LETTER XX MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
>>> I wrote a short letter to you in my first agitations. It contained not above twenty lines, all full of fright, alarm, and execration. But being afraid that my vehemence would too much affect you, I thought it better to wait a little, as well for the reasons already hinted at, as to be able to give you as many par- ticulars as I could, and my thoughts upon all. And as they have offered, or may offer, you will be sufficiently armed to resist all his machinations, be what they will.
>>> One word more. Command me up, if I can be of the least service or pleasure to you. I value not fame; I value not censure; nor even life itself, I verily think, as I do your honour, and your friend- ship--For, is not your honour my honour? And is not your friendship the pride of my life?
May Heaven preserve you, my dearest creature, in honour and safety, is the prayer, the hourly prayer, of
Your ever-faithful and affectionate ANNA HOWE.
THURSDAY MORN. 5. I have written all night
***
TO MISS HOWE
MY DEAREST CREATURE,
How you have shocked, confounded, surprised, astonished me, by your dreadful communication!--My heart is too weak to bear up against such a stroke as this!--When all hope was with me! When my prospects were so much mended!--But can there be such villany in men, as in this vile principal, and equally vile agent!
I am really ill--very ill--grief and surprise, and, now I will say, despair, have overcome me!--All, all, you have laid down as conjecture, appears to me now to be more than conjecture!
O that your mother would have the goodness to permit me the presence of the only comforter that my afflicted, my half-broken heart, could be raised by. But I charge you, think not of coming up without her indulgent permission. I am too ill at present, my dear, to think of combating with this dreadful man; and of flying from this horrid house!-- My bad writing will show you this.--But my illness will be my present security, should he indeed have meditated villany.--Forgive, O forgive me, my dearest friend, the trouble I have given you!--All must soon--But why add I grief to grief, and trouble to trouble?--But I charge you, my beloved creature, not to think of coming up without your mother's love, to the truly desolate and broken-spirited
CLARISSA HARLOWE.
***
Well, Jack!--And what thinkest thou of this last letter? Miss Howe values not either fame or censure; and thinkest thou, that this letter will not bring the little fury up, though she could procure no other conveyance than her higgler's panniers, one for herself, the other for her maid? She knows whither to come now. Many a little villain have I punished for knowing more than I would have her know, and that by adding to her knowledge and experience. What thinkest thou, Belford, if, by getting hither this virago, and giving cause for a lamentable letter from her to the fair fugitive, I should be able to recover her? Would she not visit that friend in her distress, thinkest thou, whose intended visit to her in her's brought her into the condition from which she herself had so perfidiously escaped?
Let me enjoy the thought!
Shall I send this letter?--Thou seest I have left room, if I fail in the exact imitation of so charming a hand, to avoid too strict a scrutiny. Do they not both deserve it of me? Seest thou now how the raving girls threatens her mother? Ought she not to be punished? And can I be a worse devil, or villain, or monster, that she calls me in the long letter I enclose (and has called me in her former letters) were I to punish them both as my vengeance urges me to punish them? And when I have executed that my vengeance, how charmingly satisfied may they both go down into the country and keep house together, and have a much better reason than their pride could give them, for living the single life they have both seemed so fond of!