Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) by Samuel Richardson

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Mrs. Carter asked, To what purpose, if the operation would not save her?

Very true, they said; but it might be a satisfaction to the patient's
friends, that all was done that could be done.

And so the poor wretch was to be lanced and quartered, as I may say, for
an experiment only! And, without any hope of benefit from the operation,
was to pay the surgeons for tormenting her!

I cannot but say I have a mean opinion of both these gentlemen, who,
though they make a figure, it seems, in their way of living, and boast
not only French extraction, but a Paris education, never will make any in
their practice.

How unlike my honest English friend Tomkins, a plain serious, intelligent
man, whose art lies deeper than in words; who always avoids parade and
jargon; and endeavours to make every one as much a judge of what he is
about as himself!

All the time that the surgeons ran on with their anatomical process, the
wretched woman most frightfully roared and bellowed; which the gentlemen
(who showed themselves to be of the class of those who are not affected
with the evils they do not feel,) took no other notice of, than by
raising their voices to be heard, as she raised her's--being evidently
more solicitous to increase their acquaintance, and to propagate the
notion of their skill, than to attend to the clamours of the poor wretch
whom they were called in to relieve; though by this very means, like the
dog and the shadow in the fable, they lost both aims with me; for I never
was deceived in one rule, which I made early; to wit, that the stillest
water is the deepest, while the bubbling stream only betrays shallowness;
and that stones and pebbles lie there so near the surface, to point out
the best place to ford a river dry shod.

As nobody cared to tell the unhappy wretch what every one apprehended
must follow, and what the surgeons convinced me soon would, I undertook
to be the denouncer of her doom. Accordingly, the operators being
withdrawn, I sat down by the bed-side, and said, Come, Mrs. Sinclair, let
me advise you to forbear these ravings at the carelessness of those, who,
I find, at the time, could take no care of themselves; and since the
accident has happened, and cannot be remedied, to resolve to make the
best of the matter: for all this violence but enrages the malady, and you
will probably fall into a delirium, if you give way to it, which will
deprive you of that reason which you ought to make the best of for the
time it may be lent you.

She turned her head towards me, and hearing me speak with a determined
voice, and seeing me assume as determined an air, became more calm and
attentive.

I went on, telling her, that I was glad, from the hints she had given,
to find her concerned for her past misspent life, and particularly for
the part she had had in the ruin of the most excellent woman on earth:
that if she would compose herself, and patiently submit to the
consequences of an evil she had brought upon herself, it might possibly
be happy for her yet. Meantime, continued I, tell me, with temper and
calmness, why was you so desirous to see me?

She seemed to be in great confusion of thought, and turned her head this
way and that; and at last, after much hesitation, said, Alad for me! I
hardly know what I wanted with you. When I awoke from my intemperate
trance, and found what a cursed way I was in, my conscience smote me, and
I was for catching like a drowning wretch, at every straw. I wanted to
see every body and any body but those I did see; every body who I thought
could give me comfort. Yet could I expect none from you neither; for you
had declared yourself my enemy, although I had never done you harm; for
what, Jackey, in her old tone, whining through her nose, was Miss Harlowe
to you?--But she is happy!--But oh! what will become of me?--Yet tell me,
(for the surgeons have told you the truth, no doubt,) tell me, shall I do
well again? May I recover? If I may, I will begin a new course of life:
as I hope to be saved, I will. I'll renounce you all--every one of you,
[looking round her,] and scrape all I can together, and live a life of
penitence; and when I die, leave it all to charitable uses--I will, by my
soul--every doit of it to charity--but this once, lifting up her rolling
eyes, and folded hands, (with a wry-mouthed earnestness, in which every
muscle and feature of her face bore its part,) this one time--good God of
Heaven and earth, but this once! this once! repeating those words five or
six times, spare thy poor creature, and every hour of my life shall be
passed in penitence and atonement: upon my soul it shall!

Less vehement! a little less vehement! said I--it is not for me, who have
led so free a life, as you but too well know, to talk to you in a
reproaching strain, and to set before you the iniquity you have lived in,
and the many souls you have helped to destroy. But as you are in so
penitent a way, if I might advise, you should send for a good clergyman,
the purity of whose life and manners may make all these things come from
him with a better grace than they can from me.

