Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 4 (33 page)

I was--I was--I sipp'd--(drawing in my breath and the liquor together, though I scalded my mouth with it) I was in hopes, Madam--

Dorcas came in just then.--Dorcas, said she, is a chair gone for?

Damn'd impertinence, thought I, thus to put me out in my speech! And I was forced to wait for the servant's answer to the insolent mistress's question.

William is gone for one, Madam.

This cost me a minute's silence before I could begin again. And then it was with my hopes, and my hopes, and my hopes, that I should have been early admitted to--

What weather is it, Dorcas? said she, as regardless of me as if I had not
been present.

A little lowering, Madam--The sun is gone in--it was very fine half an
hour ago.

I had no patience. Up I rose. Down went the tea-cup, saucer and all-- Confound the weather, the sunshine, and the wench!--Begone for a devil, when I am speaking to your lady, and have so little opportunity given me.

Up rose the saucy-face, half-frighted; and snatched from the window her
gloves and fan.

You must not go, Madam!--Seizing her hand--by my soul you must not--

Must not, Sir!--But I must--you can curse your maid in my absence, as well as if I were present----Except--except--you intend for me, what you direct to her.

Dearest creature, you must not go--you must not leave me--Such determined scorn! such contempts!--Questions asked your servant of no meaning but to break in upon me--I cannot bear it!

Detain me not [struggling.] I will not be withheld. I like you not, nor your ways. You sought to quarrel with me yesterday, for no reason in the world that I can think of, but because I was too obliging. You are an ungrateful man; and I hate you with my whole heart, Mr. Lovelace!

Do not make me desperate, Madam. Permit me to say, that you shall not leave me in this humour. Wherever you go, I will attend you. Had Miss Howe been my friend, I had not been thus treated. It is but too plain to whom my difficulties are owing. I have long observed, that every letter you received from her, makes an alteration in your behaviour to me. She would have you treat me, as she treats Mr. Hickman, I suppose: but neither does that treatment become your admirable temper to offer, nor me to receive.

This startled her. She did not care to have me think hardly of Miss
Howe.

But recollecting herself, Miss Howe, said she, is a friend to virtue, and
to good men. If she like not you, it is because you are not one of
those.

Yes, Madam; and therefore to speak of Mr. Hickman and myself, as you both, I suppose, think of each, she treats him as she would not treat a Lovelace.--I challenge you, Madam, to shew me but one of the many letters you have received from her, where I am mentioned.

Miss Howe is just; Miss Howe is good, replied she. She writes, she speaks, of every body as they deserve. If you point me out but any one occasion, upon which you have reason to build a merit to yourself, as either just or good, or even generous, I will look out for her letter on that occasion [if such an occasion there be, I have certainly acquainted her with it]; and will engage it shall be in your favour.

Devilish severe! And as indelicate as severe, to put a modish man upon hunting backward after his own merits.

She would have flung from me: I will not be detained, Mr. Lovelace. I
will go out.

Indeed you must not, Madam, in this humour. And I placed myself between her and the door.----And then, fanning, she threw herself into a chair, her sweet face all crimsoned over with passion.

I cast myself at her feet.--Begone, Mr. Lovelace, said she, with a rejecting motion, her fan in her hand; for your own sake leave me!--My soul is above thee, man! with both her hands pushing me from her!--Urge me not to tell thee, how sincerely I think my soul above thee!--Thou hast, in mine, a proud, a too proud heart to contend with!--Leave me, and leave me for ever!--Thou has a proud heart to contend with!

Her air, her manner, her voice, were bewitchingly noble, though her words
were so severe.

Let me worship an angel, said I, no woman. Forgive me, dearest creature! --creature if you be, forgive me!--forgive my inadvertencies!--forgive my inequalities!--pity my infirmities!--Who is equal to my Clarissa?

I trembled between admiration and love; and wrapt my arms about her knees, as she sat. She tried to rise at the moment; but my clasping round her thus ardently, drew her down again; and never was woman more affrighted. But free as my clasping emotion might appear to her apprehensive heart, I had not, at the instant, any thought but what reverence inspired. And till she had actually withdrawn [which I permitted under promise of a speedy return, and on her consent to dismiss the chair] all the motions of my heart were as pure as her own.

