The attention of Cecilia to her own affairs, did not make her
forgetful of those of the Harrels: and the morning after the busy
day which was last recorded, as soon as she quitted the breakfast-room, she began a note to Mr Monckton, but was interrupted with
information that he was already in the house.
She went to him immediately, and had the satisfaction of finding him
alone: but desirous as she was to relate to him the transactions of
the preceding day, there was in his countenance a gravity so
unusual, that her impatience was involuntarily checked, and she
waited first to hear if he had himself any thing to communicate.
He kept her not long in suspence; “Miss Beverley,” he said, “I bring
you intelligence which though I know you will be very sorry to hear,
it is absolutely necessary should be told you immediately: you may
otherwise, from however laudable motives, be drawn into some action
which you may repent for life.”
“What now!” cried Cecilia, much alarmed.
“All that I suspected,” said he, “and more than I hinted to you, is
true; Mr Harrel is a ruined man! he is not worth a groat, and he is
in debt beyond what he ever possessed.”
Cecilia made no answer: she knew but too fatally the desperate state
of his affairs, yet that his debts were more than he had ever
possessed, she had not thought possible.
“My enquiries,” continued he, “have been among principals, and such
as would not dare deceive me. I hastened, therefore, to you, that
this timely notice might enforce the injunctions I gave you when I
had the pleasure of seeing you last, and prevent a misjudging
generosity from leading you into any injury of your own fortune, for
a man who is past all relief from it, and who cannot be saved, even
though you were to be destroyed for his sake.”
“You are very good,” said Cecilia, “but your counsel is now too
late!” She then briefly acquainted him with what passed, and with
how large a sum she had parted.
He heard her with rage, amazement, and horror: and after inveighing
against Mr Harrel in the bitterest terms, he said, “But why, before
you signed your name to so base an imposition, could you not send
for me?”
“I wished, I meant to have done it,” cried she, “but I thought the
time past when you could help me: how, indeed, could you have saved
me? my word was given, given with an oath the most solemn, and the
first I have ever taken in my life.”
“An oath so forced,” answered he, “the most delicate conscience
would have absolved you from performing. You have, indeed, been
grossly imposed upon, and pardon me if I add unaccountably to blame.
Was it not obvious that relief so circumstanced must be temporary?
If his ruin had been any thing less than certain, what tradesmen
would have been insolent? You have therefore deprived yourself of
the power of doing good to a worthier object, merely to grant a
longer date to extravagance and villainy.”
“Yet how,” cried Cecilia, deeply touched by this reproof, “how could
I do otherwise! Could I see a man in the agonies of despair, hear
him first darkly hint his own destruction, and afterwards behold him
almost in the very act of suicide, the instrument of self-murder in
his desperate hand—and yet, though he put his life in my power,
though he told me I could preserve him, and told me he had no other
reliance or resource, could I leave him to his dreadful despondence,
refuse my assisting hand to raise him from perdition, and, to save
what, after all, I am well able to spare, suffer a fellow-creature,
who flung himself upon my mercy, to offer up his last accounts with
an action blacker than any which had preceded it?—No, I cannot
repent what I have done, though I lament, indeed, that the object
was not more deserving.”
“Your representation,” said Mr Monckton, “like every thing else that
I ever heard you utter, breathes nothing but benevolence and
goodness: but your pity has been abused, and your understanding
imposed upon. Mr Harrel had no intention to destroy himself; the
whole was an infamous trick, which, had not your generosity been too
well known, would never have been played.”
“I cannot think quite so ill of him,” said Cecilia, “nor for the
world would I have risked my own future reproaches by trusting to
such a suspicion, which, had it proved wrong, and had Mr Harrel,
upon my refusal committed the fatal deed, would have made his murder
upon my own conscience rest for ever! surely the experiment would
have been too hazardous, when the consequence had all my future
peace in its power.
“It is impossible not to revere your scruples,” said Mr Monckton,
“even while I consider them as causeless; for causeless they
undoubtedly were: the man who could act so atrocious a part, who
could so scandalously pillage a young lady who was his guest and his
ward, take advantage of her temper for the plunder of her fortune,
and extort her compliance by the basest and most dishonourable arts,
meant only to terrify her into compliance, for he can be nothing
less than a downright and thorough scoundrel, capable of every
species of mean villainy.”
