Cecilia vol. 3

F >> Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d\'Arblay) >> Cecilia vol. 3

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My extravagance, however, has been all for his felicity, dearer to me
than life,--dearer to me than all things but his own honour! Let us but
save that, and then let wealth, ambition, interest, grandeur and pride,
since they cannot constitute his happiness, be removed from destroying
it. I will no longer play the tyrant that, weighing good and evil by my
own feelings and opinions, insists upon his acting by the notions I
have formed, whatever misery they may bring him by opposing all his
own.

I leave the kingdom with little reason to expect I shall return to it;
I leave it--Oh blindness of vanity and passion!--from the effect of
that violence with which so lately I opposed what now I am content to
advance! But the extraordinary resignation to which you have agreed,
shews your heart so wholly my son's, and so even more than worthy the
whole possession of his, that it reflects upon him an honour more
bright and more alluring, than any the most illustrious other alliance
could now confer.

I would fain see you ere I go, lest I should see you no more; fain
ratify by word of mouth the consent that by word of mouth I so
absolutely refused! I know not how to come to Suffolk,--is it not
possible you can come to London? I am told you leave to me the
arbitration of your fate, in giving you to my son, I best shew my sense
of such an honour.

Hasten then, my love, to town, that I may see you once more! wait no
longer a concurrence thus unjustly with-held, but hasten, that I may
bless the daughter I have so often wished to own! that I may entreat
her forgiveness for all the pain I have occasioned her, and committing
to her charge the future happiness of my son, fold to my maternal heart
the two objects most dear to it!

AUGUSTA DELVILE.

Cecilia wept over this letter with tenderness, grief and alarm; but
declared, had it even summoned her to follow her abroad, she could not,
after reading it, have hesitated in complying.

"O now, then," cried Delvile, "let our long suspenses end! hear me with
the candour; my mother has already listened to me--be mine, my Cecilia,
at once,--and force me not, by eternal scruples, to risk another
separation."

"Good heaven, Sir!" cried Cecilia, starting, "in such a state as Mrs
Delvile thinks herself, would you have her journey delayed?"

"No, not a moment! I would but ensure you mine, and go with her all
over the world!"

"Wild and impossible!--and what is to be done with Mr Delvile?"

"It is on his account wholly I am thus earnestly precipitate. If I do
not by an immediate marriage prevent his further interference, all I
have already suffered may again be repeated, and some fresh contest
with my mother may occasion another relapse."

Cecilia, who now understood him, ardently protested she would not
listen for a moment to any clandestine expedient.

He besought her to be patient; and then anxiously represented to her
their peculiar situations. All application to his father he was
peremptorily forbid making, all efforts to remove his prejudices their
impenetrable mystery prevented; a public marriage, therefore, with such
obstacles, would almost irritate him to phrenzy, by its daring defiance
of his prohibition and authority.

"Alas!" exclaimed Cecilia, "we can never do right but in parting!"

"Say it not," cried he, "I conjure you! we shall yet live, I hope, to
prove the contrary." "And can you, then," cried she, reproachfully, "Oh
Mr Delvile! can you again urge me to enter your family in secret?"

"I grieve, indeed," he answered, "that your goodness should so severely
be tried; yet did you not condescend to commit the arbitration to my
mother?"

"True; and I thought her approbation would secure my peace of mind; but
how could I have expected Mrs Delvile's consent to such a scheme!"

"She has merely accorded it from a certainty there is no other
resource. Believe me, therefore, my whole hope rests upon your present
compliance. My father, I am certain, by his letter, will now hear
neither petition nor defence; on the contrary, he will only enrage at
the temerity of offering to confute him. But when he knows you are his
daughter, his honour will then be concerned in yours, and it will be as
much his desire to have it cleared, as it is now to have it censured."

"Wait at least your return, and let us try what can be done with him."

"Oh why," cried Delvile, with much earnestness, "must I linger out
month after month in this wretched uncertainty! If I wait I am undone!
my father, by the orders I must unavoidably leave, will discover the
preparations making without his consent, and he will work upon you in
my absence, and compel you to give me up!"

"Are you sure," said she, half smiling, "he would have so much power?"

"I am but too sure, that the least intimation, in his present irritable
state of mind, reaching him of my intentions, would make him not
scruple, in his fury, pronouncing some malediction upon my disobedience
that _neither_ of us, I must own, could tranquilly disregard."

