Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9)

S >> Samuel Richardson >> Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9)

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

This compliance, I hope, will produce greater, and then the peace of the
family will be restored: which is what is heartily wished by

Your loving uncle,
JOHN HARLOWE.

Unless it be to the purpose our hearts are set upon, you need not write
again.

***

This man have more terror at seeing me, than I can have at seeing him!--
How can that be? If he had half as much, he would not wish to see me!--
His motive love!--Yes, indeed! Love of himself! He knows no other; for
love, that deserves the name, seeks the satisfaction of the beloved
object more than its own. Weighed in this scale, what a profanation is
this man guilty of!

Not to take up my resolution beforehand!--That advice comes too late.

But I must make a discreet use of my pen. That, I doubt, as they have
managed it, in the sense they mean it, is as much out of my power, as the
other.

But write to one man, when I am designed for another!--What a shocking
expression is that!

Repenting of my appointment with Mr. Lovelace before I had this favour
granted me, you may believe I hesitated not a moment to revoke it now
that I had gained such a respite. Accordingly, I wrote, 'That I found it
inconvenient to meet him, as I had intended: that the risque I should run
of a discovery, and the mischiefs that might flow from it, could not be
justified by any end that such a meeting could answer: that I found one
certain servant more in my way, when I took my morning and evening
airings, than any other: that the person who might reveal the secrets of
a family to him, might, if opportunity were given him, betray me, or him,
to those whom it was his duty to serve: that I had not been used to a
conduct so faulty, as to lay myself at the mercy of servants: and was
sorry he had measures to pursue, that made steps necessary in his own
opinion, which, in mine, were very culpable, and which no end could
justify: that things drawing towards a crisis between my friends and me,
an interview could avail nothing; especially as the method by which this
correspondence was carried on was not suspected, and he could write all
that was in his mind to write: that I expected to be at liberty to judge
of what was proper and fit upon this occasion: especially as he might be
assured, that I would sooner choose death, than Mr. Solmes.'

TUESDAY NIGHT.

I have deposited my letter to Mr. Lovelace. Threatening as things look
against me, I am much better pleased with myself for declining the
interview than I was before. I suppose he will be a little out of humour
upon it, however: but as I reserved to myself the liberty of changing my
mind; and as it is easy for him to imagine there may be reasons for it
within-doors, which he cannot judge of without; besides those I have
suggested, which of themselves are of sufficient weight to engage his
acquiescence; I should think it strange, if he acquiesces not on this
occasion, and that with a cheerfulness, which may shew me, that his last
letter is written from his heart: For, if he be really so much concerned
at his past faults, as he pretends, and has for some time pretended, must
he not, of course, have corrected, in some degree, the impetuosity of his
temper? The first step to reformation, as I conceive, is to subdue
sudden gusts of passion, from which frequently the greatest evils arise,
and to learn to bear disappointments. If the irascible passions cannot
be overcome, what opinion can we have of the person's power over those to
which bad habit, joined to greater temptation, gives stronger force?

Pray, my dear, be so kind as to make inquiry, by some safe hand, after
the disguises Mr. Lovelace assumes at the inn he puts up at in the poor
village of Neale, he calls it. If it be the same I take it to be, I
never knew it was considerable enough to have a name; nor that it has an
inn in it.

As he must, to be so constantly near us, be much there, I would be glad
to have some account of his behaviour; and what the people think of him.
In such a length of time, he must by his conduct either give scandal, or
hope of reformation. Pray, my dear, humour me in this inquiry. I have
reason for it, which you shall be acquainted with another time, if the
result of the inquiry discover them not.

LETTER XX

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
WEDNESDAY MORNING, NINE O'CLOCK.

I am just returned from my morning walk, and already have received a
letter from Mr. Lovelace in answer to mine deposited last night. He must
have had pen, ink, and paper with him; for it was written in the coppice;
with this circumstance: On one knee, kneeling with the other. Not from
reverence to the written to, however, as you'll find!

Well we are instructed early to keep these men at distance. An
undesigning open heart, where it is loth to disoblige, is easily drawn
in, I see, to oblige more than ever it designed. It is too apt to govern
itself by what a bold spirit is encouraged to expect of it. It is very
difficult for a good-natured young person to give a negative where it
disesteems not.

