Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady Volume IX Part 11

To have done with so shocking a subject at once, we shall take notice, that Mr. Belford, in a future letter, writes, that the miserable woman, to the surprise of the operators themselves, (through hourly increasing tortures of body and mind,) held out so long as till Thursday, Sept. 21; and then died in such agonies as terrified into a transitory penitence all the wretches about her.

LETTER XXVI

COLONEL MORDEN, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

SUNDAY NIGHT, SEPT. 10.

DEAR SIR,

According to my promise, I send you an account of matters here. Poor Mrs. Norton was so very ill upon the road, that, slowly as the hea.r.s.e moved, and the chariot followed, I was afraid we should not have got her to St. Albans. We put up there as I had intended. I was in hopes that she would have been better for the stop: but I was forced to leave her behind me. I ordered the maid-servant you were so considerately kind as to send down with her, to be very careful of her; and left the chariot to attend her. She deserves all the regard that can be paid her; not only upon my cousin's account, but on her own--she is an excellent woman.

When we were within five miles of Harlowe-place, I put on a hand-gallop.

I ordered the hea.r.s.e to proceed more slowly still, the cross-road we were in being rough; and having more time before us than I wanted; for I wished not the hea.r.s.e to be in till near dusk. I got to Harlowe-place about four o'clock. You may believe I found a mournful house. You desire me to be very minute.

At my entrance into the court, they were all in motion. Every servant whom I saw had swelled eyes, and looked with so much concern, that at first I apprehended some new disaster had happened in the family. Mr.

John and Mr. Antony Harlowe and Mrs. Hervey were there. They all helped on one another's grief, as they had before done each other's hardness of heart.

My cousin James met me at the entrance of the hall. His countenance expressed a fixed concern; and he desired me to excuse his behaviour the last time I was there.

My cousin Arabella came to me full of tears and grief.

O Cousin! said she, hanging upon my arm, I dare not ask you any questions!--About the approach of the hea.r.s.e, I suppose she meant.

I myself was full of grief; and, without going farther or speaking, sat down in the hall in the first chair.

The brother sat on one hand of me, the sister on the other. Both were silent. The latter in tears.

Mr. Antony Harlowe came to me soon after. His face was overspread with all the appearance of woe. He requested me to walk into the parlour; where, as he said, were all his fellow-mourners.

I attended him in. My cousins James and Arabella followed me.

A perfect concert of grief, as I may say, broke out the moment I entered the parlour.

My cousin Harlowe, the dear creature's father, as soon as he saw me, said, O Cousin, Cousin, of all our family, you are the only one who have nothing to reproach yourself with!--You are a happy man!

The poor mother, bowing her head to me in speechless grief, sat with her handkerchief held to her eyes with one hand. The other hand was held by her sister Hervey, between both her's; Mrs. Hervey weeping upon it.

Near the window sat Mr. John Harlowe, his face and his body turned from the sorrowing company; his eyes red and swelled.

My cousin Antony, at his re-entering the parlour, went towards Mrs.

Harlowe--Don't--dear Sister, said he!--Then towards my cousin Harlowe-- Don't--dear Brother!--Don't thus give way--And, without being able to say another word, went to a corner of the parlour, and, wanting himself the comfort he would fain have given, sunk into a chair, and audibly sobbed.

Miss Arabella followed her uncle Antony, as he walked in before me, and seemed as if she would have spoken to the pierced mother some words of comfort. But she was unable to utter them, and got behind her mother's chair; and, inclining her face over it, on the unhappy lady's shoulder, seemed to claim the consolation that indulgent parent used, but then was unable, to afford her.

Young Mr. Harlowe, with all his vehemence of spirit, was now subdued.

His self-reproaching conscience, no doubt, was the cause of it.

And what, Sir, must their thoughts be, which, at that moment, in a manner, deprived them of all motion, and turned their speech into sighs and groans!--How to be pitied, how greatly to be pitied! all of them!

But how much to be cursed that abhorred Lovelace, who, as it seems, by arts uncommon, and a villany without example, has been the sole author of a woe so complicated and extensive!--G.o.d judge me, as--But I stop-- the man (the man can I say?) is your friend!--He already suffers, you tell me, in his intellect.--Restore him, Heaven, to that--If I find the matter come out, as I apprehend it will--indeed her own hint of his usage of her, as in her will, is enough--nor think, my beloved cousin, thou darling of my heart! that thy gentle spirit, breathing charity and forgiveness to the vilest of men, shall avail him!--But once more I stop --forgive me, Sir!--Who could behold such a scene, who could recollect it in order to describe it, (as minutely as you wished me to relate how this unhappy family were affected on this sad occasion,) every one of the mourners nearly related to himself, and not to be exasperated against the author of all?

