Clarissa Harlowe or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 5 (19 page)

But here follow the causes of my apprehension of your danger; which I should not have had a thought >>> of (since nothing very vile has yet been attempted) but on finding what a house you are in, and, on that discovery, laying together and ruminating on past occurrences.

'You are obliged, from the present favourable >>> appearances, to give him your company whenever he requests it.--You are under a necessity of for- getting, or seeming to forget, past disobligations; and to receive his addresses as those of a betrothed lover.--You will incur the censure of prudery and affectation, even perhaps in your own apprehension, if you keep him at that distance which has hitherto >>> been your security.--His sudden (and as suddenly recovered) illness has given him an opportunity to find out that you love him. [Alas! my dear, I knew you loved him!] He is, as you relate, every >>> hour more and more an encroacher upon it. He has seemed to change his nature, and is all love and >>> gentleness. The wolf has put on the sheep's cloth- ing; yet more than once has shown his teeth, and his hardly-sheathed claws. The instance you have given of his freedom with your person,* which you could not but resent; and yet, as matters are cricumstanced between you, could not but pass over, when Tomlinson's letter called you into his >>> company,** show the advantage he has now over you; and also, that if he can obtain greater, he will.--And for this very reason (as I apprehend) it >>> is, that Tomlinson is introduced; that is to say, to give you the greater security, and to be a mediator, if mortal offence be given you by any villanous attempt.--The day seems not now to be so much in your power as it ought to be, since that now partly depends on your uncle, whose presence, at your own motion, he has wished on the occasion. A wish, were all real, very unlikely, I think, to be granted.'

* She means the freedom Mr. Lovelace took with her before the fire-plot.
See Vol. V. Letter XI. When Miss Howe wrote this letter she could not
know of that.
** See Vol. V. Letter XII.

>>> And thus situated, should he offer greater free-
doms, must you not forgive him?

I fear nothing (as I know who has said) that devil carnate or incarnate can fairly do against a >>> virtue so established.*--But surprizes, my dear, in such a house as you are in, and in such circum- stances as I have mentioned, I greatly fear! the >>> man one who has already triumphed over persons worthy of his alliance.

>>> What then have you to do, but to fly this house,
this infernal house!--O that your heart would let
you fly the man!

>>> If you should be disposed so to do, Mrs. Towns- end shall be ready at your command.--But if you meet with no impediments, no new causes of doubt, I think your reputation in the eye of the world, >>> though not your happiness, is concerned, that you should be his--and yet I cannot bear that these libertines should be rewarded for their villany with the best of the sex, when the worst of it are too good for them.

But if you meet with the least ground for
suspicion; if he would detain you at the odious
house, or wish you to stay, now you know what
>>> the people are; fly him, whatever your prospects
are, as well as them.

In one of your next airings, if you have no other >>> way, refuse to return with him. Name me for your intelligencer, that you are in a bad house, and if you think you cannot now break with him, seem rather >>> to believe that he may not know it to be so; and that I do not believe he does: and yet this belief in us both must appear to be very gross.

But suppose you desire to go out of town for the air, this sultry weather, and insist upon it? You may plead your health for so doing. He dare not >>> resist such a plea. Your brother's foolish scheme, I am told, is certainly given up; so you need not be afraid on that account.

If you do not fly the house upon reading of this, or some way or other get out of it, I shall judge of his power over you, by the little you will have over either him or yourself.

>>> One of my informers has made such slight inquiries concerning Mrs. Fretchville. Did he ever name to you the street or square she lived in?--I don't >>> remember that you, in any of your's, mentioned the place of her abode to me. Strange, very strange, this, I think! No such person or house can be found, near any of the new streets or squares, where the lights I had from your letters led me to imagine >>> her house might be.--Ask him what street the house is in, if he has not told you; and let me >>> know. If he make a difficulty of that circumstance, it will amount to a detection.--And yet, I think, you will have enough without this.

