Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress. Volume 3

“What is the matter with them, Sir?”

“Why, ma’am, no great matter, but mothers are soon frightened, and when once they are upon the fret, one may as well talk to the boards! they know no more of reasoning and arguing, than they do of a shop ledger! however, my maxim is this; every body in their way; one has no more right to expect courageousness from a lady in them cases, than one has from a child in arms; for what I say is, they have not the proper use of their heads, which makes it very excusable.”

“But what has occasioned any alarm? nothing, I hope, is the matter with Miss Belfield?”

“No, ma’am; thank God, the young lady enjoys her health very well: but she is taking on just in the same way as her mamma, as what can be more natural? Example, ma’am, is apt to be catching, and one lady’s crying makes another think she must do the same, for a little thing serves for a lady’s tears, being they can cry at any time: but a man is quite of another nature, let him but have a good conscience, and be clear of the world, and I’ll engage he’ll not wash his face without soap! that’s what I say!”

“Will, will!” cried Mr Briggs, “do it myself! never use soap; nothing but waste; take a little sand; does as well.”

“Let every man have his own proposal;” answered Hobson; “for my part, I take every morning a large bowl of water, and souse my whole head in it; and then when I’ve rubbed it dry, on goes my wig, and I am quite fresh and agreeable: and then I take a walk in Tottenham Court Road as far as the Tabernacle, or thereabouts, and snuff in a little fresh country air, and then I come back, with a good wholesome appetite, and in a fine breathing heat, asking the young lady’s pardon; and I enjoy my pot of fresh tea, and my round of hot toast and butter, with as good a relish as if I was a Prince.”

“Pot of fresh tea,” cried Briggs, “bring a man to ruin; toast and butter! never suffer it in my house. Breakfast on water-gruel, sooner done; fills one up in a second. Give it my servants; can’t eat much of it. Bob ‘em there!” nodding significantly.

“Water-gruel!” exclaimed Mr Hobson, “why I could not get it down if I might have the world for it! it would make me quite sick, asking the young lady’s pardon, by reason I should always think I was preparing for the small-pox. My notion is quite of another nature; the first thing I do is to have a good fire; for what I say is this, if a man is cold in his fingers, it’s odds if ever he gets warm in his purse! ha! ha! warm, you take me, Sir? I mean a pun. Though I ought to ask pardon, for I suppose the young lady don’t know what I am a saying.”

“I should indeed be better pleased, Sir,” said Cecilia, “to hear what you have to say about Miss Belfield.”

“Why, ma’am, the thing is this; we have been expecting the young ‘Squire, as I call him, all the morning, and he has never come; so Mrs Belfield, not knowing where to send after him, was of opinion he might be here, knowing your kindness to him, and that.”

“You make the enquiry at the wrong place, Sir,” said Cecilia, much provoked by the implication it conveyed; “if Mr Belfield is in this house, you must seek him with Mr Monckton.”

“You take no offence, I hope, ma’am, at my just asking of the question? for Mrs Belfield crying, and being in that dilemma, I thought I could do no less than oblige her by coming to see if the young gentleman was here.”

“What’s this? what’s this?” cried Mr Briggs eagerly; “who are talking of? hay?—who do mean? is this the sweet heart? eh, Duck?”

“No, no, Sir,” cried Cecilia.

“No tricks! won’t be bit! who is it? will know; tell me, I say!”

“I’ll tell Sir,” cried Mr Hobson; “it’s a very handsome young gentleman, with as fine a person, and as genteel a way of behaviour, and withal, as pretty a manner of dressing himself, and that, as any lady need desire. He has no great head for business, as I am told, but the ladies don’t stand much upon that topic, being they know nothing of it themselves.”

“Has got the ready?” cried Mr Briggs, impatiently; “can cast an account? that’s the point; can come down handsomely? eh?”

“Why as to that, Sir, I’m not bound to speak to a gentleman’s private affairs. What’s my own, is my own, and what is another person’s, is another person’s; that’s my way of arguing, and that’s what I call talking to the purpose.”

“Dare say he’s a rogue! don’t have him, chick. Bet a wager i’n’t worth two shillings; and that will go for powder and pomatum; hate a plaistered pate; commonly a numscull: love a good bob-jerom.”

“Why this is talking quite wide of the mark,” said Mr Hobson, “to suppose a young lady of fortunes would marry a man with a bob-jerom. What I say is, let every body follow their nature; that’s the way to be comfortable; and then if they pay every one his own, who’s a right to call ‘em to account, whether they wear a bob-jerom, or a pig-tail down to the calves of their legs?”

“Ay, ay,” cried Briggs, sneeringly, “or whether they stuff their gullets with hot rounds of toast and butter.”

“And what if they do, Sir?” returned Hobson, a little angrily; “when a man’s got above the world, where’s the harm of living a little genteel? as to a round of toast and butter, and a few oysters, fresh opened, by way of a damper before dinner, no man need be ashamed of them, provided he pays as he goes: and as to living upon water-gruel, and scrubbing one’s flesh with sand, one might as well be a galley-slave at once. You don’t understand life, Sir, I see that.”

“Do! do!” cried Briggs, speaking through his shut teeth; “you’re out there! oysters!—come to ruin, tell you! bring you to jail!”

