Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady Volume IX Part 38

TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

NEAR SOHO-SQUARE, LONDON.

TRENT, DEC. 18, N.S.

SIR,

I have melancholy news to inform you of, by order of the Chevalier Lovelace. He showed me his letter to you before he sealed it; signifying, that he was to meet the Chevalier Morden on the 15th.

Wherefore, as the occasion of the meeting is so well known to you, I shall say nothing of it here.

I had taken care to have ready, within a little distance, a surgeon and his a.s.sistant, to whom, under an oath of secrecy, I had revealed the matter, (though I did not own it to the two gentlemen;) so that they were prepared with bandages, and all things proper. For well was I acquainted with the bravery and skill of my chevalier; and had heard the character of the other; and knew the animosity of both. A post-chaise was ready, with each of their footmen, at a little distance.

The two chevaliers came exactly at their time: they were attended by Monsieur Margate, (the Colonel's gentleman,) and myself. They had given orders over night, and now repeated them in each other's presence, that we should observe a strict impartiality between them: and that, if one fell, each of us should look upon himself, as to any needful help or retreat, as the servant of the survivor, and take his commands accordingly.

After a few compliments, both the gentlemen, with the greatest presence of mind that I ever beheld in men, stript to their s.h.i.+rts, and drew.

They parried with equal judgment several pa.s.ses. My chevalier drew the first blood, making a desperate push, which, by a sudden turn of his antagonist, missed going clear through him, and wounded him on the fleshy part of the ribs of his right side; which part the sword tore out, being on the extremity of the body; but, before my chevalier could recover himself, the Colonel, in return, pushed him into the inside of the left arm, near the shoulder; and the sword (raking his breast as it pa.s.sed,) being followed by a great effusion of blood, the Colonel said, Sir, I believe you have enough.

My chevalier swore by G--d he was not hurt; 'twas a pin's point; and so made another pa.s.s at his antagonist; which he, with a surprising dexterity, received under his arm, and run my dear chevalier into the body; who immediately fell; saying, The luck is your's, Sir--O my beloved Clarissa!--Now art thou--inwardly he spoke three or four words more. His sword dropt from his hand. Mr. Morden threw his down, and ran to him, saying in French--Ah, Monsieur! you are a dead man!----Call to G.o.d for mercy!

We gave the signal agreed upon to the footmen; and they to the surgeons; who instantly came up.

Colonel Morden, I found, was too well used to the b.l.o.o.d.y work; for he was as cool as if nothing extraordinary had happened, a.s.sisting the surgeons, though his own wound bled much. But my dear chevalier fainted away two or three times running, and vomited blood besides.

However, they stopped the bleeding for the present; and we helped him into the voiture; and then the Colonel suffered his own wound to be dressed; and appeared concerned that my chevalier was between whiles (when he could speak, and struggle,) extremely outrageous.--Poor gentleman! he had made quite sure of victory!

The Colonel, against the surgeons' advice, would mount on horseback to pa.s.s into the Venetian territories; and generously gave me a purse of gold to pay the surgeons; desiring me to make a present to the footman; and to accept of the remainder, as a mark of his satisfaction in my conduct, and in my care and tenderness of my master.

The surgeons told him that my chevalier could not live over the day.

When the Colonel took leave of him, Mr. Lovelace said, You have well revenged the dear creature.

I have, Sir, said Mr. Morden; and perhaps shall be sorry that you called upon me to this work, while I was balancing whether to obey, or disobey, the dear angel.

There is a fate in it! replied my chevalier--a cursed fate!--or this could not have been!--But be ye all witnesses, that I have provoked my destiny, and acknowledge that I fall by a man of honour.

Sir, said the Colonel, with the piety of a confessor, (wringing Mr.

Lovelace's hand,) s.n.a.t.c.h these few fleeting moments, and commend yourself to G.o.d.

And so he rode off.

The voiture proceeded slowly with my chevalier; yet the motion set both his wounds bleeding afresh; and it was with difficulty they again stopped the blood.

We brought him alive to the nearest cottage; and he gave orders to me to dispatch to you the packet I herewith send sealed up; and bid me write to you the particulars of this most unhappy affair: and give you thanks, in his name, for all your favours and friends.h.i.+p to him.

Contrary to all expectation, he lived over the night: but suffered much, as well from his impatience and disappointment, as from his wounds; for he seemed very unwilling to die.

He was delirious, at times, in the two last hours: and then several times cried out, as if he had seen some frightful spectre, Take her away! Take her away! but named n.o.body. And sometimes praised some lady, (that Clarissa, I suppose, whom he had invoked when he received his death's wound,) calling her Sweet Excellence! Divine Creature! Fair Sufferer!-- And once he said, Look down, Blessed Spirit, look down!--And there stopt; --his lips, however, moving.

At nine in the morning he was seized with convulsions, and fainted away; and it was a quarter of an hour before he came out of them.

His few last words I must not omit, as they show an ultimate composure; which may administer some consolation to his honourable friends.

Blessed--said he, addressing himself no doubt to Heaven; for his dying eyes were lifted up--a strong convulsion prevented him for a few moments saying more--but recovering, he again, with great fervour, (lifting up his eyes, and his spread hands,) p.r.o.nounced the word blessed: Then, in a seeming e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, he spoke inwardly, so as not to be understood: at last, he distinctly p.r.o.nounced these three words,

LET THIS EXPIATE!

And then, his head sinking on his pillow, he expired, at about half an hour after ten.

He little thought, poor gentleman! his end so near: so had given no direction about his body. I have caused it to be embowelled, and deposited in a vault, till I have orders from England.

