Delvile had been gone but a short time, before Henrietta, her eyes
still red, though no longer streaming, opened the parlour door, and
asked if she might come in?
Cecilia wished to be alone, yet could not refuse her.
“Well, madam,” cried she, with a forced smile, and constrained air of
bravery, “did not I guess right?”
“In what?” said Cecilia, unwilling to understand her.
“In what I said would happen?—I am sure you know what I mean.”
Cecilia, extremely embarrassed, made no answer; she much regretted the
circumstances which had prevented an earlier communication, and was
uncertain whether, now, it would prove most kind or most cruel to
acquaint her with what was in agitation, which, should it terminate in
nothing, was unnecessarily wounding her delicacy for the openness of
her confidence, and which, however serviceable it might prove to her in
the end, was in the means so rough and piercing she felt the utmost
repugnance to the experiment.
“You think me, madam, too free,” said Henrietta, “in asking such a
question; and indeed your kindness has been so great, it may well make
me forget myself: but if it does, I am sure I deserve you should send
me home directly, and then there is not much fear I shall soon he
brought to my senses!”
“No, my dear Henrietta, I can never think you too free; I have told you
already every thing I thought you would have pleasure in hearing;
whatever I have concealed, I have been fearful would only pain you.”
“I have deserved, madam,” said she, with spirit, “to be pained, for I
have behaved with the folly of a baby. I am very angry with myself
indeed! I was old enough to have known better,—and I ought to have
been wise enough.”
“You must then be angry with yourself, next,” said Cecilia, anxious to
re-encourage her, “for all the love that I bear you; since to your
openness and frankness it was entirely owing.”
“But there are some things that people should not be frank in;
however, I am only come now to beg you will tell me, madam, when it is
to be;—and don’t think I ask out of nothing but curiosity, for I have a
very great reason for it indeed.”
“What be, my dear Henrietta?—you are very rapid in your ideas!”
“I will tell you, madam, what my reason is; I shall go away to my own
home,—and so I would if it were ten times a worse home than it is!—
just exactly the day before. Because afterwards I shall never like to
look that gentleman in the face,—never, never!—for married ladies I
know are not to be trusted!”
“Be not apprehensive; you have no occasion. Whatever may be my fate, I
will never be so treacherous as to betray my beloved Henrietta to any
body.”
“May I ask you, madam, one question?”
“Certainly.”
“Why did all this never happen before?”
“Indeed,” cried Cecilia, much distressed, “I know not that it will
happen now.”
“Why what, dear madam, can hinder it?”
“A thousand, thousand things! nothing can be less secure.”
“And then I am still as much puzzled as ever. I heard, a good while
ago, and we all heard that it was to be; and I thought that it was no
wonder, I am sure, for I used often to think it was just what was most
likely; but afterwards we heard it was no such thing, and from that
moment I always believed there had been nothing at all in it.”
“I must speak to you, I find, with sincerity; my affairs have long been
in strange perplexity: I have not known myself what to expect; one day
has perpetually reversed the prospect of another, and my mind has been
in a state of uncertainty and disorder, that has kept it—that still
keeps it from comfort and from rest!”
“This surprises me indeed, madam! I thought you were all happiness!
but I was sure you deserved it, and I thought you had it for that
reward. And this has been the thing that has made me behave so wrong;
for I took it into my head I might tell you every thing, because I
concluded it could be nothing to you; for if great people loved one
another, I always supposed they married directly; poor people, indeed,
must stay till they are able to settle; but what in the whole world,
thought I, if they like one another, should hinder such a rich lady as
Miss Beverley from marrying such a rich gentleman at once?”
Cecilia now, finding there was no longer any chance for concealment,
thought it better to give the poor Henrietta at least the gratification
of unreserved confidence, which might somewhat sooth her uneasiness by
proving her reliance in her faith. She frankly, therefore, confessed to
her the whole of her situation. Henrietta wept at the recital with
bitterness, thought Mr Delvile a monster, and Mrs Delvile herself
scarce human; pitied Cecilia with unaffected tenderness, and wondered
that the person could exist who had the heart to give grief to young
Delvile! She thanked her most gratefully for reposing such trust in
her; and Cecilia made use of this opportunity, to enforce the necessity
of her struggling more seriously to recover her indifferency.
She promised she would not fail; and forbore steadily from that time to
name Delvile any more: but the depression of her spirits shewed she had
suffered a disappointment such as astonished even Cecilia. Though
modest and humble, she had conceived hopes the most romantic, and
though she denied, even to herself, any expectations from Delvile, she
involuntarily nourished them with the most sanguine simplicity. To
compose and to strengthen her became the whole business of Cecilia;
who, during her present suspense, could find no other employment in
which she could take any interest.
Mr Monckton, to whom nothing was unknown that related to Cecilia, was
soon informed of Delvile’s visit, and hastened in the utmost alarm, to
learn its event. She had now lost all the pleasure she had formerly
derived from confiding in him, but though averse and confused, could
not withstand his enquiries.
Unlike the tender Henrietta’s was his disappointment at this relation,
and his rage at such repeated trials was almost more than he could
curb. He spared neither the Delviles for their insolence of mutability
in rejecting or seeking her at their pleasure, nor herself for her
easiness of submission in being thus the dupe of their caprices. The
subject was difficult for Cecilia to dilate upon; she wished to clear,
as he deserved, Delvile himself from any share in the censure, and she
felt hurt and offended at the charge of her own improper readiness; yet
shame and pride united in preventing much vindication of either, and
she heard almost in silence what with pain she bore to hear at all.
