Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 3 (14 page)

I will only add, that, if he really wishes for a speedy solemnization, he never could have had a luckier time to press for my consent to it. But he let it go off; and indignation has taken place of it. And now it shall be a point with me, to get him at a distance from me.

I am, my dearest friend,
Your ever faithful and obliged
CL. H.

Why, Jack, thou needest not make such a wonderment, as the girls say, if I should have taken large strides already towards reformation: for dost thou not see, that while I have been so assiduously, night and day, pursuing this single charmer, I have infinitely less to answer for, than otherwise I should have had? Let me see, how many days and nights?-- Forty, I believe, after open trenches, spent in the sap only, and never a mine sprung yet!

By a moderate computation, a dozen kites might have fallen, while I have been only trying to ensnare this single lark. Nor yet do I see when I shall be able to bring her to my lure: more innocent days yet, therefore! --But reformation for my stalking-horse, I hope, will be a sure, though a slow method to effect all my purposes.

Then, Jack, thou wilt have a merit too in engaging my pen, since thy time would be otherwise worse employed: and, after all, who knows but by creating new habits, at the expense of the old, a real reformation may be brought about? I have promised it; and I believe there is a pleasure to be found in being good, reversing that of Nat. Lee's madman,

--Which none but good men know.

By all this, seest thou not how greatly preferable it is, on twenty accounts, to pursue a difficult rather than an easy chace? I have a desire to inculcate this pleasure upon thee, and to teach thee to fly at nobler game than daws, crows, and widgeons: I have a mind to shew thee from time to time, in the course of the correspondence thou hast so earnestly wished me to begin on this illustrious occasion, that these exalted ladies may be abased, and to obviate one of the objections that thou madest to me, when we were last together, that the pleasure which attends these nobler aims, remunerates not the pains they bring with them; since, like a paltry fellow as thou wert, thou assertedst that all women are alike.

Thou knowest nothing, Jack, of the delicacies of intrigue: nothing of the glory of outwitting the witty and the watchful: of the joys that fill the mind of the inventive or contriving genius, ruminating which to use of the different webs that offer to him for the entanglement of a haughty charmer, who in her day has given him unnumbered torments. Thou, Jack, who, like a dog at his ease, contentest thyself to growl over a bone thrown out to thee, dost not know the joys of a chace, and in pursuing a winding game: these I will endeavour to rouse thee to, and then thou wilt have reason doubly and trebly to thank me, as well because of thy present delight, as with regard to thy prospect beyond the moon.

To this place I had written, purely to amuse myself, before I was admitted to my charmer. But now I have to tell thee, that I was quite right in my conjecture, that she would set up for herself, and dismiss me: for she has declared in so many words that such was her resolution: And why? Because, to be plain with me, the more she saw of me, and of my ways, the less she liked of either.

This cut me to the heart! I did not cry, indeed! Had I been a woman, I should though, and that most plentifully: but I pulled out a white cambrick handkerchief: that I could command, but not my tears.

She finds fault with my protestations, with my professions, with my vows: I cannot curse a servant, the only privilege a master is known by, but I am supposed to be a trooper*--I must not say, By my soul! nor, As I hope to be saved! Why, Jack, how particular this is! Would she not have me think I have a precious soul, as well as she? If she thinks my salvation hopeless, what a devil [another exceptionable word!] does she propose to reform me for? So I have not an ardent expression left me.

* See Letter VI. of this volume.

***

What can be done with a woman who is above flattery, and despises all praise but that which flows from the approbation of her own heart?

Well, Jack, thou seest it is high time to change my measures. I must run into the pious a little faster than I had designed.

What a sad thing it would be, were I, after all, to lose her person, as well as her opinion! the only time that further acquaintance, and no blow struck, nor suspicion given, ever lessened me in a lady's favour! A cursed mortification!--'Tis certain I can have no pretence for holding her, if she will go. No such thing as force to be used, or so much as hinted at: Lord send us safe at London!--That's all I have for it now: and yet it must be the least part of my speech.

