Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress. Volume 3

“So I feared!” said Cecilia, whose blood now ran cold through her veins with sudden and new apprehensions.

“I rode to the Grove, on hack-horses, and on a full gallop the whole way. I got to him early in the evening. I was shewn into his library. I told him my errand.—You look pale, my love? You are not well?—”

Cecilia, too sick for speech, leant her head upon a table. Delvile was going to call for help; but she put her hand upon his arm to stop him, and, perceiving she was only mentally affected, he rested, and endeavoured by every possible means to revive her.

After a while, she again raised her head, faintly saying, “I am sorry I interrupted you; but the conclusion I already know,—Mr Monckton is dead!”

“Not dead,” cried he; “dangerously, indeed, wounded, but thank heaven, not actually dead!”

“Not dead?” cried Cecilia, with recruited strength and spirits, “Oh then all yet may be well!—if he is not dead; he may recover!”

“He may; I hope he will!”

“Now, then,” she cried, “tell me all: I can bear any intelligence but of death by human means.”

“I meant not to have gone such lengths; far from it; I hold duels in abhorrence, as unjustifiable acts of violence, and savage devices of revenge. I have offended against my own conviction,—but, transported with passion at his infamous charges, I was not master of my reason; I accused hum of his perfidy; he denied it; I told him I had it from my father,—he changed the subject to pour abuse upon him; I insisted on a recantation to clear you; he asked by what right? I fiercely answered; by a husband’s! His countenance, then, explained at least the motives of his treachery,—he loves you himself! he had probably schemed to keep you free till his wife died, and then concluded his machinations would secure you his own. For this purpose, finding he was in danger of losing you, he was content even to blast your character, rather than suffer you to escape him! But the moment I acknowledged my marriage he grew more furious than myself; and, in short-for why relate the frenzies of rage? we walked out together; my travelling pistols were already charged; I gave him his choice of them, and, the challenge being mine, for insolence joined with guilt had robbed me of all forbearance, he fired first, but missed me: I then demanded whether he would clear your fame? he called out ‘Fire! I will make no terms,’—I did fire,—and unfortunately aimed better! We had neither of us any second, all was the result of immediate passion; but I soon got people to him, and assisted in conveying him home. He was at, first believed to be dead, and I was seized by his servants; but he afterwards shewed signs of life, and by sending for my friend Biddulph, I was released. Such is the melancholy transaction I came to relate to you, flattering myself it would something less shock you from me than from another: yet my own real concern for the affair, the repentance with which from the moment the wretch fell, I was struck in being his destroyer, and the sorrow, the remorse, rather, which I felt, in coming to wound you with such black, such fearful intelligence,—you to whom all I owe is peace and comfort!—these thoughts gave me so much disturbance, that, in fact, I knew less than any other how to prepare you for such a tale.”

He stopt; but Cecilia could say nothing: to censure him now would both be cruel and vain; yet to pretend she was satisfied with his conduct, would be doing violence to her judgment and veracity. She saw, too, that his error had sprung wholly from a generous ardor in her defence, and that his confidence in her character, had resisted, without wavering, every attack that menaced it. For this she felt truly grateful; yet his quarrel with his father,—the danger of his mother,—his necessary absence,—her own clandestine situation,—and more than all, the threatened death of Mr Monckton by his hands, were circumstances so full of dread and sadness, she knew not upon which to speak,—how to offer him comfort,—how to assume a countenance that looked able to receive any, or by what means to repress the emotions which to many ways assailed her. Delvile, having vainly waited some reply, then in a tone the most melancholy, said, “If it is yet possible you can be sufficiently interested in my fate to care what becomes of me, aid me now with your counsel, or rather with your instructions; I am scarce able to think for myself, and to be thought for by you, would yet be a consolation that would give me spirit for any thing.”

Cecilia, starting from her reverie, repeated, “To care what becomes of you-? Oh Delvile!—make not my heart bleed by words of such unkindness!”

“Forgive me,” cried he, “I meant not a reproach; I meant but to state my own consciousness how little I deserve from you. You talked to me of going to my father? do you still wish it?”

“I think so!” cried she; too much disturbed to know what she said, yet fearing again to hurt him by making him wait her answer.

“I will go then,” said he, “without doubt: too happy to be guided by you, which-ever way I steer. I have now, indeed much to tell him; but whatever may be his wrath, there is little fear, at this time, that my own temper cannot bear it! what next shall I do?”

“What next?” repeated she; “indeed I know not!”

“Shall I go immediately to Margate? or shall I first ride hither?”

“If you please,” said she, much perturbed, and deeply sighing.

“I please nothing but by your direction, to follow that is my only chance of pleasure. Which, then, shall I do?-you will not, now, refuse to direct me?”

“No, certainly, not for the world!”

“Speak to me, then, my love, and tell me;—why are you thus silent?—is it painful to you to counsel me?”

“No, indeed!” said she, putting her hand to her head, “I will speak to you in a few minutes.”

“Oh my Cecilia!” cried he, looking at her with much alarm, “call back your recollection! you know not what you say, you take no interest in what you answer.”

“Indeed I do!” said she, sighing deeply, and oppressed beyond the power of thinking, beyond any power but an internal consciousness of wretchedness.

“Sigh not so bitterly,” cried he, “if you have any compassion! sigh not so bitterly,—I cannot bear to hear you!”

“I am very sorry indeed!” said she, sighing again, and not seeming sensible she spoke.

“Good Heaven!” cried he, rising, “distract me not with this horror!—speak not to me in such broken sentences!—Do you hear me, Cecilia?—why will you not answer me?”

