Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady Volume IX Part 9

I will take her papers. And, as no one can do her memory justice equal to myself, and I will not spare myself, who can better show the world what she was, and what a villain he that could use her ill? And the world shall also see what implacable and unworthy parents she had.

All shall be set forth in words at length. No mincing of the matter.

Names undisguised as well as facts. For, as I shall make the worst figure in it myself, and have a right to treat myself as n.o.body else shall, who shall controul me? who dare call me to account?

Let me know, if the d----d mother be yet the subject of the devil's own vengeance--if the old wretch be dead or alive? Some exemplary mischief I must yet do. My revenge shall sweep away that devil, and all my opposers of the cruel Harlowe family, from the face of the earth. Whole hecatombs ought to be offered up to the manes of my Clarissa Lovelace.

Although her will may in some respects cross mine, yet I expect to be observed. I will be the interpreter of her's.

Next to mine, her's shall be observed: for she is my wife, and shall be to all eternity.--I will never have another.

Adieu, Jack, I am preparing to be with you. I charge you, as you value my life or your own, do not oppose me in any thing relating to my Clarissa Lovelace.

My temper is entirely altered. I know not what it is to laugh, or smile, or be pleasant. I am grown choleric and impatient, and will not be controuled.

I write this in characters as I used to do, that n.o.body but you should know what I write. For never was any man plagued with impertinents as I am.

R. LOVELACE.

IN A SEPARATE PAPER ENCLOSED IN THE ABOVE.

Let me tell thee, in characters still, that I am in a dreadful way just now. My brain is all boiling like a cauldron over a fiery furnace. What a devil is the matter with me, I wonder! I never was so strange in my life.

In truth, Jack, I have been a most execrable villain. And when I consider all my actions to the angel of a woman, and in her the piety, the charity, the wit, the beauty, I have helped to destroy, and the good to the world I have thereby been a mean of frustrating, I can p.r.o.nounce d----n----n upon myself. How then can I expect mercy any where else?

I believe I shall have no patience with you when I see you. Your d----d stings and reflections have almost turned my brain.

But here Lord M. they tell me, is come!--D----n him, and those who sent for him!

I know not what I have written. But her dear heart and a lock of her hair I will have, let who will be the gainsayers! For is she not mine?

Whose else can she be? She has no father nor mother, no sister, no brother, no relations but me. And my beloved is mine, and I am her's-- and that's enough.--But Oh!--

She's out. The damp of death has quench'd her quite!

Those spicy doors, her lips, are shut, close lock'd, Which never gale of life shall open more!

And is it so?--Is it indeed so?--Good G.o.d!--Good G.o.d!--But they will not let me write on. I must go down to this officious Peer--Who the devil sent for him?

LETTER XXIV

MR. BELFORD, TO RICHARD MOWBRAY, ESQ.

SUNDAY, SEPT. 10. FOUR IN THE AFTERNOON.

I have your's, with our unhappy friend's enclosed. I am glad my Lord is with him. As I presume that his phrensy will be but of short continuance, I most earnestly wish, that on his recovery he could be prevailed upon to go abroad. Mr. Morden, who is inconsolable, has seen by the will, (as indeed he suspected before he read it,) that the case was more than a common seduction; and has dropt hints already, that he looks on himself, on that account, as freed from his promises made to the dying lady, which were, that he would not seek to avenge her death.

You must make the recovery of his health the motive for urging him on this head; for, if you hint at his own safety, he will not stir, but rather seek the Colonel.

As to the lock of hair, you may easily pacify him, (as you once saw the angel,) with hair near the colour, if he be intent upon it.

At my Lord's desire I will write on, and in my common hand; that you may judge what is, and what is not, fit to be read to Mr. Lovelace at present. But as I shall not forbear reflections as I go along, in hopes to reach his heart on his recovery, I think it best to direct myself to him still, and that as if he were not disordered.

