Not one, Sir, till you have taken back what you have let fall. I doubt
not either the honour, or the kindness, of your offer; but you must not
say one word more on this subject. I cannot bear it.
She was stooping, but with pain. I therefore prevented her; and besought
her to forgive me for a tender, which, I saw, had been more discomposing
to her than I had hoped (from the purity of my intentions) it would be.
But I could not bear to think that such a mind as her's should be
distressed: since the want of the conveniencies she was used to abound in
might affect and disturb her in the divine course she was in.
You are very kind to me, Sir, said she, and very favourable in your
opinion of me. But I hope that I cannot now be easily put out of my
present course. My declining health will more and more confirm me in it.
Those who arrested and confined me, no doubt, thought they had fallen
upon the most ready method to distress me so as to bring me into all
their measures. But I presume to hope that I have a mind that cannot be
debased, in essential instances, by temporal calamities.
Little do those poor wretches know of the force of innate principles,
(forgive my own implied vanity, was her word,) who imagine, that a
prison, or penury, can bring a right-turned mind to be guilty of a wilful
baseness, in order to avoid such short-lived evils.
She then turned from me towards the window, with a dignity suitable to her
words; and such as showed her to be more of soul than of body at that
instant.
What magnanimity!--No wonder a virtue so solidly founded could baffle all
thy arts: and that it forced thee (in order to carry thy accursed point)
to have recourse to those unnatural ones, which robbed her of her
charming senses.
The women were extremely affected, Mrs. Lovick especially; who said,
whisperingly to Mrs. Smith, We have an angel, not a woman, with us, Mrs.
Smith!
I repeated my offers to write to any of her friends; and told her, that,
having taken the liberty to acquaint Dr. H. with the cruel displeasure of
her relations, as what I presumed lay nearest to her heart, he had
proposed to write himself, to acquaint her friends how ill she was, if
she would not take it amiss.
It was kind in the Doctor, she said: but begged, that no step of that
sort might be taken without her knowledge or consent. She would wait to
see what effects her letter to her sister would have. All she had to
hope for was, that her father would revoke his malediction, previous to
the last blessing she should then implore. For the rest, her friends
would think she could not suffer too much; and she was content to suffer:
for now nothing could happen that could make her wish to live.
Mrs. Smith went down; and, soon returning, asked, if the lady and I would
not dine with her that day; for it was her wedding-day. She had engaged
Mrs. Lovick she said; and should have nobody else, if we would do her
that favour.
The charming creature sighed, and shook her head.--Wedding-day, repeated
she!--I wish you, Mrs. Smith, many happy wedding-days!--But you will
excuse me.
Mr. Smith came up with the same request. They both applied to me.
On condition the lady would, I should make no scruple; and would suspend
an engagement: which I actually had.
She then desired they would all sit down. You have several times, Mrs.
Lovick and Mrs. Smith, hinted your wishes, that I would give you some
little history of myself: now, if you are at leisure, that this
gentleman, who, I have reason to believe, knows it all, is present, and
can tell you if I give it justly, or not, I will oblige your curiosity.
They all eagerly, the man Smith too, sat down; and she began an account
of herself, which I will endeavour to repeat, as nearly in her own words
as I possibly can: for I know you will think it of importance to be
apprized of her manner of relating your barbarity to her, as well as what
her sentiments are of it; and what room there is for the hopes your
friends have in your favour for her.
'At first when I took these lodgings, said she, I thought of staying but
a short time in them; and so Mrs. Smith, I told you: I therefore avoided
giving any other account of myself than that I was a very unhappy young
creature, seduced from good, and escaped from very vile wretches.
'This account I thought myself obliged to give, that you might the less
wonder at seeing a young creature rushing through your shop, into your
back apartment, all trembling and out of breath; an ordinary garb over my
own; craving lodging and protection; only giving my bare word, that you
should be handsomely paid: all my effects contained in a
pocket-handkerchief.
'My sudden absence, for three days and nights together when arrested,
must still further surprise you: and although this gentleman, who,
perhaps, knows more of the darker part of my story, than I do myself, has
informed you (as you, Mrs. Lovick, tell me) that I am only an unhappy,
not a guilty creature; yet I think it incumbent upon me not to suffer
honest minds to be in doubt about my character.
'You must know, then, that I have been, in one instance (I had like to
have said but in one instance; but that was a capital one) an undutiful
child to the most indulgent of parents: for what some people call cruelty
in them, is owing but to the excess of their love, and to their
disappointment, having had reason to expect better from me.
'I was visited (at first, with my friends connivance) by a man of birth
and fortune, but of worse principles, as it proved, than I believed any
man could have. My brother, a very headstrong young man, was absent at
that time; and, when he returned, (from an old grudge, and knowing the
gentleman, it is plain, better than I knew him) entirely disapproved of
his visits: and, having a great sway in our family, brought other
gentlemen to address me: and at last (several having been rejected) he
introduced one extremely disagreeable: in every indifferent person's eyes
disagreeable. I could not love him. They all joined to compel me to
have him; a rencounter between the gentleman my friends were set against,
and my brother, having confirmed them all his enemies.
'To be short; I was confined, and treated so very hardly, that, in a rash
fit, I appointed to go off with the man they hated. A wicked intention,
you'll say! but I was greatly provoked. Nevertheless, I repented, and
resolved not to go off with him: yet I did not mistrust his honour to me
neither; nor his love; because nobody thought me unworthy of the latter,
and my fortune was not to be despised. But foolishly (wickedly and
contrivingly, as my friends still think, with a design, as they imagine,
to abandon them) giving him a private meeting, I was tricked away; poorly
enough tricked away, I must needs say; though others who had been first
guilty of so rash a step as the meeting of him was, might have been so
deceived and surprised as well as I.
