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

by Samuel Richardson

  LETTER LXXXI

  MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.THURSDAY NIGHT, AUG. 10.

  You have been informed by Tourville, how much Belton's illness andaffairs have engaged me, as well as Mowbray and him, since my former.I called at Smith's on Monday, in my way to Epsom.

  The lady was gone to chapel: but I had the satisfaction to hear she wasnot worse; and left my compliments, and an intimation that I should beout of town for three or four days.

  I refer myself to Tourville, who will let you know the difficulty we hadto drive out this meek mistress, and frugal manager, with her cubs, andto give the poor fellow's sister possession for him of his own house; heskulking mean while at an inn at Croydon, too dispirited to appear in hisown cause.

  But I must observe that we were probably but just in time to save theshattered remains of his fortune from this rapacious woman, and heraccomplices: for, as he cannot live long, and she thinks so, we found shehad certainly taken measures to set up a marriage, and keep possession ofall for herself and her sons.

  Tourville will tell you how I was forced to chastise the quondam hostlerin her sight, before I could drive him out of the house. He had theinsolence to lay hands on me: and I made him take but one step from thetop to the bottom of a pair of stairs. I thought his neck and all hisbones had been broken. And then, he being carried out neck-and-heels,Thomasine thought fit to walk out after him.

  Charming consequences of keeping; the state we have been so fond ofextolling!--Whatever it may be thought of in strong health, sickness anddeclining spirits in the keeper will bring him to see the difference.

  She should soon have him, she told a confidant, in the space of six footby five; meaning his bed: and then she would let nobody come near him butwhom she pleased. This hostler-fellow, I suppose, would then have beenhis physician; his will ready made for him; and widows' weeds probablyready provided; who knows, but she to appear in them in his own sight? asonce I knew an instance in a wicked wife; insulting a husband she hated,when she thought him past recovery: though it gave the man such spirits,and such a turn, that he got over it, and lived to see her in her coffin,dressed out in the very weeds she had insulted him in.

  So much, for the present, for Belton and his Thomasine.

  ***

  I begin to pity thee heartily, now I see thee in earnest in the fruitlesslove thou expressest to this angel of a woman; and the rather, as, saywhat thou wilt, it is impossible she should get over her illness, and herfriends' implacableness, of which she has had fresh instances.

  I hope thou art not indeed displeased with the extracts I have made fromthy letters for her. The letting her know the justice thou hast done toher virtue in them, is so much in favour of thy ingenuousness, (aquality, let me repeat, that gives thee a superiority over commonlibertines,) that I think in my heart I was right; though to any otherwoman, and to one who had not known the worst of thee that she couldknow, it might have been wrong.

  If the end will justify the means, it is plain, that I have done wellwith regard to ye both; since I have made her easier, and thee appear ina better light to her, than otherwise thou wouldst have done.

  But if, nevertheless, thou art dissatisfied with my having obliged her ina point, which I acknowledge to be delicate, let us canvas this matter atour first meeting: and then I will show thee what the extracts were, andwhat connections I gave them in thy favour.

  But surely thou dost not pretend to say what I shall, or shall not do, asto the executorship.

  I am my own man, I hope. I think thou shouldst be glad to have thejustification of her memory left to one, who, at the same time, thoumayest be assured, will treat thee, and thy actions, with all the lenitythe case will admit.

  I cannot help expressing my surprise at one instance of thyself-partiality; and that is, where thou sayest she has need, indeed, tocry out for mercy herself from her friends, who knows not how to showany.

  Surely thou canst not think the cases alike--for she, as I understand,desires but a last blessing, and a last forgiveness, for a fault in amanner involuntary, if a fault at all; and does not so much as hope to bereceived; thou, to be forgiven premeditated wrongs, (which, nevertheless,she forgives, on condition to be no more molested by thee;) and hopest tobe received into favour, and to make the finest jewel in the world thyabsolute property in consequence of that forgiveness.

