LETTER XI
MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.AT MRS. SINCLAIR'S, MONDAY AFTERNOON.
All's right, as heart can wish!--In spite of all objection--in spite of areluctance next to faintings--in spite of all foresight, vigilance,suspicion--once more is the charmer of my soul in her old lodgings!
Now throbs away every pulse! Now thump, thump, thumps my bounding heartfor something!
But I have not time for the particulars of our management.
My beloved is now directing some of her clothes to be packed up--nevermore to enter this house! Nor ever more will she, I dare say, when onceagain out of it!
Yet not so much as a condition of forgiveness!--The Harlowe-spiritedfair-one will not deserve my mercy!--She will wait for Miss Howe's nextletter; and then, if she find a difficulty in her new schemes, [Thank herfor nothing,]--will--will what? Why even then will take time toconsider, whether I am to be forgiven, or for ever rejected. Anindifference that revives in my heart the remembrance of a thousand ofthe like nature.--And yet Lady Betty and Miss Montague, [a man would betempted to think, Jack, that they wish her to provoke my vengeance,]declare, that I ought to be satisfied with such a proud suspension!
They are entirely attached to her. Whatever she says, is, must be,gospel! They are guarantees for her return to Hampstead this night.They are to go back with her. A supper bespoken by Lady Betty at Mrs.Moore's. All the vacant apartments there, by my permission, (for I hadengaged them for a month certain,) to be filled with them and theirattendants, for a week at least, or till they can prevail upon the dearperverse, as they hope they shall, to restore me to her favour, and toaccompany Lady Betty to Oxfordshire.
The dear creature has thus far condescended--that she will write to MissHowe and acquaint her with the present situation of things.
If she write, I shall see what she writes. But I believe she will haveother employment soon.
Lady Betty is sure, she tells her, that she shall prevail upon her toforgive me; though she dares say, that I deserve not forgiveness. LadyBetty is too delicate to inquire strictly into the nature of my offence.But it must be an offence against herself, against Miss Montague, againstthe virtuous of the whole sex, or it could not be so highly resented.Yet she will not leave her till she forgive me, and till she see ournuptials privately celebrated. Mean time, as she approves of her uncle'sexpedient, she will address her as already my wife before strangers.
Stedman, her solicitor, may attend her for orders in relation to herchancery affair, at Hampstead. Not one hour they can be favoured with,will they lose from the company and conversation of so dear, so charminga new relation.
Hard then if she had not obliged them with her company in theircoach-and-four, to and from their cousin Leeson's, who longed, (as theythemselves had done,) to see a lady so justly celebrated.
'How will Lord M. be raptured when he sees her, and can salute her as hisniece!
'How will Lady Sarah bless herself!--She will now think her loss of thedear daughter she mourns for happily supplied!'
Miss Montague dwells upon every word that falls from her lips. Sheperfectly adores her new cousin--'For her cousin she must be. And hercousin will she call her! She answers for equal admiration in her sisterPatty.
'Ay, cry I, (whispering loud enough for her to hear,) how will my cousinPatty's dove's eyes glisten and run over, on the very first interview!--So gracious, so noble, so unaffected a dear creature!'
'What a happy family,' chorus we all, 'will our's be!'
These and such like congratulatory admirations every hour repeated. Hermodesty hurt by the ecstatic praises:--'Her graces are too natural toherself for her to be proud of them: but she must be content to bepunished for excellencies that cast a shade upon the most excellent!'
In short, we are here, as at Hampstead, all joy and rapture--all of usexcept my beloved; in whose sweet face, [her almost fainting reluctanceto re-enter these doors not overcome,] reigns a kind of anxious serenity!--But how will even that be changed in a few hours!
Methinks I begin to pity the half-apprehensive beauty!--But avaunt, thouunseasonably-intruding pity! Thou hast more than once already well nighundone me! And, adieu, reflection! Begone, consideration! andcommiseration! I dismiss ye all, for at least a week to come!--Butremembered her broken word! Her flight, when my fond soul was meditatingmercy to her!--Be remembered her treatment of me in her letter on herescape to Hampstead! Her Hampstead virulence! What is it she ought notto expect from an unchained Beelzebub, and a plotting villain?
Be her preference of the single life to me also remembered!--That shedespises me!--That she even refuses to be my WIFE!--A proud Lovelace tobe denied a wife!--To be more proudly rejected by a daughter of theHarlowes!--The ladies of my own family, [she thinks them the ladies ofmy family,] supplicating in vain for her returning favour to theirdespised kinsman, and taking laws from her still prouder punctilio!
