Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 3 (27 page)

You may have good accommodations in Dover-street, at a widow's, the relict of an officer in the guards, who dying soon after he had purchased his commission (to which he had a good title by service, and which cost him most part of what he had) she was obliged to let lodgings.

This may possibly be an objection. But she is very careful, she says, that she takes no lodgers, but of figure and reputation. She rents two good houses, distant from each other, only joined by a large handsome passage. The inner-house is the genteelest, and very elegantly furnished; but you may have the use of a very handsome parlour in the outer-house, if you choose to look into the street.

A little garden belongs to the inner-house, in which the old gentlewoman has displayed a true female fancy; having crammed it with vases, flower- pots, and figures, without number.

As these lodgings seemed to me the most likely to please you, I was more particular in my inquiries about them. The apartments she has to let are in the inner-house: they are a dining-room, two neat parlours, a withdrawing-room, two or three handsome bedchambers, one with a pretty light closet in it, which looks into the little garden, all furnished in taste.

A dignified clergyman, his wife, and maiden daughter were the last who lived in them. They have but lately quitted them, on his being presented to a considerable church preferment in Ireland. The gentlewoman says that he took the lodgings but for three months certain; but liked them and her usage so well, that he continued in them two years; and left them with regret, though on so good an account. She bragged, that this was the way of all the lodgers she ever had, who staid with her four times as long as they at first intended.

I had some knowledge of the colonel, who was always looked upon as a man of honour. His relict I never saw before. I think she has a masculine air, and is a little forbidding at first: but when I saw her behaviour to two agreeable gentlewomen, her husband's nieces, whom, for that reason, she calls doubly hers, and heard their praises of her, I could imputer her very bulk to good humour; since we seldom see your sour peevish people plump. She lives reputably, and is, as I find, aforehand in the world.

If these, or any other of the lodgings I have mentioned, be not altogether to your lady's mind, she may continue in them the less while, and choose others for herself.

The widow consents that you shall take them for a month only, and what of them you please. The terms, she says, she will not fall out upon, when she knows what your lady expects, and what her servants are to do, or yours will undertake; for she observed that servants are generally worse to deal with than their masters or mistresses.

The lady may board or not as she pleases.

As we suppose you were married, but that you have reason, from family- differences, to keep it private for the present, I thought it not amiss to hint as much to the widow (but as uncertainty, however); and asked her, if she could, in that case, accommodate you and your servants, as well as the lady and hers? She said, she could; and wished, by all means, it were to be so: since the circumstance of a person's being single, it not as well recommended as this lady, was one of the usual exceptions.

If none of these lodgings please, you need not doubt very handsome ones in or near Hanover-square, Soho-square, Golden-square, or in some of the new streets about Grosvenor-square. And Mrs. Doleman, her sister, and myself, most cordially join to offer to your good lady the best accommodations we can make for her at Uxbridge (and also for you, if you are the happy man we wish you to be), till she fits herself more to her mind.

Let me add, that the lodgings at the mercer's, those in Cecil-street, those at the widow's in Dover-street, any of them, may be entered upon at a day's warning.

I am, my dear Sir,
Your sincere and affectionate friend and servant,
THO. DOLEMAN.

You will easily guess, my dear, when you have read the letter, which lodgings I made choice of. But first to try him, (as in so material a point I thought I could not be too circumspect,) I seemed to prefer those in Norfolk-street, for the very reason the writer gives why he thought I would not; that is to say, for its neighbourhood to a city so well governed as London is said to be. Nor should I have disliked a lodging in the heart of it, having heard but indifferent accounts of the liberties sometimes taken at the other end of the town.--Then seeming to incline to the lodgings in Cecil-street--Then to the mercer's. But he made no visible preference; and when I asked his opinion of the widow gentlewoman's, he said he thought those the most to my taste and convenience: but as he hoped that I would think lodgings necessary but for a very little while, he knew not which to give his vote for.