As I shall not have leisure to take copies, and yet am willing to have the whole subject before me, for my own future contemplation, I must insist upon a return of my letters some time hence. Mr. Lovelace knows that this is one of my conditions; and has. .h.i.therto complied with it.

Thy letter, Mowbray, is an inimitable performance. Thou art a strange impenetrable creature. But let me most earnestly conjure thee, and the idle flutterer, Tourville, from what you have seen of poor Belton's exit; from our friend Lovelace's phrensy, and the occasion of it; and from the terrible condition in which the wretched Sinclair lies; to set about an immediate change of life and manners. For my own part, I am determined, be your resolutions what they may, to take the advice I give.

As witness, J. BELFORD.

LETTER XXV

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

O Lovelace! I have a scene to paint in relation to the wretched Sinclair, that, if I do it justice, will make thee seriously ponder and reflect, or nothing can. I will lead thee to it in order; and that in my usual hand, that thy compeers may be able to read it as well as thyself.

When I had written the preceding letter, not knowing what to do with myself, recollecting, and in vain wis.h.i.+ng for that delightful and improving conversation, which I had now for ever lost; I thought I had as good begin the task, which I had for some time past resolved to begin; that is to say, to go to church; and see if I could not reap some benefit from what I should hear there. Accordingly I determined to go to hear the celebrated preacher at St. James's church. But, as if the devil (for so I was then ready to conclude) thought himself concerned to prevent my intention, a visit was made me, just as I was dressed, which took me off from my purpose.

From whom should this visit be, but from Sally Martin, accompanied by Mrs. Carter, the sister of the infamous Sinclair! the same, I suppose I need not tell you, who keeps the bagnio near Bloomsbury.

These told me that the surgeon, apothecary, and physician, had all given the wretched woman over; but that she said, she should not die, nor be at rest, till she saw me; and they besought me to accompany them in the coach they came in, if I had one spark of charity, of christian charity, as they called it, left.

I was very loth to be diverted from my purpose by a request so unwelcome, and from people so abhorred; but at last went, and we got thither by ten; where a scene so shocking presented itself to me, that the death of poor desponding Belton is not, I think, to be compared with it.

The old wretch had once put her leg out by her rage and violence, and had been crying, scolding, cursing, ever since the preceding evening, that the surgeon had told her it was impossible to save her; and that a mortification had begun to show itself; insomuch that, purely in compa.s.sion to their own ears, they had been forced to send for another surgeon, purposely to tell her, though against his judgment, and (being a friend of the other) to seem to convince him, that he mistook the case; and that if she would be patient, she might recover. But, nevertheless, her apprehensions of death, and her antipathy to the thoughts of dying, were so strong, that their imposture had not the intended effect, and she was raving, crying, cursing, and even howling, more like a wolf than a human creature, when I came; so that as I went up stairs, I said, Surely this noise, this howling, cannot be from the unhappy woman! Sally said it was; and a.s.sured me, that it was noting to the noise she had made all night; and stepping into her room before me, dear Madam Sinclair, said she, forbear this noise! It is more like that of a bull than a woman!-- Here comes Mr. Belford; and you'll fright him away if you bellow at this rate.

There were no less than eight of her cursed daughters surrounding her bed when I entered; one of her partners, Polly Horton, at their head; and now Sally, her other partner, and Madam Carter, as they called her, (for they are all Madams with one another,) made the number ten; all in shocking dishabille, and without stays, except Sally, Carter, and Polly; who, not daring to leave her, had not been in bed all night.

The other seven seemed to have been but just up, risen perhaps from their customers in the fore-house, and their nocturnal orgies, with faces, three or four of them, that had run, the paint lying in streaky seams not half blowzed off, discovering coa.r.s.e wrinkled skins: the hair of some of them of divers colours, obliged to the black-lead comb where black was affected; the artificial jet, however, yielding apace to the natural brindle: that of others plastered with oil and powder; the oil predominating: but every one's hanging about her ears and neck in broken curls, or ragged ends; and each at my entrance taken with one motion, stroking their matted locks with both hands under their coifs, mobs, or pinners, every one of which was awry. They were all slip-shoed; stockingless some; only under-petticoated all; their gowns, made to cover straddling hoops, hanging trollopy, and tangling about their heels; but hastily wrapt round them, as soon as I came up stairs. And half of them (unpadded, shoulder-bent, pallid-lips, limber-jointed wretches) appearing, from a blooming nineteen or twenty perhaps over-night, haggard well-worn strumpets of thirty-eight or forty.

