brother, though now they were a little more comfortable; yet, her
mother, she was sure, would never be at rest till he got into some
higher way of life; “And, indeed, I have some hopes,” she continued,
“that we shall be able by and bye to do something better for him; for
he has got one friend in the world, yet; thank God, and such a noble
friend!--indeed I believe he can do whatever he pleases for him,--that
is I mean I believe if he was to ask any thing for him, there's nobody
would deny him. And this is what I wanted to talk to you about.”--
Cecilia, who doubted not but she meant Delvile, scarce knew how to press
the subject, though she came with no other view: Henrietta, however, too
eager to want solicitation, went on.
“But the question is whether we shall be able to prevail upon my brother
to accept any thing, for he grows more and more unwilling to be obliged,
and the reason is, that being poor, he is afraid, I believe, people
should think he wants to beg of them: though if they knew him as well
as I do, they would not long think that, for I am sure he would a great
deal rather be starved to death. But indeed, to say the truth, I am
afraid he has been sadly to blame in this affair, and quarrelled when
there was no need to be affronted; for I have seen a gentleman who knows
a great deal better than my brother what people should do, and he says
he took every thing wrong that was done, all the time he was at Lord
Vannelt's.”
“And how does this gentleman know it?”
“O because he went himself to enquire about it; for he knows Lord
Vannelt very well, and it was by his means my brother came acquainted
with him. And this gentleman would not have wished my brother to be used
ill any more than I should myself, so I am sure I may believe what he
says. But my poor brother, not being a lord himself, thought every body
meant to be rude to him, and because he knew he was poor, he suspected
they all behaved disrespectfully to him. But this gentleman gave me his
word that every body liked him and esteemed him, and if he would not
have been so suspicious, they would all have done any thing for him in
the world.”
“You know this gentleman very well, then?”
“O no, madam!” she answered hastily, “I don't know him at all! he only
comes here to see my brother; it would be very impertinent for me to
call him an acquaintance of mine.”
“Was it before your brother, then, he held this conversation with you?”
“O no, my brother would have been affronted with him, too, if he had!
but he called here to enquire for him at the time when he was lost to
us, and my mother quite went down upon her knees to him to beg him to
go to Lord Vannelt's, and make excuses for him, if he had not behaved
properly: but if my brother was to know this, he would hardly speak to
her again! so when this gentleman came next, I begged him not to mention
it, for my mother happened to be out, and so I saw him alone.”
“And did he stay with you long?”
“No, ma'am, a very short time indeed; but I asked him questions all the
while, and kept him as long as I could, that I might hear all he had to
say about my brother.”
“Have you never seen him since?”
“No, ma'am, not once! I suppose he does not know my brother is come back
to us. Perhaps when he does, he will call.”
“Do you wish him to call?”
“Me?” cried she, blushing, “a little;--sometimes I do;--for my brother's
sake.”
“For your brother's sake! Ah my dear Henrietta! but tell me,--or _don't_
tell me if you had rather not,--did I not once see you kissing a letter?
perhaps it was from this same noble friend?”
“It was not a letter, madam,” said she, looking down, “it was only the
cover of one to my brother.”
“The cover of a letter only!--and that to your brother!--is it possible
you could so much value it?”
“Ah madam! _You_, who are always used to the good and the wise, who see
no other sort of people but those in high life, _you_ can have no notion
how they strike those that they are new to!--but I who see them seldom,
and who live with people so very unlike them--Oh you cannot guess how
sweet to _me_ is every thing that belongs to them! whatever has but
once been touched by their hands, I should like to lock up, and keep for
ever! though if I was used to them, as you are, perhaps I might think
less of them.”
Alas! thought Cecilia, who by _them_ knew she only meant _him_, little
indeed would further intimacy protect you!
“We are all over-ready,” continued Henrietta, “to blame others, and that
is the way I have been doing all this time myself; but I don't blame my
poor brother now for living so with the great as I used to do, for now
I have seen a little more of the world, I don't wonder any longer at his
behaviour: for I know how it is, and I see that those who have had good
educations, and kept great company, and mixed with the world,--O it
is another thing!--they seem quite a different species!--they are so
gentle, so soft-mannered! nothing comes from them but what is meant
to oblige! they seem as if they only lived to give pleasure to other
people, and as if they never thought at all of themselves!”
“Ah Henrietta!” said Cecilia, shaking her head, “you have caught the
enthusiasm of your brother, though you so long condemned it! Oh have a
care lest, like him also, you find it as pernicious as it is alluring!”
“There, is no danger for _me_, madam,” answered she, “for the people I
so much admire are quite out of my reach. I hardly ever even see them;
and perhaps it may so happen I may see them no more!”
“The people?” said Cecilia, smiling, “are there, then, many you so much
distinguish?”
“Oh no indeed!” cried she, eagerly, “there is only one! there _can_
be--I mean there are only a few--” she checked herself, and stopt.
“Whoever you admire,” cried Cecilia, “your admiration cannot but honour:
yet indulge it not too far, lest it should wander from your heart to
your peace, and make you wretched for life.”
“Ah madam!--I see you know who is the particular person I was thinking
of! but indeed you are quite mistaken if you suppose any thing bad of
me!”
“Bad of you!” cried Cecilia, embracing her, “I scarce think so well of
any one!”
“But I mean, madam, if you think I forget he is so much above me. But
indeed I never do; for I only admire him for his goodness to my brother,
and never think of him at all, but just by way of comparing him,
sometimes, to the other people that I see, because he makes me hate them
so, that I wish I was never to see them again.”
“His acquaintance, then,” said Cecilia, “has done you but an ill office,
and happy it would be for you could you forget you had ever made it.”
“O, I shall never do that! for the more I think of him, the more I
am out of humour with every body else! O Miss Beverley! we have a sad
acquaintance indeed! I'm sure I don't wonder my brother was so ashamed
of them. They are all so rude, and so free, and put one so out of
countenance,--O how different is this person you are thinking of! he
would not distress anybody, or make one ashamed for all the world! _You_
only are like him! always gentle, always obliging!--sometimes I think
you must be his sister--once, too, I heard--but that was contradicted.”
A deep sigh escaped Cecilia at this speech; she guessed too well
what she might have heard, and she knew too well how it might be
contradicted.
“Surely, _you_ cannot be unhappy, Miss Beverley!” said Henrietta, with a
look of mingled surprise and concern.
“I have much, I own,” cried Cecilia, assuming more chearfulness, “to be
thankful for, and I endeavour not to forget it.”
“O how often do I think,” cried Henrietta, “that you, madam, are
the happiest person in the world! with every thing at your own
disposal,--with every body in love with you, with all the money that you
can wish for, and so much sweetness that nobody can envy you it! with
power to keep just what company you please, and every body proud to be
one of the number!--Oh if I could chuse who I would be, I should sooner
say Miss Beverley than any princess in the world!”
Ah, thought Cecilia, if such is my situation,--how cruel that by one
dreadful blow all its happiness should be thrown away!
“Were I a rich lady, like you,” continued Henrietta, “and quite in my
own power, then, indeed, I might soon think of nothing but those people
that I admire! and that makes me often wonder that _you_, madam, who are
just such another as himself--but then, indeed, you may see so many of
the same sort, that just this one may not so much strike you: and for
that reason I hope with all my heart that he will never be married as
long as he lives, for as he must take some lady in just such high life
as his own, I should always be afraid that she would never love him as
she ought to do!”
He need not now be single, thought Cecilia, were that all he had cause
to apprehend!
“I often think,” added Henrietta, “that the rich would be as much
happier for marrying the poor, as the poor for marrying the rich, for
then they would take somebody that would try to deserve their kindness,
and now they only take those that know they have a right to it. Often
and often have I thought so about this very gentleman! and sometimes
when I have been in his company, and seen his civility and his
sweetness, I have fancied I was rich and grand myself, and it has quite
gone out of my head that I was nothing but poor Henrietta Belfield!”
“Did he, then,” cried Cecilia a little alarmed, “ever seek to ingratiate
himself into your favour?”
“No, never! but when treated with so much softness, 'tis hard always
to remember one's meanness! You, madam, have no notion of that task: no
more had I myself till lately, for I cared not who was high, nor who was
low: but now, indeed, I must own I have some times wished myself richer!
yet he assumes so little, that at other times, I have almost forgot all
distance between us, and even thought--Oh foolish thought!--
“Tell it, sweet Henrietta, however!”
“I will tell you, madam, every thing! for my heart has been bursting to
open itself, and nobody have I dared trust. I have thought, then, I have
sometimes thought,--my true affection, my faithful fondness, my glad
obedience,--might make him, if he did but know them, happier in me than
in a greater lady!”
“Indeed,” cried Cecilia, extremely affected by this plaintive
tenderness, “I believe it--and were I him, I could not, I think,
hesitate a moment in my choice!”
Henrietta now, hearing her mother coming in, made a sign to her to be
silent; but Mrs Belfield had not been an instant in the passage, before
a thundering knocking at the street-door occasioned it to be instantly
re-opened. A servant then enquired if Mrs Belfield was at home, and
being answered by herself in the affirmative, a chair was brought into
the house.
But what was the astonishment of Cecilia, when, in another moment, she
heard from the next parlour the voice of Mr Delvile senior, saying,
“Your servant, ma'am; Mrs Belfield, I presume?”
There was no occasion, now, to make a sign to her of silence, for her
own amazement was sufficient to deprive her of speech.
“Yes, Sir,” answered Mrs Belfield; “but I suppose, Sir, you are some
gentleman to my son.”
“No, madam,” he returned, “my business is with yourself.”
Cecilia now recovering from her surprise, determined to hasten unnoticed
out of the house, well knowing that to be seen in it would be regarded
as a confirmation of all that he had asserted. She whispered, therefore,
to Henrietta, that she must instantly run away, but, upon softly opening
the door leading to the passage, she found Mr Delvile's chairmen, and a
footman there in waiting.
She closed it again, irresolute what to do: but after a little
deliberation, she concluded to out-stay him, as she was known to all
his servants, who would not fail to mention seeing her; and a retreat so
private was worse than any other risk. A chair was also in waiting for
herself, but it was a hackney one, and she could not be known by it;
and her footman she had fortunately dismissed, as he had business to
transact for her journey next day.
Mean-while the thinness of the partition between the two parlours made
her hearing every word that was said unavoidable.
“I am sure, Sir, I shall be very willing to oblige you,” Mrs Belfield
answered; “but pray, Sir, what's your name?”
“My name, ma'am,” he replied, in a rather elevated voice, “I am seldom
obliged to announce myself; nor is there any present necessity I should
make it known. It is sufficient I assure you, you are speaking to no
very common person, and probably to one you will have little chance to
meet with again.”
“But how can I tell your business, Sir, if I don't so much as know your
name?”
“My business, madam, I mean to tell myself; your affair is only to hear
it. I have some questions, indeed, to ask, which I must trouble you to
answer, but they will sufficiently explain themselves to prevent
any difficulty upon your part. There is no need, therefore, of any
introductory ceremonial.”
“Well, Sir,” said Mrs Belfield, wholly insensible of this ambiguous
greatness, “if you mean to make your name a secret.”
“Few names, I believe, ma'am,” cried he, haughtily, “have less the
advantage of secrecy than mine! on the contrary, this is but one among
a very few houses in this town to which my person would not immediately
announce it. That, however, is immaterial; and you will be so good as to
rest satisfied with my assurances, that the person with whom you are now
conversing, will prove no disgrace to your character.”
Mrs Belfield, overpowered, though hardly knowing, with what, only said
_he was very welcome_, and begged him to sit down.
“Excuse me, ma'am,” he answered, “My business is but of a moment, and my
avocations are too many to suffer my infringing that time. You say you
have a son; I have heard of him, also, somewhere before; pray will you
give me leave to enquire--I don't mean to go deep into the matter,--but
particular family occurrences make it essential for me to know,--whether
there is not a young person of rather a capital fortune, to whom he is
supposed to make proposals?”
“Lack-a-day, no, Sir!” answered Mrs Belfield, to the infinite relief of
Cecilia, who instantly concluded this question referred to herself.
“I beg your pardon, then; good morning to you, ma'am,” said Mr Delvile,
in a tone that spoke his disappointment; but added “And there is no such
young person, you say, who favours his pretensions?”
“Dear Sir,” cried she, “why there's nobody he'll so much as put the
question to! there's a young lady at this very time, a great fortune,
that has as much a mind to him, I tell him, as any man need desire to
see; but there's no making him think it! though he has been brought up
at the university, and knows more about all the things, or as much, as
any body in the king's dominions.”
