!
--How comes it!--Then I named Hannah. I could not tell what to say.

Don't be surprised, Miss:--but you'll see Hannah no more in this
house.

God forbid!--Is any harm come to Hannah?--What! What is the matter
with Hannah?

Why, Miss, the short and the long is this: Your papa and mamma think
Hannah has staid long enough in the house to do mischief; and so she
is ordered to troop [that was the confident creature's word]; and I am
directed to wait upon you in her stead.

I burst into tears. I have no service for you, Betty Barnes; none at
all. But where is Hannah? Cannot I speak with the poor girl? I owe
her half a year's wages. May I not see the honest creature, and pay
her her wages? I may never see her again perhaps; for they are
resolved to break my heart.

And they think you are resolved to break theirs: so tit for tat, Miss.

Impertinent I called her; and asked her, if it were upon such
confident terms that her service was to begin.

I was so very earnest to see the poor maid, that (to oblige me, as she
said) she went down with my request.

The worthy creature was as earnest to see me; and the favour was
granted in presence of Shorey and Betty.

I thanked her, when she came up, for her past service to me.

Her heart was ready to break. And she began to vindicate her fidelity
and love; and disclaimed any mischief she had ever made.

I told her, that those who occasioned her being turned out of my
service, made no question of her integrity: that her dismission was
intended for an indignity to me: that I was very sorry to be obliged
to part with her, and hoped she would meet with as good a service.

Never, never, wringing her hands, should she meet with a mistress she
loved so well. And the poor creature ran on in my praises, and in
professions of love to me.

We are all apt, you know, my dear, to praise our benefactors, because
they are our benefactors; as if every body did right or wrong, as they
obliged or disobliged us. But this good creature deserved to be
kindly treated; so I could have no merit in favouring one whom it
would have been ungrateful not to distinguish.

I gave her a little linen, some laces, and other odd things; and
instead of four pounds which were due to her, ten guineas: and said,
if ever I were again allowed to be my own mistress, I would think of
her in the first place.

Betty enviously whispered Shorey upon it.

Hannah told me, before their faces, having no other opportunity, that
she had been examined about letters to me, and from me: and that she
had given her pockets to Miss Harlowe, who looked into them, and put
her fingers in her stays, to satisfy herself that she had not any.

She gave me an account of the number of my pheasants and bantams; and
I said, they should be my own care twice or thrice a day.

We wept over each other at parting. The girl prayed for all the
family.

To have so good a servant so disgracefully dismissed, is very cruel:
and I could not help saying that these methods might break my heart,
but not any other way answer the end of the authors of my disgraces.

Betty, with a very saucy fleer, said to Shorey, There would be a trial
of skill about that she fancied. But I took no notice of it. If this
wench thinks that I have robbed her young mistress of a lover, as you
say she has given out, she may believe that it is some degree of merit
in herself to be impertinent to me.

Thus have I been forced to part with my faithful Hannah. If you can
command the good creature to a place worthy of her, pray do for my
sake.

LETTER XXIV

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
MONDAY, NEAR 12 O'CLOCK.

The enclosed letter was just now delivered to me. My brother has
carried all his points.

I send you also the copy of my answer. No more at this time can I
write!--

MONDAY, MAR. 6.

MISS CLARY,

By command of your father and mother I write expressly to forbid you
to come into their presence, or into the garden when they are there:
nor when they are not there, but with Betty Banes to attend you;
except by particular license or command.

On their blessings, you are forbidden likewise to correspond with the
vile Lovelace; as it is well known you did by means of your sly
Hannah. Whence her sudden discharge. As was fit.

Neither are you to correspond with Miss Howe; who has given herself
high airs of late; and might possibly help on your correspondence with
that detested libertine. Nor, in short, with any body without leave.

You are not to enter into the presence of either of your uncles,
without their leave first obtained. It is a mercy to you, after such
a behaviour to your mother, that your father refuses to see you.

You are not to be seen in any apartment of the house you so lately
governed as you pleased, unless you are commanded down.

In short, you are strictly to confine yourself to your chamber, except
now and then, in Betty Barnes's sight (as aforesaid) you take a
morning or evening turn in the garden: and then you are to go
directly, and without stopping at any apartment in the way, up or down
the back stairs, that the sight of so perverse a young creature may
not add to the pain you have given every body.

The hourly threatenings of your fine fellow, as well as your own
unheard-of obstinacy, will account to you for all this. What a hand
has the best and most indulgent of mothers had with you, who so long
pleaded for you, and undertook for you; even when others, from the
manner of your setting out, despaired of moving you!--What must your
perverseness have been, that such a mother can give you up! She
thinks it right so to do: nor will take you to favour, unless you make
the first steps, by a compliance with your duty.

