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

The following is a copy of it:

TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ.

MY DEAR AND EVER-HONOURED UNCLE,

I have nobody now but you, to whom I can apply, with hope, so much as to
have my humble addresses opened and read. My aunt Hervey has given me
commands which I want to have explained; but she has forbid me writing to
her. Hereupon I took the liberty to write to my father and mother. You
will see, Sir, by the torn one, and by the other, (both unopened,) what
has been the result. This, Sir, perhaps you already know: but, as you
know not the contents of the disgraced letters, I beseech you to read
them both, that you may be a witness for me, that they are not filled
with either complaints or expostulations, nor contain any thing
undutiful. Give me leave to say, Sir, that if deaf-eared anger will
neither grant me a hearing, nor, what I write a perusal, some time hence
the hard-heartedness may be regretted. I beseech you, dear, good Sir, to
let me know what is meant by sending me to my uncle Antony's house,
rather than to yours, or to my aunt Hervey's, or else-where? If it be
for what I apprehend it to be, life will not be supportable upon the
terms. I beg also to know, WHEN I am to be turned out of doors!--My
heart strongly gives me, that if once I am compelled to leave this house,
I never shall see it more.

It becomes me, however, to declare, that I write not this through
perverseness, or in resentment. God knows my heart, I do not! But the
treatment I apprehend I shall meet with, if carried to my other uncle's,
will, in all probability, give the finishing stroke to the distresses,
the undeserved distresses I will be bold to call them, of

Your once highly-favoured,
but now unhappy,
CL. HARLOWE.

LETTER XVI

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
MONDAY MORNING, MARCH 27.

This morning early my uncle Harlowe came hither. He sent up the enclosed
very tender letter. It has made me wish I could oblige him. You will
see how Mr. Solmes's ill qualities are glossed over in it. What
blemishes dies affection hide!--But perhaps they may say to me, What
faults does antipathy bring to light!

Be pleased to send me back this letter of my uncle by the first return.

SUNDAY NIGHT, OR RATHER MINDAY MORNING.

I must answer you, though against my own resolution. Every body loves
you; and you know they do. The very ground you walk upon is dear to
most of us. But how can we resolve to see you? There is no standing
against your looks and language. It is our loves makes us decline to see
you. How can we, when you are resolved not to do what we are resolved
you shall do? I never, for my part, loved any creature, as I loved you
from your infancy till now. And indeed, as I have often said, never was
there a young creature so deserving of our love. But what is come to you
now! Alas! alas! my dear kinswoman, how you fail in the trial!

I have read the letters you enclosed. At a proper time, I may shew them
to my brother and sister: but they will receive nothing from you at
present.

For my part, I could not read your letter to me, without being unmanned.
How can you be so unmoved yourself, yet so able to move every body else?
How could you send such a letter to Mr. Solmes? Fie upon you! How
strangely are you altered!

Then to treat your brother and sister as you did, that they don't care to
write to you, or to see you! Don't you know where it is written, That
soft answers turn away wrath? But if you will trust to you sharp-pointed
wit, you may wound. Yet a club will beat down a sword: And how can you
expect that they who are hurt by you will not hurt you again? Was this
the way you used to take to make us all adore you as we did?--No, it was
your gentleness of heart and manners, that made every body, even
strangers, at first sight, treat you as a lady, and call you a lady,
though not born one, while your elder sister had no such distinctions
paid her. If you were envied, why should you sharpen envy, and file up
its teeth to an edge?--You see I write like an impartial man, and as one
that loves you still.

But since you have displayed your talents, and spared nobody, and moved
every body, without being moved, you have but made us stand the closer
and firmer together. This is what I likened to an embattled phalanx,
once before. Your aunt Hervey forbids your writing for the same reason
that I must not countenance it. We are all afraid to see you, because we
know we shall be made as so many fools. Nay, your mother is so afraid of
you, that once or twice, when she thought you were coming to force
yourself into her presence, she shut the door, and locked herself in,
because she knew she must not see you upon your terms, and you are
resolved you will not see her upon hers.

