Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress. Volume 3

“Pray, ma’am,” said Mr Hobson, to Cecilia, “if it’s no offence, was the Gentleman ever a player?”

“I fancy not, indeed!”

“I ask pardon, then, ma’am; I mean no harm; but my notion was the gentleman might be speaking something by heart.”

“Is it but on the stage, humanity exists?” cried Albany, indignantly; “Oh thither hasten, then, ye monopolizers of plenty! ye selfish, unfeeling engrossers of wealth, which ye dissipate without enjoying, and of abundance, which ye waste while ye refuse to distribute! thither, thither haste, if there humanity exists!”

“As to engrossing,” said Mr Hobson, happy to hear at last a word with which he was familiar, “it’s what I never approved myself. My maxim is this; if a man makes a fair penny, without any underhand dealings, why he has as much a title to enjoy his pleasure as the Chief Justice, or the Lord Chancellor: and it’s odds but he’s as happy as a greater man. Though what I hold to be best of all, is a clear conscience, with a neat income of 2 or 3000 a year. That’s my notion; and I don’t think it’s a bad one.”

“Weak policy of short-sighted ignorance!” cried Albany, “to wish for what, if used, brings care, and if neglected, remorse! have you not now beyond what nature craves? why then still sigh for more?”

“Why?” cried Mr Briggs, who by dint of deep attention began now better to comprehend him, “why to buy in, to be sure! ever hear of stocks, eh? know any thing of money?”

“Still to make more and more,” cried Albany, “and wherefore? to spend in vice and idleness, or hoard in chearless misery! not to give succour to the wretched, not to support the falling; all is for self, however little wanted, all goes to added stores, or added luxury; no fellow-creature served, nor even one beggar relieved!”

“Glad of it!” cried Briggs, “glad of it; would not have ‘em relieved; don’t like ‘em; hate a beggar; ought to be all whipt; live upon spunging.”

“Why as to a beggar, I must needs say,” cried Mr Hobson, “I am by no means an approver of that mode of proceeding; being I take ‘em all for cheats: for what I say is this, what a man earns, he earns, and it’s no man’s business to enquire what he spends, for a free-born Englishman is his own master by the nature of the law, and as to his being a subject, why a duke is no more, nor a judge, nor the Lord High Chancellor, and the like of those; which makes it tantamount to nothing, being he is answerable to nobody by the right of Magna Charta: except in cases of treason, felony, and that. But as to a beggar, it’s quite another thing; he comes and asks me for money; but what has he to shew for it? what does he bring me in exchange? why a long story that he i’n’t worth a penny! what’s that to me? nothing at all. Let every man have his own; that’s my way of arguing.”

“Ungentle mortals!” cried Albany, “in wealth exulting; even in inhumanity! think you these wretched outcasts have less sensibility than yourselves? think you, in cold and hunger, they lose those feelings which even in voluptuous prosperity from time to time disturb you? you say they are all cheats? ‘tis but the niggard cant of avarice, to lure away remorse from obduracy. Think you the naked wanderer begs from choice? give him your wealth and try.”

“Give him a whip!” cried Briggs, “sha’n’t have a souse! send him to Bridewell! nothing but a pauper; hate ‘em; hate ‘em all! full of tricks; break their own legs, put out their arms, cut off their fingers, snap their own ancles,—all for what? to get at the chink! to chouse us of cash! ought to be well flogged; have ‘em all sent to the Thames; worse than the Convicts.”

“Poor subterfuge of callous cruelty! you cheat yourselves, to shun the fraud of others! and yet, how better do you use the wealth so guarded? what nobler purpose can it answer to you, than even a chance to snatch some wretch from sinking? think less how much ye save, and more for what; and then consider how thy full coffers may hereafter make reparation, for the empty catalogue of thy virtues.”

“Anan!” said Mr Briggs, again lost in perplexity and wonder.

“Oh yet,” continued Albany, turning towards Cecilia, “preach not here the hardness which ye practice; rather amend yourselves than corrupt her; and give with liberality what ye ought to receive with gratitude!”

“This is not my doctrine,” cried Hobson; “I am not a near man, neither, but as to giving at that rate, it’s quite out of character. I have as good a right to my own savings, as to my own gettings; and what I say is this, who’ll give to me? let me see that, and it’s quite another thing: and begin who will, I’ll be bound to go on with him, pound for pound, or pence for pence. But as to giving to them beggars, it’s what I don’t approve; I pay the poor’s rate, and that’s what I call charity enough for any man. But for the matter of living well, and spending one’s money handsomely, and having one’s comforts about one, why it’s a thing of another nature, and I can say this for myself, and that is, I never grudged myself any thing in my life. I always made myself agreeable, and lived on the best. That’s my way.”

“Bad way too,” cried Briggs, “never get on with it, never see beyond your nose; won’t be worth a plum while your head wags!” then, taking Cecilia apart, “hark’ee, my duck,” he added, pointing to Albany, “who is that Mr Bounce, eh? what is he?”

“I have known him but a short time, Sir; but I think of him very highly.”

“Is he a good man? that’s the point, is he a good man?”

“Indeed he appears to me uncommonly benevolent and charitable.”

“But that i’n’t the thing; is he warm? that’s the point, is he warm?”

