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

'She is glad that Miss Harlowe had thoughts of taking me at my word. She wondered I did not offer again.' Advises her, if I don't soon, 'not to stay with me.' Cautions her, 'to keep me at a distance; not to permit the least familiarity.'—See, Jack! see Belford!—Exactly as I thought!— Her vigilance all owing to a cool friend; who can sit down quietly, and give that advice, which in her own case she could not take. What an encouragement to me to proceed in my devices, when I have reason to think that my beloved's reserves are owing more to Miss Howe's cautions than to her own inclinations! But 'it is my interest to be honest,' Miss Howe tells her.—INTEREST, fools!—I thought these girls knew, that my interest was ever subservient to my pleasure.

What would I give to come at the copies of the letters to which those of Miss Howe are answers!

The next letter is dated May 3.* In this the little termagant expresses her astonishment, that her mother should write to Miss Harlowe, to forbid her to correspond with her daughter. Mr. Hickman, she says, is of opinion, 'that she ought not to obey her mother.' How the creeping fellow trims between both! I am afraid, that I must punish him, as well as this virago; and I have a scheme rumbling in my head, that wants but half an hour's musing to bring into form, that will do my business upon both. I cannot bear, that the parental authority should be thus despised, thus trampled under foot. But observe the vixen, ''Tis well he is of her opinion; for her mother having set her up, she must have somebody to quarrel with.'—Could a Lovelace have allowed himself a greater license? This girl's a devilish rake in her heart. Had she been a man, and one of us, she'd have outdone us all in enterprise and spirit.

* See Vol. IV. Letter X.

'She wants but very little farther provocation,' she says, 'to fly privately to London. And if she does, she will not leave her till she sees her either honourably married, or quit of the wretch.' Here, Jack, the transcriber Sally has added a prayer—'For the Lord's sake, dear Mr. Lovealce, get this fury to London!'—Her fate, I can tell thee, Jack, if we had her among us, should not be so long deciding as her friend's. What a gantelope would she run, when I had done with her, among a dozen of her own pitiless sex, whom my charmer shall never see!—But more of this anon.

I find by this letter, that my saucy captive has been drawing the characters of every varlet of ye. Nor am I spared in it more than you. 'The man's a fool, to be sure, my dear.' Let me perish, if they either of them find me one!—'A silly fellow, at least.' Cursed contemptible!— 'I see not but they are a set of infernals!' There's one for thee, Lovelace! and yet she would have her friend marry a Beelzebub.—And what have any of us done, (within the knowledge of Miss Harlowe,) that she should give such an account of us, as should excuse so much abuse from Miss Howe!—But the occasion that shall warrant this abuse is to come!

She blames her, for 'not admitting Miss Partington to her bed—watchful, as you are, what could have happened?—If violence were intended, he would not stay for the night.' I am ashamed to have this hinted to me by this virago. Sally writes upon this hint—'See, Sir, what is expected from you. An hundred, and an hundred times have we told you of this.'— And so they have. But to be sure, the advice from them was not half the efficacy as it will be from Miss Howe.—'You might have sat up after her, or not gone to bed,' proceeds she.

But can there be such apprehensions between them, yet the one advise her to stay, and the other resolve to wait my imperial motion for marriage? I am glad I know that.

She approves of my proposal of Mrs. Fretchville's house. She puts her upon expecting settlements; upon naming a day: and concludes with insisting upon her writing, notwithstanding her mother's prohibitions; or bids her 'take the consequence.' Undutiful wretches! How I long to vindicate against them both the insulted parental character!

Thou wilt say to thyself, by this time, And can this proud and insolent girl be the same Miss Howe, who sighed for an honest Sir George Colmar; and who, but for this her beloved friend, would have followed him in all his broken fortunes, when he was obliged to quit the kingdom?

Yes, she is the very same. And I always found in others, as well as in myself, that a first passion thoroughly subdued, made the conqueror of it a rover; the conqueress a tyrant.

Well, but now comes mincing in a letter, from one who has 'the honour of dear Miss Howe's commands'* to acquaint Miss Harlowe, that Miss Howe is 'excessively concerned for the concern she has given her.'

* See Vol. IV. Letter XII.