Resolves but to oblige us all, my dearest Miss Clary, and you shall see
how we will clasp you every one by turns to our rejoicing hearts. If the
one man has not the wit, and the parts, and the person, of the other, no
one breathing has a worse heart than that other: and is not the love of
all your friends, and a sober man (if he be not so polished) to be
preferred to a debauchee, though ever so fine a man to look at? You have
such talents that you will be adored by the one: but the other has as
much advantage in those respects, as you have yourself, and will not set
by them one straw: for husbands are sometimes jealous of their authority
with witty wives. You will have in one, a man of virtue. Had you not
been so rudely affronting to him, he would have made your ears tingle
with what he could have told you of the other.

Come, my dear niece, let me have the honour of doing with you what no
body else yet has been able to do. Your father, mother, and I, will
divide the pleasure, and the honour, I will again call it, between us;
and all past offences shall be forgiven; and Mr. Solmes, we will engage,
shall take nothing amiss hereafter, of what has passed.

He knows, he says, what a jewel that man will have, who can obtain your
favour; and he will think light of all he has suffered, or shall suffer,
in obtaining you.

Dear, sweet creature, oblige us: and oblige us with a grace. It must be
done, whether with a grace or not. I do assure you it must. You must
not conquer father, mother, uncles, every body: depend upon that.

I have set up half the night to write this. You do not know how I am
touched at reading yours, and writing this. Yet will I be at Harlowe-
place early in the morning. So, upon reading this, if you will oblige us
all, send me word to come up to your apartment: and I will lead you down,
and present you to the embraces of every one: and you will then see, you
have more of a brother and sister in them both, than of late your
prejudices will let you think you have. This from one who used to love
to style himself,

Your paternal uncle,
JOHN HARLOWE.

***

In about an hour after this kind letter was given me, my uncle sent up to
know, if he should be a welcome visiter, upon the terms mentioned in his
letter? He bid Betty bring him down a verbal answer: a written one, he
said, would be a bad sign: and he bid her therefore not to bring a
letter. But I had just finished the enclosed transcription of one I had
been writing. She made a difficulty to carry it; but was prevailed upon
to oblige me by a token which these Mrs. Betty's cannot withstand.

DEAR AND HONOURED SIR,

How you rejoice me by your condescending goodness!--So kind, so paternal
a letter!--so soothing to a wounded heart; and of late what I have been
so little used to!--How am I affected with it! Tell me not, dear Sir, of
my way of writing: your letter has more moved me, than I have been able
to move any body!--It has made me wish, with all my heart, that I could
entitle myself to be visited upon your own terms; and to be led down to
my father and mother by so good and so kind an uncle.

I will tell you, dearest Uncle, what I will do to make my peace. I have
no doubt that Mr. Solmes, upon consideration, would greatly prefer my
sister to such a strange averse creature as me. His chief, or one of his
chief motives in his address to me, is, as I have reason to believe, the
contiguity of my grandfather's estate to his own. I will resign it; for
ever I will resign it: and the resignation must be good, because I will
never marry at all. I will make it over to my sister, and her heirs for
ever. I shall have no heirs, but my brother and her; and I will receive,
as of my father's bounty, such an annuity (not in lieu of the estate, but
as of his bounty) as he shall be pleased to grant me, if it be ever so
small: and whenever I disoblige him, he to withdraw it, at his pleasure.

Will this not be accepted?--Surely it must--surely it will!--I beg of
you, dearest Sir, to propose it; and second it with your interest. This
will answer every end. My sister has a high opinion of Mr. Solmes. I
never can have any in the light he is proposed to me. But as my sister's
husband, he will be always entitled to my respect; and shall have it.

If this be accepted, grant me, Sir, the honour of a visit; and do me then
the inexpressible pleasure of leading me down to the feet of my honoured
parents, and they shall find me the most dutiful of children; and to the
arms of my brother and sister, and they shall find me the most obliging
and most affectionate of sisters.

I wait, Sir, for your answer to this proposal, made with the whole heart of

Your dutiful and most obliged niece,
CL. HARLOWE.

MONDAY NOON.

I hope this will be accepted: for Betty tells me, that my uncle Antony
and my aunt Hervey are sent for; and not Mr. Solmes; which I look upon as
a favourable circumstance. With what cheerfulness will I assign over
this envied estate!--What a much more valuable consideration shall I part
with it for!--The love and favour of all my relations! That love and
favour, which I used for eighteen years together to rejoice in, and be
distinguished by!--And what a charming pretence will this afford me of
breaking with Mr. Lovelace! And how easily will it possibly make him to
part with me!

