We have been extremely happy. How many agreeable days have we known together!--What may the next two hours produce.
When I parted with my charmer, (which I did, with infinite reluctance, half an hour ago,) it was upon her promise that she would not sit up to write or read. For so engaging was the conversation to me, (and indeed my behaviour throughout the whole of it was confessedly agreeable to her,) that I insisted, if she did not directly retire to rest, that she should add another happy hour to the former.
To have sat up writing or reading half the night, as she sometimes does, would have frustrated my view, as thou wilt observe, when my little plot unravels.
What--What--What now!--Bounding villain! wouldst thou choke me?--
I was speaking to my heart, Jack!--It was then at my throat.--And what is all this for?--These shy women, how, when a man thinks himself near the mark, do they tempest him!
Is all ready, Dorcas? Has my beloved kept her word with me?--Whether are these billowy heavings owing more to love or to fear? I cannot tell, for the soul of me, of which I have most. If I can but take her before her apprehension, before her eloquence, is awake--
Limbs, why thus convulsed?--Knees, till now so firmly knit, why thus relaxed? why beat you thus together? Will not these trembling fingers, which twice have refused to direct the pen, fail me in the arduous moment?
Once again, why and for what all these convulsions? This project is not to end in matrimony, surely!
But the consequences must be greater than I had thought of till this moment--my beloved"s destiny or my own may depend upon the issue of the two next hours!
I will recede, I think!--
Soft, O virgin saint, and safe as soft, be thy slumbers!
I will now once more turn to my friend Belford"s letter. Thou shalt have fair play, my charmer. I will reperuse what thy advocate has to say for thee. Weak arguments will do, in the frame I am in!--
But, what, what"s the matter!--What a double--But the uproar abates!--What a double coward am I!--Or is it that I am taken in a cowardly minute? for heroes have their fits of fear; cowards their brave moments; and virtuous women, all but my Clarissa, their moment critical--
But thus coolly enjoying the reflection in a hurricane!--Again the confusion is renewed--
What! Where!--How came it!
Is my beloved safe--
O wake not too roughly, my beloved!
LETTER XVI
MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
THURSDAY MORNING, FIVE O"CLOCK, (JUNE 8.)
Now is my reformation secure; for I never shall love any other woman! Oh!
she is all variety! She must ever be new to me! Imagination cannot form; much less can the pencil paint; nor can the soul of painting, poetry, describe an angel so exquisitely, so elegantly lovely!--But I will not by antic.i.p.ation pacify thy impatience. Although the subject is too hallowed for profane contemplation, yet shalt thou have the whole before thee as it pa.s.sed: and this not from a spirit wantoning in description upon so rich a subject; but with a design to put a bound to thy roving thoughts. It will be iniquity, greater than a Lovelace was ever guilty of, to carry them farther than I shall acknowledge.
Thus then, connecting my last with the present, I lead to it.
Didst thou not, by the conclusion of my former, perceive the consternation I was in, just as I was about to reperuse thy letter, in order to prevail upon myself to recede from my purpose of awaking in terrors my slumbering charmer? And what dost think was the matter?
I"ll tell thee--
At a little after two, when the whole house was still, or seemed to be so, and, as it proved, my Clarissa in bed, and fast asleep; I also in a manner undressed (as indeed I was for an hour before) and in my gown and slippers, though, to oblige thee, writing on!--I was alarmed by a trampling noise over head, and a confused buz of mixed voices, some louder than others, like scolding, and little short of screaming. While I was wondering what could be the matter, down stairs ran Dorcas, and at my door, in an accent rather frightedly and hoa.r.s.ely inward than shrilly clamorous, she cried out Fire! Fire! And this the more alarmed me, as she seemed to endeavour to cry out louder, but could not.
My pen (its last scrawl a benediction on my beloved) dropped from my fingers; and up started I; and making but three steps to the door, opening it, cried out, Where! Where! almost as much terrified as the wench; while she, more than half undrest, her petticoats in her hand, unable to speak distinctly, pointed up stairs.
I was there in a moment, and found all owing to the carelessness of Mrs.
