LETTER XXXI
MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE SUNDAY NIGHT, APRIL 2.
I have many new particulars to acquaint you with, that shew a greatchange in the behaviour of my friends as I find we have. I will givethese particulars to you as they offered.
All the family was at church in the morning. They brought good Dr. Lewenwith them, in pursuance of a previous invitation. And the doctor sent upto desire my permission to attend me in my own apartment.
You may believe it was easily granted.
So the doctor came up.
We had a conversation of near an hour before dinner: but, to mysurprise, he waved every thing that would have led me to the subject Isupposed he wanted to talk about. At last, I asked him, if it were notthought strange I should be so long absent from church? He made me somehandsome compliments upon it: but said, for his part, he had ever madeit a rule to avoid interfering in the private concerns of families,unless desired to do so.
I was prodigiously disappointed; but supposing that he was thought toojust a man to be made a judge of in this cause; I led no more to it:nor, when he was called down to dinner, did he take the least notice ofleaving me behind him there.
But this was not the first time since my confinement that I thought it ahardship not to dine below. And when I parted with him on the stairs, atear would burst its way; and he hurried down; his own good-natured eyesglistening; for he saw it.--Nor trusted he his voice, lest the accent Isuppose should have discovered his concern; departing in silence; thoughwith his usual graceful obligingness.
I hear that he praised me, and my part in the conversation thatpassed between us. To shew them, I suppose, that it was not upon theinteresting subjects which I make no doubt he was desired not to enterupon.
He left me so dissatisfied, yet so perplexed with this new way oftreatment, that I never found myself so much disconcerted, and out of mytrain.
But I was to be more so. This was to be a day of puzzle to me. Pregnantpuzzle, if I may say so: for there must great meaning lie behind it.
In the afternoon, all but my brother and sister went to church withthe good doctor; who left his compliments for me. I took a walk in thegarden. My brother and sister walked in it too, and kept me in theireye a good while, on purpose, as I thought, that I might see how gay andgood-humoured they were together. At last they came down the walk that Iwas coming up, hand-in-hand, lover-like.
Your servant, Miss--your servant, Sir--passed between my brother and me.
Is it not coldish, Clary! in a kinder voice than usual, said my sister,and stopped.--I stopped and courtesied low to her half-courtesy.--Ithink not, Sister, said I.
She went on. I courtesied without return; and proceeded, turning to mypoultry-yard.
By a shorter turn, arm-in-arm, they were there before me.
I think, Clary, said my brother, you must present me with some of thisbreed, for Scotland.
If you please, Brother.
I'll choose for you, said my sister.
And while I fed them, they pointed to half a dozen: yet intendingnothing by it, I believe, but to shew a deal of love and good-humour toeach other before me.
My uncles next, (at their return from church) were to do me the honourof their notice. They bid Betty tell me, they would drink tea with mein my own apartment. Now, thought I, shall I have the subject of nextTuesday enforced upon me.
But they contradicted the order for tea, and only my uncle Harlowe cameup to me.
Half-distant, half-affectionate, at his entering my chamber, was theair he put on to his daughter-niece, as he used to call me; and I threwmyself at his feet, and besought his favour.
None of these discomposures, Child. None of these apprehensions. Youwill now have every body's favour. All is coming about, my dear. I wasimpatient to see you. I could no longer deny myself this satisfaction.He then raised me, and kissed me, and called me charming creature!
But he waved entering into any interesting subject. All will be wellnow. All will be right!--No more complainings! every body loves you!--Ionly came to make my earliest court to you! [were his condescendingwords] and to sit and talk of twenty and twenty fond things, as I usedto do. And let every past disagreeable thing be forgotten; as if nothinghad happened.
He understood me as beginning to hint at the disgrace of myconfinement--No disgrace my dear can fall to your lot: your reputationis too well established.--I longed to see you, repeated me--I have seennobody half so amiable since I saw you last.
And again he kissed my cheek, my glowing cheek; for I was impatient,I was vexed, to be thus, as I thought, played upon: And how could I bethankful for a visit, that (it was now evident) was only a too humbleartifice, to draw me in against the next Tuesday, or to leave meinexcusable to them all?
O my cunning brother!--This is his contrivance. And then my anger mademe recollect the triumph in his and my sister's fondness for each other,as practised before me; and the mingled indignation flashing from theireyes, as arm-in-arm they spoke to me, and the forced condescensionplaying upon their lips, when they called me Clary, and Sister.
Do you think I could, with these reflections, look upon my uncleHarlowe's visit as the favour he seemed desirous I should think itto be?--Indeed I could not; and seeing him so studiously avoid allrecrimination, as I may call it, I gave into the affectation; andfollowed him in his talk of indifferent things: while he seemed toadmire this thing and that, as if he had never seen them before; andnow-and then condescendingly kissed the hand that wrought some of thethings he fixed his eyes upon; not so much to admire them, as to findsubjects to divert what was most in his head, and in my heart.
At his going away--How can I leave you here by yourself, my dear? you,whose company used to enliven us all. You are not expected down indeed:but I protest I had a good mind to surprise your father and mother!--IfI thought nothing would arise that would be disagreeable--My dear!my love! [O the dear artful gentleman! how could my uncle Harlowe sodissemble?] What say you? Will you give me your hands? Will you see yourfather? Can you stand his displeasure, on first seeing the dear creaturewho has given him and all of us so much disturbance? Can you promisefuture--
He saw me rising in my temper--Nay, my dear, interrupting himself, ifyou cannot be all resignation, I would not have you think of it.
