Early the next morning, Delvile again made his appearance. Cecilia,
who was at breakfast with Mrs and Miss Charltons, received him with
the most painful confusion, and he was evidently himself in a state of
the utmost perturbation. Mrs Charlton made a pretence almost
immediately for sending away both her grand-daughters, and then,
without taking the trouble of devising one for herself, arose and
followed them, though Cecilia made sundry signs of solicitation that
she would stay.
Finding herself now alone with him, she hastily, and without knowing
what she said, cried, “How is Mrs Delvile, Sir? Is she still at
Bristol?”
“At Bristol? no; have you never heard she is returned to Delvile
Castle?”
“O, true!—I meant Delvile Castle,—but I hope she found some benefit
from the waters?”
“She had not, I believe, any occasion to try them.”
Cecilia, ashamed of these two following mistakes, coloured high; but
ventured not again to speak: and Delvile, who seemed big with
something he feared to utter, arose, and walked for a few instants
about the room; after which, exclaiming aloud “How vain is every plan
which passes the present hour!” He advanced to Cecilia, who pretended
to be looking at some work, and seating himself next her, “when we
parted yesterday,” he cried, “I presumed to say one night alone should
be given to deliberation,—and to-day, this very day to action!—but I
forgot that though in deliberating I had only myself to consult, in
acting I was not so independent; and that when my own doubts were
satisfied, and my own resolutions taken, other doubts and other
resolutions must be considered, by which my purposed proceedings might
be retarded, might perhaps be wholly prevented!”
He paused, but Cecilia, unable to conjecture to what he was leading,
made not any answer.
“Upon you, madam,” he continued, “all that is good or evil of my
future life, as far as relates to its happiness or misery, will, from
this very hour, almost solely depend: yet much as I rely upon your
goodness, and superior as I know you to trifling or affectation, what
I now come to propose—to petition—to entreat—I cannot summon
courage to mention, from a dread of alarming you!”
What next, thought Cecilia, trembling at this introduction, is
preparing for me! does he mean to ask me to solicit Mrs
Delvile’s consent! or from myself must he receive commands that we
should never meet more!
“Is Miss Beverley,” cried he, “determined not to, speak to me? Is she
bent upon silence only to intimidate me? Indeed if she knew how
greatly I respect her, she would honour me with more confidence.”
“When, Sir,” cried she, “do you mean to make your tour?”
“Never!” cried he, with fervour, “unless banished by you,
never!—no, loveliest Miss Beverley, I can now quit you no more!
Fortune, beauty, worth and sweetness I had power to relinquish, and
severe as was the task, I compelled myself to perform it,—but when to
these I find joined so attractive a softness,—a pity for my
sufferings so unexpectedly gentle no! sweetest Miss Beverley, I can
quit you no more!” And then, seizing her hand, with yet greater
energy, he went on, “I here,” he cried, “offer you my vows, I here own
you sole arbitress of my fate! I give you not merely the possession of
my heart,—that, indeed, I had no power to withhold from you,—but I
give you the direction of my conduct, I entreat you to become my
counsellor and guide. Will Miss Beverley accept such an office? Will
she deign to listen to such a prayer?”
“Yes,” cried Cecilia, involuntarily delighted to find that such was
the result of his night’s deliberation, “I am most ready to give you
my counsel; which I now do,—that you set off for the Continent
to-morrow morning.”
“O how malicious!” cried he, half laughing, “yet not so immediately do
I even request your counsel; something must first be done to qualify
you for giving it: penetration, skill and understanding, however amply
you possess them, are not sufficient to fit you for the charge;
something still more is requisite, you must be invested with fuller
powers, you must have a right less disputable, and a title, that not
alone, inclination, not even judgment alone must sanctify, but which
law must enforce, and rites the most solemn support!”
“I think, then,” said Cecilia, deeply blushing, “I must be content to
forbear giving any counsel at all, if the qualifications for it are so
difficult of acquirement.”
“Resent not my presumption,” cried he, “my beloved Miss Beverley, but
let the severity of my recent sufferings palliate my present temerity;
for where affliction has been deep and serious, causeless and
unnecessary misery will find little encouragement; and mine has been
serious indeed! Sweetly, then, permit me, in proportion to its
bitterness, to rejoice in the soft reverse which now flatters me with
its approach.”
Cecilia, abashed and uneasy, uncertain of what was to follow, and
unwilling to speak till more assured, paused, and then abruptly
exclaimed “I am afraid Mrs Charlton is waiting for me,” and would have
hurried away: but Delvile, almost forcibly preventing her, compelled
her to stay; and, after a short conversation, on his side the most
impassioned, and on hers the most confused, obtained from her, what,
indeed, after the surprise of the preceding evening she could but ill
deny, a frank confirmation of his power over her heart, and an
ingenuous, though reluctant acknowledgment, how long he had possessed
it.
