Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress Volume III Part 47

Henrietta, for whom Mr Arnott's equipage and servants had still remained in town, was then, though with much difficulty, persuaded to go back to Suffolk: but Cecilia, however fond of her society, was too sensible of the danger and impropriety of her present situation, to receive from it any pleasure.

Mr Delvile's reception of Cecilia was formal and cold: yet, as she now appeared publicly in the character of his son's wife, the best apartment in his house had been prepared for her use, his domestics were instructed to wait upon her with the utmost respect, and Lady Honoria Pemberton, who was accidentally in town, offered from curiosity, what Mr Delvile accepted from parade, to be herself in St James's-square, in order to do honour to his daughter-in-law's first entrance.

When Cecilia was a little recovered from the shock of the first interview, and the fatigue of her removal, the anxious Mortimer would instantly have had her conveyed to her own apartment; but, willing to exert herself, and hoping to oblige Mr Delvile, she declared she was well able to remain some time longer in the drawing-room.

"My good friends," said Dr Lyster, "in the course of my long practice, I have found it impossible to study the human frame, without a little studying the human mind; and from all that I have yet been able to make out, either by observation, reflection, or comparison, it appears to me at this moment, that Mr Mortimer Delvile has got the best wife, and that you, Sir, have here the most faultless daughter-in-law, that any husband or any father in the three kingdoms belonging to his Majesty can either have or desire."

Cecilia smiled; Mortimer looked his delighted concurrence; Mr Delvile forced himself to make a stiff inclination of the head; and Lady Honoria gaily exclaimed, "Dr Lyster, when you say the _best_ and the most _faultless_, you should always add the rest of the company excepted."

"Upon my word," cried the Doctor, "I beg your ladyship's pardon; but there is a certain unguarded warmth comes across a man now and then, that drives _etiquette_ out of his head, and makes him speak truth before he well knows where he is."

"O terrible!" cried she, "this is sinking deeper and deeper. I had hoped the town air would have taught you better things; but I find you have visited at Delvile Castle till you are fit for no other place."

"Whoever, Lady Honoria," said Mr Delvile, much offended, "is fit for Delvile Castle, must be fit for every other place; though every other place may by no means be fit for him."

"O yes, Sir," cried she, giddily, "every possible place will be fit for him, if he can once bear with that. Don't you think so, Dr Lyster?"

"Why, when a man has the honour to see your ladyship," answered he, good-humouredly, "he is apt to think too much of the person, to care about the place."

"Come, I begin to have some hopes of you," cried she, "for I see, for a Doctor, you have really a very pretty notion of a compliment: only you have one great fault still; you look the whole time as if you said it for a joke."

"Why, in fact, madam, when a man has been a plain dealer both in word and look for upwards of fifty years, 'tis expecting too quick a reformation to demand ductility of voice and eye from him at a blow.

However, give me but a little time and a little encouragement, and, with such a tutress, 'twill be hard if I do not, in a very few lessons, learn the right method of seasoning a simper, and the newest fashion of twisting words from meaning."

"But pray," cried she, "upon those occasions, always remember to look serious. Nothing sets off a compliment so much as a long face. If you are tempted to an unseasonable laugh, think of Delvile Castle; 'tis an expedient I commonly make use of myself when I am afraid of being too frisky: and it always succeeds, for the very recollection of it gives me the head-ache in a moment. Upon my word, Mr Delvile, you must have the const.i.tution of five men, to have kept such good health, after living so long at that horrible place. You can't imagine how you've surprised me, for I have regularly expected to hear of your death at the end of every summer: and, I a.s.sure you, once, I was very near buying mourning."

"The estate which descends to a man from his own ancestors, Lady Honoria," answered Mr Delvile, "will seldom be apt to injure his health, if he is conscious of committing no misdemeanour which has degraded their memory."

"How vastly odious this new father of yours is!" said Lady Honoria, in a whisper to Cecilia; "what could ever induce you to give up your charming estate for the sake of coming into this fusty old family! I would really advise you to have your marriage annulled. You have only, you know, to take an oath that you were forcibly run away with; and as you are an Heiress, and the Delviles are all so violent, it will easily be credited. And then, as soon as you are at liberty, I would advise you to marry my little Lord Derford."

"Would you only, then," said Cecilia, "have me regain my freedom in order to part with it?"

"Certainly," answered Lady Honoria, "for you can do nothing at all without being married; a single woman is a thousand times more shackled than a wife; for she is accountable to every body; and a wife, you know, has nothing to do but just to manage her husband."

"And that," said Cecilia, smiling, "you consider as a trifle?"

"Yes, if you do but marry a man you don't care for."

"You are right, then, indeed, to recommend to me my Lord Derford!"

"O yes, he will make the prettiest husband in the world; you may fly about yourself as wild as a lark, and keep him the whole time as tame as a jack-daw: and though he may complain of you to your friends, he will never have the courage to find fault to your face. But as to Mortimer, you will not be able to govern him as long as you live; for the moment you have put him upon the fret, you'll fall into the dumps yourself, hold out your hand to him, and, losing the opportunity of gaining some material point, make up at the first soft word."

"You think, then, the quarrel more amusing than the reconciliation?"

"O, a thousand times! for while you are quarrelling, you may say any thing, and demand any thing, but when you are reconciled, you ought to behave pretty, and seem contented."

