Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress. Volume 2

Her silence, however, was at length forcibly broken; Mr Gosport, taking advantage of the first moment Miss Larolles stopt for breath, said, “Pray what carries you to town, Miss Beverley, at this time of the year?”

Cecilia, whose thoughts had been wholly employed upon what would pass at her approaching meeting with Delvile, was so entirely unprepared for this question, that she could make to it no manner of answer, till Mr Gosport, in a tone of some surprise, repeated it, and then, not without hesitation, she said, “I have some business, Sir, in London,—pray how long have you been in the country?”

“Business, have you?” cried he, struck by her evasion; “and pray what can you and business have in common?”

“More than you may imagine,” answered she, with greater steadiness; “and perhaps before long I may even have enough to teach me the enjoyment of leisure.”

“Why you don’t pretend to play my Lady Notable, and become your own steward?”

“And what can I do better?”

“What? Why seek one ready made to take the trouble off your hands. There are such creatures to be found, I promise you; beasts of burthen, who will freely undertake the management of your estate, for no other reward than the trifling one of possessing it. Can you no where meet with such an animal?”

“I don’t know,” answered she, laughing, “I have not been looking out.”

“And have none such made application to you?”

“Why no,—I believe not.”

“Fie, fie! no register-office keeper has been pestered with more claimants. You know they assault you by dozens.”

“You must pardon me, indeed, I know not any such thing.”

“You know, then, why they do not, and that is much the same.”

“I may conjecture why, at least; the place, I suppose, is not worth the service.”

“No, no; the place, they conclude, is already seized, and the fee—simple of the estate is the heart of the owner. Is it not so?”

“The heart of the owner,” answered she, a little confused, “may, indeed, be simple, but not, perhaps, so easily seized as you imagine.”

“Have you, then, wisely saved it from a storm, by a generous surrender? you have been, indeed, in an excellent school for the study both of attack and defence; Delvile-Castle is a fortress which, even in ruins, proves its strength by its antiquity; and it teaches, also, an admirable lesson, by displaying the dangerous, the infallible power of time, which defies all might, and undermines all strength; which breaks down every barrier, and shews nothing endurable but itself.” Then looking at her with an arch earnestness, “I think,” he added, “you made a long visit there; did this observation never occur to you? did you never perceive, never feel, rather, the insidious properties of time?”

“Yes, certainly,” answered she, alarmed at the very mention of Delvile Castle, yet affecting to understand literally what was said metaphorically, “the havoc of time upon the place could not fail striking me.”

“And was its havoc,” said he, yet more archly, “merely external? is all within safe? sound and firm? and did the length of your residence shew its power by no new mischief?”

“Doubtless, not,” answered she, with the same pretended ignorance, “the place is not in so desperate a condition as to exhibit any visible marks of decay in the course of three or four months.”

“And, do you not know,” cried he, “that the place to which I allude may receive a mischief in as many minutes which double the number of years cannot rectify? The internal parts of a building are not less vulnerable to accident than its outside; and though the evil may more easily be concealed, it will with greater difficulty be remedied. Many a fair structure have I seen, which, like that now before me” (looking with much significance at Cecilia), “has to the eye seemed perfect in all its parts, and unhurt either by time or casualty, while within, some lurking evil, some latent injury, has secretly worked its way into the very heart of the edifice, where it has consumed its strength, and laid waste its powers, till, sinking deeper and deeper, it has sapped its very foundation, before the superstructure has exhibited any token of danger. Is such an accident among the things you hold to be possible?”

“Your language,” said she, colouring very high, “is so florid, that I must own it renders your meaning rather obscure.”

“Shall I illustrate it by an example? Suppose, during your abode in Delvile Castle?”

“No, no,” interrupted she, with involuntary quickness, “why should I trouble you to make illustrations?”

“O pray, my dear creature,” cried Miss Larolles, “how is Mrs Harrel? I was never so sorry for any body in my life. I quite forgot to ask after her.”

