Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady Volume I Part 21

Thus, my dear Miss Howe, has my brother got me into his snares; and I, like a poor silly bird, the more I struggle, am the more entangled.

LETTER XXIII

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE MONDAY MORNING, MARCH 6.

They are resolved to break my heart. My poor Hannah is discharged--disgracefully discharged!--Thus it was.

Within half an hour after I had sent the poor girl down for my breakfast, that bold creature Betty Barnes, my sister's confidant and servant, (if a favourite maid and confidant can be deemed a servant,) came up.

What, Miss, will you please to have for breakfast?

I was surprised. What will I have for breakfast, Betty!--How!--What!--How comes it!--Then I named Hannah. I could not tell what to say.

Don't be surprised, Miss:--but you'll see Hannah no more in this house.

G.o.d forbid!--Is any harm come to Hannah?--What! What is the matter with Hannah?

Why, Miss, the short and the long is this: Your papa and mamma think Hannah has staid long enough in the house to do mischief; and so she is ordered to troop [that was the confident creature's word]; and I am directed to wait upon you in her stead.

I burst into tears. I have no service for you, Betty Barnes; none at all. But where is Hannah? Cannot I speak with the poor girl? I owe her half a year's wages. May I not see the honest creature, and pay her her wages? I may never see her again perhaps; for they are resolved to break my heart.

And they think you are resolved to break theirs: so t.i.t for tat, Miss.

Impertinent I called her; and asked her, if it were upon such confident terms that her service was to begin.

I was so very earnest to see the poor maid, that (to oblige me, as she said) she went down with my request.

The worthy creature was as earnest to see me; and the favour was granted in presence of Sh.o.r.ey and Betty.

I thanked her, when she came up, for her past service to me.

Her heart was ready to break. And she began to vindicate her fidelity and love; and disclaimed any mischief she had ever made.

I told her, that those who occasioned her being turned out of my service, made no question of her integrity: that her dismission was intended for an indignity to me: that I was very sorry to be obliged to part with her, and hoped she would meet with as good a service.

Never, never, wringing her hands, should she meet with a mistress she loved so well. And the poor creature ran on in my praises, and in professions of love to me.

We are all apt, you know, my dear, to praise our benefactors, because they are our benefactors; as if every body did right or wrong, as they obliged or disobliged us. But this good creature deserved to be kindly treated; so I could have no merit in favouring one whom it would have been ungrateful not to distinguish.

I gave her a little linen, some laces, and other odd things; and instead of four pounds which were due to her, ten guineas: and said, if ever I were again allowed to be my own mistress, I would think of her in the first place.

Betty enviously whispered Sh.o.r.ey upon it.

Hannah told me, before their faces, having no other opportunity, that she had been examined about letters to me, and from me: and that she had given her pockets to Miss Harlowe, who looked into them, and put her fingers in her stays, to satisfy herself that she had not any.

She gave me an account of the number of my pheasants and bantams; and I said, they should be my own care twice or thrice a day.

We wept over each other at parting. The girl prayed for all the family.

To have so good a servant so disgracefully dismissed, is very cruel: and I could not help saying that these methods might break my heart, but not any other way answer the end of the authors of my disgraces.

Betty, with a very saucy fleer, said to Sh.o.r.ey, There would be a trial of skill about that she fancied. But I took no notice of it. If this wench thinks that I have robbed her young mistress of a lover, as you say she has given out, she may believe that it is some degree of merit in herself to be impertinent to me.

Thus have I been forced to part with my faithful Hannah. If you can command the good creature to a place worthy of her, pray do for my sake.

LETTER XXIV

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE MONDAY, NEAR 12 O'CLOCK.

The enclosed letter was just now delivered to me. My brother has carried all his points.

I send you also the copy of my answer. No more at this time can I write--!

MONDAY, MAR. 6.

MISS CLARY,

By command of your father and mother I write expressly to forbid you to come into their presence, or into the garden when they are there: nor when they are not there, but with Betty Banes to attend you; except by particular license or command.

On their blessings, you are forbidden likewise to correspond with the vile Lovelace; as it is well known you did by means of your sly Hannah.

Whence her sudden discharge. As was fit.

Neither are you to correspond with Miss Howe; who has given herself high airs of late; and might possibly help on your correspondence with that detested libertine. Nor, in short, with any body without leave.

You are not to enter into the presence of either of your uncles, without their leave first obtained. It is a mercy to you, after such a behaviour to your mother, that your father refuses to see you.

You are not to be seen in any apartment of the house you so lately governed as you pleased, unless you are commanded down.

In short, you are strictly to confine yourself to your chamber, except now and then, in Betty Barnes's sight (as aforesaid) you take a morning or evening turn in the garden: and then you are to go directly, and without stopping at any apartment in the way, up or down the back stairs, that the sight of so perverse a young creature may not add to the pain you have given every body.

The hourly threatenings of your fine fellow, as well as your own unheard-of obstinacy, will account to you for all this. What a hand has the best and most indulgent of mothers had with you, who so long pleaded for you, and undertook for you; even when others, from the manner of your setting out, despaired of moving you!--What must your perverseness have been, that such a mother can give you up! She thinks it right so to do: nor will take you to favour, unless you make the first steps, by a compliance with your duty.

As for myself, whom perhaps you think hardly of [in very good company, if you do, that is my sole consolation]; I have advised, that you may be permitted to pursue your own inclinations, (some people need no greater punishment than such a permission,) and not to have the house enc.u.mbered by one who must give them the more pain for the necessity she has laid them under of avoiding the sight of her, although in it.

If any thing I have written appear severe or harsh, it is still in your power (but perhaps will not always be so) to remedy it; and that by a single word.