But I was justly punished—for her door was fast: and hearing her sigh and sob, as if her heart would burst, My beloved creature, said I, rapping gently, and her sobbings ceasing, I want but to say three words to you, which must be the most acceptable you ever heard from me. Let me see you but for one moment.
I thought I heard her coming to open the door, and my heart leaped in that hope; but it was only to draw another bolt to make it still the faster, and she either could not, or would not, answer me, but retired to the further end of her apartment, to her closet, probably: and more like a fool than before, again I sneaked away.
This was my mine, my plot! And this was all I made of it!
I love her more than ever! And well I may! Never saw I such polished ivory as her arms and shoulders seemed to be; never touched I velvet so soft as her skin. Then such an elegance! Oh Belford, she is all perfection! Her pretty foot, in her struggling, losing her shoe but just slipped on, as I told thee, equally white and delicate as the hand of any other lady, or even as her own hand!
But if she can now forgive me—Can! She must. Has she not upon her honour already done it? But how will the dear creature keep that part of her promise, which engages her to see me in the morning as if nothing had happened?
As to thy apprehensions of her committing any rashness upon herself, whatever she might have done in her passion, if she could have seized upon her scissors, or found any other weapon, I dare say there is no fear of that from her deliberate mind. A man has trouble enough with these truly pious, and truly virtuous girls (now I believe there are such); he had need to have some benefit from, some security in, the rectitude of their minds.
In short, I fear nothing in this lady but grief; yet that’s a slow worker, you know; and gives time to pop in a little joy between its sullen fits.
Letter 226: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
Thursday morning, eight o’clock
Her chamber door has not yet been opened. I must not expect she will breakfast with me: nor dine with me, I doubt. A little silly soul, what troubles does she make to herself by her over-niceness! All I have done to her would have been looked upon as a frolic only, a romping-bout, and laughed off by nine parts in ten of the sex accordingly. The more she makes of it, the more painful to herself, as well as to me.
• • •
Past ten o’clock
I never longed in my life for anything with so much impatience, as to see my charmer. She has been stirring, it seems, these two hours.
Dorcas just now tapped at her door, to take her morning commands.
She had none for her, was the answer.
She desired to know if she would not breakfast?
A sullen and low-voiced negative she received.
I will go myself.
• • •
Three different times tapped I at the door, but had no answer.
Permit me, dearest creature, to inquire after your health. As you have not been seen today, I am impatient to know how you do.
Not a word of answer; but a deep sigh, even to sobbing.
Let me beg of you, madam, to accompany me up another pair of stairs—you’ll rejoice to see what a happy escape we have all had.
A happy escape indeed, Jack!—for the fire had scorched the window-board, singed the hangings, and burned through the slit-deal lining of the window-jambs.
No answer, madam! Am I not worthy of one word? Is it thus you keep your promise with me? Shall I not have the favour of your company for two minutes, only for two minutes, in the dining-room?
Then, in a faintish but angry voice, Begone from my door!—wretch, inhuman, barbarous, and all that’s base and treacherous! Begone from my door! Nor tease thus a poor creature, entitled to protection, not outrage.
Well, madam, I see how you keep your word with me! If a sudden impulse, the effects of an unthought-of accident, cannot be forgiven—
Oh the dreadful weight of a father’s curse, thus in the letter of it so likely to be fulfilled!
And then her voice dying away into inarticulate murmurs, I looked through the keyhole, and saw her on her knees, her face, though not towards me, lifted up, as well as hands, and these folded, deprecating I suppose that gloomy tyrant’s curse.
I could not help being moved.
My dearest life! When you see the reality of the danger that gave occasion for this your unhappy resentment, you will think less hardly of me. And let me beseech you to perform a promise, on which I made a reliance not altogether ungenerous.
I cannot see you! Would to Heaven I never had! If I write, that’s all I can do.
Let your writing then, my dearest life, confirm your promise. And I will withdraw in expectation of it.
• • •
Past eleven o’clock
Just now she rung her bell for Dorcas; and, with her door in her hand, only half-opened, gave her a billet for me.
These are the contents. No inscriptive Sir! No Mr Lovelace!
• • •
I CANNOT see you: nor will I, if I can help it. Words cannot express the anguish of my soul on your baseness and ingratitude.
Vilest of men! and most detestable of plotters! how have I deserved from you the shocking indignities—But no more—only for your own sake, wish not, at least for a week to come, to see
The undeservedly injured and insulted,
CLARISSA HARLOWE
• • •
But not to see her for a week! Dear pretty soul! how she anticipates me in everything! The counsellor will have finished the writings, ready to sign, today or tomorrow at furthest: the licence with the parson, or the parson without the licence, must be also procured within the next four-and-twenty hours. Yet not to see her for a week! Dear sweet soul! Her good angel is gone a journey: is truanting at least. But nevertheless, in thy week’s time, and much less, my charmer, I doubt not to have completed my triumph!