Be the execrations of her vixen friend likewise remembered, poured outupon me from her representations, and thereby made her own execrations!
Be remembered still more particularly the Townsend plot, set on footbetween them, and now, in a day or two, ready to break out; and thesordid threatening thrown out against me by that little fury!
Is not this the crisis for which I have been long waiting? ShallTomlinson, shall these women be engaged; shall so many engines be setat work, at an immense expense, with infinite contrivance; and all tono purpose?
Is not this the hour of her trial--and in her, of the trial of the virtueof her whole sex, so long premeditated, so long threatened?--Whether herfrost be frost indeed? Whether her virtue be principle? Whether, ifonce subdued, she will not be always subdued? And will she not want thecrown of her glory, the proof of her till now all-surpassing excellence,if I stop short of the ultimate trial?
Now is the end of purposes long over-awed, often suspended, at hand. Andneed I go throw the sins of her cursed family into the too-weighty scale?
[Abhorred be force!--be the thoughts of force!--There's no triumph overthe will in force!] This I know I have said.* But would I not haveavoided it, if I could? Have I not tried every other method? And have Iany other resource left me? Can she resent the last outrage more thanshe has resented a fainter effort?--And if her resentments run ever sohigh, cannot I repair by matrimony?--She will not refuse me, I know,Jack: the haughty beauty will not refuse me, when her pride of beingcorporally inviolate is brought down; when she can tell no tales, butwhen, (be her resistance what it will,) even her own sex will suspect ayielding in resistance; and when that modesty, which may fill her bosomwith resentment, will lock up her speech.
* Vol. IV. Letter XLVIII.
But how know I, that I have not made my own difficulties? Is she not awoman! What redress lies for a perpetuated evil? Must she not live?Her piety will secure her life.--And will not time be my friend! What,in a word, will be her behaviour afterwards?--She cannot fly me!--Shemust forgive me--and as I have often said, once forgiven, will be forever forgiven.
Why then should this enervating pity unsteel my foolish heart?
It shall not. All these things will I remember; and think of nothingelse, in order to keep up a resolution, which the women about me willhave it I shall be still unable to hold.
I'll teach the dear, charming creature to emulate me in contrivance; I'llteach her to weave webs and plots against her conqueror! I'll show her,that in her smuggling schemes she is but a spider compared to me, andthat she has all this time been spinning only a cobweb!
***
What shall we do now! we are immersed in the depth of grief andapprehension! How ill do women bear disappointment!--Set upon going toHampstead, and upon quitting for ever a house she re-entered withinfinite reluctance; what things she intended to take with her readypacked up, herself on tiptoe to be gone, and I prepared to attend herthither; she begins to be afraid that she shall not go this night; and ingrief and despair has flung herself into her old apartment; l
ockedherself in; and through the key-hole Dorcas sees her on her knees,praying, I suppose, for a safe deliverance.
And from what? and wherefore these agonizing apprehensions?
Why, here, this unkind Lady Betty, with the dear creature's knowledge,though to her concern, and this mad-headed cousin Montague without it,while she was employed in directing her package, have hurried away in thecoach to their own lodgings, [only, indeed, to put up some night-clothes,and so forth, in order to attend their sweet cousin to Hampstead;] and,no less to my surprise than her's, are not yet returned.
I have sent to know the meaning of it.
In a great hurry of spirits, she would have had me to go myself. Hardlyany pacifying her! The girl, God bless her! is wild with her own idleapprehensions! What is she afraid of?
I curse them both for their delay. My tardy villain, how he stays!Devil fetch them! let them send their coach, and we'll go without them.In her hearing I bid the fellow tell them so. Perhaps he stays to bringthe coach, if any thing happens to hinder the ladies from attending mybeloved this night.
***
Devil take them, again say I! They promised too they would not stay,because it was but two nights ago that a chariot was robbed at the footof Hampstead-hill, which alarmed my fair-one when told of it!
Oh! here's Lady Betty's servant, with a billet.
TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.MONDAY NIGHT.
Excuse us, my dear Nephew, I beseech you, to my dearest kinswoman. Onenight cannot break squares: for here Miss Montague has been takenviolently ill with three fainting fits, one after another. The hurry ofher joy, I believe, to find your dear lady so much surpass allexpectations, [never did family love, you know, reign so strong as amongus,] and the too eager desire she had to attend her, have occasioned it!For she has but weak spirits, poor girl! well as she looks.