“O, then,” cried Mr Delvile, in a voice of far more complacency, “it is
not on the side of the young woman that the difficulty seems to rest?”
“Lord, no, Sir! he might have had her again and again only for asking!
She came after him ever so often; but being brought up, as I said, at
the university, he thought he knew better than me, and so my preaching
was all as good as lost upon him.”
The consternation of Cecilia at these speeches could by nothing be
equalled but by the shame of Henrietta, who, though she knew not to
whom her mother made them, felt all the disgrace and the shock of them
herself.
“I suppose, Sir,” continued Mrs Belfield, “you know my son?”
“No, ma'am, my acquaintance is--not very universal.”
“Then, Sir, you are no judge how well he might make his own terms. And
as to this young lady, she found him out, Sir, when not one of his own
natural friends could tell where in the world he was gone! She was the
first, Sir, to come and tell me news of him though I was his own mother!
Love, Sir, is prodigious for quickness! it can see, I sometimes
think, through bricks and mortar. Yet all this would not do, he was so
obstinate not to take the hint!”
Cecilia now felt so extremely provoked, she was upon the point of
bursting in upon them to make her own vindication; but as her passions,
though they tried her reason never conquered it, she restrained herself
by considering that to issue forth from a room in that house, would do
more towards strengthening what was thus boldly asserted, than all her
protestations could have chance to destroy.
“And as to young ladies themselves,” continued Mrs Belfield, “they know
no more how to make their minds known than a baby does: so I suppose
he'll shilly shally till somebody else will cry snap, and take her. It
is but a little while ago that it was all the report she was to have
young Mr Delvile, one of her guardian's sons.”
“I am sorry report was so impertinent,” cried Mr Delvile, with much
displeasure; “young Mr Delvile is not to be disposed of with so little
ceremony; he knows better what is due to his family.”
Cecilia here blushed from indignation, and Henrietta sighed from
despondency.
“Lord, Sir,” answered Mrs Belfield, “what should his family do better?
I never heard they were any so rich, and I dare say the old gentleman,
being her guardian, took care to put his son enough in her way, however
it came about that they did not make a match of it: for as to old Mr
Delvile, all the world says---”
“All the world takes a very great liberty,” angrily interrupted
Mr Delvile, “in saying any thing about him: and you will excuse my
informing you that a person of his rank and consideration, is not
lightly to be mentioned upon every little occasion that occurs.”
“Lord, Sir,” cried Mrs Belfield, somewhat surprised at this unexpected
prohibition, “I don't care for my part if I never mention the old
gentleman's name again! I never heard any good of him in my life, for
they say he's as proud as Lucifer, and nobody knows what it's of, for
they say--”
“_They_ say?” cried he, firing with rage, “and who are _they_? be so
good as inform me that?”
“Lord, every body, Sir! it's his common character.”
“Then every body is extremely indecent,” speaking very loud, “to pay
no more respect to one of the first families in England. It is a
licentiousness that ought by no means to be suffered with impunity.”
Here, the street-door being kept open by the servants in waiting, a
new step was heard in the passage, which Henrietta immediately knowing,
turned, with uplifted hands to Cecilia, and whispered, “How unlucky!
it's my brother! I thought he would not have returned till night!”
“Surely he will not come in here?” re-whispered Cecilia.
But, at the same moment, he opened the door, and entered the room. He
was immediately beginning an apology, and starting back, but Henrietta
catching him by the arm, told him in a low voice, that she had made use
of his room because she had thought him engaged for the day, but begged
him to keep still and quiet, as the least noise would discover them.
Belfield then stopt; but the embarrassment of Cecilia was extreme;
to find herself in his room after the speeches she had heard from his
mother, and to continue with him in it by connivance, when she knew she
had been represented as quite at his service, distressed and provoked
her immeasurably; and she felt very angry with Henrietta for not sooner
informing her whose apartment she had borrowed. Yet now to remove, and
to be seen, was not to be thought of; she kept, therefore, fixed to
her seat, though changing colour every moment from the variety of her
emotions.
During this painful interruption she lost Mrs Belfield's next answer,
and another speech or two from Mr Delvile, to whose own passion and
loudness was owing Belfield's entering his room unheard: but the next
voice that called their attention was that of Mr Hobson, who just then
walked into the parlour.
“Why what's to do here?” cried he, facetiously, “nothing but chairs and
livery servants! Why, ma'am, what is this your rout day? Sir your most
humble servant. I ask pardon, but I did not know you at first. But come,
suppose we were all to sit down? Sitting's as cheap as standing, and
what I say is this; when a man's tired, it's more agreeable.”
“Have you any thing further, ma'am,” said Mr Delvile, with great
solemnity, “to communicate to me?”
“No, Sir,” said Mrs Belfield, rather angrily, “it's no business of mine
to be communicating myself to a gentleman that I don't know the name of.
Why, Mr Hobson, how come you to know the gentleman?”
“To know _me_!” repeated Mr Delvile, scornfully.
“Why I can't say much, ma'am,” answered Mr Hobson, “as to my knowing the
gentleman, being I have been in his company but once; and what I say is,
to know a person if one leaves but a quart in a hogshead, it's two pints
too much. That's my notion. But, Sir, that was but an ungain business
at 'Squire Monckton's t'other morning. Every body was no-how, as one may
say. But, Sir, if I may be so free, pray what is your private opinion of
that old gentleman that talked so much out of the way?”
“My private opinion, Sir?”
“Yes, Sir; I mean if it's no secret, for as to a secret, I hold it's
what no man has a right to enquire into, being of its own nature it's
a thing not to be told. Now as to what I think myself, my doctrine is
this; I am quite of the old gentleman's mind about some things, and
about others I hold him to be quite wide of the mark. But as to talking
in such a whisky frisky manner that nobody can understand him, why
its tantamount to not talking at all, being he might as well hold his
tongue. That's what _I_ say. And then as to that other article, of
abusing a person for not giving away all his lawful gains to every
cripple in the streets, just because he happens to have but one leg, or
one eye, or some such matter, why it's knowing nothing of business! it's
what _I_ call talking at random.”
“When you have finished, Sir,” said Mr Delvile, “you will be so good to
let me know.”
“I don't mean to intrude, Sir; that's not my way, so if you are upon
business--”
“What else, Sir, could you suppose brought me hither? However, I by no
means purpose any discussion. I have only a few words more to say to
this gentlewoman, and as my time is not wholly inconsequential, I should
not be sorry to have an early opportunity of being heard.”
“I shall leave you with the lady directly, Sir; for I know business
better than to interrupt it: but seeing chairs in the entry, my notion
was I should see ladies in the parlour, not much thinking of gentlemen's
going about in that manner, being I never did it myself. But I have
nothing to offer against that; let every man have his own way; that's
what _I_ say. Only just let me ask the lady before I go, what's the
meaning of my seeing two chairs in the entry, and only a person for one
in the parlour? The gentleman, I suppose, did not come in _both_; ha!
ha! ha!”
“Why now you put me in mind,” said Mrs Belfield, “I saw a chair as
soon as I come in; and I was just going to say who's here, when this
gentleman's coming put it out of my head.”
“Why this is what I call Hocus Pocus work!” said Mr Hobson; “but I shall
make free to ask the chairmen who they are waiting for.”
Mrs Belfield, however, anticipated him; for running into the passage,
she angrily called out, “What do you do here, Misters? do you only come
to be out of the rain? I'll have no stand made of my entry, I can tell
you!”
“Why we are waiting for the lady,” cried one of them.
“Waiting for a fiddlestick!” said Mrs Belfield; “here's no lady here,
nor no company; so if you think I'll have my entry filled up by two
hulking fellows for nothing, I shall shew you the difference. One's dirt
enough of one's own, without taking people out of the streets to help
one. Who do you think's to clean after you?”
“That's no business of ours; the lady bid us wait,” answered the man.
Cecilia at this dispute could with pleasure have cast herself out of the
window to avoid being discovered; but all plan of escape was too late;
Mrs Belfield called aloud for her daughter, and then, returning to the
front parlour, said, “I'll soon know if there's company come to my house
without my knowing it!” and opened a door leading to the next room!
Cecilia, who had hitherto sat fixed to her chair, now hastily arose, but
in a confusion too cruel for speech: Belfield, wondering even at his own
situation, and equally concerned and surprised at her evident distress,
had himself the feeling of a culprit, though without the least knowledge
of any cause: and Henrietta, terrified at the prospect of her mother's
anger, retreated as much as possible out of sight.
Such was the situation of the discovered, abashed, perplexed, and
embarrassed! while that of the discoverers, far different, was bold,
delighted, and triumphant!
“So!” cried Mrs Belfield, “why here's Miss Beverley!--in my son's back
room!” winking at Mr Delvile.
“Why here's a lady, sure enough!” said Mr Hobson, “and just where she
should be, and that is with a gentleman. Ha! ha! that's the right way,
according to my notion! that's the true maxim for living agreeable.”
“I came to see Miss Belfield,” cried Cecilia, endeavouring, but vainly,
to speak with composure, “and she brought me into this room.”
“I am but this moment,” cried Belfield, with eagerness, “returned home;
and unfortunately broke into the room, from total ignorance of the
honour which Miss Beverley did my sister.”
These speeches, though both literally true, sounded, in the
circumstances which brought them out, so much as mere excuses, that
while Mr Delvile haughtily marked his incredulity by a motion of his
chin, Mrs Belfield continued winking at him most significantly, and Mr
Hobson, with still less ceremony, laughed aloud.
“I have nothing more, ma'am,” said Mr Delvile to Mrs Belfield, “to
enquire, for the few doubts with which I came to this house are now
entirely satisfied. Good morning to you, ma'am.”
“Give me leave, Sir,” said Cecilia, advancing with more spirit, “to
explain, in presence of those who can best testify my veracity, the real
circumstances--”
“I would by no means occasion you such unnecessary trouble, ma'am,”
answered he, with an air at once exulting and pompous, “the situation in
which I see you abundantly satisfies my curiosity, and saves me from the
apprehension I was under of being again convicted of a _mistake_!”
He then made her a stiff bow, and went to his chair.
Cecilia, colouring deeply at this contemptuous treatment, coldly took
leave of Henrietta, and courtsying to Mrs Belfield, hastened into the
passage, to get into her own.
Henrietta was too much intimidated to speak, and Belfield was too
delicate to follow her; Mr Hobson only said “The young lady seems quite
dashed;” but Mrs Belfield pursued her with entreaties she would stay.
She was too angry, however, to make any answer but by a distant bow of
the head, and left the house with a resolution little short of a vow
never again to enter it.
Her reflections upon this unfortunate visit were bitter beyond measure;
the situation in which she had been surprised,--clandestinely concealed
with only Belfield and his sister--joined to the positive assertions of
her partiality for him made by his mother, could not, to Mr Delvile, but
appear marks irrefragable that his charge in his former conversation
was rather mild than over-strained, and that the connection he had
mentioned, for whatever motives denied, was incontestably formed.
The apparent conviction of this part of the accusation, might also
authorise, to one but too happy in believing ill of her, an implicit
faith in that which regarded her having run out her fortune. His
determination not to hear her shewed the inflexibility of his character;
and it was evident, notwithstanding his parading pretensions of wishing
her welfare, that his inordinate pride was inflamed, at the very
supposition he could be mistaken or deceived for a moment.
Even Delvile himself, if gone abroad, might now hear this account with
exaggerations that would baffle all his confidence: his mother,
too, greatly as she esteemed and loved her, might have the matter so
represented as to stagger her good opinion;--these were thoughts the
most afflicting she could harbour, though their probability was such
that to banish them was impossible.
To apply again to Mr Delvile to hear her vindication, was to subject
herself to insolence, and almost to court indignity. She disdained
even to write to him, since his behaviour called for resentment, not
concession; and such an eagerness to be heard, in opposition to all
discouragement, would be practising a meanness that would almost merit
repulsion.
Her first inclination was to write to Mrs Delvile, but what now, to her,
was either her defence or accusation? She had solemnly renounced all
further intercourse with her, she had declared against writing again,
and prohibited her letters: and, therefore, after much fluctuation of
opinion, her delicacy concurred with her judgment, to conclude it would
be most proper, in a situation so intricate, to leave the matter to
chance, and commit her character to time.
In the evening, while she was at tea with Lady Margaret and Miss Bennet,
she was suddenly called out to speak to a young woman; and found, to her
great surprise, she was no other than Henrietta.
