Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 4

M. No love lost, if so, between you and them. But this [rising] is what I get—so like your papa!—I never could open my heart to him!

D. Dear Madam, excuse me. Be so good as to open your heart to me.— I don't love the Harlowes—but pray excuse me.

M. You have put me quite out with your forward temper! [angrily sitting down again.]

D. I will be all patience and attention. May I be allowed to read his letter?

M. I wanted to advise with you upon it.—But you are such a strange creature!—you are always for answering one before one speaks!

D. You'll be so good as to forgive me, Madam.—But I thought every body (he among the rest) knew that you had always declared against a second marriage.

M. And so I have. But then it was in the mind I was in. Things may offer——

I stared.

M. Nay, don't be surprised!—I don't intend—I don't intend—

D. Not, perhaps, in the mind you are in, Madam.

M. Pert creature! [rising again]——We shall quarrel, I see!—There's no——

D. Once more, dear Madam, I beg your excuse. I will attend in silence. —Pray, Madam, sit down again—pray do [she sat down.]—May I see the letter?

No; there are some things in it you won't like.—Your temper is known, I find, to be unhappy. But nothing bad against you; intimations, on the contrary, that you shall be the better for him, if you oblige him.

Not a living soul but the Harlowes, I said, thought me ill-tempered: and I was contented that they should, who could do as they had done by the most universally acknowledged sweetness in the world.

Here we broke out a little; but at last she read me some of the passages in the letter. But not the most mightily ridiculous: yet I could hardly keep my countenance neither, especially when she came to that passage which mentions his sound health; and at which she stopped; she best knew why—But soon resuming:

M. Well now, Nancy, tell me what you think of it.

D. Nay, pray, Madam, tell me what you think of it.

M. I expect to be answered by an answer; not by a question! You don't use to be so shy to speak your mind.

D. Not when my mamma commands me to do so.

M. Then speak it now.

D. Without hearing the whole of the letter?

M. Speak to what you have heard.

D. Why then, Madam——you won't be my mamma HOWE, if you give way to it.

M. I am surprised at your assurance, Nancy!

D. I mean, Madam, you will then be my mamma Harlowe.

M. O dear heart!—But I am not a fool.

And her colour went and came.

D. Dear Madam, [but, indeed, I don't love a Harlowe—that's what I mean,] I am your child, and must be your child, do what you will.

M. A very pert one, I am sure, as ever mother bore! And you must be my child, do what I will!—as much as to say, you would not, if you could help it, if I—

D. How could I have such a thought!—It would be forward, indeed, if I had—when I don't know what your mind is as to the proposal:—when the proposal is so very advantageous a one too.

M. [Looking a little less discomposed] why, indeed, ten thousand pounds——

D. And to be sure of outliving him, Madam!

M. Sure!—nobody can be sure—but it is very likely that——

D. Not at all, Madam. You was going to read something (but stopped) about his constitution: his sobriety is well known—Why, Madam, these gentlemen who have used the sea, and been in different climates, and come home to relax from cares in a temperate one, and are sober—are the likeliest to live long of any men in the world. Don't you see that his very skin is a fortification of buff?

M. Strange creature!

D. God forbid, that any body I love and honour should marry a man in hopes to bury him—but suppose, Madam, at your time of life——

M. My time of life?—Dear heart!—What is my time of life, pray?

D. Not old, Madam; and that you are not, may be your danger!

As I hope to live (my dear) my mother smiled, and looked not displeased with me.

M. Why, indeed, child—why, indeed, I must needs say—and then I should choose to do nothing (forward as you are sometimes) to hurt you.

D. Why, as to that, Madam, I can't expect that you should deprive yourself of any satisfaction—

M. Satisfaction, my dear!—I don't say it would be a satisfaction—but could I do any thing that would benefit you, it would perhaps be an inducement to hold one conference upon the subject.

D. My fortune already will be more considerable than my match, if I am to have Mr. Hickman.

M. Why so?—Mr. Hickman has fortune enough to entitle him to your's.

D. If you think so, that's enough.

M. Not but I should think the worse of myself, if I desired anybody's death; but I think, as you say, Mr. Antony Harlowe is a healthy man, and bids fair for a long life.

