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

people. For my part, I don’t love professional any more than national reflections.⁠—But I keep the lady in her closet. My gout makes me rude.

Then up from my seat stumped I⁠—what do you call these window-curtains, Madam?

Stuff-damask, Sir.

It looks mighty well, truly. I like it better than silk. It is warmer to be sure, and much fitter for lodgings in the country; especially for people in years. The bed is in a pretty state.

It is neat and clean, Sir: that’s all we pretend to.

Ay, mighty well⁠—very well⁠—a silk camblet, I think⁠—very well, truly!⁠—I am sure my wife will like it. But we would not turn the lady out of her lodgings for the world. The other two apartments will do for us at present.

Then stumping towards the closet, over the door of which hung a picture⁠—What picture is that⁠—Oh! I see; a St. Cecilia!

A common print, Sir!

Pretty well, pretty well! It is after an Italian master.⁠—I would not for the world turn the lady out of her apartment. We can make shift with the other two, repeated I, louder still: but yet mumblingly hoarse: for I had as great regard to uniformity in accent, as to my words.

O Belford! to be so near my angel, think what a painful constraint I was under.

I was resolved to fetch her out, if possible: and pretending to be going⁠—you can’t agree as to any time, Mrs. Moore, when we can have this third room, can you?⁠—Not that (whispered I, loud enough to be heard in the next room; not that) I would incommode the lady: but I would tell my wife when abouts⁠—and women, you know, Mrs. Moore, love to have everything before them of this nature.

Mrs. Moore (said my charmer) (and never did her voice sound so harmonious to me: Oh! how my heart bounded again! It even talked to me, in a manner; for I thought I heard, as well as felt, its unruly flutters; and every vein about me seemed a pulse; Mrs. Moore) you may acquaint the gentleman, that I shall stay here only for two or three days at most, till I receive an answer to a letter I have written into the country; and rather than be your hindrance, I will take up with any apartment a pair of stairs higher.

Not for the world!⁠—Not for the world, young lady! cried I.⁠—My wife, as I love her, should lie in a garret, rather than put such a considerate young lady, as you seem to be, to the least inconveniency.

She opened not the door yet; and I said, but since you have so much goodness, Madam, if I could but just look into the closet as I stand, I could tell my wife whether it is large enough to hold a cabinet she much values, and will have with her wherever she goes.

Then my charmer opened the door, and blazed upon me, as it were, in a flood of light, like what one might imagine would strike a man, who, born blind, had by some propitious power been blessed with his sight, all at once, in a meridian sun.

Upon my soul, I never was so strangely affected before. I had much ado to forbear discovering myself that instant: but, hesitatingly, and in great disorder, I said, looking into the closet and around it, there is room, I see, for my wife’s cabinet; and it has many jewels in it of high price; but, upon my soul, (for I could not forbear swearing, like a puppy: habit is a cursed thing, Jack⁠—) nothing so valuable as a lady I see, can be brought into it.

She started, and looked at me with terror. The truth of the compliment, as far as I know, had taken dissimulation from my accent.

I saw it was impossible to conceal myself longer from her, any more than (from the violent impulses of my passion) to forbear manifesting myself. I unbuttoned therefore my cape, I pulled off my flapt slouched hat; I threw open my great coat, and, like the devil in Milton (an odd comparison though!)⁠—

I started up in my own form divine,
Touch’d by the beam of her celestial eye,
More potent than Ithuriel’s spear!⁠—

Now, Belford, for a similitude⁠—now for a likeness to illustrate the surprising scene, and the effect it had upon my charmer, and the gentlewoman!⁠—But nothing was like it, or equal to it. The plain fact can only describe it, and set it off⁠—thus then take it.

She no sooner saw who it was, than she gave three violent screams; and, before I could catch her in my arms, (as I was about to do the moment I discovered myself), down she sunk at my feet in a fit; which made me curse my indiscretion for so suddenly, and with so much emotion, revealing myself.

The gentlewoman, seeing so strange an alteration in my person, and features, and voice, and dress, cried out, Murder, help! murder, help! by turns, for half a dozen times running. This alarmed the house, and up ran two servant maids, and my servant after them. I cried out for water and hartshorn, and everyone flew a different way, one of the maids as fast down as she came up; while the gentlewoman ran out of one room into another, and by turns up and down the apartment we were in, without meaning or end, wringing her foolish hands, and not knowing what she did.

Up then came running a gentleman and his sister, fetched, and brought in by the maid, who had run down, and having let in a cursed crabbed old wretch, hobbling with his gout, and mumbling with his hoarse broken-toothed voice, who was metamorphosed all at once into a lively, gay young fellow, with a clear accent, and all his teeth, she would have it, that I was neither more nor less than the devil, and could not keep her eye from my foot, expecting, no doubt, every minute to see it discover itself to be cloven.

For my part, I was so intent