My heart, struggling between duty and warmth of temper, was full. Youknow, my dear, I never could bear to be dealt meanly with!--How--how canyou, Sir! you my Papa-uncle--How can you, Sir!--The poor girl!--for Icould not speak with connexion.
Nay, my dear, if you cannot be all duty, all resignation--better staywhere you are.--But after the instance you have given--
Instance I have given!--What instance, Sir?
Well, well, Child, better stay where you are, if your past confinementhangs so heavy upon you--but now there will be a sudden end toit--Adieu, my dear!--Three words only--Let your compliance besincere!--and love me, as you used to love me--your Grandfather did notdo so much for you, as I will do for you.
Without suffering me to reply, he hurried away, as I thought, like onewho has been employed to act a part against his will, and was glad itwas over.
Don't you see, my dear Miss Howe, how they are all determined?--Have Inot reason to dread next Tuesday?
Up presently after came my sister:--to observe, I suppose, the way I wasin.
She found me in tears.
Have you not a Thomas a Kempis, Sister? with a stiff air.
I have, Madam.
Madam!--How long are we to be at this distance, Clary?
No longer, my dear Bella, if you allow me to call you sister. And I tookher hand.
No fawning neither, Girl!
I withdrew my hand as hastily, as you may believe I should have done,had I, in feeling for one of your parcels under the wood, been bitten bya viper.
I beg pardon, said I,--Too-too ready to make advances, I am alwayssubjecting myself to contempts.
People who know not how to keep a middle behaviour, said she, mu
st everdo so.
I will fetch you the Kempis, Sister. I did. Here it is. You will findexcellent things, Bella, in that little book.
I wish, retorted she, you had profited by them.
I wish you may, said I. Example from a sister older than one's self is afine thing.
Older! saucy little fool!--And away she flung.
What a captious old woman will my sister make, if she lives to beone!--demanding the reverence, perhaps, yet not aiming at the merit; andashamed of the years that can only entitle her to the reverence.
It is plain, from what I have related, that they think they have got meat some advantage by obtaining my consent to the interview: but if itwere not, Betty's impertinence just now would make it evident. She hasbeen complimenting me upon it; and upon the visit of my uncle Harlowe.She says, the difficulty now is more than half over with me. She issure I would not see Mr. Solmes, but to have him. Now shall she be soonbetter employed than of late she has been. All hands will be at work.She loves dearly to have weddings go forward!--Who knows, whose turnwill be next?
I found in the afternoon a reply to my answer to Mr. Lovelace's letter.It is full of promises, full of vows of gratitude, of eternal gratitude,is his word, among others still more hyperbolic. Yet Mr. Lovelace, theleast of any man whose letters I have seen, runs into those elevatedabsurdities. I should be apt to despise him for it, if he did. Suchlanguage looks always to me, as if the flatterer thought to find a womana fool, or hoped to make her one.
'He regrets my indifference to him; which puts all the hope he has in myfavour upon the shocking usage I receive from my friends.
'As to my charge upon him of unpoliteness and uncontroulableness--What[he asks] can he say? since being unable absolutely to vindicatehimself, he has too much ingenuousness to attempt to do so: yet isstruck dumb by my harsh construction, that his acknowledging temperis owing more to his carelessness to defend himself, than to hisinclination to amend. He had never before met with the objectionsagainst his morals which I had raised, justly raised: and he wasresolved to obviate them. What is it, he asks, that he has promised, butreformation by my example? And what occasion for the promise, if hehad not faults, and those very great ones, to reform? He hopesacknowledgement of an error is no bad sign; although my severe virtuehas interpreted it into one.
'He believes I may be right (severely right, he calls it) in my judgmentagainst making reprisals in the case of the intelligence he receivesfrom my family: he cannot charge himself to be of a temper that leadshim to be inquisitive into any body's private affairs; but hopes, thatthe circumstances of the case, and the strange conduct of my friends,will excuse him; especially when so much depends upon his knowing themovements of a family so violently bent, by measures right or wrong, tocarry their point against me, in malice to him. People, he says, who actlike angels, ought to have angels to deal with. For his part, he has notyet learned the difficult lesson of returning good for evil: and shallthink himself the less encouraged to learn it by the treatment I havemet with from the very persons who would trample upon him, as they doupon me, were he to lay himself under their feet.
'He excuses himself for the liberties he owns he has heretofore taken inridiculing the marriage-state. It is a subject, he says, that he has notof late treated so lightly. He owns it to be so trite, so beaten atopic with all libertines and witlings; so frothy, so empty, so nothingmeaning, so worn-out a theme, that he is heartily ashamed of himself,ever to have made it his. He condemns it as a stupid reflection upon thelaws and good order of society, and upon a man's own ancestors: andin himself, who has some reason to value himself upon his descentand alliances, more censurable, than in those who have not the sameadvantages to boast of. He promises to be more circumspect than ever,both in his words and actions, that he may be more and more worthy ofmy approbation; and that he may give an assurance before hand, that afoundation is laid in his mind for my example to work upon with equalreputation and effect to us both;--if he may be so happy to call me his.
'He gives me up, as absolutely lost, if I go to my uncle Antony's; theclose confinement; the moated house; the chapel; the implacableness ofmy brother and sister; and their power over the rest of the family,he sets forth in strong lights; and plainly says, that he must have astruggle to prevent my being carried thither.'
Your kind, your generous endeavours to interest your mother in mybehalf, will, I hope, prevent those harsher extremities to which I mightbe otherwise driven. And to you I will fly, if permitted, and keep allmy promises, of not corresponding with any body, not seeing any body,but by your mother's direction and yours.
I will close and deposit at this place. It is not necessary to say, howmuch I am
Your ever affectionate and obliged CL. HARLOWE.