A letter is put into my hands by Wilson himself.—Such a letter!
A letter from Miss Howe to her cruel friend!—
I made no scruple to open it.
It is a miracle that I fell not into fits at the reading of it; and at the thought of what might have been the consequence, had it come into the hands of this Clarissa Harlowe. Let my justly-excited rage excuse my irreverence.
Collins, though not his day, brought it this afternoon to Wilson's, with a particular desire that it might be sent with all speed to Miss Beaumont's lodgings, and given, if possible, into her own hands. He had before been here (at Mrs. Sinclair's with intent to deliver it to the lady with his own hand; but was told [too truly told!] that she was abroad; but that they would give her any thing he should leave for her the moment she returned.) But he cared not to trust them with his business, and went away to Wilson's, (as I find by the description of him at both places,) and there left the letter; but not till he had a second time called here, and found her not come in.
The letter [which I shall enclose; for it is too long to transcribe] will account to thee for Collins's coming hither.
O this devilish Miss Howe;—something must be resolved upon and done with that little fury!
***
Thou wilt see the margin of this cursed letter crowded with indices [>>>]. I put them to mark the places which call for vengeance upon the vixen writer, or which require animadversion. Return thou it to me the moment thou hast perused it.
Read it here; and avoid trembling for me, if thou canst.
TO MISS LAETITIA BEAUMONT WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7.
MY DEAREST FRIEND,
You will perhaps think that I have been too
long silent. But I had begun two letters at differ-
ent times since my last, and written a great deal
>>> each time; and with spirit enough, I assure you;
incensed as I was against the abominable wretch you
are with; particularly on reading your's of the 21st
of the past month.*
* See Vol. IV. Letter XLVI.
>>> The first I intended to keep open till I could
give you some account of my proceedings with Mrs.
Townsend. It was some days before I saw her:
and this intervenient space giving me time to re-
peruse what I had written, I thought it proper to lay
>>> that aside, and to write in a style a little less fervent;
>>> for you would have blamed me, I know, for the free-
dom of some of my expressions. [Execrations, if
you please.] And when I had gone a good way
in the second, the change in your prospects, on his
communicating to you Miss Montague's letter, and
his better behaviour, occasioning a change in your
mind, I laid that aside also. And in this uncer-
tainty, thought I would wait to see the issue of
affairs between you before I wrote again; believing
that all would soon be decided one way or other.
I had still, perhaps, held this resolution, [as every
appearance, according to your letters, was more and
more promising,] had not the two passed days fur-
nished me with intelligence which it highly imports
you to know.
But I must stop here, and take a little walk, to
try to keep down that just indignation which rises
to my pen, when I am about to relate to you what
I must communicate.
***
I am not my own mistress enough—then my
mother—always up and down—and watching as if
I were writing to a fellow. But I will try if I can
contain myself in tolerable bounds.
The women of the house where you are—O my
dear, the women of the house—but you never
thought highly of them—so it cannot be very sur-
>>> prising—nor would you have staid so long with
them, had not the notion of removing to one of your
own, made you less uneasy, and less curious about
their characters, and behaviour. Yet I could now
wish, that you had been less reserved among them
>>> —But I tease you—In short, my dear, you are
certainly in a devilish house!—Be assured that the
woman is one of the vilest women—nor does
she go to you by her right name—[Very true!]—
Her name is not Sinclair, nor is the street she lives
in Dover-street. Did you never go out by your-
self, and discharge the coach or chair, and return
>>> by another coach or chair? If you did, [yet I
don't remember that you ever wrote to me, that
you did,] you would never have found your way to
the vile house, either by the woman's name, Sin-
clair, or by the street's name, mentioned by that
Doleman in his letter about the lodgings.*
* Vol. III. Letters XXXVIII. and XXXIX.
The wretch might indeed have held out these
false lights a little more excusably, had the house
been an honest house; and had his end only been
to prevent mischief from your brother. But this
contrivance was antecedent, as I think, to your
brother's project; so that no excuse can be made
>>> for his intentions at the time—the man, whatever he
may now intend, was certainly then, even then, a
villain in his heart.
***
>>> I am excessively concerned that I should be pre-
vailed upon, between your over-niceness, on one
hand, and my mother's positiveness, on the other, to
be satisfied without knowing how to direct to you
at your lodgings. I think too, that the proposal
that I should be put off to a third-hand knowledge,
or rather veiled in a first-hand ignorance, came from
him, and that it was only acquiesced in by you, as
it was by me,* upon needless and weak considera-
tions; because, truly, I might have it to say, if
challenged, that I knew not where to send to you!
