“The chaise?” cried she, “why you don’t suppose I’ll ever get into that horrid chaise any more? I do assure you I would not upon any account.”
“Not get into it?” said Cecilia, “for what purpose, then, have we all waited till it was ready?”
“O, I declare I would not go in it for forty thousand worlds. I would rather walk to an inn, if it’s a hundred and fifty miles off.”
“But as it happens,” said Mr Gosport, “to be only seven miles, I fancy you will condescend to ride.”
“Seven miles! Lord, how shocking! you frighten me so you have no idea. Poor Mrs Mears! She’ll have to go quite alone. I dare say the chaise will be down fifty times by the way. Ten to one but she breaks her neck! only conceive how horrid! I assure you I am excessive glad I am out of it.”
“Very friendly, indeed!” said Mr Gosport. “Mrs Mears, then, may break her bones at her leisure!”
Mrs Mears, however, when applied to, professed an equal aversion to the carriage in which she had been so unfortunate, and declared she would rather walk than return to it, though one of her ancles was already so swelled that she could hardly stand.
“Why then the best way, ladies,” cried Morrice, with the look of a man happy in vanquishing all difficulties, “will be for Mrs Charlton, and that poor lady with the bruises, to go together in that sound chaise, and then for us gentlemen to escort this young lady and Miss Beverley on foot, till we all come to the next inn. Miss Beverley, I know, is an excellent walker, for I have heard Mr Monckton say so.”
Cecilia, though in the utmost consternation at a proposal, which must so long retard a journey she had so many reasons to wish hastened, knew not how either in decency or humanity to oppose it; and the fear of raising suspicion, from a consciousness how much there was to suspect, forced her to curb her impatience, and reduced her even to repeat the offer which Morrice had made, though she could scarce look at him for anger at his unseasonable forwardness.
No voice dissenting, the troop began to be formed. The foot consisted of the two young ladies, and Mr Gosport, who alighted to walk with Cecilia; the cavalry, of Mr Meadows, the Captain, and Morrice, who walked their horses a foot pace, while the rest of the party rode on with the chaise, as attendants upon Mrs Mears.
Just before they set off, Mr Meadows, riding negligently up to the carriage, exerted himself so far as to say to Mrs Mears, “Are you hurt, ma’am?” and, at the same instant, seeming to recollect Cecilia, he turned about, and yawning while he touched his hat, said, “O, how d’ye do, ma’am?” and then, without waiting an answer to either of his questions, flapped it over his eyes, and joined the cavalcade, though without appearing to have any consciousness that he belonged to it.
Cecilia would most gladly have used the rejected chaise herself, but could not make such a proposal to Mrs Charlton, who was past the age and the courage for even any appearance of enterprize. Upon enquiry, however, she had the satisfaction to hear that the distance to the next stage was but two miles, though multiplied to seven by the malice of Mr Gosport.
Miss Larolles carried her little dog in her arms, declaring she would never more trust him a moment away from her. She acquainted Cecilia that she had been for some time upon a visit to Mrs Mears, who, with the rest of the party, had taken her to see — house and gardens, where they had made an early dinner, from which they were just returning home when the chaise broke down.
She then proceeded, with her usual volubility, to relate the little nothings that had passed since the winter, flying from subject to subject, with no meaning but to be heard, and no wish but to talk, ever rapid in speech, though minute in detail. This loquacity met not with any interruption, save now and then a sarcastic remark, from Mr Gosport; for Cecilia was too much occupied by her own affairs, to answer or listen to such uninteresting discourse.
Her silence, however, was at length forcibly broken; Mr Gosport, taking advantage of the first moment Miss Larolles stopt for breath, said, “Pray what carries you to town, Miss Beverley, at this time of the year?”
Cecilia, whose thoughts had been wholly employed upon what would pass at her approaching meeting with Delvile, was so entirely unprepared for this question, that she could make to it no manner of answer, till Mr Gosport, in a tone of some surprise, repeated it, and then, not without hesitation, she said, “I have some business, Sir, in London, — pray how long have you been in the country?”
