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

You had like to have made a simpleton of your aunt Hervey yesterday: she came down from you, pleading in your favour. But when she was asked, What concession she had brought you to? she looked about her, and knew not what to answer. So your mother, when surprised into the beginning of your cunning address to her and to your father, under my name, (for I had begun to read it, little suspecting such an ingenious subterfuge,)and would then make me read it through, wrung her hands, Oh! her dear child, her dear child, must not be so compelled!—But when she was asked, Whether she would be willing to have for her son-in-law the man who bids defiance to her whole family; and who had like to have murdered her son? And what concession she had gained from her dear child to merit this tenderness? And that for one who had apparently deceived her in assuring her that her heart was free?—Then could she look about her, as her sister had done before: then was she again brought to herself, and to a resolution to assert her authority [not to transfer it, witty presumer!] over the rebel, who of late has so ungratefully struggled to throw it off.

You seem, child, to have a high notion of the matrimonial duty; and I'll warrant, like the rest of your sex, (one or two, whom I have the honour to know, excepted,) that you will go to church to promise what you will never think of afterwards. But, sweet child! as your worthy Mamma Norton calls you, think a little less of the matrimonial, (at least, till you come into that state,) and a little more of the filial duty.

How can you say, you are to bear all the misery, when you give so large a share of it to your parents, to your uncles, to your aunt, to myself, and to your sister; who all, for eighteen years of your life, loved you so well?

If of late I have not given you room to hope for my favour or compassion, it is because of late you have not deserved either. I know what you mean, little reflecting fool, by saying, it is much in my power, although but your brother, (a very slight degree of relationship with you,) to give you that peace which you can give yourself whenever you please.

The liberty of refusing, pretty Miss, is denied you, because we are all sensible, that the liberty of choosing, to every one's dislike, must follow. The vile wretch you have set your heart upon speaks this plainly to every body, though you won't. He says you are his, and shall be his, and he will be the death of any man who robs him of his PROPERTY. So, Miss, we have a mind to try this point with him. My father, supposing he has the right of a father in his child, is absolutely determined not to be bullied out of that right. And what must that child be, who prefers the rake to a father?

This is the light in which this whole debate ought to be taken. Blush, then, Delicacy, that cannot bear the poet's amor omnibus idem!—Blush, then, Purity! Be ashamed, Virgin Modesty! And, if capable of conviction, surrender your whole will to the will of the honoured pair, to whom you owe your being: and beg of all your friends to forgive and forget the part you have of late acted.

I have written a longer letter than ever I designed to write to you, after the insolent treatment and prohibition you have given me: and, now I am commissioned to tell you, that your friends are as weary of confining you, as you are of being confined. And therefore you must prepare yourself to go in a very few days, as you have been told before, to your uncle Antony's; who, notwithstanding you apprehensions, will draw up his bridge when he pleases; will see what company he pleases in his own house; nor will he demolish his chapel to cure you of your foolish late-commenced antipathy to a place of divine worship.—The more foolish, as, if we intended to use force, we could have the ceremony pass in your chamber, as well as any where else.

Prejudice against Mr. Solmes has evidently blinded you, and there is a charitable necessity to open your eyes: since no one but you thinks the gentleman so contemptible in his person; nor, for a plain country gentleman, who has too much solid sense to appear like a coxcomb, justly blamable in his manners.—And as to his temper, it is necessary you should speak upon fuller knowledge, than at present it is plain you can have of him.

Upon the whole, it will not be amiss, that you prepare for your speedy removal, as well for the sake of your own conveniency, as to shew your readiness, in one point, at least, to oblige your friends; one of whom you may, if you please to deserve it, reckon, though but a brother,

    JAMES HARLOWE.

P.S. If you are disposed to see Mr. Solmes, and to make some excuses to him for past conduct, in order to be able to meet him somewhere else with the less concern to yourself for your freedoms with him, he shall attend you where you please.

If you have a mind to read the settlements, before they are read to you for your signing, they shall be sent you up—Who knows, but they will help you to some fresh objections?—Your heart is free, you know—It must—For, did you not tell your mother it was? And will the pious Clarissa fib to her mamma?

I desire no reply. The case requires none. Yet I will ask you, Have you, Miss, no more proposals to make?

