Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress. Volume 1
Mr Gosport, satisfied now with the subject of her complaint, returned to Cecilia, and informed her of the heavy charge which was brought against her.
“I am glad, at least, to know my crime,” said she, “for otherwise I should certainly have sinned on in ignorance, as I must confess I never thought of returning her visits: but even if I had, I should not have supposed I had yet lost much time.”
“I beg your pardon there,” said Mrs Harrel; “a first visit ought to be returned always by the third day.”
“Then have I an unanswerable excuse,” said Cecilia, “for I remember that on the third day I saw her at your house.”
“O that’s nothing at all to the purpose; you should have waited upon her, or sent her a ticket, just the same as if you had not seen her.”
The overture was now begun, and Cecilia declined any further conversation. This was the first Opera she had ever heard, yet she was not wholly a stranger to Italian compositions, having assiduously studied music from a natural love of the art, attended all the best concerts her neighbourhood afforded, and regularly received from London the works of the best masters. But the little skill she had thus gained, served rather to increase than to lessen the surprize with which she heard the present performance,—a surprize of which the discovery of her own ignorance made not the least part. Unconscious from the little she had acquired how much was to be learnt, she was astonished to find the inadequate power of written music to convey any idea of vocal abilities: with just knowledge enough, therefore, to understand something of the difficulties, and feel much of the merit, she gave to the whole Opera an avidity of attention almost painful from its own eagerness.
But both the surprize and the pleasure which she received from the performance in general, were faint, cold, and languid, compared to the strength of those emotions when excited by Signore Pacchierotti in particular; and though not half the excellencies of that superior singer were necessary either to amaze or charm her unaccustomed ears, though the refinement of his taste and masterly originality of his genius, to be praised as they deserved, called for the judgment and knowledge of professors, yet a natural love of music in some measure supplied the place of cultivation, and what she could neither explain nor understand, she could feel and enjoy.
The opera was Artaserse; and the pleasure she received from the music was much augmented by her previous acquaintance with that interesting drama; yet, as to all noviciates in science, whatever is least complicated is most pleasing, she found herself by nothing so deeply impressed, as by the plaintive and beautiful simplicity with which Pacchierotti uttered the affecting repetition of sono innocente! his voice, always either sweet or impassioned, delivered those words in a tone of softness, pathos, and sensibility, that struck her with a sensation not more new than delightful.
But though she was, perhaps, the only person thus astonished, she was by no means the only one enraptured; for notwithstanding she was too earnestly engaged to remark the company in general, she could not avoid taking notice of an old gentleman who stood by one of the side scenes, against which he leant his head in a manner that concealed his face, with an evident design to be wholly absorbed in listening: and during the songs of Pacchierotti he sighed so deeply that Cecilia, struck by his uncommon sensibility to the power of music, involuntarily watched him, whenever her mind was sufficiently at liberty to attend to any emotions but its own.
As soon as the rehearsal was over, the gentlemen of Mrs Harrel’s party crowded before her box; and Cecilia then perceived that the person whose musical enthusiasm had excited her curiosity, was the same old gentleman whose extraordinary behaviour had so much surprized her at the house of Mr Monckton. Her desire to obtain some information concerning him again reviving, she was beginning to make fresh enquiries, when she was interrupted by the approach of Captain Aresby.
That gentleman, advancing to her with a smile of the extremest self-complacency, after hoping, in a low voice, he had the honour of seeing her well, exclaimed, “How wretchedly empty is the town! petrifying to a degree! I believe you do not find yourself at present obsede by too much company?”
“At present, I believe the contrary!” cried Mr Gosport.
“Really!” said the Captain, unsuspicious of his sneer, “I protest I have hardly seen a soul. Have you tried the Pantheon yet, ma’am?”
“No, sir.”
“Nor I; I don’t know whether people go there this year. It is not a favourite spectacle with me; that sitting to hear the music is a horrid bore. Have you done the Festino the honour to look in there yet?”
“No, sir.”
“Permit me, then, to have the honour to beg you will try it.”
