Volume I Part 18 (1/2)

I was still speechless.

She folded the warm statue, as she was pleased to call me, in her arms; and entreated me, for heaven's sake, to comply.

Speech and tears were lent me at the same time.--You have given me life, Madam, said I, clasping my uplifted hands together, and falling on one knee; a happy one, till now, has your goodness, and my papa's, made it!

O do not, do not, make all the remainder of it miserable!

Your father, replied she, is resolved not to see you, till he sees you as obedient a child as you used to be. You have never been put to a test till now, that deserved to be called a test. This is, this must be, my last effort with you. Give me hope, my dear child: my peace is concerned: I will compound with you but for hope: and yet your father will not be satisfied without an implicit, and even a cheerful obedience--Give me but hope, child!

To give you hope, my dearest, my most indulgent Mamma, is to give you every thing. Can I be honest, if I give a hope that I cannot confirm?

She was very angry. She again called me perverse: she upbraided me with regarding only my own prepossessions, and respecting not either her peace of mind or my own duty:--'It is a grating thing, said she, for the parents of a child, who delighted in her in all the time of her helpless infancy, and throughout every stage of her childhood; and in every part of her education to womanhood, because of the promises she gave of proving the most grateful and dutiful of children; to find, just when the time arrived which should crown their wishes, that child stand in the way of her own happiness, and her parents' comfort,and, refusing an excellent offer and n.o.ble settlements, give suspicions to her anxious friends, that she would become the property of a vile rake and libertine, who (be the occasion what it will) defies her family, and has actually embrued his hands in her brother's blood.

'I have had a very hard time of it, said she, between your father and you; for, seeing your dislike, I have more than once pleaded for you: but all to no purpose. I am only treated as a too fond mother, who, from motives of a blamable indulgence, encourage a child to stand in opposition to a father's will. I am charged with dividing the family into two parts; I and my youngest daughter standing against my husband, his two brothers, my son, my eldest daughter, and my sister Hervey.

I have been told, that I must be convinced of the fitness as well as advantage to the whole (your brother and Mr. Lovelace out of the question) of carrying the contract with Mr. Solmes, on which so many contracts depend, into execution.

'Your father's heart, I tell you once more, is in it: he has declared, that he had rather have no daughter in you, than one he cannot dispose of for your own good: especially if you have owned, that your heart is free; and as the general good of his whole family is to be promoted by your obedience. He has pleaded, poor man! that his frequent gouty paroxysms (every fit more threatening than the former) give him no extraordinary prospects, either of worldly happiness, or of long days: and he hopes, that you, who have been supposed to have contributed to the lengthening of your grandfather's life, will not, by your disobedience, shorten your father's.'

This was a most affecting plea, my dear. I wept in silence upon it. I could not speak to it. And my mother proceeded: 'What therefore can be his motives, Clary Harlowe, in the earnest desire he has to see this treaty perfected, but the welfare and aggrandizement of his family; which already having fortunes to become the highest condition, cannot but aspire to greater distinctions? However slight such views as these may appear to you, Clary, you know, that they are not slight ones to any other of the family: and your father will be his own judge of what is and what is not likely to promote the good of his children. Your abstractedness, child, (affectation of abstractedness, some call it,) savours, let me tell you, of greater particularity, than we aim to carry. Modesty and humility, therefore, will oblige you rather to mistrust yourself of peculiarity, than censure views which all the world pursues, as opportunity offers.'

I was still silent; and she proceeded--'It is owing to the good opinion, Clary, which your father has of you, and of your prudence, duty, and grat.i.tude, that he engaged for your compliance, in your absence (before you returned from Miss Howe); and that he built and finished contracts upon it, which cannot be made void, or cancelled.'

But why then, thought I, did they receive me, on my return from Miss Howe, with so much intimidating solemnity?--To be sure, my dear, this argument, as well as the rest, was obtruded upon my mother.

She went on, 'Your father has declared, that your unexpected opposition, [unexpected she was pleased to call it,] and Mr. Lovelace's continued menaces and insults, more and more convince him, that a short day is necessary in order to put an end to all that man's hopes, and to his own apprehensions resulting from the disobedience of a child so favoured. He has therefore actually ordered patterns of the richest silks to be sent for from London--'

I started--I was out of breath--I gasped, at this frightful precipitance--I was going to open with warmth against it. I knew whose the happy expedient must be: female minds, I once heard my brother say, that could but be brought to balance on the change of their state, might easily be determined by the glare and splendour of the nuptial preparations, and the pride of becoming the mistress of a family.--But she was pleased to hurry on, that I might not have time to express my disgusts at such a communication--to this effect: 'Your father therefore, my Clary, cannot, either for your sake, or his own, labour under a suspense so affecting to his repose. He has even thought fit to acquaint me, on my pleading for you, that it becomes me, as I value my own peace, [how harsh to such a wife!] and as I wish, that he does not suspect that I secretly favour the address of a vile rake, (a character which all the s.e.x, he is pleased to say, virtuous and vicious, are but too fond of!) to exert my authority over you: and that this I may the less scrupulously do, as you have owned [the old string!] that your heart is free.'

