My heart fluttered with the hope and the fear of seeing my mother, and
with the shame and grief of having given her so much uneasiness. But it
needed not: she was not permitted to come. But my aunt was so good as to
return, yet not without my sister; and, taking my hand, made me sit down
by her.
She came, she must own, officiously, she said, this once more,
though against the opinion of my father: but knowing and dreading the
consequence of my opposition, she could not but come.
She then set forth to my friends' expectation from me; Mr. Solmes's
riches (three times as rich he came out to be, as any body had thought
him); the settlements proposed; Mr. Lovelace's bad character; their
aversions to him; all in a very strong light; not in a stronger than
my mother had before placed them in. My mother, surely, could not have
given the particulars of what had passed between herself and me: if she
had, my aunt would not have repeated many of the same sentiments, as
you will find she did, that had been still more strongly urged, without
effect by her venerable sister.
She said it would break the heart of my father to have it imagined that
he had not a power over his own child; and that, as he thought, for
my own good: a child too, whom they had always doated upon!--Dearest,
dearest Miss, concluded she, clasping her fingers, with the most
condescending earnestness, let me beg of you, for my sake, for your own
sake, for a hundred sakes, to get over this averseness, to give up your
prejudices, and make every one happy and easy once more.--I would kneel
to you, my dearest Niece--nay, I will kneel to you--!
And down she dropt, and I with her, kneeling to her, and beseeching her
not to kneel; clasping my arms about her, and bathing her worthy bosom
with my tears.
O rise! rise! my beloved Aunt, said I: you cut me to the heart with this
condescending goodness.
Say then, my dearest Niece, say then, that you will oblige all your
friends!--If you love us, I beseech you do--
How can I perform what I can sooner choose to die than to perform--!
Say then, my dear, that you will consider of it. Say you will but
reason with yourself. Give us but hopes. Don't let me entreat, and thus
entreat, in vain--[for still she kneeled, and I by her].
What a hard case is mine!--Could I but doubt, I know I could
conquer.--That which is an inducement to my friends, is none at all to
me--How often, my dearest Aunt, must I repeat the same thing?--Let me
but be single--Cannot I live single? Let me be sent, as I have proposed,
to Scotland, to Florence, any where: let me be sent a slave to the
Indies, any where--any of these I will consent to. But I cannot, cannot
think of giving my vows to man I cannot endure!
Well then, rising, (Bella silently, with uplifted hands, reproaching my
supposed perverseness,) I see nothing can prevail with you to oblige us.
What can I do, my dearest Aunt Hervey? What can I do? Were I capable of
giving a hope I meant not to enlarge, then could I say, I would consider
of your kind advice. But I would rather be thought perverse than
insincere. Is there, however, no medium? Can nothing be thought of? Will
nothing do, but to have a man who is the more disgustful to me, because
he is unjust in the very articles he offers?
Whom now, Clary, said my sister, do you reflect upon? Consider that.
Make not invidious applications of what I say, Bella. It may not be
looked upon in the same light by every one. The giver and the accepter
are principally answerable in an unjust donation. While I think of it in
this light, I should be inexcusable to be the latter. But why do I enter
upon a supposition of this nature?--My heart, as I have often, often
said, recoils, at the thought of the man, in every light.--Whose father,
but mine, agrees upon articles where there is no prospect of a liking?
Where the direct contrary is avowed, all along avowed, without the
least variation, or shadow of a change of sentiment?--But it is not my
father's doing originally. O my cruel, cruel brother, to cause a measure
to be forced upon me, which he would not behave tolerably under, were
the like to be offered to him!
The girl is got into her altitudes, Aunt Hervey, said my sister. You
see, Madam, she spares nobody. Be pleased to let her know what she has
to trust to. Nothing is to be done with her. Pray, Madam, pronounce her
doom.
My aunt retired to the window, weeping, with my sister in her hand:
I cannot, indeed I cannot, Miss Harlowe, said she, softly, (but yet I
heard every word she said): there is great hardship in her case. She
is a noble child after all. What pity things are gone so far!--But Mr.
Solmes ought to be told to desist.
O Madam, said my sister, in a kind of loud whisper, are you caught too
by the little siren?--My mother did well not to come up!--I question
whether my father himself, after his first indignation, would not be
turned round by her. Nobody but my brother can do any thing with her, I
am sure.
Don't think of your brother's coming up, said my aunt, still in a low
voice--He is too furious. I see no obstinacy, no perverseness, in
her manner! If your brother comes, I will not be answerable for the
consequences: for I thought twice or thrice she would have gone into
fits.
O Madam, she has a strong heart!--And you see there is no prevailing
with her, though you were upon your knees to her.
My sister left my aunt musing at the window, with her back towards us,
and took that opportunity to insult me still more barbarously; for,
stepping to my closet, she took up the patterns which my mother had sent
me up, and bringing them to me, she spread them upon the chair by me;
and offering one, and then another, upon her sleeve and shoulder, thus
she ran on, with great seeming tranquility, but whisperingly, that my
aunt might not hear her. This, Clary, is a pretty pattern enough: but
this is quite charming! I would advise you to make your appearance in
it. And this, were I you, should be my wedding night-gown--And this
my second dressed suit! Won't you give orders, love, to have your
grandmother's jewels new set?--Or will you thing to shew away in the new
ones Mr. Solmes intends to present to you? He talks of laying out two
or three thousand pounds in presents, child! Dear heart!--How gorgeously
will you be array'd! What! silent still?--But, Clary, won't you have a
velvet suit? It would cut a great figure in a country church, you know:
and the weather may bear it for a month yet to come. Crimson velvet,
suppose! Such a fine complexion as yours, how it would be set off by it!