“Ay, poor Harrel!” cried Morrice, “he was a great loss to his friends. I had just begun to have a regard for him; we were growing extremely intimate. Poor fellow! he really gave most excellent dinners.”

“Harrel?” suddenly exclaimed Mr Meadows, who seemed just then to first hear what was going forward, “who was he?”

“O, as good-natured a fellow as ever I knew in my life,” answered Morrice; “he was never out of humour; he was drinking and singing and dancing to the very last moment. Don’t you remember him, Sir, that night at Vauxhall?”

Mr Meadows made not any answer, but rode languidly on.

Morrice, ever more flippant than sagacious, called out, “I really believe the gentleman’s deaf! he won’t so much as say umph, and hay, now; but I’ll give him such a hallow in his ears, as shall make him hear me, whether he will or no. Sir! I say!” bawling aloud, “have you forgot that night at Vauxhall?”

Mr Meadows, starting at being thus shouted at, looked towards Morrice with some surprise, and said, “Were you so obliging, Sir, as to speak to me?”

“Lord, yes, Sir,” said Morrice, amazed; “I thought you had asked something about Mr Harrel, so I just made an answer to it;—that’s all.”

“Sir, you are very good,” returned he, slightly bowing, and then looking another way, as if thoroughly satisfied with what had passed.

“But I say, Sir,” resumed Morrice, “don’t you remember how Mr Harrel”—

“Mr who, Sir?”

“Mr Harrel, Sir; was not you just now asking me who he was?”

“O, ay, true,” cried Meadows, in a tone of extreme weariness, “I am much obliged to you. Pray give my respects to him.” And, touching his hat, he was riding away; but the astonished Morrice called out, “Your respects to him? why lord! Sir, don’t you know he’s dead?”

“Dead?—who, Sir?”

“Why Mr Harrel, Sir.”

“Harrel?—O, very true,” cried Meadows, with a face of sudden recollection; “he shot himself, I think, or was knocked down, or something of that sort. I remember it perfectly.”

“O pray,” cried Miss Larolles, “don’t let’s talk about it, it’s the cruellest thing I ever knew in my life. I assure you I was so shocked, I thought I should never have got the better of it. I remember the next night at Ranelagh I could talk of nothing else. I dare say I told it to 500 people. I assure you I was tired to death; only conceive how distressing!”

“An excellent method,” cried Mr Gosport, “to drive it out of your own head, by driving it into the heads of your neighbours! But were you not afraid, by such an ebullition of pathos, to burst as many hearts as you had auditors?”

“O I assure you,” cried she, “every body was so excessive shocked you’ve no notion; one heard of nothing else; all the world was raving mad about it.”

“Really yes,” cried the Captain; “the subject was obsedé upon one partout. There was scarce any breathing for it; it poured from all directions; I must confess I was aneanti with it to a degree.”

“But the most shocking thing in nature,” cried Miss Larolles, “was going to the sale. I never missed a single day. One used to meet the whole world there, and every body was so sorry you can’t conceive. It was quite horrid. I assure you I never suffered so much before; it made me so unhappy you can’t imagine.”

“That I am most ready to grant,” said Mr Gosport, “be the powers of imagination ever so eccentric.”

“Sir Robert Floyer and Mr Marriot,” continued Miss Larolles, “have behaved so ill you’ve no idea, for they have done nothing ever since but say how monstrously Mr Harrel had cheated them, and how they lost such immense sums by him;—only conceive how ill-natured!”

“And they complain,” cried Morrice, “that old Mr Delvile used them worse; for that when they had been defrauded of all that money on purpose to pay their addresses to Miss Beverley, he would never let them see her, but all of a sudden took her off into the country, on purpose to marry her to his own son.”

The cheeks of Cecilia now glowed with the deepest blushes; but finding by a general silence that she was expected to make some answer, she said, with what unconcern she could assume, “They were very much mistaken; Mr Delvile had no such view.”

“Indeed?” cried Mr Gosport, again perceiving her change of countenance; “and is it possible you have actually escaped a siege, while every body concluded you taken by assault? Pray where is young Delvile at present?”