Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 6. Сэмюэл Ричардсон

me a text,13 which showed me how she came by her knowledge—Dorcas's were found guilty of treason the first moment she saw her.

      Once more, suppose me to be my charmer.—Now you are to encounter my examining eye, and my doubting heart—

      That's my dear!

      Study that air in the pier-glass!—

      Charmingly!—Perfectly right!

      Your honours, now, devils!—

      Pretty well, Cousin Charlotte, for a young country lady! Till form yields to familiarity, you may courtesy low. You must not be supposed to have forgot your boarding-school airs.

      But too low, too low Lady Betty, for your years and your quality. The common fault of your sex will be your danger: aiming to be young too long!—The devil's in you all, when you judge of yourselves by your wishes, and by your vanity! Fifty, in that case, is never more than fifteen.

      Graceful ease, conscious dignity, like that of my charmer, Oh! how hard to hit!

      Both together now—

      Charming!—That's the air, Lady Betty!—That's the cue, Cousin Charlotte, suited to the character of each!—But, once more, be sure to have a guard upon your eyes.

      Never fear, Nephew!—

      Never fear, Cousin.

      A dram of Barbadoes each—

      And now we are gone—

      LETTER XI

      MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. AT MRS. SINCLAIR'S, MONDAY AFTERNOON

      All's right, as heart can wish!—In spite of all objection—in spite of a reluctance next to faintings—in spite of all foresight, vigilance, suspicion—once more is the charmer of my soul in her old lodgings!

      Now throbs away every pulse! Now thump, thump, thumps my bounding heart for something!

      But I have not time for the particulars of our management.

      My beloved is now directing some of her clothes to be packed up—never more to enter this house! Nor ever more will she, I dare say, when once again out of it!

      Yet not so much as a condition of forgiveness!—The Harlowe-spirited fair-one will not deserve my mercy!—She will wait for Miss Howe's next letter; and then, if she find a difficulty in her new schemes, [Thank her for nothing,]—will—will what? Why even then will take time to consider, whether I am to be forgiven, or for ever rejected. An indifference that revives in my heart the remembrance of a thousand of the like nature.—And yet Lady Betty and Miss Montague, [a man would be tempted to think, Jack, that they wish her to provoke my vengeance,] declare, that I ought to be satisfied with such a proud suspension!

      They are entirely attached to her. Whatever she says, is, must be, gospel! They are guarantees for her return to Hampstead this night. They are to go back with her. A supper bespoken by Lady Betty at Mrs. Moore's. All the vacant apartments there, by my permission, (for I had engaged them for a month certain,) to be filled with them and their attendants, for a week at least, or till they can prevail upon the dear perverse, as they hope they shall, to restore me to her favour, and to accompany Lady Betty to Oxfordshire.

      The dear creature has thus far condescended—that she will write to Miss Howe and acquaint her with the present situation of things.

      If she write, I shall see what she writes. But I believe she will have other employment soon.

      Lady Betty is sure, she tells her, that she shall prevail upon her to forgive me; though she dares say, that I deserve not forgiveness. Lady Betty is too delicate to inquire strictly into the nature of my offence. But it must be an offence against herself, against Miss Montague, against the virtuous of the whole sex, or it could not be so highly resented. Yet she will not leave her till she forgive me, and till she see our nuptials privately celebrated. Mean time, as she approves of her uncle's expedient, she will address her as already my wife before strangers.

      Stedman, her solicitor, may attend her for orders in relation to her chancery affair, at Hampstead. Not one hour they can be favoured with, will they lose from the company and conversation of so dear, so charming a new relation.

      Hard then if she had not obliged them with her company in their coach-and-four, to and from their cousin Leeson's, who longed, (as they themselves had done,) to see a lady so justly celebrated.

      'How will Lord M. be raptured when he sees her, and can salute her as his niece!

      'How will Lady Sarah bless herself!—She will now think her loss of the dear daughter she mourns for happily supplied!'

      Miss Montague dwells upon every word that falls from her lips. She perfectly adores her new cousin—'For her cousin she must be. And her cousin will she call her! She answers for equal admiration in her sister Patty.

      'Ay, cry I, (whispering loud enough for her to hear,) how will my cousin Patty's dove's eyes glisten and run over, on the very first interview!— So gracious, so noble, so unaffected a dear creature!'

      'What a happy family,' chorus we all, 'will our's be!'

      These and such like congratulatory admirations every hour repeated. Her modesty hurt by the ecstatic praises:—'Her graces are too natural to herself for her to be proud of them: but she must be content to be punished for excellencies that cast a shade upon the most excellent!'

      In short, we are here, as at Hampstead, all joy and rapture—all of us except my beloved; in whose sweet face, [her almost fainting reluctance to re-enter these doors not overcome,] reigns a kind of anxious serenity! —But how will even that be changed in a few hours!

      Methinks I begin to pity the half-apprehensive beauty!—But avaunt, thou unseasonably-intruding pity! Thou hast more than once already well nigh undone me! And, adieu, reflection! Begone, consideration! and commiseration! I dismiss ye all, for at least a week to come!—But remembered her broken word! Her flight, when my fond soul was meditating mercy to her!—Be remembered her treatment of me in her letter on her escape to Hampstead! Her Hampstead virulence! What is it she ought not to expect from an unchained Beelzebub, and a plotting villain?

      Be her preference of the single life to me also remembered!—That she despises me!—That she even refuses to be my WIFE!—A proud Lovelace to be denied a wife!—To be more proudly rejected by a daughter of the Harlowes!—The ladies of my own family, [she thinks them the ladies of my family,] supplicating in vain for her returning favour to their despised kinsman, and taking laws from her still prouder punctilio!

      Be the execrations of her vixen friend likewise remembered, poured out upon me from her representations, and thereby made her own execrations!

      Be remembered still more particularly the Townsend plot, set on foot between them, and now, in a day or two, ready to break out; and the sordid threatening thrown out against me by that little fury!

      Is not this the crisis for which I have been long waiting? Shall Tomlinson, shall these women be engaged; shall so many engines be set at work, at an immense expense, with infinite contrivance; and all to no purpose?

      Is not this the hour of her trial—and in her, of the trial of the virtue of her whole sex, so long premeditated, so long threatened?—Whether her frost be frost indeed? Whether her virtue be principle? Whether, if once subdued, she will not be always subdued? And will she not want the crown of her glory, the proof of her till now all-surpassing excellence, if I stop short of the ultimate trial?

      Now is the end of purposes long over-awed, often suspended, at hand. And need I go throw the sins of her cursed family into the too-weighty scale?

      [Abhorred be force!—be the thoughts of force!—There's no triumph over the will in force!] This I know I have said.14 But would I not have avoided it, if I could? Have I not tried every other method? And have

13

Eccles. xxvi. The whoredom of a woman may be known in her haughty looks and eye-lids. Watch over an impudent eye, and marvel not if it trespass against thee.

14

Vol. IV. Letter XLVIII.