Clarissa--Or the History of a Young Lady Page 13
• • •
Clarissa Harlowe to James Harlowe, Jun.
Give me leave to tell you, sir, that if humanity were a branch of your studies at the university, it has not found a genius in you for mastering it. Nor is either my sex or myself, though a sister, I see, entitled to the least decency from a brother who has studied, as it seems, rather to cultivate the malevolence of his natural temper, than any tendency which one would have hoped his parentage, if not his education, might have given him to a tolerable politeness.
The time is indeed come that I can no longer bear those contempts and reflections which a brother, least of all men, is entitled to give. And let me beg of you one favour, officious sir—it is this, that you will not give yourself any concern about a husband for me, till I shall have the forwardness to propose a wife to you.
One word more, provoked as I am, I will add: that had I been thought as really obstinate and perverse as of late I am said to be, I should not have been so disgracefully treated as I have been. Lay your hand upon your heart, brother, and say by whose instigations. And examine what I have done to deserve to be made thus unhappy, and to be obliged to style myself,
Your injured sister,
CL. HARLOWE
• • •
When, my dear, you have read my answer to this letter, tell me what you think of me? It shall go!
Letter 53: 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 romantic-ness 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?
to Mr James Harlowe, Jun.
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 (loath as I am to say it) I should think it very hard to be carried by force to anybody’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 taking my estate into my own hands without my papa’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 matter of right.
And now, sir, if I have seemed to show some spirit not quite foreign to the relation I have the honour to bear to you and to my sister; and which may be deemed not altogether of a piece with that part of my character which once, it seems, gained me everyone’s love; be pleased to consider to whom, and to what it is owing; and that this part of that character was not dispensed with till it subjected me to that scorn and those insults which a brother, who has been so tenacious of an independence that I voluntarily gave up, and who has appeared so exalted upon it, ought not to have shown to anybody, much less to a weak and defenceless sister: who is notwithstanding an affectionate and respectful one, and would be glad to show herself to be so upon all future occasions; as she has in every action of her past life, although of late she has met with such unkind returns.
CL. HARLOWE
• • •
See the force and volubility, as I may say, of passion; for the letter I send you is my first draught, struck off without a blot or erasure.
• • •
Friday, three o’clock
As soon as I had transcribed it, I sent it down to my brother by Mrs Betty.
The wench came up soon after, all aghast with her Lord, Miss! What have you done? What have you written? For you have set them all in a joyful uproar!
• • •
My sister is but this moment gone from me: she came up all in a flame, which obliged me abruptly to lay down my pen: she run to me—
Oh spirit! said she; tapping my neck a little too hard. And is it come to this at last!
Do you beat me, Bella?
Do you call this beating you? Only tapping your shoulder thus, said she; tapping again more gently. This is what we expected it would come to. You want to be independent. My papa has lived too long for you!
I was going to speak with vehemence; but she put her handkerchief before my mouth, very rudely. Take your course, perverse one; call in your rake to help you to an in-dependence upon your parents and a dependence upon him! Do so! Prepare this moment. Resolve what you will take with you! Tomorrow you go! Depend upon it, tomorrow you go! No longer shall you tarry here, watching and creeping about to hearken to what people say! ‘Tis determined, child! You go tomorrow!
Thus she ran on, almost foaming with passion, till, quite out of patience, I said: No more of your violence, Bella. Had I known in what a way you would come up, you should not have found my chamber door open! Talk to your servant in this manner: unlike you, as I bless God I am, I am nevertheless your sister. And let me tell you that I won’t go tomorrow, nor next day, nor next day to that—except I am dragged away by violence.
Is not this usage enough to provoke one to a rashness one had never thought of committing?
As it is but too probable that I may be hurried away to my uncle’s without being able to give you previous notice of it, I beg that as soon as you shall hear of such a violence, you will send to the usual place to take back such of your letters as may not have reached my hands, or to fetch any of mine that may be there. May you, my dear, be always happy, prays your
CL. HARLOWE
Letter 55: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE
Friday midnight
I have now a calmer moment. Envy, ambition, high and selfish resentment and all the violent passions are now, most probably, asleep all around me; and shall not my own angry ones give way to the silent hour, and subside likewise? They have given way to it; and I have made use of the gentler space to re-peruse your last letters. I will touch upon some passages in them: and that I may the less endanger the but just-recovered calm, I will begin with what you write about Mr Hickman.
Give me leave to say, that I am sorry you cannot yet persuade yourself to think better, that is to say, more justly, of that gentleman than your whimsical picture of him shows you do; or at least than the humorousness of your natural vein would make one think you do.
I do not imagine that you yourself will say he sat for the picture you have drawn. And yet, upon the whole, it is not greatly to his disadvantage. Were I at ease in my mind, I would venture to draw a much more amiable and just likeness.
If Mr Hickman has not that assurance which some men have, he has that humanity and gentleness which many want: and which, with the infinite value he has for you, will make him one of the properest husbands in the world for a person of your vivacity and spirit.
I am glad you own that you like no one better than Mr Hickman. In a little while, I make no doubt you will be able, if you challenge your heart upon it, to acknowledge that you like not any man so well: especially when you come to consider that the very faults you find in Mr Hickman admirably fit him to make you happy: that is to say, if it be necessary to your happiness that you should have your own will in everything.