This confession, made, as affairs now stood, wholly in opposition to
her judgment, was torn from her by an impetuous urgency which she had
not presence of mind to resist, and with which Delvile, when
particularly animated, had long been accustomed to overpower all
opposition. The joy with which he heard it, though but little mixed
with wonder, was as violent as the eagerness with which he had sought
it; yet it was not of long duration, a sudden, and most painful
recollection presently quelled it, and even in the midst of his
rapturous acknowledgment, seemed to strike him to the heart.
Cecilia, soon perceiving both in his countenance and manner an
alteration that shocked her, bitterly repented an avowal she could
never recall, and looked aghast with expectation and dread.
Delvile, who with quickness saw a change of expression in her of which
in himself he was unconscious, exclaimed, with much emotion, “O how
transient is human felicity! How rapidly fly those rare and exquisite
moments in which it is perfect! Ah! sweetest Miss Beverley, what words
shall I find to soften what I have now to reveal! to tell you that,
after goodness, candour, generosity such as yours, a request, a
supplication remains yet to be uttered that banishes me, if refused,
from your presence for ever!”
Cecilia, extremely dismayed, desired to know what it was: an evident
dread of offending her kept him some time from proceeding, but at
length, after repeatedly expressing his fears of her disapprobation,
and a repugnance even on his own part to the very measure he was
obliged to urge, he acknowledged that all his hopes of being ever
united to her, rested upon obtaining her consent to an immediate and
secret marriage.
Cecilia, thunderstruck by this declaration, remained for a few
instants too much confounded to speak; but when he was beginning an
explanatory apology, she started up, and glowing with indignation,
said, “I had flattered myself, Sir, that both my character and my
conduct, independent of my situation in life, would have exempted me
at all times from a proposal which I shall ever think myself degraded
by having heard.”
And then she was again going, but Delvile still preventing her, said
“I knew too well how much you would be alarmed, and such was my dread
of your displeasure that it had power even to embitter the happiness I
sought with so much earnestness, and to render your condescension
insufficient to ensure it. Yet wonder not at my scheme; wild as it may
appear, it is the result of deliberation, and censurable as it may
seem, it springs not from unworthy motives.”
“Whatever may be your motives with respect to yourself, Sir,” said
Cecilia, “with respect to me they must certainly be disgraceful; I
will not, therefore, listen to them.”
“You wrong me cruelly,” cried he, with warmth, “and a moment’s
reflection must tell you that however distinct may be our honour or
our disgrace in every other instance, in that by which we should be
united, they must inevitably be the same: and far sooner would I
voluntarily relinquish you, than be myself accessory to tainting that
delicacy of which the unsullied purity has been the chief source of my
admiration.”
“Why, then,” cried Cecilia, reproachfully, “have you mentioned to me
such a project?”
“Circumstances the most singular, and necessity the most unavoidable,”
he answered, “should alone have ever tempted me to form it. No longer
ago than yesterday morning, I believed myself incapable of even
wishing it; but extraordinary situations call for extraordinary
resolutions, and in private as well as public life, palliate, at
least, extraordinary actions. Alas! the proposal which so much offends
you is my final resource! it is the sole barrier between myself and
perpetual misery!—the only expedient in my power to save me from
eternally parting from you!—for I am compelled now cruelly to
confess, that my family, I am certain, will never consent to our
union!”
“Neither, then, Sir,” cried Cecilia, with great spirit, “will I! The
disdain I may meet with I pretend not to retort, but wilfully to
encounter, were meanly to deserve it. I will enter into no family in
opposition to its wishes, I will consent to no alliance that may
expose me to indignity. Nothing is so contagious as contempt!—The
example of your friends might work powerfully upon yourself, and who
shall dare assure me you would not catch the infection?”
“I dare assure you!” cried he; “hasty you may perhaps think me,
and somewhat impetuous I cannot deny myself; but believe me not of so
wretched a character as to be capable, in any affair of moment, of
fickleness or caprice.”
“But what, Sir, is my security to the contrary? Have you not this
moment avowed that but yesterday you held in abhorrence the very plan
that to-day you propose? And may you not to-morrow resume again the
same opinion?”
“Cruel Miss Beverley! how unjust is this inference! If yesterday I
disapproved what to-day I recommend, a little recollection must surely
tell you why: and that not my opinion, but my situation is changed.”
The conscious Cecilia here turned away her head; too certain he
alluded to the discovery of her partiality.
“Have you not yourself,” he continued, “witnessed the steadiness of my
mind? Have you not beheld me fly, when I had power to pursue, and
avoid, when I had opportunity to seek you? After witnessing my
constancy upon such trying occasions, is it equitable, is it right to
suspect me of wavering?”
“But what,” cried she, “was the constancy which brought you into
Suffolk?—When all occasion was over for our meeting any more, when
you told me you were going abroad, and took leave of me for ever,—
where, then, was your steadiness in this unnecessary journey?”
