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Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress — Volume 3

by Fanny Burney · English · Gutenberg #7152 · 661,811 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress — Volume 3

Author: Fanny Burney


        
Release date: December 1, 2004 [eBook #7152]
                Most recently updated: March 15, 2018

Language: English

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Produced by Delphine Lettau, Charles Franks and the people at DP







CECILIA

OR

Memoirs of an Heiress

by

FRANCES BURNEY

VOL. III.




BOOK VIII. _Continued_.



CHAPTER ii.

AN EVENT.

Scarce less unhappy in her decision than in her uncertainty, and every
way dissatisfied with her situation, her views and herself, Cecilia
was still so distressed and uncomfortable, when Delvile called the next
morning, that he could not discover what her determination had been, and
fearfully enquired his doom with hardly any hope of finding favour.

But Cecilia was above affectation, and a stranger to art. “I would not,
Sir,” she said, “keep you an instant in suspense, when I am no longer in
suspense myself. I may have appeared trifling, but I have been nothing
less, and you would readily exculpate me of caprice, if half the
distress of my irresolution was known to you. Even now, when I hesitate
no more, my mind is so ill at ease, that I could neither wonder nor be
displeased should you hesitate in your turn.”

“You hesitate no more?” cried he, almost breathless at the sound of
those words, “and is it possible--Oh my Cecilia!--is it possible your
resolution is in my favour?”

“Alas!” cried she, “how little is your reason to rejoice! a dejected and
melancholy gift is all you can receive!”

“Ere I take it, then,” cried he, in a voice that spoke joy; pain, and
fear all at once in commotion, “tell me if your reluctance has its
origin in _me_, that I may rather even yet relinquish you, than merely
owe your hand to the selfishness of persecution?”

“Your pride,” said she, half smiling, “has some right to be alarmed,
though I meant not to alarm it. No! it is with myself only I am at
variance, with my own weakness and want of judgment that I quarrel,--in
_you_ I have all the reliance that the highest opinion of your honour
and integrity can give me.”

This was enough for the warm heart of Delvile, not only to restore
peace, but to awaken rapture. He was almost as wild with delight, as he
had before been with apprehension, and poured forth his acknowledgments
with so much fervour of gratitude, that Cecilia imperceptibly grew
reconciled to herself, and before she missed her dejection, participated
in his contentment.

She quitted him as soon as she had power, to acquaint Mrs Charlton with
what had passed, and assist in preparing her to accompany them to the
altar; while Delvile flew to his new acquaintance, Mr Singleton, the
lawyer, to request him to supply the place of Mr Monckton in giving her
away.

All was now hastened with the utmost expedition, and to avoid
observation, they agreed to meet at the church; their desire of secrecy,
however potent, never urging them to wish the ceremony should be
performed in a place less awful.

When the chairs, however, came, which were to carry the two ladies
thither, Cecilia trembled and hung back. The greatness of her
undertaking, the hazard of all her future happiness, the disgraceful
secrecy of her conduct, the expected reproaches of Mrs Delvile, and
the boldness and indelicacy of the step she was about to take, all so
forcibly struck, and so painfully wounded her, that the moment she was
summoned to set out, she again lost her resolution, and regretting the
hour that ever Delvile was known to her, she sunk into a chair, and gave
up her whole soul to anguish and sorrow.

The good Mrs Charlton tried in vain to console her; a sudden horror
against herself had now seized her spirits, which, exhausted by long
struggles, could rally no more.

In this situation she was at length surprised by Delvile, whose uneasy
astonishment that she had failed in her appointment, was only to be
equalled by that with which he was struck at the sight of her tears. He
demanded the cause with the utmost tenderness and apprehension; Cecilia
for some time could not speak, and then, with a deep sigh, “Ah!” she
cried, “Mr Delvile! how weak are we all when unsupported by our own
esteem! how feeble, how inconsistent, how changeable, when our courage
has any foundation but duty!”

Delvile, much relieved by finding her sadness sprung not from any new
affliction, gently reproached her breach of promise, and earnestly
entreated her to repair it. “The clergyman,” cried he, “is waiting; I
have left him with Mr Singleton in the vestry; no new objections have
started, and no new obstacles have intervened; why, then, torment
ourselves with discussing again the old ones, which we have already
considered till every possible argument upon them is exhausted?
Tranquillize, I conjure you, your agitated spirits, and if the truest
tenderness, the most animated esteem, and the gratefullest admiration,
can soften your future cares, and ensure your future peace, every
anniversary of this day will recompense my Cecilia for every pang she
now suffers!”

Cecilia, half soothed and half ashamed, finding she had in fact nothing
new to say or to object, compelled herself to rise, and, penetrated
by his solicitations, endeavoured to compose her mind, and promised to
follow him.

He would not trust her, however, from his sight, but seizing the very
instant of her renewed consent, he dismissed the chairs, and ordering
a hackney-coach, preferred any risk to that of her again wavering, and
insisted upon accompanying her in it himself.

Cecilia had now scarce time to breathe, before she found herself at the
porch of----church. Delvile hurried her out of the carriage, and then
offered his arm to Mrs Charlton. Not a word was spoken by any of the
party till they went into the vestry, where Delvile ordered Cecilia
a glass of water, and having hastily made his compliments to the
clergyman, gave her hand to Mr Singleton, who led her to the altar.

The ceremony was now begun; and Cecilia, finding herself past all power
of retracting, soon called her thoughts from wishing it, and turned her
whole attention to the awful service; to which though she listened with
reverence, her full satisfaction in the object of her vows, made
her listen without terror. But when the priest came to that solemn
adjuration, _If any man can shew any just cause why they may not
lawfully be joined together_, a conscious tear stole into her eye, and
a sigh escaped from Delvile that went to her heart: but, when the priest
concluded the exhortation with _let him now speak, or else hereafter
for-ever hold his peace_, a female voice at some distance, called out in
shrill accents, “I do!”

The ceremony was instantly stopt. The astonished priest immediately shut
up the book to regard the intended bride and bridegroom; Delvile started
with amazement to see whence the sound proceeded; and Cecilia, aghast,
and struck with horror, faintly shriekt, and caught hold of Mrs
Charlton.

The consternation was general, and general was the silence, though all
of one accord turned round towards the place whence the voice issued: a
female form at the same moment was seen rushing from a pew, who glided
out of the church with the quickness of lightning.

Not a word was yet uttered, every one seeming rooted to the spot on
which he stood, and regarding in mute wonder the place this form had
crossed.

Delvile at length exclaimed, “What can this mean?”

“Did you not know the woman, Sir?” said the clergyman.

“No, Sir, I did not even see her.”

“Nor you, madam?” said he, addressing Cecilia.

“No, Sir,” she answered, in a voice that scarce articulated the two
syllables, and changing colour so frequently, that Delvile, apprehensive
she would faint, flew to her, calling out, “Let _me_ support you!”

She turned from him hastily, and still, holding by Mrs Charlton, moved
away from the altar.

“Whither,” cried Delvile, fearfully following her, “whither are you
going?”

She made not any answer; but still, though tottering as much from
emotion as Mrs Charlton from infirmity, she walked on.

“Why did you stop the ceremony, Sir?” cried Delvile, impatiently
speaking to the clergyman.

“No ceremony, Sir,” he returned, “could proceed with such an
interruption.”

“It has been wholly accidental,” cried he, “for we neither of us
know the woman, who could not have any right or authority for the
prohibition.” Then yet more anxiously pursuing Cecilia, “why,”
 he continued, “do you thus move off?--Why leave the ceremony
unfinished?--Mrs Charlton, what is it you are about?--Cecilia, I beseech
you return, and let the service go on!”

Cecilia, making a motion with her hand to forbid his following her,
still silently proceeded, though drawing along with equal difficulty Mrs
Charlton and herself.

“This is insupportable!” cried Delvile, with vehemence, “turn, I conjure
you!--my Cecilia!--my wife!--why is it you thus abandon me?--Turn,
I implore you, and receive my eternal vows!--Mrs Charlton, bring her
back,--Cecilia, you _must_ not go!--”

He now attempted to take her hand, but shrinking from his touch, in an
emphatic but low voice, she said, “Yes, Sir, I must!--an interdiction
such as this!--for the world could I not brave it!”

She then made an effort to somewhat quicken her pace.

“Where,” cried Delvile, half frantic, “where is this infamous woman?
This wretch who has thus wantonly destroyed me!”

And he rushed out of the church in pursuit of her.

The clergyman and Mr Singleton, who had hitherto been wondering
spectators, came now to offer their assistance to Cecilia. She declined
any help for herself, but gladly accepted their services for Mrs
Charlton, who, thunderstruck by all that had past, seemed almost robbed
of her faculties. Mr Singleton proposed calling a hackney coach, she
consented, and they stopt for it at the church porch.

The clergyman now began to enquire of the pew-opener, what she knew of
the woman, who she was, and how she had got into the church? She knew of
her, she answered, nothing, but that she had come in to early prayers,
and she supposed she had hid herself in a pew when they were over, as
she had thought the church entirely empty.

An hackney coach now drew up, and while the gentlemen were assisting Mrs
Charlton into it, Delvile returned.

“I have pursued and enquired,” cried he, “in vain, I can neither
discover nor hear of her.--But what is all this? Whither are you
going?--What does this coach do here?--Mrs Charlton, why do you get into
it?--Cecilia, what are you doing?”

Cecilia turned away from him in silence. The shock she had received,
took from her all power of speech, while amazement and terror deprived
her even of relief from tears. She believed Delvile to blame, though she
knew not in what, but the obscurity of her fears served only to render
them more dreadful.

She was now getting into the coach herself, but Delvile, who could
neither brook her displeasure, nor endure her departure, forcibly caught
her hand, and called out, “You are _mine_, you are my _wife_!--I will
part with you no more, and go whithersoever you will, I will follow and
claim you!”

“Stop me not!” cried she, impatiently though faintly, “I am sick, I am
ill already,--if you detain me any longer, I shall be unable to support
myself!”

“Oh then rest on _me_!” cried he, still holding her; “rest but upon me
till the ceremony is over!--you will drive me to despair and to madness
if you leave me in this barbarous manner!”

A crowd now began to gather, and the words bride and bridegroom reached
the ears of Cecilia; who half dead with shame, with fear, and with
distress, hastily said “You are determined to make me miserable!” and
snatching away her hand, which Delvile at those words could no longer
hold, she threw herself into the carriage.

Delvile, however, jumped in after her, and with an air of authority
ordered the coachman to Pall-Mall, and then drew up the glasses, with a
look of fierceness at the mob.

Cecilia had neither spirits nor power to resist him; yet, offended by
his violence, and shocked to be thus publickly pursued by him, her looks
spoke a resentment far more mortifying than any verbal reproach.

“Inhuman Cecilia!” cried he, passionately, “to desert me at the very
altar!--to cast me off at the instant the most sacred rites were uniting
us!--and then thus to look at me!--to treat me with this disdain at a
time of such distraction!--to scorn me thus injuriously at the moment
you unjustly abandon me!”

“To how dreadful a scene,” said Cecilia, recovering from her
consternation, “have you exposed me! to what shame, what indignity, what
irreparable disgrace!”

“Oh heaven!” cried he with horror, “if any crime, any offence of mine
has occasioned this fatal blow, the whole world holds not a wretch so
culpable as myself, nor one who will sooner allow the justice of your
rigour! my veneration for you has ever equalled my affection, and could
I think it was through _me_ you have suffered any indignity, I should
soon abhor myself, as you seem to abhor me. But what is it I have done?
How have I thus incensed you? By what action, by what guilt, have I
incurred this displeasure?

“Whence,” cried she, “came that voice which still vibrates in my ear?
The prohibition could not be on _my_ account, since none to whom I am
known have either right or interest in even wishing it.”

“What an inference is this! over _me_, then, do you conclude this woman
had any power?”

Here they stopt at the lodgings. Delvile handed both the ladies out.
Cecilia, eager to avoid his importunities, and dreadfully disturbed,
hastily past him, and ran up stairs; but Mrs Charlton refused not his
arm, on which she lent till they reached the drawing-room.

Cecilia then rang the bell for her servant, and gave orders that a
post-chaise might be sent for immediately.

Delvile now felt offended in his turn; but suppressing his vehemence, he
gravely and quietly said “Determined as you are to leave me, indifferent
to my peace, and incredulous of my word, deign, at least, before we
part, to be more explicit in your accusation, and tell me if indeed it
is possible you can suspect that the wretch who broke off the ceremony,
had ever from me received provocation for such an action?”

“I know not what to suspect,” said Cecilia, “where every thing is thus
involved in obscurity; but I must own I should have some difficulty to
think those words the effect of chance, or to credit that their speaker
was concealed without design.”

“You are right, then, madam,” cried he, resentfully, “to discard me! to
treat me with contempt, to banish me without repugnance, since I see
you believe me capable of duplicity, and imagine I am better informed
in this affair than I appear to be. You have said I shall make you
miserable,--no, madam, no! your happiness and misery depend not upon one
you hold so worthless!”

“On whatever they depend,” said Cecilia, “I am too little at ease for
discussion. I would no more be daring than superstitious, but none of
our proceedings have prospered, and since their privacy has always been
contrary both to my judgment and my principles, I know not how to repine
at a failure I cannot think unmerited. Mrs Charlton, our chaise is
coming; you will be ready, I hope, to set off in it directly?”

Delvile, too angry to trust himself to speak, now walked about the room,
and endeavoured to calm himself; but so little was his success, that
though silent till the chaise was announced, when he heard that dreaded
sound, and saw Cecilia steady in her purpose of departing, he was so
much shocked and afflicted, that, clasping his hands in a transport of
passion and grief, he exclaimed. “This, then, Cecilia, is your faith!
this is the felicity you bid me hope! this is the recompense of my
sufferings, and the performing of your engagement!”

Cecilia, struck by these reproaches, turned back; but while she
hesitated how to answer them, he went on, “You are insensible to my
misery, and impenetrable to my entreaties; a secret enemy has had power
to make me odious in your sight, though for her enmity I can assign no
cause, though even her existence was this morning unknown to me!
Ever ready to abandon, and most willing to condemn me, you have more
confidence in a vague conjecture, than in all you have observed of the
whole tenour of my character. Without knowing why, you are disposed to
believe me criminal, without deigning to say wherefore, you are eager
to banish me your presence. Yet scarce could a consciousness of guilt
itself, wound me so forcibly, so keenly, as your suspecting I am
guilty!”

“Again, then,” cried Cecilia, “shall I subject myself to a scene of such
disgrace and horror? No, never!--The punishment of my error shall at
least secure its reformation. Yet if I merit your reproaches, I deserve
not your regard; cease, therefore, to profess any for me, or make them
no more.”

“Shew but to them,” cried he, “the smallest sensibility, shew but for
me the most distant concern, and I will try to bear my disappointment
without murmuring, and submit to your decrees as to those from which
there is no appeal: but to wound without deigning even to look at what
you destroy,--to shoot at random those arrows that are pointed with
poison,--to see them fasten on the heart, and corrode its vital
functions, yet look on without compunction, or turn away with cold
disdain,--Oh where is the candour I thought lodged in Cecilia! where the
justice, the equity, I believed a part of herself!”

“After all that has past,” said Cecilia, sensibly touched by his
distress, “I expected not these complaints, nor that, from me, any
assurances would be wanted; yet, if it will quiet your mind, if it will
better reconcile you to our separation---”

“Oh fatal prelude!” interrupted he, “what on earth can quiet my mind
that leads to our separation?--Give to me no condescension with any such
view,--preserve your indifference, persevere in your coldness,
triumph still in your power of inspiring those feelings you can never
return,--all, every thing is more supportable than to talk of our
separation!”

“Yet how,” cried she, “parted, torn asunder as we have been, how is it
now to be avoided?”

“Trust in my honour! Shew me but the confidence which I will venture to
say I deserve, and then will that union no longer be impeded, which in
future, I am certain, will never be repented!”

“Good heaven, what a request! faith so implicit would be frenzy.”

“You doubt, then, my integrity? You suspect---”

“Indeed I do not; yet in a case of such importance, what ought to guide
me but my own reason, my own conscience, my own sense of right? Pain me
not, therefore, with reproaches, distress me no more with entreaties,
when I solemnly declare that no earthly consideration shall ever
again make me promise you my hand, while the terror of Mrs Delvile's
displeasure has possession of my heart. And now adieu.”

“You give me, then, up?”

“Be patient, I beseech you; and attempt not to follow me; 'tis a step I
cannot permit.”

“Not follow you? And who has power to prevent me?”

“_I_ have, Sir, if to incur my endless resentment is of any consequence
to you.”

She then, with an air of determined steadiness, moved on; Mrs Charlton,
assisted by the servants, being already upon the stairs.

“O tyranny!” cried he, “what submission is it you exact!--May I not even
enquire into the dreadful mystery of this morning?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“And may I not acquaint you with it, should it be discovered?”

“I shall not be sorry to hear it. Adieu.”

She was now half way down the stairs; when, losing all forbearance, he
hastily flew after her, and endeavouring to stop her, called out, “If
you do not hate and detest me,--if I am not loathsome and abhorrent to
you, O quit me not thus insensibly!--Cecilia! my beloved Cecilia!--speak
to me, at least, one word of less severity! Look at me once more, and
tell me we part not for-ever!”

Cecilia then turned round, and while a starting tear shewed her
sympathetic distress, said, “Why will you thus oppress me with
entreaties I ought not to gratify?--Have I not accompanied you to the
altar,--and can you doubt what I have thought of you?”

“_Have_ thought?--Oh Cecilia!--is it then all over?”

“Pray suffer me to go quietly, and fear not I shall go too happily!
Suppress your own feelings, rather than seek to awaken mine. Alas! there
is little occasion!--Oh Mr Delvile! were our connection opposed by no
duty, and repugnant to no friends, were it attended by no impropriety,
and carried on with no necessity of disguise,--you would not thus charge
me with indifference, you would not suspect me of insensibility,--Oh no!
the choice of my heart would then be its glory, and all I now blush to
feel, I should openly and with pride acknowledge!”

She then hurried to the chaise, Delvile pursuing her with thanks and
blessings, and gratefully assuring her, as he handed her into it, that
he would obey all her injunctions, and not even attempt to see her,
till he could bring her some intelligence concerning the morning's
transaction.

The chaise then drove off.



CHAPTER iii.

A CONSTERNATION.

The journey was melancholy and tedious: Mrs Charlton, extremely fatigued
by the unusual hurry and exercise both of mind and body which she had
lately gone through, was obliged to travel very slowly, and to lie upon
the road. Cecilia, however, was in no haste to proceed: she was going to
no one she wished to see, she was wholly without expectation of meeting
with any thing that could give her pleasure. The unfortunate expedition
in which she had been engaged, left her now nothing but regret, and only
promised her in future sorrow and mortification.

Mrs Charlton, after her return home, still continued ill, and Cecilia,
who constantly attended her, had the additional affliction of imputing
her indisposition to herself. Every thing she thought conspired to
punish the error she had committed; her proceedings were discovered,
though her motives were unknown; the Delvile family could not fail to
hear of her enterprize, and while they attributed it to her temerity,
they would exult in its failure: but chiefly hung upon her mind the
unaccountable prohibition of her marriage. Whence that could proceed
she was wholly without ability to divine, yet her surmizes were not more
fruitless than various. At one moment she imagined it some frolic of
Morrice, at another some perfidy of Monckton, and at another an idle
and unmeaning trick of some stranger to them all. But none of these
suppositions carried with them any air of probability; Morrice, even if
he had watched their motions and pursued them to the church, which his
inquisitive impertinence made by no means impossible, could yet hardly
have either time or opportunity to engage any woman in so extraordinary
an undertaking; Mr Monckton, however averse to the connection, she
considered as a man of too much honour to break it off in a manner so
alarming and disgraceful; and mischief so wanton in any stranger, seemed
to require a share of unfeeling effrontery, which could fall to the lot
of so few as to make this suggestion unnatural and incredible.

Sometimes she imagined that Delvile might formerly have been affianced
to some woman, who having accidentally discovered his intentions,
took this desperate method of rendering them abortive: but this was a
short-lived thought, and speedily gave way to her esteem for his general
character, and her confidence in the firmness of his probity.

All, therefore, was dark and mysterious; conjecture was baffled, and
meditation was useless. Her opinions were unfixed, and her heart was
miserable; she could only be steady in believing Delvile as unhappy as
herself, and only find consolation in believing him, also, as blameless.

Three days passed thus, without incident or intelligence; her time
wholly occupied in attending Mrs Charlton; her thoughts all engrossed
upon her own situation: but upon the fourth day she was informed that a
lady was in the parlour, who desired to speak with her.

She presently went down stairs,--and, upon entering the room, perceived
Mrs Delvile!

Seized with astonishment and fear, she stopt short, and, looking aghast,
held by the door, robbed of all power to receive so unexpected and
unwelcome a visitor, by an internal sensation of guilt, mingled with a
dread of discovery and reproach.