Our hearts may harden and contract, as we gain experience, and when we
have smarted perhaps for our easy folly: and so they ought, or we should
be upon very unequal terms with the world.

Excuse these grave reflections. This man has vexed me heartily. I see
his gentleness was art: fierceness, and a temper like what I have been
too much used to at home, are Nature in him. Nothing, I think, shall
ever make me forgive him; for, surely, there can be no good reason for
his impatience on an expectation given with reserve, and revocable.--I so
much to suffer through him; yet, to be treated as if I were obliged to
bear insults from him!--

But here you will be pleased to read his letter; which I shall enclose.

TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

GOOD GOD!

What is now to become of me!--How shall I support this disappointment!--
No new cause!--On one knee, kneeling with the other, I write!--My feet
benumbed with midnight wanderings through the heaviest dews that ever
fell: my wig and my linen dripping with the hoar frost dissolving on
them!--Day but just breaking--Sun not risen to exhale--May it never rise
again!--Unless it bring healing and comfort to a benighted soul! In
proportion to the joy you had inspired (ever lovely promiser!) in such
proportion is my anguish!

O my beloved creature!--But are not your very excuses confessions of
excuses inexcusable? I know not what I write!--That servant in your
way!* By the great God of Heaven, that servant was not, dared not, could
not, be in your way!--Curse upon the cool caution that is pleased to
deprive me of an expectation so transporting!

* See Letter XIX.

And are things drawing towards a crisis between your friends and you?--Is
not this a reason for me to expect, the rather to expect, the promised
interview?

CAN I write all that is in my mind, say you?--Impossible!--Not the
hundredth part of what is in my mind, and in my apprehension, can I
write!

Oh! the wavering, the changeable sex!--But can Miss Clarissa Harlowe--

Forgive me, Madam!--I know not what I write!

Yet, I must, I do, insist upon your promise--or that you will condescend
to find better excuses for the failure--or convince me, that stronger
reasons are imposed upon you, than those you offer.--A promise once given
(upon deliberation given,) the promised only can dispense with; except in
cases of a very apparent necessity imposed upon the promiser, which
leaves no power to perform it.

The first promise you ever made me! Life and death perhaps depending
upon it--my heart desponding from the barbarous methods resolved to be
taken with you in malice to me!

You would sooner choose death than Solmes. (How my soul spurns the
competition!) O my beloved creature, what are these but words?--Whose
words?--Sweet and ever adorable--What?--Promise breaker--must I call
you?--How shall I believe the asseveration, (your supposed duty in the
question! Persecution so flaming!--Hatred to me so strongly avowed!)
after this instance of you so lightly dispensing with your promise?

If, my dearest life! you would prevent my distraction, or, at least,
distracted consequences, renew the promised hope!--My fate is indeed upon
its crisis.

Forgive me, dearest creature, forgive me!--I know I have written in too
much anguish of mind!--Writing this, in the same moment that the just
dawning light has imparted to me the heavy disappointment.

I dare not re-peruse what I have written. I must deposit it. It may
serve to shew you my distracted apprehension that this disappointment is
but a prelude to the greatest of all.--Nor, having here any other paper,
am I able to write again, if I would, on this gloomy spot. (Gloomy is my
soul; and all Nature around me partakes of my gloom!)--I trust it
therefore to your goodness--if its fervour excite your displeasure rather
than your pity, you wrong my passion; and I shall be ready to apprehend,
that I am intended to be the sacrifice of more miscreants than one! [Have
patience with me, dearest creature!--I mean Solmes and your brother
only.] But if, exerting your usual generosity, you will excuse and re
appoint, may that God, whom you profess to serve, and who is the God of
truth and of promises, protect and bless you, for both; and for restoring
to himself, and to hope,

Your ever-adoring,
yet almost desponding,
LOVELACE!

Ivy Cavern, in the Coppice--
Day but just breaking.

***

This is the answer I shall return:

WEDNESDAY MORNING.

