Clarissa Harlowe Samuel Richardson (most important books to read TXT) 📖

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? Letter 90 Miss Clarissa Harlowe, to Miss Howe

Sunday Morning, April 9

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.

Sunday, four in the afternoon.

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 tomorrow, 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 summerhouse. My request to do so, was complied with at the first word. To show 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?

Sunday Evening, seven o’clock.

There remains my letter still!⁠—He is busied, I suppose, in his preparations for tomorrow. 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 might 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 anything 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.

Sunday Night, nine o’clock.

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 everybody 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.

Monday Morn. April 10, seven o’clock.

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 everyone else would have seen it in, had I been guilty of it. But what can I do, if he come today 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