LETTER LXX
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE[IN CONTINUATION.]
[The lady next gives an account,
Of her recovery from her delirium and sleepy disorder:
Of her attempt to get away in his absence:
Of the conversations that followed, at his return, between them:
Of the guilty figure he made:
Of her resolution not to have him:
Of her several efforts to escape:
Of her treaty with Dorcas to assist her in it:
Of Dorcas's dropping the promissory note, undoubtedly, as she says, on purpose to betray her:
Of her triumph over all the creatures of the house, assembled to terrify her; and perhaps to commit fresh outrages upon her:
Of his setting out for M. Hall:
Of his repeated letters to induce her to meet him at the altar, on her uncle's anniversary:
Of her determined silence to them all:
Of her second escape, effected, as she says, contrary to her own expectation: the attempt being at first but the intended prelude to a more promising one, which she had formed in her mind:
And of other particulars; which being to be found in Mr. Lovelace's letters preceding, and the letter of his friend Belford, are omitted. She then proceeds:]
The very hour that I found myself in a place of safety, I took pen towrite to you. When I began, I designed only to write six or eight lines,to inquire after your health: for, having heard nothing from you, Ifeared indeed, that you had been, and still were, too ill to write. Butno sooner did my pen begin to blot the paper, but my sad heart hurried itinto length. The apprehensions I had lain under, that I should not beable to get away; the fatigue I had in effecting my escape: thedifficulty of procuring a lodging for myself; having disliked the peopleof two houses, and those of a third disliking me; for you must think Imade a frighted appearance--these, together with the recollection of whatI had suffered from him, and my farther apprehensions of my insecurity,and my desolate circumstances, had so disordered me, that I remember Irambled strangely in that letter.
In short, I thought it, on re-perusal, a half-distracted one: but I thendespaired, (were I to begin again,) of writing better: so I let it go:and can have no excuse for directing it as I did, if the cause of theincoherence in it will not furnish me with a very pitiable one.
The letter I received from your mother was a dreadful blow to me. Butnevertheless it had the good effect upon me (labouring, as I did justthen, under a violent fit of vapourish despondency, and almost yieldingto it) which profuse bleeding and blisterings have in paralytic orapoplectical strokes; reviving my attention, and restoring me to spiritsto combat the evils I was surrounded by--sluicing off, and diverting intoa new channel, (if I may be allowed another metaphor,) the overchargingwoes which threatened once more to overwhelm my intellects.
But yet I most sincerely lamented, (and still lament,) in your mother'swords, That I cannot be unhappy by myself: and was grieved, not only forthe trouble I had given you before; but for the new one I had broughtupon you by my inattention.
[She then gives the substance of the letters she wrote to Mrs. Norton, to Lady Betty Lawrance, and to Mrs. Hodges; as also of their answers; whereby she detected all Mr. Lovelace's impostures. She proceeds as follows:]
I cannot, however, forbear to wonder how the vile Tomlinson could come atthe knowledge of several of the things he told me of, and whichcontributed to give me confidence in him.*
* The attentive reader need not be referred back for what the Ladynevertheless could not account for, as she knew not that Mr. Lovelace hadcome at Miss Howe's letters; particularly that in Vol. IV. Letter XXIX.which he comments upon in Letter XLIV. of the same volume.
I doubt not that the stories of Mrs. Fretchville and her house would befound as vile as any of the rest, were I to inquire; and had I notenough, and too much, already against the perjured man.
How have I been led on!--What will be the end of such a false andperjured creature! Heaven not less profaned and defied by him thanmyself deceived and abused! This, however, against myself I must say,That if what I have suffered be the natural consequence of my firsterror, I never can forgive myself, although you are so partial in myfavour, as to say, that I was not censurable for what passed before myfirst escape.
And now, honoured Madam, and my dearest Miss Howe, who are to sit injudgment upon my case, permit me to lay down my pen with one request,which, with the greatest earnestness, I make to you both: and that is,That you will neither of you open your lips in relation to the potionsand the violences I have hinted at.--Not that I am solicitous, that mydisgrace should be hidden from the world, or that it should not begenerally known, that the man has proved a villain to me: for this, itseems, every body but myself expected from his character. But suppose,as his actions by me are really of a capital nature, it were insistedupon that I should appear to prosecute him and his accomplices in a courtof justice, how do you think I could bear that?
But since my character, before the capital enormity, was lost in the eyeof the world; and that from the very hour I left my father's house; andsince all my own hopes of worldly happiness are entirely over; let meslide quietly into my grave; and let it be not remembered, except by onefriendly tear, and no more, dropt from your gentle eye, mine own dearAnna Howe, on the happy day that shall shut up all my sorrows, that therewas such a creature as
CLARISSA HARLOWE
SATURDAY, JULY 8.