I am amazed, Sir, at the freedom of your reproaches. Pressed and teased,
against convenience and inclination, to give you a private meeting, am I
to be thus challenged and upbraided, and my sex reflected upon, because I
thought it prudent to change my mind?--A liberty I had reserved to
myself, when I made the appointment, as you call it. I wanted not
instances of your impatient spirit to other people: yet may it be happy
for me, that I can have this new one; which shows, that you can as little
spare me, when I pursue the dictates of my own reason, as you do others,
for acting up to theirs. Two motives you must be governed by in this
excess. The one my easiness; the other your own presumption. Since you
think you have found out the first, and have shown so much of the last
upon it, I am too much alarmed, not to wish and desire, that your letter
of this day may conclude all the trouble you had from, or for,

Your humble servant,
CL. HARLOWE.

***

I believe, my dear, I may promise myself your approbation, whenever I
write or speak with spirit, be it to whom it will. Indeed, I find but
too much reason to exert it, since I have to deal with people, who
govern themselves in their conduct to me, not by what is fit or decent,
right or wrong, but by what they think my temper will bear. I have, till
very lately, been praised for mine; but it has always been by those who
never gave me opportunity to return the compliment to them. Some people
have acted, as if they thought forbearance on one side absolutely
necessary for them and me to be upon good terms together; and in this
case have ever taken care rather to owe that obligation than to lay it.
You have hinted to me, that resentment is not natural to my temper, and
that therefore it must soon subside: it may be so with respect to my
relations; but not to Mr. Lovelace, I assure you.

WEDNESDAY NOON, MARCH 29.

We cannot always answer for what we can do: but to convince you, that I
can keep my above resolution, with regard to Mr. Lovelace, angry as my
letter is, and three hours since it was written, I assure you, that I
repent it not; nor will soften it, although I find it is not taken away.
And yet I hardly ever before did any thing in anger, that I did not
repent in half an hour; and question myself in less that that time,
whether I was right or wrong.

In this respite till Tuesday, I have a little time to look about me, as I
may say, and to consider of what I have to do, and can do. And Mr.
Lovelace's insolence will make me go very home with myself. Not that I
think I can conquer my aversion to Mr. Solmes. I am sure I cannot. But,
if I absolutely break with Mr. Lovelace, and give my friends convincing
proofs of it, who knows but they will restore me to their favour, and let
their views in relation to the other man go off by degrees?--Or, at
least, that I may be safe till my cousin Morden arrives: to whom, I
think, I will write; and the rather, as Mr. Lovelace has assured me, that
my friends have written to him to make good their side of the question.

But, with all my courage, I am exceedingly apprehensive about the Tuesday
next, and about what may result from my steadfastness; for steadfast I am
sure I shall be. They are resolved, I am told, to try every means to
induce me to comply with what they are determined upon. And I am
resolved to do all I can to avoid what they would force me to do. A
dreadful contention between parents and child!--Each hoping to leave the
other without excuse, whatever the consequence may be.

What can I do? Advise me, my dear. Something is strangely wrong
somewhere! to make parents, the most indulgent till now, seem cruel in a
child's eye; and a daughter, till within these few weeks, thought
unexceptionably dutiful, appear, in their judgment, a rebel!--Oh! my
ambitious and violent brother! What may he have to answer for to both!

Be pleased to remember, my dear, that your last favour was dated on
Saturday. This is Wednesday: and none of mine have been taken away
since. Don't let me want you advice. My situation is extremely
difficult.--But I am sure you love me still: and not the less on that
account. Adieu, my beloved friend.

CL. HARLOWE.

LETTER XXI

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
THURSDAY MORNING, DAY-BREAK, MARCH 30.

An accident, and not remissness, has occasioned my silence.

My mother was sent for on Sunday night by her cousin Larkin, whom I
mentioned in one of my former, and who was extremely earnest to see her.

This poor woman was always afraid of death, and was one of those weak
persons who imagine that the making of their will must be an undoubted
forerunner of it.

She had always said, when urged to the necessary work, That whenever she
made it, she should not live long after; and, one would think, imagined
she was under an obligation to prove her words: for, though she had been
long bed-rid, and was, in a manner, worn out before, yet she thought
herself better, till she was persuaded to make it: and from that moment,
remembering what she used to prognosticate, (her fears, helping on what
she feared, as is often the case, particularly in the small-pox,) grew
worse; and had it in her head once to burn her will, in hopes to grow
better upon it.