But why will this admirable creature urge her destiny? Why will she defy the power she is absolutely dependent upon? Why will she still wish to my face that she had never left her father's house? Why will she deny me her company, till she makes me lose my patience, and lay myself open to her resentment? And why, when she is offended, does she carry her indignation to the utmost length that a scornful beauty, in the very height of her power and pride, can go?

Is it prudent, thinkest thou, in her circumstances, to tell me, repeatedly to tell me, 'That she is every hour more and more dissatisfied with herself and me? That I am not one who improve upon her in my conversation and address?' [Couldst thou, Jack, bear this from a captive!] 'That she shall not be easy while she is with me? That she knows better than to value herself upon my volubility? That if I think she deserves the compliments I make her, I may pride myself in those arts, by which I have made a fool of so extraordinary a person? That she shall never forgive herself for meeting me, nor me for seducing her away?' [Her very words.] 'That her regrets increase instead of diminish? That she will take care of herself; and, since her friends thing it not worth while to pursue her, she will be left to her own care? That I shall make Mrs. Sorlings's house more agreeable by my absence?--And go to Berks, to town, or wherever I will,' [to the devil, I suppose,] 'with all her heart?'

The impolitic charmer!--To a temper so vindictive as she thins mine! To a free-liver, as she believes me to be, who has her in his power! I was before, as thou knowest, balancing; now this scale, now that, the heaviest. I only waited to see how her will would work, how mine would lead me on. Thou seest what bias here takes--And wilt thou doubt that mine will be determined by it? Were not her faults, before this, numerous enough? Why will she put me upon looking back?

I will sit down to argue with myself by-and-by, and thou shalt be
acquainted with the result.

If thou didst but know, if thou hadst but beheld, what an abject slave she made me look like!--I had given myself high airs, as she called them: but they were airs that shewed my love for her: that shewed I could not live out of her company. But she took me down with a vengeance! She made me look about me. So much advantage had she over me; such severe turns upon me; by my soul, Jack, I had hardly a word to say for myself. I am ashamed to tell thee what a poor creature she made me look like! But I could have told her something that would have humbled her pretty pride at the instant, had she been in a proper place, and proper company about her.

To such a place then--and where she cannot fly me--And then to see how my will works, and what can be done with the amorous see-saw; now humble, now proud; now expecting, or demanding; now submitting, or acquiescing-- till I have tried resistance.

But these hints are at present enough. I may further explain myself as I go along; and as I confirm or recede in my future motions. If she will revive past disobligations! If she will--But no more, no more, as I said, at present, of threatenings.

And do I not see that I shall need nothing but patience, in order to have all power with me? For what shall we say, if all these complaints of a character wounded; these declarations of increasing regrets for meeting me; of resentments never to be got over for my seducing her away; these angry commands to leaver her:--What shall we say, if all were to mean nothing but MATRIMONY? And what if my forbearing to enter upon that subject come out to be the true cause of their petulance and uneasiness!

I had once before played about the skirts of the irrevocable obligation; but thought myself obliged to speak in clouds, and to run away from the subject, as soon as she took my meaning, lest she should imagine it to be ungenerously urged, now she was in some sort in my power, as she had forbid me beforehand, to touch upon it, till I were in a state of visible reformation, and till a reconciliation with her friends were probable. But now, out-argued, out-talented, and pushed so vehemently to leave one of whom I had no good pretence to hold, if she would go; and who could so easily, if I had given her cause to doubt, have thrown herself into other protection, or have returned to Harlowe-place and Solmes; I spoke out upon the subject, and offered reasons, although with infinite doubt and hesitation, [lest she should be offended at me, Belford!] why she should assent to the legal tie, and make me the happiest of men. And O how the mantle cheek, the downcast eye, the silent yet trembling lip, and the heaving bosom, a sweet collection of heightened beauties, gave evidence that the tender was not mortally offensive!

