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

be with her!⁠—Alas! Sir, I fear my mother will never get over this shock.⁠—She has been in hourly fits ever since she received the fatal news. My poor father has the gout thrown into his stomach; and Heaven knows⁠—O Cousin!⁠—O Sir!⁠—I meant nothing but the honour of the family; yet have I all the weight thrown upon me⁠—[O this cursed Lovelace!⁠—may I perish if he escape the deserved vengeance!]386

We had begun to please ourselves that we should soon see her here⁠—Good Heaven! that her next entrance into this house, after she abandoned us so precipitately, should be in a coffin.

We can have nothing to do with her executor, (another strange step of the dear creature’s!)⁠—He cannot expect we will⁠—nor, if he be a gentleman, will he think of acting. Do you, therefore, be pleased, Sir, to order an undertaker to convey the body down to us. My mother says she shall be forever unhappy, if she may not in death see the dear creature whom she could not see in life. Be so kind, therefore, as to direct the lid to be only half-screwed down⁠—that (if my poor mother cannot be prevailed upon to dispense with so shocking a spectacle) she may be obliged⁠—she was the darling of her heart!

If we know her will in relation to the funeral, it shall be punctually complied with; as shall everything in it that is fit or reasonable to be performed; and this without the intervention of strangers.

Will you not, dear Sir, favour us with your presence at this melancholy time? Pray do⁠—and pity and excuse, with the generosity which is natural to the brave and the wise, what passed at our last meeting. Everyone’s respects attend you. And I am, Sir,

Your inexpressibly afflicted cousin and servant,

Ja. Harlowe, Jun.

Everything that’s fit or reasonable to be performed! (repeated I to the Colonel from the above letter on his reading it to me); that is everything which she has directed, that can be performed. I hope, Colonel, that I shall have no contention with them. I wish no more for their acquaintance than they do for mine. But you, Sir, must be the mediator between them and me; for I shall insist upon a literal performance in every article.

The Colonel was so kind as to declare that he would support me in my resolution.

Letter 495 Mr. Belford, to Robert Lovelace, Esq.

Sunday Morn. Eight o’clock, Sept. 10

I stayed at Smith’s till I saw the last of all that is mortal of the divine lady.

As she has directed rings by her will to several persons, with her hair to be set in crystal, the afflicted Mrs. Norton cut off, before the coffin was closed four charming ringlets; one of which the Colonel took for a locket, which, he says, he will cause to be made, and wear next his heart in memory of his beloved cousin.

Between four and five in the morning, the corpse was put into the hearse; the coffin before being filled, as intended, with flowers and aromatic herbs, and proper care taken to prevent the corpse suffering (to the eye) from the jolting of the hearse.

Poor Mrs. Norton is extremely ill. I gave particular directions to Mrs. Smith’s maid (whom I have ordered to attend the good woman in a mourning chariot) to take care of her. The Colonel, who rides with his servants within view of the hearse, says that he will see my orders in relation to her enforced.

When the hearse moved off, and was out of sight, I locked up the lady’s chamber, into which all that had belonged to her was removed.

I expect to hear from the Colonel as soon as he is got down, by a servant of his own.

Letter 496 Mr. Mowbray, to John Belford, Esq.

Uxbridge, Sunday Morn. Nine o’clock

Dear Jack,

I send you enclosed a letter from Mr. Lovelace; which, though written in the cursed Algebra, I know to be such a one as will show what a queer way he is in; for he read it to us with the air of a tragedian. You will see by it what the mad fellow had intended to do, if we had not all of us interposed. He was actually setting out with a surgeon of this place, to have the lady opened and embalmed.⁠—Rot me if it be not my full persuasion that, if he had, her heart would have been found to be either iron or marble.

We have got Lord M. to him. His Lordship is also much afflicted at the lady’s death. His sisters and nieces, he says, will be ready to break their hearts. What a rout’s here about a woman! For after all she was no more.

We have taken a pailful of black bull’s blood from him; and this has lowered him a little. But he threatens Col. Morden, he threatens you for your cursed reflections, (cursed reflections indeed, Jack!) and curses all the world and himself still.

Last night his mourning (which is full as deep as for a wife) was brought home, and his fellows’ mourning too. And, though eight o’clock, he would put it on, and make them attend him in theirs.

Everybody blames him on this lady’s account. But I see not for why. She was a vixen in her virtue. What a pretty fellow she has ruined⁠—Hey, Jack!⁠—and her relations are ten times more to blame than he. I will prove this to the teeth of them all. If they could use her ill, why should they expect him to use her well?⁠—You, or I, or Tourville, in his shoes, would have done as he has done. Are not all the girls forewarned?⁠—“Has he done by her as that caitiff Miles did to the farmer’s daughter, whom he tricked up to town, (a pretty girl also, just such another as Bob’s Rosebud), under a notion of waiting on a lady?⁠—Drilled her on,