MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
MONDAY, JULY 17.
About six this morning, I went to Rowland's. Mrs. Sinclair was to follow
me, in order to dismiss the action; but not to come in sight.
Rowland, upon inquiry, told me, that the lady was extremely ill; and that
she had desired, that no one but his wife or maid should come near her.
I said, I must see her. I had told him my business over-night, and I
must see her.
His wife went up: but returned presently, saying, she could not get her
to speak to her; yet that her eyelids moved; though she either would not,
or could not, open them, to look up at her.
Oons, woman, said I, the lady may be in a fit: the lady may be dying--let
me go up. Show me the way.
A horrid hole of a house, in an alley they call a court; stairs
wretchedly narrow, even to the first-floor rooms: and into a den they led
me, with broken walls, which had been papered, as I saw by a multitude of
tacks, and some torn bits held on by the rusty heads.
The floor indeed was clean, but the ceiling was smoked with variety of
figures, and initials of names, that had been the woeful employment of
wretches who had no other way to amuse themselves.
A bed at one corner, with coarse curtains tacked up at the feet to the
ceiling; because the curtain-rings were broken off; but a coverlid upon
it with a cleanish look, though plaguily in tatters, and the corners tied
up in tassels, that the rents in it might go no farther.
The windows dark and double-barred, the tops boarded up to save mending;
and only a little four-paned eyelet-hole of a casement to let in air;
more, however, coming in at broken panes than could come in at that.
Four old Turkey-worked chairs, bursten-bottomed, the stuffing staring
out.
An old, tottering, worm-eaten table, that had more nails bestowed in
mending it to make it stand, than the table cost fifty years ago, when
new.
On the mantle-piece was an iron shove-up candlestick, with a lighted
candle in it, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, four of them, I suppose, for a
penny.
Near that, on the same shelf, was an old looking-glass, cracked through
the middle, breaking out into a thousand points; the crack given it,
perhaps, in a rage, by some poor creature, to whom it gave the
representation of his heart's woes in his face.
The chimney had two half-tiles in it on one side, and one whole one on
the other; which showed it had been in better plight; but now the very
mortar had followed the rest of the tiles in every other place, and left
the bricks bare.
An old half-barred stove grate was in the chimney; and in that a large
stone-bottle without a neck, filled with baleful yew, as an evergreen,
withered southern-wood, dead sweet-briar, and sprigs of rue in flower.
To finish the shocking description, in a dark nook stood an old
broken-bottomed cane couch, without a squab, or coverlid, sunk at one
corner, and unmortised by the failing of one of its worm-eaten legs,
which lay in two pieces under the wretched piece of furniture it could
no longer support.
And this, thou horrid Lovelace, was the bed-chamber of the divine
Clarissa!!!
I had leisure to cast my eye on these things: for, going up softly, the
poor lady turned not about at our entrance; nor, till I spoke, moved her
head.
She was kneeling in a corner of the room, near the dismal window, against
the table, on an old bolster (as it seemed to be) of the cane couch,
half-covered with her handkerchief; her back to the door; which was only
shut to, [no need of fastenings;] her arms crossed upon the table, the
fore-finger of her right-hand in her Bible. She had perhaps been reading
in it, and could read no longer. Paper, pens, ink, lay by her book on
the table. Her dress was white damask, exceeding neat; but her stays
seemed not tight-laced. I was told afterwards, that her laces had been
cut, when she fainted away at her entrance into this cursed place; and
she had not been solicitous enough about her dress to send for others.
Her head-dress was a little discomposed; her charming hair, in natural
ringlets, as you have heretofore described it, but a little tangled, as
if not lately combed, irregularly shading one side of the loveliest neck
in the world; as her disordered rumpled handkerchief did the other. Her
face [O how altered from what I had seen it! yet lovely in spite of all
her griefs and sufferings!] was reclined, when we entered, upon her
crossed arms; but so, as not more than one side of it could be hid.