He then protested he would at least acquaint her other guardians
with what had passed, whose business it would be to enquire if there
was any chance of redress.
Cecilia, however, had not much trouble in combating this proposal;
for though her objections, which were merely those of punctilious
honour and delicacy, weighed nothing with a man who regarded them as
absurdities, yet his own apprehensions of appearing too officious in
her affairs, forced him, after a little deliberation, to give up the
design.
“Besides,” said Cecilia, “as I have his bond for what I have parted
with, I have, at least, no right to complain, unless, after he
receives his rents, he refuses to pay me.”
“His bonds! his rents!” exclaimed Mr Monckton, “what is a man’s bond
who is not worth a guinea? and what are his rents, when all he ever
owned must be sold before they are due, and when he will not himself
receive a penny from the sale, as he has neither land, house, nor
possession of any sort that is not mortgaged?”
“Nay, then,” said Cecilia, “if so, it is indeed all, over! I am
sorry, I am grieved!—but it is past, and nothing, therefore,
remains, but that I try to forget I ever was richer!”
“This is very youthful philosophy,” said Mr Monckton; “but it will
not lessen your regret hereafter, when the value of money is better
known to you.”
“If I shall dearly buy my experience,” said Cecilia, “let me be the
more attentive to making good use of it; and, since my loss seems
irremediable to myself, let me at least endeavour to secure its
utility to Mr Harrel.”
She then told him her wish to propose to that gentleman some scheme
of reformation, while yesterday’s events were yet recent in his
mind: but Mr Monckton, who had hardly patience to hear her,
exclaimed, “He is a wretch, and deserves the full force of the
disgrace he is courting. What is now most necessary is to guard you
from his further machinations, for you may else be involved in ruin
as deep as his own. He now knows the way to frighten you, and he
will not fail to put it in practice.”
“No, Sir,” answered Cecilia, “he would vainly apply to me in future:
I cannot repent that I ventured not yesterday to brave his menaces,
but too little is the comfort I feel from what I have bestowed, to
suffer any consideration to make me part with more.”
“Your resolution,” answered he, “will be as feeble as your
generosity will be potent: depend nothing upon yourself, but
instantly quit his house. You will else be made responsible for
every debt that he contracts; and whatever may be his difficulties
hereafter, he will know that to extricate himself from them, he has
but to talk of dying, and to shew you a sword or a pistol.”
“If so, then,” said Cecilia, looking down while she spoke, “I
suppose I must again go to Mr Delvile’s.”
This was by no means the purpose of Mr Monckton, who saw not more
danger to her fortune with one of her guardians, than to her person
with the other. He ventured, therefore, to recommend to her a
residence with Mr Briggs, well knowing that his house would be a
security against her seeing any man equal to himself, and hoping
that under his roof he might again be as unrivalled in her opinion
and esteem, as he formerly was in the country.
But here the opposition of Cecilia was too earnest for any hope that
it might be surmounted; for, added to her dislike of Mr Briggs, her
repugnance to such an habitation was strongly, though silently
increased, by her secret inclination to return to St James’s-square.
“I mention not Mr Briggs as an eligible host,” said Mr Monckton,
after listening to her objections, “but merely as one more proper
for you than Mr Delvile, with whom your fixing at present would but
be ill thought of in the world.”
“Ill thought of, Sir? Why so?”
“Because he has a son; for whose sake alone it would be universally
concluded you changed your abode: and to give any pretence for such
a report, would by no means accord with the usual delicacy of your
conduct.”
Cecilia was confounded by this speech: the truth of the charge she
felt, and the probability of the censure she did not dare dispute.
He then gave her a thousand exhortations to beware of the schemes
and artifices of Mr Harrel, which he foresaw would be innumerable.
He told her, too, that with respect to Sir Robert Floyer, he thought
she had better suffer the report to subside of itself, which in time
it must necessarily do, than give to it so much consequence as to
send a message to the Baronet, from which he might pretend to infer
that hitherto she had been wavering, or she would have sent to him
sooner.