“To jail, Sir?” exclaimed Hobson, “this is talking quite ungenteel! let every man be civil; that’s what I say, for that’s the way to make every thing agreeable but as to telling a man he’ll go to jail, and that, it’s tantamount to affronting him.”

A rap at the street-door gave now a new relief to Cecilia, who began to grow very apprehensive lest the delight of spending money, thus warmly contested with that of hoarding it, should give rise to a quarrel, which, between two such sturdy champions for their own opinions, might lead to a conclusion rather more rough and violent than she desired to witness: but when the parlour-door opened, instead of Mr Delvile, whom she now fully expected, Mr Albany made his entrance.

This was rather distressing, as her real business with her guardians made it proper her conference with them should be undisturbed: and Albany was not a man with whom a hint that she was engaged could be risked: but she had made no preparation to guard against interruption, as her little acquaintance in London had prevented her expecting any visitors.

He advanced with a solemn air to Cecilia, and, looking as if hardly determined whether to speak with severity or gentleness, said, “once more I come to prove thy sincerity; now wilt thou go with me where sorrow calls thee? sorrow thy charity can mitigate?”

“I am very much concerned,” she answered, “but indeed at present it is utterly impossible.”

“Again,” cried he, with a look at once stern and disappointed, “again thou failest me? what wanton trifling! why shouldst thou thus elate a worn-out mind, only to make it feel its lingering credulity? or why, teaching me to think I had found an angel, so unkindly undeceive me?”

“Indeed,” said Cecilia, much affected by this reproof, “if you knew how heavy a loss I had personally suffered—”

“I do know it,” cried he, “and I grieved for thee when I heard it. Thou hast lost a faithful old friend, a loss which with every setting sun thou mayst mourn, for the rising sun will never repair it! but was that a reason for shunning the duties of humanity? was the sight of death a motive for neglecting the claims of benevolence? ought it not rather to have hastened your fulfilling them? and should not your own suffering experience of the brevity of life, have taught you the vanity of all things but preparing for its end?”

“Perhaps so, but my grief at that time made me think only of myself.”

“And of what else dost thou think now?”

“Most probably of the same person still!” said she, half smiling, “but yet believe me, I have real business to transact.”

“Frivolous, unmeaning, ever-ready excuses! what business is so important as the relief of a fellow-creature?”

“I shall not, I hope, there,” answered she, with alacrity, “be backward; but at least for this morning I must beg to make you my Almoner.”

She then took out her purse.

Mr Briggs and Mr Hobson, whose quarrel had been suspended by the appearance of a third person, and who had stood during this short dialogue in silent amazement, having first lost their anger in their mutual consternation, now lost their consternation in their mutual displeasure Mr. Hobson felt offended to hear business spoken of slightly, and Mr Briggs felt enraged at the sight of Cecilia’s ready purse. Neither of them, however, knew which way to interfere, the stem gravity of Albany, joined to a language too lofty for their comprehension, intimidating them both. They took, however, the relief of communing with one another, and Mr Hobson said in a whisper “This, you must know, is, I am told, a very particular old gentleman; quite what I call a genius. He comes often to my house, to see my lodger Miss Henny Belfield, though I never happen to light upon him myself, except once in the passage: but what I hear of him is this; he makes a practice, as one may say, of going about into people’s houses, to do nothing but find fault.”

“Shan’t get into mine!” returned Briggs, “promise him that! don’t half like him; be bound he’s an old sharper.”

Cecilia, mean time, enquired what he desired to have.

“Half a guinea,” he answered.

“Will that do?”

“For those who have nothing,” said he, “it is much. Hereafter, you may assist them again. Go but and see their distresses, and you will wish to give them every thing.”

Mr Briggs now, when actually between her fingers he saw the half guinea, could contain no longer; he twitched the sleeve of her gown, and pinching her arm, with a look of painful eagerness, said in a whisper “Don’t give it! don’t let him have it! chouse him, chouse him! nothing but an old bite!”

“Pardon me, Sir,” said Cecilia, in a low voice, “his character is very well known to me.” And then, disengaging her arm from him, she presented her little offering.

At this sight, Mr Briggs was almost outrageous, and losing in his wrath, all fear of the stranger, he burst forth with fury into the following outcries, “Be ruined! see it plainly; be fleeced! be stript! be robbed! won’t have a gown to your back! won’t have a shoe to your foot! won’t have a rag in the world! be a beggar in the street! come to the parish! rot in a jail!—half a guinea at a time!—enough to break the Great Mogul!”

“Inhuman spirit of selfish parsimony!” exclaimed Albany, “repinest thou at this loan, given from thousands to those who have worse than nothing? who pay to-day in hunger for bread they borrowed yesterday from pity? who to save themselves from the deadly pangs of famine, solicit but what the rich know not when they possess, and miss not when they give?”

“Anan!” cried Briggs, recovering his temper from the perplexity of his understanding, at a discourse to which his ears were wholly unaccustomed, “what d’ye say?”

“If to thyself distress may cry in vain,” continued Albany, “if thy own heart resists the suppliant’s prayer, callous to entreaty, and hardened in the world, suffer, at least, a creature yet untainted, who melts at sorrow, and who glows with charity, to pay from her vast wealth a generous tax of thankfulness, that fate has not reversed her doom, and those whom she relieves, relieve not her!”

“Anan!” was again all the wondering Mr Briggs could say.