Letter 228: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
Thursday evening, June 8
Oh for a curse to kill with! Ruined! Undone! Outwitted, tricked! Zounds, man, the lady is gone off! Absolutely gone off! Escaped!
And thou, too, who hast endeavoured to weaken my hands, wilt but clap thy dragon’s wings at the tidings!
Yet I must write, or I shall go distracted. Little less have I been these two hours; dispatching messengers to every stage; to every inn; to every waggon or coach, whether flying or creeping, and to every house with a bill up, for five miles round.
The little hypocrite, who knows not a soul in this town (I thought I was sure of her at any time) such an inexperienced traitress; giving me hope too, in her first billet, that her expectation of the family reconciliation would withhold her from taking such a step as this. Curse upon her contrivances! I thought that it was owing to her bashfulness; to her modesty, that after a few innocent freedoms she could not look me in the face; when, all the while, she was impudently (yes, I say impudently, though she be Clarissa Harlowe) contriving to rob me of the dearest property I had ever purchased—Purchased by a painful servitude of many months; fighting through the wild beasts of her family for her, and combating with a windmill virtue, that hath cost me millions of perjuries only to attempt; and which now, with its damned air-fans, has tossed me a mile and a half beyond hope! And this, just as I had arrived within view of the consummation of all my wishes!
• • •
To what purpose brought I this angel (angel I must yet call her!) to this hellish house! And was I not meditating to do her deserved honour? By my soul, Belford, I was resolved—But thou knowest what I had conditionally resolved. And now, though I was determined so much in her favour, who can tell what hands she may have fallen into?
I am mad, stark mad, by Jupiter, at the thoughts of this! Unprovided, destitute, unacquainted—some villain, worse than myself, who adores her not as I adore her, may
have seized her, and taken advantage of her distress!
Coming home with resolutions so favourable to her, judge thou of my distraction when her escape was first hinted to me, although but in broken sentences. I knew not what I said, nor what I did; I wanted to kill somebody. I charged bribery and corruption, in my first fury, upon all; and threatened destruction to old and young, as they should come in my way.
Dorcas continues locked up from me: Sally and Polly have not yet dared to appear: the vile Sinclair—
But here comes the odious devil: she taps at the door, though that’s only ajar, whining and snuffling, to try, I suppose, to coax me into temper.
• • •
But is she, can she, be gone! Oh how Miss Howe will triumph! But if that little fury receive her, fate shall make me rich amends; for then will I contrive to have them both.
• • •
I have been traversing her room, meditating, or taking up everything she but touched or used: the glass she dressed at I was ready to break, for not giving me the personal image it was wont to reflect, of her, whose idea is for ever present with me. I call for her, now in the tenderest, now in the most reproachful terms, as if within hearing: wanting her, I want my own soul, at least everything dear to it. What a void in my heart! what a chillness in my blood, as if its circulation were arrested! From her room to my own; in the dining-room, and in and out of every place where I have seen the beloved of my heart, do I hurry; in none can I tarry; her lovely image in every one, in some lively attitude, rushing cruelly upon me, in differently remembered conversations.
But when in my first fury, at my return, I went up two pair of stairs, resolved to find the locked-up Dorcas, and beheld the vainly-burnt window-board, and recollected my baffled contrivances, baffled by my own weak folly, I thought my distraction completed, and down I ran as one frighted at a spectre, ready to howl for vexation; my head and my temples shooting with a violence I had never felt before; and my back aching as if the vertebrae were disjointed, and falling in pieces.
But now that I have heard the mother’s [Mrs Sinclair’s] story, and contemplated the dawning hopes given by the chairman’s information, I am a good deal easier, and can make cooler reflections. If I lose her, all my rage will return with redoubled fury. The disgrace to be thus outwitted by a novice, an infant, in stratagem and contrivance, added to the violence of my passion for her, will either break my heart or (what saves many a heart in evils insupportable) turn my brain.
• • •
I have collected, from the result of the inquiries made of the chairman, and from Dorcas’s observations before the cruel creature escaped, a description of her dress; and am resolved, if I cannot otherwise hear of her, to advertise her in the Gazette as an eloped wife, both by her maiden and acknowledged name.
She had on a brown lustring nightgown, fresh, and looking like new, as everything she wears does, whether new or not, from an elegance natural to her. A beaver hat, a black riband about her neck, and blue knots on her breast. A quilted petticoat, of carnation-coloured satin; a rose-diamond ring supposed on her finger; and in her whole person and appearance, as I shall express it, a dignity, as well as beauty, that commands the repeated attention of everyone who sees her.
The description of her person I shall take a little more pains about. My mind must be more at ease before I can undertake that. And I shall threaten that if, after a certain period given for her voluntary return, she be not heard of, I will prosecute any person who presumes to entertain, harbour, abet, or encourage her, with all the vengeance that an injured gentleman and husband may be warranted to take by law, or otherwise.
