Clarissa--Or the History of a Young Lady Read online

  I will not acquaint you with all proceedings here; but these shall be the subject of another letter.

  Letter 30: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

  Sunday night, March 12

  This man, this Lovelace, gives me great uneasiness. He is extremely bold and rash. He was this afternoon at our church: in hopes to see me, I suppose: and yet, if he had such hopes, his usual intelligence must have failed him.

  Shorey was at church; and a principal part of her observation was upon his haughty and proud behaviour when he turned round in the pew where he sat to our family pew. My papa and both my uncles were there; so were my mamma and sister. My brother happily was not! They all came home in disorder. Nor did the congregation mind anybody but him; it being his first appearance there since the unhappy rencounter.

  What did the man come for, if he intended to look challenge and defiance, as Shorey says he did, and as others observed it seems as well as she? Did he come for my sake; and, by behaving in such a manner to those present of my family, imagine he was doing me either service or pleasure? He knows how they hate him: nor will he take pains, would pains do, to obviate their hatred.

  You and I, my dear, have often taken notice of his pride, and you have rallied him upon it; and instead of exculpating himself, he has owned it; and, by owning it, has thought he has done enough.

  He has talents, indeed: but those talents, and his personal advantages, have been snares to him. It is plain they have. And this shows that, weighed in an equal balance, he would be found greatly wanting.

  Had my friends confided, as they did at first, in that discretion which they do not accuse me of being defective in, I dare say I should have found him out: and then should have been as resolute to dismiss him as I was to dismiss others, and as I am never to have Mr Solmes. Oh that they did but know my heart! It shall sooner burst, than voluntarily, uncompelled, undriven, dictate a measure that shall cast a slur either upon them, my sex, or myself.

  Excuse me, my dear friend, for these grave soliloquies, as I may call them. How have I run from reflection to reflection! But the occasion is recent! They are all in commotion below upon it!

  Shorey says that he watched my mamma’s eye, and bowed to her: and she returned the compliment. He always admired my mamma. She would not, I believe, have hated him had she not been bid to hate him; and had it not been for the rencounter between him and her only son.

  My father it seems is more and more incensed against me. And so are my uncles.

  They are angry, it seems, at my mamma, for returning his compliment. What an enemy is hatred, even to the common forms of civility!

  I am extremely apprehensive that this worse than ghost-like appearance of his bodes some still bolder step. If he come hither (and very desirous he is of my leave to come), I am afraid there will be murder. To avoid that, if there were no other way, I would most willingly be buried alive.

  CL. H.

  Letter 31: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

  Monday, March 13

  In vain dost thou and thy compeers press me to go to town, while I am in such an uncertainty as I am at present with this proud beauty. All the ground I have hitherto gained with her is entirely owing to her concern for the safety of people whom I have reason to hate.

  Write then, thou biddest me, if I will not come. That, indeed, I can do; and as well without a subject, as with one. And what follows shall be a proof of it.

  But is it not a confounded thing to be in love with one who is the daughter, the sister, the niece, of a family I must eternally despise? And the devil of it, that love increasing, with her—what shall I call it? ‘tis not scorn—’tis not pride—’tis not the insolence of an adored beauty—but ‘tis to virtue, it seems, that my difficulties are owing. And I pay for not being a sly sinner, a hypocrite: for being regardless of my reputation; for permitting slander to open its mouth against me. But is it necessary for such a one as I, who have been used to carry all before me upon my own terms—I, who never inspired a fear that had not a discernibly-predominant mixture of love in it, to be a hypocrite?

  Well, but it seems I must practise for this art, if I would succeed with this truly admirable creature! But why practise for it? Cannot I indeed reform? I have but one vice—have I, Jack? Thou knowest my heart, if any man living does. As far as I know it myself, thou knowest it. But ‘tis a cursed deceiver. For it has many and many a time imposed upon its master. Master, did I say? That am I not now: nor have I been from the moment I beheld this angel of a woman.

  I have boasted that I was once in love before: and indeed I thought I was. It was in my early manhood—with that quality-jilt, whose infidelity I have vowed to revenge upon as many of the sex as shall come into my power. I believe, in different climes, I have already sacrificed a hecatomb to my Nemesis in pursuance of this vow. But upon recollecting what I was then, and comparing it with what I find in myself now, I cannot say that I was ever in love before.

  What was it then, dost thou ask me, since the disappointment had such effects upon me, when I found myself jilted, that I was hardly kept in my senses? Why I’ll tell thee what, as near as I can remember; for it was a great while ago. It was—egad, Jack, I can hardly tell what it was—but a vehement aspiration after a novelty, I think.

  Then I had a vanity of another sort in my passion: I found myself well received among the women in general; and I thought it a pretty lady-like tyranny (I was very young then, and very vain) to single out some one of the sex to make half a score jealous. And I can tell thee, it had its effect: for many an eye have I made to sparkle with rival indignation: many a cheek glow; and even many a fan have I caused to be snapped at a sister-beauty, accompanied with a reflection, perhaps, at being seen alone with a wild young fellow who could not be in private with both at once.

