Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress. Volume 3

“The cover of a letter only!—and that to your brother!—is it possible you could so much value it?”

“Ah madam! You, who are always used to the good and the wise, who see no other sort of people but those in high life, you can have no notion how they strike those that they are new to!—but I who see them seldom, and who live with people so very unlike them—Oh you cannot guess how sweet to me is every thing that belongs to them! whatever has but once been touched by their hands, I should like to lock up, and keep for ever! though if I was used to them, as you are, perhaps I might think less of them.”

Alas! thought Cecilia, who by them knew she only meant him, little indeed would further intimacy protect you!

“We are all over-ready,” continued Henrietta, “to blame others, and that is the way I have been doing all this time myself; but I don’t blame my poor brother now for living so with the great as I used to do, for now I have seen a little more of the world, I don’t wonder any longer at his behaviour: for I know how it is, and I see that those who have had good educations, and kept great company, and mixed with the world,—O it is another thing!—they seem quite a different species!—they are so gentle, so soft-mannered! nothing comes from them but what is meant to oblige! they seem as if they only lived to give pleasure to other people, and as if they never thought at all of themselves!”

“Ah Henrietta!” said Cecilia, shaking her head, “you have caught the enthusiasm of your brother, though you so long condemned it! Oh have a care lest, like him also, you find it as pernicious as it is alluring!”

“There, is no danger for me, madam,” answered she, “for the people I so much admire are quite out of my reach. I hardly ever even see them; and perhaps it may so happen I may see them no more!”

“The people?” said Cecilia, smiling, “are there, then, many you so much distinguish?”

“Oh no indeed!” cried she, eagerly, “there is only one! there can be—I mean there are only a few—” she checked herself, and stopt.

“Whoever you admire,” cried Cecilia, “your admiration cannot but honour: yet indulge it not too far, lest it should wander from your heart to your peace, and make you wretched for life.”

“Ah madam!—I see you know who is the particular person I was thinking of! but indeed you are quite mistaken if you suppose any thing bad of me!”

“Bad of you!” cried Cecilia, embracing her, “I scarce think so well of any one!”

“But I mean, madam, if you think I forget he is so much above me. But indeed I never do; for I only admire him for his goodness to my brother, and never think of him at all, but just by way of comparing him, sometimes, to the other people that I see, because he makes me hate them so, that I wish I was never to see them again.”

“His acquaintance, then,” said Cecilia, “has done you but an ill office, and happy it would be for you could you forget you had ever made it.”

“O, I shall never do that! for the more I think of him, the more I am out of humour with every body else! O Miss Beverley! we have a sad acquaintance indeed! I’m sure I don’t wonder my brother was so ashamed of them. They are all so rude, and so free, and put one so out of countenance,—O how different is this person you are thinking of! he would not distress anybody, or make one ashamed for all the world! You only are like him! always gentle, always obliging!—sometimes I think you must be his sister—once, too, I heard—but that was contradicted.”

A deep sigh escaped Cecilia at this speech; she guessed too well what she might have heard, and she knew too well how it might be contradicted.

“Surely, you cannot be unhappy, Miss Beverley!” said Henrietta, with a look of mingled surprise and concern.

“I have much, I own,” cried Cecilia, assuming more chearfulness, “to be thankful for, and I endeavour not to forget it.”

“O how often do I think,” cried Henrietta, “that you, madam, are the happiest person in the world! with every thing at your own disposal,—with every body in love with you, with all the money that you can wish for, and so much sweetness that nobody can envy you it! with power to keep just what company you please, and every body proud to be one of the number!—Oh if I could chuse who I would be, I should sooner say Miss Beverley than any princess in the world!”

Ah, thought Cecilia, if such is my situation,—how cruel that by one dreadful blow all its happiness should be thrown away!

“Were I a rich lady, like you,” continued Henrietta, “and quite in my own power, then, indeed, I might soon think of nothing but those people that I admire! and that makes me often wonder that you, madam, who are just such another as himself—but then, indeed, you may see so many of the same sort, that just this one may not so much strike you: and for that reason I hope with all my heart that he will never be married as long as he lives, for as he must take some lady in just such high life as his own, I should always be afraid that she would never love him as she ought to do!”

He need not now be single, thought Cecilia, were that all he had cause to apprehend!

“I often think,” added Henrietta, “that the rich would be as much happier for marrying the poor, as the poor for marrying the rich, for then they would take somebody that would try to deserve their kindness, and now they only take those that know they have a right to it. Often and often have I thought so about this very gentleman! and sometimes when I have been in his company, and seen his civility and his sweetness, I have fancied I was rich and grand myself, and it has quite gone out of my head that I was nothing but poor Henrietta Belfield!”

“Did he, then,” cried Cecilia a little alarmed, “ever seek to ingratiate himself into your favour?”