I shall send this long letter by Collins, who changes his day to oblige me; and that he may try (now I know where you are) to get it into your own hands. If he cannot, he will leave it at Wilson's. As none of our letters by that convey- ance have miscarried when you have been in more apparently disagreeable situations than you are in at present. I hope that this will go safe, if Collins should be obliged to leave it there.

>>> I wrote a short letter to you in my first agitations. It contained not above twenty lines, all full of fright, alarm, and execration. But being afraid that my vehemence would too much affect you, I thought it better to wait a little, as well for the reasons already hinted at, as to be able to give you as many par- ticulars as I could, and my thoughts upon all. And as they have offered, or may offer, you will be sufficiently armed to resist all his machinations, be what they will.

>>> One word more. Command me up, if I can be of the least service or pleasure to you. I value not fame; I value not censure; nor even life itself, I verily think, as I do your honour, and your friend- ship--For, is not your honour my honour? And is not your friendship the pride of my life?

May Heaven preserve you, my dearest creature,
in honour and safety, is the prayer, the hourly
prayer, of

Your ever-faithful and affectionate
ANNA HOWE.

THURSDAY MORN. 5. I have
written all night

***

How you have shocked, confounded, surprised, astonished me, by your dreadful communication!--My heart is too weak to bear up against such a stroke as this!--When all hope was with me! When my prospects were so much mended!--But can there be such villany in men, as in this vile principal, and equally vile agent!

I am really ill--very ill--grief and surprise, and, now I will say, despair, have overcome me!--All, all, you have laid down as conjecture, appears to me now to be more than conjecture!

O that your mother would have the goodness to permit me the presence of the only comforter that my afflicted, my half-broken heart, could be raised by. But I charge you, think not of coming up without her indulgent permission. I am too ill at present, my dear, to think of combating with this dreadful man; and of flying from this horrid house!-- My bad writing will show you this.--But my illness will be my present security, should he indeed have meditated villany.--Forgive, O forgive me, my dearest friend, the trouble I have given you!--All must soon--But why add I grief to grief, and trouble to trouble?--But I charge you, my beloved creature, not to think of coming up without your mother's love, to the truly desolate and broken-spirited

***

Well, Jack!--And what thinkest thou of this last letter? Miss Howe values not either fame or censure; and thinkest thou, that this letter will not bring the little fury up, though she could procure no other conveyance than her higgler's panniers, one for herself, the other for her maid? She knows whither to come now. Many a little villain have I punished for knowing more than I would have her know, and that by adding to her knowledge and experience. What thinkest thou, Belford, if, by getting hither this virago, and giving cause for a lamentable letter from her to the fair fugitive, I should be able to recover her? Would she not visit that friend in her distress, thinkest thou, whose intended visit to her in her's brought her into the condition from which she herself had so perfidiously escaped?

Let me enjoy the thought!

Shall I send this letter?--Thou seest I have left room, if I fail in the exact imitation of so charming a hand, to avoid too strict a scrutiny. Do they not both deserve it of me? Seest thou now how the raving girls threatens her mother? Ought she not to be punished? And can I be a worse devil, or villain, or monster, that she calls me in the long letter I enclose (and has called me in her former letters) were I to punish them both as my vengeance urges me to punish them? And when I have executed that my vengeance, how charmingly satisfied may they both go down into the country and keep house together, and have a much better reason than their pride could give them, for living the single life they have both seemed so fond of!

I will set about transcribing it this moment, I think. I can resolve afterwards. Yet what has poor Hickman done to deserve this of me!--But gloriously would it punish the mother (as well as daughter) for all her sordid avarice; and for her undutifulness to honest Mr. Howe, whose heart she actually broke. I am on tiptoe, Jack, to enter upon this project. Is not one country as good to me as another, if I should be obliged to take another tour upon it?

***

But I will not venture. Hickman is a good man, they tell me. I love a good man. I hope one of these days to be a good man myself. Besides, I have heard within this week something of this honest fellow that shows he has a soul; when I thought, if he had one, that it lay a little of the deepest to emerge to notice, except on very extraordinary occasions; and that then it presently sunk again into its cellula adiposa.--The man is a plump man.--Didst ever see him, Jack?

