Clarissa--Or the History of a Young Lady Page 11

  What would I give (by my soul, my angel will indeed reform me if her friends’ implacable folly ruin us not both!—what would I give) to have so innocent and so good a heart as either my Rosebud’s, or Johnny’s!

  I have a confounded mischievous one—by nature too, I think! A good motion now and then rises from it: but it dies away presently—a love of intrigue!—an invention for mischief!—a triumph in subduing!—fortune encouraging and supporting!—and a constitution—What signifies palliating? But I believe I had been a rogue had I been a plough-boy.

  But the devil’s in this sex! Eternal misguiders! Who that has once trespassed ever recovered his integrity? And yet where there is not virtue, which nevertheless we free-livers are continually plotting to destroy, what is there even in the ultimate of our wishes with them? Preparation and expectation are, in a manner, everything: reflection, indeed, may be something, if the mind be hardened above feeling the guilt of a past trespass: but the fruition, what is there in that? And yet, that being the end, nature will not be satisfied without it.

  See what grave reflections an innocent subject will produce! It gives me some pleasure to think that it is not out of my power to reform: but then, Jack, I am afraid I must keep better company than I do at present—for we certainly harden one another. But be not cast down, my boy; there will be time enough to give thee, and all thy brethren, warning to choose another leader: and I fancy thou wilt be the man.

  Meantime, as I make it my rule whenever I have committed a very capital enormity to do some good by way of atonement, and as I believe I am a pretty deal indebted on that score, I intend before I leave these parts (successfully shall I leave them, I hope, or I shall be tempted to do double the mischief by way of revenge, though not to my Rosebud any) to join a hundred pounds to Johnny’s aunt’s hundred pounds, to make one innocent couple happy. I repeat, therefore, and for half a dozen more therefores, spare thou my Rosebud.

  An interruption—another letter anon; and both shall go together.

  Letter 35: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

  I have found out by my watchful spy almost as many of my charmer’s motions as those of the rest of her relations. It delights me to think how the rascal is caressed by the uncles and nephew; and let into their secrets; yet proceeds all the time by my line of direction. I have charged him, however, on forfeiture of his present weekly stipend, and my future favour, to take care that neither my beloved or any of the family suspect him: I have told him, that he may indeed watch her egresses and regresses; but that only to keep off other servants from her paths; yet not to be seen by her himself.

  The dear creature has tempted him, he told them, with a bribe (which she never offered), to convey a letter (which she never wrote) to Miss Howe; he believes, with one enclosed (perhaps to me): but he declined it: and he begged they would take no notice of it to her. This brought him a stingy shilling; great applause; and an injunction followed it to all the servants for the strictest look-out lest she should contrive some way to send it. And, about an hour after, an order was given him to throw himself in her way; and (expressing his concern for denying her request) to tender his service to her and to bring them her letter: which it will be proper for him to report that she has refused to give him.

  Now seest thou not, how many good ends this contrivance answers?

  In the first place, the lady is secured by it against her own knowledge, in the liberty allowed her of taking her private walks in the garden: for this attempt has confirmed them in their belief that now they have turned off her maid she has no way to send a letter out of the house: if she had, she would not have run the risk of tempting a fellow who had not been in her secret so that she can prosecute unsuspectedly her correspondence with me and Miss Howe.

  In the next place, it will afford me an opportunity, perhaps, of a private interview with her, which I am meditating, let her take it as she will; having found out by my spy (who can keep off everybody else), that she goes every morning and evening to a wood-house remote from the dwelling-house, under pretence of visiting and feeding a set of bantam poultry, which were produced from a breed that was her grandfather’s, and which for that reason she is very fond of; as also of some other curious fowls brought from the same place. I have an account of all her motions here. And as she has owned to me in one of her letters that she corresponds privately with Miss Howe, I presume it is by this way.

  The interview I am meditating will produce her consent, I hope, to other favours of the like kind: for, should she not choose the place I am expecting to see her in, I can attend her anywhere in the rambling, Dutch-taste garden, whenever she will permit me that honour: for my implement, hight [named] Joseph Leman, has given me the opportunity of procuring two keys (one of which I have given him, for reasons good) to the garden door, which opens to the haunted coppice, as tradition has made the servants think it; a man having been found hanging in it about twenty years ago: and Joseph, upon the least notice, will leave it unbolted.

  But I was obliged to give him previously my honour, that no mischief shall happen to any of my adversaries, from this liberty: for the fellow tells me, that he loves all his masters; and, only that he knows I am a man of honour; and that my alliance will do credit to the family; and after prejudices are overcome everybody will think so; or he would not for the world act the part he does.

  There never was a rogue, who had not a salvo to himself for being so. What a praise to honesty, that every man pretends to it even at the instant that he knows he is pursuing the methods that will perhaps prove him a knave to the whole world, as well as to his own conscience!