“Business, have you?” cried he, struck by her evasion; “and pray what can you and business have in common?”
“More than you may imagine,” answered she, with greater steadiness; “and perhaps before long I may even have enough to teach me the enjoyment of leisure.”
“Why you don’t pretend to play my Lady Notable, and become your own steward?”
“And what can I do better?”
“What? Why seek one ready made to take the trouble off your hands. There are such creatures to be found, I promise you; beasts of burthen, who will freely undertake the management of your estate, for no other reward than the trifling one of possessing it. Can you no where meet with such an animal?”
“I don’t know,” answered she, laughing, “I have not been looking out.”
“And have none such made application to you?”
“Why no, — I believe not.”
“Fie, fie! no register-office keeper has been pestered with more claimants. You know they assault you by dozens.”
“You must pardon me, indeed, I know not any such thing.”
“You know, then, why they do not, and that is much the same.”
“I may conjecture why, at least; the place, I suppose, is not worth the service.”
“No, no; the place, they conclude, is already seized, and the fee — simple of the estate is the heart of the owner. Is it not so?”
“The heart of the owner,” answered she, a little confused, “may, indeed, be simple, but not, perhaps, so easily seized as you imagine.”
“Have you, then, wisely saved it from a storm, by a generous surrender? you have been, indeed, in an excellent school for the study both of attack and defence; Delvile-Castle is a fortress which, even in ruins, proves its strength by its antiquity; and it teaches, also, an admirable lesson, by displaying the dangerous, the infallible power of time, which defies all might, and undermines all strength; which breaks down every barrier, and shews nothing endurable but itself.” Then looking at her with an arch earnestness, “I think,” he added, “you made a long visit there; did this observation never occur to you? did you never perceive, never feel, rather, the insidious properties of time?”
“Yes, certainly,” answered she, alarmed at the very mention of Delvile Castle, yet affecting to understand literally what was said metaphorically, “the havoc of time upon the place could not fail striking me.”
“And was its havoc,” said he, yet more archly, “merely external? is all within safe? sound and firm? and did the length of your residence shew its power by no new mischief?”
“Doubtless, not,” answered she, with the same pretended ignorance, “the place is not in so desperate a condition as to exhibit any visible marks of decay in the course of three or four months.”
“And, do you not know,” cried he, “that the place to which I allude may receive a mischief in as many minutes which double the number of years cannot rectify? The internal parts of a building are not less vulnerable to accident than its outside; and though the evil may more easily be concealed, it will with greater difficulty be remedied. Many a fair structure have I seen, which, like that now before me” (looking with much significance at Cecilia), “has to the eye seemed perfect in all its parts, and unhurt either by time or casualty, while within, some lurking evil, some latent injury, has secretly worked its way into the very heart of the edifice, where it has consumed its strength, and laid waste its powers, till, sinking deeper and deeper, it has sapped its very foundation, before the superstructure has exhibited any token of danger. Is such an accident among the things you hold to
be possible?”
“Your language,” said she, colouring very high, “is so florid, that I must own it renders your meaning rather obscure.”
“Shall I illustrate it by an example? Suppose, during your abode in Delvile Castle?”
“No, no,” interrupted she, with involuntary quickness, “why should I trouble you to make illustrations?”
“O pray, my dear creature,” cried Miss Larolles, “how is Mrs Harrel? I was never so sorry for any body in my life. I quite forgot to ask after her.”
“Ay, poor Harrel!” cried Morrice, “he was a great loss to his friends. I had just begun to have a regard for him; we were growing extremely intimate. Poor fellow! he really gave most excellent dinners.”
“Harrel?” suddenly exclaimed Mr Meadows, who seemed just then to first hear what was going forward, “who was he?”
“O, as good-natured a fellow as ever I knew in my life,” answered Morrice; “he was never out of humour; he was drinking and singing and dancing to the very last moment. Don’t you remember him, Sir, that night at Vauxhall?”
Mr Meadows made not any answer, but rode languidly on.
