Clarissa, Volume 6 - The History Of A Young Lady

Clarissa, Volume 6 − The History Of A Young Lady 140
providence in this at least−−so that at present there is nothing of exigence; nothing that can require, or even
excuse, your coming, when so many better ends may be answered by your staying where you are. A time may
come, when I shall want your last and best assistance: and then, my dear Mrs. Norton−−and then, I will speak
it, and embrace it with all my whole heart−−and then, will it not be denied me by any body.
You are very obliging in your offer of money. But although I was forced to leave my clothes behind me, yet I
took several things of value with me, which will keep me from present want. You'll say, I have made a
miserable hand of it−−so indeed I have−−and, to look backwards, in a very little while too.
But what shall I do, if my father cannot be prevailed upon to recall his malediction? O my dear Mrs. Norton,
what a weight must a father's curse have upon a heart so appreciative as mine!−−Did I think I should ever
have a father's curse to deprecate? And yet, only that the temporary part of it is so terribly fulfilled, or I should
be as earnest for its recall, for my father's sake, as for my own!
You must not be angry with me that I wrote not to you before. You are very right and very kind to say you are
sure I love you. Indeed I do. And what a generosity, [so like yourself!] is there in your praise, to attribute to
me more than I merit, in order to raise an emulation to me to deserve your praises!−−you tell me what you
expect from me in the calamities I am called upon to bear. May I behave answerably!
I can a little account to myself for my silence to you, my kind, my dear maternal friend! How equally sweetly
and politely do you express yourself on this occasion! I was very desirous, for your sake, as well as for my
own, that you should have it to say that we did not correspond: had they thought we did, every word you
could have dropt in my favour would have been rejected; and my mother would have been forbid to see you,
or pay any regard to what you should say.
Then I had sometimes better and sometimes worse prospects before me. My worst would only have troubled
you to know: my better made me frequently hope, that, by the next post, or the next, and so on for weeks, I
should have the best news to impart to you that then could happen: cold as the wretch had made my heart to
that best.−−For how could I think to write to you, with a confession that I was not married, yet lived in the
house (for I could not help it) with such a man?−−Who likewise had given it out to several, that we were
actually married, although with restrictions that depended on the reconciliation with my friends? And to
disguise the truth, or be guilty of a falsehood, either direct or equivocal, that was what you had never taught
me.
But I might have written to you for advice, in my precarious situation, perhaps you will think. But, indeed, my
dear Mrs. Norton, I was not lost for want of advice. And this will appear clear to you from what I have already
hinted, were I to explain myself no further:−−For what need had the cruel spoiler to have recourse to
unprecedented arts−−I will speak out plainer still, (but you must not at present report it,) to stupifying potions,
and to the most brutal and outrageous force, had I been wanting in my duty?
A few words more upon this grievous subject−−
When I reflect upon all that has happened to me, it is apparent, that this generally−supposed thoughtless
seducer has acted by me upon a regular and preconcerted plan of villany.
In order to set all his vile plots in motion, nothing was wanting, from the first, but to prevail upon me, either
by force or fraud, to throw myself into his power: and when this was effected, nothing less than the
intervention of the paternal authority, (which I had not deserved to be exerted in my behalf,) could have saved
me from the effect of his deep machinations. Opposition from any other quarter would but too probably have
precipitated his barbarous and ungrateful violence: and had you yourself been with me, I have reason now to
think, that somehow or other you would have suffered in endeavouring to save me: for never was there, as
now I see, a plan of wickedness more steadily and uniformly pursued than his has been, against an unhappy