Mrs Delvile, addressing her with the coldest politeness, said, “I fear
I have surprised you; I am sorry I had not time to acquaint you of my
intention to wait upon you.”

Cecilia then, moving from the door, faintly answered, “I cannot, madam,
but be honoured by your notice, whenever you are pleased to confer it.”

They then sat down; Mrs Delvile preserving an air the most formal and
distant, and Cecilia half sinking with apprehensive dismay.

After a short and ill-boding silence, “I mean not,” said Mrs Delvile,
“to embarrass or distress you; I will not, therefore, keep you in
suspense of the purport of my visit. I come not to make enquiries,
I come not to put your sincerity to any trial, nor to torture your
delicacy; I dispense with all explanation, for I have not one doubt to
solve: I _know_ what has passed, I _know_ that my son loves you.”

Not all her secret alarm, nor all the perturbation of her fears, had
taught Cecilia to expect so direct an attack, nor enabled her to bear
the shock of it with any composure: she could not speak, she could
not look at Mrs Delvile; she arose, and walked to the window, without
knowing what she was doing.

Here, however, her distress was not likely to diminish; for the first
sight she saw was Fidel, who barked, and jumped up at the window to lick
her hands.

“Good God! Fidel here!” exclaimed Mrs Delvile, amazed.

Cecilia, totally overpowered, covered her glowing face with both her
hands, and sunk into a chair.

Mrs Delvile for a few minutes was silent; and then, following her, said,
“Imagine not I am making any discovery, nor suspect me of any design
to develop your sentiments. That Mortimer could love in vain I never,
believed; that Miss Beverley, possessing so much merit, could be blind
to it in another, I never thought possible. I mean not, therefore, to
solicit any account or explanation, but merely to beg your patience
while I talk to you myself, and your permission to speak to you with
openness and truth.”

Cecilia, though relieved by this calmness from all apprehension of
reproach, found in her manner a coldness that convinced her of the loss
of her affection, and in the introduction to her business a solemnity
that assured her what she should decree would be unalterable. She
uncovered her face to shew her respectful attention, but she could not
raise it up, and could not utter a word.

Mrs Delvile then seated herself next her, and gravely continued her
discourse.

“Miss Beverley, however little acquainted with the state of our family
affairs, can scarcely have been uninformed that a fortune such as hers
seems almost all that family can desire; nor can she have failed to
observe, that her merit and accomplishments have no where been more felt
and admired: the choice therefore of Mortimer she could not doubt would
have our sanction, and when she honoured his proposals with her favour,
she might naturally conclude she gave happiness and pleasure to all his
friends.”

Cecilia, superior to accepting a palliation of which she felt herself
undeserving, now lifted up her head, and forcing herself to speak,
said “No, madam, I will not deceive you, for I have never been deceived
myself: I presumed not to expect your approbation,--though in missing it
I have for ever lost my own!”

“Has Mortimer, then,” cried she with eagerness, “been strictly
honourable? has he neither beguiled nor betrayed you?”

“No, madam,” said she, blushing, “I have nothing to reproach him with.”

“Then he is indeed my son!” cried Mrs Delvile, with emotion; “had he
been treacherous to you, while disobedient to us, I had indisputably
renounced him.”

Cecilia, who now seemed the only culprit, felt herself in a state of
humiliation not to be borne; she collected, therefore, all her courage,
and said, “I have cleared Mr Delvile; permit me, madam, now, to say
something for myself.”

“Certainly; you cannot oblige me more than by speaking without
disguise.”

“It is not in the hope of regaining your good opinion,--that, I see, is
lost!--but merely--”

“No, not lost,” said Mrs Delvile, “but if once it was yet higher, the
fault was my own, in indulging an expectation of perfection to which
human nature is perhaps unequal.”

Ah, then, thought Cecilia, all is over! the contempt I so much feared is
incurred, and though it may be softened, it can never be removed!

“Speak, then, and with sincerity,” she continued, “all you wish me to
hear, and then grant me your attention in return to the purpose of my
present journey.”

“I have little, madam,” answered the depressed Cecilia, “to say; you
tell me you already know all that has past; I will not, therefore,
pretend to take any merit from revealing it: I will only add, that my
consent to this transaction has made me miserable almost from the moment
I gave it; that I meant and wished to retract as soon as reflection
pointed out to me my error, and that circumstances the most perverse,
not blindness to propriety, nor stubbornness in wrong, led me to make,
at last, that fatal attempt, of which the recollection, to my last hour,
must fill me with regret and shame.”

“I wonder not,” said Mrs Delvile, “that in a situation where delicacy
was so much less requisite than courage, Miss Beverley should feel
herself distressed and unhappy. A mind such as hers could never err
with impunity; and it is solely from a certainty of her innate sense of
right, that I venture to wait upon her now, and that I have any hope
to influence _her_ upon whose influence alone our whole family must in
future depend. Shall I now proceed, or is there any thing you wish to
say first?”

“No, madam, nothing.”

“Hear me, then, I beg of you, with no predetermination to disregard me,
but with an equitable resolution to attend to reason, and a candour that
leaves an opening to conviction. Not easy, indeed, is such a task, to
a mind pre-occupied with an intention to be guided by the dictates of
inclination,---”

“You wrong me, indeed, madam!” interrupted Cecilia, greatly hurt, “my
mind harbours no such intention, it has no desire but to be guided by
duty, it is wretched with a consciousness of having failed in it! I
pine, I sicken to recover my own good opinion; I should then no longer
feel unworthy of yours; and whether or not I might be able to regain it,
I should at least lose this cruel depression that now sinks me in your
presence!”

“To regain it,” said Mrs Delvile, “were to exercise but half your power,
which at this moment enables you, if such is your wish, to make me think
of you more highly than one human being ever thought of another. Do you
condescend to hold this worth your while?”

Cecilia started at the question; her heart beat quick with struggling
passions; she saw the sacrifice which was to be required, and her pride,
her affronted pride, arose high to anticipate the rejection; but the
design was combated by her affections, which opposed the indignant
rashness, and told her that one hasty speech might separate her from
Delvile for ever. When this painful conflict was over, of which Mrs
Delvile patiently waited the issue, she answered, with much hesitation,
“To regain your good opinion, madam, greatly, truly as I value it,--is
what I now scarcely dare hope.”

“Say not so,” cried she, “since, if you hope, you cannot miss it. I
purpose to point out to you the means to recover it, and to tell you
how greatly I shall think myself your debtor if you refuse not to employ
them.”

She stopt; but Cecilia hung back; fearful of her own strength, she dared
venture at no professions; yet, how either to support, or dispute her
compliance, she dreaded to think.

“I come to you, then,” Mrs Delvile solemnly resumed, “in the name of Mr
Delvile, and in the name of our whole family; a family as ancient as
it is honourable, as honourable as it is ancient. Consider me as its
representative, and hear in me its common voice, common opinion, and
common address.

“My son, the supporter of our house, the sole guardian of its name, and
the heir of our united fortunes, has selected you, we know, for the lady
of his choice, and so fondly has, fixed upon you his affections, that
he is ready to relinquish us all in preference to subduing them. To
yourself alone, then, can we apply, and I come to you--”

“O hold, madam, hold!” interrupted Cecilia, whose courage now revived
from resentment, “I know, what you would say; you come to tell me of
your disdain; you come to reproach my presumption, and to kill me with
your contempt! There is little occasion for such a step; I am depressed,
I am self-condemned already; spare me, therefore, this insupportable
humiliation, wound me not with your scorn, oppress me not with your
superiority! I aim at no competition, I attempt no vindication, I
acknowledge my own littleness as readily as you can despise it, and
nothing but indignity could urge me to defend it!”

“Believe me,” said Mrs Delvile, “I meant not to hurt or offend you, and
I am sorry if I have appeared to you either arrogant or assuming. The
peculiar and perilous situation of my family has perhaps betrayed me
into offensive expressions, and made me guilty myself of an ostentation
which in others has often disgusted me. Ill, indeed, can we any of us
bear the test of experiment, when tried upon those subjects which call
forth our particular propensities. We may strive to be disinterested,
we may struggle to be impartial, but self will still predominate, still
shew us the imperfection of our natures, and the narrowness of our
souls. Yet acquit me, I beg, of any intentional insolence, and imagine
not that in speaking highly of my own family, I, mean to depreciate
yours: on the contrary, I know it to be respectable, I know, too, that
were it the lowest in the kingdom, the first might envy it that it gave
birth to such a daughter.”

Cecilia, somewhat soothed by this speech, begged her pardon for having
interrupted her, and she proceeded.

“To your family, then, I assure you, whatever may be the pride of our
own, _you_ being its offspring, we would not object. With your merit we
are all well acquainted, your character has our highest esteem, and
your fortune exceeds even our most sanguine desires. Strange at once
and afflicting! that not all these requisites for the satisfaction of
prudence, nor all these allurements for the gratification of happiness,
can suffice to fulfil or to silence the claims of either! There are yet
other demands to which we must attend, demands which ancestry and blood
call upon us aloud to ratify! Such claimants are not to be neglected
with impunity; they assert their rights with the authority of
prescription, they forbid us alike either to bend to inclination, or
stoop to interest, and from generation to generation their injuries
will call out for redress, should their noble and long unsullied name be
voluntarily consigned to oblivion!”

Cecilia, extremely struck by these words, scarce wondered, since so
strong and so established were her opinions, that the obstacle to her
marriage, though but one, should be considered as insuperable.

“Not, therefore, to _your_ name are we averse,” she continued, “but
simply to our own more partial. To sink that, indeed, in _any_
other, were base and unworthy:--what, then, must be the shock of my
disappointment, should Mortimer Delvile, the darling of my hopes, the
last survivor of his house, in whose birth I rejoiced as the promise of
its support, in whose accomplishments I gloried, as the revival of its
lustre,--should _he_, should, _my_ son be the first to abandon it! to
give up the name he seemed born to make live, and to cause in effect its
utter annihilation!--Oh how should I know my son when an alien to his
family! how bear to think I had cherished in my bosom the betrayer of
its dearest interests, the destroyer of its very existence!”

Cecilia, scarce more afflicted than offended, now hastily answered, “Not
for me, madam, shall he commit this crime, not on _my_ account shall he
be reprobated by his family! Think of him, therefore, no more, with any
reference to me, for I would not be the cause of unworthiness or guilt
in him to be mistress of the universe!”

“Nobly said!” cried Mrs Delvile, her eyes sparkling with joy, and her
cheeks glowing with pleasure, “now again do I know Miss Beverley! now
again see the refined, the excellent young woman, whose virtues taught
me to expect the renunciation even of her own happiness, when found to
be incompatible with her duty!”

Cecilia now trembled and turned pale; she scarce knew herself what she
had said, but, she found by Mrs Delvile's construction of her words,
they had been regarded as her final relinquishing of her son. She
ardently wished to quit the room before she was called upon to confirm
the sentence, but, she had not courage to make the effort, nor to rise,
speak, or move.

“I grieve, indeed,” continued Mrs Delvile, whose coldness and austerity
were changed into mildness and compassion, “at the necessity I have been
under to draw from you a concurrence so painful: but no other resource
was in my power. My influence with Mortimer, whatever it may be, I have
not any right to try, without obtaining your previous consent, since I
regard him myself as bound to you in honour, and only to be released by
your own virtuous desire. I will leave you, however, for my presence,
I see, is oppressive to you. Farewell; and when you _can_ forgive me, I
think you _will_.”

“I have nothing, madam,” said Cecilia, coldly, “to forgive; you have
only asserted your own dignity, and I have nobody to blame but myself,
for having given you occasion.”

“Alas,” cried Mrs Delvile, “if worth and nobleness of soul on your part,
if esteem and tenderest affection on mine, were all which that dignity
which offends you requires, how should I crave the blessing of such a
daughter! how rejoice in joining my son to excellence so like his own,
and ensuring his happiness while I stimulated his virtue!”

“Do not talk to me of affection, madam,” said Cecilia, turning away from
her; “whatever you had for me is past,--even your esteem is gone,--you
may pity me, indeed, but your pity is mixed with contempt, and I am not
so abject as to find comfort from exciting it.”

“O little,” cried Mrs Delvile, looking at her with the utmost
tenderness, “little do you see the state of my heart, for never have you
appeared to me so worthy as at this moment! In tearing you from my son,
I partake all the wretchedness I give, but your own sense of duty must
something plead for the strictness with which I act up to mine.”

She then moved towards the door.

“Is your carriage, madam,” said Cecilia, struggling to disguise her
inward anguish under an appearance of sullenness, “in waiting?”

Mrs Delvile then came back, and holding out her hand, while her eyes
glistened with tears, said, “To part from you thus frigidly, while
my heart so warmly admires you, is almost more than I can endure. Oh
gentlest Cecilia! condemn not a mother who is impelled to this severity,
who performing what she holds to be her duty, thinks the office her
bitterest misfortune, who forsees in the rage of her husband, and the
resistance of her son, all the misery of domestic contention, and who
can only secure the honour of her family by destroying its peace!--You
will not, then, give me your hand?--”

Cecilia, who had affected not to see that she waited for it, now
coldly put it out, distantly [courtseying], and seeking to preserve
her steadiness by avoiding to speak. Mrs Delvile took it, and as she
repeated her adieu, affectionately pressed it to her lips; Cecilia,
starting, and breathing short, from encreasing yet smothered agitation,
called out “Why, why this condescension?--pray,--I entreat you,
madam!--”

“Heaven bless you, my love!” said Mrs Delvile, dropping a tear upon the
hand she still held, “heaven bless you, and restore the tranquillity you
so nobly deserve!”

“Ah madam!” cried Cecilia, vainly striving to repress any longer the
tears which now forced their way down her cheeks, “why will you break
my heart with this kindness! why will you still compel me to love!--when
now I almost wish to hate you!”--

“No, hate me not,” said Mrs Delvile, kissing from her cheeks the tears
that watered them, “hate me not, sweetest Cecilia, though in wounding
your gentle bosom, I am almost detestable to myself. Even the cruel
scene which awaits me with my son will not more deeply afflict me. But
adieu,--I must now prepare for him!”

She then left the room: but Cecilia, whose pride had no power to resist
this tenderness, ran hastily after her, saying “Shall I not see you
again, madam?”

“You shall yourself decide,” answered she; “if my coming will not give
you more pain than pleasure, I will wait upon you whenever you please.”

Cecilia sighed and paused; she knew not what to desire, yet rather
wished any thing to be done, than quietly to sit down to uninterrupted
reflection.

“Shall I postpone quitting this place,” continued Mrs Delvile, “till
to-morrow morning, and will you admit me this afternoon, should I call
upon you again?”

“I should be sorry,” said she, still hesitating, “to detain you,”--

“You will rejoice me,” cried Mrs Delvile, “by bearing me in your sight.”

And she then went into her carriage.

Cecilia, unfitted to attend her old friend, and unequal to the task of
explaining to her the cruel scene in which she had just been engaged,
then hastened to her own apartment. Her hitherto stifled emotions broke
forth in tears and repinings: her fate was finally determined, and its
determination was not more unhappy than humiliating; she was openly
rejected by the family whose alliance she was known to wish; she
was compelled to refuse the man of her choice, though satisfied his
affections were her own. A misery so peculiar she found hard to support,
and almost bursting with conflicting passions, her heart alternately
swelled from offended pride, and sunk from disappointed tenderness.



CHAPTER iv.

A PERTURBATION.

Cecelia was still in this tempestuous state, when a message was brought
her that a gentleman was below stairs, who begged to have the honour of
seeing her. She concluded he was Delvile, and the thought of meeting him
merely to communicate what must so bitterly afflict him, redoubled her
distress, and she went down in an agony of perturbation and sorrow.

He met her at the door, where, before he could speak, “Mr Delvile,”
 she cried, in a hurrying manner, “why will you come? Why will you thus
insist upon seeing me, in defiance of every obstacle, and in contempt of
my prohibition?”

“Good heavens,” cried he, amazed, “whence this reproach? Did you not
permit me to wait upon you with the result of my enquiries? Had I
not your consent--but why do you look thus disturbed?--Your eyes are
red,--you have been weeping.--Oh my Cecilia! have I any share in your
sorrow?--Those tears, which never flow weakly, tell me, have they--has
_one_ of them been shed upon my account?”

“And what,” cried she, “has been the result of your enquiries?--Speak
quick, for I wish to know,--and in another instant I must be gone.”

“How strange,” cried the astonished Delvile, “is this language! how
strange are these looks! What new has come to pass? Has any fresh
calamity happened? Is there yet some evil which I do not expect?”

“Why will you not answer first?” cried she; “when _I_ have spoken, you
will perhaps be less willing.”

“You terrify, you shock, you amaze me! What dreadful blow awaits me? For
what horror are you preparing me?--That which I have just experienced,
and which tore you from me even at the foot of the altar, still remains
inexplicable, still continues to be involved in darkness and mystery;
for the wretch who separated us I have never been able to discover.”

“Have you procured, then, no intelligence?”

“No, none; though since we parted I have never rested a moment.”

“Make, then, no further enquiry, for now all explanation would be
useless. That we _were_ parted, we know, though _why_ we cannot tell:
but that again we shall ever meet---”

She, stopt; her streaming eyes cast upwards, and a deep sigh bursting
from her heart.

“Oh what,” cried Delvile, endeavouring to take her hand, which she
hastily withdrew from him, “what does this mean? loveliest, dearest
Cecilia, my betrothed, my affianced wife! why flow those tears which
agony only can wring from you? Why refuse me that hand which so lately
was the pledge of your faith? Am I not the same Delvile to whom so few
days since you gave it? Why will you not open to him your heart? Why
thus distrust his honour, and repulse his tenderness? Oh why, giving him
such exquisite misery, refuse him the smallest consolation?”

“What consolation,” cried the weeping Cecilia, “can I give? Alas! it is
not, perhaps, _you_ who most want it!--”

Here the door was opened by one of the Miss Charltons, who came into
the room with a message from her grandmother, requesting to see Cecilia.
Cecilia, ashamed of being thus surprised with Delvile, and in tears,
waited not either to make any excuse to him, or any answer to Miss
Charlton, but instantly hurried out of the room;--not, however, to
her old friend, whom now less than ever she could meet, but to her own
apartment, where a very short indulgence of grief was succeeded by the
severest examination of her own conduct.

A retrospection of this sort rarely brings much subject of exultation,
when made with the rigid sincerity of secret impartiality: so much
stronger is our reason than our virtue, so much higher our sense of duty
than our performance!

All she had done she now repented, all she had said she disapproved; her
conduct, seldom equal to her notions of right, was now infinitely below
them, and the reproaches of her judgment made her forget for a while the
afflictions which had misled it.

The sorrow to which she had openly given way in the presence of Delvile,
though their total separation but the moment before had been finally
decreed, she considered as a weak effusion of tenderness, injurious to
delicacy, and censurable by propriety. “His power over my heart,” cried
she, “it were now, indeed, too late to conceal, but his power over my
understanding it is time to cancel. I am not to be his,--my own voice
has ratified the renunciation, and since I made it to his mother, it
must never, without her consent, be invalidated. Honour, therefore, to
her, and regard for myself, equally command me to fly him, till I cease
to be thus affected by his sight.”

When Delvile, therefore, sent up an entreaty that he might be again
admitted into her presence, she returned for answer that she was not
well, and could not see any body.

He then left the house, and, in a few minutes, she received the
following note from him.

_To Miss Beverley_. You drive me from you, Cecilia, tortured with
suspense, and distracted with apprehension, you drive me from you,
certain of my misery, yet leaving me to bear it as I may! I would call
you unfeeling, but that I saw you were unhappy; I would reproach you
with tyranny, but that your eyes when you quitted me were swollen with
weeping! I go, therefore, I obey the harsh mandate, since my absence is
your desire, and I will shut myself up at Biddulph's till I receive
your commands. Yet disdain not to reflect that every instant will seem
endless, while Cecilia must appear to me unjust, or wound my very soul
by the recollection of her in sorrow. MORTIMER DELVILE.

The mixture of fondness and resentment with which this letter was
dictated, marked so strongly the sufferings and disordered state of the
writer, that all the softness of Cecilia returned when she perused it,
and left her not a wish but to lessen his inquietude, by assurances
of unalterable regard: yet she determined not to trust herself in his
sight, certain they could only meet to grieve over each other, and
conscious that a participation of sorrow would but prove a reciprocation
of tenderness. Calling, therefore, upon her duty to resist her
inclination, she resolved to commit the whole affair to the will of Mrs
Delvile, to whom, though under no promise, she now considered herself
responsible. Desirous, however, to shorten the period of Delvile's
uncertainty, she would not wait till the time she had appointed to see
his mother, but wrote the following note to hasten their meeting.

_To the Hon. Mrs Delvile_. MADAM,--Your son is now at Bury; shall I
acquaint him of your arrival? or will you announce it yourself? Inform
me of your desire, and I will endeavour to fulfil it. As my own Agent
I regard myself no longer; if, as yours, I can give pleasure, or be of
service, I shall gladly receive your commands. I have the honour to be,
Madam, your most obedient servant, CECILIA BEVERLEY.

