Hence my concern—for I think the poor lady ought not to have been so treated. Poor lady, did I say? What have I to do with thy creeping style? But have not I the worst of it; since her insensibility has made me but a thief to my own joys?
I did not intend to tell thee of this little innocent trick; for such I designed it to be; but that I hate disingenuity: to thee especially: and as I cannot help writing in a more serious vein than usual, thou wouldst, perhaps, had I not hinted the true cause, have imagined that I was sorry for the fact itself: and this would have given thee a good deal of trouble in scribbling dull persuasives to repair by matrimony; and me, in reading thy crude nonsense. Besides, one day or other, thou mightest, had I not confessed it, have heard of it in an aggravated manner; and I know thou hast such an high opinion of this lady’s virtue, that thou wouldst be disappointed if thou hadst reason to think that she was subdued by her own consent, or any the least yielding in her will. And so is she beholden to me in some measure, that at the expense of my honour she may so justly form a plea, which will entirely salve hers.
And now is the whole secret out.
Can it be helped? And must I not now try to make the best of it? And the rather do I enjoin thee this, and inviolable secrecy; because I begin to think that my punishment will be greater than the fault, were it to be only from my own reflection.
Letter 261: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
Friday, June 16
Who the devil could have expected such strange effects from a cause so common, and so slight?
But these high-souled and high-sensed girls, who had set up for shining lights and examples to the rest of the sex (I now see that such there are!) are with such difficulty brought down to the common standard, that a wise man, who prefers his peace of mind to his glory in subduing one of that exalted class, would have nothing to say to them.
I would at first have persuaded her, and offered to call witnesses to the truth of it, that we were actually married. Though the licence was in her hands, I thought the assertion might go down in her disorder; and charming consequences I hoped would follow. But this would not do.
Last night, for the first time since Monday last, she got to her pen and ink: but she pursues her writing with such eagerness and hurry, as show too evidently her discomposure.
I hope, however, that this employment will help to calm her spirits.
• • •
Just now Dorcas tells me that what she writes she tears, and throws the paper in fragments under the table, either as not knowing what she does, or disliking it: then gets up, wrings her hands, weeps, and shifts her seat all round the room: then returns to her table, sits down, and writes again.
• • •
One odd letter, as I may call it, Dorcas has this moment given me from her. Carry this, said she, to the vilest of men. Dorcas, a toad! brought it, without any further direction, to me. I sat down, intending (though ‘tis pretty long) to give thee a copy of it: but, for my life, I cannot; ‘tis so extravagant. And the original is too much an original to let it go out of my hands.
But some of the scraps and fragments, as either torn through, or flung aside, I will copy for the novelty of the thing, and to show thee how her mind works now she is in this whimsical way. Yet I know I am still furnishing thee with new weapons against myself. But spare thy comments. My own reflections render them needless. Dorcas thinks her lady will ask for them: so wishes to have them to lay again under her table.
By the first thou’lt guess that I have told her that Miss Howe is very ill, and can’t write; that she may account the better for not having received the letter designed for her.
• • •
PAPER I
(Torn in two pieces)
My dearest Miss Howe!
Oh! What dreadful, dreadful things have I to tell you!
But yet I cannot tell you neither. But say, are you really ill, as a vile, vile creature informs me you are?
But he never yet told me truth, and I hope has not in this: and yet, if it were not true, surely I should have heard from you before now! But what have I to do, to upbraid? You may well be tired of me! And if you are, I can forgive you; for I am tired of myself: and all my own relations were tired of me long before you were.
How good you have always been to me, mine own dear Anna Howe! But how I ramble!
I sat down to say a great deal—my heart was full—I did not know what to say first—and thought, and grief, and confusion, and (Oh my poor head!) I cannot tell what—And thought, and grief, and confusion came crowding so thick upon me; one would be first, another would be first, all would be first; so I can write nothing at all—only that, whatever they have done to me, I cannot tell; but I am no longer what I was in any one thing. In any one thing did I say? Yes, but I am; for I am still, and I ever will be,
Your true—
• • •
PAPER II
(Scratched through, and thrown under the table)
And can you, my dear honoured papa, resolve for ever to reprobate your poor child? But I am sure you would not, if you knew what she has suffered since her unhappy—And will nobody plead for your poor suffering girl? No one good body? Why, then, dearest sir, let it be an act of your own innate goodness, which I have so much experienced, and so much abused. I don’t presume to think you should receive me—no, indeed—my name is—I don’t know what my name is! I never dare to wish to come into your family again! But your heavy curse, my papa. Yes, I will call you papa, and help yourself as you can—for you are my own dear papa, whether you will or not. And though I am an unworthy child—yet I am your child.
