Read Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 9 Page 13

  LETTER XIII

  MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.SAT. TEN O'CLOCK.

  Poor Mrs. Norton is come. She was set down at the door; and would havegone up stairs directly. But Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick being togetherand in tears, and the former hinting too suddenly to the truly-venerablewoman the fatal news, she sunk down at her feet in fits; so that theywere forced to breath a vein to bring her to herself, and to a capacityof exclamation; and then she ran on to Mrs. Lovick and me, who enteredjust as she recovered, in praise of the lady, in lamentations for her,and invectives against you; but yet so circumscribed were her invectives,that I could observe in them the woman well educated, and in herlamentations the passion christianized, as I may say.

  She was impatient to see the corpse. The women went up with her. Butthey owned that they were too much affected themselves on this occasionto describe her extremely-affecting behaviour.

  With trembling impatience she pushed aside the coffin-lid. She bathedthe face with her tears, and kissed her cheeks and forehead, as if shewere living. It was she indeed! she said; her sweet young lady! her veryself! Nor had death, which changed all things, a power to alter herlovely features! She admired the serenity of her aspect. She no doubtwas happy, she said, as she had written to her she should be; but howmany miserable creatures had she left behind her!--The good womanlamenting that she herself had lived to be one of them.

  It was with difficulty they prevailed upon her to quit the corpse; andwhen they went into the next apartment, I joined them, and acquainted herwith the kind legacy her beloved young lady had left her; but this ratheraugmented than diminished her concern. She ought, she said, to haveattended her in person. What was the world to her, wringing her hands,now the child of her bosom, and of her heart, was no more? Her principalconsolation, however, was, that she should not long survive her. Shehoped, she said, that she did not sin, in wishing she might not.

  It was easy to observe, by the similitude of sentiments shown in this andother particulars, that the divine lady owed to this excellent woman manyof her good notions.

  I thought it would divert the poor gentlewoman, and not altogetherunsuitably, if I were to put her upon furnishing mourning for herself; asit would rouse her, by a seasonable and necessary employment, from thatdismal lethargy of grief, which generally succeeds to the violent anguishwith which a gentle nature is accustomed to be torn upon the firstcommunication of the unexpected loss of a dear friend. I gave hertherefore the thirty guineas bequeathed to her and to her son formourning; the only mourning which the testatrix has mentioned; anddesired her to lose no time in preparing her own, as I doubted not, thatshe would accompany the corpse, if it were permitted to be carried down.

  The Colonel proposes to attend the hearse, if his kindred give him notfresh cause of displeasure; and will take with him a copy of the will.And being intent to give the family some favourable impressions of me, hedesired me to permit him to take with him the copy of the posthumousletter to me; which I readily granted. He is so kind as to promise me aminute account of all that should pass on the melancholy occasion. Andwe have begun a friendship and settled a correspondence, which but oneincident can possibly happen to interrupt to the end of our lives. Andthat I hope will not happen.

  But what must be the grief, the remorse, that will seize upon the heartsof this hitherto-inexorable family, on the receiving of the posthumousletters, and that of the Colonel apprizing them of what has happened? Ihave given requisite orders to an undertaker, on the supposition that thebody will be permitted to be carried down; and the women intend to fillthe coffin with aromatic herbs.

  The Colonel has obliged me to take the bills and draughts which hebrought up with him, for the considerable sums which accrued since thegrandfather's death from the lady's estate.

  I could have shown to Mrs. Norton the copies of the two letters which shemissed by coming up. But her grief wants not the heightenings which thereading of them would have given her.

  ***

  I have been dipping into the copies of the posthumous letters to thefamily, which Harry has carried down. Well may I call this lady divine.They are all calculated to give comfort rather than reproach, thoughtheir cruelty to her merited nothing but reproach. But were I in any oftheir places, how much rather had I, that she had quitted scores with meby the most severe recrimination, than that she should thus nobly triumphover me by a generosity that has no example? I will enclose some ofthem, which I desire you to return as soon as you can.