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

Up we all went, passing the lady’s door into the dining-room, to proceed to trial.⁠—

Stamp, stamp, stamp up, each on her heels; rave, rave, rave, every tongue⁠—

Bring up the creature before us all this instant!⁠—

And would she have got out of the house, say you?⁠—

These the noises and the speeches as we clattered by the door of the fair bribress.

Up was brought Dorcas (whimpering) between two, both bawling out⁠—You must go⁠—You shall go⁠—’Tis fit you should answer for yourself⁠—You are a discredit to all worthy servants⁠—as they pulled and pushed her upstairs.⁠—She whining, I cannot see his honour⁠—I cannot look so good and so generous a gentleman in the face⁠—O how shall I bear my aunt’s ravings?⁠—

Come up, and be d⁠⸺⁠n’d⁠—Bring her forward, her imperial judge⁠—What a plague, it is the detection, not the crime, that confounds you. You could be quiet enough for days together, as I see by the date, under the villany. Tell me, ungrateful devil, tell me who made the first advances?

Ay, disgrace to my family and blood, cried the old one⁠—tell his honour⁠—tell the truth!⁠—Who made the first advances?⁠—

Ay, cursed creature, cried Sally, who made the first advances?

I have betrayed one trust already!⁠—O let me not betray another!⁠—My lady is a good lady!⁠—O let not her suffer!⁠—

Tell all you know. Tell the whole truth, Dorcas, cried Polly Horton.⁠—His honour loves his lady too well to make her suffer much: little as she requites his love!⁠—

Everybody sees that, cried Sally⁠—too well, indeed, for his honour, I was going to say.

Till now, I thought she deserved my love⁠—But to bribe a servant thus, who she supposed had orders to watch her steps, for fear of another elopement; and to impute that precaution to me as a crime!⁠—Yet I must love her⁠—Ladies, forgive my weakness!⁠—

Curse upon my grimaces!⁠—if I have patience to repeat them!⁠—But thou shalt have it all⁠—thou canst not despise me more than I despise myself!

But suppose, Sir, said Sally, you have my lady and the wench face to face! You see she cares not to confess.

O my carelessness! cried Dorcas⁠—Don’t let my poor lady suffer!⁠—Indeed, if you all knew what I know, you would say her ladyship has been cruelly treated⁠—

See, see, see, see!⁠—repeatedly, everyone at once⁠—Only sorry for the detection, as your honour said⁠—not for the fault.

Cursed creature, and devilish creature, from every mouth.

Your lady won’t, she dare not come out to save you, cried Sally; though it is more his honour’s mercy, than your desert, if he does not cut your vile throat this instant.

Say, repeated Polly, was it your lady that made the first advances, or was it you, you creature⁠—

If the lady had so much honour, bawled the mother, excuse me, so⁠—Excuse me, Sir, (confound the old wretch! she had like to have said son!)⁠—If the lady has so much honour, as we have supposed, she will appear to vindicate a poor servant, misled, as she has been, by such large promises!⁠—But I hope, Sir, you will do them both justice: I hope you will!⁠—Good lack!⁠—Good lack! clapping her hands together, to grant her everything she could ask⁠—to indulge her in her unworthy hatred to my poor innocent house!⁠—to let her go to Hampstead, though your honour told us, you could get no condescension from her; no, not the least⁠—O Sir, O Sir⁠—I hope⁠—I hope⁠—if your lady will not come out⁠—I hope you will find a way to hear this cause in her presence. I value not my doors on such an occasion as this. Justice I ever loved. I desire you will come to the bottom of it in clearance to me. I’ll be sworn I had no privity in this black corruption.

Just then we heard the lady’s door, unbar, unlock, unbolt⁠—

Now, Sir!

Now, Mr. Lovelace!

Now, Sir! from every encouraging mouth!⁠—

But, O Jack! Jack! Jack! I can write no more!

If you must have it all, you must!

Now, Belford, see us all sitting in judgment, resolved to punish the fair bribress⁠—I, and the mother, the hitherto dreaded mother, the nieces Sally, Polly, the traitress Dorcas, and Mabell, a guard, as it were, over Dorcas, that she might not run away, and hide herself:⁠—all predetermined, and of necessity predetermined, from the journey I was going to take, and my precarious situation with her⁠—and hear her unbolt, unlock, unbar, the door; then, as it proved afterwards, put the key into the lock on the outside, lock the door, and put it in her pocket⁠—Will I knew, below, who would give me notice, if, while we were all above, she should mistake her way, and go downstairs, instead of coming into the dining-room: the street-door also doubly secured, and every shutter to the windows round the house fastened, that no noise or screaming should be heard⁠—(such was the brutal preparation)⁠—and then hear her step towards us, and instantly see her enter among us, confiding in her own innocence; and with a majesty in her person and manner, that is natural to her; but which then shone out in all its glory!⁠—Every tongue silent, every eye awed, every heart quaking, mine, in a particular manner sunk, throbless, and twice below its usual region, to once at my throat:⁠—a shameful recreant:⁠—She silent too, looking round her, first on me; then on the mother, no longer fearing her; then on Sally, Polly, and the culprit Dorcas!⁠—such the glorious power of innocence exerted at that awful moment!

She would have spoken, but could not, looking down my guilt into confusion. A mouse might have been heard passing over the floor: her own light feet and rustling silks could not have prevented it; for she seemed to tread air, and to be all soul. She passed backwards and forwards, now towards me, now towards the door several times, before speech could get the better of indignation; and at last, after twice or thrice hemming to recover her articulate voice⁠—“O thou contemptible and abandoned Lovelace, thinkest thou that I see not through this poor villanous plot of