  But what this stupid family can mean, to make all this necessary, I cannot imagine. My REVENGE and my LOVE are uppermost by turns. If the latter succeed not, the gratifying of the former will be my only consolation: and, by all that’s good, they shall feel it; although, for it, I become an exile from my native country for ever.

  I will throw myself into my charmer’s presence: I have twice already attempted it in vain. I shall then see what I may depend upon from her favour. If I thought I had no prospect of that, I should be tempted to carry her off. That would be a rape worthy of a Jupiter!

  But all gentle shall be my movements: all respectful, even to reverence, my address to her! Her hand shall be the only witness to the pressure of my lip—my trembling lip: I know it will tremble, if I do not bid it tremble. As soft my sighs as the sighs of my gentle Rosebud. By my humility will I invite her confidence: the loneliness of the place shall give me no advantage: to dissipate her fears, and engage her reliance upon my honour for the future, shall be my whole endeavour: but little will I complain of, not at all will I threaten those who are continually threatening me.

  Letter 36: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

  Sat. night, Mar. 18

  I have been frighted out of my wits—still am in a manner out of breath—thus occasioned. I went down under the usual pretence in hopes to find something from you. Concerned at my disappointment I was returning from the wood-house, when I heard a rustling, as of somebody behind a stack of wood. I was extremely surprised: but still more, to behold a man coming from behind the furthermost stack. Oh thought I, at that moment, the sin of a prohibited correspondence!

  In the same point of time that I saw him, he besought me not to be frighted: and still nearer approaching me, threw open a horseman’s coat: and who should it be but Mr Lovelace! I could not scream out (yet attempted to scream, the moment I saw a man; and again when I saw who it was) for I had no voice: and had I not caught hold of a prop, which supported the old roof, I should have sunk.

  I had hitherto, as you know, kept him at distance: and now, as I recovered myself, judge of my first emotions when I recollected his character from every mouth of my family; his enterprising temper; and found myself alone with him in a place so near a by-lane and so remote from the house.

  But his respectful behaviour soon dissipate
d these fears, and gave me others lest we should be seen together, and information of it given to my brother: the consequences of which, I could readily think, would be, if not further mischief, an imputed assignation, a stricter confinement, a forfeited correspondence with you, my beloved friend, and a pretence for the most violent compulsion: and neither the one set of reflections, nor the other, acquitted him to me for his bold intrusion.

  As soon therefore as I could speak, I expressed with the greatest warmth my displeasure; and told him that he cared not how much he exposed me to the resentments of all my friends, provided he could gratify his own impetuous humour; and I commanded him to leave the place that moment: and was hurrying from him; when he threw himself in the way at my feet, beseeching my stay for one moment; declaring that he suffered himself to be guilty of this rashness, as I thought it, to avoid one much greater—for in short, he could not bear the hourly insults he received from my family with the thoughts of having so little interest in my favour, that he could not promise himself, that his patience and forbearance would be attended with any other issue than to lose me for ever, and be triumphed over and insulted upon it.

  This man, you know, has very ready knees. You have said that he ought in small points frequently to offend, on purpose to show what an address he is master of.

  I told him he might be assured that the severity and ill-usage I met with would be far from effecting the intended end: that although I could with great sincerity declare for a single life, which had always been my choice; and particularly, that if ever I married, if they would not insist upon the man I had an aversion to, it should not be with the man they disliked—

  He interrupted me here: he hoped I would forgive him for it; but he could not help expressing his great concern that, after so many instances of his passionate and obsequious devotion—

  And pray, sir, said I, let me interrupt you in my turn. Why don’t you assert, in still plainer words, the obligation you have laid me under by this your boasted devotion? Why don’t you let me know, in terms as high as your implication, that a perseverance I have not wished for, which has set all my relations at variance with me, is a merit that throws upon me the guilt of ingratitude for not answering it as you seem to expect?

  As to the perseverance I mentioned, it was impossible for him not to persevere: but I must needs know, that were he not in being, the terms Solmes had proposed were such as would have involved me in the same difficulties with my relations that I now laboured under. He therefore took the liberty to say, that my favour to him, far from increasing those difficulties, would be the readiest way to extricate me from them. They had made it impossible (he told me, with too much truth) to oblige them any way but by sacrificing myself to Solmes. They were well apprised besides of the difference between the two; one whom they hoped to manage as they pleased; the other who could and would protect me from every insult; and who had natural prospects much superior to my brother’s foolish views, of a title.

  How comes this man to know so well all our foibles? But I more wonder, how he came to have a notion of meeting me in this place!

  I was very uneasy to be gone; and the more as the night came on apace. But there was no getting from him, till I had heard a great deal more of what he had to say.

  As he hoped that I would one day make him the happiest man in the world, he assured me that he had so much regard for my fame that he would be as far from advising any step that were likely to cast a shade upon my reputation (although that step were to be ever so much in his own favour) as I would be to follow such advice. But since I was not to be permitted to live single, he would submit it to my consideration whether I had any way but one to avoid the intended violence to my inclinations.