I am ashamed of myself!—Had this been at first
excusable, it could not be a good reason for going
on in the folly, when you had no liking to the
>>> house, and when he began to play tricks, and delay
with you.—What! I was to mistrust myself, was
I? I was to allow it to be thought, that I could
>>> not keep my own secret?—But the house to be
>>> taken at this time, and at that time, led us both on
>>> —like fools, like tame fools, in a string. Upon my
life, my dear, this man is a vile, a contemptible
villain—I must speak out!—How has he laughed
in his sleeve at us both, I warrant, for I can't tell
how long!
* See Vol. III. Letter LVI. par. 12. and Letter LVIII. par. 12.—Where the reader will observe, that the proposal came from herself; which, as it was also mentioned by Mr. Lovelace, (towards the end of Letter I. in Vol. IV.) she may be presumed to have forgotten. So that Clarissa had a double inducement for acquiescing with the proposed method of carrying on the correspondence between Miss Howe and herself by Wilson's conveyance, and by the name of Laetitia Beaumont.
And yet who could have thought that a man of
>>> fortune, and some reputation, [this Doleman, I
mean—not your wretch, to be sure!] formerly a
rake, indeed, [I inquired after him long ago; and
so was the easier satisfied;] but married to a
woman of family—having had a palsy-blow—and,
>>> one would think, a penitent, should recommend
such a house [why, my dear, he could not inquire
of it, but must find it to be bad] to such a man as
Lovelace, to bring his future, nay, his then supposed,
bride to?
***
>>> I write, perhaps, with too much violence, to be
clear, but I cannot help it. Yet I lay down my
pen, and take it up every ten minutes, in order to
write with some temper—my mother too, in and
out—What need I, (she asks me,) lock myself in,
if I am only reading past correspondencies? For
>>> that is my pretence, when she comes poking in with
her face sharpened to an edge, as I may say, by a
curiosity that gives her more pain than pleasure.—
>>> The Lord forgive me; but I believe I shall huff
her next time she comes in.
***
Do you forgive me too, my dear—my mother
ought; because she says, I am my father's girl; and
because I am sure I am her's. I don't kow what
to do—I don't know what to write next—I have
so much to write, yet have so little patience, and so
little opportunity.
But I will tell you how I came by my intelli-
>>> gence. That being a fact, and requiring the less
attention, I will try to account to you for that.
Thus, then, it came about: 'Miss Lardner
(whom you have seen at her cousin Biddulph's)
saw you at St. James's Church on Sunday was fort-
night. She kept you in her eye during the whole
time; but could not once obtain the notice of your's,
though she courtesied to you twice. She thought to
pay her compliments to you when the service was
over, for she doubted not but you were married—
>>> and for an odd reason—because you came to church
by yourself. Every eye, (as usual, wherever you
are, she said,) was upon you; and this seeming to
give you hurry, and you being nearer the door than
she, you slid out, before she could get to you.—But
she ordered her servant to follow you till you were
housed. This servant saw you step into a chair,
which waited for you; and you ordered the men to
carry you to the place where they took you up.
'The next day, Miss Lardner sent the same
servant, out of mere curiosity, to make private in-
quiry whether Mr. Lovelace were, or were not,
with you there.—And this inquiry brought out,
>>> from different people, that the house was suspected
to be one of those genteel wicked houses, which
receive and accommodate fashionable people of both
sexes.
'Miss Lardner, confounded at this strange intel-
ligence, made further inquiry; enjoining secrecy
to the servant she had sent, as well as to the gentle-
>>> man whom she employed; who had it confirmed
from a rakish friend, who knew the house; and
told him, that there were two houses: the one in
which all decent appearances were preserved, and guests
rarely admitted; the other, the receptacle of those
who were absolutely engaged, and broken to the
vile yoke.’
>>> Say—my dear creature—say—Shall I not exe-
crate the wretch?—But words are weak—What
can I say, that will suitably express my abhorrence
of such a villain as he must have been, when he
meditated to carry a Clarissa to such a place!
'Miss Lardner kept this to herself some days,
not knowing what to do; for she loves you, and
admires you of all women. At last she revealed it,
but in confidence, to Miss Biddulph, by letter.
Miss Biddulph, in like confidence, being afraid it
would distract me, were I to know it, communi-
cated it to Miss Lloyd; and so, like a whispered
scandal, it passed through several canals, and then
it came to me; which was not till last Monday.’