  I will now briefly proceed to relate what has passed since my last, as tothe excellent lady. By the account I shall give thee, thou wilt see thatshe has troubles enough upon her, all springing originally from thyself,without needing to add more to them by new vexations. And as long asthou canst exert thyself so very cavalierly at M. Hall, where every oneis thy prisoner, I see not but the bravery of thy spirit may be as wellgratified in domineering there over half a dozen persons of rank anddistinction, as it could be over an helpless orphan, as I may call thislady, since she has not a single friend to stand by her, if I do not; andwho will think herself happy, if she can refuge herself from thee, andfrom all the world, in the arms of death.

  My last was dated on Saturday.

  On Sunday, in compliance with her doctor's advice, she took a littleairing. Mrs. Lovick, and Mr. Smith and his wife, were with her. Afterbeing at Highgate chapel at divine service, she treated them with alittle repast; and in the afternoon was at Islington church, in her wayhome; returning tolerably cheerful.

  She had received several letters in my absence, as Mrs. Lovick acquaintedme, besides your's. Your's, it seems, much distressed her; but sheordered the messenger, who pressed for an answer, to be told that it didnot require an immediate one.

  On Wednesday she received a letter from her uncle Harlowe,* in answer toone she had written to her mother on Saturday on her knees. It must be avery cruel one, Mrs. Lovick says, by the effects it had upon her: for,when she received it, she was intending to take an afternoon airing in acoach: but was thrown into so violent a fit of hysterics upon it, thatshe was forced to lie down; and (being not recovered by it) to go to bedabout eight o'clock.

  * See Letter LXXXIV. of this volume.

  On Thursday morning she was up very early; and had recourse to theScriptures to calm her mind, as she told Mrs. Lovick: and, weak as shewas, would go in a chair to Lincoln's-inn chapel, about eleven. She wasbrought home a little better; and then sat down to write to her uncle.But was obliged to leave off several times--to struggle, as she told Mrs.Lovick, for an humble temper. 'My heart, said she to the good woman, isa proud heart, and not yet, I find, enough mortified to my condition;but, do what I can, will be for prescribing resenting things to my pen.'

  I arrived in town from Belton's this Thursday evening; and went directlyto Smith's. She was too ill to receive my visit. But, on sending up mycompliments, she sent me down word that she should be glad to see me inthe morning.

  Mrs. Lovick obliged me with the copy of a meditation collected by thelady from the Scriptures. She has entitled it Poor mortals the cause oftheir own misery; so entitled, I presume, with intention to take off theedge of her repinings at hardships so disproportioned to her fault, wereher fault even as great as she is inclined to think it. We may see, bythis, the method she takes to fortify her mind, and to which she owes, ina great measure, the magnanimity with which she bears her undeservedpersecutions.

  MEDITATION

  POOR MORTALS THE CAUSE OF THEIR OWN MISERY.

  Say not thou, it is through the Lord that I fell away; for thou oughtestnot to do the thing that he hateth.

  Say not thou, he hath caused me to err; for he hath no need of the sinfulman.

  He himself made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of hisown counsel;

  If thou wilt, to keep the commandments, and to perform acceptablefaithfulness.

  He hath set fire and water before thee: stretch forth thine hand towhither thou wilt.

  He hath commanded no man to do wickedly: neither hath he given any manlicense to sin.

  And now, Lord, what is my hope? Truly my hope i
s only in thee.

  Deliver me from all my offences: and make me not a rebuke unto thefoolish.

  When thou with rebuke dost chasten man for sin, thou makest his beautyto consume away, like as it were a moth fretting a garment: every man,therefore, is vanity.

  Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate andafflicted.

  The troubles of my heart are enlarged. O bring thou me out of mydistresses!

  ***

  Mrs. Smith gave me the following particulars of a conversation thatpassed between herself and a young clergyman, on Tuesday afternoon, who,as it appears, was employed to make inquiries about the lady by herfriends.

  He came into the shop in a riding-habit, and asked for some Spanishsnuff; and finding only Mrs. Smith there, he desired to have a littletalk with her in the back-shop.