“O, ay, true,” cried Mrs Harrel; “I have really used you very ill about that; I should have got you in for a subscriber: but Lord, I have done nothing for you yet, and you never put me in mind. There’s the ancient music, and Abel’s concert;—as to the opera, we may have a box between us;—but there’s the ladies’ concert we must try for; and there’s—O Lord, fifty other places we must think of!”
“Oh times of folly and dissipation!” exclaimed a voice at some distance; “Oh mignons of idleness and luxury! What next will ye invent for the perdition of your time! How yet further will ye proceed in the annihilation of virtue!”
Everybody stared; but Mrs Harrel coolly said, “Dear, it’s only the man-hater!”
“The man-hater?” repeated Cecilia, who found that the speech was made by the object of her former curiosity; “is that the name by which he is known?”
“He is known by fifty names,” said Mr Monckton; “his friends call him the moralist; the young ladies, the crazy-man; the macaronies, the bore; in short, he is called by any and every name but his own.”
“He is a most petrifying wretch, I assure you,” said the Captain; “I am obsede by him partout; if I had known he had been so near, I should certainly have said nothing.”
“That you have done so well,” cried Mr Gosport, “that if you had known it the whole time, you could have done it no better.”
The Captain, who had not heard this speech, which was rather made at him than to him, continued his address to Cecilia; “Give me leave to have the honour of hoping you intend to honour our select masquerade at the Pantheon with your presence. We shall have but five hundred tickets, and the subscription will only be three guineas and a half.”
“Oh objects of penury and want!” again exclaimed the incognito; “Oh vassals of famine and distress! Come and listen to this wantonness of wealth! Come, naked and breadless as ye are, and learn how that money is consumed which to you might bring raiment and food!”
“That strange wretch,” said the Captain, “ought really to be confined; I have had the honour to be degoute by him so often, that I think him quite obnoxious. I make it quite a principle to seal up my lips the moment I perceive him.”
“Where is it, then,” said Cecilia, “that you have so often met him?”
“O,” answered the Captain, “partout; there is no greater bore about town. But the time I found him most petrifying was once when I happened to have the honour of dancing with a very young lady, who was but just come from a boarding-school, and whose friends had done me the honour to fix upon me upon the principle of first bringing her out: and while I was doing mon possible for killing the time, he came up, and in his particular manner, told her I had no meaning in any thing I said! I must own I never felt more tempted to be enrage with a person in years, in my life.”
Mr Arnott now brought the ladies word that their carriage was ready, and they quitted their box: but as Cecilia had never before seen the interior parts of a theatre, Mr Monckton, hoping while they loitered to have an opportunity of talking with her, asked Morrice why he did not shew the lions? Morrice, always happy in being employed, declared it was just the thing he liked best, and begged permission to do the honours to Mrs Harrel, who, ever eager in the search of amusement, willingly accepted his offer.
They all, therefore, marched upon the stage, their own party now being the only one that remained.
“We shall make a triumphal entry here,” cried Sir Robert Floyer; “the very tread of the stage half tempts me to turn actor.”
“You are a rare man,” said Mr Gosport, “if, at your time of life, that is a turn not already taken.”
“My time of life!” repeated he; “what do you mean by that? do you take me for an old man?”
“No, sir, but I take you to be past childhood, and consequently to have served your apprenticeship to the actors you have mixed with on the great stage of the world, and, for some years at least, to have set up for yourself.”
“Come,” cried Morrice, “let’s have a little spouting; ‘twill make us warm.”
“Yes,” said Sir Robert, “if we spout to an animating object. If Miss Beverley will be Juliet, I am Romeo at her service.”
At this moment the incognito, quitting the corner in which he had planted himself, came suddenly forward, and standing before the whole group, cast upon Cecilia a look of much compassion, and called out, “Poor simple victim! hast thou already so many pursuers? yet seest not that thou art marked for sacrifice! yet knowest not that thou art destined for prey!”
Cecilia, extremely struck by this extraordinary address, stopt short and looked much disturbed: which, when he perceived, he added, “Let the danger, not the warning affect you! discard the sycophants that surround you, seek the virtuous, relieve the poor, and save yourself from the impending destruction of unfeeling prosperity!”
Having uttered these words with vehemence and authority, he sternly passed them, and disappeared.
