Cecilia vol. 3

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

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The felicity of Cecilia, whom she loved, admired and revered, she
wished with the genuine ardour of zealous sincerity; but that Delvile,
the very cause and sole subject of her own personal unhappiness, should
himself constitute that felicity, was too much for her spirits, and
seemed to her mortified mind too cruel in her destiny.

Cecilia, who in the very vehemence of her sorrow saw its innocence, was
too just and too noble to be offended by it, or impute to the bad
passions of envy or jealousy, the artless regret of an untutored mind.
To be penetrated too deeply with the merit of Delvile, with her wanted
no excuse, and she grieved for her situation with but little mixture of
blame, and none of surprise. She redoubled her kindness and caresses
with the hope of consoling her, but ventured to trust her no further,
till reflection, and her natural good sense, should better enable her
to bear an explanation.

Nor was this friendly exertion any longer a hardship to her; the sudden
removal, in her own feelings and affairs, of distress and expectation,
had now so much lightened her heart, that she could spare without
repining, some portion of its spirit to her dejected young friend.

But an incident happened two mornings after which called back, and most
unpleasantly, her attention to herself. She was told that Mrs Matt, the
poor woman she had settled in Bury, begged an audience, and upon
sending for her up stairs, and desiring to know what she could do for
her, "Nothing, madam, just now," she answered, "for I don't come upon
my own business, but to tell some news to you, madam. You bid me never
take notice of the wedding, that was to be, and I'm sure I never opened
my mouth about it from that time to this; but I have found out who it
was put a stop to it, and so I come to tell you."

Cecilia, extremely amazed, eagerly desired her to go on.

"Why, madam, I don't know the gentlewoman's name quite right yet, but I
can tell you where she lives, for I knew her as soon as I set eyes on
her, when I see her at church last Sunday, and I would have followed
her home, but she went into a coach, and I could not walk fast enough;
but I asked one of the footmen where she lived, and he said at the
great house at the Grove: and perhaps, madam, you may know where that
is: and then he told me her name, but that I can't just now think of."

"Good heaven!" cried Cecilia,--"it could not be Bennet?"

"Yes, ma'am, that's the very name; I know it again now I hear it."

Cecilia then hastily dismissed her, first desiring her not to mention
the circumstance to any body.

Shocked and dismayed, she now saw, but saw with horror, the removal of
all her doubts, and the explanation of all her difficulties, in the
full and irrefragable discovery of the perfidy of her oldest friend and
confident.

Miss Bennet herself she regarded in the affair as a mere tool, which,
though in effect it did the work, was innocent of its mischief, because
powerless but in the hand of its employer.

"That employer," cried she, "must be Mr Monckton! Mr Monckton whom so
long I have known, who so willingly has been my counsellor, so ably my
instructor! in whose integrity I have confided, upon whose friendship I
have relied! my succour in all emergencies, my guide in all
perplexities!--Mr _Monckton_ thus dishonourably, thus barbarously to
betray me! to turn against me the very confidence I had reposed in his
regard for me! and make use of my own trust to furnish the means to
injure me!"--

She was now wholly confirmed that he had wronged her with Mr Delvile;
she could not have two enemies so malignant without provocation, and he
who so unfeelingly could dissolve a union at the very altar, could
alone have the baseness to calumniate her so cruelly.

Evil thoughts thus awakened, stopt not merely upon facts; conjecture
carried her further, and conjecture built upon probability. The
officiousness of Morrice in pursuing her to London, his visiting her
when there, and his following and watching Delvile, she now reasonably
concluded were actions directed by Mr Monckton, whose house he had but
just left, and whose orders, whatever they might be, she was almost
certain he would obey. Availing himself, therefore, of the forwardness
and suppleness which met in this young man, she doubted not but his
intelligence had contributed to acquaint him with her proceedings.

The motive of such deep concerted and accumulated treachery was next to
be sought: nor was the search long; one only could have tempted him to
schemes so hazardous and costly; and, unsuspicious as she was, she now
saw into his whole design.

Long accustomed to regard him as a safe and disinterested old friend,
the respect with which, as a child, she had looked up to him, she had
insensibly preserved when a woman. That respect had taught her to
consider his notice as a favour, and far from suspiciously shunning,
she had innocently courted it: and his readiness in advising and
tutoring her, his frank and easy friendliness of behaviour, had kept
his influence unimpaired, by preventing its secret purpose from being
detected.