Unworthy reflection in my mother's case, surely, this of our s.e.x's valuing a libertine; since she made choice of my father in preference to several suitors of equal fortune, because they were of inferior reputation for morals!

'Your father, added she, at his going out, told me what he expected from me, in case I found out that I had not the requisite influence upon you--It was this--That I should directly separate myself from you, and leave you singly to take the consequence of your double disobedience--I therefore entreat you, my dear Clarissa, concluded she, and that in the most earnest and condescending manner, to signify to your father, on his return, your ready obedience; and this as well for my sake as your own.'

Affected by my mother's goodness to me, and by that part of her argument which related to her own peace, and to the suspicions they had of her secretly inclining to prefer the man so hated by them, to the man so much my aversion, I could not but wish it were possible for me to obey, I therefore paused, hesitated, considered, and was silent for some time.

I could see, that my mother hoped that the result of this hesitation would be favourable to her arguments. But then recollecting, that all was owing to the instigations of a brother and sister, wholly actuated by selfish and envious views; that I had not deserved the treatment I had of late met with; that my disgrace was already become the public talk; that the man was Mr. Solmes; and that my aversion to him was too generally known, to make my compliance either creditable to myself or to them: that it would give my brother and sister a triumph over me, and over Mr. Lovelace, which they would not fail to glory in; and which, although it concerned me but little to regard on his account, yet might be attended with fatal mischiefs--And then Mr. Solmes's disagreeable person; his still more disagreeable manners; his low understanding--Understanding! the glory of a man, so little to be dispensed with in the head and director of a family, in order to preserve to him that respect which a good wife (and that for the justification of her own choice) should pay him herself, and wish every body to pay him.--And as Mr. Solmes's inferiority in this respectable faculty of the human mind [I must be allowed to say this to you, and no great self a.s.sumption neither] would proclaim to all future, as well as to all present observers, what must have been my mean inducement. All these reflections crowding upon my remembrance; I would, Madam, said I, folding my hands, with an earnestness in which my whole heart was engaged, bear the cruelest tortures, bear loss of limb, and even of life, to give you peace. But this man, every moment I would, at you command, think of him with favour, is the more my aversion. You cannot, indeed you cannot, think, how my whole soul resists him!--And to talk of contracts concluded upon; of patterns; of a short day!--Save me, save me, O my dearest Mamma, save your child, from this heavy, from this insupportable evil--!

Never was there a countenance that expressed so significantly, as my mother's did, an anguish, which she struggled to hide, under an anger she was compelled to a.s.sume--till the latter overcoming the former, she turned from me with an uplifted eye, and stamping--Strange perverseness!

were the only words I heard of a sentence that she angrily p.r.o.nounced; and was going. I then, half-frantically I believe, laid hold of her gown--Have patience with me, dearest Madam! said I--Do not you renounce me totally!--If you must separate yourself from your child, let it not be with absolute reprobation on your own part!--My uncles may be hard-hearted--my father may be immovable--I may suffer from my brother's ambition, and from my sister's envy!--But let me not lose my Mamma's love; at least, her pity.

She turned to me with benigner rays--You have my love! You have my pity!

But, O my dearest girl--I have not yours.

Indeed, indeed, Madam, you have: and all my reverence, all my grat.i.tude, you have!--But in this one point--Cannot I be this once obliged?--Will no expedient be accepted? Have I not made a very fair proposal as to Mr.

Lovelace?

I wish, for both our sakes, my dear unpersuadable girl, that the decision of this point lay with me. But why, when you know it does not, why should you thus perplex and urge me?--To renounce Mr. Lovelace is now but half what is aimed at. Nor will any body else believe you in earnest in the offer, if I would. While you remain single, Mr. Lovelace will have hopes--and you, in the opinion of others, inclinations.

Permit me, dearest Madam, to say, that your goodness to me, your patience, your peace, weigh more with me, than all the rest put together: for although I am to be treated by my brother, and, through his instigations, by my father, as a slave in this point, and not as a daughter, yet my mind is not that of a slave. You have not brought me up to be mean.