'I have great temptations, on this occasion,' says the prim Gothamite, 'to express my own resentments upon your present state.'

'My own resentments!'——And why did he not fall into this temptation? —Why, truly, because he knew not what that state was which gave him so tempting a subject—only by a conjecture, and so forth.

He then dances in his style, as he does in his gait! To be sure, to be sure, he must have made the grand tour, and come home by way of Tipperary.

'And being moreover forbid,' says the prancer, 'to enter into the cruel subject.'—This prohibition was a mercy to thee, friend Hickman!—But why cruel subject, if thou knowest not what it is, but conjecturest only from the disturbance it gives to a girl, that is her mother's disturbance, will be thy disturbance, and the disturbance, in turn, of every body with whom she is intimately acquainted, unless I have the humbling of her?

In another letter,* the little fury professes, 'that she will write, and that no man shall write for her,' as if some medium of that kind had been proposed. She approves of her fair friend's intention 'to leave me, if she can be received by her relations. I am a wretch, a foolish wretch. She hates me for my teasing ways. She has just made an acquaintance with one who knows a vast deal of my private history.' A curse upon her, and upon her historiographer!—'The man is really a villain, an execrable one.' Devil take her!—'Had I a dozen lives, I might have forfeited them all twenty crimes ago.' An odd way of reckoning, Jack!

* See Letter XXIII. of this volume.

Miss Betterton, Miss Lockyer, are named—the man, (she irreverently repeats) she again calls a villain. Let me perish, I repeat, if I am called a villain for nothing!—She 'will have her uncle,' as Miss Harlowe requests, 'sounded about receiving her. Dorcas is to be attached to her interest: my letters are to be come at by surprise or trick'—

What thinkest thou of this, Jack?

Miss Howe is alarmed at my attempt to come at a letter of hers.

'Were I to come at the knowledge of her freedoms with my character,' she says, 'she should be afraid to stir out without a guard.' I would advise the vixen to get her guard ready.

'I am at the head of a gang of wretches,' [thee, Jack, and thy brother varlets, she owns she means,] 'who join together to betray innocent creatures, and to support one another in their villanies.'—What sayest thou to this, Belford?

'She wonders not at her melancholy reflections for meeting me, for being forced upon me, and tricked by me.'—I hope, Jack, thou'lt have done preaching after this!

But she comforts her, 'that she will be both a warning and an example to all her sex.' I hope the sex will thank me for this!

The nymphs had not time, they say, to transcribe all that was worthy of my resentment in this letter: so I must find an opportunity to come at it myself. Noble rant, they say, it contains—But I am a seducer, and a hundred vile fellows, in it.—'And the devil, it seems, took possession of my heart, and of the hearts of all her friends, in the same dark hour, in order to provoke her to meet me.' Again, 'There is a fate in her error,' she says—Why then should she grieve?—'Adversity is her shining time,' and I can't tell what; yet never to thank the man to whom she owes the shine!

In the next letter,* wicked as I am, 'she fears I must be her lord and master.'

* See Letter XXIX. of this volume.

I hope so.

She retracts what she said against me in her last.—My behaviour to my Rosebud; Miss Harlowe to take possession of Mrs. Fretchville's house; I to stay at Mrs. Sinclair's; the stake I have in my country; my reversions; my economy; my person; my address; [something like in all this!] are brought in my favour, to induce her now not to leave me. How do I love to puzzle these long-sighted girls!

Yet 'my teasing ways,' it seems, 'are intolerable.'—Are women only to tease, I trow? The sex may thank themselves for teaching me to out-tease them. So the headstrong Charles XII. of Sweden taught the Czar Peter to beat him, by continuing a war with the Muscovites against the ancient maxims of his kingdom.

'May eternal vengeance PURSUE the villain, [thank heaven, she does not say overtake,] if he give room to doubt his honour!'—Women can't swear, Jack—sweet souls! they can only curse.

I am said, to doubt her love—Have I not reason? And she, to doubt my ardour—Ardour, Jack!—why, 'tis very right—women, as Miss Howe says, and as every rake knows, love ardours!

She apprizes her, of the 'ill success of the application made to her uncle.'—By Hickman no doubt!—I must have this fellow's ears in my pocket, very quickly I believe.

