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

on purpose to give us this opportunity; and, according to the report I shall make on his return, (which I have promised shall be a very faithful one), he will take his measures with you.

I was offering to speak⁠—Hear, Clarissa, what I have to tell you, said she, before you speak, unless what you have to say will signify to me your compliance⁠—Say⁠—Will it?⁠—If it will, you may speak.

I was silent.

She looked with concern and anger upon me⁠—No compliance, I find!⁠—Such a dutiful young creature hitherto!⁠—Will you not, can you not, speak as I would have you speak?⁠—Then (rejecting me as it were with her hand) continue silent.⁠—I, no more than your father, will bear your avowed contradiction.

She paused, with a look of expectation, as if she waited for my consenting answer.

I was still silent; looking down; the tears in my eyes.

O thou determined girl!⁠—But say⁠—Speak out⁠—Are you resolved to stand in opposition to us all, in a point our hearts are set upon?

May I, Madam, be permitted to expostulate?⁠—

To what purpose expostulate with me, Clarissa? Your father is determined. Have I not told you there is no receding; that the honour as well as the interest of the family is concerned? Be ingenuous: you used to be so, even occasionally against yourself:⁠—Who at the long run must submit⁠—all of us to you; or you to all of us?⁠—If you intend to yield at last if you find you cannot conquer, yield now, and with a grace⁠—for yield you must, or be none of our child.

I wept. I knew not what to say; or rather how to express what I had to say.

Take notice, that there are flaws in your grandfather’s will: not a shilling of that estate will be yours, if you do not yield. Your grandfather left it to you, as a reward of your duty to him and to us⁠—You will justly forfeit it, if⁠—

Permit me, good Madam, to say, that, if it were unjustly bequeathed me, I ought not to wish to have it. But I hope Mr. Solmes will be apprised of these flaws.

This is very pertly said, Clarissa: but reflect, that the forfeiture of that estate, through your opposition, will be attended with the total loss of your father’s favour: and then how destitute must you be; how unable to support yourself; and how many benevolent designs and good actions must you give up!

I must accommodate myself, Madam, in the latter case, to my circumstance: much only is required where much is given. It becomes me to be thankful for what I have had. I have reason to bless you, Madam, and my good Mrs. Norton, for bringing me up to be satisfied with little; with much less, I will venture to say, than my father’s indulgence annually confers upon me.⁠—And then I thought of the old Roman and his lentils.

What perverseness! said my mother.⁠—But if you depend upon the favour of either or both of your uncles, vain will be that dependence: they will give you up, I do assure you, if your father does, and absolutely renounce you.

I am sorry, Madam, that I have had so little merit as to have made no deeper impressions of favour for me in their hearts: but I will love and honour them as long as I live.

All this, Clarissa, makes your prepossession in a certain man’s favour the more evident. Indeed, your brother and sister cannot go anywhere, but they hear of these prepossessions.

It is a great grief to me, Madam, to be made the subject of the public talk: but I hope you will have the goodness to excuse me for observing, that the authors of my disgrace within doors, the talkers of my prepossession without, and the reporters of it from abroad, are originally the same persons.

She severely chid me for this.

I received her rebukes in silence.

You are sullen, Clarissa: I see you are sullen.⁠—And she walked about the room in anger. Then turning to me⁠—You can bear the imputation of sullenness I see!⁠—You have no concern to clear yourself of it. I was afraid of telling you all I was enjoined to tell you, in case you were to be unpersuadable: but I find that I had a greater opinion of your delicacy, of your gentleness, than I needed to have⁠—it cannot discompose so steady, so inflexible a young creature, to be told, as I now tell you, that the settlements are actually drawn; and that you will be called down in a very few days to hear them read, and to sign them: for it is impossible, if your heart be free, that you can make the least objection to them; except it will be an objection with you, that they are so much in your favour, and in the favour of all our family.

I was speechless, absolutely speechless. Although my heart was ready to burst, yet could I neither weep nor speak.

I am sorry, said she, for your averseness to this match: (match she was pleased to call it!) but there is no help. The honour and interest of the family, as your aunt has told you, and as I have told you, are concerned; and you must comply.

I was still speechless.

She folded the warm statue, as she was pleased to call me, in her arms; and entreated me, for heaven’s sake, to comply.

Speech and tears were lent me at the same time.⁠—You have given me life, Madam, said I, clasping my uplifted hands together, and falling on one knee; a happy one, till now, has your goodness, and my papa’s, made it! O do not, do not, make all the remainder of it miserable!

Your father, replied she, is resolved not to see you, till he sees you as obedient a child as you used to be. You have never been put to a test till now, that deserved to be called a test. This is, this must be, my last effort with you. Give me hope, my dear child: my peace