Letter
312: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE
Thursday night
HE
had found me out at Hampstead: strangely found me out; for I am still at a loss
to know by what means.
I was loath, in my billet of the 9th,[1]
to tell you so, for fear of giving you apprehensions for me; and besides I hoped
then to have a shorter and happier issue account to you for, through your
assistance, than I met with.
(She then gives a narrative of all that passed at Hampstead between herself Mr Lovelace Captain Tomlinson and the women there, to the same effect with that so amply given by Mr. Lovelace)
Mr. Lovelace, finding all he could say, and all Captain Tomlinson
could urge, ineffectual to prevail upon me to forgive an outrage so flagrantly
premeditated; rested all his hopes on a visit which was to be paid me by Lady
Betty Lawrance and Miss
Montague.
In my uncertain situation, my prospects all so dark, I knew
not to whom I might be obliged to have recourse in the last resort: and as those
ladies had the best of characters, insomuch that I had reason to regret that I
had not from the first thrown myself upon their protection (when I had forfeited
that of my own friends), I thought I would not shun an interview with them
though I was too indifferent to their kinsman to seek it, as I doubted not that
one end of their visit would be to reconcile me to him.
On Monday the 12th of June, these pretended ladies came to
Hampstead, and I was presented to them, and they to me, by their kinsman.
They were richly dressed and stuck out with jewels; the
pretended Lady Betty's were particularly very fine.
They came in a coach and four, hired, as was confessed, while
their own was repairing in town: a pretence made, I now perceive, that I should
not guess at the imposture by the want of the real lady's arms upon it. Lady
Betty was attended by her woman, whom she called Morrison; a modest
country-looking person.
I had heard that Lady Betty was a fine woman, and that Miss
Montague was a beautiful young lady, genteel and graceful, and full of vivacity:
such were these impostors; and having never seen either of them, I had not the
least suspicion that they were not the ladies they personated; and being put a
little out of countenance by the richness of their dresses, I could not help,
fool that I was! to apologize for my own.
The pretended Lady Betty then told me that her nephew had
acquainted them with the situation of affairs between us. And although she could
not but say that she was very glad that he had not put such a slight upon his
lordship and them as report had given them cause to apprehend (the reasons for
which report, however, she much approved of); yet it had been matter of great
concern to her, and to her niece Montague, and would to the whole family, to
find so great a misunderstanding subsisting between us as, if not made up, might
distance all their hopes.
She could easily tell who was in fault, she said-and gave him
a look both of anger and disdain; asking him how it was possible for him to give
an offence of such a nature to so charming a lady (so she called me) as should
occasion a resentment so strong?
He pretended to be awed into shame and silence.
My dearest niece, said she, and took my hand (I must call you
niece, as well from love, as to humour your uncle's laudable expedient), permit
me to be, not an advocate, but a mediatrix for him; and not for his sake so much
as for my own, my Charlotte's, and all our family's. The indignity he has
offered to you may be of too tender a nature to be inquired into.
But as he declares that it was not a premeditated offence; whether, my
dear (for was going to rise upon it in temper). it were or not; and as he
declares his sorrow for it (and never did creature express a deeper sorrow for
any offence than he!); and as it is a reparable one; let us, for this one time,
forgive him; and thereby lay an obligation upon this man of errors--Let US, I
say, my dear: for, sir (turning to him), an offence against such a peerless lady
as this must be an offence against me, against your cousin, and against all the
virtuous of our sex.
See, my dear, what a creature he had picked out! Could you
have thought there was a woman in the world who could thus express herself, and
yet be vile? But she had her principal instructions from him, and those written
down too, as I have reason to think: for I have recollected since, that I once
saw this Lady Betty (who often rose from her seat and took a turn to the other
end of the room with such emotion as if the joy of her heart would not let her
sit still) take out a paper from her stays and look into it, and put it there
again. She might oftener, and I not observe it; for I little thought that there
could be such impostors in the world.
