CHAPTER iii. -- AN ANTIQUE MANSION.
Delvile Castle was situated in a large and woody park, and surroundedby a moat. A drawbridge which fronted the entrance was every night, byorder of Mr Delvile, with the same care as if still necessary for thepreservation of the family, regularly drawn up. Some fortificationsstill remained entire, and vestiges were every where to be traced ofmore; no taste was shown in the disposition of the grounds, no openingswere contrived through the wood for distant views or beautiful objects;the mansion-house was ancient, large and magnificent, but constructedwith as little attention to convenience and comfort, as to airiness andelegance; it was dark, heavy and monastic, equally in want of repair andof improvement. The grandeur of its former inhabitants was every wherevisible, but the decay into which it was falling rendered such remainsmere objects for meditation and melancholy; while the evident struggleto support some appearance of its ancient dignity, made the dwellingand all in its vicinity wear an aspect of constraint and austerity.Festivity, joy and pleasure, seemed foreign to the purposes of itsconstruction; silence, solemnity and contemplation were adapted to itonly.
Mrs Delvile, however, took all possible care to make the apartmentsand situation of Cecilia commodious and pleasant, and to banish byher kindness and animation the gloom and formality which her mansioninspired. Nor were her efforts ungratefully received; Cecilia, charmedby every mark of attention from a woman she so highly admired, returnedher solicitude by encreasing affection, and repaid all her care bythe revival of her spirits. She was happy, indeed, to have quitted thedisorderly house of Mr Harrel, where terror, so continually awakened,was only to be lulled by the grossest imposition; and though her mind,depressed by what was passed, and in suspence with what was to come, wasby no means in a state for uninterrupted enjoyment, yet to find herselfplaced, at last, without effort or impropriety, in the very mansionshe had so long considered as her road to happiness, rendered her,notwithstanding her remaining sources of inquietude, more contented thanshe had yet felt herself since her departure from Suffolk.
Even the imperious Mr Delvile was more supportable here than in London;secure in his own castle, he looked around him with a pride of power andof possession which softened while it swelled him. His superiority wasundisputed, his will was without controul. He was not, as in the greatcapital of the kingdom, surrounded by competitors; no rivalry disturbedhis peace, no equality mortified his greatness; all he saw were eithervassals of his power, or guests bending to his pleasure; he abatedtherefore, considerably, the stern gloom of his haughtiness, and soothedhis proud mind by the courtesy of condescension.
Little, however, was the opportunity Cecilia found, for evincing thatspirit and forbearance she had planned in relation to Delvile; hebreakfasted by himself every morning, rode or walked out alone tilldriven home by the heat of the day, and spent the rest of his time tilldinner in his own study. When he then appeared, his conversation wasalways general, and his attention not more engaged by Cecilia than byhis mother. Left by them with his father, sometimes he appeared again attea-time, but more commonly he rode or strolled out to some neighbouringfamily, and it was always uncertain whether he was again seen beforedinner the next day.
By this conduct, reserve on her part was rendered totally unnecessary;she could give no discouragement where she met with no assiduity; shehad no occasion to fly where she was never pursued.
Strange, however, she thought such behaviour, and utterly impossible tobe the effect of accident; his desire to avoid her seemed scrupulousand pointed, and however to the world it might wear the appearance ofchance, to her watchful anxiety a thousand circumstances marked it fordesign. She found that his friends at home had never seen so little ofhim, complaints were continually made of his frequent absences, and muchsurprise was expressed at his new manner of life, and what might be theoccupations which so strangely engrossed his time.
Had her heart not interfered in this matter, she might now have beenperfectly at rest, since she was spared the renunciation she hadprojected, and since, without either mental exertion or personaltrouble, the affair seemed totally dropt, and Delvile, far frommanifesting any design of conquest, shunned all occasions of gallantry,and sedulously avoided even common conversation with her. If he saw herpreparing to walk out in an evening, he was certain to stay at home; ifhis mother was with her, and invited him to join them, he was sure to beready with some other engagement; and if by accident he met her in thepark, he merely stopt to speak of the weather, bowed, and hurried on.
How to reconcile a coldness so extraordinary with a fervour so animatedas that which he had lately shewn, was indeed not easy; sometimes shefancied he had entangled not only the poor Henrietta but himself, atother times she believed him merely capricious; but that he studied toavoid her she was convinced invariably, and such a conviction was alonesufficient to determine her upon forwarding his purpose. And, when herfirst surprise was over, and first chagrin abated, her own pride came toher aid, and she resolved to use every method in her power to conquer apartiality so un gratefully bestowed. She rejoiced that in no instanceshe had ever betrayed it, and she saw that his own behaviourprevented all suspicion of it in the family. Yet, in the midst of hermortification and displeasure, she found some consolation in seeing thatthose mercenary views of which she had once been led to accuse him, werefarthest from his thoughts, and that whatever was the state of hismind, she had no artifice to apprehend, nor design to guard against. Alltherefore that remained was to imitate his example, be civil and formal,shun all interviews that were not public, and decline all discourse butwhat good breeding occasionally made necessary.
By these means their meetings became more rare than ever, and of shorterduration, for if one by any accident was detained, the other retired;till, by their mutual diligence, they soon only saw each other atdinner; and though neither of them knew the motives or the intentions ofthe other, the best concerted agreement could not more effectually haveseparated them.