“Ah madam!” she cried, “how angrily did you go away this morning! it
has made me miserable ever since, and if you go out of town without
forgiving me, I shall fret myself quite ill! my mother is gone out to
tea, and I have run here all alone, and in the dark, and in the wet,
to beg and pray you will forgive me, for else I don't know what I shall
do!”
“Sweet, gentle girl!” cried Cecilia, affectionately embracing her, “if
you had excited all the anger I am capable of feeling, such softness as
this would banish it, and make me love you more than ever!”
Henrietta then said, in her excuse, that she had thought herself quite
sure of her brother's absence, who almost always spent the whole day at
the bookseller's, as in writing himself he perpetually wanted to consult
other authors, and had very few books at their lodgings: but she would
not mention that the room was his, lest Cecilia should object to
making use of it, and she knew she had no other chance of having the
conversation with her she had so very long wished for. She then again
begged her pardon, and hoped the behaviour of her mother would not
induce her to give her up, as she was shocked at it beyond measure, and
as her brother, she assured her, was as innocent of it as herself.
Cecilia heard her with pleasure, and felt for her an encreasing regard.
The openness of her confidence in the morning had merited all her
affection, and she gave her the warmest protestations of a friendship
which she was certain would be lasting as her life.
Henrietta then, with a countenance that spoke the lightness of her
heart, hastily took her leave, saying she did not dare be out longer,
lest her mother should discover her excursion. Cecilia insisted,
however, upon her going in a chair, which she ordered her servant to
attend, and take care himself to discharge.
This visit, joined to the tender and unreserved conversation of the
morning, gave Cecilia the strongest desire to invite her to her house in
the country; but the terror of Mrs Belfield's insinuations, added to
the cruel interpretations she had to expect from Mr Delvile, forbid her
indulging this wish, though it was the only one that just now she could
form.
CHAPTER vii.
A CALM.
Cecilia took leave over night of the family, as she would not stay their
rising in the morning: Mr Monckton, though certain not to sleep when she
was going, forbearing to mark his solicitude by quitting his apartment
at any unusual hour. Lady Margaret parted from her with her accustomed
ungraciousness, and Miss Bennet, because in her presence, in a manner
scarcely less displeasing.
The next morning, with only her servants, the moment it was light, she
set out. Her journey was without incident or interruption, and she went
immediately to the house of Mrs Bayley, where she had settled to board
till her own was finished.
Mrs Bayley was a mere good sort of woman, who lived decently well with
her servants, and tolerably well with her neighbours, upon a small
annuity, which made her easy and comfortable, though by no means
superior to such an addition to her little income as an occasional
boarder might produce.
Here Cecilia continued a full month: which time had no other
employment than what she voluntarily gave to herself by active deeds of
benevolence.
At Christmas, to the no little joy of the neighbourhood, she took
possession of her own house, which was situated about three miles from
Bury.
The better sort of people were happy to see her thus settled amongst
them, and the poorer, who by what they already had received, knew
well what they still might expect, regarded the day in which she
fixed herself in her mansion, as a day to themselves of prosperity and
triumph.
As she was no longer, as hitherto, repairing to a temporary habitation,
which at pleasure she might quit, and to which, at a certain period, she
could have no possible claim, but to a house which was her own for
ever, or, at least, could solely by her own choice be transferred,
she determined, as much as was in her power, in quitting her desultory
dwellings, to empty her mind of the transactions which had passed in
them, and upon entering a house where she was permanently to reside,
to make the expulsion of her past sorrows, the basis upon which to
establish her future serenity.
And this, though a work of pain and difficulty, was not impracticable;
her sensibility, indeed, was keen, and she had suffered from it the
utmost torture; but her feelings were not more powerful than her
understanding was strong, and her fortitude was equal to her trials.
Her calamities had saddened, but not weakened her mind, and the words
of Delvile in speaking of his mother occurred to her now with all
the conviction of experience, that “evils inevitable are always best
supported, because known to be past amendment, and felt to give defiance
to struggling.” [Footnote: See Vol. ii. p. 317.]
A plan by which so great a revolution was to be wrought in her mind, was
not to be effected by any sudden effort of magnanimity, but by a regular
and even tenour of courage mingled with prudence. Nothing, therefore,
appeared to her so indispensable as constant employment, by which a
variety of new images might force their way in her mind to supplant
the old ones, and by which no time might be allowed for brooding over
melancholy retrospections.
Her first effort, in this work of mental reformation, was to part with
Fidel, whom hitherto she had almost involuntarily guarded, but whom she
only could see to revive the most dangerous recollections. She sent him,
therefore, to the castle, but without any message; Mrs Delvile, she was
sure, would require none to make her rejoice in his restoration.
Her next step was writing to Albany, who had given her his direction, to
acquaint him she was now ready to put in practice their long concerted
scheme. Albany instantly hastened to her, and joyfully accepted the
office of becoming at once her Almoner and her Monitor. He made it his
business to seek objects of distress, and always but too certain to find
them, of conducting her himself to their habitations, and then leaving
to her own liberality the assistance their several cases demanded: and,
in the overflowing of his zeal upon these occasions, and the rapture
of his heart in thus disposing, almost at his pleasure, of her noble
fortune, he seemed, at times, to feel an extasy that, from its novelty
and its excess, was almost too exquisite to be borne. He joined with the
beggars in pouring blessings upon her head, he prayed for her with the
poor, and he thanked her with the succoured.
The pew-opener and her children failed not to keep their appointment,
and Cecilia presently contrived to settle them in her neighbourhood:
where the poor woman, as she recovered her strength, soon got a little
work, and all deficiencies in her power of maintaining herself were
supplied by her generous patroness. The children, however, she ordered
to be coarsely brought up, having no intention to provide for them but
by helping them to common employments.
The promise, also, so long made to Mrs Harrel of an apartment in
her house, was now performed. That lady accepted it with the utmost
alacrity, glad to make any change in her situation, which constant
solitude had rendered wholly insupportable. Mr Arnott accompanied her to
the house, and spent one day there; but receiving from Cecilia,
though extremely civil and sweet to him, no hint of any invitation for
repeating his visit, he left it in sadness, and returned to his own in
deep dejection. Cecilia saw with concern how he nourished his hopeless
passion, but knew that to suffer his visits would almost authorise
his feeding it; and while she pitied unaffectedly the unhappiness she
occasioned, she resolved to double her own efforts towards avoiding
similar wretchedness.
This action, however, was a point of honour, not of friendship, the time
being long since past that the society of Mrs Harrel could afford her
any pleasure; but the promises she had so often made to Mr Harrel in
his distresses, though extorted from her merely by the terrors of the
moment, still were promises, and, therefore, she held herself bound to
fulfil them.
Yet far from finding comfort in this addition to her family, Mrs Harrel
proved to her nothing more than a trouble and an incumbrance; with
no inherent resources, she was continually in search of occasional
supplies; she fatigued Cecilia with wonder at the privacy of her life,
and tormented her with proposals of parties and entertainments. She
was eternally in amazement that with powers so large, she had wishes so
confined, and was evidently disappointed that upon coming to so ample an
estate, she lived, with respect to herself and her family, with no more
magnificence or shew than if Heiress to only ú500 a year.
But Cecilia was determined to think and to live for herself, without
regard to unmeaning wonder or selfish remonstrances; she had neither
ambition for splendour, nor spirits for dissipation; the recent sorrow
of her heart had deadened it for the present to all personal taste of
happiness, and her only chance for regaining it, seemed through the
medium of bestowing it upon others. She had seen, too, by Mr Harrel,
how wretchedly external brilliancy could cover inward woe, and she
had learned at Delvile Castle to grow sick of parade and grandeur. Her
equipage, therefore, was without glare, though not without elegance, her
table was plain, though hospitably plentiful, her servants were for use,
though too numerous to be for labour. The system of her oeconomy, like
that of her liberality, was formed by rules of reason, and her own ideas
of right, and not by compliance with example, nor by emulation with the
gentry in her neighbourhood.
But though thus deviating in her actions from the usual customs of
the young and rich, she was peculiarly careful not to offend them
by singularity of manners. When she mixed with them, she was easy,
unaffected, and well bred, and though she saw them but seldom, her good
humour and desire of obliging kept them always her friends. The plan
she had early formed at Mrs Harrel's she now studied daily to put in
practice; but that part by which the useless or frivolous were to be
excluded her house, she found could only be supported by driving from
her half her acquaintance.
Another part, also, of that project she found still less easy of
adoption, which was solacing herself with the society of the wise, good,
and intelligent. Few answered this description, and those few were with
difficulty attainable. Many might with joy have sought out her liberal
dwelling, but no one had idly waited till the moment it was at her
disposal. All who possessed at once both talents and wealth, were
so generally courted they were rarely to be procured; and all who to
talents alone owed their consequence, demanded, if worth acquiring, time
and delicacy to be obtained. Fortune she knew, however, was so often at
war with Nature, that she doubted not shortly meeting those who would
gladly avail themselves of her offered protection.
Yet, tired of the murmurs of Mrs Harrel, she longed for some relief from
her society, and her desire daily grew stronger to owe that relief to
Henrietta Belfield. The more she meditated upon this wish, the less
unattainable it appeared to her, till by frequently combating its
difficulties, she began to consider them imaginary: Mrs Belfield, while
her son was actually with herself, might see she took not Henrietta as
his appendage; and Mr Delvile, should he make further enquiries, might
hear that her real connection was with the sister, since she received
her in the country, where the brother made no pretence to follow
her. She considered, too, how ill she should be rewarded in giving up
Henrietta for Mr Delvile, who was already determined to think ill of
her, and whose prejudices no sacrifice would remove.
Having hesitated, therefore, some time between the desire of present
alleviation, and the fear of future mischief, the consciousness of her
own innocence at length vanquished all dread of unjust censure, and she
wrote an invitation to Henrietta enclosed in a letter to her mother.
The answer of Henrietta expressed her rapture at the proposal; and that
of Mrs Belfield made no objection but to the expence.
Cecilia, therefore, sent her own maid to travel with her into Suffolk,
with proper directions to pay for the journey.
The gratitude of the delighted Henrietta at the meeting was boundless;
and her joy at so unexpected a mark of favour made her half wild.
Cecilia suffered it not to languish for want of kindness to support
it; she took her to her bosom, became the soother of all her cares, and
reposed in her, in return, every thought that led not to Delvile.
There, however, she was uniformly silent; solemnly and eternally parted
from him, far from trusting the secret of her former connexion to
Henrietta, the whole study of her life was to drive the remembrance of
it from herself.
Henrietta now tasted a happiness to which as yet her whole life had been
a stranger; she was suddenly removed from turbulent vulgarity to the
enjoyment of calm elegance; and the gentleness of her disposition,
instead of being tyrannically imposed upon, not only made her loved with
affection, but treated with the most scrupulous delicacy. Cecilia had
her share in all the comfort she bestowed; she had now a friend to
oblige, and a companion to converse with. She communicated to her all
her schemes, and made her the partner of her benevolent excursions;
she found her disposition as amiable upon trial, as her looks and her
manners had been engaging at first sight; and her constant presence and
constant sweetness, imperceptibly revived her spirits, and gave a new
interest to her existence.
Meantime Mr Monckton, who returned in about a fortnight to the Grove,
observed the encreasing influence of Albany with the most serious
concern. The bounties of Cecilia, extensive, magnificent, unlimited,
were the theme of every tongue, and though sometimes censured and
sometimes admired, they were wondered at universally. He suffered her
for a while to go on without remonstrance, hoping her enthusiasm would
abate, as its novelty wore out: but finding that week following week was
still distinguished by some fresh act of beneficence, he grew so alarmed
and uneasy, he could restrain himself no longer. He spoke to her
with warmth, he represented her conduct as highly dangerous in its
consequence; he said she would but court impostors from every corner of
the kingdom, called Albany a lunatic, whom she should rather avoid than
obey; and insinuated that if a report was spread of her proceedings, a
charity so prodigal, would excite such alarm, that no man would think
even her large and splendid fortune, would ensure him from ruin in
seeking her alliance.
Cecilia heard this exhortation without either terror or impatience, and
answered it with the utmost steadiness. His influence over her mind was
no longer uncontrolled, for though her suspicions were not strengthened,
they had never been removed, and friendship has no foe so dangerous as
distrust! She thanked him, however, for his zeal, but assured him his
apprehensions were groundless, since though she acted from inclination,
she acted not without thought. Her income was very large, and she was
wholly without family or connection; to spend it merely upon herself
would be something still worse than extravagance, it must result from
wilfulness the most inexcusable, as her disposition was naturally
averse to luxury and expence. She might save indeed, but for whom? not a
creature had such a claim upon her; and with regard to herself, she was
so provided for it would be unnecessary. She would never, she declared,
run in debt even for a week, but while her estate was wholly clear, she
would spend it without restriction.
