Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady Volume VI Part 44

She put it close to me, Whether I had not corresponded with you from the time of your going away? I could safely tell her, (as I did,) that I had not: but I said, that I was well informed, that you took extremely to heart your father's imprecation; and that, if she would excuse me, I would say it would be a kind and sisterly part, if she would use her interest to get you discharged from it.

Among other severe things, she told me, that my partial fondness for you made me very little consider the honour of the rest of the family: but, if I had not heard this from you, she supposed I was set on by Miss Howe.

She expressed herself with a good deal of bitterness against that young lady: who, it seems, every where, and to every body, (for you must think that your story is the subject of all conversations,) rails against your family; treating them, as your sister says, with contempt, and even with ridicule.

I am sorry such angry freedoms are taken, for two reasons; first, because such liberties never do any good. I have heard you own, that Miss Howe has a satirical vein; but I should hope that a young lady of her sense, and right cast of mind, must know that the end of satire is not to exasperate, but amend; and should never be personal. If it be, as my good father used to say, it may make an impartial person suspect that the satirist has a natural spleen to gratify; which may be as great a fault in him, as any of those which he pretends to censure and expose in others.

Perhaps a hint of this from you will not be thrown away.

My second reason is, That these freedoms, from so warm a friend to you as Miss Howe is known to be, are most likely to be charged to your account.

My resentments are so strong against this vilest of men, that I dare not touch upon the shocking particulars which you mention of his baseness.

What defence, indeed, could there be against so determined a wretch, after you was in his power? I will only repeat my earnest supplication to you, that, black as appearances are, you will not despair. Your calamities are exceeding great; but then you have talents proportioned to your trials. This every body allows.

Suppose the worst, and that your family will not be moved in your favour, your cousin Morden will soon arrive, as Miss Harlowe told me. If he should even be got over to their side, he will however see justice done you; and then may you live an exemplary life, making hundreds happy, and teaching young ladies to shun the snares in which you have been so dreadfully entangled.

As to the man you have lost, is an union with such a perjured heart as his, with such an admirable one as your's, to be wished for? A base, low-hearted wretch, as you justly call him, with all his pride of ancestry; and more an enemy to himself with regard to his present and future happiness than to you, in the barbarous and ungrateful wrongs he has done you: I need not, I am sure, exhort you to despise such a man as this, since not to be able to do so, would be a reflection upon a s.e.x to which you have always been an honour.

Your moral character is untainted: the very nature of your sufferings, as you will observe, demonstrates that. Cheer up, therefore, your dear heart, and do not despair; for is it not G.o.d who governs the world, and permits some things, and directs others, as He pleases? and will He not reward temporary sufferings, innocently incurred, and piously supported, with eternal felicity?--And what, my dear, is this poor needle's point of NOW to a boundless eternity?

My heart, however, labours under a double affliction: For my poor boy is very, very bad--a violent fever--nor can it be brought to intermit.--Pray for him, my dearest Miss--for his recovery, if G.o.d see fit.--I hope G.o.d will see fit--if not (how can I bear to suppose that!) Pray for me, that he will give me that patience and resignation which I have been wis.h.i.+ng to you. I am, my dearest young lady,

Your ever affectionate JUDITH NORTON.

LETTER LXIV

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. JUDITH NORTON THURSDAY, JULY 6.

I ought not, especially at this time, to add to your afflictions--but yet I cannot help communicating to you (who now are my only soothing friend) a new trouble that has befallen me.

I had but one friend in the world, beside you; and she is utterly displeased with me.* It is grievous, but for one moment, to lie under a beloved person's censure; and this through imputations that affect one's honour and prudence. There are points so delicate, you know, my dear Mrs. Norton, that it is a degree of dishonour to have a vindication of one's self from them appear to be necessary. In the present case, my misfortune is, that I know not how to account, but by guess (so subtle have been the workings of the dark spirit I have been unhappily entangled by) for some of the facts that I am called upon to explain.

Miss Howe, in short, supposes she has found a flaw in my character. I have just now received her severe letter--but I shall answer it, perhaps, in better temper, if I first consider your's: for indeed my patience is almost at an end. And yet I ought to consider, that faithful are the wounds of a friend. But so many things at once! O my dear Mrs. Norton, how shall so young a scholar in the school of affliction be able to bear such heavy and such various evils!

But to leave this subject for a while, and turn to your letter.

I am very sorry Miss Howe is so lively in her resentments on my account.