  To be sure, my dear, there is a great deal in what the man said. I may be allowed to say this without an imputed glow or throb.

  He appealed to me whether ever I knew my papa recede from any resolution he had once fixed, especially if he thought either his prerogative, or his authority concerned in the question. His acquaintance with our family, he said, enabled him to give several instances (but they would be too grating to me) of an arbitrariness that had few examples even in the families of princes: an arbitrariness which the most excellent of women, my mamma, too severely experienced.

  He was proceeding, as I thought, with reflections of this sort; and I angrily told him I would not permit my father to be reflected upon; adding, that his severity to me, however unmerited, was not a warrant for me to dispense with my duty to him.

  How unhappy, my dear, that there is but too much reason for these observations, and for this inference; made, likewise, with more coolness and respect to my family than one would have apprehended from a man so much provoked, and of passions so high, and generally thought uncontrollable!

  Will you not question me about throbs and glows, if from such instances of a command over his fiery temper for my sake, I am ready to infer that were my friends capable of a reconciliation with him he might be affected by arguments apparently calculated for his present and future good?

  I should easily, I think, detect a hypocrite: and this man particularly, who is said to have allowed himself in great liberties, were he to pretend to instantaneous lights and convictions—at his time of life too: habits, I am sensible, are not so easily changed. You have always joined with me in remarking that he will speak his mind with freedom, even to a degree of unpoliteness sometimes; and that his very treatment of my family is a proof that he cannot make a mean court to anybody for interest-sake. What pity, where there are such laudable traces, that they should have been so mired, and choked up, as I may say! We have heard that the man’s head is better than his heart: but do you really think Mr Lovelace can have a very bad heart?

  He then again pressed that I would receive a letter from his aunt Lawrance of offered protection.

  I told him that, however greatly I thought myself obliged to Lady Betty Lawrance, if this offer came from herself, yet it was easy to see to what it led.

  I then assured him that it was with infinite concern, that I had found myself drawn into an epistolary correspondence with him; especially since that correspondence had been prohibited. And the only agreeable use I could think of making of this unexpected and undesired interview was to let him know that I should from henceforth think myself obliged to discontinue it. And I hoped that he would not have the thought of engaging me to carry it on, by menacing my relations.

  There was light enough to distinguish that he looked very grave upon this. He so much valued my free choice, he said, and my unbiased favour (scorning to set himself upon a foot with Solmes in the compulsory methods used in that man’s behalf), that he should hate himself were he capable of a view in intimidating me by so very poor a method. Nor was there a necessity, he said, if I were actually in Lady Betty’s protection, that I should be his, if I should see anything objectible in his conduct, afterwards.

  But what would the world conclude would be the end, I asked him, were I to throw myself into the protection of his friends, but that it was with such a view?

  And what less did the world think now, he asked, than that I was confined that I might not? You are to consider, madam, you have not now an option; and to whom it is owing that you have not; and that you are in the power of those (parents why should I call them?) who are determined that you shall not have an option. All I propose is, that you will embrace such a protection—but not till you have tried every way to avoid the necessity for it.

  And give me leave to say, that if a correspondence on which I have founded all my hopes is at this critical conjuncture to be broken off; and if you are resolved not to be provided against the worst; it must be plain to me that you will at last yield to that worst—worst to me only—It cannot be to you—And then! (and he put his hand clenched to his forehead) how shall I bear the supposition? Then you be that Solmes’s!

  The man’s vehemence frightened me:
yet, in resentment, I would have left him; but, throwing himself at my feet again, Leave me not thus, I beseech you, dearest madam, leave me not thus, in despair.

  I told him that he talked to me in very high language; but he might assure himself that I never would have Mr Solmes (yet that this I said not in favour to him): and I had declared as much to my relations, were there not such a man as himself in the world.

  Would I declare that I would still honour him with my correspondence? He could not bear that, hoping to obtain greater instances of my favour, he should forfeit the only one he had to boast of.

  I bid him forbear rashness or resentment to any of my family, and I would, for some time at least, till I saw what issue my present trials were likely to have, proceed with a correspondence which nevertheless my heart condemned.

  I made many efforts to go; and now it was so dark that I began to have great apprehensions—I cannot say from his behaviour: indeed, he has a good deal raised himself in my opinion by the personal respect, even to reverence, which he paid me during the whole conference.

  • • •

  He recommended himself to my favour at parting, with great earnestness, yet with as great submission; not offering to condition any thing with me; although he hinted his wishes for another meeting: which I forbid him ever attempting again in the same place. And I’ll own to you, from whom I should be really blameable to conceal anything, that his arguments (drawn from the disgraceful treatment I meet with) of what I am to expect make me begin to apprehend, that I shall be under an obligation to be either the one man’s or the other’s. And if so, I fancy I shall not incur your blame were I to say which of the two it must be. You have said, which it must not be. But, Oh my dear, the single life is by far the most eligible to me: indeed it is. And I yet hope to obtain the blessing of making that option.