This task to Cecilia was at first extremely painful; but time andconstancy of mind soon lessened its difficulty. She amused herself withwalking and reading, she commissioned Mr Monckton to send her a PianoForte of Merlin's, she was fond of fine work, and she found in theconversation of Mrs Delvile a never-failing resource against languorand sadness. Leaving therefore to himself her mysterious son, she wiselyresolved to find other employment for her thoughts, than conjectureswith which she could not be satisfied, and doubts that might never beexplained.
Very few families visited at the castle, and fewer still had theirvisits returned. The arrogance of Mr Delvile had offended all theneighbouring gentry, who could easily be better entertained than byreceiving instructions of their own inferiority, which however readilythey might allow, was by no means so pleasant a subject as to recompensethem for hearing no other. And if Mr Delvile was shunned through hatred,his lady no less was avoided through fear; high-spirited and fastidious,she was easily wearied and disgusted, she bore neither with frailty norfolly--those two principal ingredients in human nature! She required,to obtain her favour, the union of virtue and abilities with elegance,which meeting but rarely, she was rarely disposed to be pleased; anddisdaining to conceal either contempt or aversion, she inspired inreturn nothing but dread or resentment; making thus, by a want of thatlenity which is the milk of human kindness, and the bond of society,enemies the most numerous and illiberal by those very talents which,more meekly borne, would have rendered her not merely admired, butadored!
In proportion, however, as she was thus at war with the world ingeneral, the chosen few who were honoured with her favour, she lovedwith a zeal all her own; her heart, liberal, open, and but too daringlysincere, was fervent in affection, and enthusiastic in admiration; thefriends who were dear to her, she was devoted to serve, she magnifiedtheir virtues till she thought them of an higher race of beings, sheinflamed her generosity with ideas of what she owed to them, till herlife seemed too small a sacrifice to be refused for their service.
Such was
the love which already she felt for Cecilia; her countenancehad struck, her manners had charmed her, her understanding was displayedby the quick intelligence of her eyes, and every action and every notionspoke her mind the seat of elegance. In secret she sometimes regrettedthat she was not higher born, but that regret always vanished when shesaw and conversed with her.
Her own youth had been passed in all the severity of affliction; she hadbeen married to Mr Delvile by her relations, without any consultation ofher heart or her will. Her strong mind disdained useless complaints, yether discontent, however private, was deep. Ardent in her disposition,and naturally violent in her passions, her feelings were extremelyacute, and to curb them by reason and principle had been the chief andhard study of her life. The effort had calmed, though it had not madeher happy. To love Mr Delvile she felt was impossible; proud withoutmerit, and imperious without capacity, she saw with bitterness theinferiority of his faculties, and she found in his temper no qualitiesto endear or attract; yet she respected his birth and his family,of which her own was a branch, and whatever was her misery from theconnection, she steadily behaved to him with the strictest propriety.
Her son, however, when she was blessed with his presence, had a powerover her mind that mitigated all her sorrows, and almost lulled even herwishes to sleep; she rather idolised than loved him, yet her fondnessflowed not from relationship, but from his worth and his character, histalents and his disposition. She saw in him, indeed, all her own virtuesand excellencies, with a toleration for the imperfections of others towhich she was wholly a stranger. Whatever was great or good she expectedhim to perform; occasion alone she thought wanting to manifest him thefirst of human beings.
Nor here was Mr Delvile himself less sanguine in his hopes; his son wasnot only the first object of his affection, but the chief idol of hispride, and he did not merely cherish but reverence him as his successor,the only support of his ancient name and family, without whose lifeand health the whole race would be extinct. He consulted him in allhis affairs, never mentioned him but with distinction, and expected thewhole world to bow down before him.
Delvile in his behaviour to his father imitated the conduct of hismother, who opposed him in nothing when his pleasure was made known, butwho forbore to enquire into his opinion except in cases of necessity.Their minds, indeed, were totally dissimilar; and Delvile well knew thatif he submitted to his directions, he must demand such respect as theworld would refuse with indignation, and scarcely speak to a man whosegenealogy was not known to him.
But though duty and gratitude were the only ties that bound him to hisfather, he loved his mother not merely with filial affection, butwith the purest esteem and highest reverence; he knew, too, that whilewithout him her existence would be a burthen, her tenderness was noeffusion of weak partiality, but founded on the strongest assurances ofhis worth; and however to maternal indulgence its origin might be owing,the rectitude of his own conduct could alone save it from diminution.
Such was the house in which Cecilia was now settled, and with which shelived almost to the exclusion of the sight of any other; for though shehad now been three weeks at the castle, she had only at church seen anyfamily but the Delviles.
Nor did any thing in the course of that time occur to her, but thereception of a melancholy letter from Mrs Harrel, filled with complaintsof her retirement and misery; and another, from Mr Arnott, with anaccount of the funeral, the difficulties he had had to encounter withthe creditors, who had even seized the dead body, and the numerousexpences in which he had been involved, by petitions he could notwithstand, from the meaner and more clamorous of those whom his latebrother-in-law had left unpaid. He concluded with a pathetic prayer forher happiness, and a declaration that his own was lost for ever, sincenow he was even deprived of her sight. Cecilia wrote an affectionateanswer to Mrs Harrel, promising, when fully at liberty, that she wouldherself fetch her to her own house in Suffolk; but she could only sendher compliments to Mr Arnott, though her compassion urged a kindermessage; as she feared even a shadow of encouragement to so serious, yethopeless a passion.