CHAPTER x.
A RELATION.
Another week past still without any further intelligence. Cecilia wasthen summoned to the parlour, and to Delvile himself.
He looked hurried and anxious; yet the glow of his face, and theanimation of his eyes, immediately declared he at least came not to takeleave of her.
"Can you forgive," cried he, "the dismal and unsatisfactory letter Iwrote you? I would not disobey you twice in the same manner, and I couldnot till now have written in any other."
"The consultation with the physicians, then," said Cecilia, "is over?"
"Alas, yes; and the result is most alarming; they all agree my mother isin a dangerous way, and they rather forbear to oppose, than advise hergoing abroad: but upon that she is earnestly bent, and intends to setout without delay. I shall return to her, therefore, with all speed, andmean not to take any rest till I have seen her."
Cecilia expressed with tenderness her sorrow for Mrs Delvile: nor wereher looks illiberal in including her son in her concern.
"I must hasten," he cried, "to the credentials by which I am authorisedfor coming, and I must hasten to prove if Miss Beverley has notflattered my mother in her appeal."
He then informed her that Mrs Delvile, apprehensive for herself, andsoftened for him by the confession of her danger, which she had extortedfrom her physicians, had tenderly resolved upon making one final effortfor his happiness, and ill and impatient as she was, upon deferring herjourney to wait its effect.
Generously, therefore, giving up her own resentment, she wrote to MrDelvile in terms of peace and kindness, lamenting their late dissention,and ardently expressing her desire to be reconciled to him before sheleft England. She told him the uncertainty of her recovery which hadbeen acknowledged by her physicians, who had declared a calmer mindwas more essential to her than a purer air. She then added, that suchserenity was only to be given her, by the removal of her anxiety at thecomfortless state of her son. She begged him, therefore, to make knownthe author of Miss Beverley's defamation, assuring him, that uponenquiry, he would find her character and her fame as unsullied as hisown; and strongly representing, that after the sacrifice to which shehad consented, their son would be utterly dishonourable in thinking ofany other connexion. She then to this reasoning joined the most earnestsupplication, protesting, in her present disordered state, of health,her life might pay the forfeiture of her continual uneasiness.
"I held out," she concluded, "while his personal dignity, and the honourof his name and family were endangered; but where interest alone isconcerned, and that interest is combated by the peace of his mind, andthe delicacy of his word, my opposition is at an end. And though ourextensive and well founded views for a splendid alliance are abolished,you will agree with me hereafter, upon a closer inspection, that theobject for whom he relinquishes them, offers in herself the noblestreparation."
Cecilia felt gratified, humbled, animated and depressed at once by thisletter, of which Delvile brought her a copy. "And what," cried she, "wasthe answer?"
"I cannot in decency," he replied, "speak my opinion of it: read ityourself,--and let me hear yours."
_To the Honourable Mrs Delvile_.
Your extraordinary letter, madam, has extremely surprised me. I had beenwilling to hope the affair over from the time my disapprobation of itwas formally announced. I am sorry you are so much indisposed, but Icannot conclude your health would be restored by my acceding to a planso derogatory to my house. I disapprove it upon every account, not onlyof the name and the fortune, but the lady herself. I have reasons moreimportant than those I assign, but they are such as I am bound inhonour not to mention. After such a declaration, nobody, I presume, willaffront me by asking them. Her defence you have only from herself,her accusation I have received from authority less partial. I command,therefore, that my son, upon pain of my eternal displeasure, may neverspeak to me on the subject again, and I hope, madam, from you the samecomplaisance to my request. I cannot explain myself further, nor is itnecessary; it is no news, I flatter myself, to Mortimer Delvile or hismother, that I do nothing without reason, and I believe nothing uponslight grounds.
A few cold compliments concerning her journey, and the re-establishmentof her health, concluded the letter.
Cecilia, having read, hastily returned it, and indignantly said, "Myopinion, Sir, upon this letter, must surely be yours; that we had donewiser, long since, to have spared your mother and ourselves, those vainand fruitless conflicts which we ought better to have foreseen wereliable to such a conclusion. Now, at least, let them be ended, and letus not pursue disgrace wilfully, after suffering from it with so muchrigour involuntarily."