She started and trembled, looked pale and affrighted, and putting both her hands upon her heart, said, “Oh yes!—but I have an oppression here,—a tightness, a fulness,—I have not room for breath!”

“Oh beloved of my heart!” cried he, wildly casting himself at her feet, “kill me not with this terror!—call back your faculties,—awake from this dreadful insensibility! tell me at least you know me!—tell me I have not tortured you quite to madness!—sole darling of my affections! my own, my wedded Cecilia!—rescue me from this agony! it is more than I can support!”–

This energy of distress brought back her scattered senses, scarce more stunned by the shock of all this misery, than by the restraint of her feelings in struggling to conceal it. But these passionate exclamations restoring her sensibility, she burst into tears, which happily relieved her mind from the conflict with which it was labouring, and which, not thus effected, might have ended more fatally.

Never had Delvile more rejoiced in her smiles than now in these seasonable tears, which he regarded and blest as the preservers of her reason. They flowed long without any intermission, his soothing and tenderness but melting her to more sorrow: after a while, however, the return of her faculties, which at first seemed all consigned over to grief, was manifested by the returning strength of her mind: she blamed herself severely for the little fortitude she had shewn, but having now given vent to emotions too forcible to be wholly stiffed, she assured him he might depend upon her’ better courage for the future, and entreated him to consider and settle his affairs.

Not speedily, however, could Delvile himself recover. The torture he had suffered in believing, though only for a few moments, that the terror he had given to Cecilia had affected her intellects, made even a deeper impression upon his imagination, than the scene of fury and death, which had occasioned that terror: and Cecilia, who now strained every nerve to repair by her firmness, the pain which by her weakness she had given him, was sooner in a condition for reasoning and deliberation than himself.

“Ah Delvile!” she cried, comprehending what passed within him, “do you allow nothing for surprize? and nothing for the hard conflict of endeavouring to suppress it? do you think me still as unfit to advise with, and as worthless, as feeble a counsellor, as during the first confusion of my mind?”

“Hurry not your tender spirits, I beseech you,” cried he, “we have time enough; we will talk about business by and by.”

“What time?” cried she, “what is it now o’clock?”

“Good Heaven!” cried he, looking at his watch, “already past ten! you must turn me out, my Cecilia, or calumny will still be busy, even though poor Monckton is quiet.”

“I will turn you out,” cried she, “I am indeed most earnest to have you gone. But tell me your plan, and which way you mean to go?”

“That;” he answered, “you shall decide for me yourself: whether to Delvile Castle, to finish one tale, and wholly communicate another, or to Margate, to hasten my mother abroad, before the news of this calamity reaches her.”

“Go to Margate,” cried she, eagerly, “set off this very moment! you can write to your father from Ostend. But continue, I conjure you, on the continent, till we see if this unhappy man lives, and enquire, of those who can judge, what must follow if he should not!”

“A trial,” said he, “must follow, and it will go, I fear, but hardly with me! the challenge was mine; his servants can all witness I went to him, not he to me,—Oh my Cecilia! the rashness of which I have been guilty, is so opposite to my principles, and, all generous as is your silence, I know it so opposite to yours, that never, should his blood be on my hands, wretch as he was, never will my heart be quiet more.”

“He will live, he will live!” cried Cecilia, repressing her horror, “fear nothing, for he will live;—and as to his wound and his sufferings, his perfidy has deserved them. Go, then, to Margate; think only of Mrs Delvile, and save her, if possible, from hearing what has happened.”

“I will go,—stay,—do which and whatever you bid me: but, should what I fear come to pass, should my mother continue ill, my father inflexible, should this wretched man die, and should England no longer be a country I shall love to dwell in,—could you, then, bear to own,—would you, then, consent to follow me?”

“Could I?—am I not yours? may you not command me? tell me, then, you have only to say,—shall I accompany you at once?”

Delvile, affected by her generosity, could scarce utter his thanks; yet he did not hesitate in denying to avail himself of it; “No, my Cecilia,” he cried, “I am not so selfish. If we have not happier days, we will at least wait for more desperate necessity. With the uncertainty if I have not this man’s life to answer for at the hazard of my own, to take my wife—my bride,—from the kingdom I must fly!—to make her a fugitive and an exile in the first publishing that she is mine! No, if I am not a destined alien for life I can never permit it. Nothing less, believe me, shall ever urge my consent to wound the chaste propriety of your character, by making you an eloper with a duelist.”

They then again consulted upon their future plans; and concluded that in the present disordered state of their affairs, it would be best not to acknowledge even to Mr Delvile their marriage, to whom the news of the duel, and Mr Monckton’s danger, would be a blow so severe, that, to add to it any other might half distract him.

To the few people already acquainted with it, Delvile therefore determined to write from Ostend, re-urging his entreaties for their discretion and secrecy. Cecilia promised every post to acquaint him how Mr Monckton went on, and she then besought him to go instantly, that he might out-travel the ill news to his mother.

He complied, and took leave of her in the tenderest manner, conjuring her to support her spirits, and be careful of her health. “Happiness,” said he, “is much in arrears with us, and though my violence may have frightened it away, your sweetness and gentleness will yet attract it back: all that for me is in store must be received at your hands,—what is offered in any other way, I shall only mistake for evil! droop not, therefore, my generous Cecilia, but in yourself preserve me!”

“I will not droop,” said she; “you will find, I hope, you have not intrusted yourself in ill hands.”

“Peace then be with you, my love!—my comforting, my soul-reviving Cecilia! Peace, such as angels give, and such as may drive from your mind the remembrance of this bitter hour!”

He then tore himself away.

Cecilia, who to his blessings could almost, like the tender Belvidera, have exclaimed,