But now the whole mystery was revealed; his aversion to the Delviles,
to which hitherto she had attributed all she disapproved in his
behaviour, she was convinced must be inadequate to stimulate him to
such lengths. That aversion itself was by this late surmise accounted
for, and no sooner did it occur to her, than a thousand circumstances
confirmed it.

The first among these was the evident ill will of Lady Margaret, which
though she had constantly imputed to the general irascibility for which
her character was notorious, she had often wondered to find
impenetrable to all endeavours to please or soften her. His care of her
fortune, his exhortations against her expences, his wish to make her
live with Mr Briggs, all contributed to point out the selfishness of
his attentions, which in one instance rendered visible, became obvious
in every other.

Yet various as were the incidents that now poured upon her memory to
his disgrace, not one among them took its rise from his behaviour to
herself, which always had been scrupulously circumspect, or if for a
moment unguarded, only at a season when her own distress or confusion
had prevented her from perceiving it. This recollection almost
staggered her suspicions; yet so absolute seemed the confirmation they
received from every other, that her doubt was overpowered, and soon
wholly extinguished.

She was yet ruminating on this subject, when, word was brought her that
Mr Monckton was in the parlour.

Mingled disgust and indignation made her shudder at his name, and
without pausing a moment, she sent him word she was engaged, and could
not possibly leave her room.

Astonished by such a dismission, he left the house in the utmost
confusion. But Cecilia could not endure to see him, after a discovery
of such hypocrisy and villainy.

She considered, however, that the matter could not rest here: he would
demand an explanation, and perhaps, by his unparalleled address, again
contrive to seem innocent, notwithstanding appearances were at present
so much against him. Expecting, therefore, some artifice, and
determined not to be duped by it, she sent again for the Pew-opener, to
examine her more strictly.

The woman was out at work in a private family, and could not come till
the evening: but, when further questioned, the description she gave of
Miss Bennet was too exact to be disputed.

She then desired her to call again the next morning and sent a servant
to the Grove, with her compliments to Miss Bennet, and a request that
she might send her carriage for her the next day, at any time she
pleased, as she wished much to speak with her.

This message, she was aware, might create some suspicion, and put her
upon her guard; but she thought, nevertheless, a sudden meeting with
the Pew-opener, whom she meant abruptly to confront with her, would
baffle the security of any previously settled scheme.

To a conviction such as this even Mr Monckton must submit, and since he
was lost to her as a friend, she might at least save herself the pain
of keeping up his acquaintance.

CHAPTER ii.

AN INTERVIEW.

The servant did not return till it was dark; and then, with a look of
much dismay, said he had been able to meet with nobody who could either
give or take a message; that the Grove was all in confusion, and the
whole country in an uproar, for Mr Monckton, just as he arrived, had
been brought home dead!

Cecilia screamed with involuntary horror; a pang like remorse seized
her mind, with the apprehension she had some share in this catastrophe,
and innocent as she was either of his fall or his crimes, she no sooner
heard he was no more, than she forgot he had offended her, and
reproached herself with severity for the shame to which she meant to
expose him the next morning.

Dreadfully disturbed by this horrible incident, she entreated Mrs
Harrel and Henrietta to sup by themselves, and going into her own room,
determined to write the whole affair to Delvile, in a letter she should
direct to be left at the post-office for him at Margate.

And here strongly she felt the happiness of being actually his wife;
she could now without reserve make him acquainted with all her affairs,
and tell to the master of her heart every emotion that entered it.

While engaged in this office, the very action of which quieted her, a
letter was brought her from Delvile himself. She received it with
gratitude and opened it with joy; he had promised to write soon, but so
soon she had thought impossible.

The reading took not much time; the letter contained but the following
words:

_To Miss Beverley_.

MY CECILIA!--Be alone, I conjure you; dismiss every body, and admit me
this moment!

Great was her astonishment at this note! no name to it, no conclusion,
the characters indistinct, the writing crooked, the words so few, and
those few scarce legible!

He desired to see her, and to see her alone; she could not hesitate in
her compliance,--but whom could she dismiss?--her servants, if ordered
away, would but be curiously upon the watch,--she could think of no
expedient, she was all hurry and amazement.

She asked if any one waited for an answer? The footman said no; that
the note was given in by somebody who did not speak, and who ran out of
sight the moment he had delivered it.