I am the more particular in describing to thee the appearance these creatures made in my eyes when I came into the room, because I believe thou never sawest any of them, much less a group of them, thus unprepared for being seen.* I, for my part, never did before; nor had I now, but upon this occasion, being thus favoured. If thou hadst, I believe thou wouldst hate a profligate woman, as one of Swift's yahoos, or Virgil's obscene harpies, squirting their ordure upon the Trojan trenches; since the persons of such in their retirements are as filthy as their minds.-- Hate them as much as I do; and as much as I admire, and next to adore, a truly virtuous and elegant woman: for to me it is evident, that as a neat and clean woman must be an angel of a creature, so a s.l.u.ttish one is the impurest animal in nature. But these were the veterans, the chosen band; for now-and-then flitted in to the number of half a dozen or more, by turns, subordinate sinners, under-graduates, younger than some of the chosen phalanx, but not less obscene in their appearance, though indeed not so much beholden to the plastering focus; yet unpropt by stays, squalid, loose in attire, sluggish-haired, uner-petticoated only as the former, eyes half-opened, winking and pinking, mispatched, yawning, stretching, as if from the unworn-off effects of the midnight revel; all armed in succession with supplies of cordials (of which every one present was either taster or partaker) under the direction of the busier Dorcas, who frequently popt in, to see her slops duly given and taken.

* Whoever has seen Dean Swift's Lady's Dressing room, will think this description of Mr. Belford's not only more natural, but more decent painting, as well as better justified by the design, and by the use that may be made of it.

But when I approached the old wretch, what a spectacle presented itself to my eyes!

Her misfortune has not at all sunk, but rather, as I thought, increased her flesh; rage and violence perhaps swelling her muscular features.

Behold her, then, spreading the whole troubled bed with her huge quaggy carcase: her mill-post arms held up; her broad hands clenched with violence; her big eyes, goggling and flaming ready as we may suppose those of a salamander; her matted griesly hair, made irreverend by her wickedness (her clouted head-dress being half off, spread about her fat ears and brawny neck;) her livid lips parched, and working violently; her broad chin in convulsive motion; her wide mouth, by reason of the contraction of her forehead (which seemed to be half-lost in its own frightful furrows) splitting her face, as it were, into two parts; and her huge tongue hideously rolling in it; heaving, puffing as if four breath; her bellows-shaped and various-coloured b.r.e.a.s.t.s ascending by turns to her chin, and descending out of sight, with the violence of her gaspings.

This was the spectacle, as recollection has enabled me to describe it, that this wretch made to my eye, by her suffragans and daughters, who surveyed her with scouling frighted attention, which one might easily see had more in it of horror and self-concern (and self-condemnation too) than of love or pity; as who should say, See! what we ourselves must one day be!

As soon as she saw me, her naturally-big voice, more hoa.r.s.ened by her ravings, broke upon me: O Mr. Belford! O Sir! see what I am come to!-- See what I am brought to!--To have such a cursed crew about me, and not one of them to take care of me! But to let me tumble down stairs so distant from the room I went from! so distant from the room I meant to go to!--Cursed, cursed be every careless devil!--May this or worse be their fate every one of them!

And then she cursed and swore most vehemently, and the more, as two or three of them were excusing themselves on the score of their being at that time as unable to help themselves as she. As soon as she had cleared the pa.s.sage of her throat by the oaths and curses which her wild impatience made her utter, she began in a more hollow and whining strain to bemoan herself. And here, said she--Heaven grant me patience!