I thought I should have fainted upon the surpris-
ing communication. But rage taking place, it blew
away the sudden illness. I besought Miss Lloyd
to re-enjoin secrecy to every one. I told her that
>>> I would not for the world that my mother, or any
of your family, should know it. And I instantly
caused a trusty friend to make what inquiries he
could about Tomlinson.
>>> I had thoughts to have done it before I had this
intelligence: but not imagining it to be needful, and
little thinking that you could be in such a house, and
as you were pleased with your changed prospects, I
>>> forbore. And the rather forbore, as the matter is
so laid, that Mrs. Hodges is supposed to know
nothing of the projected treaty of accommodation;
but, on the contrary, that it was designed to be a
secret to her, and to every body but immediate
parties; and it was Mrs. Hodges that I had pro-
posed to sound by a second hand.
>>> Now, my dear, it is certain, without applying to
that too-much-favoured housekeeper, that there is
not such a man within ten miles of your uncle.—
Very true!—One Tomkins there is, about four miles
off; but he is a day-labourer: and one Thompson,
about five miles distant the other way; but he is a
parish schoolmaster, poor, and about seventy.
>>> A man, thought but of £.800 a year, cannot come
from one country to settle in another, but every
body in both must know it, and talk of it.
>>> Mrs. Hodges may yet be sounded at a distance,
if you will. Your uncle is an old man. Old men
imagine themselves under obligation to their para-
>>> mours, if younger than themselves, and seldom
keep any thing from their knowledge. But if we
suppose him to make secret of this designed treaty,
it is impossible, before that treaty was thought of,
but she must have seen him, at least have heard
your uncle speak praisefully of a man he is said to
be so intimate with, let him have been ever so little
a while in those parts.
>>> Yet, methinks, the story is so plausible—Tom-
linson, as you describe him, is so good a man, and
so much of a gentleman; the end to be answered
>>> by his being an impostor, so much more than neces-
sary if Lovelace has villany in his head; and as
>>> you are in such a house—your wretch's behaviour
to him was so petulant and lordly; and Tomlin-
son's answer so full of spirit and circumstance;
>>> and then what he communicated to you of Mr.
Hickman's application to your uncle, and of Mrs.
Norton's to your mother, [some of which particu-
>>> lars, I am satisfied, his vile agent, Joseph Leman,
could not reveal to his vile employer;] his press-
ing on the marriage-day, in the name of your
uncle, which it could not answer any wicked pur-
>>> pose for him to do; and what he writes of your
uncle's proposal, to have it thought that you were
married from the time that you have lived in one
house together; and that to be made to agree with
the time of Mr. Hickman's visit to your uncle.
>>> The insisting on a trusty person's being present at
the ceremony, at that uncle's nomination—These
things make me willing to try for a tolerable construc-
tion to be made of all. Though I am so much
puzzled by what occurs on both sides of the ques-
>>> tion, that I cannot but abhor the devilish wretch,
whose inventions and contrivances are for ever em-
ploying an inquisitive head, as mine is, without
affording the means of absolute detection.
But this is what I am ready to conjecture, that
Tomlinson, specious as he is, is a machine of Love-
>>> lace; and that he is employed for some end, which
has not yet been answered. This is certain, that
not only Tomlinson, but Mennell, who, I think,
attended you more than once at this vile house,
must know it to be a vile house.
What can you then think of Tomlinson's declar-
ing himself in favour of it upon inquiry?
Lovelace too must know it to be so; if not
before he brought you to it, soon after.
>>> Perhaps the company he found there, may be the
most probable way of accounting for his bearing
with the house, and for his strange suspensions of
marriage, when it was in his power to call such an
angel of a woman his.—
>>> O my dear, the man is a villain!—the greatest
of villains, in every light!—I am convinced that he
is.—And this Doleman must be another of his
implements!
>>> There are so many wretches who think that to
be no sin, which is one of the greatest and most
ungrateful of all sins,—to ruin young creatures of
our sex who place their confidence in them; that
the wonder is less than the shame, that people, of
appearance at least, are found to promote the horrid
purposes of profligates of fortune and interest!
>>> But can I think [you will ask with indignant
astonishment] that Lovelace can have designs upon
your honour?
>>> That such designs he has had, if he still hold
them or not, I can have no doubt, now that I know
the house he has brought you to, to be a vile one.
This is a clue that has led me to account for all his
behaviour to you ever since you have been in his
hands.
