Miss Clarissa Harlowe [in continuation.]
Monday morning, April 17.
Late as I went to bed, I have had very little rest.
Sleep and I have quarreled; and although I court
it, it will not be friends. I hope its fellow-irreconcilables
at Harlowe-place enjoy its balmy comforts. Else
that will be an aggravation of my fault. My brother
and sister, I dare say, want it not.
Mr. Lovelace, who is an early riser, as well as I,
joined me in the garden about six; and after the usual
salutations, asked me to resume our last night’s
subject. It was upon lodgings at London, he said.
I think you mentioned one to me, Sir—Did
you not?
Yes, Madam, [but, watching the turn of my countenance,]
rather as what you would be welcome to, than perhaps
approve of.
I believe so too. To go to town upon an uncertainty,
I own, is not agreeable: but to be obliged to
any persons of your acquaintance, when I want to be
thought independent of you; and to a person, especially,
to whom my friends are to direct to me, if they vouchsafe
to take notice of me at all, is an absurd thing to
mention.
He did not mention it as what he imagined I would
accept, but only to confirm to me what he had said,
that he himself knew of none fit for me.
Has not your family, Madam, some one tradesman they
deal with, who has conveniences of this kind?
I would make it worth such a person’s while
to keep his secret of your being at his house.
Traders are dealers in pins, said he, and will be
more obliged by a penny customer, than by a pound
present, because it is in their way: yet will
refuse neither, any more than a lawyer or a man of
office his fee.
My father’s tradesmen, I said, would, no doubt,
be the first employed to find me out. So that
that proposal was as wrong as the other. And
who is it that a creature so lately in favour with
all her friends can apply to, in such a situation
as mine, but must be (at least) equally the friends
of her relations.
We had a good deal of discourse upon the same topic.
But, at last, the result was this—He wrote
a letter to one Mr. Doleman, a married man, of fortune
and character, (I excepting to Mr. Belford,) desiring
him to provide decent apartments ready furnished [I
had told him what they should be] for a single woman;
consisting of a bed-chamber; another for a maidservant;
with the use of a dining-room or parlour. This
letter he gave me to peruse; and then sealed it up,
and dispatched it away in my presence, by one of his
own servants, who, having business in town, is to
bring back an answer.
I attend the issue of it; holding myself in readiness
to set out for London, unless you, my dear, advise
the contrary.
Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford,
ESQ.
Sat., Sunday, Monday.
