Letter 296: MRS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
(Superscribed as directed in the preceding)
Friday, June 30
Miss Clarissa Harlowe,
You will wonder to receive a letter from me. I am sorry for the great distress you seem to be in. Such a hopeful young lady as you were! But see what comes of disobedience to parents!
For my part; although I pity you; yet I much more pity your poor father and mother. Such education as they gave you! such improvements as you made! and such delight as they took in you!—and all come to this!
Here, people cannot be unhappy by themselves, but they must involve their friends and acquaintance, whose discretion has kept them clear of their errors, into near as much unhappiness as if they had run into the like of their own heads. Thus my poor daughter is always in tears and grief. And she has postponed her own felicity truly, because you are unhappy!
If people who seek their own ruin could be the only sufferers by their headstrong doings, it were something: but, oh miss, miss, what have you to answer for, who have made as many grieved hearts as have known you? The whole sex is indeed wounded by you: for who but Miss Clarissa Harlowe was proposed by every father and mother for a pattern for their daughters?
I write a long letter where I proposed to say but a few words; and those to forbid you writing to my Nancy: and this as well because of the false step you have made, as because it will grieve her poor heart and do you no good. If you love her, therefore, write not to her. Your sad letter came into my hands, Nancy being abroad, and I shall not show it her: for there would be no comfort for her if she saw it, nor for me whose delight she is—as you once was to your parents.
I may say too much: only as I think it proper to bear that testimony against your rashness, which it behoves every careful parent to bear. And none more than
Your compassionating well-wisher,
ANNABELLA HOWE
Letter 310: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
(Superscribed, For Mrs Rachel Clark, etc.)
Wednesday, July 5
My dear Clarissa,
I have at last heard from you from a quarter I little expected.
From my mamma.
She had for some time seen me uneasy and grieving; and justly supposed it was about you. And this morning dropped a hint, which made me conjecture that she must have heard something of you more than I knew. And when she found that this added to my uneasiness, she owned she had a letter in her hands of yours, dated the 29th of June, directed for me.
You may guess that this occasioned a little warmth that could not be wished for by either.
In short, she resented that I should disobey her: I was as much concerned that she should open and withhold from me my letters: and at last she was pleased to compromise the matter with me; by giving up the letter and permitting me to write to you once or twice; she to see the contents of what I wrote. For, besides the value she has for you, she could not but have a great curiosity to know the occasion of so sad a situation as your melancholy letter shows you to be in.
Need I to remind you, Miss Harlowe, of three letters I wrote to you, to none of which I had any answer; except to the first, and that a few lines only, promising a letter at large; though you were well enough the day after you received my second to go joyfully back again with him to the vile house? But more of these by and by. I must hasten to take notice of your letter of Wednesday last week; which you could contrive should fall into my mother’s hands.
Let me tell you that that letter has almost broken my heart. Good God! what have you brought yourself to, Miss Clarissa Harlowe? Could I have believed that after you had escaped from the miscreant (with such mighty pains and earnestness escaped), and after such an attempt as he had made, you would have been prevailed upon, not only to forgive him, but (without being married too) to return with him to that horrid house! A house I had given you such an account of! Surprising! What an intoxicating thing is this love? I always feared, that you, even you, were not proof against it.
You your best self have not escaped! Indeed I see not how you could expect to escape.
What a tale have you to unfold! You need not unfold it, my dear: I would have engaged to prognosticate all that has happened, had you but told me that you would once more have put yourself into his power after you had taken such pains to get out of it.
Your peace is destroyed! I wonder not at it: since now you must reproach yourself for a credulity so ill-placed.
Your intellect is touched! I am sure my heart bleeds for you: but, excuse me, my dear, I doubt your intellect was touched before you left Hampstead; or you would never have let him find you out there; or, when he did, suffer him to prevail upon you to return to the horrid brothel.
I tell you I sent you three letters: the first of which, dated the 7th and 8th of June (for it was wrote at twice), came safe to your hands, as you sent me word by a few lines dated the ninth.
The second, dated June 10, was given into your own hand at Hampstead on Sunday the 11th, as you was lying upon a couch in a strange way, according to my messenger’s account of you, bloated, and flush-coloured; I don’t know how.
The third was dated the 20th of June. Having not heard one word from you since the promising billet of the 9th, I own I did not spare you in it. I ventured it by the usual conveyance, by that Wilson’s, having no other: so cannot be sure you received it. Indeed I rather think you might not; because in yours, which fell into my mamma’s hands, you make no mention of it: and if you had had it, I believe it would have touched you too much to have been passed by unnoticed.
You have heard that I have been ill, you say. I had a cold indeed; but it was so slight a one that it confined me not an hour. But I doubt not that strange things you have heard, and been told, to induce you to take the step you took.
My mother tells me she sent you an answer desiring you not to write to me, because it would grieve me. To be sure I am grieved; exceedingly grieved; and disappointed too, you must permit me to say. For I had always thought that there never was such a woman, at your years, in the world.