As for myself, whom perhaps you think hardly of [in very good company,
if you do, that is my sole consolation]; I have advised, that you may
be permitted to pursue your own inclinations, (some people need no
greater punishment than such a permission,) and not to have the house
encumbered by one who must give them the more pain for the necessity
she has laid them under of avoiding the sight of her, although in it.

If any thing I have written appear severe or harsh, it is still in
your power (but perhaps will not always be so) to remedy it; and that
by a single word.

Betty Barnes has orders to obey you in all points consistent with her
duty to those whom you owe it, as well as she.

JA. HARLOWE.

TO JAMES HARLOWE, JUNIOR, ESQ.

SIR,

I will only say, That you may congratulate yourself on having so far
succeeded in all your views, that you may report what you please of
me, and I can no more defend myself, than if I were dead. Yet one
favour, nevertheless, I will beg of you. It is this--That you will
not occasion more severities, more disgraces, that are necessary for
carrying into execution your further designs, whatever they be,
against

Your unhappy sister,
CLARISSA HARLOWE.

LETTER XXV

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
TUESDAY, MARCH 7.

By my last deposit, you will see how I am driven, and what a poor
prisoner I am.--No regard had to my reputation. The whole matter is
now before you. Can such measures be supposed to soften?--But surely
they can only mean to try and frighten me into my brother's views!--
All my hope is, to be able to weather this point till my cousin Morden
comes from Florence; and he is soon expected: yet, if they are
determined upon a short day, I doubt he will not be here in time
enough to save me.

It is plain by my brother's letter, that my mother has not spared me,
in the report she was pleased to make of the conference between
herself and me: yet she was pleased to hint to me, that my brother had
views which she would have had me try to disappoint. But indeed she
had engaged to give a faithful account of what was to pass between
herself and me: and it was, doubtless, much more eligible to give up a
daughter, than to disoblige a husband, and every other person of the
family.

They think they have done every thing by turning away my poor Hannah:
but as long as the liberty of the garden, and my poultry-visits, are
allowed me, they will be mistaken.

I asked Mrs. Betty, if she had any orders to watch or attend me; or
whether I was to ask her leave whenever I should be disposed to walk
in the garden, or to go feed my bantams?--Lord bless her! what could I
mean by such a question! Yet she owned, that she had heard, that I
was not to go into the garden, when my father, mother, or uncles were
there.

However, as it behoved me to be assured on this head, I went down
directly, and staid an hour, without question or impediment; and yet a
good part of the time, I walked under and in sight, as I may say, of
my brother's study window, where both he and my sister happened to be.
And I am sure they saw me, by the loud mirth they affected, by way of
insult, as I suppose.

So this part of my restraint was doubtless a stretch of the authority
given him. The enforcing of that may perhaps come next. But I hope
not.

TUESDAY NIGHT.

Since I wrote the above, I ventured to send a letter by Shorey to my
mother. I desired her to give it into her own hand, when nobody was
by.

I shall enclose a copy of it. You will see that I would have it
thought, that now Hannah is gone, I have no way to correspond out of
the house. I am far from thinking all I do right. I am afraid this
is a little piece of art, that is not so. But this is an
afterthought. The letter went first.

HONOURED MADAM,

Having acknowledged to you, that I had received letters from Mr.
Lovelace full of resentment, and that I answered them purely to
prevent further mischief, and having shewn you copies of my answers,
which you did not disapprove of, although you thought fit, after you
had read them, to forbid me any further correspondence with him, I
think it my duty to acquaint you, that another letter from him has
since come to my hand, in which he is very earnest with me to permit
him to wait on my papa, or you, or my two uncles, in a pacific way,
accompanied by Lord M.: on which I beg your commands.

I own to you, Madam, that had not the prohibition been renewed, and
had not Hannah been so suddenly dismissed my service, I should have
made the less scruple to have written an answer, and to have commanded
her to convey it to him, with all speed, in order to dissuade him from
these visits, lest any thing should happen on the occasion that my
heart aches but to think of.

And here I cannot but express my grief, that I should have all the
punishment and all the blame, who, as I have reason to think, have
prevented great mischief, and have not been the occasion of any. For,
Madam, could I be supposed to govern the passions of either of the
gentlemen?--Over the one indeed I have had some little influence,
without giving him hitherto any reason to think he has fastened an
obligation upon me for it.--Over the other, Who, Madam, has any?--I am
grieved at heart, to be obliged to lay so great a blame at my
brother's door, although my reputation and my liberty are both to be
sacrificed to his resentment and ambition. May not, however, so deep
a sufferer be permitted to speak out?

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