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

and quicker in their wits by half than men. This ready, though raw wench, gave an instance of this, and improved on the dropsical hint I had given her. The lady’s seeming plumpness was owing to a dropsical disorder, and to the round posture she lay in⁠—very likely, truly. Her appearing to him to be shorter, he might have observed, was owing to her drawing her feet up from pain, and because the couch was too short, she supposed⁠—Adso, he did not think of that. Her rosy colour was owing to her grief and headache.⁠—Ay, that might very well be⁠—but he was highly pleased that he had given the letter into Mrs. Harriot’s own hand, as he should tell Miss Howe.

He desired once more to see the lady at his going away, and would not be denied. The widow therefore sat up, with her handkerchief over her face, leaning her head against the wainscot.

He asked if she had any partiklar message?

No: she was so ill she could not write; which was a great grief to her.

Should he call the next day? for he was going to London, now he was so near; and should stay at a cousin’s that night, who lived in a street called Fetter-Lane.

No: she would write as soon as able, and send by the post.

Well, then, if she had nothing to send by him, mayhap he might stay in town a day or two; for he had never seen the lions in the Tower, nor Bedlam, nor the tombs; and he would make a holiday or two, as he had leave to do, if she had no business or message that required his posting down next day.

She had not.

She offered him the half-guinea I had given her for him; but he refused it with great professions of disinterestedness, and love, as he called it, to Miss Howe; to serve whom, he would ride to the world’s-end, or even to Jericho.

And so the shocking rascal went away: and glad at my heart was I when he was gone; for I feared nothing so much as that he would have stayed till they came from church.

Thus, Jack, got I my heart’s ease, the letter of Miss Howe; ad through such a train of accidents, as makes me say, that the lady’s stars fight against her. But yet I must attribute a good deal to my own precaution, in having taken right measures. For had I not secured the widow by my stories, and the maid by my servant, all would have signified nothing. And so heartily were they secured, the one by a single guinea, the other by half a dozen warm kisses, and the aversion they both had to such wicked creatures as delighted in making mischief between man and wife, that they promised, that neither Mrs. Moore, Miss Rawlins, Mrs. Lovelace, nor anybody living, should know anything of the matter.

The widow rejoiced that I had got the mischief-maker’s letter. I excused myself to her, and instantly withdrew with it; and, after I had read it, fell to my shorthand, to acquaint thee with my good luck: and they not returning so soon as church was done, (stepping, as it proved, into Miss Rawlins’s, and tarrying there awhile, to bring that busy girl with them to drink tea), I wrote thus far to thee, that thou mightest, when thou camest to this place, rejoice with me upon the occasion.

They are all three just come in.

I hasten to them.

Letter 252 Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.

I have begun another letter to thee, in continuation of my narrative: but I believe I shall send thee this before I shall finish that. By the enclosed thou wilt see, that neither of the correspondents deserve mercy from me: and I am resolved to make the ending with one the beginning with the other.

If thou sayest that the provocations I have given to one of them will justify her freedoms; I answer, so they will, to any other person but myself. But he that is capable of giving those provocations, and has the power to punish those who abuse him for giving them, will show his resentment; and the more remorselessly, perhaps, as he has deserved the freedoms.

If thou sayest, it is, however, wrong to do so; I reply, that it is nevertheless human nature:⁠—And wouldst thou not have me to be a man, Jack?

Here read the letter, if thou wilt. But thou art not my friend, if thou offerest to plead for either of the saucy creatures, after thou hast read it.

To Mrs. Harriot Lucas,

At Mrs. Moore’s, at Hampstead.
June 10.

After the discoveries I had made of the villanous machinations of the most abandoned of men, particularized in my long letter of Wednesday235 last, you will believe, my dearest friend, that my surprise upon perusing yours of Thursday evening from Hampstead236 was not so great as my indignation. Had the villain attempted to fire a city instead of a house, I should not have wondered at it. All that I am amazed at is, that he (whose boast, as I am told, it is, that no woman shall keep him out of her bedchamber, when he has made a resolution to be in it) did not discover his foot before. And it is as strange to me, that, having got you at such a shocking advantage, and in such a horrid house, you could, at the time, escape dishonour, and afterwards get from such a set of infernals.

I gave you, in my long letter of Wednesday and Thursday last, reasons why you ought to mistrust that specious Tomlinson. That man, my dear, must be a solemn villain. May lightning from Heaven blast the wretch, who has set him and the rest of his remorseless gang at work, to endeavour to destroy the most consummate virtue!⁠—Heaven be praised! you have escaped from all their snares, and now are out of danger.⁠—So I