I ask nothing of you but what is in your power to comply with, and what it is your duty to comply with.

Then, sir, I will comply with it. But yet I hope from your goodness—

No expostulations! No but’s, girl! No qualifyings! I will be obeyed, I tell you! and cheerfully too! or you are no child of mine!

I wept.

Let me beseech you, my dear and ever-honoured papa (and I dropped down on my knees), that I may have only yours and my mamma’s will, and not my brother’s, to obey. I was going on, but he was pleased to withdraw, leaving me on the floor, saying that he would not hear me thus by subtlety and cunning aiming to distinguish away my duty, repeating that he would be obeyed.

My heart is too full—so full that it may endanger my duty were I to unburden it to you on this occasion; so I will lay down my pen. But can—Yet, positively, I will lay down my pen!

Letter 9: MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE

Feb. 26, in the morning

My aunt who stayed here last night made me a visit this morning as soon as it was light.

I find by a few words which dropped from her unawares, that they have all an absolute dependence upon what they suppose to be a meekness in my temper. But in this they may be mistaken, for I verily think upon a strict examination of myself that I have almost as much in me of my father’s as of my mother’s family.

My aunt advises me to submit for the present to the interdicts they have laid me under; and indeed to encourage Mr Solmes’s address. I have absolutely refused the latter, let what will as I have told her be the consequence. The visiting prohibition I will conform to. But as to that of not corresponding with you, nothing but the menace that our letters shall be intercepted can engage my observation of it.

I cannot bear the thought of being deprived of the principal pleasure of my life, for such is your conversation by person and by letter.

But can you, my dear Miss Howe, condescend to carry on a private correspondence with me? If you can, there is one way I have thought of by which it may be done.

You must remember the Green Lane, as we call it, that runs by the side of the wood-house and poultry-yard where I keep my bantams, pheasants and pea-hens, which generally engage my notice twice a day, the more my favourites because they were my grandfather’s, and recommended to my care by him, and therefore brought hither from my dairy-house, since his death.

The lane is lower than the floor of the wood-house, and in the side of the wood-house the boards are rotted away down to the floor for half an ell together in several places. Hannah can step into the lane and make a mark with chalk where a letter or parcel may be pushed in under some sticks, which may be so managed as to be an unsuspected cover for the written deposits from either.

•   •   •

I have been just now to look at the place and find it will answer. So your faithful Robert may, without coming near the house, and as only passing through the green lane which leads to two or three farmhouses (out of livery, if you please), very easily take from thence my letters and deposit yours.

This place is the more convenient because it is seldom resorted to but by myself or Hannah on the above-mentioned account, for it is the general store-house for firing, the wood for constant use being nearer the house.

One corner of this being separated off for the roosting-place of my little poultry, either she or I shall never want a pretence to go thither.

Try, my dear, the success of a letter this way, and give me your opinion and advice what to do in this disgraceful situation, as I cannot but call it, and what you think of my prospects, and what you would do in my case.

But beforehand I must tell you that your advice must not run in favour of this Solmes; and yet it is very likely they will endeavour to engage your mamma in order to induce you, who have such an influence over me, to favour him.

Yet, on second thoughts, if you incline to that side of the question I would have you write your whole mind. Determined as I think I am, and cannot help it, I would at least give a patient hearing to what may be said on the other side. For my regards are not so much engaged (upon my word they are not; I know not myself if they be) to another person, as some of my friends suppose; and as you, giving way to your lively vein, upon his last visits affected to suppose. What preferable favour I may have for him to any other person is owing more to the usage he has received, and for my sake borne, than to any personal consideration.

I write a few lines of grateful acknowledgement to your mamma for her favours to me in the late happy period. I fear I shall never know such another! I hope she will forgive me that I did not write sooner.

Your affectionate

CLARISSA HARLOWE

Letter 10: MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE

Feb. 27

What odd heads some people have! Miss Clarissa Harlowe to be sacrificed in marriage to Mr Roger Solmes! Astonishing!

I must not, you say, give my advice in favour of this man! You now half convince me, my dear, that you are allied to the family that could think of so preposterous a match, or you could never have had the least notion of my advising in his favour.

Ask me for his picture. You know I have a good hand at drawing an ugly likeness. But I’ll see a little farther first; for who knows what may happen since matters are in such a train, and since you have not the courage to oppose so overwhelming a torrent?

You ask me to help you to a little of my spirit. Are you in earnest? But it will not now, I doubt, do you service. It will not sit naturally upon you. You are your mamma’s girl, think what you will, and have violent spirits to contend with. Alas! my dear, you should have borrowed some of mine a little sooner—that is to say, before you had given the management of your estate into the hands of those who think they have a prior claim to it. What though a father’s? Has not that father two elder children? And do they not both bear his stamp and image more than you do?

But you are so tender of some people who have no tenderness for anybody but themselves, that I must conjure you to speak out. Remember that a friendship like ours admits of no reserves. You may trust my impartiality. It would be an affront to your own judgement if you did not; for do you not ask my advice? And have you not taught me that friendship should never give a bias against justice?

You are all too rich to be happy, child. For must not each of you by the constitutions of your family marry to be still richer? Is true happiness any part of your family-view? So far from it, that none of your family but yourself could be happy were they not rich. So let them fret on, grumble and grudge, and accumulate; and wondering what ails them that they have not happiness when they have riches, think the cause is want of more; and so go on heaping up till Death, as greedy an accumulator as themselves, gathers them into his garner!

That they prohibit your corresponding with me is a wisdom I neither wonder at, nor blame them for, since it is an evidence to me that they know their own folly; and if they do, is it strange that they should be afraid to trust another’s judgement upon it?

You are pleased to say, and upon your word too!—that your regards (a mighty quaint word for affections) are not so much engaged, as some of your friends suppose, to another person. What need you give one to imagine, my dear, that the last month or two has been a period extremely favourable to that other person!—whom it has made an obliger of the niece for his patience with the uncles.

But, to pass that by. So much engaged! How much, my dear? Shall I infer? Some of your friends suppose a great deal.