  In short, Jack, it was more pride than love, as I now find it, that put me upon making such a confounded rout about losing this noble varletess. I thought she loved me at least as well as I believed I loved her: nay, I had the vanity to suppose she could not help it. My friends were pleased with my choice. They wanted me to be shackled, for early did they doubt my morals as to the sex. They saw that the dancing, the singing, the musical ladies were all fond of my company: for who (I am in a humour to be vain, I think! for who) danced, who sung, who touched the string, whatever the instrument, with a better grace than thy friend?

  But to return to my fair jilt. I could not bear that a woman, who was the first that had bound me in silken fetters (they were not iron ones, like those I now wear) should prefer a coronet to me: and when the bird was flown, I set more value upon it than when I had it safe in my cage and could visit it when I would.

  But now am I in-deed in love. I can think of nothing, of nobody else, but the divine Clarissa Harlowe. Harlowe! How that hated word sticks in my throat, but I shall give her for it, the name of Love [Lovelace].

  For, dost thou think that if it were not from the hope that this stupid family are all combined to do my work for me, I would bear their insults? Is it possible to imagine that I would be braved as I am braved, threatened as I am threatened, by those who are afraid to see me; and by this brutal brother too, to whom I gave a life (a life, indeed, not worth my taking!), had I not a greater pride in knowing that by means of his very spy upon me I am playing him off as I please; cooling, or inflaming, his violent passions, as may best suit my purposes; permitting so much to be revealed of my life and actions, and intentions, as may give him such a confidence in his double-faced agent [Joseph Leman], as shall enable me to dance his employer upon my own wires?

  This it is that makes my pride mount above my resentment. By this engine, whose springs I am continually oiling, I play them all off.

  And what my motive, dost thou ask? No less than this, that my beloved shall find no protection out of my family—for, if I know hers, fly she must, or have the man she hates. This, therefore, if I take my measure
s right, and my familiar fail me not, will secure her mine, in spite of them all; in spite of her own inflexible heart: mine, without condition; without reformation promises; without the necessity of a siege of years, perhaps; and to be even then, after wearing the guise of a merit-doubting hypocrisy, at an uncertainty, upon a probation unapproved of. Then shall I have all the rascals, and rascalesses of the family come creeping to me: I prescribing to them; and bringing that sordidly-imperious brother to kneel at the foot-stool of my throne.

  All my fear arises from the little hold I have in the heart of this charming frostpiece: such a constant glow upon her lovely features; eyes so sparkling; limbs so divinely turned; health so florid; youth so blooming; air so animated: to have a heart so impenetrable. And I, the hitherto successful Lovelace, the addresser. How can it be? Yet there are people, and I have talked with some of them, who remember that she was born. Her nurse Norton boasts of her maternal offices in her earliest infancy; and in her education gradatim. So that there is full proof that she came not from above, all at once an angel! How then can she be so impenetrable?

  But here’s her mistake; nor will she be cured of it—she takes the man she calls her father (her mother had been faultless, had she not been her father’s wife); she takes the men she calls her uncles; the fellow she calls her brother; and the poor contemptible she calls her sister; to be her father, to be her uncles, her brother, her sister; and that as such, she owes to some of them reverence, to others respect, let them treat her ever so cruelly! sordid ties! mere cradle-prejudices! For had they not been imposed upon her by nature, when she was in a perverse humour, or could she have chosen her relations, would any of these have been among them?

  How my heart rises at her preference of them to me, when she is convinced of their injustice to me! Convinced that the alliance would do honour to them all—herself excepted; to whom everyone owes honour; and from whom the most princely family might receive it. But how much more will my heart rise with indignation against her, if I find she hesitates but one moment (however persecuted) about preferring me to the man she avowedly hates! But she cannot surely be so mean as to purchase her peace with them at so dear a rate. She cannot give a sanction to projects formed in malice and founded in a selfishness (and that at her own expense) which she has spirit enough to despise in others; and ought to disavow, that we may not think her a Harlowe.

  By this incoherent ramble thou wilt gather that I am not likely to come up in haste, since I must endeavour first to obtain some assurance from the beloved of my soul that I shall not be sacrificed to such a wretch as Solmes!

  That her indifference to me is not owing to the superior liking she has for any other man is what rivets my chains: but take care, fair one; take care, oh thou most exalted of female minds, and loveliest of persons, how thou debasest thyself by encouraging such a competition as thy sordid relations have set on foot in mere malice to me! Thou wilt say I rave. And so I do!

  Thou art curious to know, if I have not started a new game? If it be possible for so universal a lover to be confined so long to one object? Thou knowest nothing of this charming creature, that thou canst put such questions to me; or thinkest thou knowest me better than thou dost. All that’s excellent in her sex is this lady! Until by matrimonial or equal intimacies I have found her less than angel, it is impossible to think of any other. Then there are so many stimulatives to such a spirit as mine in this affair, besides love: such a field for stratagem and contrivance, which thou knowest to be the delight of my heart. Then the rewarding end of all—to carry off such a girl as this, in spite of all her watchful and implacable friends; and in spite of a prudence and reserve that I never met with in any of the sex. What a triumph! What a triumph over the whole sex! And then such a revenge to gratify, which is only at present politically reined in, eventually to break forth with the greater fury. Is it possible, thinkest thou, that there can be room for a thought that is not of her, and devoted to her?