When she had sent off this letter, her heart was more at ease, because
reconciled with her conscience: she had sacrificed the son, she had
resigned herself to the mother; it now only remained to heal her wounded
pride, by suffering the sacrifice with dignity, and to recover her
tranquility in virtue, by making the resignation without repining.

Her reflections, too, growing clearer as the mist of passion was
dispersed, she recollected with confusion her cold and sullen behaviour
to Mrs Delvile. That lady had but done what she had believed was her
duty, and that duty was no more than she had been taught to expect from
her. In the beginning of her visit, and while doubtful of its success,
she had indeed, been austere, but the moment victory appeared in view,
she became tender, affectionate and gentle. Her justice, therefore,
condemned the resentment to which she had given way, and she fortified
her mind for the interview which was to follow, by an earnest desire to
make all reparation both to Mrs Delvile and herself for that which was
past.

In this resolution she was not a little strengthened, by seriously
considering with herself the great abatement to all her possible
happiness, which must have been made by the humiliating circumstance
of forcing herself into a family which held all connection with her as
disgraceful. She desired not to be the wife even of Delvile upon such
terms, for the more she esteemed and admired him, the more anxious she
became for his honour, and the less could she endure being regarded
herself as the occasion of its diminution.

Now, therefore, her plan of conduct settled, with calmer spirits, though
a heavy heart, she attended upon Mrs Charlton; but fearing to lose the
steadiness she had just acquired before it should be called upon, if she
trusted herself to relate the decision which had been made, she besought
her for the present to dispense with the account, and then forced
herself into conversation upon less interesting subjects.

This prudence had its proper effect, and with tolerable tranquility she
heard Mrs Delvile again announced, and waited upon her in the parlour
with an air of composure.

Not so did Mrs Delvile receive her; she was all eagerness and emotion;
she flew to her the moment she appeared, and throwing her arms around
her, warmly exclaimed “Oh charming girl! Saver of our family! preserver
of our honour! How poor are words to express my admiration! how
inadequate are thanks in return for such obligations as I owe you!”

“You owe me none, madam,” said Cecilia, suppressing a sigh; “on my side
will be all the obligation, if you can pardon the petulance of my
behaviour this morning.”

“Call not by so harsh a name,” answered Mrs Delvile, “the keenness of a
sensibility by which you have yourself alone been the sufferer. You
have had a trial the most severe, and however able to sustain, it was
impossible you should not feel it. That you should give up any man whose
friends solicit not your alliance, your mind is too delicate to make
wonderful; but your generosity in submitting, unasked, the arrangement
of that resignation to those for whose interest it is made, and your
high sense of honour in holding yourself accountable to me, though under
no tie, and bound by no promise, mark a greatness of mind which calls
for reverence rather than thanks, and which I never can praise half so
much as I admire.”

Cecilia, who received this applause but as a confirmation of her
rejection, thanked her only by courtsying; and Mrs Delvile, having
seated herself next her, continued her speech.

“My son, you have the goodness to tell me, is here,--have you seen him?”

“Yes, madam,” answered she, blushing, “but hardly for a moment.”

“And he knows not of my arrival?” No,--I believe he certainly does not.”

“Sad then, is the trial which awaits him, and heavy for me the office I
must perform! Do you expect to see him again?”

“No,--yes,--perhaps--indeed I hardly--” She stammered, and Mrs Delvile,
taking her hand, said “Tell me, Miss Beverley, _why_ should you see him
again?”

Cecilia was thunderstruck by this question, and, colouring yet more
deeply, looked down, but could not answer.

“Consider,” continued Mrs Delvile, “the _purpose_ of any further
meeting; your union is impossible, you have nobly consented to
relinquish all thoughts of it why then tear your own heart, and torture
his, by an intercourse which seems nothing but an ill-judged invitation
to fruitless and unavailing sorrow?”

Cecilia was still silent; the truth of the expostulation her reason
acknowledged, but to assent to its consequence her whole heart refused.

“The ungenerous triumph of little female vanity,” said Mrs Delvile, “is
far, I am sure, from your mind, of which the enlargement and liberality
will rather find consolation from lessening than from embittering
his sufferings. Speak to me, then, and tell me honestly, judiciously,
candidly tell me, will it not be wiser and more right, to avoid rather
than seek an object which can only give birth to regret? an interview
which can excite no sensations but of misery and sadness?” Cecilia then
turned pale, she endeavoured to speak, but could not; she wished to
comply,--yet to think she had seen him for the last time, to remember
how abruptly she had parted from him, and to fear she had treated him
unkindly;--these were obstacles which opposed her concurrence, though
both judgment and propriety demanded it.

“Can you, then,” said Mrs Delvile, after a pause, “can you wish to see
Mortimer merely to behold his grief? Can you desire he should see you,
only to sharpen his affliction at your loss?”

“O no!” cried Cecilia, to whom this reproof restored speech and
resolution, “I am not so despicable, I am not, I hope, so unworthy!--I
will--be ruled by you wholly; I will commit to you every thing;--yet
_once_, perhaps,--no more!”--

“Ah, my dear Miss Beverley! to meet confessedly for _once_,--what were
that but planting a dagger in the heart of Mortimer? What were it but
infusing poison into your own?

“If you think so, madam,” said she, “I had better--I will certainly--”
 she sighed, stammered, and stopt.

“Hear me,” cried Mrs Delvile, “and rather let me try to convince than
persuade you. Were there any possibility, by argument, by reflection, or
even by accident, to remove the obstacles to our connection, then would
it be well to meet, for then might discussion turn to account, and an
interchange of sentiments be productive of some happy expedients: but
here--”

She hesitated, and Cecilia, shocked and ashamed, turned away her face,
and cried “I know, madam, what you would say,--here all is over! and
therefore--”

“Yet suffer me,” interrupted she, “to be explicit, since we speak upon,
this matter now for the last time. Here, then, I say, where not ONE
doubt remains, where ALL is finally, though not happily decided, what
can an interview produce? Mischief of every sort, pain, horror, and
repining! To Mortimer you may think it would be kind, and grant it to
his prayers, as an alleviation of his misery; mistaken notion! nothing
could so greatly augment it. All his passions would be raised, all his
prudence would be extinguished, his soul would be torn with resentment
and regret, and force, only, would part him from you, when previously he
knew that parting was to be eternal. To yourself--”

“Talk not, madam, of me,” cried the unhappy Cecilia, “what you say of
your son is sufficient, and I will yield---”

“Yet hear me,” proceeded she, “and believe me not so unjust as to
consider him alone; you, also, would be an equal, though a less stormy
sufferer. You fancy, at this moment, that once more to meet him would
soothe your uneasiness, and that to take of him a farewell, would soften
the pain of the separation: how false such reasoning! how dangerous such
consolation! acquainted ere you meet that you were to meet him no more,
your heart would be all softness and grief, and at the very moment when
tenderness should be banished from your intercourse, it would bear down
all opposition of judgment, spirit, and dignity: you would hang upon
every word, because every word would seem the last, every look, every
expression would be rivetted in your memory, and his image in this
parting distress would-be painted upon your mind, in colours that would
eat into its peace, and perhaps never be erased.”

“Enough, enough,” said Cecilia, “I will not see him,--I will not even
desire it!”

“Is this compliance or conviction? Is what I have said true, or only
terrifying?”

“Both, both! I believe, indeed, the conflict would have overpowered
me,--I see you are right,--and I thank you, madam, for saving me from a
scene I might so cruelly have rued.”

“Oh Daughter of my mind!” cried Mrs Delvile, rising and embracing her,
“noble, generous, yet gentle Cecilia! what tie, what connection, could
make you more dear to me? Who is there like you? Who half so excellent?
So open to reason, so ingenuous in error! so rational! so just! so
feeling, yet so wise!”

“You are very good,” said Cecilia, with a forced serenity, “and I am
thankful that your resentment for the past obstructs not your lenity for
the present.”

“Alas, my love, how shall I resent the past, when I ought myself to have
foreseen this calamity! and I _should_ have foreseen it, had I not been
informed you were engaged, and upon your engagement built our security.
Else had I been more alarmed, for my own admiration would have bid me
look forward to my son's. You were just, indeed, the woman he had least
chance to resist, you were precisely the character to seize his very
soul. To a softness the most fatally alluring, you join a dignity which
rescues from their own contempt even the most humble of your admirers.
You seem born to have all the world wish your exaltation, and no part
of it murmur at your superiority. Were any obstacle but this insuperable
one in the way, should nobles, nay, should princes offer their daughters
to my election, I would reject without murmuring the most magnificent
proposals, and take in triumph to my heart my son's nobler choice!”

“Oh madam,” cried Cecilia, “talk not to me thus!--speak not such
flattering words!--ah, rather scorn and upbraid me, tell me you
despise my character, my family and my connections,--load, load me with
contempt, but do not thus torture me with approbation!”

“Pardon me, sweetest girl, if I have awakened those emotions you so
wisely seek to subdue. May my son but emulate your example, and my pride
in his virtue shall be the solace of my affliction for his misfortunes.”

She then tenderly embraced her, and abruptly took her leave.

Cecilia had now acted her part, and acted it to her own satisfaction;
but the curtain dropt when Mrs Delvile left the house, nature resumed
her rights, and the sorrow of her heart was no longer disguised or
repressed. Some faint ray of hope had till now broke through the
gloomiest cloud of her misery, and secretly flattered her that its
dispersion was possible, though distant: but that ray was extinct, that
hope was no more; she had solemnly promised to banish Delvile her sight,
and his mother had absolutely declared that even the subject had been
discussed for the last time.

Mrs Charlton, impatient of some explanation of the morning's
transactions, soon sent again to beg Cecilia would come to her. Cecilia
reluctantly obeyed, for she feared encreasing her indisposition by the
intelligence she had to communicate; she struggled, therefore, to appear
to her with tolerable calmness, and in briefly relating what had passed,
forbore to mingle with the narrative her own feelings and unhappiness.

Mrs Charlton heard the account with the utmost concern; she accused
Mrs Delvile of severity, and even of cruelty; she lamented the strange
accident by which the marriage ceremony had been stopt, and regretted
that it had not again been begun, as the only means to have rendered
ineffectual the present fatal interposition. But the grief of Cecilia,
however violent, induced her not to join in this regret; she mourned
only the obstacle which had occasioned the separation, and not the
incident which had merely interrupted the ceremony: convinced, by the
conversations in which she had just been engaged, of Mrs Delvile's
inflexibility, she rather rejoiced than repined that she had put it to
no nearer trial: sorrow was all she felt; for her mind was too liberal
to harbour resentment against a conduct which she saw was dictated by a
sense of right; and too ductile and too affectionate to remain unmoved
by the personal kindness which had softened the rejection, and the many
marks of esteem and regard which had shewn her it was lamented, though
considered as indispensable.

How and by whom this affair had been betrayed to Mrs Delvile she knew
not; but the discovery was nothing less than surprising, since, by
various unfortunate accidents, it was known to so many, and since, in
the horror and confusion of the mysterious prohibition to the marriage,
neither Delvile nor herself had thought of even attempting to give
any caution to the witnesses of that scene, not to make it known: an
attempt, however, which must almost necessarily have been unavailing, as
the incident was too extraordinary and too singular to have any chance
of suppression.

During this conversation, one of the servants came to inform Cecilia,
that a man was below to enquire if there was no answer to the note he
had brought in the forenoon.

Cecilia, greatly distressed, knew not upon what to resolve; that the
patience of Delvile should be exhausted, she did not, indeed, wonder,
and to relieve his anxiety was now almost her only wish; she would
therefore instantly have written to him, confessed her sympathy in his
sufferings, and besought him to endure with fortitude an evil which
was no longer to be withstood: but she was uncertain whether he was yet
acquainted with the journey of his mother to Bury, and having agreed to
commit to her the whole management of the affair, she feared it would
be dishonourable to take any step in it without her concurrence. She
returned, therefore, a message that she had yet no answer ready.

In a very few minutes Delvile called himself, and sent up an earnest
request for permission to see her.

Here, at least, she had no perplexity; an interview she had given her
positive word to refuse, and therefore, without a moment's hesitation,
she bid the servant inform him she was particularly engaged, and sorry
it was not in her power to see any company.

In the greatest perturbation he left the house, and immediately wrote to
her the following lines.

_To Miss Beverley_. I entreat you to see me! if only for an instant, I
entreat, I implore you to see me! Mrs Charlton may be present, all the
world, if you wish it, may be present,--but deny me not admission, I
supplicate, I conjure you!

I will call in an hour; in that time you may have finished your present
engagement. I will otherwise wait longer, and call again. You will not,
I think, turn me from' your door, and, till I have seen you, I can only
live in its vicinity. M. D.

The man who brought this note, waited not for any answer.

Cecilia read it in an agony of mind inexpressible: she saw, by its
style, how much Delvile was irritated, and her knowledge of his temper
made her certain his irritation proceeded from believing himself
ill-used. She ardently wished to appease and to quiet him, and regretted
the necessity of appearing obdurate and unfeeling, even more, at that
moment, than the separation itself. To a mind priding in its purity,
and animated in its affections, few sensations can excite keener misery,
than those by which an apprehension is raised of being thought worthless
or ungrateful by the objects of our chosen regard. To be deprived of
their society is less bitter, to be robbed of our own tranquillity by
any other means, is less afflicting.

Yet to this it was necessary to submit, or incur the only penalty which,
to such a mind, would be more severe, self-reproach: she had promised to
be governed by Mrs Delvile, she had nothing, therefore, to do but obey
her.

Yet _to turn_, as he expressed himself, _from the door_, a man who,
but for an incident the most incomprehensible, would now have been sole
master of herself and her actions, seemed so unkind and so tyrannical,
that she could not endure to be within hearing of his repulse: she
begged, therefore, the use of Mrs Charlton's carriage, and determined
to make a visit to Mrs Harrel till Delvile and his mother had wholly
quitted Bury. She was not, indeed, quite satisfied in going to the house
of Mr Arnott, but she had no time to weigh objections, and knew not any
other place to which still greater might not be started.

She wrote a short letter to Mrs Delvile, acquainting her with her
purpose, and its reason, and repeating her assurances that she would
be guided by her implicitly; and then, embracing Mrs Charlton, whom
she left to the care of her grand-daughters, she got into a chaise,
accompanied only by her maid, and one man and horse, and ordered the
postilion to drive to Mr Arnott's.



CHAPTER v.

A COTTAGE.

The evening was already far advanced, and before she arrived at the end
of her little journey it was quite dark. When they came within a mile
of Mr Arnott's house, the postilion, in turning too suddenly from the
turnpike to the cross-road, overset the carriage. The accident, however,
occasioned no other mischief than delaying their proceeding, and
Cecilia and her maid were helped out of the chaise unhurt. The servants,
assisted by a man who was walking upon the road, began lifting it up;
and Cecilia, too busy within to be attentive to what passed without,
disregarded what went forward, till she heard her footman call for help.
She then hastily advanced to enquire what was the matter, and found
that the passenger who had lent his aid, had, by working in the dark,
unfortunately slipped his foot under one of the wheels, and so much hurt
it, that without great pain he could not put it to the ground.

Cecilia immediately desired that the sufferer might be carried to his
own home in the chaise, while she and the maid walked on to Mr Arnott's,
attended by her servant on horseback.

This little incident proved of singular service to her upon first
entering the house; Mrs Harrel was at supper with her brother, and
hearing the voice of Cecilia in the hall, hastened with the extremest
surprise to enquire what had occasioned so late a visit; followed by Mr
Arnott, whose amazement was accompanied with a thousand other sensations
too powerful for speech. Cecilia, unprepared with any excuse, instantly
related the adventure she had met with on the road, which quieted their
curiosity, by turning their attention to her personal safety. They
ordered a room to be prepared for her, entreated her to go to rest with
all speed, and postpone any further account till the next day. With this
request she most gladly complied, happy to be spared the embarrassment
of enquiry, and rejoiced to be relieved from the fatigue of
conversation. Her night was restless and miserable: to know how Delvile
would bear her flight was never a moment from her thoughts, and to hear
whether he would obey or oppose his mother was her incessant wish. She
was fixt, however, to be faithful in refusing to see him, and at least
to suffer nothing new from her own enterprize or fault.

Early in the morning Mrs Harrel came to see her. She was eager to learn
why, after invitations repeatedly refused, she was thus suddenly arrived
without any; and she was still more eager to talk of herself, and relate
the weary life she led thus shut up in the country, and confined to the
society of her brother.

Cecilia evaded giving any immediate answer to her questions, and Mrs
Harrel, happy in an opportunity to rehearse her own complaints, soon
forgot that she had asked any, and, in a very short time, was perfectly,
though imperceptibly, contented to be herself the only subject upon
which they conversed.

But not such was the selfishness of Mr Arnott; and Cecilia, when she
went down to breakfast, perceived with the utmost concern that he
had passed a night as sleepless as her own. A visit so sudden, so
unexpected, and so unaccountable, from an object that no discouragement
could make him think of with indifference, had been a subject to him of
conjecture and wonder that had revived all the hopes and the fears which
had lately, though still unextinguished, lain dormant. The enquiries,
however, which his sister had given up, he ventured not to renew, and
thought himself but too happy in her presence, whatever might be the
cause of her visit.

He perceived, however, immediately, the sadness that hung upon her mind,
and his own was redoubled by the sight: Mrs Harrel, also, saw that she
looked ill, but attributed it to the fatigue and fright of the preceding
evening, well knowing that a similar accident would have made her ill
herself, or fancy that she was so.

During breakfast, Cecilia sent for the postilion, to enquire of him how
the man had fared, whose good-natured assistance in their distress had
been so unfortunate to himself. He answered that he had turned out to
be a day labourer, who lived about half a mile off. And then, partly to
gratify her own humanity, and partly to find any other employment for
herself and friends than uninteresting conversation, she proposed that
they should all walk to the poor man's habitation, and offer him some
amends for the injury he had received. This was readily assented to,
and the postilion directed them whither to go. The place was a cottage,
situated upon a common; they entered it without ceremony, and found a
clean looking woman at work.

Cecilia enquired for her husband, and was told that he was gone out to
day-labour.

“I am very glad to hear it,” returned she; “I hope then he has got the
better of the accident he met with last night?”

“It was not him, madam,” said the woman, “met with the accident, it was
John;--there he is, working in the garden.”

To the garden then they all went, and saw him upon the ground, weeding.

The moment they approached he arose, and, without speaking, began to
limp, for he could hardly walk; away.

“I am sorry, master,” said Cecilia, “that you are so much hurt. Have you
had anything put to your foot?”

The man made no answer, but still turned away from her; a glance,
however, of his eye, which the next instant he fixed upon the ground,
startled her; she moved round to look at him again,--and perceived Mr
Belfield!

“Good God!” she exclaimed; but seeing him still retreat, she recollected
in a moment how little he would be obliged to her for betraying him, and
suffering him to go on, turned back to her party, and led the way again
into the house.

As soon as the first emotion of her surprise was over, she enquired how
long John had belonged to this cottage, and what was his way of life.

The woman answered he had only been with them a week, and that he went
out to day-labour with her husband.

Cecilia then, finding their stay kept him from his employment, and
willing to save him the distress of being seen by Mr Arnott or Mrs
Harrel, proposed their returning home. She grieved most sincerely at
beholding in so melancholy an occupation a young man of such talents and
abilities; she wished much to assist him, and began considering by what
means it might be done, when, as they were walking from the cottage, a
voice at some distance called out “Madam! Miss Beverley!” and, looking
round, to her utter amazement she saw Belfield endeavouring to follow
her.

She instantly stopt, and he advanced, his hat in his hand, and his whole
air indicating he sought not to be disguised.

Surprised at this sudden change of behaviour, she then stept forward
to meet him, accompanied by her friends: but when they came up to each
other, she checked her desire of speaking, to leave him fully at liberty
to make himself known, or keep concealed.

He bowed with a look of assumed gaiety and ease, but the deep scarlet
that tinged his whole face manifested his internal confusion; and in
a voice that attempted to sound lively, though its tremulous accents
betrayed uneasiness and distress, he exclaimed, with a forced smile,
“Is it possible Miss Beverley can deign to notice a poor miserable
day-labourer such as I am? how will she be justified in the beau monde,
when even the sight of such a wretch ought to fill her with horror?
Henceforth let hysterics be blown to the winds, and let nerves be
discarded from the female vocabulary, since a lady so young and fair can
stand this shock without hartshorn or fainting!”

“I am happy,” answered Cecilia, “to find your spirits so good; yet
my own, I must confess, are not raised by seeing you in this strange
situation.”

