Miss Clarissa Harlowe, to miss
Howe.
Saturday evening.
Mr. Lovelace has seen divers apartments at Windsor;
but not one, he says, that he thought fit for me,
and which, at the same time, answered my description.
He has been very solicitous to keep to the letter
of my instructions: which looked well: and
the better I like him, as, although he proposed that
town, he came back, dissuading me from it: for
he said, that, in his journey from thence, he had
thought Windsor, although of his own proposal, a wrong
choice; because I coveted privacy, and that was a place
generally visited and admired.*
* This inference of the Lady in his favour is exactly
what he had hoped for. See Letter xxv.
of this volume.
I told him, that if Mrs. Sorlings thought me not an
incumbrance, I would be willing to stay here a little
longer; provided he would leave me, and go to Lord
M.’s, or to London, which ever he thought best.
He hoped, he said, that he might suppose me absolutely
safe from the insults or attempts of my brother; and,
therefore, if it should make me easier, he would obey,
for a few days at least.
He again proposed to send for Hannah. I told
him I designed to do so, through you—And
shall I beg of you, my dear, to cause the honest creature
to be sent to? Your faithful Robert, I think,
knows where she is. Perhaps she will be permitted
to quit her place directly, by allowing a month’s
wages, which I will repay her. He took notice
of the serious humour he found me in, and of the redness
of my eyes. I had just been answering your letter;
and had he not approached me, on his coming off his
journey, in a very respectful manner; had he not made
an unexceptionable report of his inquiries, and been
so ready to go from me, at the very first word; I
was prepared (notwithstanding the good terms we parted
upon when he set out for Windsor) to have given him
a very unwelcome reception: for the contents
of your last letter had so affected me, that the moment
I saw him, I beheld with indignation the seducer, who
had been the cause of all the evils I suffer, and have
suffered.
He hinted to me, that he had received a letter from
Lady Betty, and another (as I understood him) from
one of the Miss Montagues. If they take notice
of my in them, I wonder that he did not acquaint me
with the contents. I am afraid, my dear, that
his relations are among those who think I have taken
a rash and inexcusable step. It is not to my
credit to let even them know how I have been frighted
out of myself: and yet perhaps they would hold
me unworthy of their alliance, if they were to think
my flight a voluntary one. O my dear, how uneasy
to us are our reflections upon every doubtful occurrence,
when we know we have been prevailed upon to do a wrong
thing!
