You know, Madam, he has acknowledged the justice of your resentment—
O Sir, he can acknowledge, and he can retract, fifty times a day—but do not think I am trifling with myself and you, and want to be persuaded to forgive him, and to be his. There is not a creature of my sex, who would have been more explicit, and more frank, than I would have been, from the moment I intended to be his, had I a heart like my own to deal with. I was always above reserve, Sir, I will presume to say, where I had no cause of doubt. Mr. Lovelace’s conduct has made me appear, perhaps, overnice, when my heart wanted to be encouraged and assured! and when, if it had been so, my whole behaviour would have been governed by it.
She stopped; her handkerchief at her eyes.
I inquired after the minutest part of her behaviour, as well as after her words. I love, thou knowest, to trace human nature, and more particularly female nature, through its most secret recesses.
The pitiful fellow was lost in silent admiration of her. And thus the noble creature proceeded.
It is the fate in unequal unions, that tolerable creatures, through them, frequently incur censure, when more happily yoked they might be entitled to praise. And shall I not shun a union with a man, that might lead into errors a creature who flatters herself that she is blest with an inclination to be good; and who wishes to make everyone happy with whom she has any connection, even to her very servants?
She paused, taking a turn about the room—the fellow, devil fetch him, a mummy all the time:—Then proceeded.
Formerly, indeed, I hoped to be an humble mean of reforming him. But, when I have no such hope, is it right (you are a serious man, Sir) to make a venture that shall endanger my own morals?
Still silent was the varlet. If my advocate had nothing to say for me, what hope of carrying my cause?
And now, Sir, what is the result of all?—It is this—that you will endeavour, if you have that influence over him which a man of your sense and experience ought to have, to prevail upon him, and that for his own sake, as well as for mine, to leave me free, to pursue my own destiny. And of this you may assure him, that I will never be any other man’s.
Impossible, Madam! I know that Mr. Lovelace would not hear me with patience on such a topic. And I do assure you that I have some spirit, and should not care to take an indignity from him or from any man living.
She paused—then resuming—and think you, Sir, that my uncle will refuse to receive a letter from me? (How averse, Jack, to concede a tittle in my favour!)
I know, Madam, as matters are circumstanced, that he would not answer it. If you please I will carry one down from you.
And will he not pursue his intentions in my favour, nor be himself reconciled to me, except I am married?
From what your brother gives out, and effects to believe, on Mr. Lovelace’s living with you in the same—
No more, Sir—I am an unhappy creature!
He then re-urged, that it would be in her power instantly, or on the morrow, to put an end to all her difficulties.
How can that be? said she: the license still to be obtained? The settlements still to be signed? Miss Howe’s answer to my last unreceived?—And shall I, Sir, be in such a hurry, as if I thought my honour in danger if I delayed? Yet marry the man from whom only it can be endangered!—Unhappy, thrice unhappy Clarissa Harlowe!—In how many difficulties has one rash step involved thee!—And she turned from him and wept.
The varlet, by way of comfort, wept too: yet her tears, as he might have observed, were tears that indicated rather a yielding than a perverse temper.
There is a sort of stone, thou knowest, so soft in the quarry, that it may in manner be cut with a knife; but if the opportunity not be taken, and it is exposed to the air for any time, it will become as hard as marble, and then with difficulty it yields to the chisel.230 So this lady, not taken at the moment, after a turn or two across the room, gained more resolution! and then she declared, as she had done once before, that she would wait the issue of Miss Howe’s answer to the letter she had sent her from hence, and take her measures accordingly—leaving it to him, meantime, to make what report he thought fit to her uncle—the kindest that truth could bear, she doubted not from Captain Tomlinson: and she should be glad of a few lines from him, to hear what that was.
She wished him a good journey. She complained of her head; and was about to withdraw: but I stepped round to the door next the stairs, as if I had but just come in from the garden (which, as I entered, I called a very pretty one) and took her reluctant hand as she was going out: My dearest life, you are not going?—What hopes, Captain?—Have you not some hopes to give me of pardon and reconciliation?
She said she would not be detained. But I would not let her go till she had promised to return, when the Captain had reported to me what her resolution was.
And when he had, I sent up and claimed her promise; and she came down again, and repeated (as what she was determined upon) that she would wait for Miss Howe’s answers to the letter she had written to her, and take her measures according to its contents.
I expostulated