She sent my mother word, that the doctors had given her over: but that
she could not die till she saw her. I told my mother, That if she wished
her a chance for recovery, she should not, for that reason, go. But go
she would; and, what was worse, would make me go with her; and that, at
an hour's warning; for she said nothing of it to me, till she was rising
in the morning early, resolving to return again at night. Had there been
more time for argumentation, to be sure I had not gone; but as it was,
there was a kind of necessity that my preparation to obey her, should, in
a manner, accompany her command.--A command so much out of the way, on
such a solemn occasion! And this I represented: but to no purpose: There
never was such a contradicting girl in the world--My wisdom always made
her a fool!--But she would be obliged this time, proper or improper.

I have but one way of accounting for this sudden whim of my mother; and
that is this--She had a mind to accept of Mr. Hickman's offer to escort
her:--and I verily believe [I wish I were quite sure of it] had a mind to
oblige him with my company--as far as I know, to keep me out of worse.

For, would you believe it?--as sure as you are alive, she is afraid for
her favourite Hickman, because of the long visit your Lovelace, though so
much by accident, made me in her absence, last time she was at the same
place. I hope, my dear, you are not jealous too. But indeed I now-and-
then, when she teases me with praises which Hickman cannot deserve, in
return fall to praising those qualities and personalities in Lovelace,
which the other never will have. Indeed I do love to tease a little bit,
that I do.--My mamma's girl--I had like to have said.

As you know she is as passionate, as I am pert, you will not wonder to be
told, that we generally fall out on these occasions. She flies from me,
at the long run. It would be undutiful in me to leave her first--and
then I get an opportunity to pursue our correspondence.

For, now I am rambling, let me tell you, that she does not much favour
that;--for two reasons, I believe:--One, that I don't shew her all that
passes between us; the other, that she thinks I harden your mind against
your duty, as it is called. And with her, for a reason at home, as I
have hinted more than once, parents cannot do wrong; children cannot
oppose, and be right. This obliges me now-and-then to steal an hour, as
I may say, and not let her know how I am employed.

You may guess from what I have written, how averse I was to comply with
such an unreasonable stretch of motherly authority. But it came to be a
test of duty; so I was obliged to yield, though with a full persuasion of
being in the right.

I have always your reproofs upon these occasions: in your late letters
stronger than ever. A good reason why, you'll say, because more deserved
than ever. I thank you kindly for your correction. I hope to make
correction of it. But let me tell you, that your stripes, whether
deserved or not, have made me sensible, deeper than the skin--but of this
another time.

It was Monday afternoon before we reached the old lady's house. That
fiddling, parading fellow [you know who I mean] made us wait for him two
hours, and I to go to a journey I disliked! only for the sake of having a
little more tawdry upon his housings; which he had hurried his sadler to
put on, to make him look fine, being to escort his dear Madam Howe, and
her fair daughter. I told him, that I supposed he was afraid, that the
double solemnity in the case (that of the visit to a dying woman, and
that of his own countenance) would give him the appearance of an
undertaker; to avoid which, he ran into as bad an extreme, and I doubted
would be taken for a mountebank.

The man was confounded. He took it as strongly, as if his conscience
gave assent to the justice of the remark: otherwise he would have borne
it better; for he is used enough to this sort of treatment. I thought he
would have cried. I have heretofore observed, that on this side of the
contract, he seems to be a mighty meek sort of creature. And though I
should like it in him hereafter perhaps, yet I can't help despising him
a little in my heart for it now. I believe, my dear, we all love your
blustering fellows best; could we but direct the bluster, and bid it roar
when and at whom we pleased.

The poor man looked at my mother. She was so angry, (my airs upon it,
and my opposition to the journey, have all helped,) that for half the way
she would not speak to me. And when she did, it was, I wish I had not
brought you! You know not what it is to condescend. It is my fault, not
Mr. Hickman's, that you are here so much against your will. Have you no
eyes for this side of the chariot?

And then he fared the better from her, as he always does, for faring
worse from me: for there was, How do you now, Sir? And how do you now,
Mr. Hickman? as he ambled now on this side of the chariot, now on that,
stealing a prim look at me; her head half out of the chariot, kindly
smiling, as if married to the man but a fortnight herself: while I always
saw something to divert myself on the side of the chariot where the
honest man was not, were it but old Robin at a distance, on his roan
Keffel.