Sinclair"s cook-maid, who having sat up to read the simple History of Dorastus and Faunia, when she should have been in bed, had set fire to an old pair of calico window-curtains.
She had had the presence of mind, in her fright, to tear down the half- burnt vallens, as well as curtains, and had got them, though blazing, into the chimney, by the time I came up; so that I had the satisfaction to find the danger happily over.
Mean time Dorcas, after she had directed me up stairs, not knowing the worst was over, and expecting every minute the house would be in a blaze, out of tender regard for her lady, [I shall for ever love the wench for it,] ran to her door, and rapping loudly at it, in a recovered voice, cried out, with a shrillness equal to her love, Fire! Fire! The house is on fire!--Rise, Madam!--This instant rise--if you would not be burnt in your bed!
No sooner had she made this dreadful out-cry, but I heard her lady"s door, with hasty violence, unbar, unbolt, unlock, and open, and my charmer"s voice sounding like that of one going into a fit.
Thou mayest believe that I was greatly affected. I trembled with concern for her, and hastened down faster than the alarm of fire had made me run up, in order to satisfy her that all the danger was over.
When I had flown down to her chamber-door, there I beheld the most charming creature in the world, supporting herself on the arm of the gasping Dorcas, sighing, trembling, and ready to faint, with nothing on but an under petticoat, her lovely bosom half open, and her feet just slipped into her shoes. As soon as she saw me, she panted, and struggled to speak; but could only say, O Mr. Lovelace! and down was ready to sink.
I clasped her in my arms with an ardour she never felt before: My dearest life! fear nothing: I have been up--the danger is over--the fire is got under--and how, foolish devil, [to Dorcas,] could you thus, by your hideous yell, alarm and frighten my angel!
O Jack! how her sweet bosom, as I clasped her to mine, heaved and panted!
I could even distinguish her dear heart flutter, flutter, against mine; and, for a few minutes, I feared she would go into fits.
Lest the half-lifeless charmer should catch cold in this undress, I lifted her to her bed, and sat down by her upon the side of it, endeavouring with the utmost tenderness, as well of action as expression, to dissipate her terrors.
But what did I get by this my generous care of her, and my successful endeavour to bring her to herself?--Nothing (ungrateful as she was!) but the most pa.s.sionate exclamations: for we had both already forgotten the occasion, dreadful as it was, which had thrown her into my arms: I, from the joy of encircling the almost disrobed body of the loveliest of her s.e.x; she, from the greater terrors that arose from finding herself in my arms, and both seated on the bed, from which she had been so lately frighted.
And now, Belford, reflect upon the distance at which the watchful charmer had hitherto kept me: reflect upon my love, and upon my sufferings for her: reflect upon her vigilance, and how long I had laid in wait to elude it; the awe I had stood in, because of her frozen virtue and over-niceness; and that I never before was so happy with her; and then think how ungovernable must be my transports in those happy moments!--And yet, in my own account, I was both decent and generous.
But, far from being affected, as I wished, by an address so fervent, (although from a man from whom she had so lately owned a regard, and with whom, but an hour or two before, she had parted with so much satisfaction,) I never saw a bitterer, or more moving grief, when she came fully to herself.
She appealed to Heaven against my treachery, as she called it; while I, by the most solemn vows, pleaded my own equal fright, and the reality of the danger that had alarmed us both.
She conjured me, in the most solemn and affecting manner, by turns threatening and soothing, to quit her apartment, and permit her to hide herself from the light, and from every human eye.
I besought her pardon, yet could not avoid offending; and repeatedly vowed, that the next morning"s sun should witness our espousals. But taking, I suppose, all my protestations of this kind as an indication that I intended to proceed to the last extremity, she would hear nothing that I said; but, redoubling her struggles to get from me, in broken accents, and exclamations the most vehement, she protested, that she would not survive what she called a treatment so disgraceful and villanous; and, looking all wildly round her, as if for some instrument of mischief, she espied a pair of sharp-pointed scissors on a chair by the bed-side, and endeavoured to catch them up, with design to make her words good on the spot.