Cecilia, too much astonished for speech, stood for some time immoveable, revolving in her mind various conjectures upon the meaning of an exhortation so strange and so urgent.
Nor was the rest of the company much less discomposed: Sir Robert, Mr Monckton, and Mr Arnott, each conscious of their own particular plans, were each apprehensive that the warning pointed at himself: Mr Gosport was offended at being included in the general appellation of sycophants; Mrs Harrel was provoked at being interrupted in her ramble; and Captain Aresby, sickening at the very sight of him, retreated the moment he came forth.
“For heaven’s sake,” cried Cecilia, when somewhat recovered from her consternation, “who can this be, and what can he mean? You, Mr Monckton, must surely know something of him; it was at your house I first saw him.”
“Indeed,” answered Mr Monckton, “I knew almost nothing of him then, and I am but little better informed now. Belfield picked him up somewhere, and desired to bring him to my house: he called him by the name of Albany: I found him a most extraordinary character, and Belfield, who is a worshipper of originality, was very fond of him.”
“He’s a devilish crabbed old fellow,” cried Sir Robert, “and if he goes on much longer at this confounded rate, he stands a very fair chance of getting his ears cropped.”
“He is a man of the most singular conduct I have ever met with,” said Mr Gosport; “he seems to hold mankind in abhorrence, yet he is never a moment alone, and at the same time that he intrudes himself into all parties, he associates with none: he is commonly a stern and silent observer of all that passes, or when he speaks, it is but to utter some sentence of rigid morality, or some bitterness of indignant reproof.”
The carriage was now again announced, and Mr Monckton taking Cecilia’s hand, while Mr Morrice secured to himself the honour of Mrs Harrel’s, Sir Robert and Mr Gosport made their bows and departed. But though they had now quitted the stage, and arrived at the head of a small stair case by which they were to descend out of the theatre, Mr Monckton, finding all his tormentors retired, except Mr Arnott, whom he hoped to elude, could not resist making one more attempt for a few moments’ conversation with Cecilia; and therefore, again applying to Morrice, he called out, “I don’t think you have shewn the ladies any of the contrivances behind the scenes?”
“True,” cried Morrice, “no more I have; suppose we go back?”
“I shall like it vastly,” said Mrs Harrel; and back they returned.
Mr Monckton now soon found an opportunity to say to Cecilia, “Miss Beverley, what I foresaw has exactly come to pass; you are surrounded by selfish designers, by interested, double-minded people, who have nothing at heart but your fortune, and whose mercenary views, if you are not guarded against them–”
Here a loud scream from Mrs Harrel interrupted his speech; Cecilia, much alarmed, turned from him to enquire the cause, and Mr Monckton was obliged to follow her example: but his mortification was almost intolerable when he saw that lady in a violent fit of laughter, and found her scream was only occasioned by seeing Mr Morrice, in his diligence to do the honours, pull upon his own head one of the side scenes!
There was now no possibility of proposing any further delay; but Mr Monckton, in attending the ladies to their carriage, was obliged to have recourse to his utmost discretion and forbearance, in order to check his desire of reprimanding Morrice for his blundering officiousness.
Dressing, dining with company at home, and then going out with company abroad, filled up, as usual, the rest of the day.
CHAPTER ix. – A SUPPLICATION
The next morning Cecilia, at the repeated remonstrances of Mrs Harrel, consented to call upon Miss Larolles. She felt the impracticability of beginning at present the alteration in her way of life she had projected, and therefore thought it most expedient to assume no singularity till her independency should enable her to support it with consistency; yet greater than ever was her internal eagerness to better satisfy her inclination and her conscience in the disposition of her time, and the distribution of her wealth, since she had heard the emphatic charge of her unknown Mentor.
Mrs Harrel declined accompanying her in this visit, because she had appointed a surveyor to bring a plan for the inspection of Mr Harrel and herself, of a small temporary building, to be erected at Violet-Bank, for the purpose of performing plays in private the ensuing Easter.
When the street door was opened for her to get into the carriage, she was struck with the appearance of an elderly woman who was standing at some distance, and seemed shivering with cold, and who, as she descended the steps, joined her hands in an act of supplication, and advanced nearer to the carriage.