Letter 229: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
A letter is put into my hands by Wilson himself.
Such a letter!
A letter from Miss Howe to her cruel friend!
I made no scruple to open it.
It is a miracle that I fell not into fits at the reading of it; and at the thought of what might have been the consequence had it come to the hands of this Clarissa Harlowe. Let my justly excited rage excuse my irreverence.
Oh this devilish Miss Howe! Something must be resolved upon, and done with that little fury!
• • •
Read it here; and avoid trembling for me, if thou canst.
• • •
to Miss Laetitia Beaumont
Wednesday, June 7
• • •
My dearest friend,
You will perhaps think that I have been too long silent. But I had begun two letters at different times since my last, and written a great deal each time; and with spirit enough, I assure you; incensed as I was against the abominable wretch you are with; particularly on reading yours of the 21st of the past month.
But I must stop here, and take a little walk, to try to keep down that just indignation which rises to my pen, when I am about to relate to you what I must communicate.
• • •
I am not my own mistress enough—then my mother—always up and down—and watching as if I were writing to a fellow—but I will try if I can contain myself in tolerable bounds—
The women of the house where you are—oh my dear—the women of the house—but you never thought highly of them—so it cannot be so very surprising—nor would you have stayed so long with them, had not the notion of removing to one of your own made you less uneasy, and less curious about their characters, and behaviour. In short, my dear, you are certainly in a devilish house! Be assured that the woman is one of the vilest of women!—nor does she go to you by her right name. Very true—her name is not Sinclair—nor is the street she lives in, Dover Street.
The wretch might indeed have held out these false lights a little more excusably had the house been an honest house; and had his end only been to prevent mischief from your brother. But this contrivance was antecedent, as I think, to your brother’s project: so that no excuse can be made for his intentions at the time—The man, whatever he may now intend, was certainly then, even then, a villain in his heart!
• • •
I write, perhaps, with too much violence to be clear. But I cannot help it. Yet I lay down my pen, and take it up every ten minutes, in order to write with some temper. My mother too in and out. What need I (she asks me) lock myself in, if I am only reading past correspondencies? for that is my pretence, when she comes poking in with her face sharpened to an edge, as I may say, by a curiosity that gives her more pain than pleasure. The Lord forgive me; but I believe I shall huff her next time she comes in.
• • •
Do you forgive me too, my dear. My mother ought; because she says I am my father’s girl; and because I am sure I am hers. I don’t know what to do—I don’t know what to write next—I have so much to write, yet have so little patience, and so little opportunity.
Oh my dear, the man is a villain! the greatest of villains in every light!
But can I think (you will ask with indignant astonishment), that Lovelace can have designs upon your honour?
That such designs he has had, if he still hold them not, I can have no doubt, now that I know the house he has brought you to, to be a vile one. This is a clue that has led me to account for all his behaviour to you ever since you have been in his hands.
I knew by experience that love is a fire that is not to be played with without burning one’s fingers.
• • •
But now, my dear, do I apprehend that you are in greater danger than ever yet you have been in; if you are not married in a week; and yet stay in this abominable house. For were you out of it, I own, I should not be much afraid for you.
What then have you to do, but to fly this house, this infernal house! Oh that your heart would let you fly him!
But if you meet with the least ground for suspicion; if he would detain you at the odious house, or wish you to stay, now you know what the peo
ple are, fly him, whatever your prospects are, as well as them.
If you do not fly the house upon reading of this, or some way or other get out of it, I shall judge of his power over you by the little you will have over either him or yourself.
I shall send this long letter by Collins, who changes his day to oblige me; and that he may try (now I know where you are), to get it into your own hands. If he cannot, he will leave it at Wilson’s. As none of our letters by that conveyance have miscarried when you have been in more apparently disagreeable situations than you are in at present, I hope that this will go safe, if Collins should be obliged to leave it there.
And now, I think, taking to your aid other circumstances as they have offered, or may offer, you will be sufficiently armed to resist all his machinations, be they what they will.
One word more. Command me up, if I can be of the least service or pleasure to you. I value not fame: I value not censure; nor even life itself, I verily think, as I do your honour, and your friendship—for, is not your honour my honour? And is not your friendship the pride of my life?
May heaven preserve you, my dearest creature, in honour and safety, is the prayer, the hourly prayer, of
Your ever-faithful and affectionate
ANNA HOWE
• • •
Thursday morn. 5. I have
written all night.
• • •
to Miss Howe
• • •
My dearest creature,
How you have shocked, confounded, surprised, astonished me, by your dreadful communication! My heart is too weak to bear up against such a stroke as this! When all hope was with me! When my prospects were so much mended! But can there be such villainy in men, as in this vile principal, and equally vile agent!
I am really ill—very ill—Grief and surprise, and now I will say, despair, have overcome me! All, all, you have laid down as conjecture, appears to me now to be more than conjecture!