I found this morning, in the usual place, a letter from him, in answer, I
suppose, to mine of Friday, which I deposited not till Saturday. But I
have not opened it; nor will I, till I see what effect this new offer
will have.

Let me but be permitted to avoid the man I hate; and I will give up with
cheerfulness the man I could prefer. To renounce the one, were I really
to value him as much as you seem to imagine, can give but a temporary
concern, which time and discretion will alleviate. This is a sacrifice
which a child owes to parents and friends, if they insist upon its being
made. But the other, to marry a man one cannot endure, is not only a
dishonest thing, as to the man; but it is enough to make a creature who
wishes to be a good wife, a bad or indifferent one, as I once wrote to
the man himself: and then she can hardly be either a good mistress, or a
good friend; or any thing but a discredit to her family, and a bad
example to all around her.

Methinks I am loth, in the suspense I am in at present, to deposit this,
because it will be leaving you in one as great: but having been prevented
by Betty's officiousness twice, I will now go down to my little poultry;
and, if I have an opportunity, will leave it in the usual place, where I
hope to find something from you.

LETTER XVII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
MONDAY AFTERNOON, MARCH 27.

I have deposited my narrative down to this day noon; but I hope soon to
follow it with another letter, that I may keep you as little a while as
possible in that suspense which I am so much affected by at this moment:
for my heart is disturbed at ever foot I hear stir; and at every door
below that I hear open or shut.

They have been all assembled some time, and are in close debate I
believe: But can there be room for long debate upon a proposal, which, if
accepted, will so effectually answer all their views?--Can they insist a
moment longer upon my having Mr. Solmes, when they see what sacrifices I
am ready to make, to be freed from his addresses?--Oh! but I suppose the
struggle is, first, with Bella's nicety, to persuade her to accept of the
estate, and of the husband; and next, with her pride, to take her
sister's refusals, as she once phrased it!--Or, it may be, my brother is
insisting upon equivalents for his reversion in the estate: and these
sort of things take up but too much the attention of some of our family.
To these, no doubt, one or both, it must be owing, that my proposal
admits of so much consideration.

I want, methinks, to see what Mr. Lovelace, in his letter, says. But I
will deny myself this piece of curiosity till that which is raised by my
present suspense is answered.--Excuse me, my dear, that I thus trouble
you with my uncertainties: but I have no employment, nor heart, if I had,
to pursue any other but what my pen affords me.

MONDAY EVENING.

Would you believe it?--Betty, by anticipation, tells me, that I am to be
refused. I am 'a vile, artful creature. Every body is too good to me.
My uncle Harlowe has been taken in, that's the phrase. They know how it
would be, if he either wrote to me, or saw me. He has, however, been
made ashamed to be so wrought upon. A pretty thing truly in the eye of
the world it would be, were they to take me at my word! It would look as
if they had treated me thus hardly, as I think it, for this very purpose.
My peculiars, particularly Miss Howe, would give it that turn; and I
myself could mean nothing by it, but to see if it would be accepted in
order to strengthen my own arguments against Mr. Solmes. It was amazing,
that it could admit of a moment's deliberation: that any thing could be
supposed to be done in it. It was equally against law and equity: and a
fine security Miss Bella would have, or Mr. Solmes, when I could resume
it when I would!--My brother and she my heirs! O the artful creature!--I
to resolve to live single, when Lovelace is so sure of me--and every
where declares as much!--and can whenever he pleases, if my husband,
claim under the will!--Then the insolence--the confidence--[as Betty
mincingly told me, that one said; you may easily guess who] that she, who
was so justly in disgrace for downright rebellion, should pretend to
prescribe to the whole family!--Should name a husband for her elder
sister!--What a triumph would her obstinacy go away with, to delegate her
commands, not as from a prison, as she called it, but as from her throne,
to her elders and betters; and to her father and mother too!--Amazing,
perfectly amazing, that any body could argue upon such a proposal as
this! It was a master-stroke of finesse--It was ME in perfection!--
Surely my uncle Harlowe will never again be so taken in!'