“My spirits!” cried he, with an air of defiance, “never were they
better, never so good as at this moment. Strange as seems my situation,
it is all that I wish; I have found out, at last, the true secret of
happiness! that secret which so long I pursued in vain, but which always
eluded my grasp, till the instant of despair arrived, when, slackening
my pace, I gave it up as a phantom. Go from me, I cried, I will be
cheated no more! thou airy bubble! thou fleeting shadow! I will live no
longer in thy sight, since thy beams dazzle without warming me! Mankind
seems only composed as matter for thy experiments, and I will quit the
whole race, that thy delusions may be presented to me no more!”

This romantic flight, which startled even Cecilia, though acquainted
with his character, gave to Mrs Harrel and Mr Arnott the utmost
surprize; his appearance, and the account they had just heard of him,
having by no means prepared them for such sentiments or such language.

“Is then this great secret of happiness,” said Cecilia, “nothing, at
last, but total seclusion from the world?”

“No, madam,” answered he, “it is Labour with Independence.”

Cecilia now wished much to ask some explanation of his affairs, but was
doubtful whether he would gratify her before Mrs Harrel and Mr Arnott,
and hurt to keep him standing, though he leant upon a stick; she told
him, therefore, she would at present detain him no longer, but endeavour
again to see him before she quitted her friends.

Mr Arnott then interfered, and desired his sister would entreat Miss
Beverley to invite whom she pleased to his house.

Cecilia thanked him, and instantly asked Belfield to call upon her in
the afternoon.

“No, madam, no,” cried he, “I have done with visits and society! I will
not so soon break through a system with much difficulty formed, when all
my future tranquility depends upon adhering to it. The worthlessness of
mankind has disgusted me with the world, and my resolution in quitting
it shall be immoveable as its baseness.”

“I must not venture then,” said Cecilia, “to enquire--”

“Enquire, madam,” interrupted he, with quickness, “what you please:
there is nothing I will not answer to you,--to this lady, to this
gentleman, to any and to every body. What can I wish to conceal, where
I have nothing to gain or to lose? When first, indeed, I saw you, I
involuntarily shrunk; a weak shame for a moment seized me, I felt
fallen and debased, and I wished to avoid you: but a little recollection
brought me back to my senses, And where, cried I, is the disgrace of
exercising for my subsistence the strength with which I am endued?
and why should I blush to lead the life which uncorrupted Nature first
prescribed to man?”

“Well, then,” said Cecilia, more and more interested to hear him, “if
you will not visit us, will you at least permit us to return with you to
some place where you can be seated?”

“I will with pleasure,” cried he, “go to any place where you may be
seated yourselves; but for me, I have ceased to regard accommodation or
inconvenience.”

They then all went back to the cottage, which was now empty, the woman
being out at work.

“Will you then, Sir,” said Cecilia, “give me leave to enquire whether
Lord Vannelt is acquainted with your retirement, and if it will not much
surprize and disappoint him?”

“Lord Vannelt,” cried he, haughtily, “has no right to be surprised. I
would have quitted _his_ house, if no other, not even this cottage, had
a roof to afford me shelter!”

“I am sorry, indeed, to hear it,” said Cecilia; “I had hoped he would
have known your value, and merited your regard.”

“Ill-usage,” answered he, “is as hard to relate as to be endured. There
is commonly something pitiful in a complaint; and though oppression in
a general sense provokes the wrath of mankind, the investigation of its
minuter circumstances excites nothing but derision. Those who give the
offence, by the worthy few may be hated; but those who receive it, by
the world at large will be despised. Conscious of this, I disdained
making any appeal; myself the only sufferer, I had a right to be
the only judge, and, shaking off the base trammels of interest and
subjection, I quitted the house in silent indignation, not chusing to
remonstrate, where I desired not to be reconciled.”

“And was there no mode of life,” said Cecilia, “to adopt, but living
with Lord Vannelt, or giving up the whole world?”

“I weighed every thing maturely,” answered he, “before I made my
determination, and I found it so much, the most eligible, that I am
certain I can never repent it. I had friends who would with pleasure
have presented me to some other nobleman; but my whole heart revolted
against leading that kind of life, and I would not, therefore, idly rove
from one great man to another, adding ill-will to disgrace, and pursuing
hope in defiance of common sense; no; when I quitted Lord Vannelt, I
resolved to give up patronage for ever.

“I retired to private lodgings to deliberate what next could be done. I
had lived in many ways, I had been unfortunate or imprudent in all.
The law I had tried, but its rudiments were tedious and disgusting; the
army, too, but there found my mind more fatigued with indolence, than my
body with action; general dissipation had then its turn, but the expence
to which it led was ruinous, and self-reproach baffled pleasure while
I pursued it; I have even--yes, there are few things I have left
untried,--I have even,--for why now disguise it?--”

He stopt and coloured, but in a quicker voice presently proceeded.

“Trade, also, has had its share in my experiments; for that, in truth,
I was originally destined,--but my education had ill suited me to such a
destination, and the trader's first maxim I reversed, in lavishing when
I ought to have accumulated.

“What, then, remained for me? to run over again the same irksome round I
had not patience, and to attempt any thing new I was unqualified: money
I had none; my friends I could bear to burthen no longer; a fortnight I
lingered in wretched irresolution,--a simple accident at the end of it
happily settled me; I was walking, one morning, in Hyde Park, forming a
thousand plans for my future life, but quarrelling with them all; when
a gentleman met me on horseback, from whom, at my Lord Vannelt's, I had
received particular civilities; I looked another way not to be seen
by him, and the change in my dress since I left his Lordship's made me
easily pass unnoticed. He had rode on, however, but a few yards,
before, by some accident or mismanagement, he had a fall from his horse.
Forgetting all my caution, I flew instantly to his assistance; he was
bruised, but not otherwise hurt; I helpt him up, and he leant 'pon my
arm; in my haste of enquiring how he had fared, I called him by his
name. He knew me, but looked surprised at my appearance; he was speaking
to me, however, with kindness, when seeing some gentlemen of his
acquaintance gallopping up to him, he hastily disengaged himself from
me, and instantly beginning to recount to them what had happened, he
sedulously looked another way, and joining his new companions, walked
off without taking further notice of me. For a moment I was almost
tempted to trouble him to come back; but a little recollection told me
how ill he deserved my resentment, and bid me transfer it for the future
from the pitiful individual to the worthless community.

“Here finished my deliberation; the disgust to the world which I had
already conceived, this little incident confirmed; I saw it was only
made for the great and the rich;--poor, therefore, and low, what had
I to do in it? I determined to quit it for ever, and to end every
disappointment, by crushing every hope.

“I wrote to Lord Vannelt to send my trunks to my mother; I wrote to my
mother that I was well, and would soon let her hear more: I then paid
off my lodgings, and 'shaking the dust from my feet,' bid a long adieu
to London; and, committing my route to chance, strole on into the
country, without knowing or caring which way.

“My first thought was simply to seek retirement, and to depend for my
future repose upon nothing but a total seclusion from society: but my
slow method of travelling gave me time for reflection, and reflection
soon showed me the error of this notion.

“Guilt, cried I, may, indeed, be avoided by solitude; but will misery?
will regret? will deep dejection of mind? no, they will follow more
assiduously than ever; for what is there to oppose them, where neither
business occupies the time, nor hope the imagination? where the past
has left nothing but resentment, and the future opens only to a dismal,
uninteresting void? No stranger to life, I knew human nature could not
exist on such terms; still less a stranger to books, I respected the
voice of wisdom and experience in the first of moralists, and most
enlightened of men, [Footnote: Dr Johnson.] and reading the letter of
Cowley, I saw the vanity and absurdity of _panting after solitude_.
[Footnote: Life of Cowley, p.34.]

“I sought not, therefore, a cell; but, since I purposed to live for
myself, I determined for myself also to think. Servility of imitation
has ever been as much my scorn as servility of dependence; I resolved,
therefore, to strike out something new, and no more to retire as every
other man had retired, than to linger in the world as every other man
had lingered.

“The result of all you now see. I found out this cottage, and took up
my abode in it. I am here out of the way of all society, yet avoid the
great evil of retreat, _having nothing to do_. I am constantly, not
capriciously employed, and the exercise which benefits my health,
imperceptibly raises my spirits in despight of adversity. I am removed
from all temptation, I have scarce even the power to do wrong; I have no
object for ambition, for repining I have no time:--I have, found out, I
repeat, the true secret of happiness, Labour with Independence.”

He stopt; and Cecilia, who had listened to this narrative with a mixture
of compassion, admiration and censure, was too much struck with its
singularity to be readily able to answer it. Her curiosity to hear him
had sprung wholly from her desire to assist him, and she had expected
from his story to gather some hint upon which her services might be
offered. But none had occurred; he professed himself fully satisfied
with his situation; and though reason and probability contradicted the
profession, she could not venture to dispute it with any delicacy or
prudence.

She thanked him, therefore, for his relation, with many apologies for
the trouble she had given him, and added, “I must not express my
concern for misfortunes which you seem to regard as conducive to your
contentment, nor remonstrate at the step you have taken, since you have
been led to it by choice, not necessity: but yet, you must pardon me if
I cannot help hoping I shall some time see you happier, according to the
common, however vulgar ideas of the rest of the world.”

“No, never, never! I am sick of mankind, not from theory, but
experience; and the precautions I have taken against mental fatigue,
will secure me from repentance, or any desire of change; for it is not
the active, but the indolent who weary; it is not the temperate, but the
pampered who are capricious.”

“Is your sister, Sir, acquainted with this change in your fortune and
opinions?”

“Poor girl, no! She and her unhappy mother have borne but too long with
my enterprizes and misfortunes. Even yet they would sacrifice whatever
they possess to enable me to play once more the game so often lost; but
I will not abuse their affection, nor suffer them again to be slaves to
my caprices, nor dupes to their own delusive expectations. I have sent
them word I am happy; I have not yet told them how or where. I fear much
the affliction of their disappointment, and, for a while, shall conceal
from them my situation, which they would fancy was disgraceful, and
grieve at as cruel.”

“And is it not cruel?” said Cecilia, “is labour indeed so sweet? and can
you seriously derive happiness from what all others consider as misery?”

“Not sweet,” answered he, “in itself; but sweet, most sweet and salutary
in its effects. When I work, I forget all the world; my projects for the
future, my disappointments from the past. Mental fatigue is overpowered
by personal; I toil till I require rest, and that rest which nature,
not luxury demands, leads not to idle meditation, but to sound, heavy,
necessary sleep. I awake the next morning to the same thought-exiling
business, work again till my powers are exhausted, and am relieved again
at night by the same health-recruiting insensibility.”

“And if this,” cried Cecilia, “is the life of happiness, why have we so
many complaints of the sufferings of the poor, and why so eternally do
we hear of their hardships and distress?”

“They have known no other life. They are strangers, therefore, to the
felicity of their lot. Had they mingled in the world, fed high their
fancy with hope, and looked forward with expectation of enjoyment; had
they been courted by the great, and offered with profusion adulation
for their abilities, yet, even when starving, been offered nothing
else!--had they seen an attentive circle wait all its entertainment from
their powers, yet found themselves forgotten as soon as out of sight,
and perceived themselves avoided when no longer buffoons!--Oh had
they known and felt provocations such as these, how gladly would their
resentful spirits turn from the whole unfeeling race, and how would they
respect that noble and manly labour, which at once disentangles them
from such subjugating snares, and enables them to fly the ingratitude
they abhor! Without the contrast of vice, virtue unloved may be lovely;
without the experience of misery, happiness is simply a dull privation
of evil.”

“And are you so content,” cried Cecilia, “with your present situation,
as even to think it offers you reparation for your past sufferings?”

“Content!” repeated he with energy, “O more than content, I am proud of
my present situation! I glory in chewing to the world, glory still more
in shewing to myself, that those whom I cannot but despise I will not
scruple to defy, and that where I have been treated unworthily, I will
scorn to be obliged.”

“But will you pardon me,” said Cecilia, “should I ask again, why in
quitting Lord Vannelt, you concluded no one else worthy a trial?”

“Because it was less my Lord Vannelt, madam, than my own situation, that
disgusted me: for though I liked not his behaviour, I found him a man
too generally esteemed to flatter myself better usage would await me
in merely changing my abode, while my station was the same. I believe,
indeed, he never meant to offend me; but I was offended the more that
he should think me an object to receive indignity without knowing it. To
have had this pointed out to him, would have been at once mortifying and
vain; for delicacy, like taste, can only partially be taught, and will
always be superficial and erring where it is not innate. Those wrongs,
which though too trifling to resent, are too humiliating to be borne,
speech can convey no idea of; the soul must feel, or the understanding
can never comprehend them.”

“But surely,” said Cecilia, “though people of refinement are rare, they
yet exist; why, then, remove yourself from the possibility of meeting
with them?”

“Must I run about the nation,” cried he, “proclaiming my distress, and
describing my temper? telling the world that though dependent I demand
respect as well as assistance; and publishing to mankind, that though
poor I will accept no gifts if offered with contumely? Who will listen
to such an account? who will care for my misfortunes, but as they may
humble me to his service? Who will hear my mortifications, but to say
I deserve them? what has the world to do with my feelings and
peculiarities? I know it too well to think calamity will soften it; I
need no new lessons to instruct me that to conquer affliction is more
wise than to relate it.”

“Unfortunate as you have been,” said Cecilia, “I cannot wonder at your
asperity; but yet, it is surely no more than justice to acknowledge,
that hard-heartedness to distress is by no means the fault of the
present times: on the contrary, it is scarce sooner made known, than
every one is ready to contribute to its relief.”

“And how contribute?” cried he, “by a paltry donation of money? Yes, the
man whose only want is a few guineas, may, indeed, obtain them; but
he who asks kindness and protection, whose oppressed spirit calls for
consolation even more than his ruined fortune for repair, how is his
struggling soul, if superior to his fate, to brook the ostentation of
patronage, and the insolence of condescension? Yes, yes, the world will
save the poor beggar who is starving; but the fallen wretch, who will
not cringe for his support, may consume in his own wretchedness without
pity and without help!”

Cecilia now saw that the wound his sensibility had received was too
painful for argument, and too recent immediately to be healed. She
forbore, therefore, to detain him any longer, but expressing her best
wishes, without venturing to hint at her services, she arose, and they
all took their leave;--Belfield hastening, as they went, to return to
the garden, where, looking over the hedge as they passed, they saw him
employed again in weeding, with the eagerness of a man who pursues his
favourite occupation.

Cecilia half forgot her own anxieties and sadness, in the concern which
she felt for this unfortunate and extraordinary young man. She wished
much to devise some means for drawing him from a life of such hardship
and obscurity; but what to a man thus “jealous in honour,” thus
scrupulous in delicacy, could she propose, without more risk of offence,
than probability of obliging? His account had, indeed, convinced her how
much he stood in need of assistance, but it had shewn her no less how
fastidious he would be in receiving it.

Nor was she wholly without fear that an earnest solicitude to serve him,
his youth, talents, and striking manners considered, might occasion even
in himself a misconstruction of her motives, such as she already had
given birth to in his forward and partial mother.

The present, therefore, all circumstances weighed, seemed no season for
her liberality, which she yet resolved to exert the first moment it was
unopposed by propriety.



CHAPTER vi.

A CONTEST.

The rest of the day was passed in discussing this adventure; but in the
evening, Cecilia's interest in it was all sunk, by the reception of the
following letter from Mrs Delvile.

_To Miss Beverley_.

I grieve to interrupt the tranquillity of a retirement so judiciously
chosen, and I lament the necessity of again calling to trial the virtue
of which the exertion, though so captivating, is so painful; but alas,
my excellent young friend, we came not hither to enjoy, but to suffer;
and happy only are those whose sufferings have neither by folly
been sought, nor by guilt been merited, but arising merely from the
imperfection of humanity, have been resisted with fortitude, or endured
with patience.

I am informed of your virtuous steadiness, which corresponds with my
expectations, while it excites my respect. All further conflict I had
hoped to have saved you; and to the triumph of your goodness I had
trusted for the recovery of your peace: but Mortimer has disappointed
me, and our work is still unfinished.

He avers that he is solemnly engaged to you, and in pleading to me his
honour, he silences both expostulation and authority. From your own
words alone will he acknowledge his dismission; and notwithstanding my
reluctance to impose upon you this task, I cannot silence or quiet him
without making the request.

For a purpose such as this, can you, then, admit us? Can you bear with
your own lips to confirm the irrevocable decision? You will feel, I am
sure, for the unfortunate Mortimer, and it was earnestly my desire to
spare you the sight of his affliction; yet such is my confidence in your
prudence, that since I find him bent upon seeing you, I am not without
hope, that from witnessing the greatness of your mind, the interview may
rather calm than inflame him.

This proposal you will take into consideration, and if you are able,
upon such terms, to again meet my son, we will wait upon you together,
where and when you will appoint; but if the gentleness of your nature
will make the effort too severe for you, scruple not to decline it, for
Mortimer, when he knows your pleasure, will submit to it as he ought.

Adieu, most amiable and but too lovely Cecilia; whatever you determine,
be sure of my concurrence, for nobly have you earned, and ever must you
retain, the esteem, the affection, and the gratitude of AUGUSTA DELVILE.

“Alas,” cried Cecilia, “when shall I be at rest? when cease to be
persecuted by new conflicts! Oh why must I so often, so cruelly, though
so reluctantly, reject and reprove the man who of all men I wish to
accept and to please!”

But yet, though repining at this hard necessity, she hesitated not a
moment in complying with Mrs Delvile's request, and immediately sent an
answer that she would meet her the next morning at Mrs Charlton's.

She then returned to the parlour, and apologized to Mrs Harrel and
Mr Arnott for the abruptness of her visit, and the suddenness of her
departure. Mr Arnott heard her in silent dejection; and Mrs Harrel
used all the persuasion in her power to prevail with her to stay, her
presence being some relief to her solitude: but finding it ineffectual,
she earnestly pressed her to hasten her entrance into her own house,
that their absence might be shortened, and their meeting more sprightly.

Cecilia passed the night in planning her behaviour for the next day;
she found how much was expected from her by Mrs Delvile, who had even
exhorted her to decline the interview if doubtful of her own strength.
Delvile's firmness in insisting the refusal should come directly
from herself, surprised, gratified and perplexed her in turn; she had
imagined, that from the moment of the discovery, he would implicitly
have submitted to the award of a parent at once so reverenced and so
beloved, and how he had summoned courage to contend with her she could
not conjecture: yet that courage and that contention astonished not
more than they soothed her, since, from her knowledge of his filial
tenderness, she considered them as the most indubitable proofs she had
yet received of the fervour and constancy of his regard for her. But
would he, when she had ratified the decision of his mother, forbear all
further struggle, and for ever yield up all pretensions to her? this was
the point upon which her uncertainty turned, and the ruling subject of
her thoughts and meditation.

To be steady, however, herself, be his conduct what it might, was
invariably her intention, and was all her ambition: yet earnestly she
wished the meeting over, for she dreaded to see the sorrow of Delvile,
and she dreaded still more the susceptibility of her own heart.

The next morning, to her great concern, Mr Arnott was waiting in the
hall when she came down stairs, and so much grieved at her departure,
that he handed her to the chaise without being able to speak to her, and
hardly heard her thanks and compliments but by recollection after she
was gone.

She arrived at Mrs Charlton's very early, and found her old friend in
the same state she had left her. She communicated to her the purpose of
her return, and begged she would keep her granddaughters up stairs, that
the conference in the parlour might be uninterrupted and unheard.

She then made a forced and hasty breakfast, and went down to be ready
to receive them. They came not till eleven o'clock, and the time of her
waiting was passed in agonies of expectation.

At length they were announced, and at length they entered the room.

Cecilia, with her utmost efforts for courage, could hardly stand to
receive them. They came in together, but Mrs Delvile, advancing before
her son, and endeavouring so to stand as to intercept his view of her,
with the hope that in a few instants her emotion would be less visible,
said, in the most soothing accents, “What honour Miss Beverley does us
by permitting this visit! I should have been sorry to have left Suffolk
without the satisfaction of again seeing you; and my son, sensible of
the high respect he owes you, was most unwilling to be gone, before he
had paid you his devoirs.”

Cecilia courtsied; but depressed by the cruel task which awaited her,
had no power to speak; and Mrs Delvile, finding she still trembled, made
her sit down, and drew a chair next to her.

Mean while Delvile, with an emotion far more violent, because wholly
unrestrained, waited impatiently till the ceremonial of the reception
was over, and then, approaching Cecilia, in a voice of perturbation and
resentment, said, “In this presence, at least, I hope I may be heard;
though my letters have been unanswered, my visits refused, though
inexorably you have flown me--”

“Mortimer,” interrupted Mrs Delvile, “forget not that what I have told
you is irrevocable; you now meet Miss Beverley for no other purpose than
to give and to receive a mutual release of all to or engagement with
each other.”

“Pardon me, madam,” cried he, “this is a condition to which I have never
assented. I come not to release, but to claim her! I am hers, and hers
wholly! I protest it in the face of the world! The time, therefore, is
now past for the sacrifice which you demand, since scarce are you more
my mother, than I consider her as my wife.”