Cecilia stopt to look at her: her dress, though parsimonious, was too neat for a beggar, and she considered a moment what she could offer her. The poor woman continued to move forward, but with a slowness of pace that indicated extreme weakness; and, as she approached and raised her head, she exhibited a countenance so wretched, and a complexion so sickly, that Cecilia was impressed with horror at the sight.
With her hands still joined, and a voice that seemed fearful of its own sound, “Oh madam,” she cried, “that you would but hear me!”
“Hear you!” repeated Cecilia, hastily feeling for her purse; “most certainly, and tell me how I shall assist you.”
“Heaven bless you for speaking so kindly, madam!” cried the woman, with a voice more assured; “I was sadly afraid you would be angry, but I saw the carriage at the door, and I thought I would try; for I could be no worse; and distress, madam, makes very bold.”
“Angry!” said Cecilia, taking a crown from her purse; “no, indeed!—who could see such wretchedness, and feel any thing but pity?”
“Oh madam,” returned the poor woman, “I could almost cry to hear you talk so, though I never thought to cry again, since I left it off for my poor Billy!”
“Have you, then, lost a son?”
“Yes, madam; but he was a great deal too good to live, so I have quite left off grieving for him now.”
“Come in, good woman,” said Cecilia, “it is too cold to stand here, and you seem half-starved already: come in, and let me have some talk with you.”
She then gave orders that the carriage should be driven round the square till she was ready, and making the woman follow her into a parlour, desired to know what she should do for her; changing, while she spoke, from a movement of encreasing compassion, the crown which she held in her hand for double that sum.
“You can do everything, madam,” she answered, “if you will but plead for us to his honour: he little thinks of our distress, because he has been afflicted with none himself, and I would not be so troublesome to him, but indeed, indeed, madam, we are quite pinched for want!”
Cecilia, struck with the words, he little thinks of our distress, because he has been afflicted with none himself, felt again ashamed of the smallness of her intended donation, and taking from her purse another half guinea, said, “Will this assist you? Will a guinea be sufficient to you for the present?”
“I humbly thank you, madam,” said the woman, curtsying low, “shall I give you a receipt?”
“A receipt?” cried Cecilia, with emotion, “for what? Alas, our accounts are by no means balanced! but I shall do more for you if I find you as deserving an object as you seem to be.”
“You are very good, madam; but I only meant a receipt in part of payment.”
“Payment for what? I don’t understand you.”
“Did his honour never tell you, madam, of our account?”
“What account?”
“Our bill, madam, for work done to the new Temple at Violet-Bank: it was the last great work my poor husband was able to do, for it was there he met with his misfortune.”
“What bill? What misfortune?” cried Cecilia; “what had your husband to do at Violet-Bank?”
“He was the carpenter, madam. I thought you might have seen poor Hill the carpenter there.”
“No, I never was there myself. Perhaps you mistake me for Mrs Harrel.”
“Why, sure, madam, a’n’t you his honour’s lady?”
“No. But tell me, what is this bill?”
“‘Tis a bill, madam, for very hard work, for work, madam, which I am sure will cost my husband his life; and though I have been after his honour night and day to get it, and sent him letters and petitions with an account of our misfortunes, I have never received so much as a shilling! and now the servants won’t even let me wait in the hall to speak to him. Oh, madam! you who seem so good, plead to his honour in our behalf! tell him my poor husband cannot live! tell him my children are starving! and tell him my poor Billy, that used to help to keep us, is dead, and that all the work I can do by myself is not enough to maintain us!”
“Good heaven!” cried Cecilia, extremely moved, “is it then your own money for which you sue thus humbly?”
“Yes, madam, for my own just and honest money, as his honour knows, and will tell you himself.”
“Impossible!” cried Cecilia, “he cannot know it; but I will take care he shall soon be informed of it. How much is the bill?”
“Two-and-twenty pounds, madam.”
“What, no more?”
“Ah, madam, you gentlefolks little think how much that is to poor people! A hard working family, like mine, madam, with the help of 20 pounds will go on for a long while quite in paradise.”
