LETTER XXXI
MR. BELFORD[IN CONTINUATION.]
You will imagine how affecting her noble speech and behaviour were to me,at the time when the bare recollecting and transcribing them obliged meto drop my pen. The women had tears in their eyes. I was silent for afew moments.--At last, Matchless excellence! Inimitable goodness! Icalled her, with a voice so accented, that I was half-ashamed of myself,as it was before the women--but who could stand such sublime generosityof soul in so young a creature, her loveliness giving grace to all shesaid? Methinks, said I, [and I really, in a manner, involuntarily bentmy knee,] I have before me an angel indeed. I can hardly forbearprostration, and to beg your influence to draw me after you to the worldyou are aspiring to!--Yet--but what shall I say--Only, dearestexcellence, make me, in some small instances, serviceable to you, that Imay (if I survive you) have the glory to think I was able to contributeto your satisfaction, while among us.
Here I stopt. She was silent. I proceeded--Have you no commission toemploy me in; deserted as you are by all your friends; among strangers,though I doubt not, worthy people? Cannot I be serviceable by message,by letter-writing, by attending personally, with either message orletter, your father, your uncles, your brother, your sister, Miss Howe,Lord M., or the Ladies his sisters?--any office to be employed to serveyou, absolutely independent of my friend's wishes, or of my own wishesto oblige him?--Think, Madam, if I cannot?
I thank you, Sir: very heartily I thank you: but in nothing that I can atpresent think of, or at least resolve upon, can you do me service. Iwill see what return the letter I have written will bring me.--Till then----
My life and my fortune, interrupted I, are devoted to your service.Permit me to observe, that here you are, without one natural friend; and(so much do I know of your unhappy case) that you must be in a mannerdestitute of the means to make friends----
She was going to interrupt me, with a prohibitory kind of earnestness inher manner.
I beg leave to proceed, Madam: I have cast about twenty ways how tomention this before, but never dared till now. Suffer me now, that Ihave broken the ice, to tender myself--as your banker only.--I know youwill not be obliged: you need not. You have sufficient of your own, ifit were in your hands; and from that, whether you live or die, will Iconsent to be reimbursed. I do assure you, that the unhappy man shallnever know either my offer, or your acceptance--Only permit me this small----
And down behind her chair dropt a bank note of 100L. which I had broughtwith me, intending some how or other to leave it behind me: nor shouldstthou ever have known it, had she favoured me with the acceptance of it;as I told her.
You give me great pain, Mr. Belford, said she, by these instances of yourhumanity. And yet, considering the company I have seen you in, I am notsorry to find you capable of such. Methinks I am glad, for the sake ofhuman nature, that there could be but one such man in the world, as heyou and I know. But as to your kind offer, whatever it be, if you takeit not up, you will greatly disturb me. I have no need of your kindness.I have effects enough, which I never can want, to supply my presentoccasion: and, if needful, can have recourse to Miss Howe. I havepromised that I would--So, pray, Sir, urge not upon me this favour.--Takeit up yourself.--If you mean me peace and ease of mind, urge not thisfavour.--And she spoke with impatience.
I beg, Madam, but one word----
Not one, Sir, till you have taken back what you have let fall. I doubtnot either the honour, or the kindness, of your offer; but you must notsay one word more on this subject. I cannot bear it.
She was stooping, but with pain. I therefore prevented her; and besoughther to forgive me for a tender, which, I saw, had been more discomposingto her than I had hoped (from the purity of my intentions) it would be.But I could not bear to think that such a mind as her's should bedistressed: since the want of the conveniencies she was used to abound inmight affect and disturb her in the divine course she was in.
You are very kind to me, Sir, said she, and very favourable in youropinion of me. But I hope that I cannot now be easily put out of mypresent course. My declining health will more and more confirm me in it.Those who arrested and confined me, no doubt, thought they had fallenupon the most ready method to distress me so as to bring me into alltheir measures. But I presume to hope that I have a mind that cannot bedebased, in essential instances, by temporal calamities.
Little do those poor wretches know of the force of innate principles,(forgive my own implied vanity, was her word,) who imagine, that aprison, or penury, can bring a right-turned mind to be guilty of a wilfulbaseness, in order to avoid such short-lived evils.
She then turned from me towards the window, with a dignity suitable to herwords; and such as showed her to be more of soul than of body at thatinstant.
What magnanimity!--No wonder a virtue so solidly founded could baffle allthy arts: and that it forced thee (in order to carry thy accursed point)to have recourse to those unnatural ones, which robbed her of hercharming senses.
The women were extremely affected, Mrs. Lovick especially; who said,whisperingly to Mrs. Smith, We have an angel, not a woman, with us, Mrs.Smith!