To his hint of any future alliance, she only said that those who
disapproved her conduct, would probably be those she should disapprove
in her turn; should such an event however take place, the retrenching
from that time all her present peculiar expences, would surely, in a
clear ú3000 a-year, leave her rich enough for any man, without making
it incumbent upon her at present, to deny herself the only pleasure she
could taste, in bestowing that money which to her was superfluous, upon
those who received it as the prolongation of their existence.
A firmness so deliberate in a system he so much dreaded, greatly shocked
Mr Monckton, though it intimidated him from opposing it; he saw she was
too earnest, and too well satisfied she was right, to venture giving
her disgust by controverting her arguments; the conversation, therefore,
ended with new discontent to himself, and with an impression upon
the mind of Cecilia, that though he was zealous and friendly, he was
somewhat too worldly and suspicious.
She went on, therefore, as before, distributing with a lavish hand
all she could spare from her own household; careful of nothing but of
guarding against imposition, which, though she sometimes unavoidably
endured, her discernment, and the activity of her investigating
diligence, saved her from suffering frequently. And the steadiness with
which she repulsed those whom she detected in deceit, was a check upon
tricks and fraud, though it could not wholly put a stop to them.
Money, to her, had long appeared worthless and valueless; it had failed
to procure her the establishment for which she once flattered herself
it seemed purposely designed; it had been disdained by the Delviles,
for the sake of whose connection she had alone ever truly rejoiced in
possessing it; and after such a conviction of its inefficacy to secure
her happiness, she regarded it as of little importance to herself, and
therefore thought it almost the due of those whose distresses gave it a
consequence to which with her it was a stranger.
In this manner with Cecilia passed the first winter of her majority.
She had sedulously filled it with occupations, and her occupations had
proved fertile in keeping her mind from idleness, and in restoring it
to chearfulness. Calls upon her attention so soothing, and avocations
so various for her time, had answered the great purpose for which
originally she had planned them, in almost forcing from her thoughts
those sorrows which, if indulged, would have rested in them incessantly.
CHAPTER viii.
AN ALARM.
The spring was now advancing, and the weather was remarkably fine; when
one morning, while Cecilia was walking with Mrs Harrel and Henrietta
on the lawn before her house, to which the last dinner bell was just
summoning them, to return, Mrs Harrel looked round and stopt at sight
of a gentleman galloping towards them, who in less than a minute
approached, and dismounting and leaving his horse to his servant, struck
them all at the same instant to be no other than young Delvile!
A sight so unexpected, so unaccountable, so wonderful, after an
absence so long, and to which they were mutually bound, almost wholly
over-powered Cecilia from surprise and a thousand other feelings, and
she caught Mrs Harrel by the arm, not knowing what she did, as if
for succour; while Henrietta with scarce less, though much more glad
emotion, suddenly exclaimed, “'tis Mr Delvile!” and sprang forward to
meet him.
He had reached them, and in a voice that spoke hurry and perturbation,
respectfully made his compliments to them all, before Cecilia recovered
even the use of her feet: but no sooner were they restored to her, than
she employed them with the quickest motion in her power, still leaning
upon Mrs Harrel, to hasten into the house. Her solemn promise to Mrs
Delvile became uppermost in her thoughts, and her surprise was soon
succeeded by displeasure, that thus, without any preparation, he forced
her to break it by an interview she had no means to prevent.
Just as they reached the entrance into the house, the Butler came to
tell Cecilia that dinner was upon the table. Delvile then went up to
her, and said, “May I wait upon you for one instant before--or after you
dine?”
“I am engaged, Sir,” answered she, though hardly able to speak, “for the
whole day.”
“You will not, I hope, refuse to hear me,” cried he, eagerly, “I cannot
write what I have to say,--”
“There is no occasion that you should, Sir,” interrupted she, “since I
should scarcely find time to read it.”
She then courtsied, though without looking at him, and went into the
house; Delvile remaining in utter dismay, not daring, however wishing,
to follow her. But when Mrs Harrel, much surprised at behaviour so
unusual from Cecilia, approached him with some civil speeches, he
started, and wishing her good day, bowed, and remounted his horse:
pursued by the soft eyes of Henrietta till wholly out of sight.
They then both followed Cecilia to the dining-parlour.
Had not Mrs Harrel been of this small party, the dinner would have been
served in vain; Cecilia, still trembling with emotion, bewildered with
conjecture, angry with Delvile for thus surprising her, angry with
herself for so severely receiving him, amazed what had tempted him to
such a violation of their joint agreement, and irresolute as much what
to wish as what to think, was little disposed for eating, and with
difficulty compelled herself to do the honours of her table.
Henrietta, whom the sight of Delvile had at once delighted and
disturbed, whom the behaviour of Cecilia had filled with wonder and
consternation, and whom the evident inquietude and disappointment which
that behaviour had given to Delvile, had struck with grief and terror,
could not swallow even a morsel, but having cut her meat about her
plate, gave it, untouched, to a servant.
Mrs Harrel, however, though she had had her share in the surprise, had
wholly escaped all other emotion; and only concluded in her own mind,
that Cecilia could sometimes be out of humour and ill bred, as well as
the rest of the world.
While the dessert was serving, a note was brought to Henrietta, which a
servant was waiting in great haste to have answered.
Henrietta, stranger to all forms of politeness, though by nature soft,
obliging and delicate, opened it immediately; she started as she cast
her eye over it, but blushed, sparkled, and looked enchanted, and
hastily rising, without even a thought of any apology, ran out of the
room to answer it.
Cecilia, whose quick eye, by a glance unavoidable, had seen the hand
of Delvile, was filled with new amazement at the sight. As soon as the
servants were gone, she begged Mrs Harrel to excuse her, and went to her
own apartment.
Here, in a few minutes, she was followed by Henrietta, whose countenance
beamed with pleasure, and whose voice spoke tumultuous delight. “My
dear, dear Miss Beverley!” she cried, “I have such a thing to tell
you!--you would never guess it,--I don't know how to believe it
myself,--but Mr Delvile has written to me!--he has indeed! that note was
from him.--I have been locking it up, for fear of accidents, but I'll
run and fetch it, that you may see it yourself.”
She then ran away; leaving Cecilia much perplexed, much uneasy
for herself, and both grieved and alarmed for the too tender, too
susceptible Henrietta, who was thus easily the sport of every airy and
credulous hope.
“If I did not shew it you,” cried Henrietta, running back in a
moment, “you would never think it possible, for it is to make such a
request--that it has frightened me almost out of my wits!”
Cecilia then read the note.
_To Miss Belfield_.
Mr Delvile presents his compliments to Miss Belfield, and begs to
be permitted to wait upon her for a few minutes, at any time in the
afternoon she will be so good as to appoint.
“Only think,” cried the rapturous Henrietta, “it was _me_, poor simple
_me_, of all people, that he wanted so to speak with!--I am sure I
thought a different thought when he went away! but do, dearest Miss
Beverley, tell me this one thing, what do you think he can have to say
to me?”
“Indeed,” replied Cecilia, extremely embarrassed, “it is impossible for
me to conjecture.”
“If _you_ can't, I am sure, then, it is no wonder _I_ can't! and I have
been thinking of a million of things in a minute. It can't be about any
business, because I know nothing in the world of any business; and it
can't be about my brother, because he would go to our house in town
about him, and there he would see him himself; and it can't be about my
dear Miss Beverley, because then he would have written the note to her
and it can't be about any body else, because I know nobody else of his
acquaintance.”
Thus went on the sanguine Henrietta, settling whom and what it could
_not_ be about, till she left but the one thing to which her wishes
pointed that it _could_ be about. Cecilia heard her with true
compassion, certain that she was deceiving herself with imaginations
the most pernicious; yet unable to know how to quell them, while in such
doubt and darkness herself.
This conversation was soon interrupted, by a message that a gentleman in
the parlour begged to speak with Miss Belfield.
“O dearest, dearest Miss Beverley!” cried Henrietta, with encreasing
agitation, “what in the world shall I say to him, advise me, pray advise
me, for I can't think of a single word!”
“Impossible, my dear Henrietta, unless I knew what he would say to you!”
“O but I can guess, I can guess!”--cried she, her cheeks glowing, while
her whole frame shook, “and I sha'n't know what in the whole world to
answer him! I know I shall behave like a fool,--I know I shall disgrace
myself sadly!”
Cecilia, truly sorry Delvile should see her in such emotion, endeavoured
earnestly to compose her, though never less tranquil herself. But
she could not succeed, and she went down stairs with expectations of
happiness almost too potent for her reason.
Not such were those of Cecilia; a dread of some new conflict took
possession of her mind, that mind so long tortured with struggles, so
lately restored to serenity!
Henrietta soon returned, but not the same Henrietta she went;--the
glow, the hope, the flutter were all over; she looked pale and wan, but
attempting, as she entered the room, to call up a smile, she failed, and
burst into tears.
Cecilia threw her arms round her neck, and tried to console her; but,
happy to hide her face in her bosom, she only gave the freer indulgence
to her grief, and rather melted than comforted by her tenderness, sobbed
aloud.
Cecilia too easily conjectured the disappointment she had met, to pain
her by asking it; she forbore even to gratify her own curiosity by
questions that could not but lead to her mortification, and suffering
her therefore to take her own time for what she had to communicate, she
hung over her in silence with the most patient pity.
Henrietta was very sensible of this kindness, though she knew not half
its merit: but it was a long time before she could articulate, for
sobbing, that _all_ Mr Delvile wanted, at last, was only to beg she
would acquaint Miss Beverley, that he had done himself the honour of
waiting upon her with a message from Mrs Delvile.
“From Mrs Delvile?” exclaimed Cecilia, all emotion in her turn, “good
heaven! how much, then, have I been to blame? where is he now?--where
can I send to him?--tell me, my sweet Henrietta, this instant!”
“Oh madam!” cried Henrietta, bursting into a fresh flood of tears, “how
foolish have I been to open my silly heart to you!--he is come to pay
his addresses to you!--I am sure he is!--”
“No, no, no!” cried Cecilia, “indeed he is not!--but I must, I ought to
see him,--where, my love, is he?”,
“In the parlour,--waiting for an answer.--”
Cecilia, who at any other time would have been provoked at such a delay
in the delivery of a message so important, felt now nothing but concern
for Henrietta, whom she hastily kissed, but instantly, however, quitted,
and hurried to Delvile, with expectations almost equally sanguine as
those her poor friend but the moment before had crushed.
“Oh now,” thought she, “if at last Mrs Delvile herself has relented,
with what joy will I give up all reserve, all disguise, and frankly avow
the faithful affection of my heart!”
Delvile received her not with the eagerness with which he had first
addressed her; he looked extremely disturbed, and, even after her
entrance, undetermined how to begin.
She waited, however, his explanation in silence; and, after an
irresolute pause, he said, with a gravity not wholly free from
resentment, “I presumed, madam, to wait upon you from the permission of
my mother; but I believe I have obtained it so late, that the influence
I hoped from it is past!”
“I had no means, Sir,” answered she, chearfully, “to know that you
came from her: I should else have received her commands without any
hesitation.”
“I would thank you for the honour you do her, were it less pointedly
exclusive. I have, however, no right of reproach! yet suffer me to ask,
could you, madam, after such a parting, after a renunciation so absolute
of all future claim upon you, which though extorted from me by duty, I
was bound, having promised, to fulfil by principle,-could you imagine me
so unsteady, so dishonourable, as to obtrude myself into your presence
while that promise was still in force?”
“I find,” cried Cecilia, in whom a secret hope every moment grew
stronger, “I have been too hasty; I did indeed believe Mrs Delvile would
never authorise such a visit; but as you have so much surprised me, I
have a right to your pardon for a little doubt.”
“There spoke Miss Beverley!” cried Delvile, reanimating at this little
apology, “the same, the unaltered Miss Beverley I hoped to find!--yet
_is_ she unaltered? am I not too precipitate? and is the tale I have
heard about Belfield a dream? an error? a falsehood?”
“But that so quick a succession of quarrels,” said Cecilia, half
smiling, “would be endless perplexity, I, now, would be affronted that
you can ask me such a question.”
