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

  Clary, said my mamma, as soon as I entered the great parlour, your request, to go to Miss Howe’s for a few days has been taken into consideration and granted.

  Much against my liking, I assure you, said my brother, rudely interrupting her.

  Son James! said my father, and knit his brows.

  He was not daunted. His arm is in a sling. He often has the mean art to look upon that, when anything is hinted that may be supposed to lead towards the least favour to, or reconciliation with, Mr Lovelace. Let the girl then (I am often the girl with him!) be prohibited seeing that vile libertine.

  Nobody spoke.

  Do you hear, sister Clary? taking their silence for approbation of what he had dictated; you are not to receive visits from Lord M.’s nephew.

  Everyone still remained silent.

  Do you so understand the licence you have, miss? interrogated he.

  I would be glad, sir, said I, to understand that you are my brother—and that you would understand, that you are only my brother.

  Oh the fond, fond heart! with a sneer of insult, lifting up his hands.

  Sir, said I to my papa, to your justice I appeal. If I have deserved reflection, let me not be spared. But if I am to be answerable for the rashness—

  No more! No more, of either side, said my papa. You are not to receive the visits of that Lovelace, though.

  I will not, sir, in any way of encouragement, I do assure you; nor at all, if I can decently avoid it.

  Thus ended this conference.

  Will you engage, my dear, that the hated man shall not come near your house? but what an inconsistence is this, when they consent to my going, thinking his visits here no otherwise to be avoided! But if he does come I charge you never leave us alone together.

  As I have no reason to doubt a welcome from your mamma, I will put everything in order here and be with you in two or three days.

  Meantime, I am

  Your most affectionate and obliged

  CLARISSA HARLOWE

  Letter 7: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

  Harlowe Place, Feb. 20

  I beg your excuse for not writing sooner. Alas, my dear, I have sad prospects before me! My brother and sister have succeeded in all their views. They have found out another lover for me; a hideous one! yet he is encouraged by everybody. No wonder that I was ordered home so suddenly! at an hour’s warning! No other notice, you know, than what was brought with the chariot that was to carry me back. It was for fear, as I have been informed (an unworthy fear!), that I should have entered into any concert with Mr Lovelace had I known their motive for commanding me home; apprehending, ‘tis evident, that I should dislike the man.

  And well might they apprehend so. For who do you think he is? No other than that Solmes! Could you have believed it? And they are all determined too; my mamma with the rest! Dear, dear excellence! how could she be thus brought over! when I am assured that, on his first being proposed, she was pleased to say that had Mr Solmes the Indies in possession, and would endow me with them, she should not think him deserving of her Clarissa Harlowe.

  The reception I met with at my return, so different from what I used to meet with on every little absence (and now I had been from them three weeks), convinced me that I was to suffer for the happiness I had had in your company and conversation for that most agreeable period. I will give you an account of it.

  My brother met me at the door, and gave me his hand when I stepped out of the chariot. He bowed very low. ‘Pray, miss, favour me.’ I thought it in good humour, but found it afterwards mock respect; and so he led me in great form, I prattling all the way, inquiring of everybody’s health (although I was so soon to see them, and there was hardly time for answers), into the great parlour, where were my father, mother, my two uncles and my sister.

  I was struck all of a heap as soon as I entered to see a solemnity which I had been so little used to on the like occasions in the countenance of every dear relation. They all kept their seats. I ran to my papa, and kneeled; then to my mamma; and met from both a cold salute; from my papa a blessing but half-pronounced; my mamma, indeed, called me, child, but embraced me not with her usual indulgent ardour.

  After I had paid my duty to my uncles and my compliments to my sister, which she received with solemn and stiff form, I was bid to sit down. But my heart was full: and I said it became me to stand, if I could stand a reception so awful and unusual. I was forced to turn my face from them and pull out my handkerchief.

  My unbrotherly accuser hereupon stood forth and charged me with having received no less than five or six visits at Miss Howe’s from the man they had all so much reason to hate (that was the expression) notwithstanding the commands I had received to the contrary. And he bid me deny it if I could.

  I had never been used, I said, to deny the truth; nor would I now. I owned I had, in the past three weeks, seen the person I presumed he meant oftener than five or six times. (Pray hear me out, brother, said I; for he was going to flame.) But he always came and asked for Mrs or Miss Howe.

  I proceeded that I had reason to believe that both Mrs Howe and Miss, as matters stood, would much rather have excused his visits; but they had more than once apologized that, having not the same reason my papa had to forbid him their house, his rank and fortune entitled him to civility.

  You see, my dear, I made not the pleas I might have made.

  My brother seemed ready to give a loose to his passion; my papa put on the countenance which always portends a gathering storm; my uncles mutteringly whispered; and my sister aggravatingly held up her hands. While I begged to be heard out—and my mamma said, let the child, that was her kind word, be heard.

