"All these," answered Belfield, "are so merely matters of ceremony, that the concession can neither cost pain to the proud, nor give pleasure to the vain. The bow is to the coat, the attention is to the rank, and the fear of offending ought to extend to all mankind. Homage such as this infringes not our sincerity, since it is as much a matter of course as the dress that we wear, and has as little reason to flatter a man as the shadow which follows him. I no more, therefore, hold him deceitful for not opposing this pantomimical parade, than I hold him to be dependent for eating corn he has not sown."
"Where, then, do you draw the line? and what is the boundary beyond which your independence must not step?"
"I hold that man," cried he, with energy, "to be independent, who treats the Great as the Little, and the Little as the Great, who neither exults in riches nor blushes in poverty, who owes no man a groat, and who spends not a shilling he has not earned."
"You will not, indeed, then, have a very numerous acquaintance, if this is the description of those with whom you purpose to a.s.sociate! but is it possible you imagine you can live by such notions? why the Carthusian in his monastery, who is at least removed from temptation, is not mortified so severely as a man of spirit living in the world, who would prescribe himself such rules."
"Not merely have I prescribed," returned Belfield, "I have already put them in practice; and far from finding any pennance, I never before found happiness. I have now adopted, though poor, the very plan of life I should have elected if rich; my pleasure, therefore, is become my business, and my business my pleasure."
"And is this plan," cried Monckton, "nothing more than turning Knight-errant to the Booksellers?"
""Tis a Knight-errantry," answered Belfield, laughing, "which, however ludicrous it may seem to you, requires more soul and more brains than any other. Our giants may, indeed, be only windmills, but they must be attacked with as much spirit, and conquered with as much bravery, as any fort or any town, in time of war [to] be demolished; and though the siege, I must confess, may be of less national utility, the a.s.sailants of the quill have their honour as much at heart as the a.s.sailants of the sword."
"I suppose then," said Monckton, archly, "if a man wants a biting lampoon, or an handsome panegyric, some newspaper scandal, or a sonnet for a lady--"
"No, no," interrupted Belfield eagerly, "if you imagine me a hireling scribbler for the purposes of defamation or of flattery, you as little know my situation as my character. My subjects shall be my own, and my satire shall be general. I would as much disdain to be personal with an anonymous pen, as to attack an unarmed man in the dark with a dagger I had kept concealed."
A reply of rallying incredulity was rising to the lips of Mr Monckton, when reading in the looks of Cecilia an entire approbation of this sentiment, he checked his desire of ridicule, and exclaimed, "spoken like a man of honour, and one whose works may profit the world!"
"From my earliest youth to the present hour," continued Belfield, "literature has been the favourite object of my pursuit, my recreation in leisure, and my hope in employment. My propensity to it, indeed, has been so ungovernable, that I may properly call it the source of my several miscarriages throughout life. It was the bar to my preferment, for it gave me a distaste to other studies; it was the cause of my unsteadiness in all my undertakings, because to all I preferred it.
It has sunk me to distress, it has involved me in difficulties; it has brought me to the brink of ruin by making me neglect the means of living, yet never, till now, did I discern it might itself be my support."
"I am heartily glad, Sir," said Cecilia, "your various enterprizes and struggles have at length ended in a project which promises you so much satisfaction. But you will surely suffer your sister and your mother to partake of it? for who is there that your prosperity will make so happy?"
"You do them infinite honour, madam, by taking any interest in their affairs; but to own to you the truth, what to me appears prosperity, will to them wear another aspect. They have looked forward to my elevation with expectations the most improbable, and thought everything within my grasp, with a simplicity incredible. But though their hopes were absurd, I am pained by their disappointment, and I have not courage to meet their tears, which I am sure will not be spared when they see me."
""Tis from tenderness, then," said Cecilia, half smiling, "that you are cruel, and from affection to your friends that you make them believe you have forgotten them?"
There was a delicacy in this reproach exactly suited to work upon Belfield, who feeling it with quickness, started up, and cried, "I believe I am wrong!--I will go to them this moment!"
Cecilia felt eager to second the generous impulse; but Mr Monckton, laughing at his impetuosity, insisted he should first finish his breakfast.
"Your friends," said Cecilia, "can have no mortification so hard to bear as your voluntary absence; and if they see but that you are happy, they will soon be reconciled to whatever situation you may chuse."
"Happy!" repeated he, with animation, "Oh I am in Paradise! I am come from a region in the first rude state of nature, to civilization and refinement! the life I led at the cottage was the life of a savage; no intercourse with society, no consolation from books; my mind locked up, every source dried of intellectual delight, and no enjoyment in my power but from sleep and from food. Weary of an existence which thus levelled me with a brute, I grew ashamed of the approximation, and listening to the remonstrance of my understanding, I gave up the precipitate plan, to pursue one more consonant to reason. I came to town, hired a room, and sent for pen, ink and paper: what I have written are trifles, but the Bookseller has not rejected them. I was settled, therefore, in a moment, and comparing my new occupation with that I had just quitted, I seemed exalted on the sudden from a mere creature of instinct, to a rational and intelligent being. But when first I opened a book, after so long an abstinence from all mental nourishment,--Oh it was rapture! no half-famished beggar regaled suddenly with food, ever seized on his repast with more hungry avidity."
"Let fortune turn which way it will," cried Monckton, "you may defy all its malice, while possessed of a spirit of enjoyment which nothing can subdue!"
"But were you not, Sir," said Cecilia, "as great an enthusiast the other day for your cottage, and for labour?"