My love for you, and my concern for your honour, may possibly have made me a little of the severest: if you think so, place it to its proper account; to that love, and to that concern: which will but do justice, to
Your afflicted and faithful,
A. H.
Letter 311: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE
Thursday, July 6
Few young persons have been able to give more convincing proofs than myself, how little true happiness lies in the enjoyment of our own wishes.
To produce one instance only of the truth of this observation; what would I have given for weeks past for the favour of a letter from my dear Miss Howe, in whose friendship I placed all my remaining comfort? Little did I think that the next letter she would honour me with should be in such a style as should make me look more than once at the subscription, that I might be sure (the name not being written at length) that it was not signed by another A.H. For surely, thought I, this is my sister Arabella’s style: surely Miss Howe (blame me as she pleases in other points) could never repeat so sharply upon her friend, words written in the bitterness of spirit, and in the disorder of head.
But what have I, sunk in my fortunes; my character forfeited; my honour lost (while I know it, I care not who knows it); destitute of friends, and even of hope; what have I to do to show a spirit of repining and expostulation to a dear friend, because she is not more kind than a sister?
I find, by the rising bitterness which will mingle with the gall in my ink, that I am not yet subdued enough to my condition: and so, begging your pardon that I should rather have formed my expectations of favour from the indulgence you used to show me, than from what I now deserve to have shown me, I will endeavour to give a particular answer to your letter; although it will take me up too much time to thin
k of sending it by your messenger tomorrow. He can put off his journey, he says, till Saturday. I will endeavour to have the whole narrative ready for you by Saturday.
But how to defend myself in everything that has happened, I cannot tell: since in some part of the time in which my conduct appears to have been censurable, I was not myself; and to this hour know not all the methods taken to deceive and ruin me.
Alas, my dear! I was tricked, most vilely tricked back, as you shall hear in its place.
Without knowing the house was so very vile a house from your intended information, I disliked the people too much, ever voluntarily to have returned to it.
But your account of your messenger’s delivering to me your second letter, and the description he gives of me as lying upon a couch, in a strange way, bloated and flush-coloured, you don’t know how, absolutely puzzles and confounds me.
Lord have mercy upon the poor Clarissa Harlowe! What can this mean! Who was the messenger you sent? Was he one of Lovelace’s creatures too! Could nobody come near me but that man’s confederates, either setting out so, or made so? I know not what to make of any one syllable of this! Indeed I don’t!
Let me see. You say this was before I went from Hampstead! My intellects had not then been touched! Nor had I ever been surprised by wine (strange if I had!): how then could I be found in such a strange way, bloated, and flush-coloured; you don’t know how! Yet what a vile, what a hateful figure has your messenger represented me to have made!
But indeed, I know nothing of ANY messenger from you.
Believing myself secure at Hampstead, I stayed longer there than I would have done, in hopes of the letter promised me in your short one of the 9th, brought me by my own messenger, in which you undertake to send for and engage Mrs Townsend in my favour.
I wondered I heard not from you: and was told you were sick; and, at another time, that your mother and you had had words on my account, and that you had refused to admit Mr Hickman’s visits upon it: so that I supposed at one time that you was not able to write; at another that your mother’s prohibition had its due force with you. But now I have no doubt that the wicked man must have intercepted your letter; and I wish he found not means to corrupt your messenger to tell you so strange a story.
It was on Sunday June 11 you say, that the man gave it me. I was at church twice that day with Mrs Moore. Mr Lovelace was at her house the while, where he boarded, and wanted to have lodged; but I would not permit that, though I could not help the other. In one of these spaces it must be that he had time to work upon the man. You’ll easily, my dear, find that out by inquiring the time of his arrival at Mrs Moore’s, and other circumstances of the strange way he pretended to see me in, on a couch, and the rest.
Had anybody seen me afterwards, when I was betrayed back to the vile house, struggling under the operation of wicked potions, and robbed indeed of my intellects (for this, as you shall hear, was my dreadful case!), I might then perhaps have appeared bloated, and flush-coloured, and I know not how myself. But were you to see your poor Clarissa now (or ever to have seen her at Hampstead, before she suffered the vilest of all outrages), you would not think her bloated, or flush-coloured: indeed you would not.
In a word, it could not be me your messenger saw; nor (if anybody) who it was can I divine.
I will now, as briefly as the subject will permit, enter into the darker part of my sad story: and yet I must be somewhat circumstantial, that you may not think me capable of reserve or palliation. The latter I am not conscious that I need. I should be utterly inexcusable, were I guilty of the former to you. And yet, if you knew how my heart sinks under the thoughts of a recollection so painful, you would pity me.
As I shall not be able, perhaps, to conclude what I have to write in even two or three letters, I will begin a new one with my story; and send the whole of it together, although written at different periods, as I am able.