• • •
PAPER III
A lady took a great fancy to a young lion, or a bear, I forget which—but a bear, or a tiger, I believe, it was. It was made her a present of when a whelp. She fed it with her own hand: she nursed up the wicked cub with great tenderness; and would play with it, without fear or apprehension of danger: and it was obedient to all her commands: and its tameness, as she used to boast, increased with its growth; so that, like a lap-dog, it would follow her all over the house. But mind what followed. At last, somehow, neglecting to satisfy its hungry maw, or having otherwise disobliged it on some occasion, it resumed its nature; and on a sudden fell upon her, and tore her in pieces. And who was most to blame, I pray? The brute, or the lady? The lady, surely! For what she did, was out of nature, out of character at least: what it did, was in its own nature.
• • •
PAPER V
Rejoice not now, my Bella, my sister, my friend; but pity the humbled creature, whose foolish heart you used to say you beheld through the thin veil of humility, which covered it.
It must have been so! My fall had not else been permitted.
You penetrated my proud heart with the jealousy of an elder sister’s searching eye.
You knew me better than I knew myself.
Hence your upbraidings, and your chidings, when I began to totter.
But forgive now those vain triumphs of my heart.
I thought, poor proud wretch that I was, that what you said was owing to your envy.
I thought I could acquit my intention of any such vanity.
I was too secure in the knowledge I thought I had of my own heart.
My supposed advantages became a snare to me.
And what now is the end of all?
• • •
to Mr Lovelace
I never intended to write another line to you. I would not see you, if I could help it. Oh that I never had!
But tell me of a truth, is Miss Howe really and truly ill?—very ill?—and is not her illness poison? And don’t you know who gave it her?
What you, or Mrs Sinclair, or somebody I cannot tell who, have done to my poor head, you best know: but I shall never be what I was. My head is gone. I have wept away all my brain, I
believe; for I can weep no more. Indeed I have had my full share; so it is no matter.
But, good now, Lovelace, don’t set Mrs Sinclair upon me again! I never did her any harm. She so affrights me when I see her! Ever since—when was it? I cannot tell. You can, I suppose. She may be a good woman, as far as I know. She was the wife of a man of honour—very likely!—though forced to let lodgings for her livelihood. Poor gentlewoman! Let her know I pity her: but don’t let her come near me again—pray don’t!
Yet she may be a very good woman—
What would I say! I forget what I was going to say.
Oh! Lovelace! if you could be sorry for yourself, I would be sorry too—but when all my doors are fast, and nothing but the key-hole open, and the key of late put into that, to be where you are, in a manner without opening any of them—Oh wretched, wretched Clarissa Harlowe!
For I never will be Lovelace—let my uncle take it as he pleases.
Well, but now I remember what I was going to say. It is for your good—not mine—for nothing can do me good now! Oh thou villainous man! thou hated Lovelace!
But Mrs Sinclair may be a good woman. If you love me—but that you don’t—but don’t let her bluster up with her worse than mannish airs to me again! Oh she is a frightful woman! If she be a woman! She needed not to put on that fearful mask to scare me out of my poor wits. But don’t tell her what I say. I have no hatred to her. It is only fright, and foolish fear, that’s all. She may not be a bad woman—but neither are all men, any more than all women, alike—God forbid they should be like you!
Alas! you have killed my head among you. I don’t say who did it. God forgive you all! But had it not been better to have put me out of all your ways at once? You might safely have done it! For nobody would require me at your hands—no, not a soul—except, indeed, Miss Howe would have said, when she should see you, what, Lovelace, have you done with Clarissa Harlowe? And then you could have given any slight gay answer. Sent her beyond sea; or, she has run away from me as she did from her parents. And this would have been easily credited; for you know, Lovelace, she that could run away from them, might very well run away from you.
But this is nothing to what I wanted to say. Now I have it!
I have lost it again. This foolish wench comes teasing me. For what purpose should I eat? For what end should I wish to live? I tell thee, Dorcas, I will neither eat nor drink. I cannot be worse than I am.
I will do as you’d have me. Good Dorcas, look not upon me so fiercely. But thou canst not look so bad as I have seen somebody look.
Mr Lovelace, now that I remember what I took pen in hand to say, let me hurry off my thoughts, lest I lose them again. Here I am sensible. And yet I am hardly sensible neither. But I know my head is not as it should be, for all that. Therefore let me propose one thing to you: it is for your good—not mine: and this is it:
I must needs be both a trouble and an expense to you. And here my uncle Harlowe, when he knows how I am, will never wish any man to have me: no, not even you, who have been the occasion of it—but I forget what I would say again—
Then this is it: I never shall be myself again: I have been a very wicked creature—a vain, proud, poor creature—full of secret pride—which I carried off under an humble guise, and deceived everybody. My sister says so—and now I am punished—so let me be carried out of this house, and out of your sight; and let me be put into that Bedlam privately, which once I saw: but it was a sad sight to me then! Little as I thought what I should come to myself! That is all I would say: this is all I have to wish for—then I shall be out of all your ways; and I shall be taken care of; and bread and water, without your tormentings, will be dainties; and my straw bed the easiest I have lain in—for—I cannot tell how long!
