Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress Volume III Part 20

"I perceive, but without surprise, your unwillingness to discuss the subject; nor do I mean to press it: I shall merely offer to your consideration one caution, and then relieve you from my presence. Young women of ample fortunes, who are early independent, are sometimes apt to presume they may do every thing with impunity; but they are mistaken; they are as liable to censure as those who are wholly unprovided for."

"I hope, Sir," said Cecilia, staring, "this at least is a caution rather drawn from my situation than my behaviour?"

"I mean not, ma'am, narrowly to go into, or investigate the subject; what I have said you may make your own use of; I have only to observe further, that when young women, at your time of life, are at all negligent of so nice a thing as reputation, they commonly live to repent it."

He then arose to go, but Cecilia, not more offended than amazed, said, "I must beg, Sir, you will explain yourself!"

"Certainly this matter," he answered, "must be immaterial to _me_: yet, as I have once been your guardian by the nomination of the Dean your uncle, I cannot forbear making an effort towards preventing any indiscretion: and frequent visits to a young man--"

"Good G.o.d! Sir," interrupted Cecilia, "what is it you mean?"

"It can certainly, as I said before, be nothing to _me_, though I should be glad to see you in better hands: but I cannot suppose you have been led to take such steps without some serious plan; and I would advise you, without loss of time, to think better of what you are about."

"Should I think, Sir, to eternity," cried Cecilia, "I could never conjecture what you mean!"

"You may not chuse," said he, proudly, "to understand me; but I have done. If it had been in my power to have interfered in your service with my Lord Derford, notwithstanding my reluctance to being involved in any fresh employment, I should have made a point of not refusing it: but this young man is n.o.body,--a very imprudent connection--"

"What young man, Sir?"

"Nay, _I_ know nothing of him! it is by no means likely I should: but as I had already been informed of your attention to him, the corroborating incidents of my servant's following you to his house, his friend's seeking him at yours, and his own waiting upon you this morning; were not well calculated to make me withdraw my credence to it."

"Is it, then, Mr Belfield, Sir, concerning whom you draw these inferences, from circ.u.mstances the most accidental and unmeaning?"

"It is by no means my practice," cried he, haughtily, and with evident marks of high displeasure at this speech, "to believe any thing lightly, or without even unquestionable authority; what once, therefore, I have credited, I do not often find erroneous. Mistake not, however, what I have said into supposing I have any objection to your marrying; on the contrary, it had been for the honour of my family had you been married a year ago I should not then have suffered the degradation of seeing a son of the first expectations in the kingdom upon the point of renouncing his birth, nor a woman of the first distinction ruined in her health, and broken for ever in her const.i.tution."

The emotions of Cecilia at this speech were too powerful for concealment; her colour varied, now reddening with indignation, now turning pale with apprehension; she arose, she trembled and sat down, she arose again, but not knowing what to say or what to do, again sat down.

Mr Delvile then, making a stiff bow, wished her good morning.

"Go not so, Sir!" cried she, in faltering accents; "let me at least convince you of the mistake with regard to Mr Belfield--"

"My mistakes, ma'am," said he, with a contemptuous smile, "are perhaps not easily convicted: and I may possibly labour under others that would give you no less trouble: it may therefore be better to avoid any further disquisition."

"No, not better," answered she, again recovering her courage from this fresh provocation; "I fear no disquisition; on the contrary, it is my interest to solicit one."

"This intrepidity in a young woman," said he, ironically, "is certainly very commendable; and doubtless, as you are your own mistress, your having run out great part of your fortune, is nothing beyond what you have a right to do."

"Me!" cried Cecilia, astonished, "run out great part of my fortune!"

"Perhaps that is another _mistake_! I have not often been so unfortunate; and you are not, then, in debt?"

"In debt, Sir?"

"Nay, I have no intention to inquire into your affairs. Good morning to you, ma'am."

"I beg, I entreat, Sir, that you will stop!--make me, at least, understand what you mean, whether you deign to hear my justification or not."

"O, I am mistaken, it seems! misinformed, deceived; and you have neither spent more than you have received, nor taken up money of Jews? your minority has been clear of debts? and your fortune, now you are of age, will be free from inc.u.mbrances?"

Cecilia, who now began to understand him, eagerly answered, "do you mean, Sir, the money which I took up last spring?"

"O no; by no means, I conceive the whole to be a _mistake_!"

And he went to the door.

"Hear me but a moment, Sir!" cried she hastily, following him; "since you know of that transaction, do not refuse to listen to its occasion; I took up the money for Mr Harrel; it was all, and solely for him."