How, Sir! What, Sir! interrupting me: send for a parson!--Then you
indeed think I shall die! Then you think there is no room for hope!----A
parson, Sir!----Who sends for a parson, while there is any hope left?--
The sight of a parson would be death immediate to me!--I cannot, cannot
die!--Never tell me of it!--What! die!--What! cut off in the midst of my
sins!

And then she began again to rave.

I cannot bear, said I, rising from my seat with a stern air, to see a
reasonable creature behave so outrageously!--Will this vehemence, think
you, mend the matter? Will it avail you any thing? Will it not rather
shorten the life you are so desirous to have lengthened, and deprive you
of the only opportunity you can ever have to settle your affairs for both
worlds?--Death is but the common lot: and if it be your's soon, looking
at her, it will be also your's, and your's, and your's, speaking with a
raised voice, and turning to every trembling devil round her, [for they
all shook at my forcible application,] and mine too. And you have reason
to be thankful, turning again to her, that you did not perish in that act
of intemperance which brought you to this: for it might have been your
neck, as well as your leg; and then you had not had the opportunity you
now have for repentance--and, the Lord have mercy upon you! into what a
state might you have awoke!

Then did the poor wretch set up an inarticulate frightful howl, such a
one as I never before heard of her; and seeing every one half-frighted,
and me motioning to withdraw, O pity me, pity me, Mr. Belford, cried she,
her words interrupted by groans--I find you think I shall die!--And what
may I be, and where, in a very few hours--who can tell?

I told her it was vain to flatter her: it was my opinion she would not
recover.

I was going to re-advise her to calm her spirits, and endeavour to resign
herself, and to make the beset of the opportunity yet left her; but this
declaration set her into a most outrageous raving. She would have torn
her hair, and beaten her breast, had not some of the wretches held her
hands by force, while others kept her as steady as they could, lest she
should again put out her new-set leg; so that, seeing her thus incapable
of advice, and in a perfect phrensy, I told Sally Martin, that there was
no bearing the room; and that their best way was to send for a minister
to pray by her, and to reason with her, as soon as she should be capable
of it. And so I left them; and never was so sensible of the benefit of
fresh air, as I was the moment I entered the street.

Nor is it to be wondered at, when it is considered that, to the various
ill smells that will always be found in a close sick bed-room, (for
generally, when the physician comes, the air is shut out,) this of Mrs.
Sinclair was the more particularly offensive, as, to the scent of
plasters, salves, and ointments, were added the stenches of spirituous
liquors, burnt and unburnt, of all denominations; for one or other of
the creatures, under pretence of colics, gripes, or qualms, were
continually calling for supplies of these, all the time I was there.
And yet this is thought to be a genteel house of the sort; and all the
prostitutes in it are prostitutes of price, and their visiters people of
note.

O, Lovelace! what lives do most of us rakes and libertines lead! what
company do we keep! And, for such company, what society renounce, or
endeavour to make like these!

What woman, nice in her person, and of purity in her mind and manners,
did she know what miry wallowers the generality of men of our class are
in themselves, and constantly trough and sty with, but would detest the
thoughts of associating with such filthy sensualists, whose favourite
taste carries them to mingle with the dregs of stews, brothels, and
common sewers?

Yet, to such a choice are many worthy women betrayed, by that false and
inconsiderate notion, raised and propagated, no doubt, by the author of
all delusion, that a reformed rake makes the best husband. We rakes,
indeed, are bold enough to suppose, that women in general are as much
rakes in their hearts, as the libertines some of them suffer themselves
to be take with are in their practice. A supposition, therefore, which
it behoves persons of true honour of that sex to discountenance, by
rejecting the address of every man, whose character will not stand the
test of that virtue which is the glory of a woman: and indeed, I may
say, of a man too: why should it not?

How, indeed, can it be, if this point be duly weighed, that a man who
thinks alike of all the sex, and knows it to be in the power of a wife
to do him the greatest dishonour man can receive, and doubts not her will
to do it, if opportunity offer, and importunity be not wanting: that such
a one, from principle, should be a good husband to any woman? And,
indeed, little do innocents think, what a total revolution of manners,
what a change of fixed habits, nay, what a conquest of a bad nature, and
what a portion of Divine GRACE, is required, to make a man a good
husband, a worthy father, and true friend, from principle; especially
when it is considered, that it is not in a man's own power to reform when
he will. This, (to say nothing of my own experience,) thou, Lovelace,
hast found in the progress of thy attempts upon the divine Miss Harlowe.
For whose remorses could be deeper, or more frequent, yet more transient
than thine!