The pretended Miss Montague joined in on this occasion; and
drawing her chair close to me, took my other hand and besought me to forgive her
cousin; and consent to rank myself as one of the principals of a family that had
long, very long, coveted the honour of my alliance.
I
am ashamed to repeat to you, my dear, now I know what wretches they are, the
tender, the obliging, and the respectful things I said to them.
The wretch himself then came forward. He threw himself at my
feet. How was I beset! -- The women grasping one my right hand, the other my
left: the pretended Miss. Montague pressing to her lips more than once the hand
she held: the wicked man on his knees, imploring my forgiveness; and setting
before me my happy and my unhappy prospects, as I should forgive or not forgive
him. All that he thought would affect me in his former leas and those of Captain
Tomlinson, he repeated. He vowed, he promised, he bespoke the pretended ladies
to answer for him; and they engaged their honours in his behalf.
Indeed,
my dear I was distressed, perfectly distressed. I was sorry that I had given way
to this visit. For I knew not how, in tenderness to relations (as I thought I
them) so worthy, to treat so freely as he deserved, a man nearly allied to
them--so that my arguments and m resolutions were deprived of their greatest
force.
I pleaded, however, my application to you. I expected every
hour, I told them, an answer from you to a letter I had written, which would
decide my future destiny.
They offered to apply to you themselves in person, in their own behalf as
they politely termed it. They besought me to write to you to hasten your answer.
I said I was sure that you would write the moment that the
event of an application to be made to a third person enabled you to write -- But
as to the success of their requests in behalf of their kinsman, that depended
not upon the expected answer; for that, I begged their pardon, was out of
the question. I wished him well. I wished him happy. But I was convinced that I
neither could make him so, nor he me.
Then,
again, how the wretch promised! -- How he vowed! -- How he entreated! -- And how
the women pleaded! And they engaged themselves, and the honour of their whole
family, for his just, his kind, his tender behaviour to me.
In short, my dear, I was so hard set that I was obliged to
come to a more favourable compromise with them than I had intended. I would wait
for your answer to my letter, I said: and if it made doubtful or difficult the
change of measures I had resolved upon, and the scheme of life I had formed, I
would then consider of the matter; and, if they would permit me, lay all before
them, and take their advice upon it, in conjunction with yours, as if the one
were my own aunt, and the other were my own cousin.
They shed tears upon this -- of joy they called them -- but
since, I believe, to their credit, bad as they are, that they were tears of
temporary remorse; for the pretended Miss Montague turned about and, as I
remember, said there was no standing it.
But Mr. Lovelace was not so easily satisfied. He was fixed
upon his villainous measures perhaps; and so might not be sorry to have a
pretence against me. He bit his lip -- He had been but too much used, he said,
to such indifference, such coldness, in the very midst of his happiest
prospects-I had on twenty occasions shown him, to his infinite regret, that any
favour I was to confer upon him was to be the result of -- there he stopped --
and not of my choice.
This had like to have set all back again. I was exceedingly
offended. But the pretended ladies interposed. The elder severely took him to
task. He ought, she told him, to be satisfied with what I had said. She desired
no other condition. And what, sir, said she with an air of authority, would you
commit errors and expect to be rewarded
for them?
They then engaged me in more agreeable
conversation--The
pretended lady declared that she, Lord M., and Lady Sarah would directly and
personally interest themselves to bring about a general reconciliation between
the two families, and this either in open or private concert with my uncle
Harlowe, as should be thought fit. Animosities on one side had been carried a
great way, she said; and too little care had been shown on the other to mollify
or heal. My father should see that they could treat him as a brother and a
friend; and my brother and sister should be convinced that there was no room
either for the jealousy or envy they had conceived from motives too unworthy to
be avowed.
Could I help, my dear, being pleased with them?--
Permit me here to break off. The task grows too heavy, at
present, for the heart of.
Your CLARISSA HARLOWE
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[1] See p. 815