“Have a care,” cried he, half smiling, and taking a letter from his
pocket, “have a care, upon this point, how you provoke me to spew my
justification!”
“Ah!” cried Cecilia, blushing, “’tis some trick of Lady Honoria!”
“No, upon my honour. The authority is less doubtful: I believe I
should hardly else have regarded it.”
Cecilia, much alarmed, held out her hand for the letter; and looking
first at the end was much astonished to see the name of Biddulph. She
then cast her eye over the beginning, and when she saw her own name,
read the following paragraph.
“Miss Beverley, as you doubtless know, is returned into Suffolk; every
body here saw her with the utmost surprize; from the moment I had
heard of her residence in Delvile Castle, I had given her up for lost:
but, upon her unexpected appearance among us again, I was weak enough
once more to make trial of her heart. I soon found, however, that the
pain of a second rejection you might have spared me, and that
though she had quitted Delvile Castle, she had not for nothing entered
it: at the sound of your name, she blushes; at the mention of your
illness, she turns pale; and the dog you have given her, which I
recollected immediately, is her darling companion. Oh happy Delvile!
yet so lovely a conquest you abandon.—”
Cecilia could read no more; the letter dropt from her hand: to find
herself thus by her own emotions betrayed, made her instantly conclude
she was universally discovered: and turning sick at the supposition,
all her spirit forsook her, and she burst into tears.
“Good heaven,” cried Delvile, extremely shocked, “what has thus
affected you? Can the jealous surmises of an apprehensive rival—”
“Do not talk to me,” interrupted she, impatiently, “and do not detain
me,—I am extremely disturbed,—I wish to be alone,—I beg, I even
entreat you would leave me.”
“I will go, I will obey you in every thing!” cried he, eagerly, “tell
me but when I may return, and when you will suffer me to explain to
you all the motives of my proposal?”
“Never, never!” cried she, with earnestness, “I am sufficiently
lowered already, but never will I intrude myself into a family that
disdains me!”
“Disdains? No, you are revered in it! who could disdain you! That
fatal clause alone—”
“Well, well, pray leave me; indeed I cannot hear you; I am unfit for
argument, and all reasoning now is nothing less than cruelty.”
“I am gone,” cried he, “this moment! I would not even wish to take
advantage of your agitation in order to work upon your sensibility. My
desire is not to surprize, but to reconcile you to my plan. What is it
I seek in Miss Beverley? An Heiress? No, as such she has seen I could
resist her; nor yet the light trifler of a spring or two, neglected
when no longer a novelty; no, no!—it is a companion for ever, it is a
solace for every care, it is a bosom friend through every period of
life that I seek in Miss Beverley! Her esteem, therefore, to me is as
precious as her affection, for how can I hope her friendship in the
winter of my days, if their brighter and gayer season is darkened by
doubts of my integrity? All shall be clear and explicit; no latent
cause of uneasiness shall disturb our future quiet: we will now be
sincere, that hereafter we may be easy; and sweetly in unclouded
felicity, time shall glide away imperceptibly, and we will make an
interest with each other in the gaiety of youth, to bear with the
infirmities of age, and alleviate them by kindness and sympathy. And
then shall my soothing Cecilia—”
“O say no more!” interrupted she, softened in her own despite by a
plan so consonant to her wishes, “what language is this! how improper
for you to use, or me to hear!”
She then very earnestly insisted upon his going; and after a thousand
times taking leave and returning, promising obedience, yet pursuing
his own way, he at length said if she would consent to receive a
letter from him, he would endeavour to commit what he had to
communicate to paper, since their mutual agitation made him unable to
explain himself with clearness, and rather hurt his cause than
assisted it, by leaving all his arguments unfinished and obscure.
Another dispute now arose; Cecilia protesting she would receive no
letter, and hear nothing upon the subject; and Delvile impetuously
declaring he would submit to no award without being first heard. At
length he conquered, and at length he departed.
Cecilia then felt her whole heart sink within her at the unhappiness
of her situation. She considered herself now condemned to refuse
Delvile herself, as the only condition upon which he even solicited
her favour, neither the strictness of her principles, nor the delicacy
of her mind, would suffer her to accept. Her displeasure at the
proposal had been wholly unaffected, and she regarded it as an injury
to her character ever to have received it; yet that Delvile’s pride of
heart should give way to his passion, that he should love her with so
much fondness as to relinquish for her the ambitious schemes of his
family, and even that darling name which so lately seemed annexed to
his existence, were circumstances to which she was not insensible, and
proofs of tenderness and regard which she had thought incompatible
with the general spirit of his disposition. Yet however by these she
was gratified, she resolved never to comply with so humiliating a
measure, but to wait the consent of his friends, or renounce him for
ever.
Nguồn: Wikisource English — Cecilia (Burney)/Book 7/Chapter iv. Văn bản được nhập và định dạng lại; CC BY-SA 4.0, có thể áp dụng điều khoản bổ sung của tác phẩm.