Allow me a brief retrospection of it all.
We both know, that pride, revenge, and a delight
to tread in unbeaten paths, are principal ingredients
in the character of this finished libertine.
>>> He hates all your family—yourself excepted:
and I have several times thought, that I have seen
>>> him stung and mortified that love has obliged him
to kneel at your footstool, because you are a Har-
lowe. Yet is this wretch a savage in love.—Love
>>> that humanizes the fiercest spirits, has not been able
to subdue his. His pride, and the credit which a
>>> few plausible qualities, sprinkled among his odious
ones, have given him, have secured him too good
a reception from our eye-judging, our undistinguish-
ing, our self-flattering, our too-confiding sex, to
make assiduity and obsequiousness, and a conquest
of his unruly passions, any part of his study.
>>> He has some reason for his animosity to all the
men, and to one woman of your family. He has
always shown you, and his own family too, that he
>>> prefers his pride to his interest. He is a declared
marriage-hater; a notorious intriguer; full of his
inventions, and glorying in them: he never could
draw you into declarations of love; nor till your
>>> wise relations persecuted you as they did, to receive
his addresses as a lover. He knew that you pro-
fessedly disliked him for his immoralities; he could
not, therefore, justly blame you for the coldness
and indifference of your behaviour to him.
>>> The prevention of mischief was your first main
view in the correspondence he drew you into. He
ought not, then, to have wondered that you declared
your preference of the single life to any matrimonial
engagement. He knew that this was always your
>>> preference; and that before he tricked you away
so artfully. What was his conduct to you
afterwards, that you should of a sudden change
it?
Thus was your whole behaviour regular, con-
sistent, and dutiful to those to whom by birth you
owed duty; and neither prudish, coquettish, nor
tyrannical to him.
>>> He had agreed to go on with you upon those
your own terms, and to rely only on his own merits
and future reformation for your favour.
>>> It was plain to me, indeed, to whom you com-
municated all that you knew of your own heart,
though not all of it that I found out, that love had
pretty early gained footing in it. And this you
yourself would have discovered sooner than you
>>> did, had not his alarming, his unpolite, his rough
conduct, kept it under.
>>> I knew by experience that love is a fire that is
not to be played with without burning one's fingers:
I knew it to be a dangerous thing for two single
persons of different sexes to enter into familiarity
and correspondence with each other: Since, as to
the latter, must not a person be capable of premedi-
tated art, who can sit down to write, and not write
from the heart?—And a woman to write her heart
to a man practised in deceit, or even to a man of
some character, what advantage does it give him
over her?
>>> As this man's vanity had made him imagine, that
no woman could be proof against love, when his
address was honourable; no wonder that he
struggled, like a lion held in toils, against a passion
that he thought not returned. And how could
you, at first, show a return in love, to so fierce
a spirit, and who had seduced you away by vile
artifices, but to the approval of those artifices.
>>> Hence, perhaps, it is not difficult to believe, that
it became possible for such a wretch as this to give
way to his old prejudices against marriage; and to
that revenge which had always been a first passion
with him.
This is the only way, I think, to account for his
horrid views in bringing you to a vile house.
And now may not all the rest be naturally
accounted for?—His delays—his teasing ways—
his bringing you to bear with his lodging in the
same house—his making you pass to the people of
>>> it as his wife, though restrictively so, yet with hope,
no doubt, (vilest of villains as he is!) to take you
>>> at an advantage—his bringing you into the com-
pany of his libertine companions—the attempt of
imposing upon you that Miss Partington for a
bedfellow, very probably his own invention for
the worst of purposes—his terrifying you at many
different times—his obtruding himself upon you
when you went out to church; no doubt to prevent
your finding out what the people of the house were
—the advantages he made of your brother's foolish
project with Singleton.
See, my dear, how naturally all this follows from
>>> the discovery made by Miss Lardner. See how
the monster, whom I thought, and so often called,
>>> a fool, comes out to have been all the time one of
the greatest villains in the world!
But if this is so, what, [it would be asked by
an indifferent person,] has hitherto saved you?
Glorious creature!—What, morally speaking, but
your watchfulness! What but that, and the
majesty of your virtue; the native dignity, which,
in a situation so very difficult, (friendless, destitute,
passing for a wife, cast into the company of crea-
tures accustomed to betray and ruin innocent hearts,)
has hitherto enabled you to baffle, over-awe, and
confound, such a dangerous libertine as this; so
habitually remorseless, as you have observed him
to be; so very various in his temper, so inventive,
so seconded, so supported, so instigated, too pro-
bably, as he has been!—That native dignity, that
heroism, I will call it, which has, on all proper
occasions, exerted itself in its full lustre, unmingled
>>> with that charming obligingness and condescending
sweetness, which is evermore the softener of that
dignity, when your mind is free and unapprehen-
sive!