Our courtship-days, they say, are our best days. Favour destroys
courtship. Distance increases it. Its essence is distance. And, to see
how familiar these men-wretches grow upon a smile, what an awe they are
struck into when we frown; who would not make them stand off? Who would
not enjoy a power, that is to be short-lived?

Don't chide me one bit for this, my dear. It is in nature. I can't help
it. Nay, for that matter, I love it, and wish not to help it. So spare
your gravity, I beseech you on this subject. I set up not for a perfect
character. The man will bear it. And what need you care? My mother
overbalances all he suffers: And if he thinks himself unhappy, he ought
never to be otherwise.

Then did he not deserve a fit of the sullens, think you, to make us lose
our dinner for his parade, since in so short a journey my mother would
not bait, and lose the opportunity of coming back that night, had the old
lady's condition permitted it? To say nothing of being the cause, that
my mamma was in the glout with her poor daughter all the way.

At our alighting I gave him another dab; but it was but a little one.
Yet the manner, and the air, made up (as I intended they should) for that
defect. My mother's hand was kindly put into his, with a simpering
altogether bridal; and with another How do you now, Sir?--All his plump
muscles were in motion, and a double charge of care and obsequiousness
fidgeted up his whole form, when he offered to me his officious palm. My
mother, when I was a girl, always bid me hold up my head. I just then
remembered her commands, and was dutiful--I never held up my head so
high. With an averted supercilious eye, and a rejecting hand, half
flourishing--I have no need of help, Sir!--You are in my way.

He ran back, as if on wheels; with a face excessively mortified: I had
thoughts else to have followed the too-gentle touch, with a declaration,
that I had as many hands and feet as himself. But this would have been
telling him a piece of news, as to the latter, that I hope he had not the
presumption to guess at.

***

We found the poor woman, as we thought, at the last gasp. Had we come
sooner, we could not have got away as we intended, that night. You see I
am for excusing the man all I can; and yet, I assure you, I have not so
much as a conditional liking to him. My mother sat up most part of the
night, expecting every hour would have been her poor cousin's last. I
bore her company till two.

I never saw the approaches of death in a grown person before; and was
extremely shocked. Death, to one in health, is a very terrible thing.
We pity the person for what she suffers: and we pity ourselves for what
we must some time hence in like sort suffer; and so are doubly affected.

She held out till Tuesday morning, eleven. As she had told my mother
that she had left her an executrix, and her and me rings and mourning; we
were employed all that day in matters of the will [by which, by the way,
my own cousin Jenny Fynnett is handsomely provided for], so that it was
Wednesday morning early, before we could set out on our return.

It is true, we got home (having no housings to stay for) by noon: but
though I sent Robin away before he dismounted, (who brought me back a
whole packet, down to the same Wednesday noon,) yet was I really so
fatigued, and shocked, as I must own, at the hard death of the old lady;
my mother likewise (who has no reason to dislike this world) being
indisposed from the same occasion; that I could not set about writing
time enough for Robin's return that night.

But having recruited my spirits, my mother having also had a good night,
I arose with the dawn, to write this, and get it dispatched time enough
for your breakfast airing; that your suspense might be as short as
possible.

***

I will soon follow this with another. I will employ a person directly to
find out how Lovelace behaves himself at his inn. Such a busy spirit
must be traceable.

But, perhaps, my dear, you are indifferent now about him, or his
employments; for this request was made before he mortally offended you.
Nevertheless, I will have inquiry made. The result, it is very probable,
will be of use to confirm you in your present unforgiving temper.--And
yet, if the poor man [shall I pity him for you, my dear?] should be
deprived of the greatest blessing any man on earth can receive, and to
which he has the presumption, with so little merit, to aspire; he will
have run great risks; caught great colds; hazarded fevers; sustained the
highest indignities; braved the inclemencies of skies, and all for--
nothing!--Will not this move your generosity (if nothing else) in his
favour!--Poor Mr. Lovelace!--

I would occasion no throb; nor half-throb; no flash of sensibility, like
lightning darting in, and as soon suppressed by a discretion that no one
of the sex ever before could give such an example of--I would not, I say;
and yet, for such a trial of you to yourself, rather than as an
impertinent overflow of raillery in your friend, as money-takers try a
suspected guinea by the sound, let me on such a supposition, sound you,
by repeating, poor Mr. Lovelace!

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24