She could not doubt this was Delvile himself,--Delvile who should now
be just returned from the castle to his mother, and whom she had
thought not even a letter would reach if directed any where nearer than
Margate!

All she could devise in obedience to him, was to go and wait for him
alone in her dressing-room, giving orders that if any one called they
might be immediately brought up to her, as she expected somebody upon
business, with whom she must not be interrupted.

This was extremely disagreeable to her; yet, contrary as it was to
their agreement, she felt no inclination to reproach Delvile; the
abruptness of his note, the evident hand-shaking with which it had been
written, the strangeness of the request in a situation such as theirs,
--all concurred to assure her he came not to her idly, and all led her
to apprehend he came to her with evil tidings.

What they might be, she had no time to conjecture; a servant, in a few
minutes, opened the dressing-room door, and said, "Ma'am, a gentleman;"
and Delvile, abruptly entering, shut it himself, in his eagerness to
get rid of him.

At his sight, her prognostication of ill became stronger! she went
forward to meet him, and he advanced to her smiling and in haste; but
that smile did not well do its office; it concealed not a pallid
countenance, in which every feature spoke horror; it disguised not an
aching heart, which almost visibly throbbed with intolerable emotion!
Yet he addressed her in terms of tenderness and peace; but his
tremulous voice counteracted his words, and spoke that all within was
tumult and war!

Cecilia, amazed, affrighted, had no power to hasten an explanation,
which, on his own part, he seemed unable, or fearful to begin. He
talked to her of his happiness in again seeing her before he left the
kingdom, entreated her to write to him continually, said the same thing
two and three times in a breath, began with one subject, and seemed
unconscious he wandered presently into another, and asked her questions
innumerable about her health, journey, affairs, and ease of mind,
without hearing from her any answer, or seeming to miss that she had
none.

Cecilia grew dreadfully terrified; something strange and most alarming
she was sure must have happened, but _what_, she had no means to know,
nor courage, nor even words to enquire.

Delvile, at length, the first hurry of his spirits abating, became more
coherent and considerate: and looking anxiously at her, said, "Why this
silence, my Cecilia?"

"I know not!" said she, endeavouring to recover herself, "but your
coming was unexpected: I was just writing to you at Margate."

"Write still, then; but direct to Ostend; I shall be quicker than the
post; and I would not lose a letter--a line--a word from you, for all
the world can offer me!"

"Quicker than the post?" cried Cecilia; "but how can Mrs Delvile--" she
stopt; not knowing what she might venture to ask.

"She is now on the road to Margate; I hope to be there to receive her.
I mean but to bid you adieu, and be gone."

Cecilia made no answer; she was more and more astonished, more and more
confounded.

"You are thoughtful?" said he, with tenderness; "are you unhappy?--
sweetest Cecilia! most excellent of human creatures! if I have made you
unhappy--and I must!--it is inevitable!--"

"Oh Delvile!" cried she, now assuming more courage, "why will you not
speak to me openly?--something, I see, is wrong; may I not hear it? may
I not tell you, at least, my concern that any thing has distressed
you?"

"You are too good!" cried he; "to deserve you is not possible, but to
afflict you is inhuman!" "Why so?" cried she, more chearfully; "must I
not share the common lot? or expect the whole world to be new modelled,
lest I should meet in it any thing but happiness?"

"There is not, indeed, much danger! Have you pen and ink here?"

She brought them to him immediately, with paper.

You have been writing to me, you say?--I will begin a letter myself."

"To me?" cried she.

He made no answer, but took up the pen, and wrote a few words, and
then, flinging it down, said, "Fool!--I could have done this without
coming!"

"May I look at it?" said she; and, finding he made no opposition,
advanced and read.

_I fear to alarm you by rash precipitation,--I fear to alarm you by
lingering suspense,--but all is not well--_

"Fear nothing!" cried she, turning to him with the kindest earnestness;
"tell me, whatever it may be!--Am I not your wife? bound by every tie
divine and human to share in all your sorrows, if, unhappily, I cannot
mitigate them!"

"Since you allow me," cried he, gratefully, "so sweet a claim, a claim
to which all others yield, and which if you repent not giving me, will
make all others nearly immaterial to me,--I will own to you that all,
indeed, is not well! I have been hasty,--you will blame me; I deserve,
indeed, to be blamed!--entrusted with your peace and happiness, to
suffer rage, resentment, violence, to make me forego what I owed to
such a deposite!--If your blame, however, stops short of repentance--
but it cannot!"