"For Mr Harrel, was it?" said he, with an air of supercilious incredulity; "that was rather an unlucky step. Your servant, ma'am."

And he opened the door.

"You will not hear me, then? you will not credit me?" cried she in the cruellest agitation.

"Some other time, ma'am; at present my avocations are too numerous to permit me."

And again, stiffly bowing, he called to his servants, who were waiting in the hall, and put himself into his chair.

CHAPTER v.

A SUSPICION.

Cecilia was now left in a state of perturbation that was hardly to be endured. The contempt with which she had been treated during the whole visit was nothing short of insult, but the accusations with which it was concluded did not more irritate than astonish her.

That some strange prejudice had been taken against her, even more than belonged to her connection with young Delvile, the message brought her by Dr Lyster had given her reason to suppose: what that prejudice was she now knew, though how excited she was still ignorant; but she found Mr Delvile had been informed she had taken up money of a Jew, without having heard it was for Mr Harrel, and that he had been acquainted with her visits in Portland-street, without seeming to know Mr Belfield had a sister. Two charges such as these, so serious in their nature, and so destructive of her character, filled her with horror and consternation, and even somewhat served to palliate his illiberal and injurious behaviour.

But how reports thus false and thus disgraceful should be raised, and by what dark work of slander and malignity they had been spread, remained a doubt inexplicable. They could not, she was certain, be the mere rumour of chance, since in both the a.s.sertions there was some foundation of truth, however cruelly perverted, or basely over-charged.

This led her to consider how few people there were not only who had interest, but who had power to propagate such calumnies; even her acquaintance with the Belfields she remembered not ever mentioning, for she knew none of their friends, and none of her own knew them. How, then, should it be circulated, that she "visited often at the house?"

however be invented that it was from her "attention to the young man?"

Henrietta, she was sure, was too good and too innocent to be guilty of such perfidy; and the young man himself had always shewn a modesty and propriety that manifested his total freedom from the vanity of such a suspicion, and an elevation of sentiment that would have taught him to scorn the boast, even if he believed the partiality.

The mother, however, had neither been so modest nor so rational; she had openly avowed her opinion that Cecilia was in love with her son; and as that son, by never offering himself, had never been refused, her opinion had received no check of sufficient force, for a mind so gross and literal, to change it.

This part, therefore, of the charge she gave to Mrs Belfield, whose officious and loquacious forwardness she concluded had induced her to narrate her suspicions, till, step by step, they had reached Mr Delvile.

But though able, by the probability of this conjecture, to account for the report concerning Belfield, the whole affair of the debt remained a difficulty not to be solved. Mr Harrel, his wife, Mr Arnott, the Jew and Mr Monckton, were the only persons to whom the transaction was known; and though from five, a secret, in the course of so many months, might easily be supposed likely to transpire, those five were so particularly bound to silence, not only for her interest but their own, that it was not unreasonable to believe it as safe among them all, as if solely consigned to one. For herself, she had revealed it to no creature but Mr Monckton; not even to Delvile; though, upon her consenting to marry him, he had an undoubted right to be acquainted with the true state of her affairs; but such had been the hurry, distress, confusion and irresolution of her mind at that period, that this whole circ.u.mstance had been driven from it entirely, and she had, since, frequently blamed herself for such want of recollection. Mr Harrel, for a thousand reasons, she was certain had never named it; and had the communication come from his widow or from Mr Arnott, the motives would have been related as well as the debt, and she had been spared the reproach of contracting it for purposes of her own extravagance. The Jew, indeed, was, to her, under no obligation of secrecy, but he had an obligation far more binding,--he was tied to himself.

A suspicion now arose in her mind which made it thrill with horror; "good G.o.d! she exclaimed, can Mr Monckton---"

She stopt, even to herself;--she checked the idea;--she drove it hastily from her;--she was certain it was false and cruel,--she hated herself for having started it.

"No," cried she, "he is my friend, the confirmed friend of many years, my well-wisher from childhood, my zealous counsellor and a.s.sistant almost from my birth to this hour:--such perfidy from him would not even be human!"

Yet still her perplexity was undiminished; the affair was undoubtedly known, and it only could be known by the treachery of some one entrusted with it: and however earnestly her generosity combated her rising suspicions, she could not wholly quell them; and Mr Monckton's strange aversion to the Delviles, his earnestness to break off her connexion with them, occurred to her remembrance, and haunted her perforce with surmises to his disadvantage.

That gentleman, when he came home, found her in this comfortless and fluctuating state, endeavouring to form conjectures upon what had happened, yet unable to succeed, but by suggestions which one moment excited her abhorrence of him, and the next of herself.