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 befo
re 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.”
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 138