As I was the only person (grieved as I was myself) from whom any of them, at that instant, could derive comfort; Let us not, said I, my dear Cousin, approaching the inconsolable mother, give way to a grief, which, however just, can now avail us nothing. We hurt ourselves, and cannot recall the dear creature for whom we mourn. Nor would you wish it, if you know with what a.s.surance of eternal happiness she left the world--She is happy, Madam!--depend upon it, she is happy! And comfort yourselves with that a.s.surance!

O Cousin, Cousin! cried the unhappy mother, withdrawing her hand from that of her sister Hervey, and pressing mine with it, you know not what a child I have lost!--Then in a low voice, and how lost!--That it is that makes the loss insupportable.

They all joined in a kind of melancholy chorus, and each accused him and herself, and some of them one another. But the eyes of all, in turn, were cast upon my cousin James, as the person who had kept up the general resentment against so sweet a creature. While he was hardly able to bear his own remorse: nor Miss Harlowe her's; she breaking out into words, How tauntingly did I write to her! How barbarously did I insult her! Yet how patiently did she take it!--Who would have thought that she had been so near her end!--O Brother, Brother! but for you!--But for you!--Double not upon me, said he, my own woes! I have every thing before me that has pa.s.sed! I thought only to reclaim a dear creature that had erred! I intended not to break her tender heart! But it was the villanous Lovelace who did that--not any of us!--Yet, Cousin, did she not attribute all to me?--I fear she did!--Tell me only, did she name me, did she speak of me, in her last hours? I hope she, who could forgive the greatest villain on earth, and plead that he may be safe from our vengeance, I hope she could forgive me.

She died blessing you all; and justified rather than condemned your severity to her.

Then they set up another general lamentation. We see, said her father, enough we see, in her heart-piercing letters to us, what a happy frame she was in a few days before her death--But did it hold to the last? Had she no repinings? Had the dear child no heart burnings?

None at all!--I never saw, and never shall see, so blessed a departure: and no wonder; for I never heard of such a preparation. Every hour, for weeks together, were taken up in it. Let this be our comfort: we need only to wish for so happy an end for ourselves, and for those who are nearest to our hearts. We may any of us be grieved for acts of unkindness to her: but had all happened that once she wished for, she could not have made a happier, perhaps not so happy an end.

Dear soul! and Dear sweet soul! the father, uncles, sister, my cousin Hervey, cried out all at once, in accents of anguish inexpressibly affecting.

We must for every be disturbed for those acts of unkindness to so sweet a child, cried the unhappy mother!--Indeed! indeed! [softly to her sister Hervey,] I have been too pa.s.sive, much too pa.s.sive in this case!--The temporary quiet I have been so studious all my life to preserve, has cost me everlasting disquiet!----There she stopt.

Dear Sister! was all Mrs. Hervey could say.

I have done but half my duty to the dearest and most meritorious of children, resumed the sorrowing mother!--Nay, not half!--How have we hardened our hearts against her!----Again her tears denied pa.s.sage to her words.

My dearest, dearest Sister!--again was all Mrs. Hervey could say.

Would to Heaven, proceeded, exclaiming, the poor mother, I had but once seen her! Then, turning to my cousin James, and his sister--O my son!

O my Arabella! if WE were to receive as little mercy--And there again she stopt, her tears interrupting her farther speech; every one, all the time, remaining silent; their countenances showing a grief in their hearts too big for expression.

Now you see, Mr. Belford, that my dearest cousin could be allowed all her merit!--What a dreadful thing is after-reflection upon a conduct so perverse and unnatural?

O this cursed friend of your's, Mr. Belford! This detested Lovelace!--To him, to him is owing--

Pardon me, Sir. I will lay down my pen till I have recovered my temper.

ONE IN THE MORNING.

In vain, Sir, have I endeavoured to compose myself to rest. You wished me to be very particular, and I cannot help it. This melancholy subject fills my whole mind. I will proceed, though it be midnight.

About six o'clock the hea.r.s.e came to the outward gate--the parish church is at some distance; but the wind setting fair, the afflicted family were struck, just before it came, into a fresh fit of grief, on hearing the funeral bell tolled in a very solemn manner. A respect, as it proved, and as they all guessed, paid to the memory of the dear deceased, out of officious love, as the hea.r.s.e pa.s.sed near the church.

Judge, when their grief was so great in expectation of it, what it must be when it arrived.

A servant came in to acquaint us with what its lumbering heavy noise up the paved inner court-yard apprized us of before. He spoke not. He could not speak. He looked, bowed, and withdrew.

I stept out. No one else could then stir. Her brother, however, soon followed me. When I came to the door, I beheld a sight very affecting.

You have heard, Sir, how universally my dear cousin was beloved. By the poor and middling sort especially, no young lady was ever so much beloved. And with reason: she was the common patroness of all the honest poor in her neighbourhood.