She kept not her word. An hour I waited before I sent to claim her promise. She could not possibly see me yet, was her answer. As soon as she could, she would.

Dorcas says, she still excessively trembled; and ordered her to give her
hartshorn and water.

A strange apprehensive creature! Her terror is too great for the occasion. Evils are often greater in apprehension than in reality. Hast thou never observed, that the terrors of a bird caught, and actually in the hand, bear no comparison to what we might have supposed those terrors would be, were we to have formed a judgment of the same bird by its shyness before it was taken?

Dear creature!--Did she never romp? Did she never, from girlhood to now, hoyden? The innocent kinds of freedom taken and allowed on these occasions, would have familiarized her to greater. Sacrilege but to touch the hem of her garment!--Excess of delicacy!--O the consecrated beauty! How can she think to be a wife?

But how do I know till I try, whether she may not by a less alarming treatment be prevailed upon, or whether [day, I have done with thee!] she may not yield to nightly surprises? This is still the burden of my song, I can marry her when I will. And if I do, after prevailing (whether by surprise, or by reluctant consent) whom but myself shall I have injured?

***

It is now eleven o'clock. She will see me as soon as she can, she tells Polly Horton, who made her a tender visit, and to whom she is less reserved than to any body else. Her emotion, she assures her, was not owing to perverseness, to nicety, to ill humour; but to weakness of heart. She has not strength of mind sufficient, she says, to enable her to support her condition.

Yet what a contradiction!--Weakness of heart, says she, with such a strength of will!--O Belford! she is a lion-hearted lady, in every case where her honour, her punctilio rather, calls for spirit. But I have had reason more than once in her case, to conclude, that the passions of the gentle, slower to be moved than those of the quick, are the most flaming, the most irresistible, when raised.--Yet her charming body is not equally organized. The unequal partners pull two ways; and the divinity within her tears her silken frame. But had the same soul informed a masculine body, never would there have been a truer hero.

Not yet visible!--My beloved is not well. What expectations had she from my ardent admiration of her!--More rudeness than revenge apprehended. Yet, how my soul thirsts for revenge upon both these ladies? I must have recourse to my master-strokes. This cursed project of Miss Howe and her Mrs. Townsend (if I cannot contrive t render it abortive) will be always a sword hanging over my head. Upon every little disobligations my beloved will be for taking wing; and the pains I have taken to deprive her of every other refuge or protection, in order to make her absolutely dependent upon me, will be all thrown away. But perhaps I shall find out a smuggler to counterplot Miss Howe.

Thou remembrest the contention between the Sun and the North-wind, in the fable; which should first make an honest traveller throw off his cloak.

Boreas began first. He puffed away most vehemently; and often made the poor fellow curve and stagger; but with no other effect, than to cause him to wrap his surtout the closer about him.

But when it came to Phoebus's turn, he so played upon the traveller with his beams, that he made him first unbutton, and then throw it quite off: --Nor left he, till he obliged him to take to the friendly shade of a spreading beech; where, prostrating himself on the thrown-off cloak, he took a comfortable nap.

The victor-god then laughed outright, both at Boreas and the traveller, and pursued his radiant course, shining upon, and warming and cherishing a thousand new objects, as he danced along: and at night, when he put up his fiery coursers, he diverted his Thetis with the relation of his pranks in the passed day.

I, in like manner, will discard all my boisterous inventions: and if I can oblige my sweet traveller to throw aside, but for one moment, the cloak of her rigid virtue, I shall have nothing to do, but, like the sun, to bless new objects with my rays. But my chosen hours of conversation and repose, after all my peregrinations, will be devoted to my goddess.

***

And now, Belford, according to my new system, I think this house of Mrs. Fretchville an embarrass upon me. I will get rid of it; for some time at least. Mennell, when I am out, shall come to her, inquiring for me. What for? thou'lt ask. What for--hast thou not heard what has befallen poor Mrs. Fretchville?--Then I'll tell thee.