I have always blamed her very freely for her liberties of this sort with my friends. I once had a good deal of influence over her kind heart, and she made all I said a law to her. But people in calamity have little weight in any thing, or with any body. Prosperity and independence are charming things on this account, that they give force to the counsels of a friendly heart; while it is thought insolence in the miserable to advise, or so much as to remonstrate.

Yet is Miss Howe an invaluable person: And is it to be expected that she should preserve the same regard for my judgment that she had before I forfeited all t.i.tle to discretion? With what face can I take upon me to reproach a want of prudence in her? But if I can be so happy as to re-establish myself in her ever-valued opinion, I shall endeavour to enforce upon her your just observation on this head.

You need not, you say, exhort me to despise such a man as him, by whom I have suffered--indeed you need not: for I would choose the cruellest death rather than to be his. And yet, my dear Mrs. Norton, I will own to you, that once I could have loved him.--Ungrateful man!--had he permitted me to love him, I once could have loved him. Yet he never deserved love. And was not this a fault?--But now, if I can but keep out of his hands, and obtain a last forgiveness, and that as well for the sake of my dear friends' future reflections, as for my own present comfort, it is all I wish for.

Reconciliation with my friends I do not expect; nor pardon from them; at least, till in extremity, and as a viatic.u.m.

O my beloved Mrs. Norton, you cannot imagine what I have suffered!--But indeed my heart is broken!--I am sure I shall not live to take possession of that independence, which you think would enable me to atone, in some measure, for my past conduct.

While this is my opinion, you may believe I shall not be easy till I can obtain a last forgiveness.

I wish to be left to take my own course in endeavouring to procure this grace. Yet know I not, at present, what that course shall be.

I will write. But to whom is my doubt. Calamity has not yet given me the a.s.surance to address myself to my FATHER. My UNCLES (well as they once loved me) are hard hearted. They never had their masculine pa.s.sions humanized by the tender name of FATHER. Of my BROTHER I have no hope. I have then but my MOTHER, and my SISTER, to whom I can apply.--'And may I not, my dearest Mamma, be permitted to lift up my trembling eye to your all-cheering, and your once more than indulgent, your fond eye, in hopes of seasonable mercy to the poor sick heart that yet beats with life drawn from your own dearer heart?--Especially when pardon only, and not restoration, is implored?'

Yet were I able to engage my mother's pity, would it not be a mean to make her still more unhappy than I have already made her, by the opposition she would meet with, were she to try to give force to that pity?

To my SISTER, then, I think, I will apply--Yet how hard-hearted has my sister been!--But I will not ask for protection; and yet I am in hourly dread that I shall want protection.--All I will ask for at present (preparative to the last forgiveness I will implore) shall be only to be freed from the heavy curse that seems to have operated as far is it can operate as to this life--and, surely, it was pa.s.sion, and not intention, that carried it so far as to the other!

But why do I thus add to your distresses?--It is not, my dear Mrs.

Norton, that I have so much feeling for my own calamity that I have none for your's: since your's is indeed an addition to my own. But you have one consolation (a very great one) which I have not:--That your afflictions, whether respecting your more or your less deserving child, rise not from any fault of your own.

But what can I do for you more than pray?--a.s.sure yourself, that in every supplication I put up for myself, I will with equal fervour remember both you and your son. For I am and ever will be

Your truly sympathising and dutiful CLARISSA HARLOWE.

LETTER LXV

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE [SUPERSCRIBED FOR MRS. RACHEL CLARK, &c.]

WEDNESDAY, JULY 5.

MY DEAR CLARISSA,

I have at last heard from you from a quarter I little expected.

From my mother!

She had for some time seen me uneasy and grieving; and justly supposed it was about you: and this morning dropt 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 your's, 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.

[It is surprising, my dear, mighty surprising! that knowing the prohibition I lay under of corresponding with you, you could send a letter for me to our own house: since it must be fifty to one that it would fall into my mother's hands, as you find it did.]

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 greater curiosity to know the occasion of so sad a situation as your melancholy letter shows you to be in.

[But I shall get her to be satisfied with hearing me read what I write; putting in between hooks, thus [], what I intend not to read to her.]

Need I to remind you, Miss Clarissa Harlowe, of three letters I wrote to you, to none of which I had any answer; except to the first, and that of 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 G.o.d!

--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 its inconsistent effects.

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 in his power, after you had taken such pains to get out of it.