Cecilia, amazed at this dauntless declaration, now almost lost her fear
in her surprise; while Mrs Delvile, with an air calm though displeased,
answered, “This is not a point to be at present discussed, and I had
hoped you knew better what was due to your auditors. I only consented to
this interview as a mark of your respect for Miss Beverley, to whom in
propriety it belongs to break off this unfortunate connexion.”

Cecilia, who at this call could no longer be silent, now gathered
fortitude to say, “Whatever tie or obligation may be supposed to depend
upon me, I have already relinquished; and I am now ready to declare--”

“That you wholly give me up?” interrupted Delvile, “is that what you
would say?--Oh how have I offended you? how have I merited a displeasure
that can draw upon me such a sentence?--Answer, speak to me, Cecilia,
what is it I have done?”

“Nothing, Sir,” said Cecilia, confounded at this language in the
presence of his mother, “you have done nothing,--but yet--”

“Yet what?--have you conceived to me an aversion? has any dreadful and
horrible antipathy succeeded to your esteem?--tell, tell me without
disguise, do you hate, do you abhor me?”

Cecilia sighed, and turned away her head; and Mrs Delvile indignantly
exclaimed, “What madness and absurdity! I scarce know you under the
influence of such irrational violence. Why will you interrupt Miss
Beverley in the only speech you ought to hear from her? Why, at once,
oppress her, and irritate me, by words of more passion than reason?
Go on, charming girl, finish what so wisely, so judiciously you
were beginning, and then you shall be released from this turbulent
persecution.”

“No, madam, she must not go on!” cried Delvile, “if she does not utterly
abhor me, I will not suffer her to go on;--Pardon, pardon me, Cecilia,
but your too exquisite delicacy is betraying not only my happiness, but
your own. Once more, therefore, I conjure you to hear me, and then if,
deliberately and unbiassed, you renounce me, I will never more distress
you by resisting your decree.”

Cecilia, abashed and changing colour, was silent, and he proceeded.

“All that has past between us, the vows I have offered you of faith,
constancy and affection, the consent I obtained from you to be legally
mine, the bond of settlement I have had drawn up, and the high honour
you conferred upon me in suffering me to lead you to the altar,--all
these particulars are already known to so many, that the least
reflection must convince you they will soon be concealed from none: tell
me, then, if your own fame pleads not for me, and if the scruples which
lead you to refuse, by taking another direction, will not, with much
more propriety, urge, nay enjoin you to accept me!--You hesitate at
least,--O Miss Beverley!--I see in that hesitation--”

“Nothing, nothing!” cried she, hastily, and checking her rising
irresolution; “there is nothing for you to see, but that every way I now
turn I have rendered myself miserable!”

“Mortimer,” said Mrs Delvile, seized with terror as she penetrated into
the mental yielding of Cecilia, “you have now spoken to Miss Beverley;
and unwilling as I am to obtrude upon her our difference of sentiment,
it is necessary, since she has heard you, that I, also, should claim her
attention.”

“First let her speak!” cried Delvile, who in her apparent wavering built
new hopes, “first let her answer what she has already deigned to listen
to.”

“No, first let her hear!” cried Mrs Delvile, “for so only can she judge
what answer will reflect upon her most honour.”

Then, solemnly turning to Cecilia, she continued: “You see here, Miss
Beverley, a young man who passionately adores you, and who forgets in
his adoration friends, family, and connections, the opinions in which
he has been educated, the honour of his house, his own former views,
and all his primitive sense of duty, both public and private!--A passion
built on such a defalcation of principle renders him unworthy your
acceptance; and not more ignoble for him would be a union which would
blot his name from the injured stock whence he sprung, than indelicate
for you, who upon such terms ought to despise him.”

“Heavens, madam,” exclaimed Delvile, “what a speech!”

“O never,” cried Cecilia, rising, “may I hear such another! Indeed,
madam, there is no occasion to probe me so deeply, for I would not now
enter your family, for all that the whole world could offer me!”

“At length, then, madam,” cried Delvile, turning reproachfully to his
mother, “are you satisfied? is your purpose now answered? and is the
dagger you have transfixed in my heart sunk deep enough to appease you?”

“O could I draw it out,” cried Mrs Delvile, “and leave upon it no stain
of ignominy, with what joy should my own bosom receive it, to heal the
wound I have most compulsatorily inflicted!--Were this excellent young
creature portionless, I would not hesitate in giving my consent; every
claim of interest would be overbalanced by her virtues, and I would not
grieve to see you poor, where so conscious you were happy; but here to
concede, would annihilate every hope with which hitherto I have looked
up to my son.”

“Let us now, then, madam,” said Cecilia, “break up this conference. I
have spoken, I have heard, the decree is past, and therefore,”--

“You are indeed an angel!” cried Mrs Delvile, rising and embracing her;
“and never can I reproach my son with what has passed, when I consider
for what an object the sacrifice was planned. _You_ cannot be unhappy,
you have purchased peace by the exercise of virtue, and the close of
every day will bring to you a reward, in the sweets of a self-approving
mind.--But we will part, since you think it right; I do wrong to
occasion any delay.”

“No, we will _not_ part!” cried Delvile, with encreasing vehemence; “if
you force me, madam, from her, you will drive me to distraction! What is
there in this world that can offer me a recompense? And what can pride
even to the proudest afford as an equivalent? Her perfections you
acknowledge, her greatness of mind is like your own; she has generously
given me her heart,--Oh sacred and fascinating charge! Shall I, after
such a deposite, consent to an eternal separation? Repeal, repeal your
sentence, my Cecilia! let us live to ourselves and our consciences, and
leave the vain prejudices of the world to those who can be paid by them
for the loss of all besides!”

“Is this conflict, then,” said Mrs Delvile, “to last for-ever? Oh
end it, Mortimer, finish it, and make me happy! she is just, and will
forgive you, she is noble-minded, and will honour you. Fly, then, at
this critical moment, for in flight alone is your safety; and then will
your father see the son of his hopes, and then shall the fond blessings
of your idolizing mother soothe all your affliction, and soften all your
regret!”

“Oh madam!” cried Delvile, “for mercy, for humanity, forbear this cruel
supplication!”

“Nay, more than supplication, you have my commands; commands you have
never yet disputed, and misery, ten-fold misery, will follow their
disobedience. Hear me, Mortimer, for I speak prophetically; I know your
heart, I know it to be formed for rectitude and duty, or destined by
their neglect to repentance and horror.”

Delvile, struck by these words, turned suddenly from them both, and
in gloomy despondence walked to the other end of the room. Mrs Delvile
perceived the moment of her power, and determined to pursue the blow:
taking, therefore, the hand of Cecilia, while her eyes sparkled with the
animation of reviving hope, “See,” she cried, pointing to her son, “see
if I am deceived! can he bear even the suggestion of future contrition!
Think you when it falls upon him, he will support it better? No; he
will sink under it. And you, pure as you are of mind, and steadfast in
principle, what would your chance be of happiness with a man who never
erring till he knew you, could never look at you without regret, be his
fondness what it might?”

“Oh madam,” cried the greatly shocked Cecilia, “let him, then, see me no
more!--take, take him all to yourself! forgive, console him! I will not
have the misery of involving him in repentance, nor of incurring the
reproaches of the mother he so much reverences!”

“Exalted creature!” cried Mrs Delvile; “tenderness such as this would
confer honour upon a monarch.” Then, calling out exultingly to her
son, “See,” she added, “how great a woman can act, when stimulated by
generosity, and a just sense of duty! Follow then, at least, the example
you ought to have led, and deserve my esteem and love, or be content to
forego them.”

“And can I only deserve them,” said Delvile, in a tone of the deepest
anguish, “by a compliance to which not merely my happiness, but
my reason must be sacrificed? What honour do I injure that is not
factitious? What evil threatens our union, that is not imaginary? In
the general commerce of the world it may be right to yield to its
prejudices, but in matters of serious importance, it is weakness to be
shackled by scruples so frivolous, and it is cowardly to be governed by
the customs we condemn. Religion and the laws of our country should then
alone be consulted, and where those are neither opposed nor infringed,
we should hold ourselves superior to all other considerations.”

“Mistaken notions!” said Mrs Delvile; “and how long do you flatter
yourself this independent happiness would endure? How long could you
live contented by mere self-gratification, in defiance of the censure
of mankind, the renunciation of your family, and the curses of your
father?”

“The curses of my father!” repeated he, starting and shuddering, “O no,
he could never be so barbarous!”

“He could,” said she, steadily, “nor do I doubt but he would. If now,
however, you are affected by the prospect of his disclaiming you, think
but what you will feel when first forbid to appear before either of us!
and think of your remorse for involving Miss Beverley in such disgrace!”

“O speak not such words!” cried he, with agonizing earnestness, “to
disgrace her,--to be banished by you,--present not, I conjure you, such
scenes to my imagination!”

“Yet would they be unavoidable,” continued she; “nor have I said to you
all; blinded as you now are by passion, your nobler feelings are only
obscured, not extirpated; think, then, how they will all rise in revenge
of your insulted dignity, when your name becomes a stranger to your
ears, and you are first saluted by one so meanly adopted!--”

“Hold, hold, madam,” interrupted he, “this is more than I can bear!”

“Heavens!” still continued she, disregarding his entreaty, “what in the
universe can pay you for that first moment of indignity! Think of it
well ere you proceed, and anticipate your sensations, lest the shock
should wholly overcome you. How will the blood of your wronged ancestors
rise into your guilty cheeks, and how will your heart throb with secret
shame and reproach, when wished joy upon your marriage by the name of
_Mr Beverley_!”

Delvile, stung to the soul, attempted not any answer, but walked about
the room in the utmost disorder of mind. Cecilia would have retired,
but feared irritating him to some extravagance; and Mrs Delvile, looking
after him, added “For myself, I would still see, for I should pity
your wife,--but NEVER would I behold my son when sunk into an object of
compassion!”

“It shall not be!” cried he, in a transport of rage; “cease, cease to
distract me!--be content, madam,--you have conquered!”

“Then you are my son!” cried she, rapturously embracing him; “now I know
again my Mortimer! now I see the fair promise of his upright youth, and
the flattering completion of my maternal expectations!”

Cecilia, finding all thus concluded, desired nothing so much as to
congratulate them on their reconciliation; but having only said “Let
_me_, too,--” her voice failed her, she stopt short, and hoping she had
been unheard, would have glided out of the room.

But Delvile, penetrated and tortured, yet delighted at this sensibility,
broke from his mother, and seizing her hand, exclaimed, “Oh Miss
Beverley, if _you_ are not happy---”

“I am! I am!” cried she, with quickness; “let me pass,--and think no
more of me.”

“That voice,--those looks,--” cried he, still holding her, “they speak
not serenity!--Oh if I have injured your peace,--if that heart, which,
pure as angels, deserves to be as sacred from sorrow, through my means,
or for my sake, suffers any diminution of tranquility--”

“None, none!” interrupted she, with precipitation.

“I know well,” cried he, “your greatness of soul; and if this dreadful
sacrifice gives lasting torture only to myself,--if of _your_ returning
happiness I could be assured,--I would struggle to bear it.”

“You _may_, be assured of it,” cried she, with reviving dignity, “I have
no right to expect escaping all calamity, but while I share the common
lot, I will submit to it without repining.”

“Heaven then bless, and hovering angels watch you!” cried he, and
letting go her hand, he ran hastily out of the room.

“Oh Virtue, how bright is thy triumph!” exclaimed Mrs Delvile, flying
up to Cecilia, and folding her in her arms; “Noble, incomparable young
creature! I knew not that so much worth was compatible with human
frailty!”

But the heroism of Cecilia, in losing its object, lost its force; she
sighed, she could not speak, tears gushed into her eyes, and kissing Mrs
Delvile's hand with a look that shewed her inability to converse with
her, she hastened, though scarce able to support herself, away, with
intention to shut herself up in her own apartment: and Mrs Delvile,
who perceived that her utmost fortitude was exhausted, opposed not her
going, and wisely forbore to encrease her emotion, by following her even
with her blessings.

But when she came into the hall, she started, and could proceed no
further; for there she beheld Delvile, who in too great agony to be
seen, had stopt to recover some composure before he quitted the house.

At the first sound of an opening door, he was hastily escaping; but
perceiving Cecilia, and discerning her situation, he more hastily turned
back, saying, “Is it possible?--To _me_ were you coming?”

She shook her head, and made a motion with her hand to say no, and would
then have gone on.

“You are weeping!” cried he, “you are pale!--Oh Miss Beverley! is this
your happiness!”

“I am very well,--” cried she, not knowing what she answered, “I am
quite well,--pray go,--I am very--” her words died away inarticulated.

“O what a voice is that!” exclaimed he, “it pierces my very soul!”

Mrs Delvile now came to the parlour door, and looked aghast at the
situation in which she saw them: Cecilia again moved on, and reached the
stairs, but tottered, and was obliged to cling to the banisters.

“O suffer me to support you,” cried he; “you are not able to
stand,--whither is it you would go?”

“Any where,--I don't know,--” answered she, in faltering accents, “but
if you would leave me, I should be well.”

And, turning from him, she walked again towards the parlour, finding by
her shaking frame, the impossibility of getting unaided up the stairs.

“Give me your hand, my love,” said Mrs Delvile, cruelly alarmed by this
return; and the moment they re-entered the parlour, she said impatiently
to her son, “Mortimer, why are you not gone?”

He heard her not, however; his whole attention was upon Cecilia, who,
sinking into a chair, hid her face against Mrs Delvile: but, reviving in
a few moments, and blushing at the weakness she had betrayed, she raised
her head, and, with an assumed serenity, said, “I am better,--much
better,--I was rather sick,--but it is over; and now, if you will excuse
me, I will go to my own room.”

She then arose, but her knees trembled, and her head was giddy, and
again seating herself, she forced a faint smile, and said, “Perhaps I
had better keep quiet.”

“Can I bear this!” cried Delvile, “no, it shakes all my
resolution!--loveliest and most beloved Cecilia! forgive my rash
declaration, which I hear retract and forswear, and which no false
pride, no worthless vanity shall again surprise from me!--raise, then,
your eyes--”

“Hot-headed young man!” interrupted Mrs Delvile, with an air of haughty
displeasure, “if you cannot be rational, at least be silent. Miss
Beverley, we will both leave him.”

Shame, and her own earnestness, how restored some strength to Cecilia,
who read with terror in the looks of Mrs Delvile the passions with which
she was agitated, and instantly obeyed her by rising; but her son, who
inherited a portion of her own spirit, rushed between them both and the
door, and exclaimed, “Stay, madam, stay! I cannot let you go: I see your
intention, I see your dreadful purpose; you will work upon the feelings
of Miss Beverley, you will extort from her a promise to see me no more!”

“Oppose not my passing!” cried Mrs Delvile, whose voice, face and manner
spoke the encreasing disturbance of her soul; “I have but too long
talked to you in vain; I must now take some better method for the
security of the honour of my family.”

This moment appeared to Delvile decisive; and casting off in desperation
all timidity and restraint, he suddenly sprang forward, and snatching
the hand of Cecilia from his mother, he exclaimed, “I cannot, I will not
give her up!--nor now, madam, nor ever!--I protest it most solemnly! I
affirm it by my best hopes! I swear it by all that I hold sacred!”

Grief and horror next to frenzy at a disappointment thus unexpected, and
thus peremptory, rose in the face of Mrs Delvile, who, striking her hand
upon her forehead, cried, “My brain is on fire!” and rushed out of the
room.

Cecilia had now no difficulty to disengage herself from Delvile, who,
shocked at the exclamation, and confounded by the sudden departure of
his mother, hastened eagerly to pursue her: she had only flown into the
next parlour; but, upon following her thither, what was his dread and
his alarm, when he saw her extended, upon the floor, her face, hands and
neck all covered with blood! “Great Heaven!” he exclaimed, prostrating
himself by her side, “what is it you have done!--where are you
wounded?--what direful curse have you denounced against your son?”

Not able to speak, she angrily shook her head, and indignantly made a
motion with her hand, that commanded him from her sight.

Cecilia, who had followed, though half dead with terror, had yet the
presence of mind to ring the bell. A servant came immediately; and
Delvile, starting up from his mother, ordered him to fetch the first
surgeon or physician he could find.

The alarm now brought the rest of the servants into the room, and Mrs
Delvile suffered herself to be raised from the ground, and seated in a
chair; she was still silent, but shewed a disgust to any assistance
from her son, that made him deliver her into the hands of the servants,
while, in speechless agony, he only looked on and watched her.

Neither did Cecilia, though forgetting her own sorrow, and no longer
sensible of personal weakness, venture to approach her: uncertain what
had happened, she yet considered herself as the ultimate cause of this
dreadful scene, and feared to risk the effect of the smallest additional
emotion.

The servant returned with a surgeon in a few minutes: Cecilia, unable
to wait and hear what he would say, glided hastily out of the room; and
Delvile, in still greater agitation, followed her quick into the
next parlour; but having eagerly advanced to speak to her, he turned
precipitately about, and hurrying into the hall, walked in hasty steps
up and down it, without courage to enquire what was passing.

At length the surgeon came out: Delvile flew to him, and stopt him,
but could ask no question. His countenance, however, rendered words
unnecessary; the surgeon understood him, and said, “The lady will do
very well; she has burst a blood vessel, but I think it will be of
no consequence. She must be kept quiet and easy, and upon no account
suffered to talk, or to use any exertion.”

Delvile now let him go, and flew himself into a corner to return thanks
to heaven that the evil, however great, was less than he had at first
apprehended. He then went into the parlour to Cecilia, eagerly calling
out, “Heaven be praised, my mother has not voluntarily cursed me!”

“O now then,” cried Cecilia, “once more make her bless you! the violence
of her agitation has already almost destroyed her, and her frame is too
weak for this struggle of contending passions;--go to her, then, and
calm the tumult of her spirits, by acquiescing wholly in her will, and
being to her again the son she thinks she has lost!”

“Alas!” said he, in a tone of the deepest dejection; “I have been
preparing myself for that purpose, and waited but your commands to
finally determine me.”

“Let us both go to her instantly,” said Cecilia; “the least delay may be
fatal.”

She now led the way, and approaching Mrs Delvile, who, faint and weak,
was seated upon an arm chair, and resting her head upon the shoulder of
a maid servant, said, “Lean, dearest madam, upon _me_, and speak not,
but hear us!”

She then took the place of the maid, and desired her and the other
servants to go out of the room. Delvile advanced, but his mother's eye,
recovering, at his sight, its wonted fire, darted upon him a glance of
such displeasure, that, shuddering with the apprehension of inflaming
again those passions which threatened her destruction, he hastily sank
on one knee, and abruptly exclaimed, “Look at me with less abhorrence,
for I come but to resign myself to your will.”

“Mine, also,” cried Cecilia, “that will shall be; you need not speak
it, we know it, and here solemnly we promise that we will separate for
ever.”

“Revive, then, my mother,” said Delvile, “rely upon our plighted
honours, and think only of your health, for your son will never more
offend you.”

Mrs Delvile, much surprised, and strongly affected, held out her hand to
him, with a look of mingled compassion and obligation, and dropping
her head upon the bosom of Cecilia, who with her other arm she pressed
towards her, she burst into an agony of tears.

“Go, go, Sir!” said Cecilia, cruelly alarmed, “you have said all that is
necessary; leave Mrs Delvile now, and she will be more composed.”

Delvile instantly obeyed, and then his mother, whose mouth still
continued to fill with blood, though it gushed not from her with the
violence it had begun, was prevailed upon by the prayers of Cecilia to
consent to be conveyed into her room; and, as her immediate removal
to another house might be dangerous, she complied also, though very
reluctantly, with her urgent entreaties, that she would take entire
possession of it till the next day.

This point gained, Cecilia left her, to communicate what had passed to
Mrs Charlton; but was told by one of the servants that Mr Delvile begged
first to speak with her in the next room.

She hesitated for a moment whether to grant this request; but
recollecting it was right to acquaint him with his mother's intention of
staying all night, she went to him.

“How indulgent you are,” cried he, in a melancholy voice, as she opened
the door; “I am now going post to Dr Lyster, whom I shall entreat to
come hither instantly; but I am fearful of again disturbing my mother,
and must therefore rely upon you to acquaint her what is become of me.”

“Most certainly; I have begged her to remain here to-night, and I hope
I shall prevail with her to continue with me till Dr Lyster's arrival;
after which she will, doubtless, be guided either in staying longer, or
removing elsewhere, by his advice.”

“You are all goodness,” said he, with a deep sigh; “and how I shall
support--but I mean not to return hither, at least not to this
house,--unless, indeed, Dr Lyster's account should be alarming. I leave
my mother, therefore, to your kindness, and only hope, only entreat,
that your own health,--your own peace of mind--neither by attendance
upon her--by anxiety--by pity for her son--”

He stopt, and seemed gasping for breath; Cecilia turned from him to hide
her emotion, and he proceeded with a rapidity of speech that shewed his
terror of continuing with her any longer, and his struggle with himself
to be gone: “The promise you have made in both our names to my mother,
I shall hold myself bound to observe. I see, indeed, that her reason
or her life would fall the sacrifice of further opposition: of myself,
therefore, it is no longer time to think.--I take of you no leave--I
cannot! yet I would fain tell you the high reverence--but it is better
to say nothing--”

“Much better,” cried Cecilia, with a forced and faint smile; “lose not,
therefore, an instant, but hasten to this good Dr Lyster.”

