"Did he, then, never hint it to you?"
"Oh distraction!" cried Delvile, "what horrible confirmation is coming!"
and again he walked away, as if wanting courage to hear her.
Cecilia was too much shocked to force upon him her explanation; but presently returning to her, he said, "_you_, only, could have made this credible!"
"Had you, then, actually heard it?"
"Oh I had heard it as the most infamous of falsehoods! my heart swelled with indignation at so villainous a calumny, and had it not come from my father, my resentment at it had been inveterate!"
"Alas!" cried Cecilia, "the fact is undeniable! yet the circ.u.mstances you may have heard with it, are I doubt not exaggerated."
"Exaggerated indeed!" he answered; "I was told you had been surprised concealed with Belfield in a back room, I was told that your parental fortune was totally exhausted, and that during your minority you had been a dealer with Jews!--I was told all this by my father; you may believe I had else not easily been made hear it!"
"Yet thus far," said she, "he told you but what is true; though--"
"True!" interrupted Delvile, with a start almost frantic. "Oh never, then, was truth so scandalously wronged!--I denied the whole charge!-I disbelieved every syllable!--I pledged my own honour to prove every a.s.sertion false!"
"Generous Delvile!" cried Cecilia, melting into tears, "this is what I expected from you! and, believe me, in _your_ integrity my reliance had been similar!"
"Why does Miss Beverley weep?" cried he, softened, and approaching her, "and why has she given me this alarm? these things must at least have been misrepresented, deign, then, to clear up a mystery in which suspense is torture!"
Cecilia, then, with what precision and clearness her agitation allowed her, related the whole history of her taking up the money of the Jew for Mr Harrel, and told, without reserve, the reason of her trying to abscond from his father at Mrs Belfield"s. Delvile listened to her account with almost an agony of attention, now admiring her conduct; now resenting her ill usage; now compa.s.sionating her losses; but though variously moved by different parts, receiving from the whole the delight he most coveted in the establishment of her innocence.
Thanks and applause the warmest, both accompanied and followed her narration; and then, at her request, he related in return the several incidents and circ.u.mstances to which he had owed the permission of this visit.
He had meant immediately to have gone abroad; but the indisposition of his mother made him unwilling to leave the kingdom till her health seemed in a situation less precarious. That time, however, came not; the Winter advanced, and she grew evidently worse. He gave over, therefore, his design till the next Spring, when, if she were able, it was her desire to try the South of France for her recovery, whither he meant to conduct her.
But, during his attendance upon her, the plan he had just mentioned occurred to him, and he considered how much greater would be his chance of happiness in marrying Cecilia with scarce any fortune at all, than in marrying another with the largest. He was convinced she was far other than expensive, or a lover of shew, and soon flattered himself she might be prevailed upon to concur with him, that in living together, though comparatively upon little, they should mutually be happier than in living asunder upon much.
When he started this scheme to his mother, she heard it with mingled admiration of his disinterestedness, and regret at its occasion: yet the loftiness of her own mind, her high personal value for Cecilia, her anxiety to see her son finally settled while she lived, lest his disappointment should keep him single from a lasting disgust, joined to a dejection of spirits from an apprehension that her interference had been cruel, all favoured his scheme, and forbid her resistance. She had often protested, in their former conflicts, that had Cecilia been portionless, her objections had been less than to an estate so conditioned; and that to give to her son a woman so exalted in herself, she would have conquered the mere opposition of interest, though that of family honour she held invincible. Delvile now called upon her to remember those words, and ever strict in fidelity, she still promised to abide by them.
Ah! thought Cecilia, is virtue, then, as inconsistent as vice? and can the same character be thus high-souled, thus n.o.bly disinterested with regard to riches, whose pride is so narrow and so insurmountable, with respect to family prejudice!
Yet such a sacrifice from Cecilia herself, whose income int.i.tled her to settlements the most splendid, Mrs Delvile thought scarcely to be solicited; but as her son was conscious he gave up in expectation no less than she would give up in possession, he resolved upon making the experiment, and felt an internal a.s.surance of success.
This matter being finally settled with his mother, the harder task remained of vanquishing the father, by whom, and before whom the name of Cecilia was never mentioned, not even after his return from town, though loaded with imaginary charges against her. Mr Delvile held it a diminution of his own in the honour of his son, to suppose he wanted still fresh motives for resigning her. He kept, therefore, to himself the ill opinion he brought down, as a resource in case of danger, but a resource he disdained to make use of, unless driven to it by absolute necessity.
But, at the new proposal of his son, the accusation held in reserve broke out; he called Cecilia a dabler with Jews, and said she had been so from the time of her uncle"s death; he charged her with the grossest general extravagance, to which he added a most insidious attack upon her character, drawn from her visits at Belfield"s of long standing, as well as the particular time when he had himself surprised her concealed with the young man in a back parlour: and he a.s.serted, that most of the large sums she was continually taking up from her fortune, were lavished without scruple upon this dangerous and improper favourite.
Delvile had heard this accusation with a rage scarce restrained from violence; confident in her innocence, he boldly p.r.o.nounced the whole a forgery, and demanded the author of such cruel defamation. Mr Delvile, much offended, refused to name any authority, but consented, with an air of triumph, to abide by the effect of his own proposal, and gave him a supercilious promise no longer to oppose the marriage, if the terms he meant to offer to Miss Beverley, of renouncing her uncle"s estate, and producing her father"s fortune, were accepted.
