‘That I have submitted to this interview with Mr Solmes, purely as an act of duty, to show my friends that I will comply with their commands as far as I can; and that I hope, when Mr Solmes himself shall see how determined I am, he will no longer prosecute a suit, in which it is impossible he should succeed with my consent.
‘That my aversion to him is too sincere to permit me to doubt myself on this occasion. But, nevertheless, he, Mr Lovelace, must not imagine that my rejecting of Mr Solmes is in favour to him. That I value my freedom and independency too much, if my friends will but leave me to my own judgement, to give them up to a man so uncontrollable, and who shows me beforehand, what I have to expect from him were I in his power.’
I see not any of my family, nor hear from them in any way of kindness.
My uncle Antony’s intended presence I do not much like: but that is preferable to my brother’s or sister’s. My uncle is very impetuous in his anger. I can’t think Mr Lovelace can be much more so; at least, he cannot look it, as my uncle, with his harder features can.
I believe both Mr Solmes and I shall look like a couple of fools, if it be true, as my uncle Harlowe writes, and Betty often tells me, that he is as much afraid of seeing me as I am of seeing him.
Adieu, my happy, thrice happy, Miss Howe, who have no hard terms affixed to your duty!
To know your own happiness; and that it is now, nor to leave it to after-reflection to look back upon the preferable past with a heavy and self-accusing heart, that you did not choose it when you might have chosen it, is all that is necessary to complete your felicity! And this power is wished you by
Your
CL. HARLOWE
Letter 80: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE
Wednesday, four o’clock in the afternoon
I am just returned from depositing the letter I so lately finished, and such of Mr Lovelace’s letters as I had not sent you. My long letter I found remaining there—so you’ll have both together.
I am concerned, methinks, it is not with you—but your servant cannot always be at leisure. However, I’ll deposit as fast as I write: I must keep nothing by me now; and when I write, lock myself in, that I may not be surprised, now they think I have no pen and ink.
I found in the usual place another letter from this diligent man: and by its contents a confirmation that nothing passes in this house, but he knows it; and that, as soon as it passes. For this letter must have been written before he could have received my billet; and deposited, I suppose, when that was taken away; yet he compliments me in it upon asserting myself, as he calls it, on that occasion, to my uncle and to Mr Solmes.
‘He assures me, however, that they are more and more determined to subdue me.
‘He sends me the compliments of his family; and acquaints me with their earnest desire to see me amongst them. Most vehemently does he press for my quitting this house while it is in my power to get away: and again craves leave to order his uncle’s chariot and six to attend my orders at the stile leading to the coppice adjoining to the paddock.
‘Settlements to my own will, he again offers. Lord M. and both his aunts to be guaranties of his honour and justice. But, if I choose not to go to either of his aunts, nor yet to make him the happiest of men so soon as it is nevertheless his hope that I will, he urges me to withdraw to my own house; and to accept of my Lord M. for my guardian and protector till my cousin Morden arrives. There can be no pretence for litigation, he says, when I am once in it. Nor, if I choose to have it so, will he appear to visit me; nor presume to mention marriage to me till all is quiet and easy; till every method I shall prescribe for a reconciliation with my friends is tried; till my cousin comes; till such settlements are drawn as he shall approve of for me; and that I have unexceptionable proofs of his own good behaviour.’
As to the disgrace a person of my character may be apprehensive of upon quitting my father’s house, he observes, too truly I doubt, ‘That the treatment I meet with is in everyone’s mouth: yet, he says, that the public voice is in my favour: My friends themselves, he says, expect that I will do myself what he calls this justice; why else do they confine me? He urges that, thus treated, the independence I have a right to will be my sufficient excuse, going but from their house to my own, if I choose that measure; or, in order to take possession of my own, if I do not: that all the disgrace I can receive, they have already given me: that his concern, and his family’s concern in my honour will be equal to my own, if he may be so happy ever to call me his: and he presumes to aver that no family can better supply the loss of my own friends to me than his, in whatever way I do them the honour to accept of his and their protection.
Something, however, I must speedily resolve upon, or it will be out of my power to help myself.
Now I think of it, I will enclose his letter (so might have spared the abstract of it), that you may the better judge of all his proposals and intelligence; and lest it should fall into other hands. I cannot forget the contents, although I am at a loss what answer to return.
Wednesday night
All is in a hurry below-stairs. Betty is in and out like a spy. Something is working, I know not what. I am really a good deal disordered in body as well as mind. Indeed I am quite heart-sick!
I will go down, though ‘tis almost dark, on pretence of getting a little air and composure. Robert has my two former, I hope, before now: and I will deposit this with Lovelace’s enclosed, if I can, for fear of another search.
How am I driven to and fro, like a feather in the wind, at the pleasure of the rash, the selfish and the headstrong! and when I am as averse to the proceedings of the one as I am to those of the other! But being forced into a clandestine correspondence, indiscreet measures are fallen upon by the rash man before I can be consulted: and between them, I have not an option, although my ruin (for is not the loss of reputation a ruin?) may be the dreadful consequence of the steps taken. What a perverse fate is mine!
