***
I dispatched instantly a letter to the dear creature, assuring her, with
the most thankful joy, 'That I would directly set out for Berks, and wait
the issue of the happy reconciliation, and the charming hopes she had
filled me with. I poured out upon her a thousand blessings. I declared
that it should be the study of my whole life to merit such transcendent
goodness: and that there was nothing which her father or friends should
require at my hands, that I would not for her sake comply with, in order
to promote and complete so desirable a reconciliation.'
I hurried it away without taking a copy of it; and I have ordered the
chariot-and-six to be got ready; and hey for M. Hall! Let me but know
how Belton does. I hope a letter from thee is on the road. And if the
poor fellow can spare thee, make haste, I command thee, to attend this
truly divine lady. Thou mayest not else see her of months perhaps; at
least, not while she is Miss HARLOWE. And oblige me, if possible, with
one letter before she sets out, confirming to me and accounting for this
generous change.
But what accounting for it is necessary? The dear creature cannot
receive consolation herself but she must communicate it to others. How
noble! She would not see me in her adversity; but no sooner does the sun
of prosperity begin to shine upon her than she forgives me.
I know to whose mediation all this is owing. It is to Colonel Morden's.
She always, as she says, loved and honoured him! And he loved her above
all his relations.
I shall now be convinced that there is something in dreams. The opening
cloud is the reconciliation in view. The bright form, lifting up my
charmer through it to a firmament stuck round with golden cherubims and
seraphims, indicates the charming little boys and girls, that will be the
fruits of this happy reconciliation. The welcomes, thrice repeated, are
those of her family, now no more to be deemed implacable. Yet are they
family, too, that my soul cannot mingle with.
But then what is my tumbling over and over through the floor into a
frightful hole, descending as she ascends? Ho! only this! it alludes to
my disrelish to matrimony: Which is a bottomless pit, a gulph, and I know
not what. And I suppose, had I not awoke in such a plaguy fright, I had
been soused into some river at the bottom of the hole, and then been
carried (mundified or purified from my past iniquities,) by the same
bright form (waiting for me upon the mossy banks,) to my beloved girl;
and we should have gone on cherubiming of it and caroling to the end of
the chapter.
But what are the black sweeping mantles and robes of Lord M. thrown over
my face? And what are those of the ladies? O Jack! I have these too:
They indicate nothing in the world but that my Lord will be so good as to
die, and leave me all he has. So, rest to thy good-natured soul, honest
Lord M.
Lady Sarah Sadleir and Lady Betty Lawrance, will also die, and leave me
swinging legacies.
Miss Charlotte and her sister--what will become of the?--Oh! they will be
in mourning, of course, for their uncle and aunts--that's right!
As to Morden's flashing through the window, and crying, Die, Lovelace,
and be d----d, if thou wilt not repair my cousin's wrong! That is only,
that he would have sent me a challenge, had I not been disposed to do the
lady justice.
All I dislike is this part of the dream: for, even in a dream, I would
not be thought to be threatened into any measure, though I liked it ever
so well.
And so much for my prophetic dream.
Dear charming creature! What a meeting will there be between her and her
father and mother and uncles! What transports, what pleasure, will this
happy, long-wished-for reconciliation give her dutiful heart! And indeed
now methinks I am glad she is so dutiful to them; for her duty to her
parents is a conviction to me that she will be as dutiful to her husband:
since duty upon principle is an uniform thing.
Why pr'ythee, now, Jack, I have not been so much to blame as thou
thinkest: for had it not been for me, who have led her into so much
distress, she could neither have received nor given the joy that will now
overwhelm them all. So here rises great and durable good out of
temporary evil.
I know they loved her (the pride and glory of their family,) too well to
hold out long!
I wish I could have seen Arabella's letter. She has always been so much
eclipsed by her sister, that I dare say she has signified this
reconciliation to her with intermingled phlegm and wormwood; and her
invitation must certainly runs all in the rock-water style.
I shall long to see the promised letter too when she is got to her
father's, which I hope will give an account of the reception she will
meet with.
There is a solemnity, however, I think, in the style of her letter, which
pleases and affects me at the same time. But as it is evident she loves
me still, and hopes soon to see me at her father's, she could not help
being a little solemn, and half-ashamed, [dear blushing pretty rogue!] to
own her love, after my usage of her.
And then her subscription: Till when, I am, CLARISSA HARLOWE: as much as
to say, after that, I shall be, if not to your own fault,
CLARISSA LOVELACE!
O my best love! My ever-generous and adorable creature! How much does
this thy forgiving goodness exalt us both!--Me, for the occasion given
thee! Thee, for turning it so gloriously to thy advantage, and to the
honour of both!
And if, my beloved creature, you will but connive at the imperfections of
your adorer, and not play the wife with me: if, while the charms of
novelty have their force with me, I should happen to be drawn aside by
the love of intrigue, and of plots that my soul delights to form and
pursue; and if thou wilt not be open-eyed to the follies of my youth, [a
transitory state;] every excursion shall serve but the more to endear
thee to me, till in time, and in a very little time too, I shall get
above sense; and then, charmed by thy soul-attracting converse; and
brought to despise my former courses; what I now, at distance, consider
as a painful duty, will be my joyful choice, and all my delight will
centre in thee!
***
Mowbray is just arrived with thy letters. I therefore close my agreeable
subject, to attend to one which I doubt will be very shocking.
I have engaged the rough varlet to bear me company in the morning to
Berks; where I shall file off the rust he has contracted in his
attendance upon the poor fellow.
He tells me that, between the dying Belton and the preaching Belford, he
shan't be his own man these three days: and says that thou addest to the
unhappy fellow's weakness, instead of giving him courage to help him to
bear his destiny.
I am sorry he takes the unavoidable lot so heavily. But he has been long
ill; and sickness enervates the mind as well as the body; as he himself
very significantly observed to thee.