This was an argument that came home to Cecilia, whose deliberation upon
it, though silent, was evidently not unfavourable.

He then told her that with respect to settlements, he would instantly
have a bond drawn up, similar to that prepared for their former
intended union, which should be properly signed and sealed, and by
which he would engage himself to make, upon coming to his estate, the
same settlement upon her that was made upon his mother.

"And as, instead of keeping up three houses," he continued, "in the
manner my father does at present, I mean to put my whole estate _out to
nurse_, while we reside for a while abroad, or in the country, I doubt
not but in a very few years we shall be as rich and as easy as we shall
desire."

He told her, also, of his well-founded expectations from the Relations
already mentioned; which the concurrence of his mother with his
marriage would thence forward secure to him.

He then, with more coherence, stated his plan at large. He purposed,
without losing a moment, to return to London; he conjured her, in the
name of his mother, to set out herself early the next day, that the
following evening might be dedicated wholly to Mrs Delvile: through her
intercession he might then hope Cecilia's compliance, and every thing
on the morning after should be prepared for their union. The long-
desired ceremony over, he would instantly ride post to his father, and
pay him, at least, the respect of being the first to communicate it. He
would then attend his mother to the Continent, and leave the
arrangement of everything to his return. "Still, therefore, as a single
man," he continued, "I mean to make the journey, and I shall take care,
by the time I return, to have all things in readiness for claiming my
sweet Bride. Tell me, then, now, if you can reasonably oppose this
plan?"

"Indeed," said Cecilia, after some hesitation, "I cannot see the
necessity of such violent precipitancy."

"Do you not try me too much," cried Delvile, impatiently, "to talk now
of precipitancy! after such painful waiting, such wearisome
expectation! I ask you not to involve your own affairs in confusion by
accompanying me abroad; sweet to me as would be such an indulgence, I
would not make a run-away of you in the opinion of the world. All I
wish is the secret certainty I cannot be robbed of you, that no cruel
machinations may again work our separation, that you are mine,
unalterably mine, beyond the power of caprice or ill fortune."

Cecilia made no answer; tortured with irresolution, she knew not upon
what to determine.

"We might then, according to the favour or displeasure of my father,
settle wholly abroad for the present, or occasionally visit him in
England; my mother would be always and openly our friend--Oh be firm,
then, I conjure you, to the promise you have given her, and deign to be
mine on the conditions she prescribes. She will be bound to you for
ever by so generous a concession, and even her health may be restored
by the cessation of her anxieties. With such a wife, such a mother,
what will be wanting for _me_! Could I lament not being richer, I must
be rapacious indeed!--Speak, then, my Cecilia! relieve me from the
agony of this eternal uncertainty, and tell me your word is invariable
as your honour, and tell me my mother gives not her sanction in vain!"

Cecilia sighed deeply, but, after some hesitation, said, "I little knew
what I had promised, nor know I now what to perform!--there must ever,
I find, be some check to human happiness! yet, since upon these terms,
Mrs Delvile herself is content to wish me of her family--"

She stopt; but, urged earnestly by Delvile, added "I must not, I think,
withdraw the powers with which I entrusted her."

Delvile, grateful and enchanted, now forgot his haste and his business,
and lost every wish but to re-animate her spirits: she compelled him,
however, to leave her, that his visit might less be wondered at, and
sent by him a message to Mrs. Delvile, that, wholly relying upon her
wisdom, she implicitly submitted to her decree.

CHAPTER xi.

AN ENTERPRISE.

Cecilia now had no time for afterthoughts or anxious repentance, since
notwithstanding the hurry of her spirits, and the confusion of her
mind, she had too much real business, to yield to pensive indulgence.

Averse to all falsehood, she invented none upon this occasion; she
merely told her guests she was summoned to London upon an affair of
importance; and though she saw their curiosity, not being at liberty to
satisfy it with the truth, she attempted not to appease it by fiction,
but quietly left it to its common fare, conjecture. She would gladly
have made Henrietta the companion of her journey, but Henrietta was the
last to whom that journey could give pleasure. She only, therefore,
took her maid in the chaise, and, attended by one servant on horseback,
at six o'clock the next morning, she quitted her mansion, to enter into
an engagement by which soon she was to resign it for ever.