If I am prevented depositing this and the enclosed, as I intend to try to do, late as it is, I will add to it, as occasion shall offer. Meantime, believe me to be
Your ever affectionate and grateful
CL. HARLOWE
Letter 81: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
Thursday morning, April 6
I have your three letters.
I know not what to say to Lovelace; nor what to think of his promises, nor of his proposals to you. ‘Tis certain that you are highly esteemed by all his family. The ladies are persons of unblemished honour. My Lord M. is also, as men and peers go, a man of honour. I could tell what to advise any other person in the world to do but you. So much expected from you! Such a shining light! Your quitting your father’s house, and throwing yourself into the protection of a family, however honourable, that has a man in it whose person, parts, declarations and pretensions will be thought to have engaged your warmest esteem! Methinks I am rather for advising that you should get privately to London; and not to let either him, or anybody else but me, know where you are, till your cousin Morden comes.
As to going to your uncle’s, that you must not do, if you can help it. Nor must you have Solmes, that’s certain: not only because of his unworthiness in every respect, but because of the aversion you have so openly avowed to him; which everybody knows and talks of; as they do of your approbation of the other. For your reputation-sake, therefore, as well as to prevent mischief, you must either live single or have Lovelace.
If you think of going to London, let me know; and I hope you will have time to allow me a farther concert as to the manner of your getting away and thither, and how to procure proper lodgings for you.
To obtain this time, you must palliate a little, and come into some seeming compromise if you cannot do otherwise. Driven as you are driven, it will be strange if you are not obliged to part with a few of your admirable punctilios.
• • •
L
ondon, I am told, is the best hiding-place in the world. I have written nothing but what I will stand to at the word of command. Women love to engage in knight-errantry, now and then, as well as to encourage it in the men. But in your case, what I propose will have nothing in it of what can be deemed that. It will enable me to perform what is no more than a duty in serving and comforting a dear and worthy friend, labouring under undeserved oppression: and you will ennoble, as I may say, your Anna Howe, if you will allow her to be your companion in affliction.
I’ll engage, my dear, we shall not be in town together one month, before we surmount all difficulties; and this without being beholden to any men-fellows for their protection.
I must repeat what I have often said, that the authors of your persecutions would not have presumed to set on foot their selfish schemes against you, had they not depended upon the gentleness of your spirit: though now, having gone so far and having engaged Old AUTHORITY in it (chide me if you will!), neither he nor they know how to recede.
When they find you out of their reach, and know that I am with you, you’ll see how they’ll pull in their odious horns.
• • •
Adieu, my dear! Happier times must come!—and that quickly too. The strings cannot long continue thus overstrained. They must break, or be relaxed. In either way, the certainty must be preferable to the suspense.
One word more.
I think in my conscience you must take one of these two alternatives: [firstly] to consent to let us go to London together privately: in which case, I will procure a vehicle and meet you at your appointment at the stile Lovelace proposes to bring his uncle’s chariot to: or, secondly, to put yourself into the protection of Lord M. and the ladies of his family.
You have another, indeed; and that is, if you are absolutely resolved against Solmes, to meet and marry Lovelace directly.
Whichsoever of those you make choice of, you’ll have this plea, both to yourself and to the world, that you are concluded by the same uniform principle that has governed your whole conduct ever since the contention between Lovelace and your brother has been on foot: that is to say, that you have chosen a lesser evil in hope to prevent a greater.
Adieu! and Heaven direct for the best my beloved creature, prays
Her
ANNA HOWE
Letter 82: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE
Thursday, April 6
I thank you, my dearest friend, for the kind pains you have taken in accounting so affectionately for my papers [letters] not being taken away yesterday [by Robert]; and for the kind protection you would have procured for me, if you could.
Indeed, my dearest love (permit me to be very serious), I am afraid I am singled out, either for my own faults or for the faults of my family, or for the faults of both, to be a very unhappy creature!—signally unhappy! For see you not how irresistibly the waves of affliction come tumbling down upon me?
We have been till within these few weeks, everyone of us, too happy. No crosses, no vexations, but what we gave ourselves from the pamperedness, as I may call it, of our own wills. Surrounded by our heaps and stores, hoarded up as fast as acquired, we have seemed to think ourselves out of the reach of the bolts of adverse fate. I was the pride of all my friends, proud myself of their pride, and glorying in my standing. Who knows what the justice of Heaven may inflict in order to convince us that we are not out of the reach of misfortune; and to reduce us to a better reliance than that we have hitherto presumptuously made?
Your partial love will be ready to acquit me of capital and intentional faults but oh, my dear! my calamities have humbled me enough to make me turn my gaudy eye inward; to make me look into myself! And what have I discovered there? Why, my dear friend, more secret pride and vanity than I could have thought had lain in my unexamined heart.