But the principal reason that withholds me [for 'tis a tempting project!] is, for fear of being utterly blown up, if I should not be quick enough with my letter, or if Miss Howe should deliberate on setting out, to try her mother's consent first; in which time a letter from my frighted beauty might reach her; for I have no doubt, wherever she has refuged, but her first work was to write to her vixen friend. I will therefore go on patiently; and take my revenge upon the little fury at my leisure.

But in spite of my compassion for Hickman, whose better character is sometimes my envy, and who is one of those mortals that bring clumsiness into credit with the mothers, to the disgrace of us clever fellows, and often to our disappointment, with the daughters; and who has been very busy in assisting these double-armed beauties against me; I swear by all the dii majores, as well as minores, that I will have Miss Howe, if I cannot have her more exalted friend! And then, if there be as much flaming love between these girls as they pretend, will my charmer profit by her escape?

And now, that I shall permit Miss Howe to reign a little longer, let me ask thee, if thou hast not, in the enclosed letter, a fresh instance, that a great many of my difficulties with her sister-toast are owing to this flighty girl?--'Tis true that here was naturally a confounded sharp winter air; and if a little cold water was thrown into the path, no wonder that it was instantly frozen; and that the poor honest traveller found it next to impossible to keep his way; one foot sliding back as fast as the other advanced, to the endangering of his limbs or neck. But yet I think it impossible that she should have baffled me as she has done (novice as she is, and never before from under her parents' wings) had she not been armed by a virago, who was formerly very near showing that she could better advise than practise. But this, I believe, I have said more than once before.

I am loth to reproach myself, now the cruel creature has escaped me; For what would that do, but add to my torment? since evils self-caused, and avoidable, admit not of palliation or comfort. And yet, if thou tellest me, that all her strength was owing to my weakness, and that I have been a cursed coward in this whole affair; why, then, Jack, I may blush, and be vexed; but, by my soul, I cannot contradict thee.

But this, Belford, I hope--that if I can turn the poison of the enclosed letter into wholesome ailment; that is to say, if I can make use of it to my advantage; I shall have thy free consent to do it.

I am always careful to open covers cautiously, and to preserve seals entire. I will draw out from this cursed letter an alphabet. Nor was Nick Rowe ever half so diligent to learn Spanish, at the Quixote recommendation of a certain peer, as I will be to gain the mastery of this vixen's hand.

After my last, so full of other hopes, the contents of this will surprise you. O my dearest friend, the man has at last proved himself to be a villain!

It was with the utmost difficulty last night, that I preserved myself from the vilest dishonour. He extorted from me a promise of forgiveness, and that I would see him next day, as if nothing had happened: but if it were possible to escape from a wretch, who, as I have too much reason to believe, formed a plot to fire the house, to frighten me, almost naked, into his arms, how could I see him next day?

I have escaped--Heaven be praised that I have!--And now have no other concern, than that I fly from the only hope that could have made such a husband tolerable to me; the reconciliation with my friends, so agreeably undertaken by my uncle.

All my present hope is, to find some reputable family, or person of my own sex, who is obliged to go beyond sea, or who lives abroad; I care not whether; but if I might choose, in some one of our American colonies-- never to be heard of more by my relations, whom I have so grievously offended.

Nor let your generous heart be moved at what I write. If I can escape the dreadfullest part of my father's malediction, (for the temporary part is already, in a manner, fulfilled, which makes me tremble in apprehension of the other,) I shall think the wreck of my worldly fortunes a happy composition.

Neither is there need of the renewal of your so-often-tendered goodness to me: for I have with me rings and other valuables, that were sent me with my clothes, which will turn into money to answer all I can want, till Providence shall be pleased to put me into some want to help myself, if, for my further punishment, my life is to be lengthened beyond my wishes.