Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 1

by Samuel Richardson

  LETTER XX

  MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE SAT. AFTERNOON.

  The expected conference is over: but my difficulties are increased.This, as my mother was pleased to tell me, being the last persuasoryeffort that is to be attempted, I will be particular in the account ofit as my head and my heart will allow it to be.

  I have made, said she, as she entered my room, a short as well as earlydinner, on purpose to confer with you: and I do assure you, that it willbe the last conference I shall either be permitted or inclined to holdwith you on the subject, if you should prove as refractory as it isimagined you will prove by some, who are of opinion, that I have notthe weight with you which my indulgence deserves. But I hope you willconvince as well them as me of the contrary.

  Your father both dines and sups at your uncle's, on purpose to giveus this opportunity; and, according to the report I shall make on hisreturn, (which I have promised shall be a very faithful one,) he willtake his measures with you.

  I was offering to speak--Hear, Clarissa, what I have to tell you, saidshe, before you speak, unless what you have to say will signify to meyour compliance--Say--Will it?--If it will, you may speak.

  I was silent.

  She looked with concern and anger upon me--No compliance, I find!--Sucha dutiful young creature hitherto!--Will you not, can you not, speak asI would have you speak?--Then [rejecting me as it were with her hand]continue silent.--I, no more than your father, will bear your avowedcontradiction.

  She paused, with a look of expectation, as if she waited for myconsenting answer.

  I was still silent; looking down; the tears in my eyes.

  O thou determined girl!--But say--Speak out--Are you resolved to standin opposition to us all, in a point our hearts are set upon?

  May I, Madam, be permitted to expostulate?--

  To what purpose expostulate with me, Clarissa? Your father isdetermined. Have I not told you there is no receding; that the honour aswell as the interest of the family is concerned? Be ingenuous: you usedto be so, even occasionally against yourself:--Who at the long run mustsubmit--all of us to you; or you to all of us?--If you intend to yieldat last if you find you cannot conquer, yield now, and with a grace--foryield you must, or be none of our child.

  I wept. I knew not what to say; or rather how to express what I had tosay.

  Take notice, that there are flaws in your grandfather's will: nota shilling of that estate will be yours, if you do not yield. Yourgrandfather left it to you, as a reward of your duty to him and tous--You will justly forfeit it, if--

  Permit me, good Madam, to say, that, if it were unjustly bequeathed me,I ought not to wish to have it. But I hope Mr. Solmes will be apprisedof these flaws.

  This is very pertly said, Clarissa: but reflect, that the forfeiture ofthat estate, through your opposition, will be attended with the totalloss of your father's favour: and then how destitute must you be; howunable to support yourself; and how many benevolent designs and goodactions must you give up!

  I must accommodate myself, Madam, in the latter case, to mycircumstance: much only is required where much is given. It becomes meto be thankful for what I have had. I have reason to bless you, Madam,and my good Mrs. Norton, for bringing me up to be satisfied with little;with much less, I will venture to say, than my father's indulgenceannually confers upon me.--And then I thought of the old Roman and hislentils.

  What perverseness! said my mother.--But if you depend upon the favour ofeither or both of your uncles, vain will be that dependence: theywill give you up, I do assure you, if your father does, and absolutelyrenounce you.

  I am sorry, Madam, that I have had so little merit as to have made nodeeper impressions of favour for me in their hearts: but I will love andhonour them as long as I live.

  All this, Clarissa, makes your prepossession in a certain man's favourthe more evident. Indeed, your brother and sister cannot go any where,but they hear of these prepossessions.

  It is a great grief to me, Madam, to be made the subject of the publictalk: but I hope you will have the goodness to excuse me for observing,that the authors of my disgrace within doors, the talkers of myprepossession without, and the reporters of it from abroad, areoriginally the same persons.

  She severely chid me for this.

  I received her rebukes in silence.

  You are sullen, Clarissa: I see you are sullen.--And she walked aboutthe room in anger. Then turning to me--You can bear the imputation ofsullenness I see!--You have no concern to clear yourself of it. I wasafraid of telling you all I was enjoined to tell you, in case you wereto be unpersuadable: but I find that I had a greater opinion ofyour delicacy, of your gentleness, than I needed to have--it cannotdiscompose so steady, so inflexible a young creature, to be told, as Inow tell you, that the settlements are actually drawn; and that you willbe called down in a very few days to hear them read, and to sign them:for it is impossible, if your heart be free, that you can make the leastobjection to them; except it will be an objection with you, that theyare so much in your favour, and in the favour of all our family.