“Poor worthy woman!” cried Cecilia, whose eyes were filled with tears of compassion, “if 20 pounds will place you in paradise, and that 20 pounds only your just right, it is hard, indeed, that you should be kept without it; especially when your debtors are too affluent to miss it. Stay here a few moments, and I will bring you the money immediately.”
Away she flew, and returned to the breakfast room, but found there only Mr Arnott, who told her that Mr Harrel was in the library, with his sister and some gentlemen. Cecilia briefly related her business, and begged he would inform Mr Harrel she wished to speak to him directly. Mr Arnott shook his head, but obeyed.
They returned together, and immediately.
“Miss Beverley,” cried Mr Harrel, gaily, “I am glad you are not gone, for we want much to consult with you. Will you come up stairs?”
“Presently,” answered she; “but first I must speak to you about a poor woman with whom I have accidentally been talking, who has begged me to intercede with you to pay a little debt that she thinks you have forgotten, but that probably you have never heard mentioned.”
“A debt?” cried he, with an immediate change of countenance, “to whom?”
“Her name, I think, is Hill; she is wife to the carpenter you employed about a new temple at Violet-Bank.”
“O, what—what, that woman?—Well, well, I’ll see she shall be paid. Come, let us go to the library.”
“What, with my commission so ill executed? I promised to petition for her to have the money directly.”
“Pho, pho, there’s no such hurry; I don’t know what I have done with her bill.”
“I’ll run and get another.”
“O upon no account! She may send another in two or three days. She deserves to wait a twelvemonth for her impertinence in troubling you at all about it.”
“That was entirely accidental: but indeed you must give me leave to perform my promise and plead for her. It must be almost the same to you whether you pay such a trifle as 20 pounds now or a month hence, and to this poor woman the difference seems little short of life or death, for she tells me her husband is dying, and her children are half-famished; and though she looks an object of the cruellest want and distress herself, she appears to be their only support.”
“O,” cried Mr Harrel, laughing, “what a dismal tale has she been telling you! no doubt she saw you were fresh from the country! But if you give credit to all the farragos of these trumpery impostors, you will never have a moment to yourself, nor a guinea in your purse.”
“This woman,”’ answered Cecilia, “cannot be an impostor, she carries marks but too evident and too dreadful in her countenance of the sufferings which she relates.”
“O,” returned he, “when you know the town better you will soon see through tricks of this sort; a sick husband and five small children are complaints so stale now, that they serve no other purpose in the world but to make a joke.”
“Those, however, who can laugh at them must have notions of merriment very different to mine. And this poor woman, whose cause I have ventured to undertake, had she no family at all, must still and indisputably be an object of pity herself, for she is so weak she can hardly crawl, and so pallid that she seems already half dead.”
“All imposition, depend upon it! The moment she is out of your sight her complaints will vanish.”
“Nay, sir,” cried Cecilia, a little impatiently, “there is no reason to suspect such deceit, since she does not come hither as a beggar, however well the state of beggary may accord with her poverty: she only solicits the payment of a bill, and if in that there is any fraud, nothing can be so easy as detection.”
Mr Harrel bit his lips at this speech, and for some instants looked much disturbed; but soon recovering himself, he negligently said, “Pray, how did she get at you?”
“I met her at the street door. But tell me, is not her bill a just one?”
“I cannot say; I have never had time to look at it.”
“But you know who the woman is, and that her husband worked for you, and therefore that in all probability it is right,—do you not?”
“Yes, yes, I know who the woman is well enough; she has taken care of that, for she has pestered me every day these nine months.”
Cecilia was struck dumb by this speech: hitherto she had supposed that the dissipation of his life kept him ignorant of his own injustice; but when she found he was so well informed of it, yet, with such total indifference, could suffer a poor woman to claim a just debt every day for nine months together, she was shocked and astonished beyond measure. They were both some time silent, and then Mr Harrel, yawning and stretching out his arms, indolently asked, “Pray, why does not the man come himself?”
“Did I not tell you,” answered Cecilia, staring at so absent a question, “that he was very ill, and unable even to work?”
“Well, when he is better,” added he, moving towards the door, “he may call, and I will talk to him.”