“I will,” answered he, going to the door; but there, stopping and
turning round, “one thing I should yet,” he added, “wish to say,--I have
been impetuous, violent, unreasonable,--with shame and with regret I
recollect how impetuous, and how unreasonable: I have persecuted, where
I ought in silence to have submitted; I have reproached, where I ought
in candour to have approved; and in the vehemence with which I have
pursued you, I have censured that very dignity of conduct which has
been the basis of my admiration, my esteem, my devotion! but never can
I forget, and never without fresh wonder remember, the sweetness with
which you have borne with me, even when most I offended you. For this
impatience, this violence, this inconsistency, I now most sincerely
beg your pardon; and if, before I go, you could so far condescend as to
pronounce my forgiveness, with a lighter heart, I think, I should quit
you.”

“Do not talk of forgiveness,” said Cecilia, “you have never offended me;
I always knew--always was sure--always imputed--” she stopt, unable to
proceed.

Deeply penetrated by her apparent distress, he with difficulty
restrained himself from falling at her feet; but after a moment's pause
and recollection, he said, “I understand the generous indulgence you
have shewn me, an indulgence I shall ever revere, and ever grieve to
have abused. I ask you not to remember me,--far, far happier do I wish
you than such a remembrance could make you; but I will pain the
humanity of your disposition no longer. You will tell my mother--but
no matter!--Heaven preserve you, my angelic Cecilia!--Miss Beverley,
I mean, Heaven guide, protect, and bless you! And should I see you no
more, should this be the last sad moment---”

He paused, but presently recovering himself, added, “May I hear, at
least, of your tranquillity, for that alone can have any chance to quiet
or repress the anguish I feel here!”

He then abruptly retreated, and ran out of the house.

Cecilia for a while remained almost stupified with sorrow; she forgot
Mrs Delvile, she forgot Mrs Charlton, she forgot her own design of
apologizing to one, or assisting the other: she continued in the posture
in which he had left her, quite without motion, and almost without
sensibility.



CHAPTER vii.

A MESSAGE.

From this lethargy of sadness Cecilia was soon, however, awakened by the
return of the surgeon, who had brought with him a physician to consult
upon Mrs Delvile's situation. Terror for the mother once more drove
the son from her thoughts, and she waited with the most apprehensive
impatience to hear the result of the consultation. The physician
declined giving any positive opinion, but, having written a
prescription, only repeated the injunction of the surgeon, that she
should be kept extremely quiet, and on no account be suffered to talk.

Cecilia, though shocked and frightened at the occasion, was yet by no
means sorry at an order which thus precluded all conversation; unfitted
for it by her own misery, she was glad to be relieved from all necessity
of imposing upon herself the irksome task of finding subjects for
discourse to which she was wholly indifferent, while obliged with
sedulity to avoid those by which alone her mind was occupied.

The worthy Mrs Charlton heard the events of the morning with the utmost
concern, but charged her grand-daughters to assist her young friend in
doing the honours of her house to Mrs Delvile, while she ordered another
apartment to be prepared for Cecilia, to whom she administered all the
consolation her friendly zeal could suggest.

Cecilia, however unhappy, had too just a way of thinking to indulge in
selfish grief, where occasion called her to action for the benefit
of others: scarce a moment, therefore now did she allow to sorrow and
herself, but assiduously bestowed the whole of her time upon her two
sick friends, dividing her attention according to their own desire or
convenience, without consulting or regarding any choice of her own.
Choice, indeed, she had none; she loved Mrs Charlton, she revered Mrs
Delvile; the warmest wish with which her heart glowed, was the recovery
of both, but too deep was her affliction to receive pleasure from
either.

Two days passed thus, during which the constancy of her attendance,
which at another time would have fatigued her, proved the only relief
she was capable of receiving. Mrs Delvile was evidently affected by her
vigilant tenderness, but seemed equally desirous with herself to make
use of the prohibition to speech as an excuse for uninterrupted silence.
She enquired not even after her son, though the eagerness of her look
towards the door whenever it was opened, shewed either a hope, or an
apprehension that he might enter. Cecilia wished to tell her whither
he was gone, but dreaded trusting her voice with his name; and their
silence, after a while, seemed so much by mutual consent, that she had
soon as little courage as she had inclination to break it.

The arrival of Dr Lyster gave her much satisfaction, for upon him
rested her hopes of Mrs Delvile's re-establishment. He sent for her down
stairs, to enquire whether he was expected; and hearing that he was not,
desired her to announce him, as the smallest emotion might do mischief.

She returned up stairs, and after a short preparation, said, “Your
favourite Dr Lyster, madam, is come, and I shall be much the happier for
having you under his care.”

“Dr Lyster?” cried she, “who sent for him?”

“I believe--I fancy--Mr Delvile fetched him.”

“My son?--is he here, then?”

“No,--he went, the moment he left you, for Dr Lyster,--and Dr Lyster is
come by himself.”

“Does he write to you?”

“No, indeed!--he writes not--he comes not--dearest madam be satisfied,
he will do neither to me ever more!”

“Exemplary young man!” cried she, in a voice hardly audible, “how great
is his loss!--unhappy Mortimer!--ill-fated, and ill-rewarded!”

She sighed, and said no more; but this short conversation, the only one
which had passed between them since her illness, agitated her so
much, that Dr Lyster, who now came up stairs, found her in a state of
trembling and weakness that both alarmed and surprised him. Cecilia,
glad of an opportunity to be gone, left the room, and sent, by Dr
Lyster's desire, for the physician and surgeon who had already attended.

After they had been some time with their patient, they retired to a
consultation, and when it was over, Dr Lyster waited upon Cecilia in
the parlour, and assured her he had no apprehension of danger for
Mrs Delvile, “Though, for another week,” he added, “I would have her
continue your _patient_, as she is not yet fit to be removed. But pray
mind that she is kept quiet; let nobody go near her, not even her own
son. By the way he is waiting for me at the inn, so I'll just speak
again to his mother, and be gone.”

Cecilia was well pleased by this accidental information, to learn
both the anxiety of Delvile for his mother, and the steadiness of his
forbearance for himself. When Dr Lyster came down stairs again, “I shall
stay,” he said, “till to-morrow, but I hope she will be able in another
week to get to Bristol. In the mean time I shall leave her, I see, with
an excellent nurse. But, my good young lady, in your care of her, don't
neglect yourself; I am not quite pleased with your looks, though it is
but an old fashioned speech to tell you so.--What have you been doing to
yourself?”

“Nothing;” said she, a little embarrassed; “but had you not better have
some tea?”

“Why yes, I think I had;--but what shall I do with my young man?”

Cecilia understood the hint, but coloured, and made no answer.

“He is waiting for me,” he continued, “at the inn; however, I never yet
knew the young man I would prefer to a young woman, so if you will give
me some tea here, I shall certainly jilt him.”

Cecilia instantly rang the bell, and ordered tea.

“Well now,” said he, “remember the sin of this breach of appointment
lies wholly at your door. I shall tell him you laid violent hands on
me; and if that is not, enough to excuse me, I shall desire he will try
whether he could be more of a stoic with you himself.”

“I think I must unorder the tea,” said she, with what gaiety she could
assume, “if I am to be responsible for any mischief from your drinking
it.”

“No, no, you shan't be off now; but pray would it be quite out of rule
for you to send and ask him to come to us?”

“Why I believe--I think--” said she, stammering, “it's very likely he
may be engaged.”

“Well, well, I don't mean to propose any violent incongruity. You must
excuse my blundering; I understand but little of the etiquette of young
ladies. 'Tis a science too intricate to be learned without more study
than we plodding men of business can well spare time for. However, when
I have done _writing_ prescriptions, I will set about _reading_ them,
provided you will be my instructress.”

Cecilia, though ashamed of a charge in which prudery and affectation
were implied, was compelled to submit to it, as either to send for
Delvile, or explain her objections, was equally impossible. The Miss
Charltons, therefore, joined them, and they went to tea.

Just as they had done, a note was delivered to Dr Lyster; “see here,”
 cried he, when he had read it, “what a fine thing it is to be a _young_
man! Why now, Mr Mortimer understands as much of all this _etiquette_ as
you ladies do yourselves; for he only writes a note even to ask how his
mother does.”

He then put it into Cecilia's hand.

_To Dr Lyster_.

Tell me, my dear Sir, how you have found my mother? I am uneasy at
your long stay, and engaged with my friend Biddulph, or I should have
followed you in person.

M.D.

“So you see,” continued the doctor, “I need not do penance for
engaging myself to you, when this young gentleman can find such good
entertainment for himself.”

Cecilia who well knew the honourable motive of Delvile's engagement,
with difficulty forbore speaking in his vindication. Dr Lyster
immediately began an answer, but before he had finished it, called out,
“Now as I am told you are a very good young woman, I think you can do no
less than assist me to punish this gay spark, for playing the macaroni,
when he ought to visit his sick mother.”

Cecilia, much hurt for Delvile, and much confused for herself, looked
abashed, but knew not what to answer.

“My scheme,” continued the doctor, “is to tell him, that as he has found
one engagement for tea, he may find another for supper; but that as to
me, I am better disposed of, for you insist upon keeping me to yourself.
Come, what says _etiquette_? may I treat myself with this puff?”

“Certainly,” said Cecilia, endeavouring to look pleased, “if you will
favour us with your company, Miss Charltons and myself will think the
_puffing_ should rather be ours than yours.”

“That, then,” said the doctor, “will not answer my purpose, for I mean
the puff to be my own, or how do I punish him? So, suppose I tell him
I shall not only sup with three young ladies, but be invited to a
_tete-a-tete_ with one of them into the bargain?”

The young ladies only laughed, and the doctor finished his note, and
sent it away; and then, turning gaily to Cecilia, “Come,” he said, “why
don't you give me this invitation? surely you don't mean to make me
guilty of perjury?”

Cecilia, but little disposed for pleasantry, would gladly now have dropt
the subject; but Dr Lyster, turning to the Miss Charltons, said, “Young
ladies, I call you both to witness if this is not very bad usage: this
young woman has connived at my writing a downright falsehood, and all
the time took me in to believe it was a truth. The only way I can think
of to cure her of such frolics, is for both of you to leave us together,
and so make her keep her word whether she will or no.”

The Miss Charltons took the hint, and went away; while Cecilia, who
had not at all suspected he meant seriously to speak with her, remained
extremely perplexed to think what he had to say.

“Mrs Delvile,” cried he, continuing the same air of easy good humour,
“though I allowed her not to speak to me above twenty words, took up
near ten of them to tell me that you had behaved to her like an angel.
Why so she ought, cried I; what else was she sent for here to look
so like one? I charged her, therefore, to take all that as a thing of
course; and to prove that I really think what I say, I am now going to
make a trial of you, that, if you are any thing less, will induce you to
order some of your men to drive me into the street. The truth is, I have
had a little commission given me, which in the first place I know not
how to introduce, and which, in the second, as far as I can judge,
appears to be absolutely superfluous.”

Cecilia now felt uneasy and alarmed, and begged him to explain himself.
He then dropt the levity with which he had begun the discourse, and
after a grave, yet gentle preparation, expressive of his unwillingness
to distress her, and his firm persuasion of her uncommon worthiness, he
acquainted her that he was no stranger to her situation with respect to
the Delvile family.

“Good God!” cried she, blushing and much amazed; “and who”---

“I knew it,” said he, “from the moment I attended Mr Mortimer in his
illness at Delvile Castle. He could not conceal from me that the seat
of his disorder was his mind; and I could not know that, without readily
conjecturing the cause, when I saw who was his father's guest, and when
I knew what was his father's character. He found he was betrayed to me,
and upon my advising a journey, he understood me properly. His openness
to counsel, and the manly firmness with which he behaved in quitting
you, made me hope the danger was blown over. But last week, when I was
at the Castle, where I have for some time attended Mr Delvile, who has
had a severe fit of the gout, I found him in an agitation of spirits
that made me apprehend it would be thrown into his stomach. I desired
Mrs Delvile to use her influence to calm him; but she was herself in
still greater emotion, and acquainting me she was obliged to leave
him, desired I would spend with him every moment in my power. I have
therefore almost lived at the Castle during her absence, and, in
the course of our many conversations, he has acknowledged to me the
uneasiness under which he has laboured, from the intelligence concerning
his son, which he had just received.”

Cecilia wished here to enquire _how_ received, and from whom, but had
not the courage, and therefore he proceeded.

“I was still with the father when Mr Mortimer arrived post at my house
to fetch me hither. I was sent for home; he informed me of his errand
without disguise, for he knew I was well acquainted with the original
secret whence all the evil arose. I told him my distress in what
manner to leave his father; and he was extremely shocked himself when
acquainted with his situation. We agreed that it would be vain to
conceal from him the indisposition of Mrs Delvile, which the delay of
her return, and a thousand other accidents, might in some unfortunate
way make known to him. He commissioned me, therefore, to break it to
him, that he might consent to my journey, and at the same time to quiet
his own mind, by assuring him all he had apprehended was wholly at an
end.”

He stopt, and looked to see how Cecilia bore these words.

“It is all at an end, Sir;” said she, with firmness; “but I have not yet
heard your commission; what, and from whom is that?”

“I am thoroughly satisfied it is unnecessary;” he answered, “since the
young man can but submit, and you can but give him up.”

“But still, if there is a message, it is fit I should hear it.”

“If you chase it, so it is. I told Mr Delvile whither I was coming,
and I repeated to him his son's assurances. He was relieved, but not
satisfied; he would not see him, and gave me for him a prohibition of
extreme severity, and to _you_ he bid me say--”

“From _him_, then, is my message?” cried Cecilia, half frightened, and
much disappointed.

“Yes,” said he, understanding her immediately, “for the son, after
giving me his first account, had the wisdom and forbearance not once to
mention you.”

“I am very glad,” said she, with a mixture of admiration and regret, “to
hear it. But, what, Sir, said Mr Delvile?”

“He bid me tell you that either _he_, or _you_ must see his son never
more.”

“It was indeed unnecessary,” cried she, colouring with resentment, “to
send me such a message. I meant not to see him again, he meant not to
desire it. I return him, however, no answer, and I will make him no
promise; to Mrs Delvile alone I hold myself bound; to him, send what
messages he may, I shall always hold myself free. But believe me, Dr
Lyster, if with his name, his son had inherited his character, his
desire of our separation would be feeble, and trifling, compared with my
own!”

“I am sorry, my good young lady,” said he, “to have given you this
disturbance; yet I admire your spirit, and doubt not but it will enable
you to forget any little disappointment you may have suffered. And what,
after all, have you to regret? Mortimer Delvile is, indeed, a young man
that any woman might wish to attach; but every woman cannot have him,
and you, of all women, have least reason to repine in missing him,
for scarcely is there another man you may not chuse or reject at your
pleasure.”

Little as was the consolation Cecilia could draw from this speech,
she was sensible it became not her situation to make complaints, and
therefore, to end the conversation she proposed calling in the Miss
Charltons.

“No, no,” said he, “I must step up again to Mrs Delvile, and then
be-gone. To-morrow morning I shall but call to see how she is, and leave
some directions, and set off. Mr Mortimer Delvile accompanies me back:
but he means to return hither in a week, in order to travel with his
mother to Bristol. Mean time, I purpose to bring about a reconciliation
between him and his father, whose prejudices are more intractable than
any man's I ever met with.”

“It will be strange indeed,” said Cecilia, “should a reconciliation
_now_ be difficult!”

“True; but it is long since he was young himself, and the softer
affections he never was acquainted with, and only regards them in his
son as derogatory to his whole race. However, if there were not some few
such men, there would hardly be a family in the kingdom that could count
a great grand-father. I am not, I must own, of his humour myself, but
I think it rather peculiarly stranger, than peculiarly worse than most
other peoples; and how, for example, was that of _your_ uncle a whit the
better? He was just as fond of _his_ name, as if, like Mr Delvile, he
could trace it from the time of the Saxons.”

Cecilia strongly felt the truth of this observation, but not chusing to
discuss it, made not any answer, and Dr Lyster, after a few good-natured
apologies, both for his friends the Delviles and himself, went up
stairs.

“What continual disturbance,” cried she, when left alone, “keeps me
thus for-ever from rest! no sooner is one wound closed, but another is
opened; mortification constantly succeeds distress, and when my heart is
spared; my pride is attacked, that not a moment of tranquility may ever
be allowed me! Had the lowest of women won the affections of Mr Delvile,
could his father with less delicacy or less decency have acquainted her
with his inflexible disapprobation? To send with so little ceremony a
message so contemptuous and so peremptory!--but perhaps it is better,
for had he, too, like Mrs Delvile, joined kindness with rejection, I
might still more keenly have felt the perverseness of my destiny.”



CHAPTER vii.

A PARTING.

The next morning Dr Lyster called early, and having visited Mrs Delvile,
and again met the two gentlemen of the faculty in whose care she was to
remain, he took his leave. But not without contriving first to speak a
few words to Cecilia in private, in which he charged her to be careful
of her health, and re-animate her spirits. “Don't suppose,” said he,
“that because I am a friend of the Delvile family, I am either blind to
your merits, or to their foibles, far from it; but then why should
they interfere with one another? Let them keep their prejudices, which,
though different, are not worse than their neighbours, and do you retain
your excellencies, and draw from them the happiness they ought to give
you. People reason and refine themselves into a thousand miseries, by
chusing to settle that they can only be contented one way; whereas,
there are fifty ways, if they would but look about them, that would
commonly do as well.”

“I believe, indeed, you are right,” answered Cecilia, “and I thank you
for the admonition; I will do what I can towards studying your scheme of
philosophy, and it is always one step to amendment, to be convinced that
we want it.”

“You are a sensible and charming girl,” said Dr Lyster, “and Mr Delvile,
should he find a daughter-in-law descended in a right line from Egbert,
first king of all England, won't be so well off as if he had satisfied
himself with you. However, the old gentleman has a fair right, after
all, to be pleased his own way, and let us blame him how we will, we
shall find, upon sifting, it is for no other reason but because his
humour happens to clash with our own.”

“That, indeed,” said Cecilia, smiling, “is a truth incontrovertible! and
a truth to which, for the future, I will endeavour to give more weight.
But will you permit me now to ask one question?--Can you tell me
from whom, how, or when the intelligence which has caused all this
disturbance---”

She hesitated, but, comprehending her readily, he answered “How they got
at it, I never heard, for I never thought it worth while to enquire, as
it is so generally known, that nobody I meet with seems ignorant of it.”

This was another, and a cruel shock to Cecilia, and Dr Lyster,
perceiving it, again attempted to comfort her. “That the affair is
somewhat spread,” said he, “is now not to be helped, and therefore
little worth thinking of; every body will agree that the choice of
both does honour to both, and nobody need be ashamed to be successor to
either, whenever the course of things leads Mr Mortimer and yourself
to make another election. He wisely intends to go abroad, and will not
return till he is his own man again. And as to you, my good young
lady, what, after a short time given to vexation, need interrupt your
happiness? You have the whole world before you, with youth, fortune,
talents, beauty and independence; drive, therefore, from your head
this unlucky affair, and remember there can hardly be a family in the
kingdom, this one excepted, that will not rejoice in a connection with
you.”

He then good-humouredly shook hands with her, and went into his chaise.

Cecilia, though not slow in remarking the ease and philosophy with
which every one can argue upon the calamities, and moralize upon the
misconduct of others, had still the candour and good sense to see that
there was reason in what he urged, and to resolve upon making the best
use in her power of the hints for consolation she might draw from his
discourse.

During the following week, she devoted herself almost wholly to Mrs
Delvile, sharing with the maid, whom she had brought with her from the
Castle, the fatigue of nursing her, and leaving to the Miss Charltons
the chief care of their grandmother. For Mrs Delvile appeared every hour
more sensible of her attention, and more desirous of her presence, and
though neither of them spoke, each was endeared to the other by the
tender offices of friendship which were paid and received.

When this week was expired, Dr Lyster was prevailed upon to return again
to Bury, in order to travel himself with Mrs Delvile to Bristol. “Well,”
 cried he, taking Cecilia by the first opportunity aside, “how are you?
Have you studied my scheme of philosophy, as you promised me?”

“O yes,” said she, “and made, I flatter myself, no little proficiency.”

“You are a good girl,” cried he, “a very extraordinary girl! I am sure
you are; and upon my honour I pity poor Mortimer with all my soul! But
he is a noble young fellow, and behaves with a courage and spirit that
does me good to behold. To have obtained you, he would have moved heaven
and earth, but finding you out of his reach, he submits to his fate like
a man.”

