Why We Read Fiction_ Theory of Mind and the Novel - Lisa Zunshine [53]
After about one hundred pages of this family drama, we (but not Clarissa) finally learn why they don't. We are made privy to a letter (the first of many) from Lovelace to his friend Belford, in which he explains what fuels the fear and anger of the elder Harlowes. It turns out that he has been inflaming the passions of Clarissa's parents and siblings by bribing one of their own servants and using him to feed them information about Clarissa's supposed intention to elope with Lovelace. Lovelace has it all figured out. Persecuted by her own family—who would not believe her protestations of innocence since they listen to the servant who presumably knows her real intentions—Clarissa would soon be forced to run away from them. And whom would she run to, if not Lovelace, who has all the while been assuring her of his love and respect and begging her to take refuge from her unfeeling relatives with his own family? To get Clarissa out of her father's house and into his sole power is the goal toward which Lovelace is working with patience and prescience. He is the mastermind behind the commotion at the Harlowes—after hearing from him, we finally understand their motives fully.
Having thus established Lovelace as our privileged source of information about the tangled situation, Richardson proceeds to deepen that impression by demonstrating Lovelace's unusual perceptiveness when it comes to figuring out other people's states of mind. Roughly one-third into the novel comes a "Miss Partington" episode, which confirms Lovelace as not only an inveterate plotter but also an insightful mind-reader. Here is how Richardson builds up to it:
Lovelace has finally tricked Clarissa into leaving her family and eloping with him. He then manipulates her into staying together in rented apartments in London, at a house that, as he told Clarissa, is owned by a respectable widow of an Army officer, who lets rooms and takes care of her two nieces. In reality, the house is a brothel; the owner, "Mrs. Sinclair," is a madam; and her nieces are prostitutes, turned into such by Lovelace who had earlier seduced and abandoned them. Clarissa is introduced to the inhabitants of the house as Lovelace's wife, when, in fact, both Mrs. Sinclair and her nieces are convinced that Lovelace does not want to marry Clarissa and instead intends to make her his kept mistress. Lovelace explains to Clarissa that since they spend so much time together, they have to pose as a married couple (even though they keep separate bedrooms) in order not to scandalize the (presumably) respectable inhabitants of the house. However, the real reason that he wants Clarissa to address him as a husband in front of Mrs. Sinclair and her "nieces" is that if he then happens to rape Clarissa, he would have the witnesses who could testify in the court of law that Clarissa considered herself married to him and thus cannot possibly complain of any sexual liberties he has taken with his "lawfully wedded" wife.
One evening Lovelace throws a party to which he invites four of his equally debauched male friends and another former mistress of his, one Miss Partington (now, too, a prostitute), who is presented to Clarissa as a young lady of good family, wealth, and virtue. Miserable as she is about perpetuating the lie about her marriage, Clarissa is prevailed to continue posing as "Mrs. Lovelace" in front of his friends, not knowing that they are all apprised of the true state of affairs and of Lovelace's motives for making Clarissa believe that they all think that she is married to him. Later that night, Clarissa is asked if Miss Partington can stay in her room for the night, for Mrs. Sinclair has presumably run out of beds to accommodate her illustrious guests. Although, on the surface of it, there is nothing strange about such an application, particularly as Miss Partington is supposed to be a woman of birth and virtue, the "over-cautious" Clarissa, not even