  But be this as it may, there is a present likelihood of room for glorious mischief. A confederacy had been for some time formed against me; but the uncles and the nephew are now to be double-servanted (single-servanted they were before), and those servants are to be double-armed when they attend their masters abroad. This indicates their resolute enmity to me, and as resolute favour to Solmes.

  The reinforced orders for this hostile apparatus are owing, it seems, to a visit I made yesterday to their church; a good place to begin a reconciliation in, were the heads of the family christians, and did they mean anything by their prayers. My hopes were to have an invitation (or, at least, to gain a pretence) to accompany home the gloomy sire; and so get an opportunity to see my goddess: for I believed they durst not but be civil to me, at least. But they were filled with terror, it seems, at my entrance; a terror they could not get over. I saw it indeed in their countenances; and that they all expected something extraordinary to follow. And so it should have done, had I been more sure than I am of their daughter’s favour. Yet not a hair of any of their stupid heads do I intend to hurt.

  Thus, Jack, as thou desirest, have I written: written upon something; upon nothing; upon revenge, which I love; upon love, which I hate, heartily hate, because ‘tis my master: and upon the devil knows what besides: for, looking back, I’m amazed at the length of it. Thou mayest read it: I would not for a king’s ransom—but so as I do but write, thou sayest thou wilt be pleased.

  Be pleased then. I command thee to be pleased: if not for the writer’s, or written’s sake, for thy word’s sake. And so in the royal style (for am I not likely to be thy king and thy emperor, in the great affair before us?) I bid thee very heartily

  Farewell

  Letter 34: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

  Friday, March 17

  I receive, with great pleasure, the early and cheerful assurances of your loyalty and love.

  I would have thee, Jack, come down as soon as thou canst.

  Thou wilt find me at a little alehouse; they call it an inn; the White Hart; most terribly wounded (but by the weather only) the sign—in a sorry village, within five miles from Harlowe Place. Everybody knows Harlowe Place—for, like Versailles, it is sprung up from a dunghill within every elderly person’s remembrance. Every poor body, particularly, knows it: but that only for a few years past, since a certain angel has appeared there among the sons and daughters of men.

  The people here at the Hart are poor but honest; and have gotten it into their heads that I am a man of quality in disguise, and there is no reining in their officious respect. There is a pretty little smirking daughter, seventeen six days ago: I call her my Rosebud. Her grandmother (for there is no mother) a good neat old woman as ever filled a wicker-chair in a chimney-corner has besought me to be merciful to her.

  This is the right way with me. Many and many a pretty rogue had I spared, whom I did not spare, had my power been acknowledged and my mercy been in time implored.

  This simple chit (for there is a simplicity in her thou wilt be highly pleased with: all humble; all officious; all innocent. I love her for her humility, her officiousness and even for her innocence) will be pretty amusement to thee, while I combat with the weather, and dodge and creep about the walls and purlieus of Harlowe Place. Thou wilt see in her mind, all that her superiors have been taught to conceal in order to render themselves less natural, and more undelightful.

  But I charge thee, that thou do not (what I would not permit myself to do, for the world—I charge thee, that thou do not) crop my Rosebud. She is the only flower of fragrance that has blown in this vicinage for ten years past, or will for ten years to come: for I have looked backward to the have-been’s, and forward to the will-be’s, having but too much leisure upon my hands in my present waiting.

  I never was so honest for so long together since my matriculation. It behoves me so to be. Some way or other, my recess may be found out; and it will then be thought that my Rosebud has attracted
me. A report in my favour from simplicities so amiable may establish me; for the grandmother’s relation to my Rosebud may be sworn to: and the father is an honest poor man: has no joy but in his Rosebud.

  The gentle heart is touched by Love! Her soft bosom heaves with a passion she has not yet found a name for. I once caught her eye following a young carpenter, a widow neighbour’s son, living (to speak in her dialect) at the little white house over the way. A gentle youth he also seems to be, about three years older than herself: playmates from infancy till his eighteenth and her fifteenth year furnished a reason for a greater distance in show, while their hearts gave a better for their being nearer than ever: for I soon perceived the love reciprocal: a scrape and a bow at first seeing his pretty mistress; turning often to salute her following eye; and when a winding lane was to deprive him of her sight his whole body turned round, his hat more reverently doffed, than before. This answered (for, unseen, I was behind her) by a low curtsy, and a sigh that Johnny was too far off to hear!

  I have examined the little heart: she has made me her confidant. She owns she could love Johnny Barton very well: and Johnny Barton has told her he could love her better than any maiden he ever saw. But, alas! it must not be thought of. Why not be thought of? She don’t know! And then she sighed: but Johnny has an aunt who will give him a hundred pounds when his time is out; and her father cannot give her but a few things, or so, to set her out with. And though Johnny’s mother says she knows not where Johnny would have a prettier, or notabler wife, yet—And then she sighed again—What signifies talking? I would not have Johnny be unhappy and poor for me! For what good would that do me, you know, sir!