Clarissa, Volume 6 - The History Of A Young Lady

Clarissa, Volume 6 − The History Of A Young Lady 148
to me. But not one word of either, whatever was your intention, did you mention to me, in that first of the
three letters you so warmly TELL me you did send me. I will enclose it to convince you.*
* The letter she encloses was Mr. Lovelace's forged one. See Vol. V. Letter XXX.
But your account of your messenger's delivering to me your second letter, and the description he gives of me,
as lying upon a couch, in a strange way, bloated, and flush−coloured; you don't know how, absolutely puzzles
and confounds me.
Lord have mercy upon the poor Clarissa Harlowe! What can this mean!−−Who was the messenger you sent?
Was he one of Lovelace's creatures too!−− Could nobody come near me but that man's confederates, either
setting out so, or made so? I know not what to make of any one syllable of this! Indeed I don't.
Let me see. You say, this was before I went from Hampstead! My intellects had not then been touched!−−nor
had I ever been surprised by wine, [strange if I had!]: How then could I be found in such a strange way,
bloated and flush−coloured; you don't know how!−−Yet what a vile, what a hateful figure has your messenger
represented me to have made!
But indeed I know nothing of any messenger from you.
Believing myself secure at Hampstead, I staid longer there than I would have done, in hopes of the letter
promised me in your short one of the 9th, brought me by my own messenger, in which you undertake to send
for and engage Mrs. Townsend in my favour.*
* See Vol. V. Letter XXIX.
I wondered I had not heard from you: and was told you were sick; and, at another time, that your mother and
you had had words on my account, and that you had refused to admit Mr. Hickman's visits upon it: so that I
supposed, at one time, that you were not able to write; at another, that your mother's prohibition had its due
force with you. But now I have no doubt that the wicked man must have intercepted your letter; and I wish he
found not means to corrupt your messenger to tell you so strange a story.
It was on Sunday, June 11, you say, that the man gave it me. I was at church twice that day with Mrs. Moore.
Mr. Lovelace was at her house the while, where he boarded, and wanted to have lodged; but I would not
permit that, though I could not help the other. In one of these spaces it must be that he had time to work upon
the man. You'll easily, my dear, find that out, by inquiring the time of his arrival at Mrs. Moore's and other
circumstances of the strange way he pretended to see me in, on a couch, and the rest.
Had any body seen me afterwards, when I was betrayed back to the vile house, struggling under the operation
of wicked potions, and robbed indeed of my intellects (for this, as you shall hear, was my dreadful case,) I
might then, perhaps, have appeared bloated and flush−coloured, and I know not how myself. But were you to
see your poor Clarissa, now (or even to have seen her at Hampstead before she suffered the vilest of all
outrages,) you would not think her bloated or flush−coloured: indeed you would not.
In a word, it could not be me your messenger saw; nor (if any body) who it was can I divine.
I will now, as briefly as the subject will permit, enter into the darker part of my sad story: and yet I must be
somewhat circumstantial, that you may not think me capable of reserve or palliation. The latter I am not
conscious that I need. I should be utterly inexcusable were I guilty of the former to you. And yet, if you know
how my heart sinks under the thoughts of a recollection so painful, you would pity me.
As I shall not be able, perhaps, to conclude what I have to write in even two or three letters, I will begin a new