When I surveyed the room around, and the kneeling lady, sunk with majesty
too in her white flowing robes, (for she had not on a hoop,) spreading
the dark, though not dirty, floor, and illuminating that horrid corner;
her linen beyond imagination white, considering that she had not been
undressed every since she had been here; I thought my concern would have
choked me. Something rose in my throat, I know not what, which made me,
for a moment, guggle, as it were, for speech: which, at last, forcing its
way, con--con--confound you both, said I, to the man and woman, is this
an apartment for such a lady? and could the cursed devils of her own sex,
who visited this suffering angel, see her, and leave her, in so d----d a
nook?
Sir, we would have had the lady to accept of our own bed-chamber: but she
refused it. We are poor people--and we expect nobody will stay with us
longer than they can help it.
You are people chosen purposely, I doubt not, by the d----d woman who has
employed you: and if your usage of this lady has been but half as bad as
your house, you had better never to have seen the light.
Up then raised the charming sufferer her lovely face; but with such a
significance of woe overspreading it, that I could not, for the soul of
me, help being visibly affected.
She waved her hand two or three times towards the door, as if commanding
me to withdraw; and displeased at my intrusion; but did not speak.
Permit me, Madam--I will not approach one step farther without your leave
--permit me, for one moment, the favour of your ear!
No--no--go, go, MAN! with an emphasis--and would have said more; but, as
if struggling in vain for words, she seemed to give up speech for lost,
and dropped her head down once more, with a deep sigh, upon her left arm;
her right, as if she had not the use of it (numbed, I suppose)
self-moved, dropping on her side.
O that thou hadst been there! and in my place!--But by what I then felt,
in myself, I am convinced, that a capacity of being moved by the
distresses of our fellow creatures, is far from being disgraceful to a
manly heart. With what pleasure, at that moment, could I have given up
my own life, could I but first have avenged this charming creature, and
cut the throat of her destroyer, as she emphatically calls thee, though
the friend that I best love: and yet, at the same time, my heart and my
eyes gave way to a softness of which (though not so hardened a wretch as
thou) they were never before so susceptible.
I dare not approach you, dearest lady, without your leave: but on my
knees I beseech you to permit me to release you from this d----d house,
and out of the power of the cursed woman, who was the occasion of your
being here!
She lifted up her sweet face once more, and beheld me on my knees. Never
knew I before what it was to pray so heartily.
Are you not--are you not Mr. Belford, Sir? I think your name is Belford?
It is, Madam, and I ever was a worshipper of your virtues, and an
advocate for you; and I come to release you from the hands you are in.
And in whose to place me?--O leave me, leave me! let me never rise from
this spot! let me never, never more believe in man!
This moment, dearest lady, this very moment, if you please, you may
depart whithersoever you think fit. You are absolutely free, and your
own mistress.
I had now as lieve die here in this place, as any where. I will owe no
obligation to any friend of him in whose company you have seen me. So,
pray, Sir, withdraw.
Then turning to the officer, Mr. Rowland I think your name is? I am
better reconciled to your house than I was at first. If you can but
engage that I shall have nobody come near me but your wife, (no man!)
and neither of those women who have sported with my calamities, I will
die with you, and in this very corner. And you shall be well satisfied
for the trouble you have had with me--I have value enough for that--for,
see, I have a diamond ring; taking it out of her bosom; and I have
friends will redeem it at a high price, when I am gone.
But for you, Sir, looking at me, I beg you to withdraw. If you mean well
by me, God, I hope, will reward you for your good meaning; but to the
friend of my destroyer will I not owe an obligation.
You will owe no obligation to me, nor to any body. You have been
detained for a debt you do not owe. The action is dismissed; and you
will only be so good as to give me your hand into the coach, which stands
as near to this house as it could draw up. And I will either leave you
at the coach-door, or attend you whithersoever you please, till I see you
safe where you would wish to be.
Will you then, Sir, compel me to be beholden to you?
You will inexpressibly oblige me, Madam, to command me to do you either
service or pleasure.
Why then, Sir, [looking at me]--but why do you mock me in that humble
posture! Rise, Sir! I cannot speak to you else.