Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress. Volume 1

Then perceiving upon the table some dust from the black lead pencil, “What’s here?” cried he, angrily, “who’s been cutting the pencil? wish they were hanged; suppose it’s the boy; deserves to be horsewhipped: give him a good banging.”

Cecilia immediately cleared him, by acknowledging she had herself been the culprit.

“Ay, ay,” cried he, “thought as much all the time! guessed how it was; nothing but ruin and waste; sending for money, nobody knows why; wanting 600 pounds—what to do? throw it in the dirt? Never heard the like! Sha’n’t have it, promise you that,” nodding his head, “shan’t have no such thing!”

“Sha’n’t have it?” cried Cecilia, much surprised, “why not, Sir?”

“Keep it for your husband; get you one soon: won’t have no juggling. Don’t be in a hurry; one in my eye.”

Cecilia then began a very earnest expostulation, assuring him she really wanted the money, for an occasion which would not admit of delay. Her remonstrances, however, he wholly disregarded, telling her that girls knew nothing of the value of money, and ought not to be trusted with it; that he would not hear of such extravagance, and was resolved not to advance her a penny. Cecilia was both provoked and confounded by a refusal so unexpected, and as she thought herself bound in honour to Mr Harrel not to make known the motive of her urgency, she was for some time totally silenced: till recollecting her account with the bookseller, she determined to rest her plea upon that, persuaded that he could not, at least, deny her money to pay her own bills. He heard her, however, with the utmost contempt; “Books?” he cried, “what do you want with books? do no good; all lost time; words get no cash.” She informed him his admonitions were now too late, as she had already received them, and must therefore necessarily pay for them. “No, no,” cried he, “send ‘em back, that’s best; keep no such rubbish, won’t turn to account; do better without ‘em.” “That, Sir, will be impossible, for I have had them some time, and cannot expect the bookseller to take them again.” “Must, must,” cried he, “can’t help himself; glad to have ‘em too. Are but a minor, can’t be made pay a farthing.” Cecilia with much indignation heard such fraud recommended, and told him she could by no means consent to follow his advice. But she soon found, to her utter amazement, that he steadily refused to give her any other, or to bestow the slightest attention upon her expostulations, sturdily saying that her uncle had left her a noble estate, and he would take care to see it put in proper hands, by getting her a good and careful husband.

“I have no intention, no wish, Sir,” cried she, “to break into the income or estate left me by my uncle; on the contrary, I hold them sacred, and think myself bound in conscience never to live beyond them: but the L10,000 bequeathed me by my Father, I regard as more peculiarly my own property, and therefore think myself at liberty to dispose of it as I please.”

“What,” cried he, in a rage, “make it over to a scrubby bookseller! give it up for an old pot-hook? no, no, won’t suffer it; sha’n’t be, sha’n’t be, I say! if you want some books, go to Moorfields, pick up enough at an old stall; get ‘em at two pence a-piece; dear enough, too.”

Cecilia for some time hoped he was merely indulging his strange and sordid humour by an opposition that was only intended to teize her; but she soon found herself extremely mistaken: he was immoveable in obstinacy, as he was incorrigible in avarice; he neither troubled himself with enquiries nor reasoning, but was contented with refusing her as a child might be refused, by peremptorily telling her she did not know what she wanted, and therefore should not have what she asked.

And with this answer, after all that she could urge, she was compelled to leave the house, as he complained that his brown paper plaister wanted fresh dipping in vinegar, and he could stay talking no longer.

The disgust with which this behaviour filled her, was doubled by the shame and concern of returning to the Harrels with her promise unperformed; she deliberated upon every method that occurred to her of still endeavouring to serve them, but could suggest nothing, except trying to prevail upon Mr Delvile to interfere in her favour. She liked not, indeed, the office of solicitation to so haughty a man, but, having no other expedient, her repugnance gave way to her generosity, and she ordered the chairmen to carry her to St James’s Square.

CHAPTER ii. – A PERPLEXITY

And here, at the door of his Father’s house, and just ascending the steps, she perceived young Delvile.

“Again!” cried he, handing her out of the chair, “surely some good genius is at work for me this morning!”

She told him she should not have called so early, now she was acquainted with the late hours of Mrs Delvile, but that she merely meant to speak with his Father, for two minutes, upon business.

He attended her up stairs; and finding she was in haste, went himself with her message to Mr Delvile: and soon returned with an answer that he would wait upon her presently.

The strange speeches he had made to her when they first met in the morning now recurring to her memory, she determined to have them explained, and in order to lead to the subject, mentioned the disagreeable situation in which he had found her, while she was standing up to avoid the sight of the condemned malefactors.

“Indeed?” cried he, in a tone of voice somewhat incredulous, “and was that the purpose for which you stood up?”

“Certainly, Sir;—what other could I have?”

“None, surely!” said he, smiling, “but the accident was singularly opportune.”

“Opportune?” cried Cecilia, staring, “how opportune? this is the second time in the same morning that I am not able to understand you!”