“If you mean passionate,” said Cecilia, “I believe the energy of his manner is merely to enforce what he says.”

“Don’t take me, don’t take me,” cried he, impatiently; “can come down with the ready, that’s the matter; can chink the little gold boys? eh?”

“Why I rather fear not by his appearance; but I know nothing of his affairs.”

“What does come for? eh? come a courting?”

“Mercy on me, no!”

“What for then? only a spunging?”

“No, indeed. He seems to have no wish but to assist and plead for others.”

“All fudge! think he i’n’t touched? ay, ay; nothing but a trick! only to get at the chink: see he’s as poor as a rat, talks of nothing but giving money; a bad sign! if he’d got any, would not do it. Wanted to make us come down; warrant thought to bam us all! out there! a’n’t so soon gulled.”

A knock at the street door gave now a new interruption, and Mr Delvile at length appeared.

Cecilia, whom his sight could not fail to disconcert, felt doubly distressed by the unnecessary presence of Albany and Hobson; she regretted the absence of Mr Monckton, who could easily have taken them away; for though without scruple she could herself have acquainted Mr Hobson she had business, she dreaded offending Albany, whose esteem she was ambitious of obtaining.

Mr Delvile entered the room with an air stately and erect; he took off his hat, but deigned not to make the smallest inclination of his head, nor offered any excuse to Mr Briggs for being past the hour of his appointment: but having advanced a few paces, without looking either to the right or left, said, “as I have never acted, my coming may not, perhaps, be essential; but as my name is in the Dean’s Will, and I have once or twice met the other executors mentioned in it, I think it a duty I owe to my own heirs to prevent any possible future enquiry or trouble to them.”

This speech was directly addressed to no one, though meant to be attended to by every one, and seemed proudly uttered as a mere apology to himself for not having declined the meeting.

Cecilia, though she recovered from her confusion by the help of her aversion to this self-sufficiency, made not any answer. Albany retired to a corner of the room; Mr Hobson began to believe it was time for him to depart; and Mr Briggs thinking only of the quarrel in which he had separated with Mr Delvile in the summer, stood swelling with venom, which he longed for an opportunity to spit out.

Mr Delvile, who regarded this silence as the effect of his awe-inspiring presence, became rather more complacent; but casting his eyes round the room, and perceiving the two strangers, he was visibly surprised, and looking at Cecilia for some explanation, seemed to stand suspended from the purpose of his visit till he heard one.

Cecilia, earnest to have the business concluded, turned to Mr Briggs, and said, “Sir, here is pen and ink: are you to write, or am I? or what is to be done?”

“No, no,” said he, with a sneer, “give it t’other; all in our turn; don’t come before his Grace the Right Honourable Mr Vampus.”

“Before whom, Sir?” said Mr Delvile, reddening.

“Before my Lord Don Pedigree,” answered Briggs, with a spiteful grin, “know him? eh? ever hear of such a person?”

Mr Delvile coloured still deeper, but turning contemptuously from him, disdained making any reply.

Mr Briggs, who now regarded him as a defeated man, said exultingly to Mr Hobson, “what do stand here for?—hay?—fall o’ your marrowbones; don’t see ‘Squire High and Mighty?”

“As to falling on my marrowbones,” answered Mr Hobson, “it’s what I shall do to no man, except he was the King himself, or the like of that, and going to make me Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Commissioner of Excise. Not that I mean the gentleman any offence; but a man’s a man, and for one man to worship another is quite out of law.”

“Must, must!” cried Briggs, “tell all his old grand-dads else: keeps ‘em in a roll; locks ‘em in a closet; says his prayers to ‘em; can’t live without ‘em: likes ‘em better than cash!—wish had ‘em here! pop ‘em all in the sink!”

“If your intention, Sir,” cried Mr Delvile, fiercely, “is only to insult me, I am prepared for what measures I shall take. I declined seeing you in my own house, that I might not be under the same restraint as when it was my unfortunate lot to meet you last.”

“Who cares?” cried Briggs, with an air of defiance, “what can do, eh? poke me into a family vault? bind me o’ top of an old monument? tie me to a stinking carcase? make a corpse of me, and call it one of your famous cousins?—”

“For heaven’s sake, Mr Briggs,” interrupted Cecilia, who saw that Mr Delvile, trembling with passion, scarce refrained lifting up his stick, “be appeased, and let us finish our business!”

Albany now, hearing in Cecilia’s voice the alarm with which she was seized, came forward and exclaimed, “Whence this unmeaning dissension? to what purpose this irritating abuse? Oh vain and foolish! live ye so happily, last ye so long, that time and peace may thus be trifled with?”

“There, there!” cried Briggs, holding up his finger at Mr Delvile, “have it now! got old Mr Bounce upon you! give you enough of it; promise you that!”

“Restrain,” continued Albany, “this idle wrath; and if ye have ardent passions, employ them to nobler uses; let them stimulate acts of virtue, let them animate deeds of beneficence! Oh waste not spirits that may urge you to good, lead you to honour, warm you to charity, in poor and angry words, in unfriendly, unmanly debate!”

Mr Delvile, who from the approach of Albany, had given him his whole attention, was struck with astonishment at this address, and almost petrified with wonder at his language and exhortations.