Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 2

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.

I hope he will not go to Mr. Solmes.—I hope he will not come hither.—If he do either, I will break with him for ever.

What have I to do with these headstrong spirits? I wish I had never—but what signifies wishing?—I am strangely perplexed: but I need not have told you this, after such a representation of my situation.

LETTER XVII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE TUESDAY MORNING, 7 O'CLOCK

My uncle has vouchsafed to answer me. These that follow are the contents of his letter; but just now brought me, although written last night—late I suppose.

MONDAY NIGHT. MISS CLARY,

Since you are grown such a bold challenger, and teach us all our duty, though you will not practise your own, I must answer you. Nobody wants you estate from you. Are you, who refuse ever body's advice, to prescribe a husband to your sister? Your letter to Mr. Solmes is inexcusable. I blamed you for it before. Your parents will be obeyed. It is fit they should. Your mother has nevertheless prevailed to have your going to your uncle Antony's put off till Thursday: yet owns you deserve not that, or any other favour from her. I will receive no more of your letters. You are too artful for me. You are an ungrateful and unreasonable child: Must you have your way paramount to every body's? How are you altered.

    Your displeased uncle, JOHN HARLOWE.

To be carried away on Thursday—To the moated house—To the chapel—To Solmes! How can I think of this!—They will make me desperate.

TUESDAY MORNING, 8 O'CLOCK

I have another letter from Mr. Lovelace. I opened it with the expectation of its being filled with bold and free complaints, on my not writing to prevent his two nights watching, in weather not extremely agreeable. But, instead of complaints, he is 'full of tender concern lest I may have been prevented by indisposition, or by the closer confinement which he has frequently cautioned me that I may expect.'

He says, 'He had been in different disguises loitering about our garden and park wall, all the day on Sunday last; and all Sunday night was wandering about the coppice, and near the back door. It rained; and he has got a great cold, attended with feverishness, and so hoarse, that he has almost lost his voice.'

Why did he not flame out in his letter?—Treated as I am treated by my friends, it is dangerous to be laid under the sense of an obligation to an addresser's patience; especially when such a one suffers in health for my sake.

'He had no shelter, he says, but under the great overgrown ivy, which spreads wildly round the heads of two or three oaklings; and that was soon wet through.'

You remember the spot. You and I, my dear, once thought ourselves obliged to the natural shade which those ivy-covered oaklings afforded us, in a sultry day.

I can't help saying, I am sorry he has suffered for my sake; but 'tis his own seeking.

His letter is dated last night at eight: 'And, indisposed as he is, he tells me that he will watch till ten, in hopes of my giving him the meeting he so earnestly request. And after that, he has a mile to walk to his horse and servant; and four miles then to ride to his inn.'

He owns, 'That he has an intelligencer in our family; who has failed him for a day or two past: and not knowing how I do, or how I may be treated, his anxiety is increased.'

This circumstance gives me to guess who this intelligencer is: Joseph Leman: the very creature employed and confided in, more than any other, by my brother.

This is not an honourable way of proceeding in Mr. Lovelace. Did he learn this infamous practice of corrupting the servants of other families at the French court, where he resided a good while?

I have been often jealous of this Leman in my little airings and poultry-visits. Doubly obsequious as he was always to me, I have thought him my brother's spy upon me; and although he obliged me by his hastening out of the garden and poultry-yard, whenever I came into either, have wondered, that from his reports my liberties of those kinds have not been abridged.[12 - Mr. Lovelace accounts for this, Vol. I, Letter XXXV.] So, possibly, this man may be bribed by both, yet betray both. Worthy views want not such obliquities as these on either side. An honest mind must rise into indignation both at the traitor-maker and the traitor.

'He presses with the utmost earnestness for an interview. He would not presume, he says, to disobey my last personal commands, that he should not endeavour to attend me again in the wood-house. But says, he can give me such reasons for my permitting him to wait upon my father or uncles, as he hopes will be approved by me: for he cannot help observing, that it is no more suitable to my own spirit than to his, that he, a man of fortune and family, should be obliged to pursue such a clandestine address, as would only become a vile fortune-hunter. But, if I will give my consent for his visiting me like a man, and a gentleman, no ill treatment shall provoke him to forfeit his temper.

'Lord M. will accompany him, if I please: or Lady Betty Lawrance will first make the visit to my mother, or to my aunt Hervey, or even to my uncles, if I choose it. And such terms shall be offered, as shall have weight upon them.

'He begs, that I will not deny him making a visit to Mr. Solmes. By all that's good, he vows, that it shall not be with the least intention either to hurt or affront him; but only to set before him, calmly and rationally, the consequences that may possibly flow from so fruitless a perseverance, as well as the ungenerous folly of it, to a mind as noble as mine. He repeats his own resolution to attend my pleasure, and Mr. Morden's arrival and advice, for the reward of his own patience.

'It is impossible, he says, but one of these methods must do. Presence, he observes, even of a disliked person, takes off the edge of resentments which absence whets, and makes keen.

'He therefore most earnestly repeats his importunities for the supplicated interview.' He says, 'He has business of consequence in London: but cannot stir from the inconvenient spot where he has for some time resided, in disguises unworthy of himself, until he can be absolutely certain, that I shall not be prevailed upon, either by force or otherwise; and until he finds me delivered from the insults of my brother. Nor ought this to be an indifferent point to one, for whose sake all the world reports me to be used unworthily. But one remark, he says, he cannot help making: that did my friends know the little favour I shew him, and the very great distance I keep him at, they would have no reason to confine me on his account. And another, that they themselves seem to think him entitled to a different usage, and expect that he receives it; when, in truth, what he meets with from me is exactly what they wish him to meet with, excepting in the favour of my correspondence I honour him with; upon which, he says, he puts the highest value, and for the sake of which he has submitted to a thousand indignities.

'He renews his professions of reformation. He is convinced, he says, that he has already run a long and dangerous course; and that it is high time to think of returning. It must be from proper conviction, he says, that a person who has lived too gay a life, resolves to reclaim, before age or sufferings come upon him.