Clarissa, Volume 6 | Page 7

come, in order to lay before her the present state of things; and if she would pay a deference to her judgment, to let her have an opportunity to give it, on the full knowledge of the case--
So I would, Mr. Lovelace, was the answer, if I were in doubt myself, which I would prefer--marriage, or the scheme I have mentioned. You cannot think, Sir, but the latter must be my choice. I wish to part with you with temper--don't put me upon repeating--
Part with me, Madam! interrupted I--I cannot bear those words!--But let me beseech you, however, to write to Miss Howe. I hope, if Miss Howe is not my enemy--
She is not the enemy of your person, Sir;--as you would be convinced, if you saw her last letter* to me. But were she not an enemy to your actions, she would not be my friend, nor the friend of virtue. Why will you provoke from me, Mr. Lovelace, the harshness of expression, which, however, which, however deserved by you, I am unwilling just now to use, having suffered enough in the two past days from my own vehemence?
* The lady innocently means Mr. Lovelace's forged one. See Vol. V. Letter XXX.
I bit my lip for vexation. And was silent.
Miss Howe, proceeded she, knows the full state of matters already, Sir. The answer I expect from her respects myself, not you. Her heart is too warm in the cause of friendship, to leave me in suspense one moment longer than is necessary as to what I want to know. Nor does her answer absolutely depend upon herself. She must see a person first, and that person perhaps see others.
The cursed smuggler-woman, Jack!--Miss Howe's Townsend, I doubt not-- Plot, contrivance, intrigue, stratagem!--Underground-moles these women-- but let the earth cover me!--let me be a mole too, thought I, if they carry their point!--and if this lady escape me now!
She frankly owned that she had once thought of embarking out of all our ways for some one of our American colonies. But now that she had been compelled to see me, (which had been her greatest dread), and which she might be happiest in the resumption of her former favourite scheme, if Miss Howe could find her a reputable and private asylum, till her cousin Morden could come.--But if he came not soon, and if she had a difficulty to get to a place of refuge, whether from her brother or from any body else, [meaning me, I suppose,] she might yet perhaps go abroad; for, to say the truth, she could not think of returning to her father's house, since her brother's rage, her sister's upbraidings, her father's anger, her mother's still-more-affecting sorrowings, and her own consciousness under them all, would be unsupportable to her.
O Jack! I am sick to death, I pine, I die, for Miss Howe's next letter! I would bind, gag, strip, rob, and do any thing but murder, to intercept it.
But, determined as she seems to be, it was evident to me, nevertheless, that she had still some tenderness for me.
She often wept as she talked, and much oftener sighed. She looked at me twice with an eye of undoubted gentleness, and three times with an eye tending to compassion and softness; but its benign rays were as often snatched back, as I may say, and her face averted, as if her sweet eyes were not to be trusted, and could not stand against my eager eyes; seeking, as they did, for a lost heart in her's, and endeavouring to penetrate to her very soul.
More than once I took her hand. She struggled not much against the freedom. I pressed it once with my lips--she was not very angry. A frown indeed--but a frown that had more distress in it than indignation.
How came the dear soul, (clothed as it is with such a silken vesture,) by all its steadiness?* Was it necessary that the active gloom of such a tyrant of a father, should commix with such a passive sweetness of a will-less mother, to produce a constancy, an equanimity, a steadiness, in the daughter, which never woman before could boast of? If so, she is more obliged to that despotic father than I could have imagined a creature to be, who gave distinction to every one related to her beyond what the crown itself can confer.
* See Vol. I. Letters IX. XIV. and XIX. for what she herself says on that steadiness which Mr. Lovelace, though a deserved sufferer by it, cannot help admiring.
I hoped, I said, that she would admit of the intended visit, which I had so often mentioned, of the two ladies.
She was here. She had seen me. She could not help herself at present. She even had the highest regard for the