Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress. Volume 2

Delvile, gaily, shaking hands with him, said “I believe, Dr Lyster, you little expected to meet a patient, who, were he as skilful, would be as able to do business as yourself.”

“What, with such a hand as this?” cried the Doctor; “come, come, you must not teach me my own profession. When I attend a patient, I come to tell how he is myself, not to be told.”

“He is, then ill!” cried Mrs Delvile; “oh Mortimer, why have you thus deceived us!”

“What is his disorder?” cried Mr Delvile; “let us call in more help; who shall we send for, doctor?”

And again he rang the bell.

“What now?” said Dr Lyster, coolly; “must a man be dying if he is not in perfect health? we want nobody else; I hope I can prescribe for a cold without demanding a consultation?”

“But are you sure it is merely a cold?” cried Mr Delvile; “may not some dreadful malady”—

“Pray, Sir, have patience,” interrupted the doctor; “Mr Mortimer and I will have some discourse together presently; mean time, let us all sit down, and behave like Christians; I never talk of my art before company. ‘Tis hard you won’t let me be a gentleman at large for two minutes!”

Lady Honoria and Cecilia would then have risen, but neither Dr Lyster nor Delvile would permit them to go; and a conversation tolerably lively took place, after which, the party in general separating, the doctor accompanied Delvile to his own apartment.

Cecilia then went up stairs, where she most impatiently waited some intelligence; none, however, arriving, in about half an hour she returned to the parlour; she found it empty, but was soon joined by Lady Honoria and Lord Ernolf.

Lady Honoria, happy in having something going forward, and not much concerning herself whether it were good or evil, was as eager to communicate what she had gathered, as Cecilia was to hear it.

“Well, my dear,” she cried, “so I don’t find at last but that all this prodigious illness will be laid to your account.”

“To my account?” cried Cecilia, “how is that possible?”

“Why this tender chicken caught cold in the storm last week, and not being put to bed by its mama, and nursed with white-wine whey, the poor thing has got a fever.”

“He is a fine young man,” said Lord Ernolf; “I should be sorry any harm happened to him.”

“He was a fine young man, my lord,” cried Lady Honoria, “but he is grown intolerably stupid lately; however, it’s all the fault of his father and mother. Was ever any thing half so ridiculous as their behaviour this morning? it was with the utmost difficulty I forbore laughing in their faces; and really, I believe if I was to meet with such an unfortunate accident with Mr Delvile, it would turn him to marble at once! indeed he is little better now, but such an affront as that would never let him move from the spot where he received it.”

“I forgive him, however,” returned Lord Ernolf, “for his anxiety about his son, since he is the last of so ancient a family.”

“That is his great misfortune, my lord,” answered Lady Honoria, “because it is the very reason they make such a puppet of him. If there were but a few more little masters to dandle and fondle, I’ll answer for it this precious Mortimer would soon be left to himself; and then, really, I believe he would be a good tolerable sort of young man. Don’t you think he would, Miss Beverley?”

“O yes!” said Cecilia, “I believe—I think so!”

“Nay, nay, I did not ask if you thought him tolerable now, so no need to be frightened.”

Here they were interrupted by the entrance of Dr Lyster.

“Well, Sir,” cried Lady Honoria, “and when am I to go into mourning for my cousin Mortimer?”

“Why very soon,” answered he, “unless you take better care of him. He has confessed to me that after being out in the storm last Wednesday, he sat in his wet cloaths all the evening.”

“Dear,” cried Lady Honoria, “and what would that do to him? I have no notion of a man’s always wanting a cambric handkerchief about his throat.”

“Perhaps your ladyship had rather make him apply it to his eyes?” cried the doctor; “however, sitting inactive in wet cloaths would destroy a stouter man than Mr Delvile; but he forgot it, he says! which of you two young ladies could not have given as good reason?”

“Your most obedient,” said Lady Honoria, “and why should not a lady give as good a reason as a gentleman?”

