Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 2 (38 page)

And is it worthy of your generosity [I ask you, my dear, is it?] to think of taking so undutiful a step, because you believe your mother would be glad to receive you again?

I do assure you, that were I to take this step myself, I would run all risks rather than you should accompany me in it. Have I, do you think, a desire to double and treble my own fault in the eye of the world? in the eye of that world which, cruelly as I am used, (not knowing all,) would not acquit me?

But, my dearest, kindest friend, let me tell you, that we will neither of us take such a step. The manner of putting your questions abundantly convinces me, that I ought not, in your opinion, to attempt it. You no doubt intend that I shall so take it; and I thank you for the equally polite and forcible conviction.

It is some satisfaction to me (taking the matter in this light) that I had begun to waver before I received your last. And now I tell you, that it has absolutely determined me not to go off; at least not to-morrow.

If you, my dear, think the issue of the alternative (to use your own words) sits so lightly upon my mind, in short, that my inclination is faulty; the world would treat me much less scrupulously. When therefore you represent, that all punctilio must be at an end the moment I am out of my father's house; and hint, that I must submit it to Mr. Lovelace to judge when he can leave me with safety; that is to say, give him the option whether he will leave me, or not; who can bear these reflections, who can resolve to incur these inconveniencies, that has the question still in her own power to decide upon?

While I thought only of an escape from this house as an escape from Mr. Solmes; that already my reputation suffered by my confinement; and that it would be in my own option either to marry Mr. Lovelace, or wholly to renounce him; bold as the step was, I thought, treated as I am treated, something was to be said in excuse of it--if not to the world, to myself: and to be self-acquitted, is a blessing to be preferred to the option of all the world. But, after I have censured most severely, as I have ever done, those giddy girls, who have in the same hour, as I may say, that they have fled from their chamber, presented themselves at the altar that is witness to their undutiful rashness; after I have stipulated with Mr. Lovelace for time, and for an ultimate option whether to accept or refuse him; and for his leaving me, as soon as I am in a place of safety (which, as you observe, he must be the judge of); and after he has signified to me hi compliance with these terms; so that I cannot, if I would, recall them, and suddenly marry;--you see, my dear, that I have nothing left me but to resolve not to go away with him!

But, how, on this revocation of my appointment, shall I be able to pacify
him?

How!--Why assert the privilege of my sex!--Surely, on this side of the solemnity he has no right to be displeased. Besides, did I not reserve a power of receding, as I saw fit? To what purpose, as I asked in the case between your mother and you, has any body an option, if the making use of it shall give the refused a right to be disgusted?

Far, very far, would those, who, according to the old law, have a right of absolving or confirming a child's promise, be from ratifying mine, had it been ever so solemn a one.* But this was rather an appointment than a promise: and suppose it had been the latter; and that I had not reserved to myself a liberty of revoking it; was it to preclude better or maturer consideration?--If so, how unfit to be given!--how ungenerous to be insisted upon!--And how unfitter still to be kept!--Is there a man living who ought to be angry that a woman whom he hopes one day to call his, shall refuse to keep a rash promise, when, on the maturest deliberation, she is convinced that it was a rash one?

* See Numb. XXX. Where it is declared, whose vows shall be binding, and whose not. The vows of a man, or of a widow, are there pronounced to be indispensable; because they are sole, and subject to no other domestic authority. But the vows of a single woman, or of a wife, if the father of the one, or the husband of the other, disallow of them as soon as they know them, are to be of no force.

A matter highly necessary to be known; by all young ladies especially, whose designing addressers too often endeavour to engage them by vows; and then plead conscience and honour to them to hold them down to the performance.

It cannot be amiss to recite the very words.

Ver. 3 If a woman vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself by a bond, being in her father's house in her youth;

4. And her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she hath bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at her; then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand.

5. But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any of her vows or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand: and the Lord shall forgive her, because her father disallowed her.

The same in the case of a wife, as said above. See ver. 6, 7, 8, &c.-- All is thus solemnly closed:

Ver. 16. These are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses between a man and his wife, between the father and his daughter, being yet in her youth in her father's house.

I resolve then, upon the whole, to stand this one trial of Wednesday next--or, perhaps, I should rather say, of Tuesday evening, if my father hold his purpose of endeavouring, in person, to make me read, or hear read, and then sign, the settlements.--That, that must be the greatest trial of all.

If I am compelled to sign them over-night--then (the Lord bless me!) must all I dread follow, as of course, on Wednesday. If I can prevail upon them by my prayers [perhaps I shall fall into fits; for the very first appearance of my father, after having been so long banished his presence, will greatly affect me--if, I say, I can prevail upon them by my prayers] to lay aside their views; or to suspend the day, if but for one week; but if not, but for two or three days; still Wednesday will be a lighter day of trial. They will surely give me time to consider: to argue with myself. This will not be promising. As I have made no effort to get away, they have no reason to suspect me; so I may have an opportunity, in the last resort, to withdraw. Mrs. Norton is to be with me: she, although she should be chidden for it, will, in my extremity, plead for me. My aunt Hervey may, in such an extremity, join with her. Perhaps my mother may be brought over. I will kneel to each, one by one, to make a friend. Some of them have been afraid to see me, lest they should be moved in my favour: does not this give a reasonable hope that I may move them? My brother's counsel, heretofore given, to turn me out of doors to my evil destiny, may again be repeated, and may prevail; then shall I be in no worse case than now, as to the displeasure of my friends; and thus far better, that it will not be my fault that I seek another protection: which even then ought to be my cousin Morden's, rather than Mr. Lovelace's, or any other person's.