"What, then," cried she with warmth, "must you have done? for there is
not an action of which I believe you capable, there is not an event
which I believe to be possible, that can ever make me repent belonging
to you wholly!"

"Generous, condescending Cecilia!" cried he; "Words such as these, hung
there not upon me an evil the most depressing, would be almost more
than I could bear--would make me too blest for mortality!"

"But words such as these," said she more gaily, "I might long have
coquetted ere I had spoken, had you not drawn them from me by this
alarm. Take, therefore, the good with the ill, and remember, if all
does not go right, you have now a trusty friend, as willing to be the
partner of your serious as your happiest hours."

"Shew but as much firmness as you have shewn sweetness," cried he, "and
I will fear to tell you nothing."

She reiterated her assurances; they then both sat down, and he began
his account.

"Immediately from your lodgings I went where I had ordered a chaise,
and stopped only to change horses till I reached Delvile Castle. My
father saw me with surprise, and received me with coldness. I was
compelled by my situation to be abrupt, and told him I came, before I
accompanied my mother abroad, to make him acquainted with an affair
which I thought myself bound in duty and respect to suffer no one to
communicate to him but myself. He then sternly interrupted me, and
declared in high terms, that if this affair concerned _you_, he would
not listen to it. I attempted to remonstrate upon this injustice, when
he passionately broke forth into new and horrible charges against you,
affirming that he had them from authority as indisputable as ocular
demonstration. I was then certain of some foul play."--

"Foul play indeed!" cried Cecilia, who now knew but too well by whom
she had been injured. "Good heaven, how have I been deceived, where
most I have trusted!"

"I told him," continued Delvile, "some gross imposition had been
practiced upon him, and earnestly conjured him no longer to conceal
from me by whom. This, unfortunately, encreased his rage; imposition,
he said, was not so easily played upon him, he left that for _me_ who
so readily was duped; while for himself, he had only given credit to a
man of much consideration in Suffolk, who had known you from a child,
who had solemnly assured him he had repeatedly endeavoured to reclaim
you, who had rescued you from the hands of Jews at his own hazard and
loss, and who actually shewed him bonds acknowledging immense debts,
which were signed with your own hand."

"Horrible!" exclaimed Cecilia, "I believed not such guilt and perfidy
possible!"

"I was scarce myself," resumed Delvile, "while I heard him: I demanded
even with fierceness his author, whom I scrupled not to execrate as he
deserved; he coldly answered he was bound by an oath never to reveal
him, nor should he repay his honourable attention to his family by a
breach of his own word, were it even less formally engaged. I then lost
all patience; to mention honour, I cried, was a farce, where such
infamous calumnies were listened to;--but let me not shock you
unnecessarily, you may readily conjecture what passed."

"Ah me!" cried Cecilia, "you have then quarrelled with your father!"

"I have!" said he; "nor does he yet know I am married: in so much wrath
there was no room for narration; I only pledged myself by all I held
sacred, never to rest till I had cleared your fame, by the detection of
this villainy, and then left him without further explanation."

"Oh return, then, to him directly!" cried Cecilia, "he is your father,
you are bound to bear with his displeasure;--alas! had you never known
me, you had never incurred it!"

"Believe me," he answered, "I am ill at ease under it: if you wish it,
when you have heard me, I will go to him immediately; if not, I will
write, and you shall yourself dictate what."

Cecilia thanked him, and begged he would continue his account.

"My first step, when I left the Castle, was to send a letter to my
mother, in which I entreated her to set out as soon as possible for
Margate, as I was detained from her unavoidably, and was unwilling my
delay should either retard our journey, or oblige her to travel faster.
At Margate I hoped to be as soon as herself, if not before her."

"And why," cried Cecilia, "did you not go to town as you had promised,
and accompany her?"

"I had business another way. I came hither."

"Directly?"

"No; but soon."

"Where did you go first?"

"My Cecilia, it is now you must summon your fortitude: I left my father
without an explanation on my part;--but not till, in his rage of
asserting his authority, he had unwarily named his informant."

"Well!"

"That informant--the most deceitful of men!--was your long pretended
friend, Mr Monckton!"

"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!"

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