"O no," cried Delvile, "rather let us now spurn it for ever! thoseconflicts must indeed be ended, but not by a separation still morebitter than all of them."
He then told her, that his mother, highly offended to observe by theextreme coldness of this letter, the rancour he still nourished forthe contest preceding her leaving him, no longer now refused even herseparate consent, for a measure which she thought her son absolutelyengaged to take.
"Good heaven!" cried Cecilia, much amazed, "this from Mrs Delvile!--aseparate consent?"--
"She has always maintained," he answered, "an independent mind,always judged for herself, and refused all other arbitration: when soimpetuously she parted us, my father's will happened to be her's, andthence their concurrence: my father, of a temper immoveable and stern,retains stubbornly the prejudices which once have taken possessionof him; my mother, generous as fiery, and noble as proud, is open toconviction, and no sooner convinced, than ingenuous in acknowledging it:and thence their dissention. From my father I may hope forgiveness, butmust never expect concession; from my mother I may hope all she oughtto grant, for pardon but her vehemence,--and she has every great qualitythat can dignify human nature!"
Cecilia, whose affection and reverence for Mrs Delvile were unfeigned,and who loved in her son this filial enthusiasm, readily concurred withhim in praising her, and sincerely esteemed her the first among women.
"Now, then," cried he, with earnestness, "now is the time when yourgenerous admiration of her is put to the test; see what she writesto you;--she has left to me all explanation: but I insisted upon somecredential, lest you should believe I only owed her concurrence to ahappy dream."
Cecilia in much trepidation took the letter, and hastily run it over.
_To Miss Beverley_.
Misery, my sweet young friend, has long been busy with us all; much havewe owed to the clash of different interests, much to that rapacitywhich to enjoy any thing, demands every thing, and much to that generalperverseness which labours to place happiness in what is with-held.Thus do we struggle on till we can struggle no longer; the felicitywith which we trifle, at best is but temporary; and before reason andreflection shew its value, sickness and sorrow are commonly becomestationary.
Be it yours, my love, and my son's, to profit by the experience, whileyou pity the errors, of the many who illustrate this truth. Your mutualpartiality has been mutually unfortunate, and must always continueso for the interests of both: but how blind is it to wait, in our ownpeculiar lots, for that perfection of enjoyment we can all see wantingin the lot of others! My expectations for my son had "outstepped themodesty of" probability. I looked for rank and high birth, withthe fortune of Cecilia, and Cecilia's rare character. Alas! a newconstellation in the heavens might as rationally have been looked for!
My extravagance, however, has been all for his felicity, dearer to methan life,--dearer to me than all things but his own honour! Let us butsave that, and then let wealth, ambition, interest, grandeur and pride,since they cannot constitute his happiness, be removed from destroyingit. I will no longer play the tyrant that, weighing good and evil by myown feelings and opinions, insists upon his acting by the notions I haveformed, whatever misery they may bring him by opposing all his own.
I leave the kingdom with little reason to expect I shall return to it;I leave it--O
h blindness of vanity and passion!--from the effect ofthat violence with which so lately I opposed what now I am content toadvance! But the extraordinary resignation to which you have agreed,shews your heart so wholly my son's, and so even more than worthy thewhole possession of his, that it reflects upon him an honour more brightand more alluring, than any the most illustrious other alliance couldnow confer.
I would fain see you ere I go, lest I should see you no more; fainratify by word of mouth the consent that by word of mouth I soabsolutely refused! I know not how to come to Suffolk,--is it notpossible you can come to London? I am told you leave to me thearbitration of your fate, in giving you to my son, I best shew my senseof such an honour.
Hasten then, my love, to town, that I may see you once more! wait nolonger a concurrence thus unjustly with-held, but hasten, that I maybless the daughter I have so often wished to own! that I may entreat herforgiveness for all the pain I have occasioned her, and committing toher charge the future happiness of my son, fold to my maternal heart thetwo objects most dear to it!
AUGUSTA DELVILE.