Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 7

by Samuel Richardson

  LETTER XXI

  MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.TUESDAY NIGHT, JULY 18.

  I am just come from the lady. I was admitted into the dining-room, whereshe was sitting in an elbow-chair, in a very weak and low way. She madean effort to stand up when I entered; but was forced to keep her seat.You'll excuse me, Mr. Belford: I ought to rise to thank you for all yourkindness to me. I was to blame to be so loth to leave that sad place;for I am in heaven here, to what I was there; and good people about metoo!--I have not had good people about me for a long, long time before;so that [with a half-smile] I had begun to wonder whither they were allgone.

  Her nurse and Mrs. Smith, who were present, took occasion to retire: and,when we were alone, You seem to be a person of humanity, Sir, said she:you hinted, as I was leaving my prison, that you were not a stranger tomy sad story. If you know it truly, you must know that I have been mostbarbarously treated; and have not deserved it at the man's hands by whomI have suffered.

  I told her I knew enough to be convinced that she had the merit of asaint, and the purity of an angel: and was proceeding, when she said, Noflighty compliments! no undue attributes, Sir!

  I offered to plead for my sincerity; and mentioned the word politeness;and would have distinguished between that and flattery. Nothing can bepolite, said she, that is not just: whatever I may have had; I have nowno vanity to gratify.

  I disclaimed all intentions of compliment: all I had said, and what Ishould say, was, and should be, the effect of sincere veneration. Myunhappy friend's account of her had entitled her to that.

  I then mentioned your grief, your penitence, your resolutions of makingher all the amends that were possible now to be made her: and in the mostearnest manner, I asserted your innocence as to the last villanousoutrage.

  Her answer was to this effect--It is painful to me to think of him. Theamends you talk of cannot be made. This last violence you speak of, isnothing to what preceded it. That cannot be atoned for: nor palliated:this may: and I shall not be sorry to be convinced that he cannot beguilty of so very low a wickedness.----Yet, after his vile forgeries ofhands--after his baseness in imposing upon me the most infamous personsas ladies of honour of his own family--what are the iniquities he is notcapable of?

  I would then have given her an account of the trial you stood with yourfriends: your own previous resolutions of marriage, had she honoured youwith the requested four words: all your family's earnestness to have thehonour of her alliance: and the application of your two cousins to MissHowe, by general consent, for that young lady's interest with her: but,having just touched upon these topics, she cut me short, saying, that wasa cause before another tribunal: Miss Howe's letters to her were upon thesubject; and as she would write her thoughts to her as soon as she wasable.

  I then attempted more particularly to clear you of having any hand in thevile Sinclair's officious arrest; a point she had the generosity to wishyou cleared of: and, having mentioned the outrageous letter you hadwritten to me on this occasion, she asked, If I had that letter about me?

  I owned I had.

  She wished to see it.

  This puzzled me horribly: for you must needs think that most of the freethings, which, among us rakes, pass for wit and spirit, must be shockingstuff to the ears or eyes of persons of delicacy of that sex: and thensuch an air of levity runs through thy most serious letters; such a falsebravery, endeavouring to carry off ludicrously the subjects that mostaffect thee; that those letters are generally the least fit to be seen,which ought to be most to thy credit.

  Something like this I observed to her; and would fain have excused myselffrom showing it: but she was so earnest, that I undertook to read someparts of it, resolving to omit the most exceptionable.

  I know thou'lt curse me for that; but I thought it better to oblige herthan to be suspected myself; and so not have it in my power to serve theewith her, when so good a foundation was laid for it; and when she knowsas bad of thee as I can tell her.

  Thou rememberest the contents, I suppose, of thy furious letter.* Herremarks upon the different parts of it, which I read to her, were to thefollowing effect:

  * See Letter XII. of this volume.

  Upon the last two lines, All undone! undone, by Jupiter! Zounds, Jack,what shall I do now? a curse upon all my plots and contrivances! thus sheexpressed herself:

  'O how light, how unaffected with the sense of its own crimes, is theheart that could dictate to the pen this libertine froth?'

  The paragraph which mentions the vile arrest affected her a good deal.

  In the next I omitted thy curse upon thy relations, whom thou wertgallanting: and read on the seven subsequent paragraphs down to thyexecrable wish; which was too shocking to read to her. What I readproduced the following reflections from her:

  'The plots and contrivances which he curses, and the exultings of thewicked wretches on finding me out, show me that all his guilt waspremeditated: nor doubt I that his dreadful perjuries, and inhuman arts,as he went along, were to pass for fine stratagems; for witty sport; andto demonstrate a superiority of inventive talents!--O my cruel, cruelbrother! had it not been for thee, I had not been thrown upon sopernicious and so despicable a plotter!--But proceed, Sir; pray proceed.'