Bless me, thought I, how shall I do to know whether this be an objection or a recommendation!

D. Will you forgive me, Madam?

M. What would the girl say? [looking as if she was half afraid to hear what.]

D. Only, that if you marry a man of his time of life, you stand two chances instead of one, to be a nurse at your time of life.

M. Saucebox!

D. Dear Madam!—What I mean is only that these healthy old men sometimes fall into lingering disorders all at once. And I humbly conceive, that the infirmities of age are uneasily borne with, where the remembrance of the pleasanter season comes not in to relieve the healthier of the two.

M. A strange girl!—Yet his healthy constitution an objection just now! —-But I have always told you, that you know either too much to be argued with, or too little for me to have patience with you.

D. I can't but say, I should be glad of your commands, Madam, how to behave myself to Mr. Antony Harlowe next time he comes.

M. How to behave yourself!—Why, if you retire with contempt of him, when he comes next, it will be but as you have been used to do of late.

D. Then he is to come again, Madam?

M. And suppose he be?

D. I can't help it, if it be your pleasure, Madam. He desires a line in answer to his fine letter. If he come, it will be in pursuance of that line, I presume?

M. None of your arch and pert leers, girl!—You know I won't bear them. I had a mind to hear what you would say to this matter. I have not written; but I shall presently.

D. It is mighty good of you, Madam, (I hope the man will think so,) to answer his first application by letter.—Pity he should write twice, if once will do.

M. That fetch won't let you into my intention as to what I shall write. It is too saucily put.

D. Perhaps I can guess at your intention, Madam, were it to become me so to do.

M. Perhaps I would not make Mr. Hickman of any man; using him the worse for respecting me.

D. Nor, perhaps, would I, Madam, if I liked his respects.

M. I understand you. But, perhaps, it is in your power to make me hearken, or not, to Mr. Harlowe.

D. Young men, who have probably a good deal of time before them need not be in haste for a wife. Mr. Hickman, poor man! must stay his time, or take his remedy.

M. He bears more from you than a man ought.

D. Then, I doubt, he gives a reason for the treatment he meets with.

M. Provoking creature!

D. I have but one request to make to you, Madam.

M. A dutiful one, I suppose. What is it, pray?

D. That if you marry, I may be permitted to live single.

M. Perverse creature, I'm sure!

D. How can I expect, Madam, that you should refuse such terms? Ten thousand pounds!—At the least ten thousand pounds!—A very handsome proposal!—So many fine things too, to give you one by one!—Dearest Madam, forgive me!—I hope it is not yet so far gone, that rallying this man will be thought want of duty to you.

M. Your rallying of him, and your reverence to me, it is plain, have one source.

D. I hope not, Madam. But ten thousand pounds——

M. Is no unhandsome proposal.

D. Indeed I think so. I hope, Madam, you will not be behind-hand with him in generosity.

M. He won't be ten thousand pounds the better for me, if he survive me.

D. No, Madam; he can't expect that, as you have a daughter, and as he is a bachelor, and has not a child!—Poor old soul!

M. Old soul, Nancy!—And thus to call him for being a bachelor, not having a child!—Does this become you?

D. Not old soul for that, Madam—but half the sum; five thousand pounds; you can't engage for less, Madam.

M. That sum has your approbation then? [Looking as if she'd be even with me].

D. As he leaves it to your generosity, Madam, to reward his kindness to you, it can't be less.—Do, dear Madam, permit me, without incurring your displeasure, to call him poor old soul again.

M. Never was such a whimsical creature!—[turning away to hide her involuntary smile, for I believe I looked very archly; at least I intended to do so]—I hate that wicked sly look. You give yourself very free airs—don't you?

D. I snatched her hand, and kissed it—My dear Mamma, be not angry with your girl!—You have told me, that you was very lively formerly.

M. Formerly! Good lack!—But were I to encourage his proposals, you may be sure, that for Mr. Hickman's sake, as well as your's, I should make a wise agreement.