I repeated my offers to write to any of her friends; and told her, that,having taken the liberty to acquaint Dr. H. with the cruel displeasure ofher relations, as what I presumed lay nearest to her heart, he hadproposed to write himself, to acquaint her friends how ill she was, ifshe would not take it amiss.
It was kind in the Doctor, she said: but begged, that no step of thatsort might be taken without her knowledge or consent. She would wait tosee what effects her letter to her sister would have. All she had tohope for was, that her father would revoke his malediction, previous tothe last blessing she should then implore. For the rest, her friendswould think she could not suffer too much; and she was content to suffer:for now nothing could happen that could make her wish to live.
Mrs. Smith went down; and, soon returning, asked, if the lady and I wouldnot dine with her that day; for it was her wedding-day. She had engagedMrs. Lovick she said; and should have nobody else, if we would do herthat favour.
The charming creature sighed, and shook her head.--Wedding-day, repeatedshe!--I wish you, Mrs. Smith, many happy wedding-days!--But you willexcuse me.
Mr. Smith came up with the same request. They both applied to me.
On condition the lady would, I should make no scruple; and would suspendan engagement: which I actually had.
She then desired they would all sit down. You have several times, Mrs.Lovick and Mrs. Smith, hinted your wishes, that I would give you somelittle history of myself: now, if you are at leisure, that thisgentleman, who, I have reason to believe, knows it all, is present, andcan tell you if I give it justly, or not, I will oblige your curiosity.
They all eagerly, the man Smith too, sat down; and she began an accountof herself, which I will endeavour to repeat, as nearly in her own wordsas I possibly can: for I know you will think it of importance to beapprized of her manner of relating your barbarity to her, as well as whather sentiments are of it; and what room there is for the hopes yourfriends have in your favour for her.
'At first when I took these lodgings, said she, I thought of staying buta short time in them; and so Mrs. Smith, I told you: I therefore avoidedgiving any other account of myself than that I was a very unhappy youngcreature, seduced from good, and escaped from very vile wretches.
'This account I thought myself obliged to give, that you might the lesswonder at seeing a young creature rushing through your shop, into yourback apartment, all trembling and out of breath; an ordinary garb over myown; craving lodging and protection; only giving my bare word, that youshould be handsomely paid: all my effects contained in apocket-handkerchief.
'My sudden absence, for three days and nights together when arrested,must still further surprise you: and although this gentleman, who,perhaps, knows more of the darker part of my story, than I do myself, hasinformed you (as you, Mrs. Lovick, tell me) that I am only an unh
appy,not a guilty creature; yet I think it incumbent upon me not to sufferhonest minds to be in doubt about my character.
'You must know, then, that I have been, in one instance (I had like tohave said but in one instance; but that was a capital one) an undutifulchild to the most indulgent of parents: for what some people call crueltyin them, is owing but to the excess of their love, and to theirdisappointment, having had reason to expect better from me.
'I was visited (at first, with my friends connivance) by a man of birthand fortune, but of worse principles, as it proved, than I believed anyman could have. My brother, a very headstrong young man, was absent atthat time; and, when he returned, (from an old grudge, and knowing thegentleman, it is plain, better than I knew him) entirely disapproved ofhis visits: and, having a great sway in our family, brought othergentlemen to address me: and at last (several having been rejected) heintroduced one extremely disagreeable: in every indifferent person's eyesdisagreeable. I could not love him. They all joined to compel me tohave him; a rencounter between the gentleman my friends were set against,and my brother, having confirmed them all his enemies.
'To be short; I was confined, and treated so very hardly, that, in a rashfit, I appointed to go off with the man they hated. A wicked intention,you'll say! but I was greatly provoked. Nevertheless, I repented, andresolved not to go off with him: yet I did not mistrust his honour to meneither; nor his love; because nobody thought me unworthy of the latter,and my fortune was not to be despised. But foolishly (wickedly andcontrivingly, as my friends still think, with a design, as they imagine,to abandon them) giving him a private meeting, I was tricked away; poorlyenough tricked away, I must needs say; though others who had been firstguilty of so rash a step as the meeting of him was, might have been sodeceived and surprised as well as I.
'After remaining some time at a farm-house in the country, and behavingto me all the time with honour, he brought me to handsome lodgings intown till still better provision could be made for me. But they provedto be (as he indeed knew and designed) at a vile, a very vile creature's;though it was long before I found her to be so; for I knew nothing of thetown, or its ways.
'There is no repeating what followed: such unprecedented vile arts!--ForI gave him no opportunity to take me at any disreputable advantage.'--
And here (half covering her sweet face, with her handkerchief put to hertearful eyes) she stopt.
