The Complete Novels of Fanny Burney (Illustrated). Frances Burney
dress. But only conceive what happened to me last year! Do you know I came to town the twentieth of March! was not that horrid provoking?”
“Perhaps so,” said Cecilia, “but I am sure I cannot tell why.”
“Not tell why?” repeated Miss Larolles, “why, don’t you know it was the very night of the grand private masquerade at Lord Darien’s? I would not have missed it for the whole universe. I never travelled in such an agony in my life: we did not get to town till monstrous late, and then do you know I had neither a ticket nor a habit! Only conceive what a distress! well, I sent to every creature I knew for a ticket, but they all said there was not one to be had; so I was just like a mad creature — but about ten or eleven o’clock, a young lady of my particular acquaintance, by the greatest good luck in the world happened to be taken suddenly ill; so she sent me her ticket, — was not that delightful?”
“For her, extremely!” said Cecilia, laughing.
“Well,” she continued, “then I was almost out of my wits with joy; and I went about, and got one of the sweetest dresses you ever saw. If you’ll call upon me some morning, I’ll shew it you.”
Cecilia, not prepared for an invitation so abrupt, bowed without speaking, and Miss Larolles, too happy in talking herself to be offended at the silence of another, continued her narration.
“Well, but now comes the vilest part of the business; do you know, when everything else was ready, I could not get my hair-dresser! I sent all over the town — he was nowhere to be found; I thought I should have died with vexation; I assure you I cried so that if I had not gone in a mask, I should have been ashamed to be seen. And so, after all this monstrous fatigue, I was forced to have my hair dressed by my own maid, quite in a common way; was not it cruelly mortifying?”
“Why yes,” answered Cecilia, “I should think it was almost sufficient to make you regret the illness of the young lady who sent you her ticket.”
They were now interrupted by Mrs Harrel, who advanced to them followed by a young man of a serious aspect and modest demeanour, and said, “I am happy to see you both so well engaged; but my brother has been reproaching me with presenting everybody to Miss Beverley but himself.”
“I cannot hope,” said Mr Arnott, “that I have any place in the recollection of Miss Beverley, but long as I have been absent from Suffolk, and unfortunate as I was in not seeing her during my last visit there, I am yet sure, even at this distance of time, grown and formed as she is, I should instantly have known her.”
“Amazing!” cried an elderly gentleman, in a tone of irony, who was standing near them, “for the face is a very common one!”
“I remember well,” said Cecilia, “that when you left Suffolk I thought I had lost my best friend.”
“Is that possible?” cried Mr Arnott, with a look of much delight.
“Yes, indeed, and not without reason, for in all disputes you were my advocate; in all plays, my companion; and in all difficulties, my assistant.”
“Madam,” cried the same gentleman, “if you liked him because he was your advocate, companion, and assistant, pray like me too, for I am ready to become all three at once.”
“You are very good,” said Cecilia, laughing, “but at present I find no want of any defender.”
“That’s pity,” he returned, “for Mr Arnott seems to me very willing to act the same parts over again with you.”
“But for that purpose he must return to the days of his childhood.”
“Ah, would to heaven it were possible!” cried Mr Arnott, “for they were the happiest of my life.”
“After such a confession,” said his companion, “surely you will let him attempt to renew them? ’tis but taking a walk backwards; and though it is very early in life for Mr Arnott to sigh for that retrograde motion, which, in the regular course of things, we shall all in our turns desire, yet with such a motive as recovering Miss Beverley for a playfellow, who can wonder that he anticipates in youth the hopeless wishes of age?”
Here Miss Larolles, who was one of that numerous tribe of young ladies to whom all conversation is irksome in which they are not themselves engaged, quitted her place, of which Mr Gosport, Cecilia’s new acquaintance, immediately took possession.
“Is it utterly impossible,” continued this gentleman, “that I should assist in procuring Mr Arnott such a renovation? Is there no subaltern part I can perform to facilitate the project? for I will either hide or seek with any boy in the parish; and for a Q in the corner, there is none more celebrated.”
“I have no doubt, sir,” answered Cecilia, “of your accomplishments; and I should be not a little entertained with the surprize of the company if you could persuade yourself to display them.” “And what,” cried he, “could the company do half so well as to rise also, and join in the sport? it would but interrupt some tale of scandal, or some description of a toupee. Active wit, however despicable when compared with intellectual, is yet surely better than the insignificant click-clack of modish conversation,” casting his eyes towards Miss Larolles, “or even the pensive dullness of affected silence,” changing their direction towards Miss Leeson.
Cecilia, though surprised at an attack upon the society her friend had selected, by one who was admitted to make a part of it, felt its justice too strongly to be offended at its severity.
“I have often wished,” he continued, “that when large parties are collected, as here, without any possible reason why they might not as well be separated, something could be proposed in which each person might innocently take a share: for surely after the first half-hour, they can find little new to observe in the dress of their neighbours, or to display in their own; and with whatever seeming gaiety they may contrive to fill up the middle and end of the evening, by wire-drawing the comments afforded by the beginning, they are yet so miserably fatigued, that if they have not four or five places to run to every night, they suffer nearly as much from weariness of their friends in company, as they would do from weariness of themselves in solitude.”
Here, by the general breaking up of the party, the conversation was interrupted, and Mr Gosport was obliged to make his exit; not much to the regret of Cecilia, who was impatient to be alone with Mrs Harrel.
The rest of the evening, therefore, was spent much more to her satisfaction; it was devoted to friendship, to mutual enquiries, to kind congratulations, and endearing recollections; and though it was late when she retired, she retired with reluctance.
CHAPTER 4
A SKETCH OF HIGH LIFE
Eager to renew a conversation which had afforded her so much pleasure, Cecilia, neither sensible of fatigue from her change of hours nor her journey, arose with the light, and as soon as she was dressed, hastened to the breakfast apartment.
She had not, however, been more impatient to enter than she soon became to quit it; for though not much surprized to find herself there before her friend, her ardour for waiting her arrival was somewhat chilled, upon finding the fire but just lighted, the room cold, and the servants still employed in putting it in order.
At 10 o’clock she made another attempt: the room was then better prepared for her reception, but still it was empty. Again she was retiring, when the appearance of Mr Arnott stopped her.
He expressed his surprize at her early rising, in a manner that marked the pleasure it gave to him; and then, returning to the conversation of the preceding evening, he expatiated with warmth and feeling upon the happiness of his boyish days, remembered every circumstance belonging to the plays in which they had formerly been companions, and dwelt upon every incident with a minuteness of delight that shewed his unwillingness ever to have done with the subject.
This