"O little did I credit," said Delvile in conclusion, "that he knew indeed so well this last condition was impracticable! his a.s.sertions were without proof; I thought them prejudiced surmises; and I came in the full hope I should convict him of his error. My mother, too, who warmly and even angrily defended you, was as firmly satisfied as myself that the whole was a mistake, and that enquiry would prove your fortune as undiminished as your purity. How will she be shocked at the tale I have now to unfold! how irritated at your injuries from Harrel! how grieved that your own too great benevolence should be productive of such black aspersions upon your character!"
"I have been," cried Cecilia, "too facile and too unguarded; yet always, at the moment, I seemed but guided by common humanity. I have ever thought myself secure of more wealth than I could require, and regarded the want of money as an evil from which I was unavoidably exempted. My own fortune, therefore, appeared to me of small consequence, while the revenue of my uncle insured me perpetual prosperity.--Oh had I foreseen this moment--"
"Would you, then, have listened to my romantic proposal?"
"Would I have listened?--do you not see too plainly I could not have hesitated!"
"Oh yet, then, most generous of human beings, yet then be mine! By our own oeconomy we will pay off our mortgages; by living a while abroad, we will clear all our estates; I will still keep the name to which my family is bigotted, and my grat.i.tude for your compliance shall make you forget what you lose by it!"
"Speak not to me such words!" cried Cecilia, hastily rising; "your friends will not listen to them, neither, therefore, must I."
"My friends," cried he with energy, "are henceforth out of the question: my father"s concurrence with a proposal he _knew_ you had not power to grant, was in fact a mere permission to insult you; for if, instead of dark charges, he had given any authority for your losses, I had myself spared you the shock you have so undeservedly received from hearing it.--But to consent to a plan which _could_ not be accepted!--to make me a tool to offer indignity to Miss Beverley!--He has released me from his power by so erroneous an exertion of it, and my own honour has a claim to which his commands must give place. That honour binds me to Miss Beverley as forcibly as my admiration, and no voice but her own shall determine my future destiny."
"That voice, then," said Cecilia, "again refers you to your mother.
Mr Delvile, indeed, has not treated me kindly; and this last mock concession was unnecessary cruelty; but Mrs Delvile merits my utmost respect, and I will listen to nothing which has not her previous sanction."
"But will her sanction be sufficient? and may I hope, in obtaining it, the security of yours?"
"When I have said I will hear nothing without it, may you not almost infer--I will refuse nothing with it!"
The acknowledgments he would now have poured forth, Cecilia would not hear, telling him, with some gaiety, they were yet unauthorized by Mrs Delvile. She insisted upon his leaving her immediately, and never again returning, without his mother"s express approbation. With regard to his father, she left him totally to his own inclination; she had received from him nothing but pride and incivility, and determined to skew publicly her superior respect for Mrs Delvile, by whose discretion and decision she was content to abide.
"Will you not, then, from time to time," cried Delvile, "suffer me to consult with you?"
"No, no," answered she, "do not ask it! I have never been insincere with you, never but from motives not to be overcome, reserved even for a moment; I have told you I will put every thing into the power of Mrs Delvile, but I will not a second time risk my peace by any action unknown to her."
Delvile gratefully acknowledged her goodness, and promised to require nothing more. He then obeyed her by taking leave, eager himself to put an end to this new uncertainty, and supplicating only that her good wishes might follow his enterprise.
And thus, again, was wholly broken the tranquility of Cecilia; new hopes, however faint, awakened all her affections, and strong fears, but too reasonable, interrupted her repose. Her destiny, once more, was as undecided as ever, and the expectations she had crushed, retook possession of her heart.
The suspicions she had conceived of Mr Monckton again occurred to her; though unable to ascertain and unwilling to believe them, she tried to drive them from her thoughts. She lamented, however, with bitterness, her unfortunate connexion with Mr Harrel, whose unworthy impositions upon her kindness of temper and generosity, now proved to her an evil far more serious and extensive, than in the midst of her repugnance to them she had ever apprehended.
CHAPTER ix.
A SUSPENSE.
Delvile had been gone but a short time, before Henrietta, her eyes still red, though no longer streaming, opened the parlour door, and asked if she might come in?
Cecilia wished to be alone, yet could not refuse her.
"Well, madam," cried she, with a forced smile, and constrained air of bravery, "did not I guess right?"
"In what?" said Cecilia, unwilling to understand her.
"In what I said would happen?--I am sure you know what I mean."
Cecilia, extremely embarra.s.sed, made no answer; she much regretted the circ.u.mstances which had prevented an earlier communication, and was uncertain whether, now, it would prove most kind or most cruel to acquaint her with what was in agitation, which, should it terminate in nothing, was unnecessarily wounding her delicacy for the openness of her confidence, and which, however serviceable it might prove to her in the end, was in the means so rough and piercing she felt the utmost repugnance to the experiment.
"You think me, madam, too free," said Henrietta, "in asking such a question; and indeed your kindness has been so great, it may well make me forget myself: but if it does, I am sure I deserve you should send me home directly, and then there is not much fear I shall soon be brought to my senses!"
"No, my dear Henrietta, I can never think you too free; I have told you already every thing I thought you would have pleasure in hearing; whatever I have concealed, I have been fearful would only pain you."
"I have _deserved_, madam," said she, with spirit, "to be pained, for I have behaved with the folly of a baby. I am very angry with myself indeed! I was old enough to have known better,--and I ought to have been wise enough."