I then fixed upon the widow's; and he has written accordingly to Mr.
Doleman, making my compliments to his lady and sister, for their kind
offer.

I am to have the dining-room, the bed-chamber with the light-closet, (of which, if I stay any time at the widow's, I shall make great use,) and a servant's room; and we propose to set out on Saturday morning. As for a maid servant, poor Hannah's illness is a great disappointment to me: but, as he observes, I can make the widow satisfaction for one of hers, till I can get a servant to my mind. And you know I want not much attendance.

***

Mr. Lovelace has just now, of his own accord, given me five guineas for poor Hannah. I send them inclosed. Be so good as to cause them to be conveyed to her, and to let her know from whom they came.

He has obliged me much by this little mark of his considerateness.
Indeed I have the better opinion of him ever since he proposed her return
to me.

***

I have just now another instance of his considerateness. He came to me, and said that, on second thoughts, he could not bear that I should go up to town without some attendant, were it but for the look of the thing to the London widow and her nieces, who, according to his friend's account, lived so genteelly; and especially as I required him to leave me so soon after I arrived there, and so would be left alone among strangers. He therefore sought that I might engage Mrs. Sorlings to lend me one of her two maids, or let one of her daughters go up with me, and stay till I were provided. And if the latter, the young gentlewoman, no doubt, would be glad of so good an opportunity to see the curiosities of the town, and would be a proper attendant on the same occasions.

I told him as I had done before, that the two young gentlewomen were so equally useful in their way, and servants in a busy farm were so little to be spared, that I should be loth to take them off their laudable employments. Nor should I think much of diversions for one while; and so the less want an attendant out of doors.

And now, my dear, lest any thing should happen, in so variable, (which at present are more promising than ever yet they have been since I quitted Harlowe-place,) I will snatch the opportunity to subscribe myself

Your not unhoping and
ever-obliged friend and servant,
CL. HARLOWE.

He begins with communicating to him the letter he wrote to Mr. Doleman, to procure suitable lodgings in town, and which he sent away by the Lady's approbation: and then gives him a copy of the answer to it (see p. 218): upon which he thus expresses himself:

Thou knowest the widow; thou knowest her nieces; thou knowest the lodgings: and didst thou ever read a letter more artfully couched than this of Tom Doleman? Every possible objection anticipated! Every accident provided against! Every tittle of it plot-proof!

Who could forbear smiling, to see my charmer, like a farcical dean and chapter, choose what was before chosen for her; and sagaciously (as they go in form to prayers, that Heaven would direct their choice) pondering upon the different proposals, as if she would make me believe she had a mind for some other? The dear sly rogue looking upon me, too, with a view to discover some emotion in me. Emotions I had; but I can tell her that they lay deeper than her eye could reach, though it had been a sun- beam.

No confidence in me, fair one! None at all, 'tis plain. Thou wilt not, if I were inclined to change my views, encourage me by a generous reliance on my honour!--And shall it be said that I, a master of arts in love, shall be overmatched by so unpractised a novice?

But to see the charmer so far satisfied with my contrivance as to borrow my friend's letter, in order to satisfy Miss Howe likewise!--

Silly little rogues! to walk out into bye-paths on the strength of their own judgment!--When nothing but experience can enable them to disappoint us, and teach them grandmother-wisdom! When they have it indeed, then may they sit down, like so many Cassandras, and preach caution to others; who will as little mind them as they did their instructresses, whenever a fine handsome confidant young fellow, such a one as thou knowest who, comes across them.

But, Belford, didst thou not mind that sly rogue Doleman's naming Dover- street for the widow's place of abode?--What dost thou think could be meant by that?--'Tis impossible thou shouldst guess, so, not to puzzle thee about it, suppose the Widow Sinclair's in Dover-street should be inquired after by some officious person, in order to come at characters [Miss Howe is as sly as the devil, and as busy to the full,] and neither such a name, nor such a house, can be found in that street, nor a house to answer the description; then will not the keenest hunter in England be at a fault?