  He beat about the bush in several distant questions, and at last began totalk more directly about Miss Harlowe.

  He said he knew her before her fall, [that was his impudent word;] andgave the substance of the following account of her, as I collected itfrom Mrs. Smith:

  'She was then, he said, the admiration and delight of every body: helamented, with great solemnity, her backsliding; another of his phrases.Mrs. Smith said, he was a fine scholar; for he spoke several things sheunderstood not; and either in Latin or Greek, she could not tell which;but was so good as to give her the English of them without asking. Afine thing, she said, for a scholar to be so condescending!'

  He said, 'Her going off with so vile a rake had given great scandal andoffence to all the neighbouring ladies, as well as to her friends.'

  He told Mrs. Smith 'how much she used to be followed by every one's eye,whenever she went abroad, or to church; and praised and blessed by everytongue, as she passed; especially by the poor: that she gave the fashionto the fashionable, without seeming herself to intend it, or to know shedid: that, however, it was pleasant to see ladies imitate her in dressand behaviour, who being unable to come up to her in grace and ease,exposed but their own affectation and awkwardness, at the time that theythought themselves secure of general approbation, because they wore thesame things, and put them on in the same manner, that she did, who hadevery body's admiration; little considering, that were her person liketheir's, or if she had their defects, she would have brought up a verydifferent fashion; for that nature was her guide in every thing, and easeher study; which, joined with a mingled dignity and condescension in herair and manner, whether she received or paid a compliment, distinguishedher above all her sex.

  'He spoke not, he said, his own sentiments only on this occasion, butthose of every body: for that the praises of Miss Clarissa Harlowe weresuch a favourite topic, that a person who could not speak well upon anyother subject, was sure to speak well upon that; because he could saynothing but what he had heard repeated and applauded twenty times over.'

  Hence it was, perhaps, that this novice accounted for the best things hesaid himself; though I must own that the personal knowledge of the lady,which I am favoured with, made it easy to me to lick into shape what thegood woman reported to me, as the character given her by the youngLevite: For who, even now, in her decline of health, sees not that allthese attributes belong to her?

  I suppose he has not been long come from college, and now thinks he hasnothing to do but to blaze away for a scholar among the ignorant; as suchyoung fellows are apt to think those who cannot cap verses with them, andtell us how an antient author expressed himself in Latin on a subject,upon which, however, they may know how, as well as that author, to expressthemselves in English.

  Mrs. Smith was so taken with him, that she would fain have introduced himto the lady, not questioning but it would be very acceptable to her tosee one who knew her and her friends so well. But this he declined forseveral reasons, as he call them; which he gave. One was, that personsof his cloth should be very cautious of the company they were in,especially where sex was concerned, and where a woman had slurred herreputation--[I wish I had been there when he gave himself these airs.]Another, that he was desired to inform himself of her present way oflife, and who her visiters were; for, as to the praises Mrs. Smith gavethe lady, he hinted, that she seemed to be a good-natured woman, andmight (though for the lady's sake he hoped not) be too partial andshort-sighted to be trusted to, absolutely, in a concern of so high anature as he intimated the task was which he had undertaken; nodding outwords of doubtful import, and assuming airs of great significance (as Icould gather) throughout the whole conversation. And when Mrs. Smithtold him that the lady was in a very bad state of health, he gave acareless shrug--She may be very ill, says he: her disappointments musthave touched her to the quick: but she is not bad enough, I dare say,yet, to atone for her very great lapse, and to expect to be forgiven bythose whom she has so much disgraced.

  A starched, conceited coxcomb! what would I give he had fallen in my way!

  He departed, highly satisfied with himself, no doubt, and assured of Mrs.Smith's great opinion of his sagacity and learning: but bid her not sayany thing to the lady about him or his inquiries. And I, for verydifferent reasons, enjoined the same thing.

  I am glad, however, for her peace of mind's sake, that they begin tothink it behoves them to inquire about her.