This is a favour that was procured with difficulty; and would have been refused, had he not been an Englishman of rank: a nation with reason respected in every Austrian government--for he had refused ghostly attendance, and the sacraments in the Catholic way.--May his soul be happy, I pray G.o.d!

I have had some trouble also, on account of the manner of his death, from the magistracy here: who have taken the requisite informations in the affair. And it has cost some money. Of which, and of the dear chevalier's effects, I will give you a faithful account in my next. And so, waiting at this place your commands, I am, Sir,

Your most faithful and obedient servant, F.J. DE LA TOUR.

CONCLUSION

SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY MR. BELFORD

What remains to be mentioned for the satisfaction of such of the readers as may be presumed to have interested themselves in the fortunes of those other princ.i.p.als in the story, who survived Mr. Lovelace, will be found summarily related as follows:

The news of Mr. LOVELACE's unhappy end was received with as much grief by his own relations, as it was with exultation by the Harlowe family, and by Miss Howe. His own family were most to be pitied, because, being sincere admirers of the inimitable lady, they were greatly grieved for the injustice done her; and now had the additional mortification of losing the only male of it, by a violent death.

That his fate was deserved, was still a heightening of their calamity, as they had, for that very reason, and his unpreparedness for it, but too much ground for apprehension with regard to his future happiness. While the other family, from their unforgiving spirit, and even the n.o.ble young lady above mentioned, from her lively resentments, found his death some little, some temporary, alleviation of the heavy loss they had sustained, princ.i.p.ally through his means.

Temporary alleviation, we repeat, as to the Harlowe family; for THEY were far from being happy or easy in their reflections upon their own conduct.

--And still the less, as the inconsolable mother rested not till she had procured, by means of Colonel Morden, large extracts from some of the letters that compose this history, which convinced them all that the very correspondence which Clarissa, while with them, renewed with Mr.

Lovelace, was renewed for their sakes, more than for her own: that she had given him no encouragement contrary to her duty and to that prudence for which she was so early noted: that had they trusted to a discretion which they owned she had never brought into question, she would have extricated them and herself (as she once proposed* to her mother) from all difficulties as to Lovelace: that she, if any woman ever could, would have given a glorious instance of a pa.s.sion conquered, or at least kept under by reason and by piety; the man being too immoral to be implicitly beloved.

* See Vol. I. Letter XVII.

The unhappy parents and uncles, from the perusal of these extracts, too evidently for their peace, saw that it was entirely owing to the avarice, the ambition, the envy, of her implacable brother and sister, and to the senseless confederacy entered into by the whole family, to compel her to give her hand to a man she must despise, or she had not been a CLARISSA, and to their consequent persecution of her, that she ever thought of quitting her father's house: and that even when she first entertained such a thought, it was with intent, if possible, to procure for herself a private asylum with Mrs. Howe, or at some other place of safety, (but not with Mr. Lovelace, nor with any of the ladies of his family, though invited by the latter,) from whence she might propose terms which ought to have been complied with, and which were entirely consistent with her duty--that though she found herself disappointed of the hoped-for refuge and protection, she intended not, by meeting Mr. Lovelace, to put herself into his power; all that she aimed at by taking that step being to endeavour to pacify so fierce a spirit, lest he should (as he indeed was determined to do) pay a visit to her friends, which might have been attended with fatal consequences; but was spirited away by him in such a manner, as made her an object of pity rather than of blame.

These extracts further convinced them all that it was to her unaffected regret that she found that marriage was not in her power afterwards for a long time; and at last, but on one occasion, when their unnatural cruelty to her (on a new application she had made to her aunt Hervey, to procure mercy and pardon) rendered her incapable of receiving his proffered hand; and so obliged her to suspend the day: intending only to suspend it till recovered.

They saw with equal abhorrence of Lovelace, and of their own cruelty, and with the highest admiration of her, that the majesty of her virtue had awed the most daring spirit in the world, so that he durst not attempt to carry his base designs into execution, till, by wicked potions, he had made her senses the previous sacrifice.

But how did they in a manner adore her memory! How did they recriminate upon each other! when they found, that she had not only preserved herself from repeated outrage, by the most glorious and intrepid behaviour, in defiance, and to the utter confusion of all his libertine notions, but had the fort.i.tude, constantly, and with a n.o.ble disdain, to reject him.-- Whom?--Why, the man she once could have loved, kneeling for pardon, and begging to be permitted to make her the best reparation then in his power to make her; that is to say, by marriage. His fortunes high and unbroken. She his prisoner at the time in a vile house: rejected by all her friends; upon repeated application to them, for mercy and forgiveness, rejected--mercy and forgiveness, and a last blessing, afterwards imploring; and that as much to lighten their future remorses, as for the comfort of her own pious heart--yet, though savagely refused, on a supposition that she was not so near her end as she was represented departed, forgiving and blessing them all!

Then they recollected that her posthumous letters, instead of reproaches, were filled with comfortings: that she had in her last will, in their own way, laid obligations upon them all; obligations which they neither deserved nor expected; as if she thought to repair the injustice which self-partiality made some of them conclude done to them by her grandfather in his will.

These intelligences and recollections were perpetual subjects of recrimination to them: heightened their anguish for the loss of a child who was the glory of their family; and not seldom made them shun each other, (at the times they were accustomed to meet together,) that they might avoid the mutual reproaches of eyes that spoke, when tongues were silent--their stings also sharpened by time! What an unhappy family was this! Well might Colonel Morden, in the words of Juvenal, challenge all other miserable families to produce such a growing distress as that of the Harlowes (a few months before so happy!) was able to produce.