“How should you understand what is so little intelligible?”

“I see you have some meaning which I cannot fathom, why, else, should it be so extraordinary that I should endeavour to avoid a mob? or how could it be opportune that I should happen to meet with one?”

He laughed at first without making any answer; but perceiving she looked at him with impatience, he half gaily, half reproachfully, said, “Whence is it that young ladies, even such whose principles are most strict, seem universally, in those affairs where their affections are concerned, to think hypocrisy necessary, and deceit amiable? and hold it graceful to disavow to-day, what they may perhaps mean publicly to acknowledge to-morrow?”

Cecilia, who heard these questions with unfeigned astonishment, looked at him with the utmost eagerness for an explanation.

“Do you so much wonder,” he continued, “that I should have hoped in Miss Beverley to have seen some deviation from such rules? and have expected more openness and candour in a young lady who has given so noble a proof of the liberality of her mind and understanding?”

“You amaze me beyond measure!” cried she, “what rules, what candour, what liberality, do you mean?”

“Must I speak yet more plainly? and if I do, will you bear to hear me?”

“Indeed I should be extremely glad if you would give me leave to understand you.”

“And may I tell you what has charmed me, as well as what I have presumed to wonder at?”

“You may tell me any thing, if you will but be less mysterious.”

“Forgive then the frankness you invite, and let me acknowledge to you how greatly I honour the nobleness of your conduct. Surrounded as you are by the opulent and the splendid, unshackled by dependance, unrestrained by authority, blest by nature with all that is attractive, by situation with all that is desirable,—to slight the rich, and disregard the powerful, for the purer pleasure of raising oppressed merit, and giving to desert that wealth in which alone it seemed deficient—how can a spirit so liberal be sufficiently admired, or a choice of so much dignity be too highly extolled?”

“I find,” cried Cecilia, “I must forbear any further enquiry, for the more I hear, the less I understand.”

“Pardon me, then,” cried he, “if here I return to my first question: whence is it that a young lady who can think so nobly, and act so disinterestedly, should not be uniformly great, simple in truth, and unaffected in sincerity? Why should she be thus guarded, where frankness would do her so much honour? Why blush in owning what all others may blush in envying?”

“Indeed you perplex me intolerably,” cried Cecilia, with some vexation, “why Sir, will you not be more explicit?”

“And why, Madam,” returned he, with a laugh, “would you tempt me to be more impertinent? have I not said strange things already?”

“Strange indeed,” cried she, “for not one of them can I comprehend!”

“Pardon, then,” cried he, “and forget them all! I scarce know myself what urged me to say them, but I began inadvertently, without intending to go on, and I have proceeded involuntarily, without knowing how to stop. The fault, however, is ultimately your own, for the sight of you creates an insurmountable desire to converse with you, and your conversation a propensity equally incorrigible to take some interest in your welfare.”

He would then have changed the discourse, and Cecilia, ashamed of pressing him further, was for some time silent; but when one of the servants came to inform her that his master meant to wait upon her directly, her unwillingness to leave the matter in suspense induced her, somewhat abruptly, to say, “Perhaps, Sir, you are thinking of Mr Belfield?”

“A happy conjecture!” cried he, “but so wild a one, I cannot but marvel how it should occur to you!”

“Well, Sir,” said she, “I must acknowledge I now understand your meaning; but with respect to what has given rise to it, I am as much a stranger as ever.”

The entrance of Mr Delvile here closed the conversation.

He began with his usual ostentatious apologies, declaring he had so many people to attend, so many complaints to hear, and so many grievances to redress, that it was impossible for him to wait upon her sooner, and not without difficulty that he waited upon her now.

Mean time his son almost immediately retired: and Cecilia, instead of listening to this harangue, was only disturbing herself with conjectures upon what had just passed. She saw that young Delvile concluded she was absolutely engaged to Mr Belfield, and though she was better pleased that any suspicion should fall there than upon Sir Robert Floyer, she was yet both provoked and concerned to be suspected at all. An attack so earnest from almost any other person could hardly have failed being very offensive to her, but in the manners of young Delvile good breeding was so happily blended with frankness, that his freedom seemed merely to result from the openness of his disposition, and even in its very act pleaded its own excuse.

Her reverie was at length interrupted by Mr Delvile’s desiring to know in what he could serve her.

She told him she had present occasion for L600, and hoped he would not object to her taking up that sum.

“Six hundred pounds,” said he, after some deliberation, “is rather an extraordinary demand for a young lady in your situation; your allowance is considerable, you have yet no house, no equipage, no establishment; your expences, I should imagine, cannot be very great—”

He stopt, and seemed weighing her request.

Cecilia, shocked at appearing extravagant, yet too generous to mention Mr Harrel, had again recourse to her bookseller’s bill, which she told him she was anxious to discharge.

“A bookseller’s bill?” cried he; “and do you want L600 for a bookseller’s bill?”