All this was the readier told me, because it was against me, and would
tease and vex me. But as some of this fine recapitulation implied, that
somebody spoke up for me. I was curious to know who it was. But Betty
would not tell me, for fear I should have the consolation to find that
all were not against me.

But do you not see, my dear, what a sad creature she is whom you honour
with your friendship?--You could not doubt your influence over me: Why
did you not take the friendly liberty I have always taken with you, and
tell me my faults, and what a specious hypocrite I am? For, if my
brother and sister could make such discoveries, how is it possible, that
faults to enormous [you could see others, you thought, of a more secret
nature!] could escape you penetrating eye?

Well, but now, it seems, they are debating how and by whom to answer me:
for they know not, nor are they to know, that Mrs. Betty has told me all
these fine things. One desires to be excused, it seems: another chooses
not to have any thing to say to me: another has enough of me: and of
writing to so ready a scribbler, there will be no end.

Thus are those imputed qualifications, which used so lately to gain me
applause, now become my crimes: so much do disgust and anger alter the
property of things.

The result of their debate, I suppose, will somehow or other be
communicated to me by-and-by. But let me tell you, my dear, that I am
made so desperate, that I am afraid to open Mr. Lovelace's letter, lest,
in the humour I am in, I should do something (if I find it not
exceptionable) that may give me repentance as long as I live.

MONDAY NIGHT.

This moment the following letter is brought me by Betty.

MONDAY, 5 O'CLOCK

MISS CUNNING-ONE,

Your fine new proposal is thought unworthy of a particular answer. Your
uncle Harlowe is ashamed to be so taken in. Have you no new fetch for
your uncle Antony? Go round with us, child, now your hand's in. But I
was bid to write only one line, that you might not complain, as you did
of your worthy sister, for the freedoms you provoked: It is this--Prepare
yourself. To-morrow you go to my uncle Antony's. That's all, child.

JAMES HARLOWE.

I was vexed to the heart at this: and immediately, in the warmth of
resentment, wrote the enclosed to my uncle Harlowe; who it seems stays
here this night.

TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ.
MONDAY NIGHT.

HONOURED SIR,

I find I am a very sad creature, and did not know it. I wrote not to my
brother. To you, Sir, I wrote. From you I hope the honour of an answer.
No one reveres her uncle more than I do. Nevertheless, between uncle and
niece, excludes not such a hope: and I think I have not made a proposal
that deserves to be treated with scorn.

Forgive me, Sir--my heart is full. Perhaps one day you may think you
have been prevailed upon (for that is plainly the case!) to join to treat
me--as I do not deserve to be treated. If you are ashamed, as my brother
hints, of having expressed any returning tenderness to me, God help me!
I see I have no mercy to expect from any body! But, Sir, from your pen
let me have an answer; I humbly implore it of you. Till my brother can
recollect what belongs to a sister, I will not take from him no answer to
the letter I wrote to you, nor any commands whatever.

I move every body!--This, Sir, is what you are pleased to mention. But
whom have I moved?--One person in the family has more moving ways than I
have, or he could never so undeservedly have made every body ashamed to
show tenderness to a poor distressed child of the same family.

Return me not this with contempt, or torn, or unanswered, I beseech you.
My father has a title to do that or any thing by his child: but from no
other person in the world of your sex, Sir, ought a young creature of
mine (while she preserves a supplicating spirit) to be so treated.

When what I have before written in the humblest strain has met with such
strange constructions, I am afraid that this unguarded scrawl will be
very ill received. But I beg, Sir, you will oblige me with one line, be
it ever so harsh, in answer to my proposal. I still think it ought to be
attended to. I will enter into the most solemn engagements to make it
valid by a perpetual single life. In a word, any thing I can do, I will
do, to be restored to all your favours. More I cannot say, but that I
am, very undeservedly,

A most unhappy creature.

Betty scrupled again to carry this letter; and said, she should have
anger; and I should have it returned in scraps and bits.

I must take that chance, said I: I only desire that you will deliver it
as directed.

Sad doings! very sad! she said, that young ladies should so violently set
themselves against their duty.

I told her, she should have the liberty to say what she pleased, so she
would but be my messenger that one time: and down she went with it.

I bid her, if she could, slide it into my uncle's hand, unseen; at least
unseen by my brother or sister, for fear it should meet, through their
good office, with the fate she had bespoken for it.