“Had I, indeed, _thought_ it a question,” cried he, “I would not have
asked it: but never for a moment did I credit it, till the rigour of
your repulse alarmed me. You have condescended, now, to account for
that, and I am therefore encouraged to make known to you the purpose
of my venturing this visit. Yet not with confidence shall I speak
if, scarce even with hope!--it is a purpose that is the offspring of
despair,--
“One thing, Sir,” cried Cecilia, who now became frightened again, “let
me say before you proceed; if your purpose has not the sanction of Mrs
Delvile, as well as your visit, I would gladly be excused hearing it,
since I shall most certainly refuse it.”
“I would mention nothing,” answered he, “without her concurrence;
she has given it me: and my father himself has permitted my present
application.”
“Good Heaven!” cried Cecilia, “is it possible!” clasping her hands
together in the eagerness of her surprise and delight.
“_Is it possible_!” repeated Delvile, with a look of rapture; “ah Miss
Beverley!--once my own Cecilia!--do you, can you _wish_ it possible?”
“No, No!” cried she, while pleasure and expectation sparkled in her
eyes, “I wish nothing about it.--Yet tell me how it has happened,--I am
_curious_,” added she, smiling, “though not interested in it.”
“What hope would this sweetness give me,” cried he, “were my scheme
almost any other than it is!--but you cannot,--no, it would be
unreasonable, it would be madness to expect your compliance!--it is next
to madness even in me to wish it,--but how shall a man who is desperate
be prudent and circumspect?”
“Spare, spare yourself,” cried the ingenuous Cecilia, “this, unnecessary
pain!--you will find from me no unnecessary scruples.”
“You know not what you say!--all noble as you are, the sacrifice I have
to propose--”
“Speak it,” cried she, “with confidence! speak it even with certainty of
success! I will be wholly undisguised, and openly, honestly own to you,
that no proposal, no sacrifice can be mentioned, to which I will not
instantly agree, if first it has had the approbation of Mrs Delvile.”
Delvile's gratitude and thanks for a concession never before so
voluntarily made to him, interrupted for a while, even his power of
explaining himself. And now, for the first time, Cecilia's sincerity was
chearful, since now, for the first time, it seemed opposed by no duty.
When still, therefore, he hesitated, she herself held out her hand to
him, saying, “what must I do more? must I offer this pledge to you?”
“For my life would I not resign it!” cried he, delightedly receiving it;
“but oh, how soon will you withdraw it, when the only terms upon which
I can hold it, are those of making it sign from itself its natural right
and inheritance?”
Cecilia, not comprehending him, only looked amazed, and he proceeded.
“Can you, for my sake, make such a sacrifice as this? can you for a man
who for yours is not permitted to give up his name, give up yourself the
fortune of your late uncle? consent to such settlements as I can
make upon you from my own? part with so splendid an income wholly and
for-ever?--and with only your paternal L10,000 condescend to become
mine, as if your uncle had never existed, and you had been Heiress to no
other wealth?”
This, indeed, was a stroke to Cecilia unequalled by any she had met,
and more cruel than any she could have in reserve. At the proposal of
parting with her uncle's fortune, which, desirable as it was, had as
yet been only productive to her of misery, her heart, disinterested, and
wholly careless of money, was prompt to accede to the condition; but at
the mention of her paternal fortune, that fortune, of which, now, not
the smallest vestige remained, horror seized all her faculties! she
turned pale, she trembled, she involuntarily drew back her hand, and
betrayed, by speechless agitation, the sudden agonies of her soul!
Delvile, struck by this evident dismay, instantly concluded his plan
had disgusted her. He waited some minutes in anxious expectation of an
answer, but finding her silence continued while her emotion encreased,
the deepest crimson dyed his face, and unable to check his chagrin,
though not daring to confess his disappointment, he suddenly quitted
her, and walked, in much disorder, about the room. But soon recovering
some composure, from the assistance of pride, “Pardon, madam,” he said,
“a trial such as no man can be vindicated in making. I have indulged a
romantic whim, which your better judgment disapproves, and I receive but
the mortification my presumption deserved.”
“You know not then,” said Cecilia, in a faint voice, “my inability to
comply?”
“Your ability or inability, I presume, are elective?”
“Oh no!--my power is lost--my fortune itself is gone!”
“Impossible! utterly impossible!” cried he with vehemence.
“Oh that it were!--your father knows it but too well.”
“My father!”
“Did he, then, never hint it to you?”
“Oh distraction!” cried Delvile, “what horrible confirmation is coming!”
and again he walked away, as if wanting courage to hear her.
Cecilia was too much shocked to force upon him her explanation; but
presently returning to her, he said, “_you_, only, could have made this
credible!”
“Had you, then, actually heard it?”
“Oh I had heard it as the most infamous of falsehoods! my heart swelled
with indignation at so villainous a calumny, and had it not come from my
father, my resentment at it had been inveterate!”
“Alas!” cried Cecilia, “the fact is undeniable! yet the circumstances
you may have heard with it, are I doubt not exaggerated.”
“Exaggerated indeed!” he answered; “I was told you had been surprised
concealed with Belfield in a back room, I was told that your parental
fortune was totally exhausted, and that during your minority you had
been a dealer with Jews!--I was told all this by my father; you may
believe I had else not easily been made hear it!”
“Yet thus far,” said she, “he told you but what is true; though--”
“True!” interrupted Delvile, with a start almost frantic. “Oh never,
then, was truth so scandalously wronged!--I denied the whole charge!-I
disbelieved every syllable!--I pledged my own honour to prove every
assertion false!”
“Generous Delvile!” cried Cecilia, melting into tears, “this is what I
expected from you! and, believe me, in _your_ integrity my reliance had
been similar!”
“Why does Miss Beverley weep?” cried he, softened, and approaching her,
“and why has she given me this alarm? these things must at least
have been misrepresented, deign, then, to clear up a mystery in which
suspense is torture!”
Cecilia, then, with what precision and clearness her agitation allowed
her, related the whole history of her taking up the money of the Jew
for Mr Harrel, and told, without reserve, the reason of her trying
to abscond from his father at Mrs Belfield's. Delvile listened to her
account with almost an agony of attention, now admiring her conduct;
now resenting her ill usage; now compassionating her losses; but though
variously moved by different parts, receiving from the whole the delight
he most coveted in the establishment of her innocence.
Thanks and applause the warmest, both accompanied and followed her
narration; and then, at her request, he related in return the several
incidents and circumstances to which he had owed the permission of this
visit.
He had meant immediately to have gone abroad; but the indisposition
of his mother made him unwilling to leave the kingdom till her health
seemed in a situation less precarious. That time, however, came not; the
Winter advanced, and she grew evidently worse. He gave over, therefore,
his design till the next Spring, when, if she were able, it was her
desire to try the South of France for her recovery, whither he meant to
conduct her.
But, during his attendance upon her, the plan he had just mentioned
occurred to him, and he considered how much greater would be his chance
of happiness in marrying Cecilia with scarce any fortune at all, than
in marrying another with the largest. He was convinced she was far other
than expensive, or a lover of shew, and soon flattered himself she might
be prevailed upon to concur with him, that in living together, though
comparatively upon little, they should mutually be happier than in
living asunder upon much.
When he started this scheme to his mother, she heard it with mingled
admiration of his disinterestedness, and regret at its occasion: yet
the loftiness of her own mind, her high personal value for Cecilia,
her anxiety to see her son finally settled while she lived, lest his
disappointment should keep him single from a lasting disgust, joined to
a dejection of spirits from an apprehension that her interference had
been cruel, all favoured his scheme, and forbid her resistance. She
had often protested, in their former conflicts, that had Cecilia
been portionless, her objections had been less than to an estate so
conditioned; and that to give to her son a woman so exalted in herself,
she would have conquered the mere opposition of interest, though that
of family honour she held invincible. Delvile now called upon her to
remember those words, and ever strict in fidelity, she still promised to
abide by them.
Ah! thought Cecilia, is virtue, then, as inconsistent as vice? and can
the same character be thus high-souled, thus nobly disinterested with
regard to riches, whose pride is so narrow and so insurmountable, with
respect to family prejudice!
Yet such a sacrifice from Cecilia herself, whose income intitled her
to settlements the most splendid, Mrs Delvile thought scarcely to be
solicited; but as her son was conscious he gave up in expectation no
less than she would give up in possession, he resolved upon making the
experiment, and felt an internal assurance of success.
This matter being finally settled with his mother, the harder task
remained of vanquishing the father, by whom, and before whom the name of
Cecilia was never mentioned, not even after his return from town,
though loaded with imaginary charges against her. Mr Delvile held it
a diminution of his own in the honour of his son, to suppose he wanted
still fresh motives for resigning her. He kept, therefore, to himself
the ill opinion he brought down, as a resource in case of danger, but
a resource he disdained to make use of, unless driven to it by absolute
necessity.
But, at the new proposal of his son, the accusation held in reserve
broke out; he called Cecilia a dabler with Jews, and said she had been
so from the time of her uncle's death; he charged her with the grossest
general extravagance, to which he added a most insidious attack upon her
character, drawn from her visits at Belfield's of long standing, as well
as the particular time when he had himself surprised her concealed with
the young man in a back parlour: and he asserted, that most of the
large sums she was continually taking up from her fortune, were lavished
without scruple upon this dangerous and improper favourite.
Delvile had heard this accusation with a rage scarce restrained from
violence; confident in her innocence, he boldly pronounced the whole a
forgery, and demanded the author of such cruel defamation. Mr Delvile,
much offended, refused to name any authority, but consented, with an air
of triumph, to abide by the effect of his own proposal, and gave him a
supercilious promise no longer to oppose the marriage, if the terms he
meant to offer to Miss Beverley, of renouncing her uncle's estate, and
producing her father's fortune, were accepted.
“O little did I credit,” said Delvile in conclusion, “that he knew
indeed so well this last condition was impracticable! his assertions
were without proof; I thought them prejudiced surmises; and I came in
the full hope I should convict him of his error. My mother, too, who
warmly and even angrily defended you, was as firmly satisfied as myself
that the whole was a mistake, and that enquiry would prove your fortune
as undiminished as your purity. How will she be shocked at the tale
I have now to unfold! how irritated at your injuries from Harrel! how
grieved that your own too great benevolence should be productive of such
black aspersions upon your character!”
“I have been,” cried Cecilia, “too facile and too unguarded; yet always,
at the moment, I seemed but guided by common humanity. I have ever
thought myself secure of more wealth than I could require, and regarded
the want of money as an evil from which I was unavoidably exempted. My
own fortune, therefore, appeared to me of small consequence, while the
revenue of my uncle insured me perpetual prosperity.--Oh had I foreseen
this moment--”
“Would you, then, have listened to my romantic proposal?”
“Would I have listened?--do you not see too plainly I could not have
hesitated!”
“Oh yet, then, most generous of human beings, yet then be mine! By our
own oeconomy we will pay off our mortgages; by living a while abroad,
we will clear all our estates; I will still keep the name to which my
family is bigotted, and my gratitude for your compliance shall make you
forget what you lose by it!”
“Speak not to me such words!” cried Cecilia, hastily rising; “your
friends will not listen to them, neither, therefore, must I.”
“My friends,” cried he with energy, “are henceforth out of the question:
my father's concurrence with a proposal he _knew_ you had not power to
grant, was in fact a mere permission to insult you; for if, instead of
dark charges, he had given any authority for your losses, I had myself
spared you the shock you have so undeservedly received from hearing
it.--But to consent to a plan which _could_ not be accepted!--to make me
a tool to offer indignity to Miss Beverley!--He has released me from his
power by so erroneous an exertion of it, and my own honour has a claim
to which his commands must give place. That honour binds me to Miss
Beverley as forcibly as my admiration, and no voice but her own shall
determine my future destiny.”
“That voice, then,” said Cecilia, “again refers you to your mother.
Mr Delvile, indeed, has not treated me kindly; and this last mock
concession was unnecessary cruelty; but Mrs Delvile merits my utmost
respect, and I will listen to nothing which has not her previous
sanction.”
“But will her sanction be sufficient? and may I hope, in obtaining it,
the security of yours?”
“When I have said I will hear nothing without it, may you not almost
infer--I will refuse nothing with it!”
The acknowledgments he would now have poured forth, Cecilia would not
hear, telling him, with some gaiety, they were yet unauthorized by Mrs
Delvile. She insisted upon his leaving her immediately, and never again
returning, without his mother's express approbation. With regard to his
father, she left him totally to his own inclination; she had received
from him nothing but pride and incivility, and determined to skew
publicly her superior respect for Mrs Delvile, by whose discretion and
decision she was content to abide.