He now saw, with inexpressible disturbance, that whatever was his power
to make her uneasy, he had none to make her retract, and that the
conditional promise she had given Delvile to be wholly governed by his
mother, she was firm in regarding to be as sacred as one made at the
altar.
Perceiving this, he dared trust his temper with no further debate; he
assumed a momentary calmness for the purpose of taking leave of her,
and with pretended good wishes for her happiness, whatever might be her
determination, he stifled the reproaches with which his whole heart was
swelling, and precipitately left her.
Cecilia, affected by his earnestness, yet perplexed in all her
opinions, was glad to be relieved from useless exhortations, and not
sorry, in her present uncertainty, that his visit was not repeated.
She neither saw nor heard from Delvile for a week, and augured nothing
but evil from such delay. The following letter then came by the post.
To Miss Beverley. April 2d, 1780
I must write without comments, for I dare not trust myself with making
any; I must write without any beginning address, for I know not how you
will permit me to address you.
I have lived a life of tumult since last compelled to leave you, and
when it may subside, I am still in utter ignorance.
The affecting account of the losses you have suffered through your
beneficence to the Harrels, and the explanatory one of the calumnies
you have sustained from your kindness to the Belfields, I related with
the plainness which alone I thought necessary to make them felt. I then
told the high honour I had received, in meeting with no other repulse
to my proposal, than was owing to an inability to accede to it; and
informed my mother of the condescending powers with which you had
invested her. In conclusion I mentioned my new scheme, and firmly,
before I would listen to any opposition, I declared that though wholly
to their decision I left the relinquishing my own name or your fortune,
I was not only by your generosity more internally yours than ever, but
that since again I had ventured, and with permission to apply to you, I
should hold myself hence forward unalterably engaged to you.
And so I do, and so I shall! nor, after a renewal so public, will any
prohibition but yours have force to keep me from throwing myself at
your feet.
My father’s answer I will not mention; I would I could forget it! his
prejudices are irremediable, his resolutions are inflexible. Who or
what has worked him into an animosity so irreclaimable, I cannot
conjecture, nor will he tell; but something darkly mysterious has part
in his wrath and his injustice.
My mother was much affected by your reference to herself. Words of the
sweetest praise broke repeatedly from her; no other such woman, she
said, existed; no other such instance could be found of fidelity so
exalted! her son must have no heart but for low and mercenary
selfishness, if, after a proof of regard so unexampled, he could bear
to live without her! Oh how did such a sentence from lips so highly
reverenced, animate, delight, confirm, and oblige me at once!
The displeasure of my father at this declaration was dreadful; his
charges, always as improbable as injurious, now became too horrible for
my ears; he disbelieved you had taken up the money for Harrel, he
discredited that you visited the Belfields for Henrietta: passion not
merely banished his justice, but, clouded his reason, and I soon left
the room, that at least I might not hear the aspersions he forbid me to
answer.
I left not, however, your fame to a weak champion: my mother defended
it with all the spirit of truth, and all the confidence of similar
virtue! yet they parted without conviction, and so mutually irritated
with each other, that they agreed to meet no more.
This was too terrible! and I instantly consolidated my resentment to my
father, and my gratitude to my mother, into concessions and
supplications to both; I could not, however, succeed; my mother was
deeply offended, my father was sternly inexorable: nor here rests the
evil of their dissention, for the violence of the conflict has
occasioned a return more alarming than ever of the illness of my
mother.
All her faith in her recovery is now built upon going abroad; she is
earnest to set off immediately; but Dr Lyster has advised her to make
London in her way, and have a consultation of physicians before she
departs.
To this she has agreed; and we are now upon the road thither.
Such is, at present, the melancholy state of my affairs. My mother
advised me to write; forgive me, therefore, that I waited not
something more decisive to say. I could prevail upon neither party to
meet before the journey; nor could I draw from my father the base
fabricator of the calumnies by which he has been thus abused.
Unhappily, I have nothing more to add: and whether intelligence, such
as this, or total suspense, would be least irksome, I know not. If my
mother bears her journey tolerably well, I have yet one more effort to
make; and of that the success or the failure will be instantly
communicated to Miss Beverley, by her eternally devoted, but half
distracted.
Mortimer Delvile.
Scarcely could Cecilia herself decide whether this comfortless letter
or none at all were preferable. The implacability of Mr Delvile was
shocking, but his slandering her character was still more intolerable;
yet the praises of the mother, and her generous vindication, joined to
the invariable reliance of Delvile upon her innocence, conferred upon
her an honour that offered some alleviation.
The mention of a fabricator again brought Mr Monckton to her mind, and
not all her unwillingness to think him capable of such treachery, could
now root out her suspicions. Delvile’s temper, however, she knew was
too impetuous to be trusted with this conjecture, and her fear of
committing injustice being thus seconded by prudence, she determined to
keep to herself doubts that could not without danger be divulged.
She communicated briefly to Henrietta, who looked her earnest
curiosity, the continuance of her suspense; and to her own fate
Henrietta became somewhat more reconciled, when she saw that no station
in life rendered happiness certain or permanent.
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