One of her maids, about a week ago, was taken with the small-pox. The rest kept their mistress ignorant of it till Friday; and then she came to know of it by accident. The greater half of the plagues poor mortals of condition are tormented with, proceed from the servants they take, partly for show, partly for use, and with a view to lessen their cares.

This has so terrified the widow, that she is taken with all the symptoms that threaten an attack from that dreadful enemy of fair faces.--So must not think of removing: yet cannot expect, that we should be further delayed on her account.

She now wishes, with all her heart, that she had known her own mind, and gone into the country at first when I treated about the house. This evil then had not happened! a cursed cross accident for us, too!--Heigh-ho! nothing else, I think, in this mortal life! people need not study to bring crosses upon themselves by their petulancies.

So this affair of the house will be over; at least for one while. But then I can fall upon an expedient which will make amends for this disappointment. I must move slow, in order to be sure. I have a charming contrivance or two in my head, even supposing my beloved should get away, to bring her back again.

But what is become of Lord M. I trow, that he writes not to me, in answer to my invitation? If he would send me such a letter as I could show, it might go a great way towards a perfect reconciliation. I have written to Charlotte about it. He shall soon hear from me, and that in a way he won't like, if he writes not quickly. He has sometimes threatened to disinherit me. But if I should renounce him, it would be but justice, and would vex him ten times more than any thing he can do will vex me. Then, the settlements unavoidably delayed, by his neglect!--How shall I bear such a life of procrastination!--I, who, as to my will, and impatience, and so forth, am of the true lady-make, and can as little bear controul and disappointment as the best of them!

***

Another letter from Miss Howe. I suppose it is that which she promises in her last to send her relating to the courtship between old Tony the uncle, and Annabella the mother. I should be extremely rejoiced to see it. No more of the smuggler-plot in it, surely! This letter, it seems, she has put in her pocket. But I hope I shall soon find it deposited with the rest.

At my repeated request she condescended to meet me in the dining-room to afternoon-tea, and not before.

She entered with bashfulness, as I thought; in a pretty confusion, for having carried her apprehensions too far. Sullen and slow moved she towards the tea-table.--Dorcas present, busy in tea-cup preparations. I took her reluctant hand, and pressed it to my lips.--Dearest, loveliest of creatures, why this distance? why this displeasure?--How can you thus torture the faithfullest heart in the world?

She disengaged her hand. Again I would have snatched it.

Be quiet, [peevishly withdrawing it.] And down she sat; a gentle palpitation in the beauty of beauties indicating a mingled sullenness and resentment; her snowy handkerchief rising and falling, and a sweet flush overspreading her charming cheeks.

For God's sake, Madam!--[And a third time I would have taken her
repulsing hand.]

And for the same sake, Sir, no more teasing.

Dorcas retired; I drew my chair nearer her's, and with the most respectful tenderness took her hand; and told her, that I could not forbear to express my apprehensions (from the distance she was so desirous to keep me at) that if any man in the world was more indifferent to her, to use no harsher word, than another, it was the unhappy wretch before her.

She looked steadily upon me for a moment, and with her other hand, not withdrawing that I held, pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket; and by a twinkling motion urged forward a tear or two, which having arisen in each sweet eye, it was plain by that motion she would rather have dissipated: but answered me only with a sigh, and an averted face.

I urged her to speak; to look up at me; to bless me with an eye more
favourable.

I had reason, she told me, for my complaint of her indifference. She saw nothing in my mind that was generous. I was not a man to be obliged or favoured. My strange behaviour to her since Saturday night, for no cause at all that she knew of, convinced her of this. Whatever hopes she had conceived of me were utterly dissipated: all my ways were disgustful to her.

This cut me to the heart. The guilty, I believe, in every case, less
patiently bear the detecting truth, than the innocent do the degrading
falshood.

I bespoke her patience, while I took the liberty to account for this change on my part.--I re-acknowledged the pride of my heart, which could not bear the thought of that want of preference in the heart of a lady whom I hoped to call mine, which she had always manifested. Marriage, I said, was a state that was not to be entered upon with indifference on either side.