“I don’t know,” answered he, drily, “but from want of practice, I believe.”

“O worse and worse!” cried Lady Honoria; “you shall never be my physician; if I was to be attended by you, you’d make me sick instead of well.”

“All the better,” answered he, “for then I must have the honour of attending you till I made you well instead of sick.” And with a good-humoured smile, he left them; and Lord Derford, at the same time, coming into the room, Cecilia contrived to stroll out into the park.

The account to which she had been listening redoubled her uneasiness; she was conscious that whatever was the indisposition of Delvile, and whether it was mental or bodily, she was herself its occasion; through her he had been negligent, she had rendered him forgetful, and in consulting her own fears in preference to his peace, she had avoided an explanation, though he had vigilantly sought one. She knew not, he told her, half the wretchedness of his heart.—Alas! thought she, he little conjectures the state of mine!

Lady Honoria suffered her not to be long alone; in about half an hour she ran after her, gaily calling out, “O Miss Beverley, you have lost the delightfullest diversion in the world! I have just had the most ridiculous scene with my Lord Derford that you ever heard in your life! I asked him what put it in his head to be in love with you,—and he had the simplicity to answer, quite seriously, his father!”

“He was very right,” said Cecilia, “if the desire of uniting two estates is to be denominated being in love; for that, most certainly, was put into his head by his father.”

“O but you have not heard half. I told him, then, that, as a friend, in confidence I must acquaint him, I believed you intended to marry Mortimer—”

“Good heaven, Lady Honoria!”

“O, you shall hear the reason; because, as I assured him, it was proper he should immediately call him to account.”

“Are you mad, Lady Honoria?”

“For you know, said I, Miss Beverley has had one duel fought for her already, and a lady who has once had that compliment paid her, always expects it from every new admirer; and I really believe your not observing that form is the true cause of her coldness to you.”

“Is it possible you can have talked so wildly?”

“Yes, and what is much better, he believed every word I said!”

“Much better?—No, indeed, it is much worse! and if, in fact, he is so uncommonly weak, I shall really be but little indebted to your ladyship for giving him such notions.”

“O I would not but have done it for the world! for I never laughed so immoderately in my life. He began assuring me he was not afraid, for he said he had practised fencing more than any thing; so I made him promise to send a challenge to Mortimer as soon as he is well enough to come down again; for Dr Lyster has ordered him to keep his room.”

Cecilia, smothering her concern for this last piece of intelligence by pretending to feel it merely for the former, expostulated with Lady Honoria upon so mischievous a frolic, and earnestly entreated her to go back and contradict it all.

“No, no, not for the world!” cried she; “he has not the least spirit, and I dare say he would not fight to save the whole nation from destruction; but I’ll make him believe that it’s necessary, in order to give him something to think of, for really his poor head is so vacant, that I am sure if one might but play upon it with sticks, it would sound just like a drum.”

Cecilia, finding it vain to combat with her fantasies, was at length obliged to submit.

The rest of the day she passed very unpleasantly; Delvile appeared not; his father was restless and disturbed, and his mother, though attentive to her guests, and, for their sakes rallying her spirits, was visibly ill disposed to think or to talk but of her son.

One diversion, however, Cecilia found for herself; Delvile had a favourite spaniel, which, when he walked followed him, and when he rode, ran by his horse; this dog, who was not admitted into the house, she now took under her own care; and spent almost the whole day out of doors, chiefly for the satisfaction of making him her companion.

The next morning, when Dr Lyster came again, she kept in the way, in order to hear his opinion; and was sitting with Lady Honoria in the parlour, when he entered it to write a prescription.

Mrs Delvile, in a few moments, followed him, and with a face and voice of the tenderest maternal apprehensions, said “Doctor, one thing entrust me with immediately; I can neither bear imposition nor suspense;—you know what I would say!—tell me if I have any thing to fear, that my preparations may be adequate!”

“Nothing, I believe, in the world.”

“You believe!” repeated Mrs Delvile, starting; “Oh doctor!”