Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady Volume IV Part 33

Miss Betterton, Miss Lockyer, are named--the man, (she irreverently repeats) she again calls a villain. Let me perish, I repeat, if I am called a villain for nothing!--She 'will have her uncle,' as Miss Harlowe requests, 'sounded about receiving her. Dorcas is to be attached to her interest: my letters are to be come at by surprise or trick'--

What thinkest thou of this, Jack?

Miss Howe is alarmed at my attempt to come at a letter of hers.

'Were I to come at the knowledge of her freedoms with my character,' she says, 'she should be afraid to stir out without a guard.' I would advise the vixen to get her guard ready.

'I am at the head of a gang of wretches,' [thee, Jack, and thy brother varlets, she owns she means,] 'who join together to betray innocent creatures, and to support one another in their villanies.'--What sayest thou to this, Belford?

'She wonders not at her melancholy reflections for meeting me, for being forced upon me, and tricked by me.'--I hope, Jack, thou'lt have done preaching after this!

But she comforts her, 'that she will be both a warning and an example to all her s.e.x.' I hope the s.e.x will thank me for this!

The nymphs had not time, they say, to transcribe all that was worthy of my resentment in this letter: so I must find an opportunity to come at it myself. n.o.ble rant, they say, it contains--But I am a seducer, and a hundred vile fellows, in it.--'And the devil, it seems, took possession of my heart, and of the hearts of all her friends, in the same dark hour, in order to provoke her to meet me.' Again, 'There is a fate in her error,' she says--Why then should she grieve?--'Adversity is her s.h.i.+ning time,' and I can't tell what; yet never to thank the man to whom she owes the s.h.i.+ne!

In the next letter,* wicked as I am, 'she fears I must be her lord and master.'

* See Letter XXIX. of this volume.

I hope so.

She retracts what she said against me in her last.--My behaviour to my Rosebud; Miss Harlowe to take possession of Mrs. Fretchville's house; I to stay at Mrs. Sinclair's; the stake I have in my country; my reversions; my economy; my person; my address; [something like in all this!] are brought in my favour, to induce her now not to leave me. How do I love to puzzle these long-sighted girls!

Yet 'my teasing ways,' it seems, 'are intolerable.'--Are women only to tease, I trow? The s.e.x may thank themselves for teaching me to out-tease them. So the headstrong Charles XII. of Sweden taught the Czar Peter to beat him, by continuing a war with the Muscovites against the ancient maxims of his kingdom.

'May eternal vengeance PURSUE the villain, [thank heaven, she does not say overtake,] if he give room to doubt his honour!'--Women can't swear, Jack--sweet souls! they can only curse.

I am said, to doubt her love--Have I not reason? And she, to doubt my ardour--Ardour, Jack!--why, 'tis very right--women, as Miss Howe says, and as every rake knows, love ardours!

She apprizes her, of the 'ill success of the application made to her uncle.'--By Hickman no doubt!--I must have this fellow's ears in my pocket, very quickly I believe.

She says, 'she is equally shocked and enraged against all her family: Mrs. Norton's weight has been tried upon Mrs. Harlowe, as well as Mr.

Hickman's upon the uncle: but never were there,' says the vixen, 'such determined brutes in the world. Her uncle concludes her ruined already.'

Is not that a call upon me, as well as a reproach?--'They all expected applications from her when in distress--but were resolved not to stir an inch to save her life.' Miss Howe 'is concerned,' she tells her, 'for the revenge my pride may put me upon taking for the distance she has kept me at'--and well she may.--It is now evident to her, that she must be mine (for her cousin Morden, it seems, is set against her too)--an act of necessity, of convenience!--thy friend, Jack, to be already made a woman's convenience! Is this to be borne by a Lovelace?

I shall make great use of this letter. From Miss Howe's hints of what pa.s.sed between her uncle Harlowe and Hickman, [it must be Hickman,] I can give room for my invention to play; for she tells her, that 'she will not reveal all.' I must endeavour to come at this letter myself. I must have the very words: extracts will not do. This letter, when I have it, must be my compa.s.s to steer by.

The fire of friends.h.i.+p then blazes and crackles. I never before imagined that so fervent a friends.h.i.+p could subsist between two sister-beauties, both toasts. But even here it may be inflamed by opposition, and by that contradiction which gives vigour to female spirits of a warm and romantic turn.

She raves about 'coming up, if by doing so she could prevent so n.o.ble a creature from stooping too low, or save her from ruin.'--One reed to support another! I think I will contrive to bring her up.

How comes it to pa.s.s, that I cannot help being pleased with this virago's spirit, though I suffer by it? Had I her but here, I'd engage, in a week's time, to teach her submission without reserve. What pleasure should I have in breaking such a spirit! I should wish for her but for one month, I think. She would be too tame and spiritless for me after that. How sweetly pretty to see the two lovely friends, when humbled and tame, both sitting in the darkest corner of a room, arm in arm, weeping and sobbing for each other!--and I their emperor, their then acknowledged emperor, reclined at my ease in the same room, uncertain to which I should first, grand signor like, throw out my handkerchief!

