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

All hands at work in preparation for London.--What makes my heart beat so strong? Why rises it to my throat in such half-choking flutters, when I think of what this removal may do for me? I am hitherto resolved to be honest, and that increases my wonder at these involuntary commotions.

'Tis a plotting villain of a heart: it ever was--and ever will be, I doubt. Such a joy when any roguery is going forward!--I so little its master!--A head, likewise, so well turned to answer the triangular varlet's impulses!--No matter--I will have one struggle with thee, old friend; and if I cannot overcome thee now, I never will again attempt to conquer thee.

The dear creature continues extremely low and dejected. Tender blossom!

how unfit to contend with the rude and ruffling winds of pa.s.sion, and haughty and insolent control!--Never till now from under the wing (it is not enough to say of indulging, but) of admiring parents; the mother's bosom only fit to receive this charming flower!

This was the reflection, that, with mingled compa.s.sion, and augmented love, arose to my mind, when I beheld the charmer reposing her lovely face upon the bosom of the widow Sorlings, from a recovered fit, as I entered soon after she had received her execrable sister's letter. How lovely in her tears!--And as I entered, her uplifted face significantly bespeaking my protection, as I thought. And can I be a villain to such an angel!--I hope not--But why, Belford, why, once more, puttest thou me in mind, that she may be overcome? And why is her own reliance on my honour so late and so reluctantly shown?

But, after all, so low, so dejected, continues she to be, that I am terribly afraid I shall have a vapourish wife, if I do marry. I should then be doubly undone. Not that I shall be much at home with her, perhaps, after the first fortnight, or so. But when a man has been ranging, like the painful bee, from flower to flower, perhaps for a month together, and the thoughts of home and a wife begin to have their charms with him, to be received by a Niobe, who, like a wounded vine, weeps her vitals away, while she but involuntary curls about him; how shall I be able to bear that?

May Heaven restore my charmer to health and spirits, I hourly pray--that a man may see whether she can love any body but her father and mother!

In their power, I am confident, it will be, at any time, to make her husband joyless; and that, as I hate them so heartily, is a shocking thing to reflect upon.--Something more than woman, an angel, in some things; but a baby in others: so father-sick! so family-fond!--What a poor chance stands a husband with such a wife! unless, forsooth, they vouchsafe to be reconciled to her, and continue reconciled!

It is infinitely better for her and for me that we should not marry.

What a delightful manner of life [O that I could persuade her to it!] would the life of honour be with such a woman! The fears, the inquietudes, the uneasy days, the restless nights; all arising from doubts of having disobliged me! Every absence dreaded to be an absence for ever! And then how amply rewarded, and rewarding, by the rapture-causing return! Such a pa.s.sion as this keeps love in a continual fervour--makes it all alive. The happy pair, instead of sitting dozing and nodding at each other, in opposite chimney-corners, in a winter evening, and over a wintry love, always new to each other, and having always something to say.

Thou knowest, in my verses to my Stella, my mind on this occasion.

I will lay those verses in her way, as if undesignedly, when we are together at the widow's; that is to say, if we do not soon go to church by consent. She will thence see what my notions are of wedlock. If she receives them with any sort of temper, that will be a foundation--and let me alone to build upon it.

Many a girl has been carried, who never would have been attempted, had she showed a proper resentment, when her ears, or her eyes were first invaded. I have tried a young creature by a bad book, a light quotation, or an indecent picture; and if she has borne that, or only blushed, and not been angry; and more especially if she has leered and smiled; that girl have I, and old Satan, put down for our own. O how I could warn these little rogues, if I would! Perhaps envy, more than virtue, will put me upon setting up beacons for them, when I grow old and joyless.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON.

If you are in London when I get thither, you will see me soon. My charmer is a little better than she was: her eyes show it; and her harmonious voice, hardly audible last time I saw her, now begins to cheer my heart once more. But yet she has no love--no sensibility!

There is no addressing her with those meaning, yet innocent freedoms (innocent, at first setting out, they may be called) which soften others of her s.e.x. The more strange this, as she now acknowledges preferable favour for me; and is highly susceptible of grief. Grief mollifies, and enervates. The grieved mind looks round it, silently implores consolation, and loves the soother. Grief is ever an inmate with joy.

Though they won't show themselves at the same window at one time; yet they have the whole house in common between them.

LETTER LXII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. WEDN. APRIL 26.

At last my lucky star has directed us into the desired port, and we are safely landed.--Well says Rowe:--

The wise and active conquer difficulties, By daring to attempt them. Sloth and folly Shiver and shrink at sight of toil and hazard, And make th' impossibility they fear.

But in the midst of my exultation, something, I know not what to call it, checks my joys, and glooms over my brighter prospects: if it be not conscience, it is wondrously like what I thought so, many, many years ago.

Surely, Lovelace, methinks thou sayest, thy good motions are not gone off already! Surely thou wilt not now at last be a villain to this lady!

I can't tell what to say to it. Why would not the dear creature accept of me, when I so sincerely offered myself to her acceptance? Things already appear with a very different face now I have got her here.