D. You have both lived to years of prudence, Madam.

M. Yes, I suppose I am an old soul too.

D. He also is for making a wise agreement, or hinting at one, at least.

M. Well, the short and the long I suppose is this: I have not your consent to marry.

D. Indeed, Madam, you have not my wishes to marry.

M. Let me tell you, that if prudence consists in wishing well to one's self, I see not but the young flirts are as prudent as the old souls.

D. Dear Madam, would you blame me, if to wish you not to marry Mr. Antony Harlowe, is to wish well to myself?

M. You are mighty witty. I wish you were as dutiful.

D. I am more dutiful, I hope, than witty; or I should be a fool as well as a saucebox.

M. Let me be judge of both—Parents are only to live for their children, let them deserve it or not. That's their dutiful notion!

D. Heaven forbid that I should wish, if there be two interests between my mother and me, that my mother postpone her own for mine!—or give up any thing that would add to the real comforts of her life to oblige me!— Tell me, my dear Mamma, if you think the closing with this proposal will?

M. I say, that ten thousand pounds is such an acquisition to one's family, that the offer of it deserves a civil return.

D. Not the offer, Madam: the chance only!—if indeed you have a view to an increase of family, the money may provide—

M. You can't keep within tolerable bounds!—That saucy fleer I cannot away with—

D. Dearest, dearest Madam, forgive me; but old soul ran in my head again!—Nay, indeed, and upon my word, I will not be robbed of that charming smile! And again I kissed her hand.

M. Away, bold creature! Nothing can be so provoking as to be made to smile when one would choose, and ought, to be angry.

D. But, dear Madam, if it be to be, I presume you won't think of it before next winter.

M. What now would the pert one be at?

D. Because he only proposes to entertain you with pretty stories of foreign nations in a winter's evening.—Dearest, dearest Madam, let me have all the reading of his letter through. I will forgive him all he says about me.

M. It may be a very difficult thing, perhaps, for a man of the best sense to write a love-letter that may not be cavilled at.

D. That's because lovers in their letters hit not the medium. They either write too much nonsense, or too little. But do you call this odd soul's letter [no more will I call him old soul, if I can help it] a love-letter?

M. Well, well, I see you are averse to this matter. I am not to be your mother; you will live single, if I marry. I had a mind to see if generosity govern you in your views. I shall pursue my own inclinations; and if they should happen to be suitable to yours, pray let me for the future be better rewarded by you than hitherto I have been.

And away she flung, without staying for a reply.—Vexed, I dare say, that I did not better approve of the proposal—were it only that the merit of denying might have been all her own, and to lay the stronger obligation upon her saucy daughter.

She wrote such a widow-like refusal when she went from me, as might not exclude hope in any other wooer; whatever it may do in Mr. Tony Harlowe.

It will be my part, to take care to beat her off the visit she half- promises to make him (as you will see in her answer) upon condition that he will withdraw his suit. For who knows what effect the old bachelor's exotics [far-fetched and dear-bought you know is a proverb] might otherwise have upon a woman's mind, wanting nothing but unnecessaries, gewgaws, and fineries, and offered such as are not easily to be met with, or purchased?

Well, but now I give you leave to read here, in this place, the copy of my mother's answer to your uncle's letter. Not one comment will I make upon it. I know my duty better. And here, therefore, taking the liberty to hope, that I may, in your present less disagreeable, though not wholly agreeable situation, provoke a smile from you, I conclude myself,

Your ever affectionate and faithful, ANNA HOWE.

MRS. ANNABELLA HOWE, TO ANTONY HARLY, ESQ.

MR. ANTONY HARLOWE, FRIDAY, MAY 19.

SIR,

It is not usual I believe for our sex to answer by pen and ink the first letter on these occasions. The first letter! How odd is that! As if I expected another; which I do not. But then I think, as I do not judge proper to encourage your proposal, there is no reason why I should not answer in civility, where so great a civility is intended. Indeed, I was always of opinion that a person was entitled to that, and not to ill usage, because he had a respect for me. And so I have often and often told my daughter.

