LETTER XIII
MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.WATFORD, WEDN. JAN. 14.
O thou savage-hearted monster! What work hast thou made in one guiltyhour, for a whole age of repentance!
I am inexpressibly concerned at the fate of this matchless lady! Shecould not have fallen into the hands of any other man breathing, andsuffered as she has done with thee.
I had written a great part of another long letter to try to soften thyflinty heart in her favour; for I thought it but too likely that thoushouldst succeed in getting her back again to the accursed woman's. ButI find it would have been too late, had I finished it, and sent it away.Yet cannot I forbear writing, to urge thee to make the only amends thounow canst make her, by a proper use of the license thou hast obtained.
Poor, poor lady! It is a pain to me that I ever saw her. Such an adorerof virtue to be sacrificed to the vilest of her sex; and thou theirimplement in the devil's hand, for a purpose so base, so ungenerous, soinhumane!--Pride thyself, O cruellest of men! in this reflection; andthat thy triumph over a woman, who for thy sake was abandoned of everyfriend she had in the world, was effected; not by advantages taken of herweakness and credulity; but by the blackest artifice; after a long courseof studied deceits had been tried to no purpose.
I can tell thee, it is well either for thee or for me, that I am not thebrother of the lady. Had I been her brother, her violation must havebeen followed by the blood of one of us.
Excuse me, Lovelace; and let not the lady fare the worse for my concernfor her. And yet I have but one other motive to ask thy excuse; and thatis, because I owe to thy own communicative pen the knowledge I have ofthy barbarous villany, since thou mightest, if thou wouldst, have passedit upon me for a common seduction.
CLARISSA LIVES, thou sayest. That she does is my wonder: and these wordsshow that thou thyself (though thou couldst, nevertheless, proceed)hardly expectedst she would have survived the outrage. What must havebeen the poor lady's distress (watchful as she had been over her honour)when dreadful certainty took place of cruel apprehension!--And yet a manmay guess what must have been, by that which thou paintest, when shesuspected herself tricked, deserted, and betrayed, by the pretendedladies.
That thou couldst behold her phrensy on this occasion, and herhalf-speechless, half-fainting prostration at thy feet, and yet retain thyevil purposes, will hardly be thought credible, even by those who knowthee, if they have seen her.
Poor, poor lady! With such noble qualities as would have adorned themost exalted married life, to fall into the hands of the only man in theworld, who could have treated her as thou hast treated her!--And to letloose the old dragon, as thou properly callest her, upon thebefore-affrighted innocent, what a barbarity was that! What a poor pieceof barbarity! in order to obtain by terror, what thou dispairedst to gainby love, though supported by stratagems the most insidious!
O LOVELACE! LOVELACE! had I doubted it before, I should now beconvinced, that there must be a WORLD AFTER THIS, to do justice toinjured merit, and to punish barbarous perfidy! Could the divineSOCRATES, and the divine CLARISSA, otherwise have suffered?
But let me, if possible, for one moment, try to forget this villanousoutrage on the most excellent of women.
I have business here which will hold me yet a few days; and then perhapsI shall quit this house for ever.
I have had a solemn and tedious time of it. I should never have knownthat I had half the respect I really find I had for the old gentleman,had I not so closely, at his earnest desire, attended him, and been awitness of the tortures he underwent.
This melancholy occasion may possibly have contributed to humanize me:but surely I never could have been so remorseless a caitiff as thou hastbeen, to a woman of half this lady's excellence.
But pr'ythee, dear Lovelace, if thou'rt a man, and not a devil, resolve,out of hand, to repair thy sin of ingratitude, by conferring upon thyselfthe highest honour thou canst receive, in making her lawfully thine.
But if thou canst not prevail upon thyself to do her this justice, Ithink I should not scruple a tilt with thee, [an everlasting rupture atleast must follow] if thou sacrificest her to the accursed women.
Thou art desirous to know what advantage I reap by my uncle's demise. Ido not certainly know; for I have not been so greedily solicitous on thissubject as some of the kindred have been, who ought to have shown moredecency, as I have told them, and suffered the corpse to have been coldbefore they had begun their hungry inquiries. But, by what I gatheredfrom the poor man's talk to me, who oftener than I wished touched uponthe subject, I deem it will be upwards of 5000L. in cash, and in thefunds, after all legacies paid, besides the real estate, which is a clear1000L. a-year.
I wish, from my heart, thou wert a money-lover! Were the estate to be ofdouble the value, thou shouldst have it every shilling; only upon onecondition [for my circumstances before were as easy as I wish them to bewhile I am single]--that thou wouldst permit me the honour of being thisfatherless lady's father, as it is called, at the altar.
Think of this! my dear Lovelace! be honest: and let me present thee withthe brightest jewel that man ever possessed; and then, body and soul,wilt thou bind to thee for ever thy
BELFORD.