My clothes will sell for what will keep me there, perhaps, as long as I shall live. But, Lovelace, dear Lovelace I will call you; for you have cost me enough, I’m sure!—don’t let me be made a show of, for my family’s sake; nay, for your own sake, don’t do that. For when I know all I have suffered, which yet I do not, and no matter if I never do—I may be apt to rave against you by name, and tell of all your baseness to a poor humbled creature, that once was as proud as anybody—but of what I can’t tell—except of my own folly and vanity—but let that pass—since I am punished enough for it.
So, suppose, instead of Bedlam, it were a private madhouse where nobody comes! That will be better a great deal.
But, another thing, Lovelace: don’t let them use me cruelly when I am there. You have used me cruelly enough, you know! Don’t let them use me cruelly; for I will be very tractable; and do as anybody would have me do—except what you would have me do—for that I never will. Another thing, Lovelace: don’t let this good woman; I was going to say vile woman; but don’t tell her that—because she won’t let you send me to this happy refuge perhaps, if she were to know it.
Another thing, Lovelace: and let me have pen, and ink, and paper, allowed me. It will be all my amusement. But they need not send to anybody I shall write to, what I write, because it will but trouble them: and somebody may do you a mischief, maybe—I wish not that anybody do anybody a mischief upon my account.
You tell me that Lady Betty Lawrance and your cousin Montague were here to take leave of me; but that I was asleep, and could not be waked. So you told me at first, I was married, you know; and that you were my husband. Ah! Lovelace! look to what you say. But let not them (for they will sport with my misery), let not that Lady Betty, let not that Miss Montague, whatever the real ones may do; nor Mrs Sinclair neither, nor any of her lodgers, nor her nieces, come to see me in my place. Real ones, I say; for, Lovelace, I shall find out all your villainies in time—indeed I shall—so put me there as soon as you can. It is for your good. Then all will pass for ravings that I can say, as, I doubt not, many poor creatures’ exclamations do pass, though there may be too much truth in them for all that—and you know I began to be mad at Hampstead—so you said. Ah! villainous man! what have you not to answer for!
The miserably abused
CLARISSA HARLOWE
• • •
I will not hear thy heavy preachments upon this plaguy letter. So, not a word of that sort!
Mrs Sinclair is a true heroine and, I think, shames us all. And she is a woman too! Thou’lt say the best things corrupted become the worst. But this is certain, that whatever the sex set their hearts upon, they make thorough work of it. And hence it is, that a mischief which would end in simple robbery among men-rogues, becomes murder if a woman be in it.
I know thou wilt blame me for having had recourse to art. But do not physicians prescribe opiates in acute cases, where the violence of the disorder would be apt to throw the patient into a fever or delirium? I aver that my motive for this expedient was mercy; nor could it be anything else. For a rape, thou knowest, to us rakes is far from being an undesirable thing.
But is not wine itself an opiate in degree? How many women have been taken advantage of by wine, and other still more intoxicating viands? Let me tell thee, Jack, that the experience of many of the passive sex, and the consciences of many more of the active, appealed to, will testify that thy Lovelace is not the worst of villains. Nor would I have thee put me upon clearing myself, by comparisons.
If she escape a settled delirium when my plots unravel, I think it is all I ought to be concerned about.
• • •
Will is just returned from an errand to Hampstead; and acquaints me that Mrs Townsend was yesterday at Mrs Moore’s, accompanied by three or four rough fellows. She was strangely surprised at the news that my spouse and I are entirely reconciled; and that two fine ladies, my relations, came to visit her, and went to town with her: where she is very happy with me. She was sure we were not married, she said, unless it was while we were at Hampstead: and they were sure the ceremony was not performed there. But that the lady is happy and easy is unquestionable: and a fling
was thrown out by Mrs Moore and Mrs Bevis at mischief-makers, as they knew Mrs Townsend to be acquainted with Miss Howe.
Now, since my fair one can neither receive nor send away letters, I am pretty easy as to this Mrs Townsend and her employer. And I fancy Miss Howe will be puzzled to know what to think of the matter, and afraid of sending by Wilson’s conveyance; and perhaps suppose that her friend slights her; or has changed her mind in my favour, and is ashamed to own it; as she has not had an answer to what she wrote; and will believe that the rustic delivered her last letter into her own hand.
Letter 262: MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
Sunday afternoon, 6 o’clock (June 18)
I went out early this morning, and returned not till just now; when I was informed that my beloved, in my absence, had taken it into her head to attempt to get away.
She tripped down with a parcel tied up in a handkerchief, her hood on; and was actually in the entry, when Mrs Sinclair saw her.
Pray, madam, whipping between her and the street door, be pleased to let me know whither you are going?
Who has a right to control me? was the word.
I have, madam, by order of your spouse: And, kemboing her arms, as she owned, I desire you will be pleased to walk up again.
She would have spoken; but could not: and bursting into tears, turned back and went up to her chamber: and Dorcas was taken to task for suffering her to be in the passage before she was seen.
This shows, as we hoped last night, that she is recovering her charming intellects.