"I was, madam; but there my philosophy was erroneous: in my ardour to fly from meanness and from dependence, I thought in labour and retirement I should find freedom and happiness; but I forgot that my body was not seasoned for such work, and considered not that a mind which had once been opened by knowledge, could ill endure the contraction of dark and perpetual ignorance. The approach, however, of winter, brought me acquainted with my mistake. It grew cold, it grew bleak; little guarded against the inclemency of the ----, I felt its severity in every limb, and missed a thousand indulgencies which in possession I had never valued. To rise at break of day, chill, freezing, and comfortless! no sun abroad, no fire at home! to go out in all weather to work, that work rough, coa.r.s.e, and laborious!--unused to such hardships, I found I could not bear them, and, however unwillingly, was compelled to relinquish the attempt."
Breakfast now being over, he again arose to take leave.
"You are going, then, Sir," said Cecilia, "immediately to your friends?"
"No, madam," answered he hesitating, "not just this moment; to-morrow morning perhaps,--but it is now late, and I have business for the rest of the day."
"Ah, Mr Monckton!" cried Cecilia, "what mischief have you done by occasioning this delay!"
"This goodness, madam," said Belfield, "my sister can never sufficiently acknowledge. But I will own, that though, just now, in a warm moment, I felt eager to present myself to her and my mother, I rather wish, now I am cooler, to be saved the pain of telling them in person my situation.
I mean, therefore, first to write to them."
"You will not fail, then, to see them to-morrow?"
"Certainly--I think not."
"Nay, but certainly you _must_ not, for I shall call upon them to-day, and a.s.sure them they may expect you. Can I soften your task of writing by giving them any message from you?"
"Ah, madam, have a care!" cried he; "this condescension to a poor author may be more dangerous than you have any suspicion! and before you have power to help yourself, you may see your name prefixed to the Dedication of some trumpery pamphlet!"
"I will run," cried she, "all risks; remember, therefore, you will be responsible for the performance of my promise."
"I will be sure," answered he, "not to forget what reflects so much honour upon myself."
Cecilia was satisfied by this a.s.sent, and he then went away.
"A strange flighty character!" cried Mr Monckton, "yet of uncommon capacity, and full of genius. Were he less imaginative, wild and eccentric, he has abilities for any station, and might fix and distinguish himself almost where-ever he pleased."
"I knew not," said Cecilia, "the full worth of steadiness and prudence till I knew this young man; for he has every thing else; talents the most striking, a love of virtue the most elevated, and manners the most pleasing; yet wanting steadiness and prudence, he can neither act with consistency nor prosper with continuance."
"He is well enough," said Lady Margaret, who had heard the whole argument in sullen taciturnity, "he is well enough, I say; and there comes no good from young women"s being so difficult."
Cecilia, offended by a speech which implied a rude desire to dispose of her, went up stairs to her own room; and Mr Monckton, always enraged when young men and Cecilia were alluded to in the same sentence, retired to his library.
She then ordered a chair, and went to Portland-street, to fulfil what she had offered to Belfield, and to revive his mother and sister by the pleasure of the promised interview.
She found them together: and her intelligence being of equal consequence to both, she did not now repine at the presence of Mrs Belfield.
She made her communication with the most cautious attention to their characters, softening the ill she had to relate with respect to Belfield"s present way of living, by endeavouring to awaken affection and joy from the prospect of the approaching meeting. She counselled them as much as possible to restrain their chagrin at his misfortunes, which he would but construe into reproach of his ill management; and she represented that when once he was restored to his family, he might almost imperceptibly be led into some less wild and more profitable scheme of business.
When she had told all she thought proper to relate, kindly interspersing her account with the best advice and best comfort she could suggest, she made an end of her visit; for the affliction of Mrs Belfield upon hearing the actual situation of her son, was so clamorous and unappeaseable, that, little wondering at Belfield"s want of courage to encounter it, and having no opportunity in such a storm to console the soft Henrietta, whose tears flowed abundantly that her brother should thus be fallen, she only promised before she left town to see her again, and beseeching Mrs Belfield to moderate her concern, was glad to leave the house, where her presence had no power to quiet their distress.
She pa.s.sed the rest of the day in sad reflections upon the meeting she was herself to have the next morning with Mr Delvile. She wished ardently to know whether his son was gone abroad, and whether Mrs Delvile was recovered, whose health, in her own letter, was mentioned in terms the most melancholy: yet neither of these enquiries could she even think of making, since reasonably, without them, apprehensive of some reproach.
CHAPTER iv.
A WRANGLING.
Mr Monckton, the next day, as soon as breakfast was over, went out, to avoid showing, even to Cecilia, the anxiety he felt concerning the regulation of her fortune, and arrangement of her affairs. He strongly, however, advised her not to mention her large debt, which, though contracted in the innocence of the purest benevolence, would incur nothing but reproof and disapprobation, from all who only heard of it, when they heard of its inutility.
At eleven o"clock, though an hour before the time appointed, while Cecilia was sitting in Lady Margaret"s dressing room, "with sad civility and an aching head," she was summoned to Mr Briggs in the parlour.
He immediately began reproaching her with having eloped from him, in the summer, and with the various expences she had caused him from useless purchases and spoilt provisions. He then complained of Mr Delvile, whom he charged with defrauding him of his dues; but observing in the midst of his railing her dejection of countenance, he suddenly broke off, and looking at her with some concern, said, "what"s the matter, Ducky? a"n"t well? look as if you could not help it."
"O yes," cried Cecilia, "I thank you, Sir, I am very well."