Allow me a little pause, my dear, at this place; and to subscribe myself
Your ever-affectionate and obliged
CLARISSA HARLOWE
Letter 316: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
Sunday, July 9
Another shocking detection, my dear! How have you been deluded! Very watchful I have thought you; very sagacious—but, alas! not watchful, not sagacious enough, for the horrid villain you have had to deal with!
The letter you sent me enclosed as mine, of the 7th of June, is a villainous forgery. The hand, indeed, is astonishingly like mine; and the cover, I see, is actually my cover: but yet the letter is not so exactly imitated but that (had you had any suspicions about his vileness at the time) you, who so well know my hand, might have detected it.
In short, this vile forged letter, though a long one, contains but a few extracts from mine. Mine was a very long one. He has omitted everything, I see, in it that could have shown you what a detestable house the house is. You will see this, and how he has turned Miss Lardner’s information and my advices to you (execrable villain!) to his own horrid ends, by the rough draught of the genuine letter[s] which I shall enclose.
And when you have perused them, I will leave you to judge how much reason I had to be surprised that you wrote me not an answer to either of those letters; one of which you owned you had received (though it proved to be his forged one); the other delivered into your own hands, as I was assured; and both of them of so much concern to your honour; and still how much more surprised I must be when I received a letter from Mrs Townsend, dated June 15 from Hampstead, importing ‘That Mr Lovelace, who had been with you several days, had, on the Monday before, brought his aunt and cousin, richly dressed, and in a coach and four, to visit you: who, with your own consent, had carried you to town with them—to your former lodgings; where you still were: that the Hampstead women believed you to be married; and reflected upon me as a fomenter of differences between man and wife.’
I own to you, my dear, that I was so much surprised and disgusted at these appearances, against a conduct till then unexceptionable, that I was resolved to make myself as easy as I could, and wait till you should think fit to write to me. But I could rein in my impatience but for a few days; and on the 20th of June I wrote a sharp letter to you; which I find you did not receive.
What a fatality, my dear, has appeared in your case, from the very beginning till this hour!
But, for the future, if you approve of it, I will send my letters by the usual hand (Collins’s), to be left at the Saracen’s Head on Snow Hill: whither you may send yours (as we both used to do, to Wilson’s), except such as we shall think fit to transmit by the post: which I am afraid, after my next, must be directed to Mr Hickman as before: since my mother is for fixing a condition to our correspondence which, I doubt, you will not comply with, though I wish you would. This condition I shall acquaint you with by and by.
Meantime, begging excuse for all the harsh things in my last, I beseech you, my dearest creature, to believe me to be,
Your truly sympathizing,
and unalterable friend,
ANNA HOWE
Letter 318: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE
Tuesday, July 11
I approve, my dearest friend, of the method you prescribe for the conveyance of our letters; and have already caused the porter of the inn to be engaged to bring to me yours, the moment that Collins arrives with them: as the servant of the house where I am will be permitted to carry mine to Collins for you.
As you are so earnest to have all the particulars of my sad story before you, I will, if life and spirits be lent me, give you an ample account of all that has befallen me from the time you mention. But this, it is very probable, you will not see till after the close of my last scene: and as I shall write with a view to that, I hope no other voucher will be wanted for the veracity of the writer.
I am far from thinking myself out of the reach of this man’s further violence. But what can I
do? Whither can I fly? Perhaps my bad state of health (which must grow worse, as recollection of the past evils, and reflections upon them, grow heavier and heavier upon me) may be my protection. Once, indeed, I thought of going abroad; and had I the prospect of many years before me, I would go. But, my dear, the blow is given. Nor have you reason, now, circumstanced as I am, to be concerned that it is. What a heart must I have if it be not broken! And, indeed, my dear, my best, I had almost said my only friend, I do so earnestly wish for the last closing scene, and with so much comfort find myself in a declining way, that I even sometimes ungratefully regret that naturally healthy constitution which used to double upon me all my enjoyments.
Adieu, my dearest friend! May you be happy! And then your Clarissa Harlowe cannot be wholly miserable!
Letter 319: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
Wedn. night, July 12
I write, my dearest creature, I cannot but write, to express my concern on your dejection. Let me beseech you, my charming excellence, let me beseech you, not to give way to it.
Comfort yourself, on the contrary, in the triumphs of a virtue unsullied; a will wholly faultless. Who could have withstood the trials that you have surmounted? Your cousin Morden will soon come. He will see justice done you, I make no doubt, as well with regard to what concerns your person as your estate. And many happy days may you yet see; and much good may you still do, if you will not heighten unavoidable accidents into guilty despondency.
But why, my dear, this pining solicitude continued after a reconciliation with relations as unworthy as implacable; whose wills are governed by an all-grasping brother, who finds his account in keeping the breach open? On this over-solicitude, it is now plain to me that the vilest of men built all his schemes. He saw you had a thirst after it, beyond all reason for hope. The view, the hope, I own extremely desirable, had your family been Christians; or even had they been pagans, who had bowels.