If she be better, we will certainly go with you tomorrow morning, afterwe have breakfasted with her, at your lodgings. But whether she be, ornot, I will do myself the pleasure to attend your lady to Hampstead; andwill be with you for that purpose about nine in the morning. With duecompliments to your most worthily beloved, I am
Your's affectionately,ELIZAB. LAWRANCE.
***
Faith and troth, Jack, I know not what to do with myself; for here, justnow having sent in the above note by Dorcas, out came my beloved with itin her hand, in a fit of phrensy!--true, by my soul!
She had indeed complained of her head all the evening.
Dorcas ran to me, out of breath, to tell me, that her lady was coming insome strange way; but she followed her so quick, that the frighted wenchhad not time to say in what way.
It seems, when she read the billet--Now indeed, said she, am I a lostcreature! O the poor Clarissa Harlowe!
She tore off her head-clothes; inquired where I was; and in she came, hershining tresses flowing about her neck; her ruffles torn, and hanging intatters about her snowy hands, with her arms spread out--her eyes wildlyturned, as if starting from their orbits--down sunk she at my feet, assoon as she approached me; her charming bosom heaving to her upliftedface; and clasping her arms about my knees, Dear Lovelace, said she, ifever--if ever--if ever--and, unable to speak another word, quitting herclasping hold--down--prostrate on the floor sunk she, neither in a fitnor out of one.
I was quite astonished.--All my purposes suspended for a few moments, Iknew neither what to say, nor what to do. But, recollecting myself, am Iagain, thought I, in a way to be overcome, and made a fool of!--If I nowrecede, I am gone for ever.
I raised her; but down she sunk, as if quite disjointed--her limbsfailing her--yet not in a fit neither. I never heard of or saw such adear unaccountable; almost lifeless, and speechless too for a fewmoments; what must her apprehensions be at that moment?--And for what?--An high-notioned dear soul!--Pretty ignorance!--thought I.
Never having met with so sincere, so unquestionable a repugnance, I wasstaggered--I was confounded--yet how should I know that it would be sotill I tried?--And how, having proceeded thus far, could I stop, were Inot to have had the women to goad me on, and to make light ofcircumstances, which they pretended to be better judges of than I?
I lifted her, however, into a chair, and in words of disordered passion,told her, all her fears were needless--wondered at them--begged of her tobe pacified--besought her reliance on my faith and honour--and revowedall my old vows, and poured forth new ones.
At last, with a heart-breaking sob, I see, I see, Mr. Lovelace, in brokensentences she spoke--I see, I see--that at last--I am ruined!--Ruined, ifyour pity--let me implore your pity!--and down on her bosom, like ahalf-broken-stalked lily top-heavy with the overcharging dews of themorning, sunk her head, with a sigh that went to my heart.
All I could think of to re-assure her, when a little recovered, I said.
Why did I not send for their coach, as I had intimated? It might returnin the morning for the ladies.
I had actually done so, I told her, on seeing her strange uneasiness.But it was then gone to fetch a doctor for Miss Montague, lest hischariot should not be so ready.
Ah! Lovelace! said she, with a doubting face; anguish in her imploringeye.
Lady Betty would think it very strange, I told her, if she were to knowit was so disagreeable to her to stay one night for her company in thehouse where she had passed so many.
She called me names upon this--she had called me names before.--I waspatient.
Let her go to Lady Betty's lodgings then; directly go; if the person Icalled Lady Betty was really Lady Betty.
If, my dear! Good Heaven! What a villain does that IF show you believeme to be!
I cannot help it--I beseech you once more, let me go to Mrs. Leeson's, ifthat IF ought not to be said.
Then assuming a more resolute spirit--I will go! I will inquire my way!--I will go by myself!--and would have rushed by me.
I folded my arms about her to detain her; pleading the bad way I heardpoor Charlotte was in; and what a farther concern her impatience, if shewent, would give to poor Charlotte.
She would believe nothing I said, unless I would instantly order a coach,(since she was not to have Lady Betty's, nor was permitted to go to Mrs.Leeson's,) and let her go in it to Hampstead, late as it was, and allalone, so much the better; for in the house of people of whom Lady Betty,upon inquiry, had heard a bad character, [Dropt foolishly this, by myprating new relation, in order to do credit to herself, by depreciatingothers,] every thing, and every face, looking with so much meaningvileness, as well as my own, [thou art still too sensible, thought I, mycharmer!] she was resolved not to stay another night.