She says, 'she is equally shocked and enraged against all her family: Mrs. Norton's weight has been tried upon Mrs. Harlowe, as well as Mr. Hickman's upon the uncle: but never were there,' says the vixen, 'such determined brutes in the world. Her uncle concludes her ruined already.' Is not that a call upon me, as well as a reproach?—'They all expected applications from her when in distress—but were resolved not to stir an inch to save her life.' Miss Howe 'is concerned,' she tells her, 'for the revenge my pride may put me upon taking for the distance she has kept me at'—and well she may.—It is now evident to her, that she must be mine (for her cousin Morden, it seems, is set against her too)—an act of necessity, of convenience!—thy friend, Jack, to be already made a woman's convenience! Is this to be borne by a Lovelace?

I shall make great use of this letter. From Miss Howe's hints of what passed between her uncle Harlowe and Hickman, [it must be Hickman,] I can give room for my invention to play; for she tells her, that 'she will not reveal all.' I must endeavour to come at this letter myself. I must have the very words: extracts will not do. This letter, when I have it, must be my compass to steer by.

The fire of friendship then blazes and crackles. I never before imagined that so fervent a friendship could subsist between two sister-beauties, both toasts. But even here it may be inflamed by opposition, and by that contradiction which gives vigour to female spirits of a warm and romantic turn.

She raves about 'coming up, if by doing so she could prevent so noble a creature from stooping too low, or save her from ruin.'—One reed to support another! I think I will contrive to bring her up.

How comes it to pass, that I cannot help being pleased with this virago's spirit, though I suffer by it? Had I her but here, I'd engage, in a week's time, to teach her submission without reserve. What pleasure should I have in breaking such a spirit! I should wish for her but for one month, I think. She would be too tame and spiritless for me after that. How sweetly pretty to see the two lovely friends, when humbled and tame, both sitting in the darkest corner of a room, arm in arm, weeping and sobbing for each other!—and I their emperor, their then acknowledged emperor, reclined at my ease in the same room, uncertain to which I should first, grand signor like, throw out my handkerchief!

Again mind the girl: 'She is enraged at the Harlowes;' she is 'angry at her own mother;' she is exasperated against her foolish and low-vanity'd Lovelace.' FOOLISH, a little toad! [God forgive me for calling such a virtuous girl a toad!]—'Let us stoop to lift the wretch out of his dirt, though we soil our fingers in doing it! He has not been guilty of direct indecency to you.' It seems extraordinary to Miss Howe that I have not. —'Nor dare he!' She should be sure of that. If women have such things in their heads, why should not I in my heart? Not so much of a devil as that comes to neither. Such villainous intentions would have shown themselves before now if I had them.—Lord help them!—

She then puts her friend upon urging for settlements, license, and so forth.—'No room for delicacy now,' she says; and tells her what she shall say, 'to bring all forward from me.' Is it not as clear to thee, Jack, as it is to me, that I should have carried my point long ago, but for this vixen?—She reproaches her for having MODESTY'D away, as she calls it, more than one opportunity, that she ought not to have slipt.— Thus thou seest, that the noblest of the sex mean nothing in the world by their shyness and distance, but to pound the poor fellow they dislike not, when he comes into their purlieus.

Though 'tricked into this man's power,' she tells her, she is 'not meanly subjugated to it.' There are hopes of my reformation, it seems, 'from my reverence for her; since before her I never had any reverence for what was good!' I am 'a great, a specious deceiver.' I thank her for this, however. A good moral use, she says, may be made of my 'having prevailed upon her to swerve.' I am glad that any good may flow from my actions.

Annexed to this letter is a paper the most saucy that ever was written of a mother by a daughter. There are in it such free reflections upon widows and bachelors, that I cannot but wonder how Miss Howe came by her learning. Sir George Colmar, I can tell thee, was a greater fool than thy friend, if she had it all for nothing.

The contents of this paper acquaint Miss Harlowe, that her uncle Antony has been making proposals of marriage to her mother.

The old fellow's heart ought to be a tough one, if he succeed; or she who broke that of a much worthier man, the late Mr. Howe, will soon get rid of him.