I was so vexed when I came to the end of this letter, (the postscript to which, perhaps, might be written after the others had seen the letter,) that I took up my pen, with an intent to write to my uncle Harlowe about resuming my own estate, in pursuance of your advice. But my heart failed me, when I recollected, that I had not one friend to stand by or support me in my claim; and it would but the more incense them, without answering any good end. Oh! that my cousin were but come!

Is it not a sad thing, beloved as I thought myself so lately by every one, that now I have not one person in the world to plead for me, to stand by me, or who would afford me refuge, were I to be under the necessity of asking for it!—I who had the vanity to think I had as many friends as I saw faces, and flattered myself too, that it was not altogether unmerited, because I saw not my Maker's image, either in man, woman, or child, high or low, rich or poor, whom, comparatively, I loved not as myself.—Would to heaven, my dear, that you were married! Perhaps, then, you could have induced Mr. Hickman to afford me protection, till these storms were over-blown. But then this might have involved him in difficulties and dangers; and that I would not have done for the world.

I don't know what to do, not I!—God forgive me, but I am very impatient! I wish—But I don't know what to wish, without a sin!—Yet I wish it would please God to take me to his mercy!—I can meet with none here—What a world is this!—What is there in it desirable? The good we hope for, so strangely mixed, that one knows not what to wish for! And one half of mankind tormenting the other, and being tormented themselves in tormenting!—For here is this my particular case, my relations cannot be happy, though they make me unhappy!—Except my brother and sister, indeed—and they seem to take delight in and enjoy the mischief they make.

But it is time to lay down my pen, since my ink runs nothing but gall.

LETTER IX

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE FRIDAY MORNING, SIX O'CLOCK

Mrs. Betty tells me, there is now nothing talked of but of my going to my uncle Antony's. She has been ordered, she says, to get ready to attend me thither: and, upon my expressing my averseness to go, had the confidence to say, That having heard me often praise the romanticness of the place, she was astonished (her hands and eyes lifted up) that I should set myself against going to a house so much in my taste.

I asked if this was her own insolence, or her young mistress's observation?

She half-astonished me by her answer: That it was hard she could not say a good thing, without being robbed of the merit of it.

As the wench looked as if she really thought she had said a good thing, without knowing the boldness of it, I let it pass. But, to say the truth, this creature has surprised me on many occasions with her smartness: for, since she has been employed in this controuling office, I have discovered a great deal of wit in her assurance, which I never suspected before. This shews, that insolence is her talent: and that Fortune, in placing her as a servant to my sister, had not done so kindly by her as Nature; for that she would make a better figure as her companion. And indeed I can't help thinking sometimes, that I myself was better fitted by Nature to be the servant of both, than the mistress of the one, or the servant of the other. And within these few months past, Fortune has acted by me, as if she were of the same mind.

FRIDAY, TEN O'CLOCK

Going down to my poultry-yard, just now, I heard my brother and sister and that Solmes laughing and triumphing together. The high yew-hedge between us, which divides the yard from the garden, hindered them from seeing me.

My brother, as I found, has been reading part, or the whole perhaps, of the copy of his last letter—Mighty prudent, and consistent, you'll say, with their views to make me the wife of a man from whom they conceal not what, were I to be such, it would be kind in them to endeavour to conceal, out of regard to my future peace!—But I have no doubt, that they hate me heartily.

Indeed, you was up with her there, brother, said my sister. You need not have bid her not to write to you. I'll engage, with all her wit, she'll never pretend to answer it.

Why, indeed, said my brother, with an air of college-sufficiency, with which he abounds, (for he thinks nobody writes like himself,) I believe I have given her a choke-pear. What say you, Mr. Solmes?

Why, Sir, said he, I think it is unanswerable. But will it not exasperate he more against me?

Never fear, Mr. Solmes, said my brother, but we'll carry our point, if she do not tire you out first. We have gone too far in this method to recede. Her cousin Morden will soon be here: so all must be over before that time, or she'll be made independent of us all.

There, Miss Howe, is the reason given for their jehu-driving.

Mr. Solmes declared, that he was determined to persevere while my brother gave him any hopes, and while my father stood firm.

My sister told my brother, that he hit me charmingly on the reason why I ought to converse with Mr. Solmes: but that he should not be so smart upon the sex, for the faults of this perverse girl.