But the real motive of this advice was, that as he found Sir Robert
by no means to be dreaded, he hoped the report, if generally
circulated and credited, might keep off other pretenders, and
intimidate or deceive young Delvile.
The purport for which Cecilia had wished this conference was,
however, wholly unanswered; Mr Monckton, enraged by the conduct of
Mr Harrel, refused to talk of his affairs, and could only mention
him with detestation: but Cecilia, less severe in her judgment, and
more tender in her heart, would not yet give up the hope of an
amendment she so anxiously wished; and having now no other person to
whom she could apply, determined to consult with Mr Arnott, whose
affection for his sister would give him a zeal in the affair that
might somewhat supply the place of superior abilities. There was,
indeed, no time to be lost in making the projected attempt, for no
sooner was the immediate danger of suffering removed, than the alarm
wore away, and the penitence was forgotten; every thing went on as
usual, no new regulations were made, no expences abated, no
pleasures forborn, not a thought of hereafter admitted: and ruinous
and terrible as had been the preceding storm, no trace of it was
visible in the serenity of the present calm.
An occasion of discussion with Mr Arnott very speedily offered. Mr
Harrel said he had observed in the looks of his friends at the
Pantheon much surprise at the sight of him, and declared he should
take yet another measure for removing all suspicion. This was to
give a splendid entertainment at his own house to all his
acquaintance, to which he meant to invite every body of any
consequence he had ever seen, and almost every body he had ever
heard of, in his life.
Levity so unfeeling, and a spirit of extravagance so irreclaimable,
were hopeless prognostics; yet Cecilia would not desist from her
design. She therefore took the earliest opportunity of speaking with
Mr Arnott upon the subject, when she openly expressed her uneasiness
at the state of his brother’s affairs, and warmly acknowledged her
displeasure at his dissipated way of life.
Mr Arnott soon shewed that example was all he wanted to declare the
same sentiments. He owned he had long disapproved the conduct of Mr
Harrel, and trembled at the situation of his sister. They then
considered what it was possible to propose that might retrieve their
affairs, and concluded that entirely to quit London for some years,
was the only chance that remained of saving them from absolute
destruction.
Mr Arnott, therefore, though fearfully, and averse to the talk, told
his sister their mutual advice. She thanked him, said she was much
obliged to him, and would certainly consider his proposal, and
mention it to Mr Harrel.—Parties of pleasure, however, intervened,
and the promise was neglected.
Cecilia then again spoke herself. Mrs Harrel, much softened by her
late acts of kindness, was no longer offended by her interference,
but contented herself with confessing that she quite hated the
country, and could only bear to live in it in summer time. And when
Cecilia very earnestly expostulated on the weakness of such an
objection to a step absolutely necessary for her future safety and
happiness, she said, she could do no worse than that if already
ruined, and therefore that she thought it would be very hard
to expect from her such a sacrifice before-hand.
It was in vain Cecilia remonstrated: Mrs Harrel’s love of pleasure
was stronger than her understanding, and therefore, though she
listened to her with patience, she concluded with the same answer
she had begun.
Cecilia then, though almost heartless, resolved upon talking with Mr
Harrel himself: and therefore, taking an opportunity which he had
not time to elude, she ingenuously told him her opinion of his
danger, and of the manner in which it might be avoided.
He paid unusual attention to her advice, but said she was much
mistaken with respect to his affairs, which he believed he should
now very speedily retrieve, as he had had the preceding night an
uncommon run of luck, and flattered himself with being able
very shortly to pay all his debts, and begin the world again upon a
new score.
This open confession of gaming was but a new shock to Cecilia, who
scrupled not to represent to him the uncertainty of so hazardous a
reliance, and the inevitable evils of so destructive a practice.
She made not, however, the least impression upon his mind; he
assured her he doubted not giving her shortly a good account of
himself, and that living in the country was a resource of
desperation which need not be anticipated.
Cecilia, though grieved and provoked by their mutual folly and
blindness, could proceed no further: advice and admonition she
spared not, but authority she had none to use. She regretted her
ineffectual attempt to Mr Arnott, who was yet more cruelly afflicted
at it; but though they conversed upon the subject by every
opportunity, they were equally unable to relate any success from
their efforts, or to devise any plan more likely to ensure it.
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