Disinterested as she was, she considered her situation as peculiarly
perverse, that from the time of her coming to a fortune which most
others regarded as enviable, she had been a stranger to peace, a
fruitless seeker of happiness, a dupe to the fraudulent, and a prey to
the needy! the little comfort she had received, had been merely from
dispensing it, and now only had she any chance of being happy herself,
when upon the point of relinquishing what all others built their
happiness upon obtaining!

These reflections only gave way to others still more disagreeable; she
was now a second time engaged in a transaction she could not approve,
and suffering the whole peace of her future life to hang upon an action
dark, private and imprudent: an action by which the liberal kindness of
her late uncle would be annulled, by which the father of her intended
husband would be disobeyed, and which already, in a similar instance,
had brought her to affliction and disgrace. These melancholy thoughts
haunted her during the whole journey, and though the assurance of Mrs
Delvile's approbation was some relief to her uneasiness, she
involuntarily prepared herself for meeting new mortifications, and was
tormented with an apprehension that this second attempt made her merit
them.

She drove immediately, by the previous direction of Delvile, to a
lodging-house in Albemarle Street, which he had taken care to have
prepared for her reception. She then sent for a chair, and went to Mrs
Delvile's. Her being seen by the servants of that house was not very
important, as their master was soon to be acquainted with the real
motive of her journey.

She was shewn into a parlour, while Mrs Delvile was informed of her
arrival, and there flown to by Delvile with the most grateful
eagerness. Yet she saw in his countenance that all was not well, and
heard upon enquiry that his mother was considerably worse. Extremely
shocked by this intelligence, she already began to lament her
unfortunate enterprise. Delvile struggled, by exerting his own spirits,
to restore hers, but forced gaiety is never exhilarating; and, full of
care and anxiety, he was ill able to appear sprightly and easy.

They were soon summoned upstairs into the apartment of Mrs Delvile, who
was lying upon a couch, pale, weak, and much altered. Delvile led the
way, saying, "Here, madam, comes one whose sight will bring peace and
pleasure to you!"

"This, indeed," cried Mrs Delvile, half rising and embracing her, "is
the form in which they are most welcome to me! virtuous, noble Cecilia!
what honour you do my son! with what joy, should I ever recover, shall
I assist him in paying the gratitude he owes you!"

Cecilia, grieved at her situation, and affected by her kindness, could
only answer with her tears; which, however, were not shed alone; for
Delvile's eyes were full, as he passionately exclaimed, "This, this is
the sight my heart has thus long desired! the wife of my choice taken
to the bosom of the parent I revere! be yet but well, my beloved
mother, and I will be thankful for every calamity that has led to so
sweet a conclusion!"

"Content yourself, however, my son, with one of us," cried Mrs Delvile,
smiling; "and content yourself, if you can, though your hard lot should
make that one this creature of full bloom, health, and youth! Ah, my
love," added she, more seriously, and addressing the still weeping
Cecilia, "should now Mortimer, in losing me, lose those cares by which
alone, for some months past, my life has been rendered tolerable, how
peaceably shall I resign him to one so able to recompense his filial
patience and services!"

This was not a speech to stop the tears of Cecilia, though such warmth
of approbation quieted her conscientious scruples. Delvile now
earnestly interfered; he told her that his mother had been ordered not
to talk or exert herself, and entreated her to be composed, and his
mother to be silent.

"Be it _your_ business, then," said Mrs Delvile, more gaily, "to find
us entertainment. We will promise to be very still if you will take
that trouble upon yourself."

"I will not," answered he, "be rallied from my purpose; if I cannot
entertain, it will be something to weary you, for that may incline you
to take rest, which will he answering a better purpose."

"Mortimer," returned she, "is this the ingenuity of duty or of love?
and which are you just now thinking of, my health, or a conversation
uninterrupted with Miss Beverley?"

"Perhaps a little of both!" said he, chearfully, though colouring.

"But you rather meant it should pass," said Mrs Delvile, "you were
thinking only of me? I have always observed, that where one scheme
answers two purposes, the ostensive is never the purpose most at
heart."

"Why it is but common prudence," answered Delvile, "to feel our way a
little before we mention what we most wish, and so cast the hazard of
the refusal upon something rather less important."