Now, Lovelace, let me know if the word grace can be read from my pen
without a sneer from thee and thy associates? I own that once it sounded
oddly in my ears. But I shall never forget what a grave man once said on
this very word--that with him it was a rake's sibboleth.* He had always
hopes of one who could bear the mention of it without ridiculing it; and
ever gave him up for an abandoned man, who made a jest of it, or of him
who used it.

* See Judges xii. 6.

Don't be disgusted, that I mingle such grave reflections as these with my
narratives. It becomes me, in my present way of thinking, to do so, when
I see, in Miss Harlowe, how all human excellence, and in poor Belton, how
all inhuman libertinism, and am near seeing in this abandoned woman, how
all diabolical profligacy, end. And glad should I be for your own sake,
for your splendid family's sake, and for the sake of all your intimates
and acquaintance, that you were labouring under the same impressions,
that so we who have been companions in (and promoters of one another's)
wickedness, might join in a general atonement to the utmost of our power.

I came home reflecting upon all these things, more edifying to me than
any sermon I could have heard preached: and I shall conclude this long
letter with observing, that although I left the wretched howler in a high
phrensy-fit, which was excessively shocking to the by-standers; yet her
phrensy must be the happiest part of her dreadful condition: for when she
is herself, as it is called, what must be her reflections upon her past
profligate life, throughout which it has been her constant delight and
business, devil-like, to make others as wicked as herself! What must her
terrors be (a hell already begun in her mind!) on looking forward to the
dreadful state she is now upon the verge of!--But I drop my trembling
pen.

To have done with so shocking a subject at once, we shall take notice,
that Mr. Belford, in a future letter, writes, that the miserable
woman, to the surprise of the operators themselves, (through hourly
increasing tortures of body and mind,) held out so long as till
Thursday, Sept. 21; and then died in such agonies as terrified into
a transitory penitence all the wretches about her.

LETTER XXVI

COLONEL MORDEN, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
SUNDAY NIGHT, SEPT. 10.

DEAR SIR,

According to my promise, I send you an account of matters here. Poor
Mrs. Norton was so very ill upon the road, that, slowly as the hearse
moved, and the chariot followed, I was afraid we should not have got her
to St. Albans. We put up there as I had intended. I was in hopes that
she would have been better for the stop: but I was forced to leave her
behind me. I ordered the maid-servant you were so considerately kind as
to send down with her, to be very careful of her; and left the chariot to
attend her. She deserves all the regard that can be paid her; not only
upon my cousin's account, but on her own--she is an excellent woman.

When we were within five miles of Harlowe-place, I put on a hand-gallop.
I ordered the hearse to proceed more slowly still, the cross-road we were
in being rough; and having more time before us than I wanted; for I
wished not the hearse to be in till near dusk. I got to Harlowe-place
about four o'clock. You may believe I found a mournful house. You
desire me to be very minute.

At my entrance into the court, they were all in motion. Every servant
whom I saw had swelled eyes, and looked with so much concern, that at
first I apprehended some new disaster had happened in the family. Mr.
John and Mr. Antony Harlowe and Mrs. Hervey were there. They all helped
on one another's grief, as they had before done each other's hardness of
heart.

My cousin James met me at the entrance of the hall. His countenance
expressed a fixed concern; and he desired me to excuse his behaviour the
last time I was there.

My cousin Arabella came to me full of tears and grief.

O Cousin! said she, hanging upon my arm, I dare not ask you any
questions!--About the approach of the hearse, I suppose she meant.

I myself was full of grief; and, without going farther or speaking, sat
down in the hall in the first chair.

The brother sat on one hand of me, the sister on the other. Both were
silent. The latter in tears.

Mr. Antony Harlowe came to me soon after. His face was overspread with
all the appearance of woe. He requested me to walk into the parlour;
where, as he said, were all his fellow-mourners.

I attended him in. My cousins James and Arabella followed me.

A perfect concert of grief, as I may say, broke out the moment I entered
the parlour.