Dreading what might happen as to her intellects, and being veryapprehensive that she might possibly go through a great deal beforemorning, (though more violent she could not well be with the worst shedreaded,) I humoured her, and ordered Will. to endeavour to get a coachdirectly, to carry us to Hampstead; I cared not at what price.
Robbers, with whom I would have terrified her, she feared not--I was allher fear, I found; and this house her terror: for I saw plainly that shenow believed that Lady Betty and Miss Montague were both impostors.
But her mistrust is a little of the latest to do her service!
And, O Jack, the rage of love, the rage of revenge is upon me! by turnsthey tear me! The progress already made--the women's instigations--thepower I shall have to try her to the utmost, and still to marry her, ifshe be not to be brought to cohabitation--let me perish, Belford, if sheescape me now!
***
Will. is not yet come back. Near eleven.
***
Will. is this moment returned. No coach to be got, either for love ormoney.
Once more she urges--to Mrs. Leeson's, let me go, Lovelace! GoodLovelace, let me go to Mrs. Leeson's? What is Miss Montague's illnessto my terror?---For the Almighty's sake, Mr. Lovelace!--her handsclasped.
O my angel! What a wildness is this! Do you know, do you see, mydearest life, what appearances your causeless apprehensi
ons have givenyou?--Do you know it is past eleven o'clock?
Twelve, one, two, three, four--any hour, I care not--If you mean mehonourably, let me go out of this hated house!
Thou'lt observe, Belford, that though this was written afterwards, yet,(as in other places,) I write it as it was spoken and happened, as if Ihad retired to put down every sentence spoken. I know thou likest thislively present-tense manner, as it is one of my peculiars.
Just as she had repeated the last words, If you mean me honourably, letme go out of this hated house, in came Mrs. Sinclair, in a great ferment--And what, pray, Madam, has this house done to you? Mr. Lovelace, youhave known me some time; and, if I have not the niceness of this lady, Ihope I do not deserve to be treated thus!
She set her huge arms akimbo: Hoh! Madam, let me tell you that I amamazed at your freedoms with my character! And, Mr. Lovelace, [holdingup, and violently shaking her head,] if you are a gentleman, and a man ofhonour----
Having never before seen any thing but obsequiousness in this woman,little as she liked her, she was frighted at her masculine air, andfierce look--God help me! cried she--what will become of me now! Then,turning her head hither and thither, in a wild kind of amaze. Whom haveI for a protector! What will become of me now!
I will be your protector, my dearest love!--But indeed you areuncharitably severe upon poor Mrs. Sinclair! Indeed you are!--She is agentlewoman born, and the relict of a man of honour; and though left insuch circumstance as to oblige her to let lodgings, yet would she scornto be guilty of a wilful baseness.
I hope so--it may be so--I may be mistaken--but--but there is no crime, Ipresume, no treason, to say I don't like her house.
The old dragon straddled up to her, with her arms kemboed again--hereye-brows erect, like the bristles upon a hog's back, and, scouling overher shortened nose, more than half-hid her ferret eyes. Her mouth wasdistorted. She pouted out her blubber-lips, as if to bellows up wind andsputter into her horse-nostrils; and her chin was curdled, and more thanusually prominent with passion.
With two Hoh-Madams she accosted the frighted fair-one; who, terrified,caught hold of my sleeve.
I feared she would fall into fits; and, with a look of indignation, toldMrs. Sinclair that these apartments were mine; and I could not imaginewhat she meant, either by listening to what passed between me and myspouse, or to come in uninvited; and still more I wondered at her givingherself these strange liberties.
I may be to blame, Jack, for suffering this wretch to give herself theseairs; but her coming in was without my orders.
The old beldam, throwing herself into a chair, fell a blubbering andexclaiming. And the pacifying of her, and endeavouring to reconcile thelady to her, took up till near one o'clock.
And thus, between terror, and the late hour, and what followed, she wasdiverted from the thoughts of getting out of the house to Mrs. Leeson's,or any where else.
LETTER XII
MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.TUESDAY MORNING, JUNE 13.
And now, Belford, I can go no farther. The affair is over. Clarissalives. And I am
Your humble servant,R. LOVELACE.
[The whole of this black transaction is given by the injured lady to MissHowe, in her subsequent letters, dated Thursday, July 6. See LettersLXVII. LXVIII. LXIX.]