  I hoped, I said, there was no harm done; that it became not me to prescribe to Mrs or Miss Howe who should be their visitors; that Mrs Howe was always diverted with the raillery that passed between Miss and him; that I had no reason to challenge her guest for my visitor, as I should seem to have done had I refused to go into their company when he was with them; that I had never seen him out of the presence of one or both of those ladies, and had signified to him once, on his urging for a few moments’ private conversation with me, that unless a reconciliation were effected between my family and his he must not expect that I would countenance his visits, much less give him an opportunity of that sort.

  I told them further that Miss Howe so well understood my mind that she never left me a moment while he was there; that when he came, if I was not below in the parlour, I would not suffer myself to be called to him; although I thought it would be an affectation which would give him advantage rather than the contrary if I had left company when he came in, or refused to enter into it when I found he would stay any time.

  My brother heard me out with such a kind of impatience as showed he was resolved to be dissatisfied with me, say what I would. The rest, as the event has proved, behaved as if they would have been satisfied had they not further points to carry by intimidating me. All this made it evident, as I mentioned above, that they themselves expected not my voluntary compliance, and was a tacit confession of the disagreeableness of the person they had to propose.

  I was no sooner silent than my brother swore, although in my papa’s presence (swore, unchecked either by eye or countenance), that, for his part, he would never be reconciled to that libertine; and that he would renounce me for a sister if I encouraged the addresses of a man so obnoxious to them all.

  A man who had like to have been my brother’s murderer, my sister said, with a face even bursting with restraint of passion.

  The poor Bella has, you know, a plump, high-fed face, if I may be allowed the expression—you, I know, will forgive me for this liberty of speech sooner than I can myself; yet how can one be such a reptile as not to turn when trampled upon!

  My papa, with vehemence both of action and voice (my father has, you know, a terrible voice, when he is an
gry!), told me that I had met with too much indulgence in being allowed to refuse this gentleman and the other gentleman, and it was now his turn to be obeyed.

  Very true, my mamma said—and hoped his will would not now be disputed by a child so favoured.

  To show they were all of a sentiment, my uncle Harlowe said he hoped his beloved niece only wanted to know her papa’s will to obey it.

  And my uncle Antony, in his rougher manner, that I would not give them reason to apprehend that I thought my grandfather’s favour to me had made me independent of them all. If I did, he could tell me, the will could be set aside, and should.

  I did not know, I said, that I had given occasion for this harshness; I hoped I should always have a just sense of their favour to me, superadded to the duty I owed as a daughter and a niece; but that I was so much surprised at a reception so unusual and unexpected that I hoped my papa and mamma would give me leave to retire in order to recollect myself.

  No one gainsaying, I made my silent compliments and withdrew—leaving my brother and sister, as I thought, pleased, and as if they wanted to congratulate each other on having occasioned so severe a beginning to be made with me.

  But I will at present only add my humble thanks and duty to your honoured mamma (to whom I will particularly write to express the grateful sense I have of her goodness to me) and that I am,

  Your ever-obliged

  CL. HARLOWE

  Letter 8: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

  Feb. 24

  They drive on here at a furious rate. The man [Solmes] lives here, I think. He courts them and is more and more a favourite. Such terms, such settlements! That’s the cry!

  I have already stood the shock of three of this man’s particular visits, besides my share in his more general ones, and find it is impossible I should ever endure him. He has but a very ordinary share of understanding, is very illiterate, knows nothing but the value of estates and how to improve them, and what belongs to land-jobbing, and husbandry. Yet am I as one stupid, I think. They have begun so cruelly with me that I have not spirit enough to assert my own negative.

  Help me, dear Miss Howe, to a little of your charming spirit; I never more wanted it.

  The man, you may suppose, has no reason to boast of his progress with me. He has not the sense to say anything to the purpose. His courtship, indeed, is to them; and my brother pretends to court me as his proxy, truly!

  • • •

  February 25

  I hate him more than before. One great estate is already obtained at the expense of the relations to it, though distant relations, my brother’s, I mean, by his godmother; and this has given the hope, however chimerical that hope, of procuring others, and that my own at least may revert to the family. And yet, in my opinion, the world is but one great family; originally it was so; what then is this narrow selfishness that reigns in us, but relationship remembered against relationship forgot?

  But here, upon my absolute refusal of him upon any terms, have I had a signification made me that wounds me to the heart. How can I tell it you? Yet I must. It is, my dear, that I must not for a month to come or till licence obtained correspond with anybody out of the house.

  How have I deserved this?

  • • •

  Feb. 25 in the evening

  What my brother and sister have said against me I cannot tell. But I am in heavy disgrace with my papa.

  I was sent for down to tea. I went with a very cheerful aspect, but had occasion soon to change it.

  Such a solemnity in everybody’s countenance! My mamma’s eyes were fixed upon the tea-cups; and when she looked up it was heavily, as if her eyelids had weights upon them, and then not to me. My papa sat half-aside in his elbow-chair, that his head might be turned from me; his hands folded, and waving, as it were, up and down; his fingers, poor dear gentleman! in motion, as if angry to the very ends of them.