But be this as it may, the stupid family is made more irreconcilable than ever to their goddess-daughter for old Antony's thoughts of marrying: so I am more secure of her than ever. And yet I believe at last, that my tender heart will be moved in her favour. For I did not wish that she should have nothing but persecution and distress.—But why loves she the brutes, as Miss Howe justly calls them, so much; me so little?

I have still more unpardonable transcripts from other letters.

LETTER XLV

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ

The next letter is of such a nature, that, I dare say, these proud rouges would not have had it fall into my hands for the world.*

* See Letter XXXIV. of this volume.

I see by it to what her displeasure with me, in relation to my proposals, was owing. They were not summed up, it seems, with the warmth, with the ardour, which she had expected.

This whole letter was transcribed by Dorcas, to whose lot it fell. Thou shalt have copies of them all at full length shortly.

'Men of our cast,' this little devil says, 'she fancies, cannot have the ardours that honest men have.' Miss Howe has very pretty fancies, Jack. Charming girl! Would to Heaven I knew whether my fair-one answers her as freely as she writes! 'Twould vex a man's heart, that this virago should have come honestly by her fancies.

Who knows but I may have half a dozen creatures to get off my hands, before I engage for life?—Yet, lest this should mean me a compliment, as if I would reform, she adds her belief, that she 'must not expect me to be honest on this side my grand climacteric.' She has an high opinion of her sex, to think they can charm so long a man so well acquainted with their identicalness.

'He to suggest delays,' she says, 'from a compliment to be made to Lord M.!'—Yes, I, my dear.—Because a man has not been accustomed to be dutiful, must he never be dutiful?—In so important a case as this too! the hearts of his whole family are engaged in it!—'You did, indeed,' says she, 'want an interposing friend—but were I to have been in your situation, I would have torn his eyes out, and left it to his heart to furnish the reason for it.' See! See! What sayest thou to this, Jack?

'Villain—fellow that he is!' follow. And for what? Only for wishing that the next day were to be my happy one; and for being dutiful to my nearest relation.

'It is the cruelest of fates,' she says, 'for a woman to be forced to have a man whom her heart despises.'—That is what I wanted to be sure of.—I was afraid, that my beloved was too conscious of her talents; of her superiority! I was afraid that she indeed despises me.—And I cannot bear to think that she does. But, Belford, I do not intend that this lady shall be bound down to so cruel a fate. Let me perish if I marry a woman who has given her most intimate friend reason to say, she despises me!—A Lovelace to be despised, Jack!

'His clenched fist to his forehead on your leaving him in just displeasure'—that is, when she was not satisfied with my ardours, if it please ye!—I remember the motion: but her back was towards me at the time.* Are these watchful ladies all eye?—But observe what follows; 'I wish it had been a poll-axe, and in the hands of his worst enemy.'—

* She tells Miss Howe, that she saw this motion in the pier-glass. See Letter XXXIII. of this volume.

I will have patience, Jack; I will have patience! My day is at hand.— Then will I steel my heart with these remembrances.

But here is a scheme to be thought of, in order to 'get my fair prize out of my hands, in case I give her reason to suspect me.'

This indeed alarms me. Now the contention becomes arduous. Now wilt thou not wonder, if I let loose my plotting genius upon them both. I will not be out-Norris'd, Belford.

But once more, 'She has no notion,' she says, 'that I can or dare to mean her dishonour. But then the man is a fool—that's all.'—I should indeed be a fool, to proceed as I do, and mean matrimony!—'However, since you are thrown upon a fool,' says she, 'marry the fool at the first opportunity; and though I doubt that this man will be the most unmanageable of fools, as all witty and vain fools are, take him as a punishment, since you cannot as a reward.'—Is there any bearing this, Belford?

But, 'such men as myself, are the men that women do not naturally hate.' —True as the gospel, Jack!—The truth is out at last. Have I not always told thee so? Sweet creatures and true christians these young girls! They love their enemies. But rakes in their hearts all of them! Like turns to like; that's the thing. Were I not well assured of the truth of this observation of the vixen, I should have thought it worth while, if not to be a good man, to be more of an hypocrite, than I found it needful to be.

But in the letter I came at to-day, while she was at church, her scheme is further opened; and a cursed one it is.

