Clarissa Harlowe, Samuel Richardson [black authors fiction .txt] 📗

having Mr. Solmes, if I am carried to my uncle Antony’s; unless I resolve to accept of the protection he has offered to procure me; or except I will escape to London, or elsewhere, while I can escape?”

He advises me, “To sue to your mother, for her private reception of me; only till I can obtain possession of my own estate, and procure my friends to be reconciled to me; which he is sure they will be desirous to be, the moment I am out of their power.”

He apprises me, (It is still my wonder, how he comes by this intelligence!) “That my friends have written to my cousin Morden to represent matters to him in their own partial way; nor doubt they to influence him on their side of the question.

“That all this shows I have but one way; if none of my friends or intimates will receive me.

“If I will transport him with the honour of my choice of this one way, settlements shall be drawn, with proper blanks, which I shall fill up as I pleased. Let him but have my commands from my own mouth, all my doubts and scruples from my own lips; and only a repetition, that I will not, on any consideration, be Solmes’s wife; and he shall be easy. But, after such a letter as I have written, nothing but an interview can make him so.” He beseeches me therefore, “To unbolt the door, as that very night; or, if I receive not this time enough, this night;⁠—and he will, in a disguise that shall not give suspicion who he is, if he should be seen, come to the garden door, in hopes to open it with his key; nor will he have any other lodging than in the coppice both nights; watching every wakeful hour for the propitious unbolting, unless he has a letter with my orders to the contrary, or to make some other appointment.”

This letter was dated yesterday: so he was there last night, I suppose; and will be there this night; and I have not written a line to him: and now it is too late, were I determined what to write.

I hope he will not go to Mr. Solmes.⁠—I hope he will not come hither.⁠—If he do either, I will break with him forever.

What have I to do with these headstrong spirits? I wish I had never⁠—but what signifies wishing?⁠—I am strangely perplexed: but I need not have told you this, after such a representation of my situation.

Letter 62 Miss Clarissa Harlowe, to Miss Howe

Tuesday Morning, 7 o’clock

My uncle has vouchsafed to answer me. These that follow are the contents of his letter; but just now brought me, although written last night⁠—late I suppose.

Monday Night.

Miss Clary,

Since you are grown such a bold challenger, and teach us all our duty, though you will not practise your own, I must answer you. Nobody wants your estate from you. Are you, who refuse everybody’s advice, to prescribe a husband to your sister? Your letter to Mr. Solmes is inexcusable. I blamed you for it before. Your parents will be obeyed. It is fit they should. Your mother has nevertheless prevailed to have your going to your uncle Antony’s put off till Thursday: yet owns you deserve not that, or any other favour from her. I will receive no more of your letters. You are too artful for me. You are an ungrateful and unreasonable child: Must you have your way paramount to everybody’s? How are you altered.

Your displeased uncle,

John Harlowe.

To be carried away on Thursday⁠—To the moated house⁠—To the chapel⁠—To Solmes! How can I think of this!⁠—They will make me desperate.

Tuesday Morning, 8 o’clock.

I have another letter from Mr. Lovelace. I opened it with the expectation of its being filled with bold and free complaints, on my not writing to prevent his two nights watching, in weather not extremely agreeable. But, instead of complaints, he is “full of tender concern lest I may have been prevented by indisposition, or by the closer confinement which he has frequently cautioned me that I may expect.”

He says, “He had been in different disguises loitering about our garden and park wall, all the day on Sunday last; and all Sunday night was wandering about the coppice, and near the back door. It rained; and he has got a great cold, attended with feverishness, and so hoarse, that he has almost lost his voice.”

Why did he not flame out in his letter?⁠—Treated as I am treated by my friends, it is dangerous to be laid under the sense of an obligation to an addresser’s patience; especially when such a one suffers in health for my sake.

“He had no shelter, he says, but under the great overgrown ivy, which spreads wildly round the heads of two or three oaklings; and that was soon wet through.”

You remember the spot. You and I, my dear, once thought ourselves obliged to the natural shade which those ivy-covered oaklings afforded us, in a sultry day.

I can’t help saying, I am sorry he has suffered for my sake; but ’tis his own seeking.

His letter is dated last night at eight: “And, indisposed as he is, he tells me that he will watch till ten, in hopes of my giving him the meeting he so earnestly request. And after that, he has a mile to walk to his horse and servant; and four miles then to ride to his inn.”

He owns, “That he has an intelligencer in our family; who has failed him for a day or two past: and not knowing how I do, or how I may be treated, his anxiety is increased.”

This circumstance gives me to guess who this intelligencer is: Joseph Leman: the very creature employed and confided in, more than any other, by my brother.

This is not an honourable way of proceeding in Mr. Lovelace. Did he learn this infamous practice of corrupting the servants of other families