Cecilia's eyes glistened at this speech; “Yes,” said she, “he long since
said 'tis suspence, 'tis hope, that make the misery of life,--for there
the Passions have all power, and Reason has none. But when evils are
irremediable, and we have neither resources to plan, nor castle-building
to delude us, we find time for the cultivation of philosophy, and
flatter ourselves, perhaps, that we have found inclination!”

“Why you have considered this matter very deeply,” said he; “but I must
not have you give way to these serious reflections. Thought, after all,
has a cruel spite against happiness; I would have you, therefore, keep
as much as you conveniently can, out of its company. Run about and
divert yourself, 'tis all you have for it. The true art of happiness in
this most whimsical world, seems nothing more nor less than this--Let
those who have leisure, find employment, and those who have business,
find leisure.”

He then told her that Mr Delvile senior was much better, and no longer
confined to his room: and that he had had the pleasure of seeing an
entire reconciliation take place between him and his son, of whom he was
more fond and more proud than any other father in the universe.

“Think of him, however, my dear young lady,” he continued, “no more,
for the matter I see is desperate: you must pardon my being a little
officious, when I confess to you I could not help proposing to the old
gentleman an expedient of my own; for as I could not drive you out of
my head, I employed myself in thinking what might be done by way of
accommodation. Now my scheme was really a very good one, only when
people are prejudiced, all reasoning is thrown away upon them. I
proposed sinking _both_ your names, since they are so at variance
with one another, and so adopting a third, by means of a title. But Mr
Delvile angrily declared, that though such a scheme might do very
well for the needy Lord Ernolf, a Peer of twenty years, his own noble
ancestors should never, by his consent, forfeit a name which so many
centuries had rendered honourable. His son Mortimer, he added, must
inevitably inherit the title of his grandfather, his uncle being old
and unmarried; but yet he would rather see him a beggar, than lose his
dearest hope that _Delvile_, Lord _Delvile_, would descend, both name
and title, from generation to generation unsullied and uninterrupted.”

“I am sorry, indeed,” said Cecilia, “that such a proposal was made, and
I earnestly entreat that none of any sort may be repeated.”

“Well, well,” said he, “I would not for the world do any mischief, but
who would not have supposed such a proposal would have done good?”

“Mr Mortimer,” he then added, “is to meet us at--for he would not, he
said, come again to this place, upon such terms as he was here last
week, for the whole worth of the king's dominions.”

The carriage was now ready, and Mrs Delvile was prepared to depart.
Cecilia approached to take leave of her, but Dr Lyster following, said
“No talking! no thanking! no compliments of any sort! I shall carry off
my patient without permitting one civil speech, and for all the rudeness
I make her guilty of, I am willing to be responsible.”

Cecilia would then have retreated, but Mrs Delvile, holding out both her
hands, said “To every thing else, Dr Lyster, I am content to submit; but
were I to die while uttering the words, I cannot leave this inestimable
creature without first saying how much I love her, how I honour, and
how I thank her! without entreating her to be careful of her health, and
conjuring her to compleat the greatness of her conduct, by not suffering
her spirits to sink from the exertion of her virtue. And now my love,
God bless you!”

She then embraced her, and went on; Cecilia, at a motion of Dr Lyster's,
forbearing to follow her.

“And thus,” cried she, when they were gone, “thus ends all my connection
with this family! which it seems as if I was only to have known for the
purpose of affording a new proof of the insufficiency of situation to
constitute happiness. Who looks not upon mine as the perfection of
human felicity?--And so, perhaps, it is, for it may be that Felicity and
Humanity are never permitted to come nearer.”

And thus, in philosophic sadness, by reasoning upon the universality
of misery, she restrained, at least, all violence of sorrow, though her
spirits were dejected, and her heart was heavy.

But the next day brought with it some comfort that a little lightened
her sadness; Mrs Charlton, almost wholly recovered, was able to go down
stairs, and Cecilia had at least the satisfaction of seeing an happy
conclusion to an illness of which, with the utmost concern and regret,
she considered herself as the cause. She attended her with the most
unremitting assiduity, and being really very thankful, endeavoured
to appear happy, and flattered herself that, by continual effort, the
appearance in a short time would become reality.

Mrs Charlton retired early, and Cecilia accompanied her up stairs:
and while she was with her, was informed that Mr Monckton was in the
parlour.

The various, afflicting, and uncommon scenes in which she had been
engaged since she last saw him, had almost wholly driven him from her
remembrance, or when at any time he recurred to it, it was only to
attribute the discontinuance of his visits to the offence she had
given him, in refusing to follow his advice by relinquishing her London
expedition.

Full, therefore, of the mortifying transactions which had passed since
their parting, and fearful of his enquiries into disgraces he had nearly
foretold, she heard him announced with chagrin, and waited upon him in
the most painful confusion.

Far different were the feelings of Mr Monckton; he read in her
countenance the dejection of disappointment, which impressed upon his
heart the vivacity of hope: her evident shame was to him secret triumph,
her ill-concealed sorrow revived all his expectations.

She hastily began a conversation by mentioning her debt to him, and
apologising for not paying it the moment she was of age. He knew but
too well how her time had been occupied, and assured her the delay was
wholly immaterial.

He then led to an enquiry into the present situation of her affairs;
but unable to endure a disquisition, which could only be productive of
censure and mortification, she hastily stopt it, exclaiming, “Ask me
not, I entreat you, Sir, any detail of what has passed,--the event has
brought me sufferings that may well make blame be dispensed with;--I
acknowledge all your wisdom, I am sensible of my own error, but the
affair is wholly dropt, and the unhappy connection I was forming is
broken off for-ever!”

Little now was Mr Monckton's effort in repressing his further curiosity,
and he started other subjects with readiness, gaiety and address. He
mentioned Mrs Charlton, for whom he had not the smallest regard; he
talked to her of Mrs Harrel, whose very existence was indifferent to
him; and he spoke of their common acquaintance in the country, for not
one of whom he would have grieved, if assured of meeting no more. His
powers of conversation were enlivened by his hopes; and his exhilarated
spirits made all subjects seem happy to him. A weight was removed from
his mind which had nearly borne down even his remotest hopes; the object
of his eager pursuit seemed still within his reach, and the rival into
whose power he had so lately almost beheld her delivered, was totally
renounced, and no longer to be dreaded. A revolution such as this,
raised expectations more sanguine than ever; and in quitting the house,
he exultingly considered himself released from every obstacle to his
views--till, just as he arrived home, he recollected his wife!



CHAPTER viii.

A TALE.

A week passed, during which Cecilia, however sad, spent her time as
usual with the family, denying to herself all voluntary indulgence of
grief, and forbearing to seek consolation from solitude, or relief from
tears. She never named Delvile, she begged Mrs Charlton never to mention
him; she called to her aid the account she had received from Dr Lyster
of his firmness, and endeavoured, by an emulous ambition, to fortify her
mind from the weakness of depression and regret.

This week, a week of struggle with all her feelings, was just elapsed,
when she received by the post the following letter from Mrs Delvile.

_To Miss Beverley_.

BRISTOL, _Oct_. 21.

My sweet young friend will not, I hope, be sorry to hear of my safe
arrival at this place: to me every account of her health and welfare,
will ever be the intelligence I shall most covet to receive. Yet I mean
not to ask for it in return; to chance I will trust for information, and
I only write now to say I shall write no more.

Too much for thanks is what I owe you, and what I think of you is beyond
all power of expression. Do not, then, wish me ill, ill as I have seemed
to merit of you, for my own heart is almost broken by the tyranny I have
been compelled to practise upon yours. And now let me bid a long adieu
to you, my admirable Cecilia; you shall not be tormented with a useless
correspondence, which can only awaken painful recollections, or give
rise to yet more painful new anxieties. Fervently will I pray for
the restoration of your happiness, to which nothing can so greatly
contribute as that wise, that uniform command, so feminine, yet so
dignified, you maintain over your passions; which often I have admired,
though never so feelingly as at this conscious moment! when my own
health is the sacrifice of emotions most fatally unrestrained.

Send to me no answer, even if you have the sweetness to wish it; every
new proof of the generosity of your nature is to me but a new wound.
Forget us, therefore, wholly,--alas! you have only known us for sorrow!
forget us, dear and invaluable Cecilia! though, ever, as you have
nobly deserved, must you be fondly and gratefully remembered by AUGUSTA
DELVILE.

The attempted philosophy, and laboured resignation of Cecilia, this
letter destroyed: the struggle was over, the apathy was at an end, and
she burst into an agony of tears, which finding the vent they had
long sought, now flowed unchecked down her cheeks, sad monitors of the
weakness of reason opposed to the anguish of sorrow!

A letter at once so caressing, yet so absolute, forced its way to her
heart, in spite of the fortitude she had flattered herself was its
guard. In giving up Delvile she was satisfied of the propriety of seeing
him no more, and convinced that even to talk of him would be folly
and imprudence; but to be told that for the future they must remain
strangers to the existence of each other--there seemed in this a
hardship, a rigour, that was insupportable.

“Oh what,” cried she, “is human nature! in its best state how imperfect!
that a woman such as this, so noble in character, so elevated in
sentiment, with heroism to sacrifice to her sense of duty the happiness
of a son, whom with joy she would die to serve, can herself be thus
governed by prejudice, thus enslaved, thus subdued by opinion!” Yet
never, even when miserable, unjust or irrational; her grief was unmixed
with anger, and her tears streamed not from resentment, but affliction.
The situation of Mrs Delvile, however different, she considered to be
as wretched as her own. She read, therefore, with sadness, but not
bitterness, her farewell, and received not with disdain, but with
gratitude, her sympathy. Yet though her indignation was not irritated,
her sufferings were doubled, by a farewell so kind, yet so despotic, a
sympathy so affectionate, yet so hopeless.

In this first indulgence of grief which she had granted to her
disappointment, she was soon interrupted by a summons down stairs to a
gentleman.

Unfit and unwilling to be seen, she begged that he might leave his name,
and appoint a time for calling again.

Her maid brought for answer, that he believed his name was unknown to
her, and desired to see her now, unless she was employed in some matter
of moment. She then put up her letter, and went into the parlour; and
there, to her infinite amazement, beheld Mr Albany.

“How little, Sir,” she cried, “did I expect this pleasure.”

“This pleasure,” repeated he, “do you call it?--what strange abuse of
words! what causeless trifling with honesty! is language of no purpose
but to wound the ear with untruths? is the gift of speech only granted
us to pervert the use of understanding? I can give you no pleasure,
I have no power to give it any one; you can give none to me-the whole
world could not invest you with the means!”

“Well, Sir,” said Cecilia, who had little spirit to defend herself, “I
will not vindicate the expression, but of this I will unfeignedly assure
you, I am at least as glad to see you just now, as I should be to see
anybody.”

“Your eyes,” cried he, “are red, your voice is inarticulate;--young,
rich, and attractive, the world at your feet; that world yet untried,
and its falsehood unknown, how have you thus found means to anticipate
misery? which way have you uncovered the cauldron of human woes? Fatal
and early anticipation! that cover once removed, can never be replaced;
those woes, those boiling woes, will pour out upon you continually,
and only when your heart ceases to beat, will their ebullition cease to
torture you!”

“Alas!” cried Cecilia, shuddering, “how cruel, yet how true!”

“Why went you,” cried he, “to the cauldron? it came not to you. Misery
seeks not man, but man misery. He walks out in the sun, but stops
not for a cloud; confident, he pursues his way, till the storm which,
gathering, he might have avoided, bursts over his devoted head. Scared
and amazed, he repents his temerity; he calls, but it is then too late;
he runs, but it is thunder which follows him! Such is the presumption
of man, such at once is the arrogance and shallowness of his nature! And
thou, simple and blind! hast thou, too, followed whither Fancy has led
thee, unheeding that thy career was too vehement for tranquility,
nor missing that lovely companion of youth's early innocence, till,
adventurous and unthinking, thou hast lost her for ever!”

In the present weak state of Cecilia's spirits, this attack was too much
for her; and the tears she had just, and with difficulty restrained,
again forced their way down her cheeks, as she answered, “It is but too
true,--I have lost her for ever!”

“Poor thing,” said he, while the rigour of his countenance was
softened into the gentlest commiseration, “so young!--looking, too, so
innocent--'tis hard!--And is nothing left thee? no small remaining hope,
to cheat, humanely cheat thy yet not wholly extinguished credulity?”

Cecilia wept without answering.

“Let me not,” said he, “waste my compassion upon nothing; compassion is
with me no effusion of affectation; tell me, then, if thou deservest it,
or if thy misfortunes are imaginary, and thy grief is factitious?”

“Factitious,” repeated she, “Good heaven!”

“Answer me, then, these questions, in which I shall comprise the only
calamities for which sorrow has no controul, or none from human motives.
Tell me, then, have you lost by death the friend of your bosom?”

“No!”

“Is your fortune dissipated by extravagance, and your power of relieving
the distressed at an end?”

“No; the power and the will are I hope equally undiminished.”

“O then, unhappy girl! have you been guilty of some vice, and hangs
remorse thus heavy on your conscience?”

“No, no; thank heaven, to that misery, at least, I am a stranger!”

His countenance now again resumed its severity, and, in the sternest
manner, “Whence then,” he said, “these tears? and what is this caprice
you dignify with the name of sorrow?--strange wantonness of indolence
and luxury! perverse repining of ungrateful plenitude!--oh hadst thou
known what _I_ have suffered!”--

“Could I lessen what you have suffered,” said Cecilia, “I should
sincerely rejoice; but heavy indeed must be your affliction, if mine in
its comparison deserves to be styled caprice!”

“Caprice!” repeated he, “'tis joy! 'tis extacy compared with mine!--Thou
hast not in licentiousness wasted thy inheritance! thou hast not by
remorse barred each avenue to enjoyment! nor yet has the cold grave
seized the beloved of thy soul!”

“Neither,” said Cecilia, “I hope, are the evils you have yourself
sustained so irremediable?”

“Yes, I have borne them all!--_have_ borne? I bear them still; I shall
bear them while I breathe! I may rue them, perhaps, yet longer.”

“Good God!” cried Cecilia, shrinking, “what a world is this! how full of
woe and wickedness!”

“Yet thou, too, canst complain,” cried he, “though happy in life's only
blessing, Innocence! thou, too, canst murmur, though stranger to death's
only terror, Sin! Oh yet if thy sorrow is unpolluted with guilt, be
regardless of all else, and rejoice in thy destiny!”

“But who,” cried she, deeply sighing, “shall teach me such a lesson of
joy, when all within rises to oppose it?”

“I,” cried he, “will teach it thee, for I will tell thee my own sad
story. Then wilt thou find how much happier is thy lot, then wilt thou
raise thy head in thankful triumph.”

“O no! triumph comes not so lightly! yet if you will venture to trust
me with some account of yourself, I shall be glad to hear it, and much
obliged by the communication.”

“I will,” he answered, “whatever I may suffer: to awaken thee from this
dream of fancied sorrow, I will open all my wounds, and thou shalt probe
them with fresh shame.”

“No, indeed,” cried Cecilia with quickness, “I will not hear you, if the
relation will be so painful.”

“Upon _me_ this humanity is lost,” said he, “since punishment and
penitence alone give me comfort. I will tell thee, therefore, my crimes,
that thou mayst know thy own felicity, lest, ignorant it means nothing
but innocence, thou shouldst lose it, unconscious of its value. Listen
then to me, and learn what Misery is! Guilt is alone the basis of
lasting unhappiness;--Guilt is the basis of mine, and therefore I am a
wretch for ever!”

Cecilia would again have declined hearing him, but he refused to be
spared: and as her curiosity had long been excited to know something of
his history, and the motives of his extraordinary conduct, she was glad
to have it satisfied, and gave him the utmost attention.

“I will not speak to you of my family,” said he; “historical accuracy
would little answer to either of us. I am a native of the West Indies,
and I was early sent hither to be educated. While I was yet at the
University, I saw, I adored, and I pursued the fairest flower that ever
put forth its sweet buds, the softest heart that ever was broken by
ill-usage! She was poor and unprotected, the daughter of a villager;
she was untaught and unpretending, the child of simplicity! But fifteen
summers had she bloomed, and her heart was an easy conquest; yet, once
made mine, it resisted all allurement to infidelity. My fellow students
attacked her; she was assaulted by all the arts of seduction; flattery,
bribery, supplication, all were employed, yet all failed; she was wholly
my own; and with sincerity so attractive, I determined to marry her in
defiance of all worldly objections.

“The sudden death of my father called me hastily to Jamaica; I feared
leaving this treasure unguarded, yet in decency could neither marry nor
take her directly; I pledged my faith, therefore, to return to her,
as soon as I had settled my affairs, and I left to a bosom friend the
inspection of her conduct in my absence.

“To leave her was madness,--to trust in man was madness,--Oh hateful
race! how has the world been abhorrent to me since that time! I have
loathed the light of the sun, I have shrunk from the commerce of my
fellow creatures; the voice of man I have detested, his sight I have
abominated!--but oh, more than all should I be abominated myself!

“When I came to my fortune, intoxicated with sudden power, I forgot this
fair blossom, I revelled in licentiousness and vice, and left it exposed
and forlorn. Riot succeeded riot, till a fever, incurred by my own
intemperance, first gave me time to think. Then was she revenged, for
then first remorse was my portion: her image was brought back to my mind
with frantic fondness, and bitterest contrition. The moment I recovered,
I returned to England; I flew to claim her,--but she was lost! no one
knew whither she was gone; the wretch I had trusted pretended to know
least of all; yet, after a furious search, I traced her to a cottage,
where he had concealed her himself!

“When she saw me, she screamed and would have flown; I stopt her, and
told her I came faithfully and honourably to make her my wife:--her
own faith and honour, though sullied, were not extinguished, for she
instantly acknowledged the fatal tale of her undoing!

“Did I recompense this ingenuousness? this unexampled, this beautiful
sacrifice to intuitive integrity? Yes! with my curses!--I loaded her
with execrations, I reviled her in language the most opprobrious, I
insulted her even for her confession! I invoked all evil upon her
from the bottom of my heart--She knelt at my feet, she implored
my forgiveness and compassion, she wept with the bitterness of
despair,--and yet I spurned her from me!--Spurned?--let me not hide
my shame! I barbarously struck her!--nor single was the blow!--it was
doubled, it was reiterated!--Oh wretch, unyielding and unpitying!
where shall hereafter be clemency for thee!--So fair a form! so young a
culprit! so infamously seduced! so humbly penitent!

“In this miserable condition, helpless and deplorable, mangled by these
savage hands, and reviled by this inhuman tongue, I left her, in search
of the villain who had destroyed her: but, cowardly as treacherous,
he had absconded. Repenting my fury, I hastened to her again; the
fierceness of my cruelty shamed me when I grew calmer, the softness of
her sorrow melted me upon recollection: I returned, therefore, to soothe
her,--but again she was gone! terrified with expectation of insult, she
hid herself from all my enquiries. I wandered in search of her two long
years to no purpose, regardless of my affairs, and of all things but
that pursuit. At length, I thought I saw her--in London, alone, and
walking in the streets at midnight,--I fearfully followed her,--and
followed her into an house of infamy!

“The wretches by whom she was surrounded were noisy and drinking, they
heeded me little,--but she saw and knew me at once! She did not speak,
nor did I,--but in two moments she fainted and fell.

“Yet did I not help her; the people took their own measures to recover
her, and when she was again able to stand, would have removed her to
another apartment.

“I then went forward, and forcing them away from her with all the
strength of desperation, I turned to the unhappy sinner, who to chance
only seemed to leave what became of her, and cried, From this scene of
vice and horror let me yet rescue you! you look still unfit for such
society, trust yourself, therefore, to me. I seized her hand, I drew,
I almost dragged her away. She trembled, she could scarce totter, but
neither consented nor refused, neither shed a tear, nor spoke a word,
and her countenance presented a picture of affright, amazement, and
horror.

“I took her to a house in the country, each of us silent the whole way.
I gave her an apartment and a female attendant, and ordered for her
every convenience I could suggest. I stayed myself in the same house,
but distracted with remorse for the guilt and ruin into which I had
terrified her, I could not bear her sight.

“In a few days her maid assured me the life she led must destroy her;
that she would taste nothing but bread and water, never spoke, and never
slept.

“Alarmed by this account, I flew into her apartment; pride and
resentment gave way to pity and fondness, and I besought her to take
comfort. I spoke, however, to a statue, she replied not, nor seemed to
hear me. I then humbled myself to her as in the days of her innocence
and first power, supplicating her notice, entreating even her
commiseration! all was to no purpose; she neither received nor repulsed
me, and was alike inattentive to exhortation and to prayer.

“Whole hours did I spend at her feet, vowing never to arise till she
spoke to me,--all, all, in vain! she seemed deaf, mute, insensible; her
face unmoved, a settled despair fixed in her eyes,--those eyes that had
never looked at me but with dove-like softness and compliance!--She sat
constantly in one chair, she never changed her dress, no persuasions
could prevail with her to lie down, and at meals she just swallowed so
much dry bread as might save her from dying for want of food.