>>> Let me stop to admire, and to bless my beloved
friend, who, unhappily for herself, at an age so
tender, unacquainted as she was with the world, and
with the vile arts of libertines, having been called
upon to sustain the hardest and most shocking trials,
from persecuting relations on one hand, and from
a villanous lover on the other, has been enabled to
give such an illustrious example of fortitude and
prudence as never woman gave before her; and
who, as I have heretofore observed,* has made a
far greater figure in adversity, than she possibly
could have made, had all her shining qualities been
exerted in their full force and power, by the con-
>>> tinuance of that prosperous run of fortune which
attended her for eighteen years of life out of
nineteen.
* See Vol. IV. Letters XXIV.
***
>>> But now, my dear, do I apprehend, that you
are in greater danger than ever yet you have been
in; if you are not married in a week; and yet stay
in this abominable house. For were you out of it,
I own I should not be much afraid for you.
These are my thoughts, on the most deliberate
>>> consideration: 'That he is now convinced, that
he has not been able to draw you off your guard:
that therefore, if he can obtain no new advantage
over you as he goes along, he is resolved to do you
all the poor justice that it is in the power of such a
wretch as he to do you. He is the rather induced to
this, as he sees that all his own family have warmly
engaged themselves in your cause: and that it is
>>> his highest interest to be just to you. Then the
horrid wretch loves you (as well he may) above all
women. I have no doubt of this: with such a love
>>> as such a wretch is capable of: with such a love as
Herod loved his Marianne. He is now therefore,
very probably, at last, in earnest.’
I took time for inquiries of different natures, as
I knew, by the train you are in, that whatever his
designs are, they cannot ripen either for good or
>>> evil till something shall result from this device
of his about Tomlinson and your uncle.
Device I have no doubt that it is, whatever this
dark, this impenetrable spirit intends by it.
>>> And yet I find it to be true, that Counsellor
Williams (whom Mr. Hickman knows to be a man
of eminence in his profession) has actually as good
>>> as finished the settlements: that two draughts of
them have been made; one avowedly to be sent to
one Captain Tomlinson, as the clerk says:—and I
find that a license has actually been more than once
endeavoured to be obtained; and that difficulties
have hitherto been made, equally to Lovelace's
>>> vexation and disappointment. My mother's proctor,
who is very intimate with the proctor applied to
by the wretch, has come at this information in
confidence; and hints, that, as Mr. Lovelace is a
man of high fortunes, these difficulties will probably
be got over.
But here follow the causes of my apprehension of
your danger; which I should not have had a thought
>>> of (since nothing very vile has yet been attempted)
but on finding what a house you are in, and, on that
discovery, laying together and ruminating on past
occurrences.
'You are obliged, from the present favourable
>>> appearances, to give him your company whenever
he requests it.—You are under a necessity of for-
getting, or seeming to forget, past disobligations;
and to receive his addresses as those of a betrothed
lover.—You will incur the censure of prudery and
affectation, even perhaps in your own apprehension,
if you keep him at that distance which has hitherto
>>> been your security.—His sudden (and as suddenly
recovered) illness has given him an opportunity to
find out that you love him. [Alas! my dear, I
knew you loved him!] He is, as you relate, every
>>> hour more and more an encroacher upon it. He
has seemed to change his nature, and is all love and
>>> gentleness. The wolf has put on the sheep's cloth-
ing; yet more than once has shown his teeth, and
his hardly-sheathed claws. The instance you have
given of his freedom with your person,* which you
could not but resent; and yet, as matters are
circumstanced between you, could not but pass
over, when Tomlinson's letter called you into his
>>> company,** show the advantage he has now over
you; and also, that if he can obtain greater, he
will.—And for this very reason (as I apprehend) it
>>> is, that Tomlinson is introduced; that is to say, to
give you the greater security, and to be a mediator,
if mortal offence be given you by any villanous
attempt.—The day seems not now to be so much
in your power as it ought to be, since that now
partly depends on your uncle, whose presence, at
your own motion, he has wished on the occasion.
A wish, were all real, very unlikely, I think, to be
granted.’
* She means the freedom Mr. L