“No, never! but when treated with so much softness, ‘tis hard always to remember one’s meanness! You, madam, have no notion of that task: no more had I myself till lately, for I cared not who was high, nor who was low: but now, indeed, I must own I have some times wished myself richer! yet he assumes so little, that at other times, I have almost forgot all distance between us, and even thought—Oh foolish thought!—

“Tell it, sweet Henrietta, however!”

“I will tell you, madam, every thing! for my heart has been bursting to open itself, and nobody have I dared trust. I have thought, then, I have sometimes thought,—my true affection, my faithful fondness, my glad obedience,—might make him, if he did but know them, happier in me than in a greater lady!”

“Indeed,” cried Cecilia, extremely affected by this plaintive tenderness, “I believe it—and were I him, I could not, I think, hesitate a moment in my choice!”

Henrietta now, hearing her mother coming in, made a sign to her to be silent; but Mrs Belfield had not been an instant in the passage, before a thundering knocking at the street-door occasioned it to be instantly re-opened. A servant then enquired if Mrs Belfield was at home, and being answered by herself in the affirmative, a chair was brought into the house.

But what was the astonishment of Cecilia, when, in another moment, she heard from the next parlour the voice of Mr Delvile senior, saying, “Your servant, ma’am; Mrs Belfield, I presume?”

There was no occasion, now, to make a sign to her of silence, for her own amazement was sufficient to deprive her of speech.

“Yes, Sir,” answered Mrs Belfield; “but I suppose, Sir, you are some gentleman to my son.”

“No, madam,” he returned, “my business is with yourself.”

Cecilia now recovering from her surprise, determined to hasten unnoticed out of the house, well knowing that to be seen in it would be regarded as a confirmation of all that he had asserted. She whispered, therefore, to Henrietta, that she must instantly run away, but, upon softly opening the door leading to the passage, she found Mr Delvile’s chairmen, and a footman there in waiting.

She closed it again, irresolute what to do: but after a little deliberation, she concluded to out-stay him, as she was known to all his servants, who would not fail to mention seeing her; and a retreat so private was worse than any other risk. A chair was also in waiting for herself, but it was a hackney one, and she could not be known by it; and her footman she had fortunately dismissed, as he had business to transact for her journey next day.

Mean-while the thinness of the partition between the two parlours made her hearing every word that was said unavoidable.

“I am sure, Sir, I shall be very willing to oblige you,” Mrs Belfield answered; “but pray, Sir, what’s your name?”

“My name, ma’am,” he replied, in a rather elevated voice, “I am seldom obliged to announce myself; nor is there any present necessity I should make it known. It is sufficient I assure you, you are speaking to no very common person, and probably to one you will have little chance to meet with again.”

“But how can I tell your business, Sir, if I don’t so much as know your name?”

“My business, madam, I mean to tell myself; your affair is only to hear it. I have some questions, indeed, to ask, which I must trouble you to answer, but they will sufficiently explain themselves to prevent any difficulty upon your part. There is no need, therefore, of any introductory ceremonial.”

“Well, Sir,” said Mrs Belfield, wholly insensible of this ambiguous greatness, “if you mean to make your name a secret.”

“Few names, I believe, ma’am,” cried he, haughtily, “have less the advantage of secrecy than mine! on the contrary, this is but one among a very few houses in this town to which my person would not immediately announce it. That, however, is immaterial; and you will be so good as to rest satisfied with my assurances, that the person with whom you are now conversing, will prove no disgrace to your character.”

Mrs Belfield, overpowered, though hardly knowing, with what, only said he was very welcome, and begged him to sit down.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he answered, “My business is but of a moment, and my avocations are too many to suffer my infringing that time. You say you have a son; I have heard of him, also, somewhere before; pray will you give me leave to enquire—I don’t mean to go deep into the matter,—but particular family occurrences make it essential for me to know,—whether there is not a young person of rather a capital fortune, to whom he is supposed to make proposals?”

“Lack-a-day, no, Sir!” answered Mrs Belfield, to the infinite relief of Cecilia, who instantly concluded this question referred to herself.

“I beg your pardon, then; good morning to you, ma’am,” said Mr Delvile, in a tone that spoke his disappointment; but added “And there is no such young person, you say, who favours his pretensions?”

“Dear Sir,” cried she, “why there’s nobody he’ll so much as put the question to! there’s a young lady at this very time, a great fortune, that has as much a mind to him, I tell him, as any man need desire to see; but there’s no making him think it! though he has been brought up at the university, and knows more about all the things, or as much, as any body in the king’s dominions.”

“O, then,” cried Mr Delvile, in a voice of far more complacency, “it is not on the side of the young woman that the difficulty seems to rest?”

“Lord, no, Sir! he might have had her again and again only for asking! She came after him ever so often; but being brought up, as I said, at the university, he thought he knew better than me, and so my preaching was all as good as lost upon him.”

The consternation of Cecilia at these speeches could by nothing be equalled but by the shame of Henrietta, who, though she knew not to whom her mother made them, felt all the disgrace and the shock of them herself.

“I suppose, Sir,” continued Mrs Belfield, “you know my son?”