[Mr. Lovelace then transcribes, from his short-hand notes, that part of Miss Howe's letter, which relates to the design of engaging Mrs.

Townsend (in case of necessity) to give her protection till Colonel Morden come:* and repeats his vows of revenge; especially for these words; 'That should he attempt any thing that would make him obnoxious to the laws of society, she might have a fair riddance of him, either by flight or the gallows, no matter which.'  He then adds]—

* See Letter XLII. of this volume.

'Tis my pride to subdue girls who know too much to doubt their knowledge; and to convince them, that they know too little, to defend themselves from the inconveniencies of knowing too much.

How passion drives a man on! (proceeds he).—I have written a prodigious quantity in a very few hours! Now my resentments are warm, I will see, and perhaps will punish, this proud, this double-armed beauty. I have sent to tell her, that I must be admitted to sup with her. We have neither of us dined. She refused to drink tea in the afternoon: and I believe neither of us will have much stomach to our supper.

LETTER XLVI

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE SUNDAY MORNING, SEVEN O'CLOCK.

I was at the play last night with Mr. Lovelace and Miss Horton. It is, you know, a deep and most affecting tragedy in the reading. You have my remarks upon it, in the little book you made me write upon the principal acting-plays. You will not wonder, that Miss Horton, as well as I, was greatly moved at the representation, when I tell you, and have some pleasure in telling you, that Mr. Lovelace himself was very sensibly touched with some of the most affecting scenes. I mention this in praise of the author's performance; for I take Mr. Lovelace to be one of the most hard-hearted men in the world. Upon my word, my dear, I do.

His behaviour, however, on this occasion, and on our return, was unexceptionable; only that he would oblige me to stay to supper with the women below, when we came back, and to sit up with him and them till near one o'clock this morning. I was resolved to be even with him; and indeed I am not very sorry to have the pretence; for I love to pass the Sundays by myself.

To have the better excuse to avoid his teasing, I am ready dressed to go to church this morning. I will go only to St. James's church, and in a chair; that I may be sure I can go out and come in when I please, without being intruded upon by him, as I was twice before.

*** NEAR NINE O'CLOCK.

I have your kind letter of yesterday. He knows I have. And I shall expect, that he will be inquisitive next time I see him after your opinions of his proposals. I doubted not your approbation of them, and had written an answer on that presumption; which is ready for him. He must study for occasions of procrastination, and to disoblige me, if now any thing happens to set us at variance again.

He is very importunate to see me. He has desired to attend me to church. He is angry that I have declined to breakfast with him. I am sure that I should not have been at my own liberty if I had. I bid Dorcas tell him, that I desired to have this day to myself. I would see him in the morning as early as he pleased. She says, she knows not what ails him, but that he is out of humour with every body.

He has sent again in a peremptory manner. He warns me of Singleton. I sent him word, that if he was not afraid of Singleton at the playhouse last night, I need not at church to-day: so many churches to one playhouse. I have accepted of his servant's proposed attendance. But he is quite displeased, it seems. I don't care. I will not be perpetually at his insolent beck.—Adieu my dear, till I return. The chair waits. He won't stop me, sure, as I go down to it.

***

I did not see him as I went down. He is, it seems, excessively out of humour. Dorcas says, not with me neither, she believes: but something has vexed him. This is perhaps to make me dine with him. But I will not, if I can help it. I shan't get rid of him for the rest of the day, if I do.

***

He was very earnest to dine with me. But I was resolved to carry this one small point; and so denied to dine myself. And indeed I was endeavouring to write to my cousin Morden; and had begun three different times, without being able to please myself.

He was very busy in writing, Dorcas says; and pursued it without dining, because I denied him my company.

He afterwards demanded, as I may say, to be admitted to afternoon-tea with me: and appealed by Dorcas to his behaviour to me last night; as if I sent him word by her, he thought he had a merit in being unexceptionable. However, I repeated my promise to meet him as early as he pleased in the morning, or to breakfast with him.

Dorcas says, he raved: I heard him loud, and I heard his servant fly from him, as I thought. You, my dearest friend, say, in one of yours,* that you must have somebody to be angry at, when your mother sets you up. I should be very loth to draw comparisons; but the workings of passion, when indulged, are but too much alike, whether in man or woman.