  I was speechless, absolutely speechless. Although my heart was ready toburst, yet could I neither weep nor speak.

  I am sorry, said she, for your averseness to this match: [match she waspleased to call it!] but there is no help. The honour and interestof the family, as your aunt has told you, and as I have told you, areconcerned; and you must comply.

  I was still speechless.

  She folded the warm statue, as she was pleased to call me, in her arms;and entreated me, for heaven's sake, to comply.

  Speech and tears were lent me at the same time.--You have given me life,Madam, said I, clasping my uplifted hands together, and falling on oneknee; a happy one, till now, has your goodness, and my papa's, made it!O do not, do not, make all the remainder of it miserable!

  Your father, replied she, is resolved not to see you, till he sees youas obedient a child as you used to be. You have never been put to a testtill now, that deserved to be called a test. This is, this must be,my last effort with you. Give me hope, my dear child: my peace isconcerned: I will compound with you but for hope: and yet yourfather will not be satisfied without an implicit, and even a cheerfulobedience--Give me but hope, child!

  To give you hope, my dearest, my most indulgent Mamma, is to give youevery thing. Can I be honest, if I give a hope that I cannot confirm?

  She was very angry. She again called me perverse: she upbraided me withregarding only my own prepossessions, and respecting not either herpeace of mind or my own duty:--'It is a grating thing, said she, for theparents of a child, who delighted in her in all the time of her helplessinfancy, and throughout every stage of her childhood; and in everypart of her education to womanhood, because of the promises she gave ofproving the most grateful and dutiful of children; to find, just whenthe time arrived which should crown their wishes, that child stand inthe way of her own happiness, and her parents' comfort,and, refusing anexcellent offer and noble settlements, give suspicions to her anxiousfriends, that she would become the property of a vile rake andlibertine, who (be the occasion what it will) defies her family, and hasactually embrued his hands in her brother's blood.

  'I have had a very hard time of it, said she, between your father andyou; for, seeing your dislike, I have more than once pleaded for you:but all to no purpose. I am only treated as a too fond mother, who,from motives of a blamable indulgence, encourage a child to stand inopposition to a father's will. I am charged with dividing the familyinto two parts; I and my youngest daughter standing against my husband,his two brothers, my son, my eldest daughter, and my sister Hervey.I have been told, that I must be convinced of the fitness as wellas advantage to the whole (your brother and Mr. Lovelace out of thequestion) of carrying the contract with Mr. Solmes, on which so manycontracts depend, into execution.

  'Your father's heart, I tell you once more, is in it: he has declared,that he had rather have no daughter in you, than one he cannot disposeof for your own good:
especially if you have owned, that your heart isfree; and as the general good of his whole family is to be promotedby your obedience. He has pleaded, poor man! that his frequent goutyparoxysms (every fit more threatening than the former) give him noextraordinary prospects, either of worldly happiness, or of long days:and he hopes, that you, who have been supposed to have contributedto the lengthening of your grandfather's life, will not, by yourdisobedience, shorten your father's.'

  This was a most affecting plea, my dear. I wept in silence upon it. Icould not speak to it. And my mother proceeded: 'What therefore can behis motives, Clary Harlowe, in the earnest desire he has to see thistreaty perfected, but the welfare and aggrandizement of his family;which already having fortunes to become the highest condition, cannotbut aspire to greater distinctions? However slight such views as thesemay appear to you, Clary, you know, that they are not slight ones to anyother of the family: and your father will be his own judge of whatis and what is not likely to promote the good of his children. Yourabstractedness, child, (affectation of abstractedness, some call it,)savours, let me tell you, of greater particularity, than we aim tocarry. Modesty and humility, therefore, will oblige you rather tomistrust yourself of peculiarity, than censure views which all the worldpursues, as opportunity offers.'

  I was still silent; and she proceeded--'It is owing to the good opinion,Clary, which your father has of you, and of your prudence, duty, andgratitude, that he engaged for your compliance, in your absence (beforeyou returned from Miss Howe); and that he built and finished contractsupon it, which cannot be made void, or cancelled.'

  But why then, thought I, did they receive me, on my return from MissHowe, with so much intimidating solemnity?--To be sure, my dear, thisargument, as well as the rest, was obtruded upon my mother.