Already have our mother and her daughters been about me:--'Charming lady! What a complexion! What eyes! What majesty in her person!--O Mr. Lovelace, you are a happy man! You owe us such a lady!'--Then they remind me of my revenge, and of my hatred to her whole family.

Sally was so struck with her, at first sight, that she broke out to me in these lines of Dryden:--

----Fairer to be seen Than the fair lily on the flow'ry green!

More fresh than May herself in blossoms new!

I sent to thy lodgings within half an hour after our arrival, to receive thy congratulation upon it, but thou wert at Edgeware, it seems.

My beloved, who is charmingly amended, is retired to her constant employment, writing. I must content myself with the same amus.e.m.e.nt, till she shall be pleased to admit me to her presence: for already have I given to every one her cue.

And, among the rest, who dost thou think is to be her maid servant?--Deb. Butler.

Ah, Lovelace!

And Ah, Belford!--It can't be otherwise. But what dost think Deb's name is to be? Why, Dorcas, Dorcas Wykes. And won't it be admirable, if, either through fear, fright, or good liking, we can get my beloved to accept of Dorcas Wykes for a bed-fellow?

In so many ways will it be now in my power to have the dear creature, that I shall not know which of them to choose!

But here comes the widow with Dorcas Wykes in her hand, and I am to introduce them both to my fair-one?

So, the honest girl is accepted--of good parentage--but, through a neglected education, plaguy illiterate: she can neither write, nor read writing. A kinswoman of Mrs. Sinclair--could not therefore well be refused, the widow in person recommending her; and the wench only taken till her Hannah can come. What an advantage has an imposing or forward nature over a courteous one! So here may something arise to lead into correspondencies, and so forth. To be sure a person need not be so wary, so cautious of what she writes, or what she leaves upon her table, or toilette, when her attendant cannot read.

It would be a miracle, as thou sayest, if this lady can save herself--And having gone so far, how can I recede? Then my revenge upon the Harlowes!--To have run away with a daughter of theirs, to make her a Lovelace--to make her one of a family so superior to her own--what a triumph, as I have heretofore observed,* to them! But to run away with her, and to bring her to my lure in the other light, what a mortification of their pride! What a gratification of my own!

Then these women are continually at me. These women, who, before my whole soul and faculties were absorbed in the love of this single charmer, used always to oblige me with the flower and first fruits of their garden! Indeed, indeed, my G.o.ddess should not have chosen this London widow's! But I dare say, if I had, she would not. People who will be dealing in contradiction ought to pay for it. And to be punished by the consequences of our own choice--what a moral lies there!--What a deal of good may I not be the occasion of from a little evil!

Dorcas is a neat creature, both in person and dress; her continuance not vulgar. And I am in hopes, as I hinted above, that her lady will accept of her for her bedfellow, in a strange house, for a week or so. But I saw she had a dislike to her at her very first appearance; yet I thought the girl behaved very modestly--over-did it a little perhaps. Her ladyship shrunk back, and looked shy upon her. The doctrine of sympathies and antipathies is a surprising doctrine. But Dorcas will be excessively obliging, and win her lady's favour soon, I doubt not. I am secure in one of the wench's qualities however--she is not to be corrupted. A great point that! since a lady and her maid, when heartily of one party, will be too hard for half a score devils.

The dear creature was no less shy when the widow first accosted her at her alighting. Yet I thought that honest Doleman's letter had prepared her for her masculine appearance.

And now I mention that letter, why dost thou not wish me joy, Jack?

Joy, of what?

Why, joy of my nuptials. Know then, that said, is done, with me, when I have a mind to have it so; and that we are actually man and wife! only that consummation has not pa.s.sed: bound down to the contrary of that, by a solemn vow, till a reconciliation with her family take place. The women here are told so. They know it before my beloved knows it; and that, thou wilt say, is odd.

But how shall I do to make my fair-one keep her temper on the intimation? Why, is she not here? At Mrs. Sinclair's?--But if she will hear reason, I doubt not to convince her, that she ought to acquiesce.

She will insist, I suppose, upon my leaving her, and that I shall not take up my lodgings under the same roof. But circ.u.mstances are changed since I first made her that promise. I have taken all the vacant apartments; and must carry this point also.

I hope in a while to get her with me to the public entertainments. She knows nothing of the town, and has seen less of its diversions than ever woman of her taste, her fortune, her endowments, did see. She has, indeed, a natural politeness, which transcends all acquirement. The most capable of any one I ever knew of judging what an hundred things are, by seeing one of a like nature. Indeed she took so much pleasure in her own chosen amus.e.m.e.nts, till persecuted out of them, that she had neither leisure nor inclination for the town diversions.

These diversions will amuse, and the deuce is in it, if a little susceptibility will not put forth, now she receives my address; especially if I can manage it so as to be allowed to live under one roof with her. What though the sensibility be at first faint and reluctant, like the appearance of an early spring-flower in frosty winter, which seems afraid of being nipt by an easterly blast! That will be enough for me.

I hinted to thee in a former,* that I had provided books for the lady's in-door amus.e.m.e.nt. Sally and Polly are readers. My beloved's light closet was their library. And several pieces of devotion have been put in, bought on purpose at second-hand.

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