  At that part, Canst thou, O fatal prognosticator! tell me where mypunishment will end?--she sighed. And when I came to that sentence,praying for my reformation, perhaps--Is that there? said she, sighingagain. Wretched man!--and shed a tear for thee.--By my faith, Lovelace,I believe she hates thee not! she has at least a concern, a generousconcern for thy future happiness--What a noble creature hast thouinjured!

  She made a very severe reflection upon me, on reading the words--On yourknees, for me, beg her pardon--'You had all your lessons, Sir, said she,when you came to redeem me--You was so condescending as to kneel: Ithought it was the effect of your own humanity, and good-naturedearnestness to serve me--excuse me, Sir, I knew not that it was inconsequence of a prescribed lesson.'

  This concerned me not a little; I could not bear to be thought such awretched puppet, such a Joseph Leman, such a Tomlinson. I endeavoured,therefore, with some warmth, to clear myself of this reflection; and sheagain asked my excuse: 'I was avowedly, she said, the friend of a man,whose friendship, she had reason to be sorry to say, was no credit to anybody.'--And desired me to proceed.

  I did; but fared not much better afterwards: for on that passage whereyou say, I had always been her friend and advocate, this was herunanswerable remark: 'I find, Sir, by this expression, that he had alwaysdesigns against me; and that you all along knew that he had. Would toHeaven, you had had the goodness to have contrived some way, that mightnot have endangered your own safety, to give me notice of his baseness,since you approved not of it! But you gentlemen, I suppose, had rathersee an innocent fellow-creature ruined, than be thought capable of anaction, which, however generous, might be likely to loosen the bands of awicked friendship!'

  After this severe, but just reflection, I would have avoided reading thefollowing, although I had unawares begun the sentence, (but she held meto it:) What would I now give, had I permitted you to have been asuccessful advocate! And this was her remark upon it--'So, Sir, you see,if you had been the happy means of preventing the evils designed me, youwould have had your friend's thanks for it when he came to hisconsideration. This satisfaction, I am persuaded every one, in the longrun, will enjoy, who has the virtue to withstand, or prevent, a wickedpurpose. I was obliged, I see, to your kind wishes--but it was a pointof honour with you to keep his secret; the more indispensable with you,perhaps, the viler the secret. Yet permit me to wish, Mr. Belford, thatyou were capable of relishing the pleasures that arise to a benevolentmind from VIRTUOUS friendship!--none other is worthy of the sacred name.You seem an humane man: I hope, for your own sake, you will one dayexperience the difference: and, when you do, think of Miss Howe andClarissa Harlowe, (I find you know much of my sad story,) who were thehappiest creatures on earth in each other's f
riendship till this friendof your's'--And there she stopt, and turned from me.

  Where thou callest thyself a villanous plotter; 'To take a crime tohimself, said she, without shame, O what a hardened wretch is this man!'

  On that passage, where thou sayest, Let me know how she has been treated:if roughly, woe be to the guilty! this was her remark, with an air ofindignation: 'What a man is your friend, Sir!--Is such a one as he to sethimself up to punish the guilty?--All the rough usage I could receivefrom them, was infinitely less'--And there she stopt a moment or two:then proceeding--'And who shall punish him? what an assuming wretch!--Nobody but himself is entitled to injure the innocent;--he is, I suppose,on the earth, to act the part which the malignant fiend is supposed toact below--dealing out punishments, at his pleasure, to every inferiorinstrument of mischief!'

  What, thought I, have I been doing! I shall have this savage fellowthink I have been playing him booty, in reading part of his letter tothis sagacious lady!--Yet, if thou art angry, it can only, in reason,be at thyself; for who would think I might not communicate to her someof thy sincerity in exculpating thyself from a criminal charge, whichthou wrotest to thy friend, to convince him of thy innocence? But a badheart, and a bad cause are confounded things: and so let us put it to itsproper account.

  I passed over thy charge to me, to curse them by the hour; and thy namesof dragon and serpents, though so applicable; since, had I read them,thou must have been supposed to know from the first what creatures theywere; vile fellow as thou wert, for bringing so much purity among them!And I closed with thy own concluding paragraph, A line! a line! a kingdomfor a line! &c. However, telling her (since she saw that I omitted somesentences) that there were farther vehemences in it; but as they werebetter fitted to show to me the sincerity of the writer than for sodelicate an ear as her's to hear, I chose to pass them over.

