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

Insolent devils!⁠—how much more cruel and insulting are bad women even than bad men!

Methinks, Miss, said Sally, you are a little soily, to what we have seen you. Pity such a nice lady should not have changes of apparel! Why won’t you send to your lodgings for linen, at least?

I am not nice now.

Miss looks well and clean in anything, said Polly. But, dear Madam, why won’t you send to your lodgings? Were it but in kindness to the people? They must have a concern about you. And your Miss Howe will wonder what’s become of you; for, no doubt, you correspond.

She turned from them, and, to herself, said, Too much! Too much!⁠—She tossed her handkerchief, wet before with her tears, from her, and held her apron to her eyes.

Don’t weep, Miss! said the vile Polly.

Yet do, cried the viler Sally, it will be a relief. Nothing, as Mr. Lovelace once told me, dries sooner than tears. For once I too wept mightily.

I could not bear the recital of this with patience. Yet I cursed them not so much as I should have done, had I not had a mind to get from them all the particulars of their gentle treatment: and this for two reasons; the one, that I might stab thee to the heart with the repetition; and the other, that I might know upon what terms I am likely to see the unhappy lady tomorrow.

Well, but, Miss Harlowe, cried Sally, do you think these forlorn airs pretty? You are a good Christian, child. Mrs. Rowland tells me, she has got you a Bible-book.⁠—O there it lies!⁠—I make no doubt but you have doubled down the useful places, as honest Matt Prior says.

Then rising, and taking it up.⁠—Ay, so you have.⁠—The Book of Job! One opens naturally here, I see⁠—My mamma made me a fine Bible-scholar.⁠—Ecclesiasticus too!⁠—That’s Apocrypha, as they call it.⁠—You see, Miss Horton, I know something of the book.

They proposed once more to bail her, and to go home with them. A motion which she received with the same indignation as before.

Sally told her, That she had written in a very favourable manner, in her behalf, to you; and that she every hour expected an answer; and made no doubt, that you would come up with a messenger, and generously pay the whole debt, and ask her pardon for neglecting it.

This disturbed her so much, that they feared she would have fallen into fits. She could not bear your name, she said. She hoped she should never see you more: and, were you to intrude yourself, dreadful consequences might follow.

Surely, they said, she would be glad to be released from her confinement.

Indeed she should, now they had begun to alarm her with his name, who was the author of all her woes: and who, she now saw plainly, gave way to this new outrage, in order to bring her to his own infamous terms.

Why then, they asked, would she not write to her friends, to pay Mrs. Sinclair’s demand?

Because she hoped she should not trouble anybody; and because she knew that the payment of the money if she should be able to pay it, was not what was aimed at.

Sally owned that she told her, That, truly, she had thought herself as well descended, and as well educated, as herself, though not entitled to such considerable fortunes. And had the impudence to insist upon it to me to be truth.

She had the insolence to add, to the lady, That she had as much reason as she to expect Mr. Lovelace would marry her; he having contracted to do so before he knew Miss Clarissa Harlowe: and that she had it under his hand and seal too⁠—or else he had not obtained his end: therefore it was not likely she should be so officious as to do his work against herself, if she thought Mr. Lovelace had designs upon her, like what she presumed to hint at: that, for her part, her only view was, to procure liberty to a young gentlewoman, who made those things grievous to her which would not be made such a rout about by anybody else⁠—and to procure the payment of a just debt to her friend Mrs. Sinclair.

She besought them to leave her. She wanted not these instances, she said, to convince her of the company she was in; and told them, that, to get rid of such visitors, and of the still worse she was apprehensive of, she would write to one friend to raise the money for her; though it would be death for her to do so; because that friend could not do it without her mother, in whose eye it would give a selfish appearance to a friendship that was above all sordid alloys.

They advised her to write out of hand.

But how much must I write for? What is the sum? Should I not have had a bill delivered me? God knows, I took not your lodgings. But he that could treat me as he has done, could do this!

Don’t speak against Mr. Lovelace, Miss Harlowe. He is a man I greatly esteem. (Cursed toad!) And, ’bating that he will take his advantage, where he can, of us silly credulous women, he is a man of honour.

She lifted up her hands and eyes, instead of speaking: and well she might! For any words she could have used could not have expressed the anguish she must feel on being comprehended in the us.

She must write for one hundred and fifty guineas, at least: two hundred, if she were short of more money, might well be written for.

Mrs. Sinclair, she said, had all her clothes. Let them be sold, fairly sold, and the money go as far as it would go. She had also a few other valuables; but no money, (none at all), but the poor half guinea, and the little silver they had seen. She would give bond to pay all that her apparel, and the other