Charming creature! thought I, [but I charge thee, that thou let not any of the sex know my exultation,*] Is it so soon come to this? Am I already lord of the destiny of a Clarissa Harlowe? Am I already the reformed man thou resolvest I should be, before I had the least encouragement given me? Is it thus, that the more thou knowest me, the less thou seest reason to approve of me?--And can art and design enter into a breast so celestial? To banish me from thee, to insist so rigorously upon my absence, in order to bring me closer to thee, and make the blessing dear? Well do thy arts justify mine; and encourage me to let loose my plotting genius upon thee.

* Mr. Lovelace might have spared this caution on this occasion, since many of the sex [we mention it with regret] who on the first publication had read thus far, and even to the lady's first escape, have been readier to censure her for over-niceness, as we have observed in a former note, page 42, than him for artifices and exultations not less cruel and ungrateful, than ungenerous and unmanly.

But let me tell thee, charming maid, if thy wishes are at all to be answered, that thou hast yet to account to me for thy reluctance to go off with me, at a crisis when thy going off was necessary to avoid being forced into the nuptial fetters with a wretch, that, were he not thy aversion, thou wert no more honest to thy own merit than to me.

I am accustomed to be preferred, let me tell thee, by thy equals in rank too, though thy inferiors in merit: But who is not so? And shall I marry a woman, who has given me reason to doubt the preference she has for me?

No, my dearest love, I have too sacred a regard for thy injunctions, to let them be broken through, even by thyself. Nor will I take in thy full meaning by blushing silence only. Nor shalt thou give me room to doubt, whether it be necessity or love, that inspires this condescending impulse.

Upon these principles, what had I to do but to construe her silence into contemptuous displeasure? And I begged her pardon for making a motion which I had so much reason to fear would offend her: for the future I would pay a sacred regard to her previous injunctions, and prove to her by all my conduct the truth of that observation, That true love is always fearful of offending.

And what could the lady say to this? methinks thou askest.

Say!--Why she looked vexed, disconcerted, teased; was at a loss, as I thought, whether to be more angry with herself, or with me. She turned about, however, as if to hide a starting tear; and drew a sigh into two or three but just audible quavers, trying to suppress it, and withdrew-- leaving me master of the field.

Tell me not of politeness; tell me not of generosity; tell me not of compassion--Is she not a match for me? More than a match? Does she not outdo me at every fair weapon? Has she not made me doubt her love? Has she not taken officious pains to declare that she was not averse to Solmes for any respect she had to me? and her sorrow for putting herself out of his reach, that is to say, for meeting me?

Then, what a triumph would it be to the Harlowe pride, were I now to marry this lady? A family beneath my own! No one in it worthy of an alliance with but her! My own estate not contemptible! Living within the bounds of it, to avoid dependence upon their betters, and obliged to no man living! My expectations still so much more considerable! My person, my talents--not to be despised, surely--yet rejected by them with scorn. Obliged to carry on an underhand address to their daughter, when two of the most considerable families in the kingdom have made overtures, which I have declined, partly for her sake, and partly because I never will marry; if she be not the person. To be forced to steal her away, not only from them, but from herself! And must I be brought to implore forgiveness and reconciliation from the Harlowes?--Beg to be acknowledged as the son of a gloomy tyrant, whose only boast is his riches? As a brother to a wretch, who has conceived immortal hatred to me; and to a sister who was beneath my attempts, or I would have had her in my own way, and that with a tenth part of the trouble and pains that her sister has cost me; and, finally, as a nephew to uncles, who value themselves upon their acquired fortunes, would insult me as creeping to them on that account?--Forbid it in the blood of the Lovelaces, that your last, and, let me say, not the meanest of your stock, should thus creep, thus fawn, thus lick the dust, for a WIFE!--

Proceed anon.

But is it not the divine CLARISSA [Harlowe let me not say; my soul spurns them all but her] whom I am thus by application threatening?--If virtue be the true nobility, how is she ennobled, and how shall an alliance with her ennoble, were not contempt due to the family from whom she sprang and prefers to me!