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

was the condition of my obedience?

Then, with a faintish, but angry voice, begone from my door!⁠—Wretch! inhuman, barbarous, and all that is base and treacherous! begone from my door! Nor tease thus a poor creature, entitled to protection, not outrage.

I see, Madam, how you keep your word with me⁠—if a sudden impulse, the effects of an unthought-of accident, cannot be forgiven⁠—

O the dreadful weight of a father’s curse, thus in the very letter of it⁠—

And then her voice dying away in murmurs inarticulate, I looked through the keyhole, and saw her on her knees, her face, though not towards me, lifted up, as well as hands, and these folded, depreciating, I suppose, that gloomy tyrant’s curse.

I could not help being moved.

My dearest life! admit me to your presence but for two minutes, and confirm your promised pardon; and may lightning blast me on the spot, if I offer anything but my penitence, at a shrine so sacred!⁠—I will afterwards leave you for a whole day; till tomorrow morning; and then attend you with writings, all ready to sign, a license obtained, or if it cannot, a minister without one. This once believe me! When you see the reality of the danger that gave occasion for this your unhappy resentment, you will think less hardly of me. And let me beseech you to perform a promise on which I made a reliance not altogether ungenerous.

I cannot see you! Would to Heaven I never had! If I write, that’s all I can do.

Let your writing then, my dearest life, confirm your promise: and I will withdraw in expectation of it.

Past Eleven o’clock.

She rung her bell for Dorcas; and, with her door in her hand, only half opened, gave her a billet for me.

How did the dear creature look, Dorcas?

She was dressed. She turned her face quite from me; and sighed, as if her heart would break.

Sweet creature:⁠—I kissed the wet wafer, and drew it from the paper with my breath.

These are the contents.⁠—No inscriptive Sir! No Mr. Lovelace!

I cannot see you: nor will I, if I can help it. Words cannot express the anguish of my soul on your baseness and ingratitude.

If the circumstances of things are such, that I can have no way for reconciliation with those who would have been my natural protectors from such outrages, but through you, (the only inducement I have to stay a moment longer in your knowledge), pen and ink must be, at present, the only means of communication between us.

Vilest of men, and most detestable of plotters! how have I deserved from you the shocking indignities⁠—but no more⁠—only for your own sake, wish not, at least for a week to come, to see

The undeservedly injured and insulted

Clarissa Harlowe

So thou seest, nothing could have stood me in stead, but this plot of Tomlinson and her uncle! To what a pretty pass, nevertheless, have I brought myself!⁠—Had Caesar been such a fool, he had never passed the rubicon. But after he had passed it, had he retreated re infectâ, intimidated by a senatorial edict, what a pretty figure would he have made in history!⁠—I might have known, that to attempt a robbery, and put a person in bodily fear, is as punishable as if the robbery had been actually committed.

But not to see her for a week!⁠—Dear, pretty soul! how she anticipates me in everything! The counsellor will have finished the writings today or tomorrow, at furthest: the license with the parson, or the parson without the license, must also be procured within the next four-and-twenty hours; Pritchard is as good as ready with his indentures tripartite: Tomlinson is at hand with a favourable answer from her uncle⁠—yet not to see her for a week!⁠—Dear sweet soul;⁠—her good angel is gone a journey: is truanting at least. But nevertheless, in thy week’s time, or in much less, my charmer, I doubt not to complete my triumph!

But what vexes me of all things is, that such an excellent creature should break her word:⁠—Fie, fie, upon her!⁠—But nobody is absolutely perfect! ’Tis human to err, but not to persevere⁠—I hope my charmer cannot be inhuman!

Letter 227 Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.

King’s Arms, Pall-Mall, Thursday, Two o’clock

Several billets passed between us before I went out, by the internuncioship of Dorcas: for which reason mine are superscribed by her married name.⁠—She would not open her door to receive them; lest I should be near it, I suppose: so Dorcas was forced to put them under the door (after copying them for thee); and thence to take the answers. Read them, if thou wilt, at this place.

To Mrs. Lovelace

Indeed, my dearest life, you carry this matter too far. What will the people below, who suppose us one as to the ceremony, think of so great a niceness? Liberties so innocent! the occasion so accidental!⁠—You will expose yourself as well as me.⁠—Hitherto they know nothing of what has passed. And what indeed has passed to occasion all this resentment?⁠—I am sure you will not, by a breach of your word of honour, give me reason to conclude that, had I not obeyed you, I could have fared no worse.

Most sincerely do I repent the offence given to your delicacy⁠—But must I, for so accidental an occurrence, be branded by such shocking names?⁠—Vilest of men, and most detestable of plotters, are hard words!⁠—From the pen of such a lady too.

If you step up another pair of stairs, you will be convinced, that, however detestable I may be to you, I am no plotter in this affair.

I must insist upon seeing you, in order to take your directions upon some of the subjects we talked of yesterday in the evening.

All that is more than necessary is too much. I claim your promised pardon, and wish to plead it on my knees.

I beg your presence in the dining-room for one quarter of an hour, and I will then leave you for