"Those who presume to have any pretensions to your ladyship," said Cecilia, "would be made happy indeed should they hear your principles!"

"O, it would not signify at all," answered she, "for one's fathers, and uncles, and those sort of people, always make connexions for one, and not a creature thinks of our principles, till they find them out by our conduct: and n.o.body can possibly do that till we are married, for they give us no power beforehand. The men know nothing of us in the world while we are single, but how we can dance a minuet, or play a lesson upon the harpsichord."

"And what else," said Mr Delvile, who advanced, and heard this last speech, "need a young lady of rank desire to be known for? your ladyship surely would not have her degrade herself by studying like an artist or professor?"

"O no, Sir, I would not have her study at all; it's mighty well for children, but really after sixteen, and when one is come out, one has quite fatigue enough in dressing, and going to public places, and ordering new things, without all that torment of first and second position, and E upon the first line, and F upon the first, s.p.a.ce!"

"Your ladyship must, however, pardon me for hinting," said Mr Delvile, "that a young lady of condition, who has a proper sense of her dignity, cannot be seen too rarely, or known too little."

"O but I hate dignity!" cried she carelessly, "for it's the dullest thing in the world. I always thought it was owing to that you were so little amusing;--really I beg your pardon, Sir, I meant to say so little talkative."

"I can easily credit that your ladyship spoke hastily," answered he, highly piqued, "for I believe, indeed, a person of a family such as mine, will hardly be supposed to have come into the world for the office of amusing it!"

"O no, Sir," cried she, with pretended innocence, "n.o.body, I am sure, ever saw you with such a thought." Then, turning to Cecilia, she added in a whisper, "You cannot imagine, my dear Mrs Mortimer, how I detest this old cousin of mine! Now pray tell me honestly if you don't hate him yourself?"

"I hope," said Cecilia, "to have no reason."

"Lord, how you are always upon your guard! If I were half as cautious, I should die of the vapours in a month; the only thing that keeps me at all alive, is now and then making people angry; for the folks at our house let me go out so seldom, and then send me with such stupid old chaperons, that giving them a little torment is really the only entertainment I can procure myself. O--but I had almost forgot to tell you a most delightful thing!"

"What is it?"

"Why you must know I have the greatest hopes in the world that my father will quarrel with old Mr Delvile!"

"And is that such a delightful thing!"

"O yes; I have lived upon the very idea this fortnight; for then, you know, they'll both be in a pa.s.sion, and I shall see which of them looks frightfullest."

"When Lady Honoria whispers," cried Mortimer, "I always suspect some mischief."

"No indeed," answered her ladyship, "I was merely congratulating Mrs Mortimer about her marriage. Though really, upon second thoughts, I don't know whether I should not rather condole with her, for I have long been convinced she has a prodigious antipathy to you. I saw it the whole time I was at Delvile Castle, where she used to change colour at the very sound of your name; a symptom I never perceived when I talked to her of my Lord Derford, who would certainly have made her a thousand times a better husband."

"If you mean on account of his t.i.tle, Lady Honoria," said Mr Delvile; "your ladyship must be strangely forgetful of the connections of your family, not to remember that Mortimer, after the death of his uncle and myself, must inevitably inherit one far more honourable than a new-sprung-up family, like my Lord Ernolf's, could offer."

"Yes, Sir; but then, you know, she would have kept her estate, which would have been a vastly better thing than an old pedigree of new relations. Besides, I don't find that any body cares for the n.o.ble blood of the Delviles but themselves; and if she had kept her fortune, every body, I fancy, would have cared for _that_."

"Every body, then," said Mr Delvile, "must be highly mercenary and ign.o.ble, or the blood of an ancient and honourable house, would be thought contaminated by the most distant hint of so degrading a comparison."

"Dear Sir, what should we all do with birth if it was not for wealth?

it would neither take us to Ranelagh nor the Opera; nor buy us caps nor wigs, nor supply us with dinners nor bouquets."

"Caps and wigs, dinners and bouquets!" interrupted Mr Delvile; "your ladyship's estimate of wealth is really extremely minute."

"Why, you know, Sir, as to caps and wigs, they are very serious things, for we should look mighty droll figures to go about bare-headed; and as to dinners, how would the Delviles have lasted all these thousand centuries if they had disdained eating them?"

"Whatever may be your ladyship's satisfaction," said Mr Delvile, angrily, "in depreciating a house that has the honour of being nearly allied with your own, you will not, I hope at least, instruct this lady," turning to Cecilia, "to adopt a similar contempt of its antiquity and dignity."

"This lady," cried Mortimer, "will at least, by condescending to become one of it, secure us from any danger that such contempt may spread further."

"Let me but," said Cecilia, looking gratefully at him, "be as secure from exciting as I am from feeling contempt, and what can I have to wish?"

"Good and excellent young lady!" said Dr Lyster, "the first of blessings indeed is yours in the temperance of your own mind. When you began your career in life, you appeared to us short-sighted mortals, to possess more than your share of the good things of this world; such a union of riches, beauty, independence, talents, education and virtue, seemed a monopoly to raise general envy and discontent; but mark with what scrupulous exactness the good and bad is ever balanced! You have had a thousand sorrows to which those who have looked up to you have been strangers, and for which not all the advantages you possess have been equivalent. There is evidently throughout this world, in things as well as persons, a levelling principle, at war with pre-eminence, and destructive of perfection."