A woman I think makes but a poor figure in a man's eye afterwards, and does no reputation to her sex neither, when she behaves like a tyrant to him beforehand.

To be sure, Sir, if I were to change my condition, I know not a gentleman whose proposal could be more agreeable. Your nephew and your nieces have enough without you: my daughter has a fine fortune without me, and I should take care to double it, living or dying, were I to do such a thing: so nobody need to be the worse for it. But Nancy would not think so.

All the comfort I know of in children, is, that when young they do with us what they will, and all is pretty in them to their very faults; and when they are grown up, they think their parents must live for them only; and deny themselves every thing for their sakes. I know Nancy could not bear a father-in-law. She would fly at the very thought of my being in earnest to give her one. Not that I stand in fear of my daughter neither. It is not fit I should. But she has her poor papa's spirit. A very violent one that was. And one would not choose, you know, Sir, to enter into any affair, that, one knows, one must renounce a daughter for, or she a mother—except indeed one's heart were much in it; which, I bless God, mine is not.

I have now been a widow these ten years; nobody to controul me: and I am said not to bear controul: so, Sir, you and I are best as we are, I believe: nay, I am sure of it: for we want not what either has; having both more than we know what to do with. And I know I could not be in the least accountable for any of my ways.

My daughter indeed, though she is a fine girl, as girls go, (she has too much sense indeed for one of her sex, and knows she has it,) is more a check to me than one would wish a daughter to be: for who would choose to be always snapping at each other? But she will soon be married; and then, not living together, we shall only come together when we are pleased, and stay away when we are not; and so, like other lovers, never see any thing but the best sides of each other.

I own, for all this, that I love her dearly; and she me, I dare say: so would not wish to provoke her to do otherwise. Besides, the girl is so much regarded every where, that having lived so much of my prime a widow, I would not lay myself open to her censures, or even to her indifference, you know.

Your generous proposal requires all this explicitness. I thank you for your good opinion of me. When I know you acquiesce with this my civil refusal [and indeed, Sir, I am as much in earnest in it, as if I had spoken broader] I don't know but Nancy and I may, with your permission, come to see your fine things; for I am a great admirer of rarities that come from abroad.

So, Sir, let us only converse occasionally as we meet, as we used to do, without any other view to each other than good wishes: which I hope may not be lessened for this declining. And then I shall always think myself

Your obliged servant, ANNABELLA HOWE.

P.S.  I sent word by Mrs. Lorimer, that I would write an answer: but would take time for consideration.  So hope, Sir, you won't think it a slight, I did not write sooner.

LETTER XLIV

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. SUNDAY, MAY 21.

I am too much disturbed in my mind to think of any thing but revenge; or I did intend to give thee an account of Miss Harlowe's observations on the play. Miss Harlowe's I say. Thou knowest that I hate the name of Harlowe; and I am exceedingly out of humour with her, and with her saucy friend.

What's the matter now? thou'lt ask.

Matter enough; for while we were at the play, Dorcas, who had her orders, and a key to her lady's chamber, as well as a master-key to her drawers and mahogany chest, closet-key and all, found means to come at some of Miss Howe's last-written letters. The vigilant wench was directed to them by seeing her lady take a letter out of her stays, and put it to the others, before she went out with me—afraid, as the women upbraidingly tell me, that I should find it there.

Dorcas no sooner found them, than she assembled three ready writers of the non-apparents; and Sally, and she, and they employed themselves with the utmost diligence, in making extracts, according to former directions, from these cursed letters, for my use. Cursed, may I well call them— Such abuses!—Such virulence!—O this little fury Miss Howe!—Well might her saucy friend (who has been equally free with me, or the occasion could not have been given) be so violent as she lately was, at my endeavouring to come at one of these letters.

I was sure, that this fair-one, at so early an age, with a constitution so firm, health so blooming, eyes so sparkling, expectations therefore so lively, and hope so predominating, could not be absolutely, and from her own vigilance, so guarded, and so apprehensive, as I have found her to be.