'After remaining some time at a farm-house in the country, and behaving
to me all the time with honour, he brought me to handsome lodgings in
town till still better provision could be made for me. But they proved
to be (as he indeed knew and designed) at a vile, a very vile creature's;
though it was long before I found her to be so; for I knew nothing of the
town, or its ways.
'There is no repeating what followed: such unprecedented vile arts!--For
I gave him no opportunity to take me at any disreputable advantage.'--
And here (half covering her sweet face, with her handkerchief put to her
tearful eyes) she stopt.
Hastily, as if she would fly from the hateful remembrance, she resumed:--
'I made escape afterward from the abominable house in his absence, and
came to your's: and this gentleman has almost prevailed on me to think,
that the ungrateful man did not connive at the vile arrest: which was
made, no doubt, in order to get me once more to those wicked lodgings:
for nothing do I owe them, except I were to pay them'--[she sighed, and
again wiped her charming eyes--adding in a softer, lower voice]--'for
being ruined.'
Indeed, Madam, said I, guilty, abominably guilty, as he is in all the
rest, he is innocent of this last wicked outrage.
'Well, and so I wish him to be. That evil, heavy as it was, is one of
the slightest evils I have suffered. But hence you'll observe, Mrs.
Lovick, (for you seemed this morning curious to know if I were not a
wife,) that I never was married.--You, Mr. Belford, no doubt, knew before
that I am no wife: and now I never will be one. Yet, I bless God, that
I am not a guilty creature!
'As to my parentage, I am of no mean family; I have in my own right, by
the intended favour of my grandfather, a fortune not contemptible:
independent of my father; if I had pleased; but I never will please.
'My father is very rich. I went by another name when I came to you
first: but that was to avoid being discovered to the perfidious man: who
now engages, by this gentleman, not to molest me.
'My real name you now know to be Harlowe: Clarissa Harlowe. I am not yet
twenty years of age.
'I have an excellent mother, as well as father; a woman of family, and
fine sense--worthy of a better child!--they both doated upon me.
'I have two good uncles: men of great fortune; jealous of the honour of
their family; which I have wounded.
'I was the joy of their hearts; and, with theirs and my father's, I had
three houses to call my own; for they used to have me with them by turns,
and almost kindly to quarrel for me; so that I was two months in the year
with the one; two months with the other; six months at my father's; and
two at the houses of others of my dear friends, who thought themselves
happy in me: and whenever I was at any one's, I was crowded upon with
letters by all the rest, who longed for my return to them.
'In short, I was beloved by every body. The poor--I used to make glad
their hearts: I never shut my hand to any distress, wherever I was--but
now I am poor myself!
'So Mrs. Smith, so Mrs. Lovick, I am not married. It is but just to tell
you so. And I am now, as I ought to be, in a state of humiliation and
penitence for the rash step which has been followed by so much evil.
God, I hope, will forgive me, as I am endeavouring to bring my mind to
forgive all the world, even the man who has ungratefully, and by dreadful
perjuries, [poor wretch! he thought all his wickedness to be wit!]
reduced to this a young creature, who had his happiness in her view, and
in her wish, even beyond this life; and who was believed to be of rank,
and fortune, and expectations, considerable enough to make it the
interest of any gentleman in England to be faithful to his vows to her.
But I cannot expect that my parents will forgive me: my refuge must be
death; the most painful kind of which I would suffer, rather than be the
wife of one who could act by me, as the man has acted, upon whose birth,
education, and honour, I had so much reason to found better expectations.
'I see, continued she, that I, who once was every one's delight, am now
the cause of grief to every one--you, that are strangers to me, are moved
for me! 'tis kind!--but 'tis time to stop. Your compassionate hearts,
Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick, are too much touched,' [For the women sobbed,
and the man was also affected.] 'It is barbarous in me, with my woes,
thus to sadden your wedding-day.' Then turning to Mr. and Mrs. Smith--
'May you see many happy ones, honest, good couple!--how agreeable is it
to see you both join so kindly to celebrate it, after many years are gone
over you!--I once--but no more!--All my prospects of felicity, as to this
life, are at an end. My hopes, like opening buds or blossoms in an
over-forward spring, have been nipt by a severe frost!--blighted by an
eastern wind!--but I can but once die; and if life be spared me, but till
I am discharged from a heavy malediction, which my father in his wrath
laid upon me, and which is fulfilled literally in every article relating
to this world; that, and a last blessing, are all I have to wish for; and
death will be welcomer to me, than rest to the most wearied traveller
that ever reached his journey's end.'
And then she sunk her head against the back of her chair, and, hiding her
face with her handkerchief, endeavoured to conceal her tears from us.
Not a soul of us could speak a word. Thy presence, perhaps, thou
hardened wretch, might have made us ashamed of a weakness which perhaps
thou wilt deride me in particular for, when thou readest this!----
She retired to her chamber soon after, and was forced, it seems, to lie
down. We all went down together; and, for an hour and a half, dwelt upon
her praises; Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick repeatedly expressing their
astonishment, that there could be a man in the world, capable of
offending, much more of wilfully injuring such a lady; and repeating,
that they had an angel in their house.--I thought they had; and that
as assuredly as there is a devil under the roof of good Lord M.
I hate thee heartily!--by my faith I do!--every hour I hate thee more
than the former!----