  She went on, 'Your father has declared, that your unexpected opposition,[unexpected she was pleased to call it,] and Mr. Lovelace's continuedmenaces and insults, more and more convince him, that a short day isnecessary in order to put an end to all that man's hopes, and to his ownapprehensions resulting from the disobedience of a child so favoured. Hehas therefore actually ordered patterns of the richest silks to be sentfor from London--'

  I started--I was out of breath--I gasped, at this frightfulprecipitance--I was going to open with warmth against it. I knew whosethe happy expedient must be: female minds, I once heard my brother say,that could but be brought to balance on the change of their state,might easily be determined by the glare and splendour of the nuptialpreparations, and the pride of becoming the mistress of a family.--Butshe was pleased to hurry on, that I might not have time to expressmy disgusts at such a communication--to this effect: 'Your fathertherefore, my Clary, cannot, either for your sake, or his own, labourunder a suspense so affecting to his repose. He has even thought fit toacquaint me, on my pleading for you, that it becomes me, as I value myown peace, [how harsh to such a wife!] and as I wish, that he does notsuspect that I secretly favour the address of a vile rake, (a characterwhich all the sex, he is pleased to say, virtuous and vicious, are buttoo fond of!) to exert my authority over you: and that this I may theless scrupulously do, as you have owned [the old string!] that yourheart is free.'

  Unworthy reflection in my mother's case, surely, this of our sex'svaluing a libertine; since she made choice of my father in preferenceto several suitors of equal fortune, because they were of inferiorreputation for morals!

  'Your father, added she, at his going out, told me what he expectedfrom me, in case I found out that I had not the requisite influence uponyou--It was this--That I should directly separate myself from you, andleave you singly to take the consequence of your double disobedience--Itherefore entreat you, my dear Clarissa, concluded she, and that in themost earnest and condescending manner, to signify to your father, on hisreturn, your ready obedience; and this as well for my sake as your own.'

  Affected by my mother's goodness to me, and by that part of her argumentwhich related to her own peace, and to the suspicions they had of hersecretly inclining to prefer the man so hated by them, to the man somuch my aversion, I could not but wish it were possible for me to obey,I therefore paused, hesitated, considered, and was silent for some time.I could see, that my mother hoped that the result of this hesitationwould be favourable to her arguments. But then recollecting, that allwas owing to the instigations of a brother and sister, wholly actuatedby selfish and envious views; that I had not deserved the treatment Ihad of late met with; that my disgrace was already become the publictalk; that the man was Mr. Solmes; and that my aversion to him was toogenerally known, to make my compliance either creditable to myself orto them: that it would give my brother and sister a triumph over me,and over Mr. Lovelace, which they would not fail to glory in; and which,although it concerned me but little to regard on his account, yet mightbe attended with fatal mischiefs--And then Mr. Solmes'sdisagreeable person; his still more disagreeable manners; his lowunderstanding--Understanding! the glory of a man, so little to bedispensed with in the head and director of a family, in order topreserve to him that respect which a good wife (and that for thejustification of her own choice) should pay him herself, and wish everybody to pay him.--And as Mr. Solmes's inferiority in this respectablefaculty of the human mind [I must be allowed to say this to you, and nogreat self assumption neither] would proclaim to all future, as well asto all present observers, what must have been my mean inducement. Allthese reflections crowding upon my remembrance; I would, Madam, saidI, folding my hands, with an earnestness in which my whole heart wasengaged, bear the cruelest tortures, bear loss of limb, and even oflife, to give you peace. But this man, every moment I would, at youcommand, think of him with favour, is the more my aversion. You cannot,indeed you cannot, think, how my whole soul resists him!--And to talkof contracts concluded upon; of patterns; of a short day!--Save me,save me, O my dearest Mamma, save your child, from this heavy, from thisinsupportable evil--!

  Never was there a countenance that expressed so significantly, as mymother's did, an anguish, which she struggled to hide, under an angershe was compelled to assume--till the latter overcoming the former, sheturned from me with an uplifted eye, and stamping--Strange perverseness!were the only words I heard of a sentence that she angrily pronounced;and was going. I then, half-frantically I believe, laid hold of hergown--Have patience with me, dearest Madam! said I--Do not you renounceme totally!--If you must separate yourself from your child, let itnot be with absolute reprobation on your own part!--My uncles may behard-hearted--my father may be immovable--I may suffer from my brother'sambition, and from my sister's envy!--But let me not lose my Mamma'slove; at least, her pity.

  She turned to me with benigner rays--You have my love! You have my pity!But, O my dearest girl--I have not yours.

  Indeed, indeed, Madam, you have: and all my reverence, all my gratitude,you have!--But in this one point--Cannot I be this once obliged?--Willno expedient be accepted? Have I not made a very fair proposal as to Mr.Lovelace?