My cousin Harlowe, the dear creature's father, as soon as he saw me,
said, O Cousin, Cousin, of all our family, you are the only one who have
nothing to reproach yourself with!--You are a happy man!

The poor mother, bowing her head to me in speechless grief, sat with her
handkerchief held to her eyes with one hand. The other hand was held by
her sister Hervey, between both her's; Mrs. Hervey weeping upon it.

Near the window sat Mr. John Harlowe, his face and his body turned from
the sorrowing company; his eyes red and swelled.

My cousin Antony, at his re-entering the parlour, went towards Mrs.
Harlowe--Don't--dear Sister, said he!--Then towards my cousin Harlowe--
Don't--dear Brother!--Don't thus give way--And, without being able to
say another word, went to a corner of the parlour, and, wanting himself
the comfort he would fain have given, sunk into a chair, and audibly
sobbed.

Miss Arabella followed her uncle Antony, as he walked in before me, and
seemed as if she would have spoken to the pierced mother some words of
comfort. But she was unable to utter them, and got behind her mother's
chair; and, inclining her face over it, on the unhappy lady's shoulder,
seemed to claim the consolation that indulgent parent used, but then was
unable, to afford her.

Young Mr. Harlowe, with all his vehemence of spirit, was now subdued.
His self-reproaching conscience, no doubt, was the cause of it.

And what, Sir, must their thoughts be, which, at that moment, in a
manner, deprived them of all motion, and turned their speech into sighs
and groans!--How to be pitied, how greatly to be pitied! all of them!
But how much to be cursed that abhorred Lovelace, who, as it seems, by
arts uncommon, and a villany without example, has been the sole author
of a woe so complicated and extensive!--God judge me, as--But I stop--
the man (the man can I say?) is your friend!--He already suffers, you
tell me, in his intellect.--Restore him, Heaven, to that--If I find the
matter come out, as I apprehend it will--indeed her own hint of his usage
of her, as in her will, is enough--nor think, my beloved cousin, thou
darling of my heart! that thy gentle spirit, breathing charity and
forgiveness to the vilest of men, shall avail him!--But once more I stop
--forgive me, Sir!--Who could behold such a scene, who could recollect it
in order to describe it, (as minutely as you wished me to relate how this
unhappy family were affected on this sad occasion,) every one of the
mourners nearly related to himself, and not to be exasperated against the
author of all?

As I was the only person (grieved as I was myself) from whom any of them,
at that instant, could derive comfort; Let us not, said I, my dear
Cousin, approaching the inconsolable mother, give way to a grief, which,
however just, can now avail us nothing. We hurt ourselves, and cannot
recall the dear creature for whom we mourn. Nor would you wish it, if
you know with what assurance of eternal happiness she left the world--She
is happy, Madam!--depend upon it, she is happy! And comfort yourselves
with that assurance!

O Cousin, Cousin! cried the unhappy mother, withdrawing her hand from
that of her sister Hervey, and pressing mine with it, you know not what
a child I have lost!--Then in a low voice, and how lost!--That it is that
makes the loss insupportable.

They all joined in a kind of melancholy chorus, and each accused him and
herself, and some of them one another. But the eyes of all, in turn,
were cast upon my cousin James, as the person who had kept up the general
resentment against so sweet a creature. While he was hardly able to bear
his own remorse: nor Miss Harlowe her's; she breaking out into words, How
tauntingly did I write to her! How barbarously did I insult her! Yet
how patiently did she take it!--Who would have thought that she had been
so near her end!--O Brother, Brother! but for you!--But for you!--Double
not upon me, said he, my own woes! I have every thing before me that has
passed! I thought only to reclaim a dear creature that had erred! I
intended not to break her tender heart! But it was the villanous
Lovelace who did that--not any of us!--Yet, Cousin, did she not attribute
all to me?--I fear she did!--Tell me only, did she name me, did she speak
of me, in her last hours? I hope she, who could forgive the greatest
villain on earth, and plead that he may be safe from our vengeance, I
hope she could forgive me.

She died blessing you all; and justified rather than condemned your
severity to her.

Then they set up another general lamentation. We see, said her father,
enough we see, in her heart-piercing letters to us, what a happy frame
she was in a few days before her death--But did it hold to the last? Had
she no repinings? Had the dear child no heart burnings?

