As Cecilia now found herself cleared, at least, of all suspicions of
harbouring too tender a regard for Mr Belfield, her objections to
visiting his sister were removed, and the morning after her return
to Mr Harrel’s, she went in a chair to Swallow-street.
She sent her servant up stairs to enquire if she might be admitted,
and was immediately taken into the room where she had twice before
been received.
In a few minutes Miss Belfield, softly opening and shutting the door
of the next apartment, made her appearance. She looked thin and
pale, but much gratified by the sight of Cecilia. “Ah madam!” she
cried, “you are good indeed not to forget us! and you can little
think how it cheers and consoles me, that such a lady as you can
condescend to be kind to me. It is quite the only pleasure that I
have now in the whole world.”
“I grieve that you have no greater;” cried Cecilia, “you seem much
fatigued and harassed. How is your brother? I fear you neglect your
own health, by too much attention to his.”
“No, indeed, madam; my mother does everything for him herself, and
hardly suffers anybody else to go near him.”
“What, then, makes you so melancholy?” said Cecilia, taking her
hand; “you do not look well; your anxiety, I am sure, is too much
for your strength.”
“How should I look well, madam,” answered she, “living as I live?
However, I will not talk of myself, but of my brother,—O he is so
ill! Indeed I am sadly, sadly afraid he will never be well again!”
“What does his surgeon say? You are too tender, and too much
frightened to be any judge.”
“It is not that I think myself he will die of his wound, for Mr
Rupil says the wound is almost nothing; but he is in a constant
fever, and so thin, and so weak, that indeed it is almost impossible
he should recover!”
“You are too apprehensive,” said Cecilia, “you know not what effect
the country air may have upon him; there are many, many expedients
that with so young a man may yet be successful.”
“O no, the country air can do nothing for him! for I will not
deceive you, madam, for that would be doubly a fault when I am so
ready in blaming other people for wearing false appearances:
besides, you are so good and so gentle, that it quite composes me to
talk with you. So I will honestly speak the truth, and the whole
truth at once; my poor brother is lost—O I fear for ever lost!—all
by his own unhappy pride! He forgets his father was a tradesman, he
is ashamed of all his family, and his whole desire is to live among
the grandest people, as if he belonged to no other. And now that he
can no longer do that, he takes the disappointment so to heart that
he cannot get the better of it; and he told me this morning that he
wished he was dead, for he did not know why he should live only to
see his own ruin! But when he saw how I cried at his saying so, he
was very sorry indeed, for he has always been the kindest brother in
the world, when he has been away from the great folks who have
spoilt him: ‘But why,’ said he, ‘Henrietta, why would you have me
live, when instead of raising you and my poor mother into an higher
station, I am sunk so low, that I only help to consume your own poor
pittances to support me in my disgrace!'”
“I am sorry indeed,” said Cecilia, “to find he has so deep a sense
of the failure of his expectations: but how happens it that you are
so much wiser? Young and inexperienced as you are, and early as you
must have been accustomed, from your mother as well as from Mr
Belfield, to far other doctrine, the clearness of your judgment, and
the justness of your remarks, astonish as much as they charm me.”
“Ah madam! Brought up as I have been brought up, there is little
wonder I should see the danger of an high education, let me be ever
so ignorant of everything else; for I, and all my sisters, have been
the sufferers the whole time: and while we were kept backward, that
he might be brought forward, while we were denied comforts, that he
might have luxuries, how could we help seeing the evil of so much
vanity, and wishing we had all been brought up according to our
proper station? instead of living in continual inconvenience, and
having one part of a family struggling with distress, only to let
another part of it appear in a way he had no right to!”
“How rationally,” said Cecilia, “have you considered this subject!
and how much do I honour you for the affection you retain for your
brother, notwithstanding the wrongs you have suffered to promote his
elevation!”
“Indeed he deserves it; take but from him that one fault, pride, and
I believe he has not another: and humoured and darling child as from
his infancy he has always been, who at that can wonder, or be
angry?”
“And he has still no plan, no scheme for his future destination?”
“No, madam, none at all; and that it is makes him so miserable, and
being so miserable makes him so ill, for Mr Rupil says that with
such uneasiness upon his mind, he can never, in his present low
state, get well. O it is melancholy to see how he is altered! and
how he has lost all his fine spirits! he that used to be the life of
us all!—And now he hardly ever speaks a word, or if he does, he
says something so sorrowful that it cuts us to the soul! But
yesterday, when my mother and I thought he was asleep, he lifted up
his head, and looked at us both with the tears in his eyes, which
almost broke our hearts to see, and then, in a low voice, he said
‘What a lingering illness is this! Ah, my dear mother, you and poor
Henrietta ought to wish it quicker over! for should I recover, my
life, hereafter, will but linger like this illness.’ And afterwards
he called out, ‘what on earth is to become of me? I shall never have
health for the army, nor interest, nor means; what am I to do?
subsist in the very prime of my life upon the bounty of a widowed
mother! or, with such an education, such connections as mine, enter
at last into some mean and sordid business?'”
“It seems, then,” said Cecilia, “he now less wants a physician than
a friend.”
“He has a friend, madam, a noble friend, would he but accept his
services; but he never sees him without suffering fresh vexation,
and his fever encreases after every visit he pays him.”
“Well,” said Cecilia, rising, “I find we shall not have an easy task
to manage him; but keep up your spirits, and assure yourself he
shall not be lost, if it be possible to save him.”
She then, though with much fearfulness of offending, once more made
an offer of her purse. Miss Belfield no longer started at the
proposal; yet, gratefully thanking her, said she was not in any
immediate distress, and did not dare risk the displeasure of her
brother, unless driven to it by severer necessity. Cecilia, however,
drew from her a promise that she would apply to her in any sudden
difficulty, and charged her never to think herself without a banker
while her direction was known to her.
She then bid her adieu, and returned home; meditating the whole way
upon some plan of employment and advantage for Mr Belfield, which by
clearing his prospects, might revive his spirits, and facilitate his
recovery: for since his mind was so evidently the seat of his
disease, she saw that unless she could do more for him, she had yet
done nothing.
Her meditation, however, turned to no account; she could suggest
nothing, for she was ignorant what was eligible to suggest. The
stations and employments of men she only knew by occasionally
hearing that such were their professions, and such their situations
in life; but with the means and gradations by which they arose to
them she was wholly unacquainted.
Mr Monckton, her constant resource in all cases of difficulty,
immediately occurred to her as her most able counsellor, and she
determined by the first opportunity to consult with him upon the
subject, certain of advice the most judicious from his experience,
and knowledge of the world.
But though she rested upon him her serious expectations of
assistance, another idea entered her mind not less pleasant, though
less promising of utility: this was to mention her views to young
Delvile. He was already, she knew, well informed of the distress of
Mr Belfield, and she hoped, by openly asking his opinion, to confirm
to him her freedom from any engagement with that gentleman, and
convince him, at the same time, by her application to himself, that
she was equally clear of any tie with the Baronet.
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