“What was the distraction of my soul, to find her bent upon this course
to her last hour!--quick came that hour, but never will it be forgotten!
rapidly it was gone, but eternally it will be remembered!

“When she felt herself expiring, she acknowledged she had made a
vow, upon entering the house, to live speechless and motionless, as a
pennance for her offences!

“I kept her loved corpse till my own senses failed me,--it was then only
torn from me,--and I have lost all recollection of three years of my
existence!”

Cecilia shuddered at this hint, yet was not surprised by it; Mr Gosport
had acquainted her he had been formerly confined; and his flightiness,
wildness, florid language, and extraordinary way of life, bad long led
her to suspect his reason had been impaired.

“The scene to which my memory first leads me back,” he continued, “is
visiting her grave; solemnly upon it I returned her vow, though not by
one of equal severity. To her poor remains did I pledge myself, that
the day should never pass in which I would receive nourishment, nor the
night come in which I would take rest, till I had done, or zealously
attempted to do, some service to a fellow-creature.

“For this purpose have I wandered from city to city, from the town to
the country, and from the rich to the poor. I go into every house where
I can gain admittance, I admonish all who will hear me, I shame even
those who will not. I seek the distressed where ever they are hid,
I follow the prosperous to beg a mite to serve them. I look for the
Dissipated in public, where, amidst their licentiousness, I check them;
I pursue the Unhappy in private, where I counsel and endeavour to
assist them. My own power is small; my relations, during my sufferings,
limiting me to an annuity; but there is no one I scruple to solicit, and
by zeal I supply ability.

“Oh life of hardship and pennance! laborious, toilsome, and restless!
but I have merited no better, and I will not repine at it; I have vowed
that I will endure it, and I will not be forsworn.

“One indulgence alone from time to time I allow myself,--'tis Music!
which has power to delight me even to rapture! it quiets all anxiety, it
carries me out of myself, I forget through it every calamity, even the
bitterest anguish.

“Now then, that thou hast heard me, tell me, hast _thou_ cause of
sorrow?”

“Alas,” cried Cecilia, “this indeed is a Picture of Misery to make _my_
lot seem all happiness!”

“Art thou thus open to conviction?” cried he, mildly; “and dost thou not
fly the voice of truth! for truth and reproof are one.”

“No, I would rather seek it; I feel myself wretched, however inadequate
may be the cause; I wish to be more resigned, and if you can instruct me
how, I shall thankfully attend to you.”

“Oh yet uncorrupted creature!” cried he, “with joy will I be thy
monitor,--joy long untasted! Many have I wished to serve, all, hitherto,
have rejected my offices; too honest to flatter them, they had not the
fortitude to listen to me; too low to advance them, they had not the
virtue to bear with me. You alone have I yet found pure enough not to
fear inspection, and good enough to wish to be better. Yet words alone
will not content me; I must also have deeds. Nor will your purse,
however readily opened, suffice, you must give to me also your time
and your thoughts; for money sent by others, to others only will afford
relief; to enlighten your own cares, you must distribute it yourself.”

“You shall find me,” said she, “a docile pupil, and most glad to be
instructed how my existence may be useful.”

“Happy then,” cried he, “was the hour that brought me to this country;
yet not in search of you did I come, but of the mutable and ill-fated
Belfield. Erring, yet ingenious young man! what a lesson to the vanity
of talents, to the gaiety, the brilliancy of wit, is the sight of that
green fallen plant! not sapless by age, nor withered by disease,
but destroyed by want of pruning, and bending, breaking by its own
luxuriance!”

“And where, Sir, is he now?

“Labouring wilfully in the field, with those who labour compulsatorily;
such are we all by nature, discontented, perverse, and changeable;
though all have not courage to appear so, and few, like Belfield, are
worth watching when they do. He told me he was happy; I knew it could
not be: but his employment was inoffensive, and I left him without
reproach. In this neighbourhood I heard of you, and found your name was
coupled with praise. I came to see if you deserved it; I have seen, and
am satisfied.”

“You are not, then, very difficult, for I have yet done nothing. How are
we to begin these operations you propose? You have awakened me by them
to an expectation of pleasure, which nothing else, I believe, could just
now have given me.”

“We will work,” cried he, “together, till not a woe shall remain upon
your mind. The blessings of the fatherless, the prayers of little
children, shall heal all your wounds with balm of sweetest fragrance.
When sad, they shall cheer, when complaining, they shall soothe you. We
will go to their roofless houses, and see them repaired; we will exclude
from their dwellings the inclemency of the weather; we will clothe them
from cold, we will rescue them from hunger. The cries of distress shall
be changed to notes of joy: your heart shall be enraptured, mine, too,
shall revive--oh whither am I wandering? I am painting an Elysium!
and while I idly speak, some fainting object dies for want of succour!
Farewell; I will fly to the abodes of wretchedness, and come to you
to-morrow to render them the abodes of happiness.”

He then went away.

This singular visit was for Cecilia most fortunately timed: it almost
surprised her out of her peculiar grief, by the view which it opened
to her of general calamity; wild, flighty, and imaginative as were
his language and his counsels, their morality was striking, and their
benevolence was affecting. Taught by him to compare her state with that
of at least half her species, she began more candidly to weigh what was
left with what was withdrawn, and found the balance in her favour.
The plan he had presented to her of good works was consonant to her
character and inclinations; and the active charity in which he proposed
to engage her, re-animated her fallen hopes, though to far different
subjects from those which had depressed them. Any scheme of worldly
happiness would have sickened and disgusted her; but her mind was just
in the situation to be impressed with elevated piety, and to adopt any
design in which virtue humoured melancholy.



CHAPTER ix.

A SHOCK.

Cecelia passed the rest of the day in fanciful projects of beneficence;
she determined to wander with her romantic new ally whither-so-ever
he would lead her, and to spare neither fortune, time, nor trouble, in
seeking and relieving the distressed. Not all her attempted philosophy
had calmed her mind like this plan; in merely refusing indulgence
to grief, she had only locked it up in her heart, where eternally
struggling for vent, she was almost overpowered by restraining it; but
now her affliction had no longer her whole faculties to itself; the hope
of doing good, the pleasure of easing pain, the intention of devoting
her time to the service of the unhappy, once more delighted her
imagination,--that source of promissory enjoyment, which though often
obstructed, is never, in youth, exhausted.

She would not give Mrs Charlton the unnecessary pain of hearing the
letter with which she had been so, much affected, but she told her of
the visit of Albany, and pleased her with the account of their scheme.

At night, with less sadness than usual, she retired to rest. In her
sleep she bestowed riches, and poured plenty upon the land; she
humbled the oppressor, she exalted the oppressed; slaves were raised to
dignities, captives restored to liberty; beggars saw smiling abundance,
and wretchedness was banished the world. From a cloud in which she was
supported by angels, Cecilia beheld these wonders, and while enjoying
the glorious illusion, she was awakened by her maid, with news that Mrs
Charlton was dying!

She started up, and, undressed, was running to her apartment,--when the
maid, calling to stop her, confessed she was already dead!

She had made her exit in the night, but the time was not exactly known;
her own maid, who slept in the room with her, going early to her bedside
to enquire how she did, found her cold and motionless, and could only
conclude that a paralytic stroke had taken her off.

Happily and in good time had Cecilia been somewhat recruited by one
night of refreshing slumbers and flattering dreams, for the shock she
now received promised her not soon another.

She lost in Mrs Charlton a friend, whom nearly from her infancy she
had considered as a mother, and by whom she had been cherished with
tenderness almost unequalled. She was not a woman of bright parts, or
much cultivation, but her heart was excellent, and her disposition was
amiable. Cecilia had known her longer than her memory could look back,
though the earliest circumstances she could trace were kindnesses
received from her. Since she had entered into life, and found the
difficulty of the part she had to act, to this worthy old lady alone had
she unbosomed her secret cares. Though little assisted by her counsel,
she was always certain of her sympathy; and while her own superior
judgment directed her conduct, she had the relief of communicating her
schemes, and weighing her perplexities, with a friend to whom nothing
that concerned her was indifferent, and whose greatest wish and chief
pleasure was the enjoyment of her conversation.

If left to herself, in the present period of her life, Mrs Charlton had
certainly not been the friend of her choice. The delicacy of her mind,
and the refinement of her ideas, had now rendered her fastidious,
and she would have looked out for elegancies and talents to which Mrs
Charlton had no pretensions: but those who live in the country have
little power of selection; confined to a small circle, they must be
content with what it offers; and however they may idolize extraordinary
merit when they meet with it, they must not regard it as essential to
friendship, for in their circumscribed rotation, whatever may be their
discontent, they can make but little change.

Such had been the situation to which Mrs Charlton and Mrs Harrel owed
the friendship of Cecilia. Greatly their superior in understanding and
intelligence, had the candidates for her favour been more numerous, the
election had not fallen upon either of them. But she became known to
both before discrimination made her difficult, and when her enlightened
mind discerned their deficiencies, they had already an interest in her
affections, which made her see them with lenity: and though sometimes,
perhaps, conscious she should not have chosen them from many, she
adhered to them with sincerity, and would have changed them for none.

Mrs Harrel, however, too weak for similar sentiments, forgot her
when out of sight, and by the time they met again, was insensible to
everything but shew and dissipation. Cecilia, shocked and surprised,
first grieved from disappointed affection, and then lost that affection
in angry contempt. But her fondness for Mrs Charlton had never known
abatement, as the kindness which had excited it had never known
allay. She had loved her first from childish gratitude; but that love,
strengthened and confirmed by confidential intercourse, was now as
sincere and affectionate as if it had originated from sympathetic
admiration. Her loss, therefore, was felt with the utmost severity, and
neither seeing nor knowing any means of replacing it, she considered it
as irreparable, and mourned it with bitterness.

When the first surprize of this cruel stroke was somewhat lessened, she
sent an express to Mr Monckton with the news, and entreated to see him
immediately. He came without delay, and she begged his counsel what step
she ought herself to take in consequence of this event. Her own house
was still unprepared for her; she had of late neglected to hasten the
workmen, and almost forgotten her intention of entering it. It was
necessary, however, to change her abode immediately; she was no
longer in the house of Mrs Charlton, but of her grand-daughters and
co-heiresses, each of whom she disliked, and upon neither of whom she
had any claim.

Mr Monckton then, with the quickness of a man who utters a thought at
the very moment of its projection, mentioned a scheme upon which
during his whole ride he had been ruminating; which was that she would
instantly remove to his house, and remain there till settled to her
satisfaction.

Cecilia objected her little right of surprising Lady Margaret; but,
without waiting to discuss it, lest new objections should arise, he
quitted her, to fetch himself from her ladyship an invitation he meant
to insist upon her sending.

Cecilia, though heartily disliking this plan, knew not at present what
better to adopt, and thought anything preferable to going again to
Mrs Harrel, since that only could be done by feeding the anxiety of Mr
Arnott.

Mr Monckton soon returned with a message of his own fabrication; for
his lady, though obliged to receive whom he pleased, took care to guard
inviolate the independence of speech, sullenly persevering in refusing
to say anything, or perversely saying only what he least wished to hear.

Cecilia then took a hasty leave of Miss Charltons, who, little affected
by what they had lost, and eager to examine what they had gained, parted
from her gladly, and, with a heavy heart and weeping eyes, borrowed for
the last time the carriage of her late worthy old friend, and for-ever
quitting her hospitable house, sorrowfully set out for the Grove.



BOOK IX.



CHAPTER i.

A COGITATION.

Lady Margaret Monckton received Cecilia with the most gloomy coldness:
she apologised for the liberty she had taken in making use of her
ladyship's house, but, meeting no return of civility, she withdrew
to the room which had been prepared for her, and resolved as much as
possible to keep out of her sight.

It now became necessary without further delay to settle her plan of
life, and fix her place of residence. The forbidding looks of Lady
Margaret made her hasten her resolves, which otherwise would for a while
have given way to grief for her recent misfortune.

She sent for the surveyor who had the superintendance of her estates, to
enquire how soon her own house would be fit for her reception; and heard
there was yet work for near two months.

This answer made her very uncomfortable. To continue two months under
the roof with Lady Margaret was a penance she could not enjoin herself,
nor was she at all sure Lady Margaret would submit to it any better: she
determined, therefore, to release herself from the conscious burthen of
being an unwelcome visitor, by boarding with some creditable family at
Bury, and devoting the two months in which she was to be kept from her
house, to a general arrangement of her affairs, and a final settling
with her guardians.

For these purposes it would be necessary she should go to London:
but with whom, or in what manner, she could not decide. She desired,
therefore, another conference with Mr Monckton, who met her in the
parlour.

She then communicated to him her schemes; and begged his counsel in her
perplexities.

He was delighted at the application, and extremely well pleased with her
design of boarding at Bury, well knowing, he could then watch and visit
her at his pleasure, and have far more comfort in her society than even
in his own house, where all the vigilance with which he observed her,
was short of that with which he was himself observed by Lady Margaret.
He endeavoured, however, to dissuade her from going to town, but her
eagerness to pay the large sum she owed him, was now too great to be
conquered. Of age, her fortune wholly in her power, and all attendance
upon Mrs Charlton at an end, she had no longer any excuse for having a
debt in the world, and would suffer no persuasion to make her begin her
career in life, with a negligence in settling her accounts which she had
so often censured in others. To go to London therefore she was fixed,
and all that she desired was his advice concerning the journey.

He then told her that in order to settle with her guardians, she must
write to them in form, to demand an account of the sums that had been
expended during her minority, and announce her intention for the future
to take the management of her fortune into her own hands.

She immediately followed his directions, and consented to remain at the
Grove till their answers arrived.

Being now, therefore, unavoidably fixed for some time at the house, she
thought it proper and decent to attempt softening Lady Margaret in her
favour. She exerted all her powers to please and to oblige her; but the
exertion was necessarily vain, not only from the disposition, but the
situation of her ladyship, since every effort made for this conciliatory
purpose, rendered her doubly amiable in the eyes of her husband, and
consequently to herself more odious than ever. Her jealousy, already but
too well founded, received every hour the poisonous nourishment of fresh
conviction, which so much soured and exasperated a temper naturally
harsh, that her malignity and ill-humour grew daily more acrimonious.
Nor would she have contented herself with displaying this irascibility
by general moroseness, had not the same suspicious watchfulness which
discovered to her the passion of her husband, served equally to make
manifest the indifference and innocence of Cecilia; to reproach her
therefore, she had not any pretence, though her knowledge how much she
had to dread her, past current in her mind for sufficient reason to
hate her. The Angry and the Violent use little discrimination; whom
they like, they enquire not if they approve; but whoever, no matter
how unwittingly, stands in their way, they scruple not to ill use, and
conclude they may laudably detest.

Cecilia, though much disgusted, gave not over her attempt, which she
considered but as her due while she continued in her house. Her general
character, also, for peevishness and haughty ill-breeding, skilfully,
from time to time, displayed, and artfully repined at by Mr Monckton,
still kept her from suspecting any peculiar animosity to herself, and
made her impute all that passed to the mere rancour of ill-humour. She
confined herself, however, as much as possible to her own apartment,
where her sorrow for Mrs Charlton almost hourly increased, by the
comparison she was forced upon making of her house with the Grove.

That worthy old lady left her grand-daughters her co-heiresses and sole
executrixes. She bequeathed from them nothing considerable, though
she left some donations for the poor, and several of her friends were
remembered by small legacies. Among them Cecilia had her picture, and
favourite trinkets, with a paragraph in her will, that as there was no
one she so much loved, had her fortune been less splendid, she should
have shared with her grand-daughters whatever she had to bestow.

Cecilia was much affected by this last and solemn remembrance. She more
than ever coveted to be alone, that she might grieve undisturbed, and
she lamented without ceasing the fatigue and the illness which, in so
late a period, as it proved, of her life, she had herself been the means
of occasioning to her.

Mr Monckton had too much prudence to interrupt this desire of solitude,
which indeed cost him little pain, as he considered her least in
danger when alone. She received in about a week answers from both her
guardians. Mr Delvile's letter was closely to the purpose, without a
word but of business, and couched in the haughtiest terms. As he had
never, he said, acted, he had no accounts to send in; but as he was
going to town in a few days, he would see her for a moment in the
presence of Mr Briggs, that a joint release might be signed, to prevent
any future application to him.

Cecilia much lamented there was any necessity for her seeing him at all,
and looked forward to the interview as the greatest mortification she
could suffer.

Mr Briggs, though still more concise, was far kinder in his language:
but he advised her to defer her scheme of taking the money into her own
hands, assuring her she would be cheated, and had better leave it to
him.

When she communicated these epistles to Mr Monckton, he failed not to
read, with an emphasis, by which his arrogant meaning was still more
arrogantly enforced, the letter of Mr Delvile aloud. Nor was he sparing
in comments that might render it yet more offensive. Cecilia neither
concurred in what he said, nor opposed it, but contented herself, when
he was silent, with producing the other letter.

Mr Monckton read not this with more favour. He openly attacked the
character of Briggs, as covetous, rapacious, and over-reaching, and
warned her by no means to abide by his counsel, without first taking the
opinion of some disinterested person. He then stated the various arts
which might be practised upon her inexperience, enumerated the dangers
to which her ignorance of business exposed her, and annotated upon
the cheats, double dealings, and tricks of stock jobbing, to which
he assured her Mr Briggs owed all he was worth, till, perplexed and
confounded, she declared herself at a loss how to proceed, and earnestly
regretted that she could not have his counsel upon the spot.

This was his aim: to draw the wish from her, drew all suspicion of
selfish views from himself: and he told her that he considered her
present situation as so critical, the future confusion or regularity
of her money transactions seeming to depend upon it, that he would
endeavour to arrange his affairs for meeting her in London.

Cecilia gave him many thanks for the kind intention, and determined to
be totally guided by him in the disposal and direction of her fortune.

Mean time he had now another part to act; he saw that with Cecilia
nothing more remained to be done, and that, harbouring not a doubt of
his motives, she thought his design in her favour did her nothing but
honour; but he had too much knowledge of the world to believe it would
judge him in the same manner, and too much consciousness of duplicity to
set its judgment at defiance.

To parry, therefore, the conjectures which might follow his attending
her, he had already prepared Lady Margaret to wish herself of the party:
for however disagreeable to him was her presence and her company, he had
no other means to be under the same roof with Cecilia.

Miss Bennet, the wretched tool of his various schemes, and the mean
sycophant of his lady, had been employed by him to work upon her
jealousy, by secretly informing her of his intention to go to town,
at the same time that Cecilia went thither to meet her guardians.
She pretended to have learned this intelligence by accident, and to
communicate it from respectful regard; and advised her to go to London
herself at the same time, that she might see into his designs, and be
some check upon his pleasure.

The encreasing infirmities of Lady Margaret made this counsel by no
means palatable: but Miss Bennet, following the artful instructions
which she received, put in her way so strong a motive, by assuring her
how little her company was wished, that in the madness of her spite
she determined upon the journey. And little heeding how she tormented
herself while she had any view of tormenting Mr Monckton, she was led on
by her false confident to invite Cecilia to her own house.

Mr Monckton, in whom by long practice, artifice was almost nature, well
knowing his wife's perverseness, affected to look much disconcerted at
the proposal; while Cecilia, by no means thinking it necessary to extend
her compliance to such a punishment, instantly made an apology, and
declined the invitation.

Lady Margaret, little versed in civility, and unused to the arts of
persuasion, could not, even for a favourite project, prevail upon
herself to use entreaty, and therefore, thinking her scheme defeated,
looked gloomily disappointed, and said nothing more.

Mr Monckton saw with delight how much this difficulty inflamed her,
though the moment he could speak alone with Cecilia he made it his care
to remove it.

He represented to her that, however privately she might live, she was
too young to be in London lodgings by herself, and gave an hint which
she could not but understand, that in going or in staying with only
servants, suspicions might soon be raised, that the plan and motive of
her journey were different to those given out.

She knew he meant to insinuate that it would be conjectured she
designed to meet Delvile, and though colouring, vext and provoked at the
suggestion, the idea was sufficient to frighten her into his plan.

In a few days, therefore, the matter was wholly arranged, Mr Monckton,
by his skill and address, leading every one whither he pleased, while,
by the artful coolness of his manner, he appeared but to follow himself.
He [set] out the day before, though earnestly wishing to accompany
them, but having as yet in no single instance gone to town in the same
carriage with Lady Margaret, he dared trust neither the neighbourhood
nor the servants with so dangerous a subject for their comments.

Cecilia, compelled thus to travel with only her Ladyship and Miss
Bennet, had a journey the most disagreeable, and determined, if
possible, to stay in London but two days. She had already fixed upon a
house in which she could board at Bury when she returned, and there she
meant quietly to reside till she could enter her own.

Lady Margaret herself, exhilarated by a notion of having outwitted her
husband, was in unusual good spirits, and almost in good humour.
The idea of thwarting his designs, and being in the way of his
entertainment, gave to her a de

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