None at all!--I never saw, and never shall see, so blessed a departure:
and no wonder; for I never heard of such a preparation. Every hour, for
weeks together, were taken up in it. Let this be our comfort: we need
only to wish for so happy an end for ourselves, and for those who are
nearest to our hearts. We may any of us be grieved for acts of
unkindness to her: but had all happened that once she wished for, she
could not have made a happier, perhaps not so happy an end.

Dear soul! and Dear sweet soul! the father, uncles, sister, my cousin
Hervey, cried out all at once, in accents of anguish inexpressibly
affecting.

We must for every be disturbed for those acts of unkindness to so sweet a
child, cried the unhappy mother!--Indeed! indeed! [softly to her sister
Hervey,] I have been too passive, much too passive in this case!--The
temporary quiet I have been so studious all my life to preserve, has cost
me everlasting disquiet!----There she stopt.

Dear Sister! was all Mrs. Hervey could say.

I have done but half my duty to the dearest and most meritorious of
children, resumed the sorrowing mother!--Nay, not half!--How have we
hardened our hearts against her!----Again her tears denied passage to her
words.

My dearest, dearest Sister!--again was all Mrs. Hervey could say.

Would to Heaven, proceeded, exclaiming, the poor mother, I had but once
seen her! Then, turning to my cousin James, and his sister--O my son!
O my Arabella! if WE were to receive as little mercy--And there again she
stopt, her tears interrupting her farther speech; every one, all the
time, remaining silent; their countenances showing a grief in their
hearts too big for expression.

Now you see, Mr. Belford, that my dearest cousin could be allowed all her
merit!--What a dreadful thing is after-reflection upon a conduct so
perverse and unnatural?

O this cursed friend of your's, Mr. Belford! This detested Lovelace!--To
him, to him is owing--

Pardon me, Sir. I will lay down my pen till I have recovered my temper.

ONE IN THE MORNING.

In vain, Sir, have I endeavoured to compose myself to rest. You wished
me to be very particular, and I cannot help it. This melancholy subject
fills my whole mind. I will proceed, though it be midnight.

About six o'clock the hearse came to the outward gate--the parish church
is at some distance; but the wind setting fair, the afflicted family were
struck, just before it came, into a fresh fit of grief, on hearing the
funeral bell tolled in a very solemn manner. A respect, as it proved,
and as they all guessed, paid to the memory of the dear deceased, out of
officious love, as the hearse passed near the church.

Judge, when their grief was so great in expectation of it, what it must
be when it arrived.

A servant came in to acquaint us with what its lumbering heavy noise up
the paved inner court-yard apprized us of before. He spoke not. He
could not speak. He looked, bowed, and withdrew.

I stept out. No one else could then stir. Her brother, however, soon
followed me. When I came to the door, I beheld a sight very affecting.

You have heard, Sir, how universally my dear cousin was beloved. By the
poor and middling sort especially, no young lady was ever so much
beloved. And with reason: she was the common patroness of all the honest
poor in her neighbourhood.

It is natural for us, in every deep and sincere grief, to interest all we
know in what is so concerning to ourselves. The servants of the family,
it seems, had told their friends, and those their's, that though, living,
their dear young lady could not be received nor looked upon, her body was
permitted to be brought home. The space of time was so confined, that
those who knew when she died, must easily guess near the time the hearse
was to come. A hearse, passing through country villages, and from
London, however slenderly attended, (for the chariot, as I have said,
waited upon poor Mrs. Norton,) takes every one's attention. Nor was it
hard to guess whose this must be, though not adorned by escutcheons, when
the cross-roads to Harlowe-place were taken, as soon as it came within
six miles of it; so that the hearse, and the solemn tolling of the bell,
had drawn together at least fifty, or the neighbouring men, women, and
children, and some of good appearance. Not a soul of them, it seems,
with a dry eye, and each lamenting the death of this admired lady, who,
as I am told, never stirred out, but somebody was the better for her.

These, when the coffin was taken out of the hearse, crowding about it,
hindered, for a few moments, its being carried in; the young people
struggling who should bear it; and yet, with respectful whisperings,
rather than clamorous contention. A mark of veneration I had never
before seen paid, upon any occasion in all my travels, from the
under-bred many, from whom noise is generally inseparable in all their
emulations.

At last six maidens were permitted to carry it in by the six handles.

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