utter, and confidently entreated her to complete his long-attended happiness without the cruelty of further delay.
Cecilia, almost petrified by the excess of her surprise, at an attack so violent, so bold, and apparently so sanguine, was for some time scarce able to speak or to defend herself; but when Sir Robert, presuming on her silence, said she had made him the happiest of men, she indignantly drew back her hand, and with a look of displeasure that required little explanation, would have walked out of the room: when Mr Harrel, in a tone of bitterness and disappointment, called out “Is this lady-like tyranny then never to end?” And Sir Robert, impatiently following her, said “And is my suspense to endure for ever? After so many months’ attendance —”
“This, indeed, is something too much,” said Cecilia, turning back, “You have been kept, Sir, in no suspense; the whole tenor of my conduct has uniformly declared the same disapprobation I at present avow, and which my letter, at least, must have put beyond all doubt.”
“Harrel,” exclaimed Sir Robert, “did not you tell me —”
“Pho, Pho,” cried Harrel, “what signifies calling upon me? I never saw in Miss Beverley any disapprobation beyond what it is customary for young ladies of a sentimental turn to shew; and every body knows that where a gentleman is allowed to pay his devoirs for any length of time, no lady intends to use him very severely.”
“And can you, Mr Harrel,” said Cecilia, “after such conversations as have passed between us, persevere in this wilful misapprehension? But it is vain to debate where all reasoning is disregarded, or to make any protestations where even rejection is received as a favour.”
And then, with an air of disdain, she insisted upon passing them, and went to her own room.
Mrs Harrel, however, still followed, and clinging round her, still supplicated her pity and compliance.
“What infatuation is this!” cried Cecilia, “is it possible that you, too, can suppose I ever mean to accept Sir Robert?”
“To be sure I do,” answered she, “for Mr Harrel has told me a thousand times, that however you played the prude, you would be his at last.”
Cecilia, though doubly irritated against Mr Harrel, was now appeased with his lady, whose mistake, however ill-founded, offered an excuse for her behaviour: but she assured her in the strongest terms that her repugnance to the Baronet was unalterable, yet told her she might claim from her every good office that was not wholly unreasonable.
These were words of slender comfort to Mrs Harrel, who well knew that her wishes and reason had but little affinity, and she soon, therefore, left the room.
Cecilia then resolved to go instantly to Mrs Delvile, acquaint her with the necessity of her removal, and make her decision whither, according to the manner in which her intelligence should be received.
She sent, therefore, to order a chair, and was already in the hall, when she was stopt by the entrance of Mr Monckton, who, addressing her with a look of haste and earnestness, said, “I will not ask whither you are going so early, or upon what errand, for I must beg a moment’s audience, be your business what it may.”
Cecilia then accompanied him to the deserted breakfast room, which none but the servants had this morning entered, and there, grasping her hand, he said, “Miss Beverley, you must fly this house directly! it is the region of disorder and licentiousness, and unfit to contain you.”
She assured him she was that moment preparing to quit it, but begged he would explain himself.
“I have taken care,” he answered, “for some time past, to be well informed of all the proceedings of Mr Harrel; and the intelligence I procured this morning is of the most alarming nature. I find he spent the night before the last entirely at a gaming table, where, intoxicated by a run of good luck, he passed the whole of the next day in rioting with his profligate intimates, and last night, returning again to his favourite amusement, he not only lost all he had gained, but much more than he could pay. Doubt not, therefore, but you will be called upon to assist him: he still considers you as his resource in times of danger, and while he knows you are under his roof, he will always believe himself secure.”
“Every thing indeed conspires,” said Cecilia, more shocked than surprised at this account, “to make it necessary I should quit his house: yet I do not think he has at present any further expectations from me, as he came into the room this morning not merely without speaking to me, but behaved with a brutality to Mrs Harrel that he must be certain would give me disgust. It shewed me, indeed, a new part of his character, for ill as I have long thought of him, I did not suspect he could be guilty of such unmanly cruelty.”
“The character of a gamester,” said Mr Monckton, “depends solely upon his luck; his disposition varies with every throw of the dice, and he is airy, gay and good humoured, or sour, morose and savage, neither from nature nor from principle, but wholly by the caprice of chance.”
Cecilia then related to him the scene in which she had just been engaged with Sir Robert Floyer.
“This,” cried he, “is a manoeuvre I have been some time expecting: but Mr Harrel, though artful and selfish, is by no means deep. The plan he had formed would have succeeded with some women, and he therefore concluded it would with all. So many of your sex have been subdued by perseverance, and so many have been conquered by boldness, that he supposed when he united two such powerful besiegers in the person of a Baronet, he should vanquish all obstacles. By assuring you that the world thought the marriage already settled, he hoped to surprise you into believing there was no help for it, and by the suddenness and vehemence of the attack, to frighten and hurry you into compliance. His own wife, he knew, might have been managed thus with ease, and so, probably, might his sister, and his mother, and his cousin, for in love matters, or what are so called, women in general are, readily duped. He discerned not the superiority of your understanding to tricks so shallow and impertinent, nor the firmness of your mind in maintaining its own independence. No doubt but he was amply to have been rewarded for his assistance, and probably had you this morning been propitious, the Baronet in return was to have cleared him from his present difficulty.”
“Even in my own mind,” said Cecilia, “I can no longer defend him, for he could never have been so eager to promote the interest of Sir Robert, in the present terrible situation of his own affairs, had he not been stimulated by some secret motives. His schemes and his artifices, however, will now be utterly lost upon me, since your warning and advice, aided by my own suffering experience of the inutility of all I can do for him, will effectually guard me from all his future attempts.”
“Rest no security upon yourself,” said Mr Monckton, “since you have no knowledge of the many tricks and inventions by which you may yet be plundered. Perhaps he may beg permission to reside in your house in Suffolk, or desire an annuity for his wife, or chuse to receive your first rents when you come of age; and whatever he may fix upon, his dagger and his bowl will not fail to procure him. A heart so liberal as yours can only be guarded by flight. You were going, you said, when I came — and whither?”
“To — to St James’s-square,” answered she, with a deep blush.
“Indeed! — is young Delvile, then, going abroad?”
“Abroad? — no — I believe not.”
“Nay, I only imagined it from your chusing to reside in his house.”
“I do not chuse it,” cried Cecilia, with quickness, “but is not any thing preferable to dwelling with Mr Briggs?”
“Certainly,”