  You have read enough, said she--he is a wicked, wicked man!--I see heintended to have me in his power at any rate; and I have no doubt of whathis purposes were, by what his actions have been. You know his vileTomlinson, I suppose--You know--But what signifies talking?--Never wasthere such a premeditated false heart in man, [nothing can be truer,thought I!] What has he not vowed! what has he not invented! and all forwhat?--Only to ruin a poor young creature, whom he ought to haveprotected; and whom he had first deceived of all other protection!

  She arose and turned from me, her handkerchief at her eyes: and, after apause, came towards me again--'I hope, said she, I talk to a man who hasa better heart: and I thank you, Sir, for all your kind, thoughineffectual pleas in my favour formerly, whether the motives for themwere compassion, or principle, or both. That they were ineffectual,might very probably be owing to your want of earnestness; and that, asyou might think, to my want of merit. I might not, in your eye, deserveto be saved!--I might appear to you a giddy creature, who had run awayfrom her true and natural friends; and who therefore ought to take theconsequence of the lot she had drawn.'

  I was afraid, for thy sake, to let her know how very earnest I had been:but assured her that I had been her zealous friend; and that my motiveswere founded upon a merit, that, I believed, was never equaled: that,however indefensible Mr. Lovelace was, he had always done justice to hervirtue: that to a full conviction of her untainted honour it was owingthat he so earnestly desired to call so inestimable a jewel his--and wasproceeding, when she again cut me short--

  Enough, and too much, of this subject, Sir!--If he will never more let mebehold his face, that is all I have now to ask of him.--Indeed, indeed,clasping her hands, I never will, if I can, by any means not criminallydesperate, avoid it.

  What could I say for thee?--There was no room, however, at that time, totouch this string again, for fear of bringing upon myself a prohibition,not only of the subject, but of ever attending her again.

  I gave some distant intimations of money-matters. I should have toldthee, when I read to her that passage, where thou biddest me force whatsums upon her I can get her to take--she repeated, No, no, no, no!several times with great quickness; and I durst no more than justintimate it again--and that so darkly, as left her room to seem not tounderstand me.

  Indeed I know not the person, man or woman, I should be so much afraidof disobliging, or incurring a censure from, as from her. She has somuch true dignity in her manner, without pride or arrogance, (which, inthose who have either, one is tempted to mortify,) such a piercing eye,yet softened so sweetly with rays of benignity, that she commands allone's reverence.

  Methinks I have a kind of holy love for this angel of a woman; and it ismatter of astonishment to me, that thou couldst converse with her aquarter of an hour together, and hold thy devilish purposes.

  Guarded as she was by piety, prudence, virtue, dignity, family, fortune,and a purity of heart that never woman before her boasted, what a realdevil must he be (yet I doubt I shall make thee proud!) who could resolveto break through so many fences!

  For my own part, I am more and more sensible that I ought not to havecontented myself with representing against, and expostulating with theeupon, thy base intentions: and indeed I had it in my head, more thanonce, to try to do something for her. But, wretch that I was! I waswith-held by notions of false honour, as she justly reproached me,because of thy own voluntary communications to me of thy purposes: andthen, as she was brought into such a cursed house, and was so watched bythyself, as well as by thy infernal agents, I thought (knowing my man!)that I should only accelerate the intended mischiefs.--Moreover, findingthee so much over-awed by her virtue, that thou hadst not, at thy firstcarrying her thither, the courage to attempt her; and that she had, morethan once, without knowing thy base views, obliged thee to abandon them,and to resolve to do her justice, and thyself honour; I hardly doubted,that her merit would be triumphant at last.

  It is my opinion, (if thou holdest thy purposes to marry,) that thoucanst not do better than to procure thy real aunts, and thy real cousins,to pay her a visit, and to be thy advocates. But if they declinepersonal visits, letters from them, and from my Lord M. supported by MissHowe's interest, may, perhaps, effect something in thy favour.

  But these are only my hopes, founded on what I wish for thy sake. Thelady, I really think, would choose death rather than thee: and the twowomen are of opinion, though they knew not half of what she has suffered,that her heart is actually broken.

  At taking my leave, I tendered my best services to her, and besought herto permit me frequently to inquire after her health.

  She made me no answer, but by bowing her head.