Few young persons have been able to give more convincing proofs than
myself how little true happiness lies in the enjoyment of our own
wishes.
To produce one instance only of the truth of this observation; what
would I have given for weeks past, for the favour of a letter from my
dear Miss Howe, in whose friendship I placed all my remaining comfort!
Little did I think, that the next letter she would honour me with,
should be in such a style, as should make me look more than once at the
subscription, that I might be sure (the name not being written at
length) that it was not signed by another A.H. For surely, thought I,
this is my sister Arabella’s style: surely Miss Howe (blame me as she
pleases in other points) could never repeat so sharply upon her friend,
words written in the bitterness of spirit, and in the disorder of head;
nor remind her, with asperity, and with mingled strokes of wit, of an
argument held in the gaiety of a heart elated with prosperous fortunes,
(as mine then was,) and very little apprehensive of the severe turn
that argument would one day take against herself.
But what have I, sink in my fortunes; my character forfeited; my honour
lost, [while I know it, I care not who knows it;] destitute of friends,
and even of hope; what have I to do to show a spirit of repining and
expostulation to a dear friend, because she is not more kind than a
sister?——
You have till now, my dear, treated me with great indulgence. If it was
with greater than I had deserved, I may be to blame to have built upon
it, on the consciousness that I deserve it now as much as ever. But I
find, by the rising bitterness which will mingle with the gall in my
ink, that I am not yet subdued enough to my condition.—I lay down my
pen for one moment.
Pardon me, my Miss Howe. I have recollected myself: and will endeavour
to give a particular answer to your letter; although it will take me up
too much time to think of sending it by your messenger to-morrow: he
can put off his journey, he says, till Saturday. I will endeavour to
have the whole narrative ready for you by Saturday.
But how to defend myself in every thing that has happened, I cannot
tell: since in some part of the time, in which my conduct appears to
have been censurable, I was not myself; and to this hour know not all
the methods taken to deceive and ruin me.
You tell me, that in your first letter you gave me such an account of
the vile house I was in, and such cautions about that Tomlinson, as
made you wonder how I could think of going back.
Alas, my dear! I was tricked, most vilely tricked back, as you shall
hear in its place.
Without knowing the house was so very vile a house from your intended
information, I disliked the people too much, ever voluntarily to have
returned to it. But had you really written such cautions about
Tomlinson, and the house, as you seem to have purposed to do, they
must, had they come in time, have been of infinite service to me. But
not one word of either, whatever was your intention, did you mention to
me, in that first of the three letters you so warmly TELL me you did
send me. I will enclose it to convince you.*
* The letter she encloses was Mr. Lovelace’s forged one. See Vol. V.
Letter XXX.
But your account of your messenger’s delivering to me your second
letter, and the description he gives of me, as lying upon a couch, in a
strange way, bloated, and flush-coloured; you don’t know how,
absolutely puzzles and confounds me.
Lord have mercy upon the poor Clarissa Harlowe! What can this mean!—Who
was the messenger you sent? Was he one of Lovelace’s creatures
too!—Could nobody come near me but that man’s confederates, either
setting out so, or made so? I know not what to make of any one syllable
of this! Indeed I don’t.
Let me see. You say, this was before I went from Hampstead! My
intellects had not then been touched!—nor had I ever been surprised by
wine, [strange if I had!]: How then could I be found in such a strange
way, bloated and flush-coloured; you don’t know how!—Yet what a vile,
what a hateful figure has your messenger represented me to have made!
But indeed I know nothing of any messenger from you.
Believing myself secure at Hampstead, I staid longer there than I would
have done, in hopes of the letter promised me in your short one of the
9th, brought me by my own messenger, in which you undertake to send for
and engage Mrs. Townsend in my favour.*
* See Vol. V. Letter XXIX.
I wondered I had not heard from you: and was told you were sick; and,
at another time, that your mother and you had had words on my account,
and that you had refused to admit Mr. Hickman’s visits upon it: so that
I supposed, at one time, that you were not able to write; at another,
that your mother’s prohibition had its due force with you. But now I
have no doubt that the wicked man must have intercepted your letter;
and I wish he found not means to corrupt your messenger to tell you so
strange a story.
It was on Sunday, June 11, you say, that the man gave it me. I was at
church twice that day with Mrs. Moore. Mr. Lovelace was at her house
the while, where he boarded, and wanted to have lodged; but I would not
permit that, though I could not help the other. In one of these spaces
it must be that he had time to work upon the man. You’ll easily, my
dear, find that out, by inquiring the time of his arrival at Mrs.
Moore’s and other circumstances of the strange way he pretended to see
me in, on a couch, and the rest.
Had any body seen me afterwards, when I was betrayed back to the vile
house, struggling under the operation of wicked potions, and robbed
indeed of my intellects (for this, as you shall hear, was my dreadful
case,) I might then, perhaps, have appeared bloated and flush-coloured,
and I know not how myself. But were you to see your poor Clarissa, now
(or even to have seen her at Hampstead before she suffered the vilest
of all outrages,) you would not think her bloated or flush-coloured:
indeed you would not.
In a word, it could not be me your messenger saw; nor (if any body) who
it was can I divine.
I will now, as briefly as the subject will permit, enter into the
darker part of my sad story: and yet I must be somewhat circumstantial,
that you may not think me capable of reserve or palliation. The latter
I am not conscious that I need. I should be utterly inexcusable were I
guilty of the former to you. And yet, if you know how my heart sinks
under the thoughts of a recollection so painful, you would pity me.
As I shall not be able, perhaps, to conclude what I have to write in
even two or three letters, I will begin a new one with my story; and
send the whole of it together, although written at different periods,
as I am able.
Allow me a little pause, my dear, at this place; and to subscribe
myself
Your ever affectionate and obliged, CLARISSA HARLOWE.