If I am to be singled out to be the punisher of myself, and family, who so lately was the pride of it, pray for me, my dear, that I may not be left wholly to myself; and that I may be enabled to support my character, so as to be justly acquitted of wilful and premeditated faults. The will of Providence be resigned to in the rest: as that leads, let me patiently and unrepiningly follow! I shall not live always! May but my closing scene be happy!
But I will not oppress you, my dearest friend, with further reflections of this sort. I will take them all into myself. Surely I have a mind that has room for them. My afflictions are too sharp to last long. The crisis is at hand. Happier times you bid me hope for. I will hope!
• • •
But yet I cannot but be impatient at times to find myself thus driven, and my character so depreciated and sunk, that were all the future to be happy I should be ashamed to show my face in public, or to look up. And all by the instigation of a selfish brother, and envious sister!
But let me stop: let me reflect! Are not these suggestions the suggestions of the secret pride I have been censuring? Then, already so impatient! But this moment so resigned! so much better disposed for reflection! Yet ‘tis hard, ‘tis very hard, to subdue an embittered spirit!—in the instant of its trial too! Oh my cruel brother! But now it rises again! I will lay down a pen I am so little able to govern—and I will try to subdue an impatience, which (if my afflictions are sent me for corrective ends) may otherwise lead me into still more punishable errors!
• • •
What appears to me, upon the fullest deliberation, the most eligible if I must be thus driven, is the escaping to London. But I would forfeit all my hopes of happiness in this life, rather than you should go off with me, as you rashly propose.
If, my dear, you can procure a conveyance for us both, you can perhaps procure one for me singly; but can it be done without embroiling yourself with your mamma, or her with our family? Be it coach, chariot, chaise, waggon, or horse, I matter not, provided you appear not in it.
Had you, my dear friend, been married, then should I have had no doubt but you and Mr Hickman would have afforded an asylum to a poor creature, more than half lost, in her own apprehension, for want of one kind, protecting friend!
But you tell me that in order to gain time, I must palliate; that I must seem to compromise with my friends. But how palliate? how seem to compromise? You would not have me endeavour to make them believe that I will consent to what I never intend to consent to! You would not have me try to gain time with a view to deceive!
And is there, after all, no way to escape one great evil, but by plunging myself into another? What an ill-fated creature am I? Pray for me, my dearest Nancy! My mind is at present so much disturbed that I hardly can for myself!
Letter 83: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE
Thursday night
The rash man has indeed so far gained his point, as to intimidate them from attempting to carry me away: but he has put them upon a surer and a more desperate measure: and this has put me also upon one as desperate, the consequence of which, although he could not foresee it, may perhaps too well answer his great end, little as he deserves to have it answered.
In short, I have done as far as I know the rashest thing that ever I did in my life!
But let me give you the motive, and then the action will follow of course.
About six o’clock this evening, my aunt (who stays here all night; on my account, no doubt) came up and tapped at my door; for I was writing, and had locked myself in. I opened it; and she entering, thus delivered herself:
I come once more to visit you, my dear; but sorely against my will; because it is to impart to you matters of the utmost concern to you, and to the whole family.
What, madam, is now to be done with me? said I; wholly attentive.
You will not be hurried away to your uncle’s, child; let that comfort you. They see your aversion to go. You will not be obliged to go to your uncle Antony’s.
How you revive me, madam! (I little thought what was to follow this supposed condescensi
on). This is a cordial to my heart!
And then I ran over with blessings for this good news (and she permitted me so to do, by her silence); congratulating myself that I thought my papa could not resolve to carry things to the last extremity—
Hold, niece, said she, at last. You must not give yourself too much joy upon the occasion neither. Don’t be surprised, my dear. Why look you upon me, child, with so affecting an earnestness! But you must be Mrs Solmes, for all that.
I was dumb.
She then told me that they had had undoubted information that a certain desperate ruffian (I must excuse her that word, she said) had prepared armed men to waylay my brother and uncles, and seize me and carry me off. Surely, she said, I was not consenting to a violence that might be followed by murder on one side or the other; perhaps on both.
I was still silent.
That therefore my father (still more exasperated than before) had changed his resolution as to my going to my uncle’s; and was determined next Tuesday to set out thither himself with my mamma; and that (for it was to no purpose to conceal a resolution so soon to be put in execution)—I must not dispute it any longer—on Wednesday I must give my hand—as they would have me.
She proceeded: That orders were already given for a licence: that the ceremony was to be performed in my own chamber, in presence of all my friends, except of my father and mother; who would not return, nor see me, till all was over, and till they had a good account of my behaviour.
I was still dumb—only sighing as if my heart would break.
My dear, you must have Mr Solmes: indeed you must.
Well, madam, then nothing remains for me to say. I am made desperate. I care not what becomes of me!
Your piety, and your prudence, my dear, and Mr Lovelace’s immoral character, together with his daring insults and threatenings, which ought to incense you as much as anybody, are everyone’s dependence. We are sure the time will come, when you’ll think very differently of the steps your friends take to disappoint a man who has made himself so justly obnoxious to them all.