LETTER
316: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
[Summary]
Sunday,
July 9
May
heaven signalize its vengeance in the face of all the world upon the most
abandoned and profligate of men! – And in its own time, I doubt not but it
will – And we must look to a world beyond this for the reward of your
sufferings!-
Another shocking detection,
my dear! – How have you been deluded! – Very watchful I have thought you;
very sagacious – but, alas! Not watchful, not sagacious enough, for the horrid
villain you have had to deal with!-
The
letter you sent me enclosed as mine, of the 7th of June, is a
villainous forgery.[1]
The
hand, indeed, is astonishingly like mine; and the cover, I see, is actually my
cover: but yet the letter is not so exactly imitated but that (had you had any
suspicions about his vileness at the time) you, who se well know my hand might
have detected it.
In short, this vile forged
letter, though a long one, contains but a few extracts from mine. Mine was a
very long one. He has omitted everything, I see, in it that could have shown you
what a detestable house the house is; and given you suspicions of the vile
Tomlinson – You will see this, and
how he has turned Miss Lardner’s information and my advices to you (execrable
villain!) to his own horrid ends, by the rough draught of the genuine letter
which I shall enclose.[2]
Apprehensive for both our
safeties, from such a daring and profligate contriver, I must call upon you, my
dear, to resolve upon taking legal vengeance of the infernal wretch. And this
not only for our own sakes, but for the sakes of innocents who otherwise may yet
be deluded and outrages by him.
She then gives the particulars of the report made by the young fellow whom she sent a to Hampstead with her letter; and who supposed he had delivered it into her own hand[3], and then proceeds:
I am astonished that the vile wretch, who could know nothing of the time my
messenger (whose honesty I can vouch for) would come, could have a creature
ready to personate you! Strange that the man should happen to arrive just as you
were gone to church, as I find was the fact, on comparing what he says with your
hint that you were at church twice that day; when he might have go to Mrs.
Moore’s two hours before! – But had you told me, my dear, that the villain
had found you out, and was about you! – You should have done that – yet I
blame you upon a judgement founded on the event only!
I never had any faith in the
stories that go current among country girls, of specters, familiars, and demons;
yet I see not any other way to account of the wretch’s successful villainy,
and for his means of working up his specious delusions but by supposing (if he
be not the devil himself), that he has a familiar constantly at his elbow.
Sometimes it seems to me that this familiar assumes the shape of that solemn
villain Tomlinson: sometimes that of the execrable Sinclair, as he calls her,
sometimes it is permitted to take that of Lady Betty Lawrance – but, when it
would assume the angelic shape and mien of my beloved friend, see what a bloated
figure it made!
‘Tis my opinion, my dear,
that you will be no longer safe where you are, than while the V. is in the
country. Words are poor! – or how could I execrate him! I have hardly any
doubt that he has sold himself for a time. Oh may the time be short! – or may
his infernal prompter no more keep covenant with him than he does with others!
I enclose not only the rough
draught of my long letter mentioned above; but the heads of that which the young
fellow thought he delivered into your own hands at Hampstead. And when you have
perused them, I will leave you to judge how much reason I had to be surprised
that you wrote me not an answer to either of those letters; one of which you
owned you had received (though it proved to be his forged one); the other
delivered into your own hands, as I was assured; and both of them of so much
concern to your honour; and still how much more surprised I must be when I
received a letter from Mrs. Townsend, dated June 15 from Hampstead, importing
‘That Mr. Lovelace, who had been with you several days, had, on the Monday
before, brought his aunt and cousin, richly dressed, and in a coach and four, to
visit you: who, with your own consent, had carried you to town with them – to
your former lodgings; where you still were: that the Hampstead women believed
you to be married; and reflected upon me as a fomenter of differences between
man and wife: that he himself was at Hampstead the day before; viz.( Wednesday)
the 14th; and boasted of his happiness with you; inviting Mrs. Moore,
Mrs. Bevis, and Miss Rawlins to go to town to visit his spouse; which they
promised to do: that de declared that you were entirely reconciled to your
former lodgings – and that, finally, the women at Hampstead told Mrs. Townsend
that he had very handsomely discharged theirs.’
I own to you, my dear, that
I was so much surprised and disgusted at these appearances, against a conduct
till then unexceptionable, that I was resolved to make myself as easy as I
could, and wait till you should think fit to write to me. But I could rein in my
impatience but for a few days; and on the 20th of June I wrote a
sharp letter to you; which I find you did not receive.
What a fatality, my dear,
has appeared in your case, from the very beginning till this hour! Had my mother
permitted-
But can I blame her; when
you have a father and mother living, who have so much to answer for: - so much!
– as no father and mother, considering the child they have driven, persecuted,
exposed, renounced – ever had to answer for! – But again I must execrate the
abandoned villain – yet, as I said before, all words are poor, and beneath the
occasion!
But see we not, in the
horrid perjuries and treachery of this man, what rakes and libertines will do
when they get a young creature into their power? It is probable that he might
have the intolerable presumption to hope an easier conquest: but, when your
unexampled vigilance and exalted virtue made potions, and rapes, and the utmost
violences, necessary to the attainment of his detestable end, we see that he
never boggled at them. I have no doubt that the same or equal wickedness could
be oftener committed by men of his villainous cast, if the folly and credulity
of the poor inconsiderates who throw themselves into their hands did not give
them an easier triumph.
With what comfort must those
parents reflect upon these things, who have happily disposed of their daughters
in marriage to a virtuous man! And how happy the young women who find themselves
safe in a worthy protection! – If such a person as Miss Clarissa Harlowe could
not escape, who can be secure? – since, though every rake is not a Lovelace,
neither is every woman a Clarissa: and his attempts were but proportioned to
your resistance and vigilance.
My mother has commanded me
to let you know her thoughts upon the whole of your sad story. I will do it in
another letter; and send it to you with this by a special messenger.
But, for the future, if you
approve of it, I will send my letters by the usual hand (Collins’s), to be
left at the Saracen’s Head on Snow Hill: whither you may send yours (as we
both used to do, to Wilson’s), except such as we shall think fit to transmit
by the post: which I am afraid, after my next, must be directed to Mr. Hickman
as before: since my mother is for fixing a condition to out correspondence
which, I doubt, you will not comply with, though I wish you would. This
condition I shall acquaint you with by and by.
Meantime, begging excuse for
all the harsh things in my last, I beseech you, my dearest creature, to believe
me to be,
Your truly sympathizing,
And unalterable friend,
Anna Howe
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[1] See pp. 811 ff.
[2] See p. 743.
[3] See p. 856.