  I wish, for both our sakes, my dear unpersuadable girl, that thedecision of this point lay with me. But why, when you know it does not,why should you thus perplex and urge me?--To renounce Mr. Lovelace isnow but half what is aimed at. Nor will any body else believe you inearnest in the offer, if I would. While you remain single, Mr. Lovelacewill have hopes--and you, in the opinion of others, inclinations.

  Permit me, dearest Madam, to say, that your goodness to me, yourpatience, your peace, weigh more with me, than all the rest puttogether: for although I am to be treated by my brother, and, throughhis instigations, by my father, as a slave in this point, and not as adaughter, yet my mind is not that of a slave. You have not brought me upto be mean.

  So, Clary! you are already at defiance with your father! I have had toomuch cause before to apprehend as much--What will this come to?--I, andthen my dear mamma sighed--I, am forced to put up with many humours--

  That you are, my ever-honoured Mamma, is my grief. And can it bethought, that this very consideration, and the apprehension of
what mayresult from a much worse-tempered man, (a man who has not half the senseof my father,) has not made an impression upon me, to the disadvantageof the married life? Yet 'tis something of an alleviation, if one mustbear undue controul, to bear it from a man of sense. My father, Ihave heard you say, Madam, was for years a very good-humouredgentleman--unobjectionable in person and manners--but the man proposedto me--

  Forbear reflecting upon your father: [Did I, my dear, in what I haverepeated, and I think they are the very words, reflect upon my father?]it is not possible, I must say again, and again, were all men equallyindifferent to you, that you should be thus sturdy in your will. I amtired out with your obstinacy--The most unpersuadable girl--You forget,that I must separate myself from you, if you will not comply. You do notremember that you father will take you up, where I leave you. Oncemore, however, I will put it to you,--Are you determined to brave yourfather's displeasure?--Are you determined to defy your uncles?--Do youchoose to break with us all, rather than encourage Mr. Solmes?--Ratherthan give me hope?

  Dreadful alternative--But is not my sincerity, is not the integrity ofmy heart, concerned in the answer? May not my everlasting happinessbe the sacrifice? Will not the least shadow of the hope you just nowdemanded from me, be driven into absolute and sudden certainty? Is itnot sought to ensnare, to entangle me in my own desire of obeying, ifI could give answers that might be construed into hope?--Forgiveme, Madam: bear with your child's boldness in such a cause asthis!--Settlements drawn!--Patterns sent for!--An early day!--Dear, dearMadam, how can I give hope, and not intend to be this man's?

  Ah, girl, never say your heart is free! You deceive yourself if youthink it is.

  Thus to be driven [and I wrung my hands through impatience] by theinstigations of a designing, an ambitious brother, and by a sister,that--

  How often, Clary, must I forbid your unsisterly reflections?--Does notyour father, do not your uncles, does not every body, patronizeMr. Solmes? And let me tell you, ungrateful girl, and unmovable asungrateful, let me repeatedly tell you, that it is evident to me, thatnothing but a love unworthy of your prudence can make you a creaturelate so dutiful, now so sturdy. You may guess what your father's firstquestion on his return will be. He must know, that I can do nothing withyou. I have done my part. Seek me, if your mind change before he comesback: you have yet a little more time, as he stays supper. I will nomore seek you, nor to you.--And away she flung.

  What could I do but weep?

  I am extremely affected on my mother's account--more, I must needs say,than on my own. And indeed, all things considered, and especially, thatthe measure she is engaged in, is (as I dare say it is) against her ownjudgment, she deserves more compassion than myself.--Excellent woman!What pity, that meekness and condescension should not be attended withthe due rewards of those charming graces!--Yet had she not let violentspirits (as I have elsewhere observed with no small regret) find theirpower over hers, it could not have been thus.

  But here, run away with my pen, I suffer my mother to be angry with meon her own account. She hinted to me, indeed, that I must seek her, ifmy mind changed; which is a condition that amounts to a prohibition ofattending her: but, as she left me in displeasure, will it not have avery obstinate appearance, and look like a kind of renunciation of hermediation in my favour, if I go not down before my father returns, tosupplicate her pity, and her kind report to him?

  I will attend her. I had rather all the world should be angry with methan my mamma!

  Mean time, to clear my hands from papers of such a nature, Hannah shalldeposit this. If two or three letters reach you together, they will butexpress from one period to another, the anxieties and difficulties whichthe mind of your unhappy but ever affectionate friend labours under.

  CL. H.