Hastily, as if she would fly from the hateful remembrance, she resumed:--'I made escape afterward from the abominable house in his absence, andcame to your's: and this gentleman has almost prevailed on me to think,that the ungrateful man did not connive at the vile arrest: which wasmade, no doubt, in order to get me once more to those wicked lodgings:for nothing do I owe them, except I were to pay them'--[she sighed, andagain wiped her charming eyes--adding in a softer, lower voice]--'forbeing ruined.'
Indeed, Madam, said I, guilty, abominably guilty, as he is in all therest, he is innocent of this last wicked outrage.
'Well, and so I wish him to be. That evil, heavy as it was, is one ofthe slightest evils I have suffered. But hence you'll observe, Mrs.Lovick, (for you seemed this morning curious to know if I were not awife,) that I never was married.--You, Mr. Belford, no doubt, knew beforethat I am no wife: and now I never will be one. Yet, I bless God, thatI am not a guilty creature!
'As to my parentage, I am of no mean family; I have in my own right, bythe intended favour of my grandfather, a fortune not contemptible:independent of my father; if I had pleased; but I never will please.
'My father is very rich. I went by another name when I came to youfirst: but that was to avoid being discovered to the perfidious man: whonow engages, by this gentleman, not to molest me.
'My real name you now know to be Harlowe: Clarissa Harlowe. I am not yettwenty years of age.
'I have an excellent mother, as well as father; a woman of family, andfine sense--worthy of a better child!--they both doated upon me.
'I have two good uncles: men of great fortune; jealous of the honour oftheir family; which I have wounded.
'I was the joy of their hearts; and, with theirs and my father's, I hadthree houses to call my own; for they used to have me with them by turns,and almost kindly to quarrel for me; so that I was two months in the yearwith the one; two months with the other; six months at my father's; andtwo at the houses of others of my dear friends, who thought themselveshappy in me: and whenever I was at any one's, I was crowded upon withletters by all the rest, who longed for my return to them.
'In short, I was beloved by every body. The poor--I used to make gladtheir hearts: I never shut my hand to any distress, wherever I was--butnow I am poor myself!
'So Mrs. Smith, so Mrs. Lovick, I am not married. It is but just to tellyou so. And I am now, as I ought to be, in a state of humiliation andpenitence for the rash step which has been followed by so much evil.God, I hope, will forgive me, as I am endeavouring to bring my mind toforgive all the world, even the man who has ungratefully, and by dreadfulperjuries, [poor wretch! he thought all his wickedness to be wit!]reduced to this a young creature, who had his happiness in her view, andin her wish, even beyond this life; and who was believed to be of rank,and fortune, and expectations, considerable enough to make it theinterest of any gentleman in England to be faithful to his vows to her.But I cannot expect that my parents will forgive me: my refuge must bedeath; the most painful kind of which I would suffer, rather than be thewife of one who could act by me, as the man has acted, upon whose birth,education, and honour, I had so much reason to found better expectations.
'I see, continued she, that I, who once was every one's delight, am nowthe cause of grief to every one--you, that are strangers to me, are movedfor me! 'tis kind!--but 'tis time to stop. Your compassionate hearts,Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick, are too much touched,' [For the women sobbed,and the man was also affected.] 'It is barbarous in me, with my woes,thus to sadden your wedding-day.' Then turning to Mr. and Mrs. Smith--'May you see many happy ones, honest, good couple!--how agreeable is itto see you both join so kindly to celebrate it, after many years are goneover you!--I once--but no more!--All my prospects of felicity, as to thislife, are at an end. My hopes, like opening buds or blossoms in anover-forward spring, have been nipt by a severe frost!--blighted by aneastern wind!--but I can but once die; and if life be spared me, but tillI am discharged from a heavy malediction, which my father in his wrathlaid upon me, and which is fulfilled literally in every article relatingto this world; that, and a last blessing, are all I have to wish for; anddeath will be welcomer to me, than rest to the most wearied travellerthat ever reached his journey's end.'
And then she sunk her head against the back of her chair, and, hiding herface with her handkerchief, endeavoured to conceal her tears from us.
Not a soul of us could speak a word. Thy presence, perhaps, thouhardened wretch, might have made us ashamed of a weakness which perhapsthou wilt deride me in particular for, when thou readest this!----
She retired to her chamber soon after, and was forced, it seems, to liedown. We all went down together; and, for an hour and a half, dwelt uponher praises; Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick repeatedly expressing theirastonishment, that there could be a man in the world, capable ofoffending, much more of wilfully injuring such a lady; and repeating,that they had an angel in their house.--I thought they had; and thatas assuredly as there is a devil under the roof of good Lord M.
I hate thee heartily!--by my faith I do!--every hour I hate thee morethan the former!----
J. BELFORD.