Again mind the girl: 'She is enraged at the Harlowes;' she is 'angry at her own mother;' she is exasperated against her foolish and low-vanity'd Lovelace.' FOOLISH, a little toad! [G.o.d forgive me for calling such a virtuous girl a toad!]--'Let us stoop to lift the wretch out of his dirt, though we soil our fingers in doing it! He has not been guilty of direct indecency to you.' It seems extraordinary to Miss Howe that I have not.

--'Nor dare he!' She should be sure of that. If women have such things in their heads, why should not I in my heart? Not so much of a devil as that comes to neither. Such villainous intentions would have shown themselves before now if I had them.--Lord help them!--

She then puts her friend upon urging for settlements, license, and so forth.--'No room for delicacy now,' she says; and tells her what she shall say, 'to bring all forward from me.' Is it not as clear to thee, Jack, as it is to me, that I should have carried my point long ago, but for this vixen?--She reproaches her for having MODESTY'D away, as she calls it, more than one opportunity, that she ought not to have slipt.-- Thus thou seest, that the n.o.blest of the s.e.x mean nothing in the world by their shyness and distance, but to pound the poor fellow they dislike not, when he comes into their purlieus.

Though 'tricked into this man's power,' she tells her, she is 'not meanly subjugated to it.' There are hopes of my reformation, it seems, 'from my reverence for her; since before her I never had any reverence for what was good!' I am 'a great, a specious deceiver.' I thank her for this, however. A good moral use, she says, may be made of my 'having prevailed upon her to swerve.' I am glad that any good may flow from my actions.

Annexed to this letter is a paper the most saucy that ever was written of a mother by a daughter. There are in it such free reflections upon widows and bachelors, that I cannot but wonder how Miss Howe came by her learning. Sir George Colmar, I can tell thee, was a greater fool than thy friend, if she had it all for nothing.

The contents of this paper acquaint Miss Harlowe, that her uncle Antony has been making proposals of marriage to her mother.

The old fellow's heart ought to be a tough one, if he succeed; or she who broke that of a much worthier man, the late Mr. Howe, will soon get rid of him.

But be this as it may, the stupid family is made more irreconcilable than ever to their G.o.ddess-daughter for old Antony's thoughts of marrying: so I am more secure of her than ever. And yet I believe at last, that my tender heart will be moved in her favour. For I did not wish that she should have nothing but persecution and distress.--But why loves she the brutes, as Miss Howe justly calls them, so much; me so little?

I have still more unpardonable transcripts from other letters.

LETTER XLV

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

The next letter is of such a nature, that, I dare say, these proud rouges would not have had it fall into my hands for the world.*

* See Letter x.x.xIV. of this volume.

I see by it to what her displeasure with me, in relation to my proposals, was owing. They were not summed up, it seems, with the warmth, with the ardour, which she had expected.

This whole letter was transcribed by Dorcas, to whose lot it fell. Thou shalt have copies of them all at full length shortly.

'Men of our cast,' this little devil says, 'she fancies, cannot have the ardours that honest men have.' Miss Howe has very pretty fancies, Jack.

Charming girl! Would to Heaven I knew whether my fair-one answers her as freely as she writes! 'Twould vex a man's heart, that this virago should have come honestly by her fancies.

Who knows but I may have half a dozen creatures to get off my hands, before I engage for life?--Yet, lest this should mean me a compliment, as if I would reform, she adds her belief, that she 'must not expect me to be honest on this side my grand climacteric.' She has an high opinion of her s.e.x, to think they can charm so long a man so well acquainted with their identicalness.

'He to suggest delays,' she says, 'from a compliment to be made to Lord M.!'--Yes, I, my dear.--Because a man has not been accustomed to be dutiful, must he never be dutiful?--In so important a case as this too!

the hearts of his whole family are engaged in it!--'You did, indeed,'

says she, 'want an interposing friend--but were I to have been in your situation, I would have torn his eyes out, and left it to his heart to furnish the reason for it.' See! See! What sayest thou to this, Jack?

'Villain--fellow that he is!' follow. And for what? Only for wis.h.i.+ng that the next day were to be my happy one; and for being dutiful to my nearest relation.

'It is the cruelest of fates,' she says, 'for a woman to be forced to have a man whom her heart despises.'--That is what I wanted to be sure of.--I was afraid, that my beloved was too conscious of her talents; of her superiority! I was afraid that she indeed despises me.--And I cannot bear to think that she does. But, Belford, I do not intend that this lady shall be bound down to so cruel a fate. Let me perish if I marry a woman who has given her most intimate friend reason to say, she despises me!--A Lovelace to be despised, Jack!

'His clenched fist to his forehead on your leaving him in just displeasure'--that is, when she was not satisfied with my ardours, if it please ye!--I remember the motion: but her back was towards me at the time.* Are these watchful ladies all eye?--But observe what follows; 'I wish it had been a poll-axe, and in the hands of his worst enemy.'--

* She tells Miss Howe, that she saw this motion in the pier-gla.s.s. See Letter x.x.xIII. of this volume.