But let me add one thing: and that is this—you have such a spritely turn that with your admirable talents you would make any man in the world, who loved you, look like a fool, except he were such a one as Lovelace.
Forgive me, my dear, for my frankness: and
forgive me also for so soon returning to subjects so immediately relative to myself as those I now must touch upon.
You again insist, strengthened by Mr Lovelace’s opinion, upon my assuming my own estate: and I have given you room to expect that I will consider this subject more closely than I had done before.
The will and the deeds have flaws in them, they say: my brother sometimes talks of going to reside at The Grove: I suppose with a design to make ejectments necessary, were I to offer at assuming; or should I marry Lovelace, in order to give him all the opposition and difficulty the law would help him to give.
And to go to law with my father, what a sound has that? You will see that I have mentioned my wish (as an alternative, and as a favour) to be permitted, if I must be put out of his house, to go thither: but not one step further can I go. And you see how this is resented.
As to Mr Lovelace’s approbation of your assumption-scheme, I wonder not at it. He, very probably, penetrates the difficulties I should have to bring it to effect without his assistance. Were I to find myself as free as I would wish myself to be, perhaps that man would stand a worse chance with me than his vanity may permit him to imagine; notwithstanding the pleasure you take in rallying me on his account.
To threaten as he threatens—yet to pretend that it is not to intimidate me; and to beg of you not to tell me, when he must know you would, and no doubt must intend that you should, is so meanly artful! The man must think he has a frighted fool to deal with.
I shall deposit this the first thing: when you have it, lose no time, I pray you, to advise (lest it be too late)
Your ever-obliged,
CL. HARLOWE
Letter 56: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
Sat. March 25
What can I advise you, my noble creature? Your merit is your crime. You can no more change your nature, than your persecutors can theirs. Your distress is owing to the vast disparity between you and them. What would you have of them? Do they not act in character? And to whom? To an alien. You are not one of them. They have two dependencies—upon their own impenetrableness, one (I’d give it a properer name, if I dared); the other, on the regard you have always had for your character (have they not heretofore owned as much?) and upon your apprehensions from that of Lovelace, which would discredit you, should you take any step by his means to extricate yourself. Then they know that resentment and unpersuadableness are not natural to you; and that the anger they have wrought you up to will subside, as all extraordinaries soon do; and that once married, you’ll make the best of it.
As to that wretch’s perseverance, those only who know not the man [Solmes] will wonder at it. He has not the least delicacy. When-ever he shall marry, his view will not be for mind. How should it? He has not a mind: and does not like seek its like? And if it finds something beyond itself, how shall that be valued which cannot be comprehended? Were you to be his and show a visible want of tenderness to him, it is my opinion he would not be much concerned at it; since that would leave him the more at liberty to pursue those sordid attachments which are predominant in him.
While I was in hope that the asserting of your own independence would have helped you, I was pleased that you had one resource, as I thought: but now that you have so well proved that such a step would not avail you, I am entirely at a loss what to say. I will lay down my pen, and think.
• • •
I have considered, and considered again; but, I protest, I know no more what to say, than before. Only this: that I am young, like yourself; and have a much weaker judgement and stronger passions than you have.
One thing you must consider, that, if you leave your parents, your duty and love to them will not suffer you to appeal against them to justify yourself for so doing; and so you’ll have the world against you. And should Lovelace continue his wild life, and behave ungratefully to you, how will that justify their conduct to you (which nothing else can), as well as their resentments against him?
You must, if possible, avoid being carried to that uncle’s. The man, the parson, the chapel, your brother and sister present! They’ll certainly there marry you to Solmes. Nor will your newly-raised spirit support you in your resistance on such an occasion. Your meekness will return; and you will have nothing for it but tears (tears despised by them all), and ineffectual appeals and lamentations—and these, when the ceremony is profaned, as I may say, you must suddenly put a stop to, and dry up: and endeavour to dispose yourself to such an humble frame of mind as may induce your new-made lord to forgive all your past declarations of aversion.
I will add nothing, though I could an hundred things, on occasion of your latest communications, but that I am,
Your ever-affectionate and faithful,
ANNA HOWE
Letter 62: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE
Tuesday morning, 7 o’clock
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 morn, eight 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 for me to lie under the sense of an obligation to anyone’s patience, when that person 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 and I, my dear, once thought ourselves obliged to the natural shade they 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 requests. 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 the greater.’
This circumstance gives me to guess who this treacherous man is: one 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: I have thought him (doubly obsequious as he was always to me) 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. So, possibly this man may take a bribe of both, and yet betray both.
‘He presses with the utmost earnestness for an interview. He would not offer, 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, tha
t 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 treatment shall provoke him to forfeit his temper.
‘His uncle will accompany him, if I please: or his aunt Lawrance will first make the visit to my mamma, 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 so 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. He therefore most earnestly repeats his importunities for the supplicated interview.’ 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 find me delivered from the insults of my brother.
‘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 convictions, he says, that a person who has lived too gay a life resolves to reclaim before age or sufferings come upon him.’
I am afraid to ask you, my dear, what you would have done, thus situated. But what I have done, I have done. In a word, I wrote, ‘that I would, if possible, give him a meeting tomorrow night, between the hours of nine and twelve, by the ivy summer-house, or in it, or near the great cascade at the bottom of the garden; and would unbolt the door that he might come in by his own key. But that, if I found the meeting impracticable, or should change my mind, I would signify as much by another line; which he must wait for until it were dark.’