My heart, in short, misgives me less, when I resolve this way, than when I think of the other: and in so strong and involuntary a bias, the heart is, as I may say, conscience. And well cautions the wise man: 'Let the counsel of thine own heart stand; for there is no man more faithful to thee than it: for a man's mind is sometimes wont to tell him more than seven watchmen, that sit above in a high tower.'*

* Ecclus. xxxvii. 13, 14.

Forgive these indigested self-reasonings. I will close here: and instantly set about a letter of revocation to Mr. Lovelace; take it as he will. It will only be another trial of temper to him. To me of infinite importance. And has he not promised temper and acquiescence, on the supposition of a change in my mind?

Nobody it seems will go to church this day. No blessing to be expected perhaps upon views so worldly, and in some so cruel.

They have a mistrust that I have some device in my head. Betty has been looking among my clothes. I found her, on coming up from depositing my letter to Lovelace (for I have written!) peering among them; for I had left the key in the lock. She coloured, and was confounded to be caught. But I only said, I should be accustomed to any sort of treatment in time. If she had her orders--those were enough for her.

She owned, in her confusion, that a motion had been made to abridge me of my airings; and the report she should make, would be of no disadvantage to me. One of my friends, she told me, urged in my behalf, That there was no need of laying me under greater restraint, since Mr. Lovelace's threatening to rescue me by violence, were I to have been carried to my uncle's, was a conviction that I had no design to go to him voluntarily; and that if I had, I should have made preparations of that kind before now; and, most probably, had been detected in them.--Hence, it was also inferred, that there was no room to doubt, but I would at last comply. And, added the bold creature, if you don't intend to do so, your conduct, Miss, seems strange to me.--Only thus she reconciled it, that I had gone so far, I knew not how to come off genteelly: and she fancied I should, in full congregation, on Wednesday, give Mr. Solmes my hand. And then said the confident wench, as the learned Dr. Brand took his text last Sunday, There will be joy in heaven--

This is the substance of my letter to Mr. Lovelace:

'That I have reasons of the greatest consequence to myself (and which, when known, must satisfy him) to suspend, for the present, my intention of leaving my father's house: that I have hopes that matters may be brought to an happy conclusion, without taking a step, which nothing but the last necessity could justify: and that he may depend upon my promise, that I will die rather than consent to marry Mr. Solmes.'

And so, I am preparing myself to stand the shock of his exclamatory reply. But be that what it will, it cannot affect me so much, as the apprehensions of what may happen to me next Tuesday or Wednesday; for now those apprehensions engage my whole attention, and make me sick at the very heart.

My letter is not yet taken away--If he should not send for it, or take it, or come hither on my not meeting him to-morrow, in doubt of what may have befallen me, what shall I do! Why had I any concerns with this sex! --I, that was so happy till I knew this man!

I dined in the ivy summer-house. My request to do so, was complied with at the first word. To shew I meant nothing, I went again into the house with Betty, as soon as I had dined. I thought it was not amiss to ask this liberty; the weather seemed to be set in fine. Who knows what Tuesday or Wednesday may produce?

There remains my letter still!--He is busied, I suppose, in his preparations for to-morrow. But then he has servants. Does the man think he is so secure of me, that having appointed, he need not give himself any further concern about me till the very moment? He knows how I am beset. He knows not what may happen. I may be ill, or still more closely watched or confined than before. The correspondence might be discovered. It might be necessary to vary the scheme. I might be forced into measures, which might entirely frustrate my purpose. I might have new doubts. I might suggest something more convenient, for any thing he knew. What can the man mean, I wonder!--Yet it shall lie; for if he has it any time before the appointed hour, it will save me declaring to him personally my changed purpose, and the trouble of contending with him on that score. If he send for it at all, he will see by the date, that he might have had it in time; and if he be put to any inconvenience from shortness of notice, let him take it for his pains.

It is determined, it seems, to send for Mrs. Norton to be here on Tuesday to dinner; and she is to stay with me for a whole week.

So she is first to endeavour to persuade me to comply; and, when the violence is done, she is to comfort me, and try to reconcile me to my fate. They expect fits and fetches, Betty insolently tells me, and expostulations, and exclamations, without number: but every body will be prepared for them: and when it's over, it's over; and I shall be easy and pacified when I find I can't help it.

O my dear! there yet lies the letter, just as I left it!

Does he think he is so sure of me?--Perhaps he imagines that I dare not alter my purpose. I wish I had never known him! I begin now to see this rashness in the light every one else would have seen it in, had I been guilty of it. But what can I do, if he come to-day at the appointed time! If he receive not the letter, I must see him, or he will think something has befallen me; and certainly will come to the house. As certainly he will be insulted. And what, in that case, may be the consequence! Then I as good as promised that I would take the first opportunity to see him, if I change my mind, and to give him my reasons for it. I have no doubt but he will be out of humour upon it: but better, if we meet, that he should go away dissatisfied with me, than that I should go away dissatisfied with myself.

Yet, short as the time is, he may still perhaps send, and get the letter. Something may have happened to prevent him, which when known will excuse him.

After I have disappointed him more than once before, on a requested interview only, it is impossible he should not have a curiosity at least, to know if something has not happened; and whether my mind hold or not in this more important case. And yet, as I rashly confirmed my resolution by a second letter, I begin now to doubt it.

My cousin Dolly Hervey slid the enclosed letter into my hand, as I passed by her, coming out of the garden.

I have got intelligence from one who pretends to know every thing, that you must be married on Wednesday morning to Mr. Solmes. Perhaps, however, she says this only to vex me; for it is that saucy creature Betty Barnes. A license is got, as she says: and so far she went as to tell me (bidding me say nothing, but she knew I would) that Mr. Brand is to marry you. For Dr. Lewen I hear, refuses, unless your consent can be obtained; and they have heard that he does not approve of their proceedings against you. Mr. Brand, I am told, is to have his fortune made by uncle Harlowe and among them.