"Admirably settled!" cried Mrs Delvile: "so my rest is but to prove
Miss Beverley's disturbance!--Well, it is only anticipating our future
way of life, when her disturbance, in taking the management of you to
herself, will of course prove my rest."

She then quietly reposed herself, and Delvile discoursed with Cecilia
upon their future plans, hopes and actions.

He meant to set off from the church-door to Delvile Castle, to acquaint
his father with his marriage, and then to return instantly to London:
there he entreated Cecilia to stay with his mother, that, finding them
both together, he might not exhaust her patience, by making his parting
visit occasion another journey to Suffolk.

But here Cecilia resolutely opposed him; saying, her only chance to
escape discovery, was going instantly to her own house; and
representing so earnestly her desire that their marriage should be
unknown till his return to England, upon a thousand motives of
delicacy, propriety, and fearfulness, that the obligation he owed
already to a compliance which he saw grew more and more reluctant,
restrained him both in gratitude and pity from persecuting her further.
Neither would she consent to seeing him in Suffolk; which could but
delay his mother's journey, and expose her to unnecessary suspicions;
she promised, however, to write to him often, and as, from his mother's
weakness, he must travel very slowly, she took a plan of his route, and
engaged that he should find a letter from her at every great town.

The bond which he had already had altered, he insisted upon leaving in
her own custody, averse to applying to Mr Monckton, whose behaviour to
him had before given him disgust, and in whom Cecilia herself no longer
wished to confide. He had again applied to the same lawyer, Mr
Singleton, to give her away; for though to his secrecy he had no tie,
he had still less to any entire stranger. Mrs Delvile was too ill to
attend them to church, nor would Delvile have desired from her such
absolute defiance of his father.

Cecilia now gave another sigh to her departed friend Mrs Charlton,
whose presence upon this awful occasion would else again have soothed
and supported her. She had no female friend in whom she could rely; but
feeling a repugnance invincible to being accompanied only by men, she
accepted the attendance of Mrs Delvile's own woman, who had lived many
years in the family, and was high in the favour and confidence of her
lady.

The arrangement of these and other articles, with occasional
interruptions from Mrs Delvile, fully employed the evening. Delvile
would not trust again to meeting her at the church; but begged her to
send out her servants between seven and eight o'clock in the morning,
at which time he would himself call for her with a chair.

She went away early, that Mrs Delvile might go to rest, and it was
mutually agreed they should risk no meeting the next day. Delvile
conjured them to part with firmness and chearfulness, and Cecilia,
fearing her own emotion, would have retired without bidding her adieu.
But Mrs Delvile, calling after her, said, "Take with you my blessing!"
and tenderly embracing her, added, "My son, as my chief nurse, claims a
prescriptive right to govern me, but I will break from his control to
tell my sweet Cecilia what ease and what delight she has already given
to my mind! my best hope of recovery is founded on the pleasure I
anticipate to witnessing your mutual happiness: but should my illness
prove fatal, and that felicity be denied me, my greatest earthly care
is already removed by the security I feel of Mortimer's future peace.
Take with you, then, my blessing, for you are become one to me! long
daughter of my affection, now wife of my darling son! love her,
Mortimer, as she merits, and cherish her with tenderest gratitude!--
banish, sweetest Cecilia, every apprehension that oppresses you, and
receive in Mortimer Delvile a husband that will revere your virtues,
and dignify your choice!"

She then embraced her again, and seeing that her heart was too full for
speech, suffered her to go without making any answer. Delvile attended
her to her chair, scarce less moved than herself, and found only
opportunity to entreat her punctuality the next morning.

She had, indeed, no inclination to fail in her appointment, or risk the
repetition of scenes so affecting, or situations so alarming. Mrs
Delvile's full approbation somewhat restored to her her own, but
nothing could remove the fearful anxiety, which still privately
tormented her with expectations of another disappointment.

The next morning she arose with the light, and calling all her courage
to her aid, determined to consider this day as decisive of her destiny
with regard to Delvile, and, rejoicing that at least all suspense would
be over, to support herself with fortitude, be that destiny what it
might.

At the appointed time she sent her maid to visit Mrs Hill, and gave
some errands to her man that carried him to a distant part of the town:
but she charged them both to return to the lodgings by nine o'clock, at
which hour she ordered a chaise for returning into the country.