  I took my seat. Shall I make tea, madam, to my mamma? I always used, you know, my dear, to make tea.

  No! a very short sentence in one very short word was the expressive answer; and she was pleased to take the canister in her own hand.

  My heart was up at my mouth. I did not know what to do with myself. What is to follow? thought I.

  Just after the second dish out stepped my mamma. So I was left alone with my papa.

  He looked so very sternly that my heart failed me, as twice or thrice I would have addressed myself to him; nothing but solemn silence on all hands having passed before.

  At last, I asked, if it were his pleasure that I should pour him out another dish?

  He answered me with the same angry monosyllable which I had received from my mamma before, and then arose and walked about the room. I arose too, with intent to throw myself at his feet, but was too much over-awed by his sternness even to make such an expression of my duty to him as my heart overflowed with.

  At last, as he supported himself because of his gout on the back of a chair, I took a little more courage, and approaching him, besought him to acquaint me in what I had offended him?

  He turned from me and, in a strong voice, Clarissa Harlowe, said he, know that I will be obeyed.

  God forbid, sir, that you should not! I have never yet opposed your will—

  Nor I your whimsies, Clarissa Harlowe, interrupted he. Don’t let me run the fate of all who show indulgence to your sex, to be the more contradicted for mine to you.

  My papa, you know, my dear, has not (any more than my brother) a kind opinion of our sex, although there is not a more condescending wife in the world than my mamma.

  I was going to make protestations of duty. No protestations, girl! No words. I will not be prated to! I will be obeyed! I have no child—I will have no child, but an obedient one.

  Sir, you never had reason, I hope—

  Tell me not what I never had, but what I have, and what I shall have.

  And I hope, sir—

  Hope nothing. Tell me not of hopes, but of facts. I ask nothing of you but what is in your power to comply with, and what it is your duty to comply with.

  Then, sir, I will comply with it. But yet I hope from your goodness—

  No expostulations! No but’s, girl! No qualifyings! I will be obeyed, I tell you! and cheerfully too! or you are no child of mine!

  I wept.

  Let me beseech you, my dear and ever-honoured papa (and I dropped down on my knees), that I may have only yours and my mamma’s will, and not my brother’s, to obey. I was going on, but he was pleased to withdraw, leaving me on the floor, saying that he would not hear me thus by subtlety and cunning aiming to distinguish away my duty, repeating that he would be obeyed.

  My heart is too full—so full that it may endanger my duty were I to unburden it to you on this occasion; so I will lay down my pen. But can—Yet, positively, I will lay down my pen!

  Letter 9: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

  Feb. 26, in the morning

  My aunt who stayed here last night made me a visit this morning as soon as it was light.

  I find by a few words which dropped from her unawares, that they have all an absolute dependence upon what they suppose to be a meekness in my temper. But in this they may be mistaken, for I verily think upon a strict examination of myself that I have almost as much in me of my father’s as of my mother’s family.

  My aunt advises me to submit for the present to the interdicts they have laid me under; and indeed to encourage Mr Solmes’s address. I have absolutely refused the latter, let what will as I have told her be the consequence. The visiting prohibition I will conform to. But as to that of not corresponding with you, nothing but the menace that our letters shall be intercepted can engage my observation of it.

  I cannot bear the thought of being deprived of the principal pleasure of my life, for such is your conversation by person and by letter.
r />   But can you, my dear Miss Howe, condescend to carry on a private correspondence with me? If you can, there is one way I have thought of by which it may be done.

  You must remember the Green Lane, as we call it, that runs by the side of the wood-house and poultry-yard where I keep my bantams, pheasants and pea-hens, which generally engage my notice twice a day, the more my favourites because they were my grandfather’s, and recommended to my care by him, and therefore brought hither from my dairy-house, since his death.

  The lane is lower than the floor of the wood-house, and in the side of the wood-house the boards are rotted away down to the floor for half an ell together in several places. Hannah can step into the lane and make a mark with chalk where a letter or parcel may be pushed in under some sticks, which may be so managed as to be an unsuspected cover for the written deposits from either.

  • • •

  I have been just now to look at the place and find it will answer. So your faithful Robert may, without coming near the house, and as only passing through the green lane which leads to two or three farmhouses (out of livery, if you please), very easily take from thence my letters and deposit yours.

  This place is the more convenient because it is seldom resorted to but by myself or Hannah on the above-mentioned account, for it is the general store-house for firing, the wood for constant use being nearer the house.

  One corner of this being separated off for the roosting-place of my little poultry, either she or I shall never want a pretence to go thither.

  Try, my dear, the success of a letter this way, and give me your opinion and advice what to do in this disgraceful situation, as I cannot but call it, and what you think of my prospects, and what you would do in my case.

  But beforehand I must tell you that your advice must not run in favour of this Solmes; and yet it is very likely they will endeavour to engage your mamma in order to induce you, who have such an influence over me, to favour him.