What an agreeable blush would it give you!--Heigh-ho! (mocking me, for I
sighed to be thus fooled with,) and do you sigh, love?--Well then, as it
will be a solemn wedding, what think you of black velvet, child?--Silent
still, Clary?--Black velvet, so fair as you are, with those charming
eyes, gleaming through a wintry cloud, like an April sun!--Does not
Lovelace tell you they are charming eyes?--How lovely will you appear to
every one!--What! silent still, love?--But about your laces, Clary?--
She would have gone on still further, had not my aunt advance towards
me, wiping her eyes--What! whispering ladies! You seem so easy and so
pleased, Miss Harlowe, with your private conference, that I hope I shall
carry down good news.
I am only giving her my opinion of her patterns, here.--Unasked indeed;
but she seems, by her silence, to approve of my judgment.
O Bella! said I, that Mr. Lovelace had not taken you at your word!--You
had before now been exercising your judgment on your own account: and I
had been happy as well as you! Was it my fault, I pray you, that it was
not so?--
O how she raved!
To be so ready to give, Bella, and so loth to take, is not very fair in
you.
The poor Bella descended to call names.
Why, Sister, said I, you are as angry, as if there were more in the
hint than possibly might be designed. My wish is sincere, for both our
sakes!--for the whole family's sake!--And what (good now) is there in
it?--Do not, do not, dear Bella, give me cause to suspect, that I have
found a reason for your behaviour to me, and which till now was wholly
unaccountable from sister to sister--
Fie, fie, Clary! said my aunt.
My sister was more and more outrageous.
O how much fitter, said I, to be a jest, than a jester!--But now, Bella,
turn the glass to you, and see how poorly sits the robe upon your own
shoulders, which you have been so unmercifully fixing upon mine!
Fie, fie, Miss Clary! repeated my aunt.
And fie, fie, likewise, good Madam, to Miss Harlowe, you would say, were
you to have heard her barbarous insults!
Let us go, Madam, said my sister, with great violence; let us leave the
creature to swell till she bursts with her own poison.--The last time I
will ever come near her, in the mind I am in!
It is so easy a thing, returned I, were I to be mean enough to follow
an example that is so censurable in the setter of it, to vanquish such
a teasing spirit as your's with its own blunt weapons, that I am amazed
you will provoke me!--Yet, Bella, since you will go, (for she had
hurried to the door,) forgive me. I forgive you. And you have a double
reason to do so, both from eldership and from the offence so studiously
given to one in affliction. But may you be happy, though I never shall!
May you never have half the trials I have had! Be this your comfort,
that you cannot have a sister to treat you as you have treated me!--And
so God bless you!
O thou art a--And down she flung without saying what.
Permit me, Madam, said I to my aunt, sinking down, and clasping her
knees with my arms, to detain you one moment--not to say any thing about
my poor sister--she is her own punisher--only to thank you for all
your condescending goodness to me. I only beg of you not to impute to
obstinacy the immovableness I have shown to so tender a friend; and to
forgive me every thing I have said or done amiss in your presence, for
it has not proceeded from inward rancour to the poor Bella. But I will
be bold to say, that neither she, nor my brother, nor even my father
himself, knows what a heart they have set a bleeding.
I saw, to my comfort, what effect my sister's absence wrought for
me.--Rise, my noble-minded Niece!--Charming creature! [those were her
kind words] kneel not to me!--Keep to yourself what I now say to you.--I
admire you more than I can express--and if you can forbear claiming your
estate, and can resolve to avoid Lovelace, you will continue to be the
greatest miracle I ever knew at your years--but I must hasten down after
your sister.--These are my last words to you: 'Conform to your father's
will, if you possibly can. How meritorious will it be in you if you do
so! Pray to God to enable you to conform. You don't know what may be
done.'
Only, my dear Aunt, one word, one word more (for she was going)--Speak
all you can for my dear Mrs. Norton. She is but low in the world: should
ill health overtake her, she may not know how to live without my mamma's
favour. I shall have no means to help her; for I will want necessaries
before I will assert my right: and I do assure you, she has said so many
things to me in behalf of my submitting to my father's will, that her
arguments have not a little contributed to make me resolve to avoid the
extremities, which nevertheless I pray to God they do not at last force
me upon. And yet they deprive me of her advice, and think unjustly of
one of the most excellent of women.
I am glad to hear you say this: and take this, and this, and this, my
charming Niece! (for so she called me almost at every word, kissing me
earnestly, and clasping her arms about my neck:) and God protect you,
and direct you! But you must submit: indeed you must. Some one day in a
month from this is all the choice that is left you.
And this, I suppose, was the doom my sister called for; and yet no worse
than what had been pronounced upon me before.
She repeated these last sentences louder than the former. 'And remember,
Miss,' added she, 'it is your duty to comply.'--And down she went,
leaving me with my heart full, and my eyes running over.
The very repetition of this fills me with almost equal concern to that
which I felt at the time.
I must lay down my pen. Mistiness, which give to the deluged eye the
appearance of all the colours in the rainbow, will not permit me to
write on.