Delvile, who was impatiently watching for their quitting the house,
only waited till they were out of sight, to present himself at the
door. He was shewn into a parlour, where she instantly attended him;
and being told that the clergyman, Mr Singleton, and Mrs Delvile's
woman, were already in the church, she gave him her hand in silence,
and he led her to the chair.

The calmness of stifled hope had now taken place in Cecilia of quick
sensations and alarm. Occupied with a firm belief she should never be
the wife of Delvile, she only waited, with a desperate sort of
patience, to see when and by whom she was next to be parted from him.

When they arrived near the church, Delvile stopt the chair. He handed
Cecilia out of it, and discharging the chairmen, conducted her into the
church. He was surprised himself at her composure, but earnestly
wishing it to last, took care not to say to her a word that should make
any answer from her necessary.

He gave her, as before, to Mr Singleton, secretly praying that not, as
before, she might be given him in vain: Mrs Delvile's woman attended
her; the clergyman was ready, and they all proceeded to the altar.

The ceremony was begun; Cecilia, rather mechanically than with
consciousness, appearing to listen to it but at the words, _If any man
can shew any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together_,
Delvile himself shook with terror, lest some concealed person should
again answer it, and Cecilia, with a sort of steady dismay in her
countenance, cast her eyes round the church, with no other view than
that of seeing from what comer the prohibiter would start.

She looked, however, to no purpose; no prohibiter appeared, the
ceremony was performed without any interruption, and she received the
thanks of Delvile, and the congratulations of the little set, before
the idea which had so strongly pre-occupied her imagination, was
sufficiently removed from it to satisfy her she was really married.

They then went to the vestry, where their business was not long; and
Delvile again put Cecilia into a chair, which again he accompanied on
foot.

Her sensibility now soon returned, though still attended with
strangeness and a sensation of incredulity. But the sight of Delvile at
her lodgings, contrary to their agreement, wholly recovered her senses
from the stupor which had dulled them. He came, however, but to
acknowledge how highly she had obliged him, to see her himself restored
to the animation natural to her, character, and to give her a million
of charges, resulting from anxiety and tenderness. And then, fearing
the return of her servants, he quitted her, and set out for Delvile
Castle.

The amazement of Cecilia was still unconquerable; to be actually united
with Delvile! to be his with the full consent of his mother,--to have
him her's, beyond the power of his father,--she could not reconcile it
with possibility; she fancied it a dream,--but a dream from which she
wished not to wake.

BOOK X.

CHAPTER i

A DISCOVERY.

Cecilia's journey back to the country was as safe and free from
interruption as her journey had been to town, and all that
distinguished them was what passed in her own mind: the doubts,
apprehensions, and desponding suspense which had accompanied her
setting out, were now all removed, and certainty, ease, the expectation
of happiness, and the cessation of all perplexity, had taken their
place. She had nothing left to dread but the inflexibility of Mr
Delvile, and hardly any thing even to hope but the recovery of his
lady.

Her friends at her return expressed their wonder at her expedition, but
their wonder at what occasioned it, though still greater, met no
satisfaction. Henrietta rejoiced in her sight, though her absence had
been so short; and Cecilia, whose affection with her pity increased,
intimated to her the event for which she wished her to prepare herself,
and frankly acknowledged she had reason to expect it would soon take
place.

Henrietta endeavoured with composure to receive this intelligence, and
to return such a mark of confidence with chearful congratulations: but
her fortitude was unequal to an effort so heroic, and her character was
too simple to assume a greatness she felt not: she sighed and changed
colour; and hastily quitted the room that she might sob aloud in
another.

Warm-hearted, tender, and susceptible, her affections were all
undisguised: struck with the elegance of Delvile, and enchanted by his
services to her brother, she had lost to him her heart at first without
missing it, and, when missed, without seeking to reclaim it. The
hopelessness of such a passion she never considered, nor asked herself
its end, or scarce suspected its aim; it was pleasant to her at the
time, and she looked not to the future, but fed it with visionary
schemes, and soothed it with voluntary fancies. Now she knew all was
over, she felt the folly she had committed, but though sensibly and
candidly angry at her own error, its conviction offered nothing but
sorrow to succeed it.

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