But how wilt thou do, methinks thou askest, to hinder the lady from resenting the fallacy, and mistrusting thee the more on that account, when she finds it out to be in another street?

Pho! never mind that: either I shall have a way for it, or we shall thoroughly understand one another by that time; or if we don't, she'll know enough of me, not to wonder at such a peccadilla.

But how wilt thou hinder the lady from apprizing her friend of the real
name?

She must first know it herself, monkey, must she not?

Well, but how wilt thou do to hinder her from knowing the street, and her friend from directing letters thither, which will be the same thing as if the name were known?

Let me alone for that too.

If thou further objectest, that Tom Doleman, is too great a dunce to write such a letter in answer to mine:--Canst thou not imagine that, in order to save honest Tom all this trouble, I who know the town so well, could send him a copy of what he should write, and leave him nothing to do but transcribe?

What now sayest thou to me, Belford?

And suppose I had designed this task of inquiry for thee; and suppose the lady excepted against thee for no other reason in the world, but because of my value for thee? What sayest thou to the lady, Jack?

This it is to have leisure upon my hands!--What a matchless plotter thy friend!--Stand by, and let me swell!--I am already as big as an elephant, and ten times wiser!--Mightier too by far! Have I not reason to snuff the moon with my proboscis?--Lord help thee for a poor, for a very poor creature!--Wonder not that I despise thee heartily; since the man who is disposed immoderately to exalt himself, cannot do it but by despising every body else in proportion.

I shall make good use of the Dolemanic hint of being married. But I will not tell thee all at once. Nor, indeed, have I thoroughly digested that part of my plot. When a general must regulate himself by the motions of a watchful adversary, how can he say beforehand what he will, or what he will not, do?

Widow SINCLAIR, didst thou not say, Lovelace?--

Ay, SINCLAIR, Jack!--Remember the name! SINCLAIR, I repeat. She has no other. And her features being broad and full-blown, I will suppose her to be of Highland extraction; as her husband the colonel [mind that too] was a Scot, as brave, as honest.

I never forget the minutiae in my contrivances. In all matters that admit of doubt, the minutiae, closely attended to and provided for, are of more service than a thousand oaths, vows, and protestations made to supply the neglect of them, especially when jealousy has made its way in the working mind.

Thou wouldst wonder if thou knewest one half of my providences. To give thee but one--I have already been so good as to send up a list of books to be procured for the lady's closet, mostly at second hand. And thou knowest that the women there are all well read. But I will not anticipate--Besides, it looks as if I were afraid of leaving any thing to my old friend CHANCE; which has many a time been an excellent second to me, and ought not be affronted or despised; especially by one who has the art of making unpromising incidents turn out in his favour.

I have a piece of intelligence to give you, which concerns you much to
know.

Your brother having been assured that you are not married, has taken a resolution to find you out, waylay you, and carry you off. A friend of his, a captain of a ship, undertakes to get you on ship-board, and to sail away with you, either to Hull or Leith, in the way to one of your brother's houses.

They are very wicked: for in spite of your virtue they conclude you to be ruined. But if they can be assured when they have you that you are not, they will secure you till they can bring you out Mrs. Solmes. Mean time, in order to give Mr. Lovelace full employment, they talk of a prosecution which will be set up against him, for some crime they have got a notion of, which they think, if it do not cost him his life, will make him fly his country.

This is very early news. Miss Bell told it in confidence, and with mighty triumph over Lovelace, to Miss Lloyd, who is at present her favourite, though as much you admirer as ever. Miss Lloyd, being very apprehensive of the mischief which might follow such an attempt, told it to me, with leave to apprize you privately of it--and yet neither she nor I would be sorry, perhaps, if Lovelace were to be fairly hanged--that is to say, if you, my dear, had no objection to it. But we cannot bear that such an admirable creature should be made the tennis-ball of two violent spirits--much less that you should be seized, and exposed to the brutal treatment of wretches who have no bowels.