Morrice, ever more flippant than sagacious, called out, “I really believe the gentleman’s deaf! he won’t so much as say umph, and hay, now; but I’ll give him such a hallow in his ears, as shall make him hear me, whether he will or no. Sir! I say!” bawling aloud, “have you forgot that night at Vauxhall?”
Mr Meadows, starting at being thus shouted at, looked towards Morrice with some surprise, and said, “Were you so obliging, Sir, as to speak to me?”
“Lord, yes, Sir,” said Morrice, amazed; “I thought you had asked something about Mr Harrel, so I just made an answer to it; — that’s all.”
“Sir, you are very good,” returned he, slightly bowing, and then looking another way, as if thoroughly satisfied with what had passed.
“But I say, Sir,” resumed Morrice, “don’t you remember how Mr Harrel” —
“Mr who, Sir?”
“Mr Harrel, Sir; was not you just now asking me who he was?”
“O, ay, true,” cried Meadows, in a tone of extreme weariness, “I am much obliged to you. Pray give my respects to him.” And, touching his hat, he was riding away; but the astonished Morrice called out, “Your respects to him? why lord! Sir, don’t you know he’s dead?”
“Dead? — who, Sir?”
“Why Mr Harrel, Sir.”
“Harrel? — O, very true,” cried Meadows, with a face of sudden recollection; “he shot himself, I think, or was knocked down, or something of that sort. I remember it perfectly.”
“O pray,” cried Miss Larolles, “don’t let’s talk about it, it’s the cruellest thing I ever knew in my life. I assure you I was so shocked, I thought I should never have got the better of it. I remember the next night at Ranelagh I could talk of nothing else. I dare say I told it to 500 people. I assure you I was tired to death; only conceive how distressing!”
“An excellent method,” cried Mr Gosport, “to drive it out of your own head, by driving it into the heads of your neighbours! But were you not afraid, by such an ebullition of pathos, to burst as many hearts as you had auditors?”
“O I assure you,” cried she, “every body was so excessive shocked you’ve no notion; one heard of nothing else; all the world was raving mad about it.”
“Really yes,” cried the Captain; “the subject was obsedé upon one partout. There was scarce any breathing for it; it poured from all directions; I must confess I was aneanti with it to a degree.”
“But the most shocking thing in nature,” cried Miss Larolles, “was going to the sale. I never missed a single day. One used to meet the whole world there, and every body was so sorry you can’t conceive. It was quite horrid. I assure you I never suffered so much before; it made me so unhappy you can’t imagine.”
“That I am most ready to grant,” said Mr Gosport, “be the powers of imagination ever so eccentric.”
“Sir Robert Floyer and Mr Marriot,” continued Miss Larolles, “have behaved so ill you’ve no idea, for they have done nothing ever since but say how monstrously Mr Harrel had cheated them, and how they lost such immense sums by him; — only conceive how ill-natured!”
“And they complain,” cried Morrice, “that old Mr Delvile used them worse; for that when they had been defrauded of all that money on purpose to pay their addresses to Miss Beverley, he would never let them see her, but all of a sudden took her off into the country, on purpose to marry her to his own son.”
The cheeks of Cecilia now glowed with the deepest blushes; but finding by a general silence that she was expected to make some answer, she said, with what unconcern she could assume, “They were very much mistaken; Mr Delvile had no such view.”
“Indeed?” cried Mr Gosport, again perceiving her change of countenance; “and is it possible you have actually escaped a siege, while every body concluded you taken by assault? Pray where is young Delvile at present?”
“I don’t — I can’t tell, Sir.”
“Is it long since you have seen him?”
“It is two months,” answered she, with yet more hesitation, “since I was at Delvile Castle.”
“O, but,” cried Morrice, “did not you see him while he was in Suffolk? I believe, indeed, he is there now, for it was only yesterday I heard of his coming down, by a gentleman who called upon Lady Margaret, and told us he had seen a stranger, a day or two ago, at Mrs Charlton’s door, and when he asked who he was, they told him his name was Delvile, and said he was on a visit at Mr Biddulph’s.”