“Will you not, then, from time to time,” cried Delvile, “suffer me to
consult with you?”
“No, no,” answered she, “do not ask it! I have never been insincere
with you, never but from motives not to be overcome, reserved even for
a moment; I have told you I will put every thing into the power of
Mrs Delvile, but I will not a second time risk my peace by any action
unknown to her.”
Delvile gratefully acknowledged her goodness, and promised to require
nothing more. He then obeyed her by taking leave, eager himself to put
an end to this new uncertainty, and supplicating only that her good
wishes might follow his enterprise.
And thus, again, was wholly broken the tranquility of Cecilia; new
hopes, however faint, awakened all her affections, and strong fears, but
too reasonable, interrupted her repose. Her destiny, once more, was
as undecided as ever, and the expectations she had crushed, retook
possession of her heart.
The suspicions she had conceived of Mr Monckton again occurred to her;
though unable to ascertain and unwilling to believe them, she tried to
drive them from her thoughts. She lamented, however, with bitterness,
her unfortunate connexion with Mr Harrel, whose unworthy impositions
upon her kindness of temper and generosity, now proved to her an evil
far more serious and extensive, than in the midst of her repugnance to
them she had ever apprehended.
CHAPTER ix.
A SUSPENSE.
Delvile had been gone but a short time, before Henrietta, her eyes still
red, though no longer streaming, opened the parlour door, and asked if
she might come in?
Cecilia wished to be alone, yet could not refuse her.
“Well, madam,” cried she, with a forced smile, and constrained air of
bravery, “did not I guess right?”
“In what?” said Cecilia, unwilling to understand her.
“In what I said would happen?--I am sure you know what I mean.”
Cecilia, extremely embarrassed, made no answer; she much regretted the
circumstances which had prevented an earlier communication, and was
uncertain whether, now, it would prove most kind or most cruel to
acquaint her with what was in agitation, which, should it terminate in
nothing, was unnecessarily wounding her delicacy for the openness of her
confidence, and which, however serviceable it might prove to her in
the end, was in the means so rough and piercing she felt the utmost
repugnance to the experiment.
“You think me, madam, too free,” said Henrietta, “in asking such a
question; and indeed your kindness has been so great, it may well make
me forget myself: but if it does, I am sure I deserve you should send me
home directly, and then there is not much fear I shall soon be brought
to my senses!”
“No, my dear Henrietta, I can never think you too free; I have told
you already every thing I thought you would have pleasure in hearing;
whatever I have concealed, I have been fearful would only pain you.”
“I have _deserved_, madam,” said she, with spirit, “to be pained, for
I have behaved with the folly of a baby. I am very angry with myself
indeed! I was old enough to have known better,--and I ought to have been
wise enough.”
“You must then be angry with yourself, next,” said Cecilia, anxious
to re-encourage her, “for all the love that I bear you; since to your
openness and frankness it was entirely owing.”
“But there are some things that people should _not_ be frank in;
however, I am only come now to beg you will tell me, madam, when it is
to be;--and don't think I ask out of nothing but curiosity, for I have a
very great reason for it indeed.”
“What be, my dear Henrietta?--you are very rapid in your ideas!”
“I will tell you, madam, what my reason is; I shall go away to my
own home,--and so I would if it were ten times a worse home than it
is!--just exactly the day before. Because afterwards I shall never like
to look that gentleman in the face,--never, never!--for married ladies I
know are not to be trusted!”
“Be not apprehensive; you have no occasion. Whatever may be my fate, I
will never be so treacherous as to betray my beloved Henrietta to _any_
body.”
“May I ask you, madam, one question?”
“Certainly.”
“Why did all this never happen before?”
“Indeed,” cried Cecilia, much distressed, “I know not that it will
happen now.”
“Why what, dear madam, can hinder it?”
“A thousand, thousand things! nothing can be less secure.”
“And then I am still as much puzzled as ever. I heard, a good while ago,
and we all heard that it was to be; and I thought that it was no wonder,
I am sure, for I used often to think it was just what was most likely;
but afterwards we heard it was no such thing, and from that moment I
always believed there had been nothing at all in it.”
“I must speak to you, I find, with sincerity; my affairs have long been
in strange perplexity: I have not known myself what to expect; one day
has perpetually reversed the prospect of another, and my mind has been
in a state of uncertainty and disorder, that has kept it--that still
keeps it from comfort and from rest!”
“This surprises me indeed, madam! I thought _you_ were all happiness!
but I was sure you deserved it, and I thought you had it for that
reward. And this has been the thing that has made me behave so wrong;
for I took it into my head I might tell you every thing, because I
concluded it could be nothing to you; for if great people loved one
another, I always supposed they married directly; poor people, indeed,
must stay till they are able to settle; but what in the whole world,
thought I, if they like one another, should hinder such a rich lady as
Miss Beverley from marrying such a rich gentleman at once?”
Cecilia now, finding there was no longer any chance for concealment,
thought it better to give the poor Henrietta at least the gratification
of unreserved confidence, which might somewhat sooth her uneasiness by
proving her reliance in her faith. She frankly, therefore, confessed
to her the whole of her situation. Henrietta wept at the recital with
bitterness, thought Mr Delvile a monster, and Mrs Delvile herself scarce
human; pitied Cecilia with unaffected tenderness, and wondered that the
person could exist who had the heart to give grief to young Delvile! She
thanked her most gratefully for reposing such trust in her; and Cecilia
made use of this opportunity, to enforce the necessity of her struggling
more seriously to recover her indifferency.
She promised she would not fail; and forbore steadily from that time to
name Delvile any more: but the depression of her spirits shewed she had
suffered a disappointment such as astonished even Cecilia. Though modest
and humble, she had conceived hopes the most romantic, and though
she denied, even to herself, any expectations from Delvile, she
involuntarily nourished them with the most sanguine simplicity. To
compose and to strengthen her became the whole business of Cecilia; who,
during her present suspense, could find no other employment in which she
could take any interest.
Mr Monckton, to whom nothing was unknown that related to Cecilia, was
soon informed of Delvile's visit, and hastened in the utmost alarm,
to learn its event. She had now lost all the pleasure she had formerly
derived from confiding in him, but though averse and confused, could not
withstand his enquiries.
Unlike the tender Henrietta's was his disappointment at this relation,
and his rage at such repeated trials was almost more than he could curb.
He spared neither the Delviles for their insolence of mutability in
rejecting or seeking her at their pleasure, nor herself for her easiness
of submission in being thus the dupe of their caprices. The subject
was difficult for Cecilia to dilate upon; she wished to clear, as he
deserved, Delvile himself from any share in the censure, and she felt
hurt and offended at the charge of her own improper readiness; yet shame
and pride united in preventing much vindication of either, and she heard
almost in silence what with pain she bore to hear at all.
He now saw, with inexpressible disturbance, that whatever was his
power to make her uneasy, he had none to make her retract, and that the
conditional promise she had given Delvile to be wholly governed by his
mother, she was firm in regarding to be as sacred as one made at the
altar.
Perceiving this, he dared trust his temper with no further debate; he
assumed a momentary calmness for the purpose of taking leave of her,
and with pretended good wishes for her happiness, whatever might be her
determination, he stifled the reproaches with which his whole heart was
swelling, and precipitately left her.
Cecilia, affected by his earnestness, yet perplexed in all her opinions,
was glad to be relieved from useless exhortations, and not sorry, in her
present uncertainty, that his visit was not repeated.
She neither saw nor heard from Delvile for a week, and augured nothing
but evil from such delay. The following letter then came by the post.
_To Miss Beverley. April 2d_, 1780
I must write without comments, for I dare not trust myself with making
any; I must write without any beginning address, for I know not how you
will permit me to address you.
I have lived a life of tumult since last compelled to leave you, and
when it may subside, I am still in utter ignorance.
The affecting account of the losses you have suffered through your
beneficence to the Harrels, and the explanatory one of the calumnies you
have sustained from your kindness to the Belfields, I related with the
plainness which alone I thought necessary to make them felt. I then told
the high honour I had received, in meeting with no other repulse to my
proposal, than was owing to an inability to accede to it; and informed
my mother of the condescending powers with which you had invested her.
In conclusion I mentioned my new scheme, and firmly, before I would
listen to any opposition, I declared that though wholly to their
decision I left the relinquishing my own name or your fortune, I was not
only by your generosity more internally yours than ever, but that since
again I had ventured, and with permission to apply to you, I should hold
myself hence forward unalterably engaged to you.
And so I do, and so I shall! nor, after a renewal so public, will any
prohibition but yours have force to keep me from throwing myself at your
feet.
My father's answer I will not mention; I would I could forget it! his
prejudices are irremediable, his resolutions are inflexible. Who or what
has worked him into an animosity so irreclaimable, I cannot conjecture,
nor will he tell; but something darkly mysterious has part in his wrath
and his injustice.
My mother was much affected by your reference to herself. Words of the
sweetest praise broke repeatedly from her; no other such woman, she
said, existed; no other such instance could be found of fidelity
so exalted! her son must have no heart but for low and mercenary
selfishness, if, after a proof of regard so unexampled, he could bear
to live without her! Oh how did such a sentence from lips so highly
reverenced, animate, delight, confirm, and oblige me at once!
The displeasure of my father at this declaration was dreadful; his
charges, always as improbable as injurious, now became too horrible
for my ears; he disbelieved you had taken up the money for Harrel, he
discredited that you visited the Belfields for Henrietta: passion not
merely banished his justice, but, clouded his reason, and I soon left
the room, that at least I might not hear the aspersions he forbid me to
answer.
I left not, however, your fame to a weak champion: my mother defended it
with all the spirit of truth, and all the confidence of similar virtue!
yet they parted without conviction, and so mutually irritated with each
other, that they agreed to meet no more.
This was too terrible! and I instantly consolidated my resentment to
my father, and my gratitude to my mother, into concessions and
supplications to both; I could not, however, succeed; my mother was
deeply offended, my father was sternly inexorable: nor here rests
the evil of their dissention, for the violence of the conflict has
occasioned a return more alarming than ever of the illness of my mother.
All her faith in her recovery is now built upon going abroad; she is
earnest to set off immediately; but Dr Lyster has advised her to make
London in her way, and have a consultation of physicians before she
departs.
To this she has agreed; and we are now upon the road thither.
Such is, at present, the melancholy state of my affairs. My mother
_advised_ me to write; forgive me, therefore, that I waited not
something more decisive to say. I could prevail upon neither party
to meet before the journey; nor could I draw from my father the base
fabricator of the calumnies by which he has been thus abused.
Unhappily, I have nothing more to add: and whether intelligence, such
as this, or total suspense, would be least irksome, I know not. If my
mother bears her journey tolerably well, I have yet one more effort
to make; and of that the success or the failure will be instantly
communicated to Miss Beverley, by her eternally devoted, but half
distracted.
Mortimer Delvile.
Scarcely could Cecilia herself decide whether this comfortless letter
or none at all were preferable. The implacability of Mr Delvile was
shocking, but his slandering her character was still more intolerable;
yet the praises of the mother, and her generous vindication, joined to
the invariable reliance of Delvile upon her innocence, conferred upon
her an honour that offered some alleviation.
The mention of a fabricator again brought Mr Monckton to her mind, and
not all her unwillingness to think him capable of such treachery, could
now root out her suspicions. Delvile's temper, however, she knew was too
impetuous to be trusted with this conjecture, and her fear of committing
injustice being thus seconded by prudence, she determined to keep to
herself doubts that could not without danger be divulged.
She communicated briefly to Henrietta, who looked her earnest curiosity,
the continuance of her suspense; and to her own fate Henrietta became
somewhat more reconciled, when she saw that no station in life rendered
happiness certain or permanent.
CHAPTER x.
A RELATION.
Another week past still without any further intelligence. Cecilia was
then summoned to the parlour, and to Delvile himself.
He looked hurried and anxious; yet the glow of his face, and the
animation of his eyes, immediately declared he at least came not to take
leave of her.
“Can you forgive,” cried he, “the dismal and unsatisfactory letter I
wrote you? I would not disobey you twice in the same manner, and I could
not till now have written in any other.”
“The consultation with the physicians, then,” said Cecilia, “is over?”
“Alas, yes; and the result is most alarming; they all agree my mother is
in a dangerous way, and they rather forbear to oppose, than advise her
going abroad: but upon that she is earnestly bent, and intends to set
out without delay. I shall return to her, therefore, with all speed, and
mean not to take any rest till I have seen her.”