Sparkling eyes, Jack, when the poetical tribe have said all they can for them, are an infallible sign of a rogue, or room for a rogue, in the heart.

Thou mayest go on with thy preachments, and Lord M. with his wisdom of nations, I am now more assured of her than ever. And now my revenge is up, and joined with my love, all resistance must fall before it. And most solemnly do I swear, that Miss Howe shall come in for her snack.

And here, just now, is another letter brought from the same little virulent devil. I hope to procure scripts from that too, very speedily, if it be put to the test; for the saucy fair-one is resolved to go to church this morning; no so much from a spirit of devotion, I have reason to think, as to try whether she can go out without check, controul, or my attention.

***

I have been denied breakfasting with her. Indeed she was a little displeased with me last night: because, on our return from the play, I obliged her to pass the rest of the night with the women and me, in their parlour, and to stay till near one. She told me at parting, that she expected to have the whole next day to herself. I had not read the extracts then; so I had resolved to begin a new course, and, if possible, to banish all jealousy and suspicion from her heart: and yet I had no reason to be much troubled at her past suspicions; since, if a woman will continue with a man whom she suspects, when she can get from him, or thinks she can, I am sure it is a very hopeful sign.

***

She is gone. Slipt down before I was aware. She had ordered a chair, on purpose to exclude my personal attendance. But I had taken proper precautions. Will. attended her by consent; Peter, the house-servant, was within Will.'s call.

I had, by Dorcas, represented her danger from Singleton, in order to dissuade her from going at all, unless she allowed me to attend her; but I was answered, with her usual saucy smartness, that if there were no cause of fear of being met with at the playhouse, when there were but two playhouses, surely there was less at church, when there were so many churches. The chairmen were ordered to carry her to St. James's Church.

But she would not be so careless of obliging me, if she knew what I have already come at, and how the women urge me on; for they are continually complaining of the restraint they lie under in their behaviour; in their attendance; neglecting all their concerns in the front house; and keeping this elegant back one entirely free from company, that she may have no suspicion of them. They doubt not my generosity, they say: But why for my own sake, in Lord M.'s style, should I make so long a harvest of so little corn?

Women, ye reason well. I think I will begin my operations the moment she comes in.

***

I have come at the letter brought her from Miss Howe to-day. Plot, conjuration, sorcery, witchcraft, all going forward! I shall not be able to see this Miss Harlowe with patience. As the nymphs below ask, so do I, Why is night necessary? And Sally and Polly upbraidingly remind me of my first attempts upon themselves. Yet force answers not my end—and yet it may, if there be truth in that part of the libertine's creed, That once subdued, is always subdued! And what woman answers affirmatively to the question?

***

She is returned: But refuses to admit me: and insists upon having the day to herself. Dorcas tells me, that she believes her denial is from motives of piety.—Oons, Jack, is there impiety in seeing me?—Would it not be the highest act of piety to reclaim me? And is this to be done by her refusing to see me when she is in a devouter frame than usual?—But I hate her, hate her heartily! She is old, ugly, and deformed.—But O the blasphemy! yet she is a Harlowe: and I do and can hate her for that.

But since I must not see her, [she will be mistress of her own will, and of her time, truly!] let me fill up my time, by telling thee what I have come at.

The first letter the women met with, is dated April 27.* Where can she have put the preceding ones!—It mentions Mr. Hickman as a busy fellow between them. Hickman had best take care of himself. She says in it, 'I hope you have no cause to repent returning my Norris—it is forthcoming on demand.' Now, what the devil can this mean!—Her Norris forthcoming on demand!—the devil take me, if I am out-Norris'd!—If such innocents can allow themselves to plot (to Norris), well may I.

* See Vol. IV. Letter II.

She is sorry, that 'her Hannah can't be with her.'—And what if she could?—What could Hannah do for her in such a house as this?

'The women in the house are to be found out in one breakfasting.' The women are enraged at both the correspondents for this; and more than ever make a point of my subduing her. I had a good mind to give Miss Howe to them in full property. Say but the word, Jack, and it shall be done.