Clarissa, Volume 6 - The History Of A Young Lady

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Clarissa, Volume 6 − The History Of A Young Lady 134 young lady, but for two or three days, permit me to attend you, although my son's illness should increase, and compel me to come down again at the end of those two or three days.−− I repeat my request, likewise, that you will command from me the little sum remaining in the hands of your bounty to your Poor, as well as that dispensed to Your ever−affectionate and faithful servant, JUDITH NORTON. LETTER LVII MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO LADY BETTY LAWRANCE THURSDAY, JUNE 29. MADAM, I hope you'll excuse the freedom of this address, from one who has not the honour to be personally known to you, although you must have heard much of Clarissa Harlowe. It is only to beg the favour of a line from your Ladyship's hand, (by the next post, if convenient,) in answer to the following questions: 1. Whether you wrote a letter, dated, as I have a memorandum, Wedn. June 7, congratulating your nephew Lovelace on his supposed nuptials, as reported to you by Mr. Spurrier, your Ladyship's steward, as from one Captain Tomlinson:−−and in it reproaching Mr. Lovelace, as guilty of slight, &c. in not having acquainted your Ladyship and the family with his marriage? 2. Whether your ladyship wrote to Miss Montague to meet you at Reading, in order to attend you to your cousin Leeson's, in Albemarle−street; on your being obliged to be in town on your old chancery affair, I remember are the words? and whether you bespoke your nephew's attendance there on Sunday night the 11th? 3. Whether your Ladyship and Miss Montague did come to town at that time; and whether you went to Hampstead, on Monday, in a hired coach and four, your own being repairing, and took from thence to town with the young creature whom you visited there? Your Ladyship will probably guess, that the questions are not asked for reasons favourable to your nephew Lovelace. But be the answer what it will, it can do him no hurt, nor me any good; only that I think I owe it to my former hopes, (however deceived in them,) and even to charity, that a person, of whom I was once willing to think better, should not prove so egregiously abandoned, as to be wanting, in every instance, to that veracity which is indispensable in the character of a gentleman. Be pleased, Madam, to direct to me, (keeping the direction a secret for the present,) to be left at the Belle−Savage, on Ludgate hill, till called for. I am Your Ladyship's most humble servant, CLARISSA HARLOWE. LETTER LVIII LADY BETTY LAWRANCE, TO MISS CL. HARLOWE SATURDAY, JULY 1. DEAR MADAM, I find that all is not as it should be between you and my nephew Lovelace. It will very much afflict me, and all his friends, if he has been guilty of any designed baseness to a lady of your character and merit. We have been long in expectation of an opportunity to congratulate you and ourselves upon an event most earnestly wished for by us all; since our hopes of him are built upon the power you have over him: for if ever
Clarissa, Volume 6 − The History Of A Young Lady 135 man adored a woman, he is that man, and you, Madam, are that woman. Miss Montague, in her last letter to me, in answer to one of mine, inquiring if she knew from him whether he could call you his, or was likely soon to have that honour, has these words: 'I know not what to make of my cousin Lovelace, as to the point your Ladyship is so earnest about. He sometimes says he is actually married to Miss Cl. Harlowe: at other times, that it is her own fault if he be not.−−He speaks of her not only with love but with reverence: yet owns, that there is a misunderstanding between them; but confesses that she is wholly faultless. An angel, and not a woman, he says she is: and that no man living can be worthy of her.'−− This is what my niece Montague writes. God grant, my dearest young lady, that he may not have so heinously offended you that you cannot forgive him! If you are not already married, and refuse to be his, I shall lose all hopes that he ever will marry, or be the man I wish him to be. So will Lord M. So will Lady Sarah Sadleir. I will now answer your questions: but indeed I hardly know what to write, for fear of widening still more the unhappy difference between you. But yet such a young lady must command every thing from me. This then is my answer: I wrote not any letter to him on or about the 7th of June. Neither I nor my steward know any such man as Captain Tomlinson. I wrote not to my niece to meet me at Reading, nor to accompany me to my cousin Leeson's in town. My chancery affair, though, like most chancery affairs, it be of long standing, is, nevertheless, now in so good a way, that it cannot give me occasion to go to town. Nor have I been in town these six months: nor at Hampstead for years. Neither shall I have any temptation to go to town, except to pay my congratulatory compliments to Mrs. Lovelace. On which occasion I should go with the greatest pleasure; and should hope for the favour of your accompanying me to Glenham−hall, for a month at least. Be what will the reason of your inquiry, let me entreat you, my dear young lady, for Lord M.'s sake; for my sake; for this giddy man's sake, soul as well as body; and for all our family's sakes; not to suffer this answer to widen differences so far as to make you refuse him, if he already has not the honour of calling you his; as I am apprehensive he has not, by your signing by your family−name. And here let me offer to you my mediation to compose the difference between you, be it what it will. Your cause, my dear young lady, cannot be put into the hands of any body living more devoted to your service, than into those of Your sincere admirer, and humble servant, ELIZ. LAWRANCE. LETTER LIX MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS. HODGES ENFIELD, JUNE 22. MRS. HODGES, I am under a kind of necessity to write to you, having no one among my relations to whom I dare write, or
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