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 delight she had seldom received from any
thing; and the belief that this was effected by the superiority of her
cunning, doubled her contentment, and raised it to exultation. She owed
him, indeed, much provocation and uneasiness, and was happy in this
opportunity of paying her arrears.
Mean while that consummate master in every species of hypocrisy,
indulged her in this notion, by the air of dissatisfaction with which
he left the house. It was not that she meant by her presence to obviate
any impropriety: early and long acquainted with the character of
Cecilia, she well knew, that during her life the passion of her husband
must be confined to his own breast: but conscious of his aversion to
herself, which she resented with the bitterest ill-will, and knowing
how little, at any time, he desired her company, she consoled herself
for her inability to give pleasure by the power she possessed of giving
pain, and bore with the fatigue of a journey disagreeable and
inconvenient to her, with no other view than the hope of breaking into
his plan of avoiding her. Little imagining that the whole time she was
forwarding his favourite pursuit, and only acting the part which he had
appointed her to perform.
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