She would not undertake for that, she said.

I am now in expectation of the result. But having so little ground to
hope for their favour or mercy, I opened Mr. Lovelace's letter.

I would send it to you, my dear (as well as those I shall enclose) by
this conveyance; but not being able at present to determine in what
manner I shall answer it, I will give myself the trouble of abstracting
it here, while I am waiting for what may offer from the letter just
carried down.

'He laments, as usual, my ill opinion of him, and readiness to believe
every thing to his disadvantage. He puts into plain English, as I
supposed he would, my hint, that I might be happier, if, by any rashness
he might be guilty of to Solmes, he should come to an untimely end
himself.'

He is concerned, he says, 'That the violence he had expressed on his
extreme apprehensiveness of losing me, should have made him guilty of any
thing I had so much reason to resent.'

He owns, 'That he is passionate: all good-natured men, he says, are so;
and a sincere man cannot hide it.' But appeals to me, 'Whether, if any
occasion in the world could excuse the rashness of his expressions, it
would not be his present dreadful situation, through my indifference, and
the malice of his enemies.'

He says, 'He has more reason than ever, from the contents of my last, to
apprehend, that I shall be prevailed upon by force, if not by fair means,
to fall in with my brother's measures; and sees but too plainly, that I
am preparing him to expect it.

'Upon this presumption, he supplicates, with the utmost earnestness, that
I will not give way to the malice of his enemies.

'Solemn vows of reformation, and everlasting truth and obligingness, he
makes; all in the style of desponding humility: yet calls it a cruel turn
upon him, to impute his protestations to a consciousness of the necessity
there is for making them from his bad character.

'He despises himself, he solemnly protests, for his past follies. He
thanks God he has seen his error; and nothing but my more particular
instructions is wanting to perfect his reformation.

'He promises, that he will do every thing that I shall think he can do
with honour, to bring about a reconciliation with my father; and even
will, if I insist upon it, make the first overtures to my brother, and
treat him as his own brother, because he is mine, if he will not by new
affronts revive the remembrance of the past.

'He begs, in the most earnest and humble manner, for one half-hour's
interview; undertaking by a key, which he owns he has to the garden-door,
leading into the coppice, as we call it, (if I will but unbolt the door,)
to come into the garden at night, and wait till I have an opportunity to
come to him, that he may re-assure me of the truth of all he writes, and
of the affection, and, if needful, protection, of all his family.

'He presumes not, he says, to write by way of menace to me; but if I
refuse him this favour, he knows not (so desperate have some strokes in
my letter made him) what his despair may make him do.'

He asks me, 'Determined, as my friends are, and far as they have already
gone, and declare they will go, what can I propose to do, to avoid having
Mr. Solmes, if I am carried to my uncle Antony's; unless I resolve to
accept of the protection he has offered to procure me; or except I will
escape to London, or elsewhere, while I can escape?'

He advises me, 'To sue to your mother, for her private reception of me;
only till I can obtain possession of my own estate, and procure my
friends to be reconciled to me; which he is sure they will be desirous to
be, the moment I am out of their power.'

He apprizes me, [It is still my wonder, how he comes by this
intelligence!] 'That my friends have written to my cousin Morden to
represent matters to him in their own partial way; nor doubt they to
influence him on their side of the question.

'That all this shews I have but one way; if none of my friends or
intimates will receive me.

'If I will transport him with the honour of my choice of this one way,
settlements shall be drawn, with proper blanks, which I shall fill up
as I pleased. Let him but have my commands from my own mouth, all my
doubts and scruples from my own lips; and only a repetition, that I will
not, on any consideration, be Solmes's wife; and he shall be easy. But,
after such a letter as I have written, nothing but an interview can make
him so.' He beseeches me therefore, 'To unbolt the door, as that very
night; or, if I receive not this time enough, this night;--and he will,
in a disguise that shall not give suspicion who he is, if he should be
seen, come to the garden door, in hopes to open it with his key; nor will
he have any other lodging than in the coppice both nights; watching every
wakeful hour for the propitious unbolting, unless he has a letter with my
orders to the contrary, or to make some other appointment.'

This letter was dated yesterday: so he was there last night, I suppose;
and will be there this night; and I have not written a line to him: and
now it is too late, were I determined what to write.

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