Some lively, and, I suppose, witty answer, my brother returned; for he and Mr. Solmes laughed outrageously upon it, and Bella, laughing too, called him a naughty man: but I heard no more of what they said; they walked on into the garden.

If you think, my dear, that what I have related did not again fire me, you will find yourself mistaken when you read at this place the enclosed copy of my letter to my brother; struck off while the iron was red hot.

No more call me meek and gentle, I beseech you.

TO MR. JAMES HARLOWE FRIDAY MORNING. SIR,

If, notwithstanding your prohibition, I should be silent, on occasion of your last, you would, perhaps, conclude, that I was consenting to go to my uncle Antony's upon the condition you mention. My father must do as he pleases with his child. He may turn me out of his doors, if he thinks fit, or give you leave to do it; but (loth as I am to say it) I should think it very hard to be carried by force to any body's house, when I have one of my own to go to.

Far be it from me, notwithstanding yours and my sister's provocations, to think of my taking my estate into my own hands, without my father's leave: But why, if I must not stay any longer here, may I not be permitted to go thither? I will engage to see nobody they would not have me see, if this favour be permitted. Favour I call it, and am ready to receive and acknowledge it as such, although my grandfather's will has made it a matter of right.

You ask me, in a very unbrotherly manner, in the postscript to your letter, if I have not some new proposals to make? I HAVE (since you put the question) three or four; new ones all, I think; though I will be bold to say, that, submitting the case to any one person whom you have not set against me, my old ones ought not to have been rejected. I think this; why then should I not write it?—Nor have you any more reason to storm at your sister for telling it you, (since you seem in your letter to make it your boast how you turned my mother and my aunt Hervey against me,) than I have to be angry with my brother, for treating me as no brother ought to treat a sister.

These, then, are my new proposals.

That, as above, I may not be hindered from going to reside (under such conditions as shall be prescribed to me, which I will most religiously observe) at my grandfather's late house. I will not again in this place call it mine. I have reason to think it a great misfortune that ever it was so—indeed I have.

If this be not permitted, I desire leave to go for a month, or for what time shall be thought fit, to Miss Howe's. I dare say my mother will consent to it, if I have my father's permission to go.

If this, neither, be allowed, and I am to be turned out of my father's house, I beg I may be suffered to go to my aunt Hervey's, where I will inviolably observe her commands, and those of my father and mother.

But if this, neither, is to be granted, it is my humble request, that I may be sent to my uncle Harlowe's, instead of my uncle Antony's. I mean not by this any disrespect to my uncle Antony: but his moat, with his bridge threatened to be drawn up, and perhaps the chapel there, terrify me beyond expression, notwithstanding your witty ridicule upon me for that apprehension.

If this likewise be refused, and if I must be carried to the moated-house, which used to be a delightful one to me, let it be promised me, that I shall not be compelled to receive Mr. Solmes's visits there; and then I will as cheerfully go, as ever I did.

So here, Sir, are your new proposals. And if none of them answer your end, as each of them tends to the exclusion of that ungenerous persister's visits, be pleased to know, that there is no misfortune I will not submit to, rather than yield to give my hand to the man to whom I can allow no share in my heart.

If I write in a style different from my usual, and different from what I wished to have occasion to write, an impartial person, who knew what I have accidentally, within this hour past, heard from your mouth, and my sister's, and a third person's, (particularly the reason you give for driving on at this violent rate, to wit, my cousin Morden's soon-expected arrival,) would think I have but too much reason for it. Then be pleased to remember, Sir, that when my whining vocatives have subjected me to so much scorn and ridicule, it is time, were it but to imitate examples so excellent as you and my sister set me, that I should endeavour to assert my character, in order to be thought less an alien, and nearer of kin to you both, than either of you have of late seemed to suppose me.

Give me leave, in order to empty my female quiver at once, to add, that I know no other reason which you can have for forbidding me to reply to you, after you have written what you pleased to me, than that you are conscious you cannot answer to reason and to justice the treatment you have given me.

If it be otherwise, I, an unlearned, an unlogical girl, younger by near a third than yourself, will venture (so assured am I of the justice of my cause) to put my fate upon an issue with you: with you, Sir, who have had the advantage of an academical education; whose mind must have been strengthened by observation, and learned conversation, and who, pardon my going so low, have been accustomed to give choke-pears to those you vouchsafe to write against.