Cecilia expressed with tenderness her sorrow for Mrs Delvile: nor were
her looks illiberal in including her son in her concern.
“I must hasten,” he cried, “to the credentials by which I am authorised
for coming, and I must hasten to prove if Miss Beverley has not
flattered my mother in her appeal.”
He then informed her that Mrs Delvile, apprehensive for herself, and
softened for him by the confession of her danger, which she had extorted
from her physicians, had tenderly resolved upon making one final effort
for his happiness, and ill and impatient as she was, upon deferring her
journey to wait its effect.
Generously, therefore, giving up her own resentment, she wrote to Mr
Delvile in terms of peace and kindness, lamenting their late dissention,
and ardently expressing her desire to be reconciled to him before she
left England. She told him the uncertainty of her recovery which had
been acknowledged by her physicians, who had declared a calmer mind
was more essential to her than a purer air. She then added, that such
serenity was only to be given her, by the removal of her anxiety at the
comfortless state of her son. She begged him, therefore, to make known
the author of Miss Beverley's defamation, assuring him, that upon
enquiry, he would find her character and her fame as unsullied as his
own; and strongly representing, that after the sacrifice to which she
had consented, their son would be utterly dishonourable in thinking of
any other connexion. She then to this reasoning joined the most earnest
supplication, protesting, in her present disordered state, of health,
her life might pay the forfeiture of her continual uneasiness.
“I held out,” she concluded, “while his personal dignity, and the honour
of his name and family were endangered; but where interest alone is
concerned, and that interest is combated by the peace of his mind, and
the delicacy of his word, my opposition is at an end. And though our
extensive and well founded views for a splendid alliance are abolished,
you will agree with me hereafter, upon a closer inspection, that the
object for whom he relinquishes them, offers in herself the noblest
reparation.”
Cecilia felt gratified, humbled, animated and depressed at once by this
letter, of which Delvile brought her a copy. “And what,” cried she, “was
the answer?”
“I cannot in decency,” he replied, “speak my opinion of it: read it
yourself,--and let me hear yours.”
_To the Honourable Mrs Delvile_.
Your extraordinary letter, madam, has extremely surprised me. I had been
willing to hope the affair over from the time my disapprobation of it
was formally announced. I am sorry you are so much indisposed, but I
cannot conclude your health would be restored by my acceding to a plan
so derogatory to my house. I disapprove it upon every account, not only
of the name and the fortune, but the lady herself. I have reasons more
important than those I assign, but they are such as I am bound in
honour not to mention. After such a declaration, nobody, I presume, will
affront me by asking them. Her defence you have only from herself,
her accusation I have received from authority less partial. I command,
therefore, that my son, upon pain of my eternal displeasure, may never
speak to me on the subject again, and I hope, madam, from you the same
complaisance to my request. I cannot explain myself further, nor is it
necessary; it is no news, I flatter myself, to Mortimer Delvile or his
mother, that I do nothing without reason, and I believe nothing upon
slight grounds.
A few cold compliments concerning her journey, and the re-establishment
of her health, concluded the letter.
Cecilia, having read, hastily returned it, and indignantly said, “My
opinion, Sir, upon this letter, must surely be yours; that we had done
wiser, long since, to have spared your mother and ourselves, those vain
and fruitless conflicts which we ought better to have foreseen were
liable to such a conclusion. Now, at least, let them be ended, and let
us not pursue disgrace wilfully, after suffering from it with so much
rigour involuntarily.”
“O no,” cried Delvile, “rather let us now spurn it for ever! those
conflicts must indeed be ended, but not by a separation still more
bitter than all of them.”
He then told her, that his mother, highly offended to observe by the
extreme coldness of this letter, the rancour he still nourished for
the contest preceding her leaving him, no longer now refused even her
separate consent, for a measure which she thought her son absolutely
engaged to take.
“Good heaven!” cried Cecilia, much amazed, “this from Mrs Delvile!--a
separate consent?”--
“She has always maintained,” he answered, “an independent mind,
always judged for herself, and refused all other arbitration: when so
impetuously she parted us, my father's will happened to be her's, and
thence their concurrence: my father, of a temper immoveable and stern,
retains stubbornly the prejudices which once have taken possession
of him; my mother, generous as fiery, and noble as proud, is open to
conviction, and no sooner convinced, than ingenuous in acknowledging it:
and thence their dissention. From my father I may hope forgiveness, but
must never expect concession; from my mother I may hope all she ought
to grant, for pardon but her vehemence,--and she has every great quality
that can dignify human nature!”
Cecilia, whose affection and reverence for Mrs Delvile were unfeigned,
and who loved in her son this filial enthusiasm, readily concurred with
him in praising her, and sincerely esteemed her the first among women.
“Now, then,” cried he, with earnestness, “now is the time when your
generous admiration of her is put to the test; see what she writes
to you;--she has left to me all explanation: but I insisted upon some
credential, lest you should believe I only owed her concurrence to a
happy dream.”
Cecilia in much trepidation took the letter, and hastily run it over.
_To Miss Beverley_.
Misery, my sweet young friend, has long been busy with us all; much have
we owed to the clash of different interests, much to that rapacity
which to enjoy any thing, demands every thing, and much to that general
perverseness which labours to place happiness in what is with-held.
Thus do we struggle on till we can struggle no longer; the felicity
with which we trifle, at best is but temporary; and before reason and
reflection shew its value, sickness and sorrow are commonly become
stationary.
Be it yours, my love, and my son's, to profit by the experience, while
you pity the errors, of the many who illustrate this truth. Your mutual
partiality has been mutually unfortunate, and must always continue
so for the interests of both: but how blind is it to wait, in our own
peculiar lots, for that perfection of enjoyment we can all see wanting
in the lot of others! My expectations for my son had “outstepped the
modesty of” probability. I looked for rank and high birth, with
the fortune of Cecilia, and Cecilia's rare character. Alas! a new
constellation in the heavens might as rationally have been looked for!
My extravagance, however, has been all for his felicity, dearer to me
than life,--dearer to me than all things but his own honour! Let us but
save that, and then let wealth, ambition, interest, grandeur and pride,
since they cannot constitute his happiness, be removed from destroying
it. I will no longer play the tyrant that, weighing good and evil by my
own feelings and opinions, insists upon his acting by the notions I have
formed, whatever misery they may bring him by opposing all his own.
I leave the kingdom with little reason to expect I shall return to it;
I leave it--Oh blindness of vanity and passion!--from the effect of
that violence with which so lately I opposed what now I am content to
advance! But the extraordinary resignation to which you have agreed,
shews your heart so wholly my son's, and so even more than worthy the
whole possession of his, that it reflects upon him an honour more bright
and more alluring, than any the most illustrious other alliance could
now confer.
I would fain see you ere I go, lest I should see you no more; fain
ratify by word of mouth the consent that by word of mouth I so
absolutely refused! I know not how to come to Suffolk,--is it not
possible you can come to London? I am told you leave to me the
arbitration of your fate, in giving you to my son, I best shew my sense
of such an honour.
Hasten then, my love, to town, that I may see you once more! wait no
longer a concurrence thus unjustly with-held, but hasten, that I may
bless the daughter I have so often wished to own! that I may entreat her
forgiveness for all the pain I have occasioned her, and committing to
her charge the future happiness of my son, fold to my maternal heart the
two objects most dear to it!
AUGUSTA DELVILE.
Cecilia wept over this letter with tenderness, grief and alarm; but
declared, had it even summoned her to follow her abroad, she could not,
after reading it, have hesitated in complying.
“O now, then,” cried Delvile, “let our long suspenses end! hear me with
the candour; my mother has already listened to me--be mine, my Cecilia,
at once,--and force me not, by eternal scruples, to risk another
separation.”
“Good heaven, Sir!” cried Cecilia, starting, “in such a state as Mrs
Delvile thinks herself, would you have her journey delayed?”
“No, not a moment! I would but ensure you mine, and go with her all over
the world!”
“Wild and impossible!--and what is to be done with Mr Delvile?”
“It is on his account wholly I am thus earnestly precipitate. If I do
not by an immediate marriage prevent his further interference, all I
have already suffered may again be repeated, and some fresh contest with
my mother may occasion another relapse.”
Cecilia, who now understood him, ardently protested she would not listen
for a moment to any clandestine expedient.
He besought her to be patient; and then anxiously represented to
her their peculiar situations. All application to his father he was
peremptorily forbid making, all efforts to remove his prejudices their
impenetrable mystery prevented; a public marriage, therefore, with such
obstacles, would almost irritate him to phrenzy, by its daring defiance
of his prohibition and authority.
“Alas!” exclaimed Cecilia, “we can never do right but in parting!”
“Say it not,” cried he, “I conjure you! we shall yet live, I hope, to
prove the contrary.”
“And can you, then,” cried she, reproachfully, “Oh Mr Delvile! can you
again urge me to enter your family in secret?”
“I grieve, indeed,” he answered, “that your goodness should so severely
be tried; yet did you not condescend to commit the arbitration to my
mother?”
“True; and I thought her approbation would secure my peace of mind; but
how could I have expected Mrs Delvile's consent to such a scheme!”
“She has merely accorded it from a certainty there is no other resource.
Believe me, therefore, my whole hope rests upon your present compliance.
My father, I am certain, by his letter, will now hear neither petition
nor defence; on the contrary, he will only enrage at the temerity of
offering to confute him. But when he knows you are his daughter, his
honour will then be concerned in yours, and it will be as much his
desire to have it cleared, as it is now to have it censured.”
“Wait at least your return, and let us try what can be done with him.”
“Oh why,” cried Delvile, with much earnestness, “must I linger out month
after month in this wretched uncertainty! If I wait I am undone! my
father, by the orders I must unavoidably leave, will discover the
preparations making without his consent, and he will work upon you in my
absence, and compel you to give me up!”
“Are you sure,” said she, half smiling, “he would have so much power?”
“I am but too sure, that the least intimation, in his present irritable
state of mind, reaching him of my intentions, would make him not
scruple, in his fury, pronouncing some malediction upon my disobedience
that _neither_ of us, I must own, could tranquilly disregard.”
This was an argument that came home to Cecilia, whose deliberation upon
it, though silent, was evidently not unfavourable.
He then told her that with respect to settlements, he would instantly
have a bond drawn up, similar to that prepared for their former intended
union, which should be properly signed and sealed, and by which he would
engage himself to make, upon coming to his estate, the same settlement
upon her that was made upon his mother.
“And as, instead of keeping up three houses,” he continued, “in the
manner my father does at present, I mean to put my whole estate _out to
nurse_, while we reside for a while abroad, or in the country, I doubt
not but in a very few years we shall be as rich and as easy as we shall
desire.”
He told her, also, of his well-founded expectations from the Relations
already mentioned; which the concurrence of his mother with his marriage
would thence forward secure to him.
He then, with more coherence, stated his plan at large. He purposed,
without losing a moment, to return to London; he conjured her, in the
name of his mother, to set out herself early the next day, that the
following evening might be dedicated wholly to Mrs Delvile: through her
intercession he might then hope Cecilia's compliance, and every thing on
the morning after should be prepared for their union. The long-desired
ceremony over, he would instantly ride post to his father, and pay him,
at least, the respect of being the first to communicate it. He would
then attend his mother to the Continent, and leave the arrangement
of everything to his return. “Still, therefore, as a single man,” he
continued, “I mean to make the journey, and I shall take care, by the
time I return, to have all things in readiness for claiming my sweet
Bride. Tell me, then, now, if you can reasonably oppose this plan?”
“Indeed,” said Cecilia, after some hesitation, “I cannot see the
necessity of such violent precipitancy.”
“Do you not try me too much,” cried Delvile, impatiently, “to talk now
of precipitancy! after such painful waiting, such wearisome expectation!
I ask you not to involve your own affairs in confusion by accompanying
me abroad; sweet to me as would be such an indulgence, I would not make
a run-away of you in the opinion of the world. All I wish is the secret
certainty I cannot be robbed of you, that no cruel machinations may
again work our separation, that you are mine, unalterably mine, beyond
the power of caprice or ill fortune.”
Cecilia made no answer; tortured with irresolution, she knew not upon
what to determine.
“We might then, according to the favour or displeasure of my father,
settle wholly abroad for the present, or occasionally visit him in
England; my mother would be always and openly our friend--Oh be firm,
then, I conjure you, to the promise you have given her, and deign to be
mine on the conditions she prescribes. She will be bound to you for ever
by so generous a concession, and even her health may be restored by the
cessation of her anxieties. With such a wife, such a mother, what
will be wanting for _me_! Could I lament not being richer, I must be
rapacious indeed!--Speak, then, my Cecilia! relieve me from the agony
of this eternal uncertainty, and tell me your word is invariable as your
honour, and tell me my mother gives not her sanction in vain!”
