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

soon a young creature, who gives a man the least encouragement, be carried beyond her intentions, and out of her own power! You would imagine, by what he writes, that I have given him reason to think that my aversion to Mr. Solmes is all owing to my favour for him.

The dreadful thing is, that comparing what he writes from his intelligencer of what is designed against me (though he seems not to know the threatened day) with what my aunt and Betty assure me of, there can be no hope for me, but that I must be Solmes’s wife, if I stay here.

I had better have gone to my uncle Antony’s at this rate. I should have gained time, at least, by it. This is the fruit of his fine contrivances!

“What we are to do, and how good he is to be: how I am to direct all his future steps.” All this shows, as I said before, that he is sure of me.

However, I have replied to the following effect: “That although I had given him room to expect that I would put myself into the protection of one of the ladies of his family; yet as I have three days to come, between this and Monday, and as I still hope that my friends will relent, or that Mr. Solmes will give up a point they will find impossible to carry; I shall not look upon myself as absolutely bound by the appointment: and expect therefore, if I recede, that I shall not again be called to account for it by him. That I think it necessary to acquaint him, that if my throwing myself upon Lady Betty Lawrance’s protection, as he proposed, he understands, that I mean directly to put myself into his power, he is very much mistaken: for that there are many points in which I must be satisfied; several matters to be adjusted, even after I have left this house, (if I do leave it), before I can think of giving him any particular encouragement: that in the first place he must expect that I will do my utmost to procure my father’s reconciliation and approbation of my future steps; and that I will govern myself entirely by his commands, in every reasonable point, as much as if I had not left his house: that if he imagines I shall not reserve to myself this liberty, but that my withdrawing is to give him any advantages which he would not otherwise have had; I am determined to stay where I am, and abide the event, in hopes that my friends will still accept of my reiterated promise never to marry him, or anybody else, without their consent.”

This I will deposit as soon as I can. And as he thinks things are near their crisis, I dare say it will not be long before I have an answer to it.

Friday, Four o’clock.

I am really ill. I was used to make the best of any little accidents that befel me, for fear of making my then affectionate friends uneasy: but now I shall make the worst of my indisposition, in hopes to obtain a suspension of the threatened evil of Wednesday next. And if I do obtain it, will postpone my appointment with Mr. Lovelace.

Betty has told them that I am very much indisposed. But I have no pity from anybody.

I believe I am become the object of everyone’s aversion; and that they would all be glad if I were dead. Indeed I believe it. “What ails the perverse creature?” cries one:⁠—“Is she lovesick?” another.

I was in the ivy summerhouse, and came out shivering with cold, as if aguishly affected. Betty observed this, and reported it.⁠—“O no matter!⁠—Let her shiver on!⁠—Cold cannot hurt her. Obstinacy will defend her from harm. Perverseness is a bracer to a lovesick girl, and more effectual than the cold bath to make hardy, although the constitution be ever so tender.”

This was said by a cruel brother, and heard said by the dearer friends of one, for whom, but a few months ago, everybody was apprehensive at the least blast of wind to which she exposed herself!

Betty, it must be owned, has an admirable memory on these occasions. Nothing of this nature is lost by her repetition: even the very air with which she repeats what she hears said, renders it unnecessary to ask, who spoke this or that severe thing.

Friday, Six o’clock.

My aunt, who again stays all night, just left me. She came to tell me the result of my friends’ deliberations about me. It is this:

Next Wednesday morning they are all to be assembled: to wit, my father, mother, my uncles, herself, and my uncle Hervey; my brother and sister of course: my good Mrs. Norton is likewise to be admitted: and Dr. Lewen is to be at hand, to exhort me, it seems, if there be occasion: but my aunt is not certain whether he is to be among them, or to tarry till called in.

When this awful court is assembled, the poor prisoner is to be brought in, supported by Mrs. Norton; who is to be first tutored to instruct me in the duty of a child; which it seems I have forgotten.

Nor is the success at all doubted, my aunt says: since it is not believed that I can be hardened enough to withstand the expostulations of so venerable a judicature, although I have withstood those of several of them separately. And still the less, as she hints at extraordinary condescensions from my father. But what condescensions, even from my father, can induce me to make such a sacrifice as is expected from me?

Yet my spirits will never bear up, I doubt, at such a tribunal⁠—my father presiding in it.

Indeed I expected that my trials would not be at an end till he had admitted me into his awful presence.

What is hoped from me, she says, is, that I will cheerfully, on Tuesday night, if not before, sign the articles;