Cecilia was quite confounded by this speech; to have it known that Delvile had visited her, was in itself alarming, but to have her own equivocation thus glaringly exposed, was infinitely more dangerous. The just suspicions to which it must give rise filled her with dread, and the palpable evasion in which she had been discovered, overwhelmed, her with confusion.
“So you had forgotten,” said Mr Gosport, looking at her with much archness, “that you had seen him within the two months? but no wonder; for where is the lady who having so many admirers, can be at the trouble to remember which of them she saw last? or who, being so accustomed to adulation, can hold it worth while to enquire whence it comes? A thousand Mr Delviles are to Miss Beverley but as one; used from them all to the same tale, she regards them not individually as lovers, but collectively as men; and to gather, even from herself, which she is most inclined to favour, she must probably desire, like Portia in the Merchant of Venice, that their names may be run over one by one, before she can distinctly tell which is which.”
The gallant gaiety of this speech was some relief to Cecilia, who was beginning a laughing reply, when Morrice called out, “That man looks as if he was upon the scout.” And, raising her eyes, she perceived a man on horseback, who, though much muffled up, his hat flapped, and a handkerchief held to his mouth and chin, she instantly, by his air and figure, recognized to be Delvile.
In much consternation at this sight, she forgot what she meant to say, and dropping her eyes, walked silently on. Mr Gosport, attentive to her motions, looked from her to the horseman, and after a short examination, said, “I think I have seen that man before; have you, Miss Beverley?”
“Me? — no,” — answered she, “I believe not, — I hardly indeed, see him now.”
“I have, I am pretty sure,” said Morrice; “and if I could see his face, I dare say I should recollect him.”
“He seems very willing to know if he can recollect any of us,” said Mr Gosport, “and, if I am not mistaken, he sees much better than he is seen.”
He was now come up to them, and though a glance sufficed to discover the object of his search, the sight of the party with which she was surrounded made him not dare stop or speak to her, and therefore, clapping spurs to his horse, he galloped past them.
“See,” cried Morrice, looking after him, “how he turns round to examine us! I wonder who he is.”
“Perhaps some highwayman!�
�� cried Miss Larolles; “I assure you I am in a prodigious fright; I should hate to be robbed so you can’t think.”
“I was going to make much the same conjecture,” said Mr Gosport, “and, if I am not greatly deceived, that man is a robber of no common sort. What think you, Miss Beverley, can you discern a thief in disguise?”
“No, indeed; I pretend to no such extraordinary knowledge.”
“That’s true; for all that you pretend to is extraordinary ignorance.”
“I have a good mind,” said Morrice, “to ride after him, and see what he is about.”
“What for?” exclaimed Cecilia, greatly alarmed “there can certainly be no occasion!”
“No, pray don’t,” cried Miss Larolles, “for I assure you if he should come back to rob us, I should die upon the spot. Nothing could be so disagreeable I should scream so, you’ve no idea.”
Morrice then gave up the proposal, and they walked quietly on; but Cecilia was extremely disturbed by this accident; she readily conjectured that, impatient for her arrival, Delvile had ridden that way, to see what had retarded her, and she was sensible that nothing could be so desirable as an immediate explanation of the motive of her journey. Such a meeting, therefore, had she been alone, was just what she could have wished, though, thus unluckily encompassed, it only added to her anxiety.
Involuntarily, however, she quickened her pace, through her eagerness to be relieved from so troublesome a party; but Miss Larolles, who was in no such haste, protested she could not keep up with her; saying, “You don’t consider that I have got this sweet little dog to carry, and he is such a shocking plague to me you’ve no notion. Only conceive what a weight he is!”
“Pray, ma’am,” cried Morrice, “let me take him for you; I’ll be very careful of him, I promise you; and you need not be afraid to trust me, for I understand more about dogs than about any thing.”
Miss Larolles, after many fond caresses, being really weary, consented, and Morrice placed the little animal before him on horseback; but while this matter was adjusting, and Miss Larolles was giving directions how she would have it held, Morrice exclaimed, “Look, look! that man is coming back! He is certainly watching us. There! now he’s going off again! — I suppose he saw me remarking him.”
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 112