Cecilia sighed deeply, but, after some hesitation, said, “I little knew
what I had promised, nor know I now what to perform!--there must ever, I
find, be some check to human happiness! yet, since upon these terms, Mrs
Delvile herself is content to wish me of her family--”
She stopt; but, urged earnestly by Delvile, added “I must not, I think,
withdraw the powers with which I entrusted her.”
Delvile, grateful and enchanted, now forgot his haste and his business,
and lost every wish but to re-animate her spirits: she compelled him,
however, to leave her, that his visit might less be wondered at, and
sent by him a message to Mrs. Delvile, that, wholly relying upon her
wisdom, she implicitly submitted to her decree.
CHAPTER xi.
AN ENTERPRISE.
Cecilia now had no time for afterthoughts or anxious repentance, since
notwithstanding the hurry of her spirits, and the confusion of her mind,
she had too much real business, to yield to pensive indulgence.
Averse to all falsehood, she invented none upon this occasion; she
merely told her guests she was summoned to London upon an affair of
importance; and though she saw their curiosity, not being at liberty to
satisfy it with the truth, she attempted not to appease it by fiction,
but quietly left it to its common fare, conjecture. She would gladly
have made Henrietta the companion of her journey, but Henrietta was the
last to whom that journey could give pleasure. She only, therefore, took
her maid in the chaise, and, attended by one servant on horseback, at
six o'clock the next morning, she quitted her mansion, to enter into an
engagement by which soon she was to resign it for ever.
Disinterested as she was, she considered her situation as peculiarly
perverse, that from the time of her coming to a fortune which most
others regarded as enviable, she had been a stranger to peace, a
fruitless seeker of happiness, a dupe to the fraudulent, and a prey to
the needy! the little comfort she had received, had been merely from
dispensing it, and now only had she any chance of being happy herself,
when upon the point of relinquishing what all others built their
happiness upon obtaining!
These reflections only gave way to others still more disagreeable; she
was now a second time engaged in a transaction she could not approve,
and suffering the whole peace of her future life to hang upon an action
dark, private and imprudent: an action by which the liberal kindness of
her late uncle would be annulled, by which the father of her intended
husband would be disobeyed, and which already, in a similar instance,
had brought her to affliction and disgrace. These melancholy thoughts
haunted her during the whole journey, and though the assurance of
Mrs Delvile's approbation was some relief to her uneasiness, she
involuntarily prepared herself for meeting new mortifications, and was
tormented with an apprehension that this second attempt made her merit
them.
She drove immediately, by the previous direction of Delvile, to a
lodging-house in Albemarle Street, which he had taken care to have
prepared for her reception. She then sent for a chair, and went to Mrs
Delvile's. Her being seen by the servants of that house was not very
important, as their master was soon to be acquainted with the real
motive of her journey.
She was shewn into a parlour, while Mrs Delvile was informed of her
arrival, and there flown to by Delvile with the most grateful eagerness.
Yet she saw in his countenance that all was not well, and heard upon
enquiry that his mother was considerably worse. Extremely shocked
by this intelligence, she already began to lament her unfortunate
enterprise. Delvile struggled, by exerting his own spirits, to restore
hers, but forced gaiety is never exhilarating; and, full of care and
anxiety, he was ill able to appear sprightly and easy.
They were soon summoned upstairs into the apartment of Mrs Delvile, who
was lying upon a couch, pale, weak, and much altered. Delvile led the
way, saying, “Here, madam, comes one whose sight will bring peace and
pleasure to you!”
“This, indeed,” cried Mrs Delvile, half rising and embracing her, “is
the form in which they are most welcome to me! virtuous, noble Cecilia!
what honour you do my son! with what joy, should I ever recover, shall I
assist him in paying the gratitude he owes you!”
Cecilia, grieved at her situation, and affected by her kindness, could
only answer with her tears; which, however, were not shed alone; for
Delvile's eyes were full, as he passionately exclaimed, “This, this is
the sight my heart has thus long desired! the wife of my choice taken
to the bosom of the parent I revere! be yet but well, my beloved mother,
and I will be thankful for every calamity that has led to so sweet a
conclusion!”
“Content yourself, however, my son, with one of us,” cried Mrs Delvile,
smiling; “and content yourself, if you can, though your hard lot should
make that one this creature of full bloom, health, and youth! Ah, my
love,” added she, more seriously, and addressing the still weeping
Cecilia, “should now Mortimer, in losing me, lose those cares by which
alone, for some months past, my life has been rendered tolerable, how
peaceably shall I resign him to one so able to recompense his filial
patience and services!”
This was not a speech to stop the tears of Cecilia, though such warmth
of approbation quieted her conscientious scruples. Delvile now earnestly
interfered; he told her that his mother had been ordered not to talk or
exert herself, and entreated her to be composed, and his mother to be
silent.
“Be it _your_ business, then,” said Mrs Delvile, more gaily, “to find
us entertainment. We will promise to be very still if you will take that
trouble upon yourself.”
“I will not,” answered he, “be rallied from my purpose; if I cannot
entertain, it will be something to weary you, for that may incline you
to take rest, which will he answering a better purpose.”
“Mortimer,” returned she, “is this the ingenuity of duty or of love?
and which are you just now thinking of, my health, or a conversation
uninterrupted with Miss Beverley?”
“Perhaps a little of both!” said he, chearfully, though colouring.
“But you rather meant it should pass,” said Mrs Delvile, “you were
thinking only of me? I have always observed, that where one scheme
answers two purposes, the ostensive is never the purpose most at heart.”
“Why it is but common prudence,” answered Delvile, “to feel our way a
little before we mention what we most wish, and so cast the hazard of
the refusal upon something rather less important.”
“Admirably settled!” cried Mrs Delvile: “so my rest is but to prove Miss
Beverley's disturbance!--Well, it is only anticipating our future way of
life, when her disturbance, in taking the management of you to herself,
will of course prove my rest.”
She then quietly reposed herself, and Delvile discoursed with Cecilia
upon their future plans, hopes and actions.
He meant to set off from the church-door to Delvile Castle, to acquaint
his father with his marriage, and then to return instantly to London:
there he entreated Cecilia to stay with his mother, that, finding them
both together, he might not exhaust her patience, by making his parting
visit occasion another journey to Suffolk.
But here Cecilia resolutely opposed him; saying, her only chance to
escape discovery, was going instantly to her own house; and representing
so earnestly her desire that their marriage should be unknown till his
return to England, upon a thousand motives of delicacy, propriety, and
fearfulness, that the obligation he owed already to a compliance which
he saw grew more and more reluctant, restrained him both in gratitude
and pity from persecuting her further. Neither would she consent to
seeing him in Suffolk; which could but delay his mother's journey, and
expose her to unnecessary suspicions; she promised, however, to write
to him often, and as, from his mother's weakness, he must travel very
slowly, she took a plan of his route, and engaged that he should find a
letter from her at every great town.
The bond which he had already had altered, he insisted upon leaving in
her own custody, averse to applying to Mr Monckton, whose behaviour to
him had before given him disgust, and in whom Cecilia herself no
longer wished to confide. He had again applied to the same lawyer, Mr
Singleton, to give her away; for though to his secrecy he had no tie, he
had still less to any entire stranger. Mrs Delvile was too ill to attend
them to church, nor would Delvile have desired from her such absolute
defiance of his father.
Cecilia now gave another sigh to her departed friend Mrs Charlton, whose
presence upon this awful occasion would else again have soothed and
supported her. She had no female friend in whom she could rely; but
feeling a repugnance invincible to being accompanied only by men, she
accepted the attendance of Mrs Delvile's own woman, who had lived many
years in the family, and was high in the favour and confidence of her
lady.
The arrangement of these and other articles, with occasional
interruptions from Mrs Delvile, fully employed the evening. Delvile
would not trust again to meeting her at the church; but begged her to
send out her servants between seven and eight o'clock in the morning, at
which time he would himself call for her with a chair.
She went away early, that Mrs Delvile might go to rest, and it was
mutually agreed they should risk no meeting the next day. Delvile
conjured them to part with firmness and chearfulness, and Cecilia,
fearing her own emotion, would have retired without bidding her adieu.
But Mrs Delvile, calling after her, said, “Take with you my blessing!”
and tenderly embracing her, added, “My son, as my chief nurse, claims
a prescriptive right to govern me, but I will break from his control to
tell my sweet Cecilia what ease and what delight she has already given
to my mind! my best hope of recovery is founded on the pleasure I
anticipate to witnessing your mutual happiness: but should my illness
prove fatal, and that felicity be denied me, my greatest earthly care is
already removed by the security I feel of Mortimer's future peace. Take
with you, then, my blessing, for you are become one to me! long daughter
of my affection, now wife of my darling son! love her, Mortimer, as
she merits, and cherish her with tenderest gratitude!--banish, sweetest
Cecilia, every apprehension that oppresses you, and receive in Mortimer
Delvile a husband that will revere your virtues, and dignify your
choice!”
She then embraced her again, and seeing that her heart was too full for
speech, suffered her to go without making any answer. Delvile attended
her to her chair, scarce less moved than herself, and found only
opportunity to entreat her punctuality the next morning.
She had, indeed, no inclination to fail in her appointment, or risk
the repetition of scenes so affecting, or situations so alarming. Mrs
Delvile's full approbation somewhat restored to her her own, but nothing
could remove the fearful anxiety, which still privately tormented her
with expectations of another disappointment.
The next morning she arose with the light, and calling all her courage
to her aid, determined to consider this day as decisive of her destiny
with regard to Delvile, and, rejoicing that at least all suspense would
be over, to support herself with fortitude, be that destiny what it
might.
At the appointed time she sent her maid to visit Mrs Hill, and gave some
errands to her man that carried him to a distant part of the town: but
she charged them both to return to the lodgings by nine o'clock, at
which hour she ordered a chaise for returning into the country.
Delvile, who was impatiently watching for their quitting the house, only
waited till they were out of sight, to present himself at the door. He
was shewn into a parlour, where she instantly attended him; and being
told that the clergyman, Mr Singleton, and Mrs Delvile's woman, were
already in the church, she gave him her hand in silence, and he led her
to the chair.
The calmness of stifled hope had now taken place in Cecilia of quick
sensations and alarm. Occupied with a firm belief she should never be
the wife of Delvile, she only waited, with a desperate sort of patience,
to see when and by whom she was next to be parted from him.
When they arrived near the church, Delvile stopt the chair. He handed
Cecilia out of it, and discharging the chairmen, conducted her into the
church. He was surprised himself at her composure, but earnestly wishing
it to last, took care not to say to her a word that should make any
answer from her necessary.
He gave her, as before, to Mr Singleton, secretly praying that not, as
before, she might be given him in vain: Mrs Delvile's woman attended
her; the clergyman was ready, and they all proceeded to the altar.
The ceremony was begun; Cecilia, rather mechanically than with
consciousness, appearing to listen to it but at the words, _If any man
can shew any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together_,
Delvile himself shook with terror, lest some concealed person should
again answer it, and Cecilia, with a sort of steady dismay in her
countenance, cast her eyes round the church, with no other view than
that of seeing from what corner the prohibiter would start.
She looked, however, to no purpose; no prohibiter appeared, the ceremony
was performed without any interruption, and she received the thanks
of Delvile, and the congratulations of the little set, before the idea
which had so strongly pre-occupied her imagination, was sufficiently
removed from it to satisfy her she was really married.
They then went to the vestry, where their business was not long; and
Delvile again put Cecilia into a chair, which again he accompanied on
foot.
Her sensibility now soon returned, though still attended with
strangeness and a sensation of incredulity. But the sight of Delvile at
her lodgings, contrary to their agreement, wholly recovered her
senses from the stupor which had dulled them. He came, however, but to
acknowledge how highly she had obliged him, to see her himself restored
to the animation natural to her, character, and to give her a million
of charges, resulting from anxiety and tenderness. And then, fearing the
return of her servants, he quitted her, and set out for Delvile Castle.
The amazement of Cecilia was still unconquerable; to be actually united
with Delvile! to be his with the full consent of his mother,--to have
him her's, beyond the power of his father,--she could not reconcile it
with possibility; she fancied it a dream,--but a dream from which she
wished not to wake.