The Collected Works of Frances Burney (Illustrated Edition). Frances Burney
I never saw such a collection of sweet things in my life. I was ready to cry that I could not bid for half a hundred of them. I declare I was kept in an agony the whole morning. I would not but have been there for the world. Poor Lady Belgrade! you really can’t conceive how I was shocked for her. All her beautiful things sold for almost nothing. I assure you, if you had seen how they went, you would have lost all patience. It’s a thousand pities you were not there.”
“On the contrary,” said Cecilia, “I think I had a very fortunate escape, for the loss of patience without the acquisition of the trinkets, would have been rather mortifying.”
“Yes,” said Mr Gosport; “but when you have lived some time longer in this commercial city, you will find the exchange of patience for mortification the most common and constant traffic amongst its inhabitants.”
“Pray, have you been here long?” cried Miss Larolles, “for I have been to twenty places, wondering I did not meet with you before. But whereabouts is Mrs Mears? O, I see her now; I’m sure there’s no mistaking her; I could know her by that old red gown half a mile off. Did you ever see such a frightful thing in your life? And it’s never off her back. I believe she sleeps in it. I am sure I have seen her in nothing else all winter. It quite tires one’s eye. She’s a monstrous shocking dresser. But do you know I have met with the most provoking thing in the world this evening? I declare it has made me quite sick. I was never in such a passion in my life. You can conceive nothing like it.”
“Like what?” cried Cecilia, laughing; “your passion, or your provocation?”
“Why, I’ll tell you what it was, and then you shall judge if it was not quite past endurance. You must know I commissioned a particular friend of mine, Miss Moffat, to buy me a trimming when she went to Paris; well, she sent it me over about a month ago by Mr Meadows, and it’s the sweetest thing you ever saw in your life; but I would not make it up, because there was not a creature in town, so I thought to bring it out quite new in about a week’s time, for you know any thing does till after Christmas. Well, to-night at Lady Jane Dranet’s, who should I meet but Miss Moffat! She had been in town some days, but so monstrously engaged I could never find her at home. Well, I was quite delighted to see her, for you must know she’s a prodigious favourite with me, so I ran up to her in a great hurry to shake hands, and what do you think was the first thing that struck my eyes? Why, just such a trimming as my own, upon a nasty, odious gown, and half dirty! Can you conceive anything so distressing? I could have cried with pleasure.”
“Why so?” said Cecilia. “If her trimming is dirty, yours will look the more delicate.”
“O Lord! but it’s making it seem quite an old thing! Half the town will get something like it. And I quite ruined myself to buy it. I declare, I don’t think anything was ever half so mortifying. It distressed me so, I could hardly speak to her. If she had stayed a month or two longer, I should not have minded it, but it was the cruellest thing in the world to come over just now. I wish the Custom-house officers had kept all her cloaths till summer.”
“The wish is tender, indeed,” said Cecilia, “for a particular friend.”
Mrs Mears now rising from the card-table, Miss Larolles tript away to pay her compliments to her.
“Here, at least,” cried Cecilia, “no receipt seems requisite for the cure of silence! I would have Miss Larolles be the constant companion of Miss Leeson: they could not but agree admirably, since that SUPERCILIOUS young lady seems determined never to speak, and the VOLUBLE Miss Larolles never to be silent. Were each to borrow something of the other, how greatly would both be the better!”
“The composition would still be a sorry one,” answered Mr Gosport, “for I believe they are equally weak, and equally ignorant; the only difference is, that one, though silly, is quick, the other, though deliberate, is stupid. Upon a short acquaintance, that heaviness which leaves to others the whole weight of discourse, and whole search of entertainment, is the most fatiguing, but, upon a longer intimacy, even that is less irksome and less offensive, than the flippancy which hears nothing but itself.”
Mrs Harrel arose now to depart, and Cecilia, not more tired of the beginning of the evening than entertained with its conclusion, was handed to the carriage by Mr Arnott.
CHAPTER 6
A BREAKFAST
The next morning, during breakfast, a servant acquainted Cecilia that a young gentleman was in the hall, who begged to speak with her. She desired he might be admitted; and Mrs Harrel, laughing, asked if she ought not to quit the room; while Mr Arnott, with even more than his usual gravity, directed his eye towards the door to watch who should enter.
Neither of them, however, received any satisfaction when it was opened, for the gentleman who made his appearance was unknown to both: but great was the amazement of Cecilia, though little her emotion, when she saw Mr Morrice!
He came forward with an air of the most profound respect for the company in general, and obsequiously advancing to Cecilia, made an earnest enquiry into her health after her journey, and hoped she had heard good news from her friends in the country.
Mrs Harrel, naturally concluding both from his visit and behaviour, that he was an acquaintance of some intimacy, very civilly offered him a seat and some breakfast, which, very frankly, he accepted. But Mr Arnott, who already felt the anxiety of a rising passion which was too full of veneration to be sanguine, looked at him with uneasiness, and waited his departure with impatience.
Cecilia began to imagine he had been commissioned to call upon her with some message from Mr Monckton: for she knew not how to suppose that merely and accidentally having spent an hour or two in the same room with her, would authorize a visiting acquaintance. Mr Morrice, however, had a faculty the most happy of reconciling his pretensions to his inclination; and therefore she soon found that the pretence she had suggested appeared to him unnecessary. To lead, however, to the subject from which she expected his excuse, she enquired how long he had left Suffolk?
“But yesterday noon, ma’am,” he answered, “or I should certainly have taken the liberty to wait upon you before.”
Cecilia, who had only been perplexing herself to devise some reason why he came at all, now looked at him with a grave surprize, which would totally have abashed a man whose courage had been less, or whose expectations had been greater; but Mr Morrice, though he had hazarded every danger upon the slightest chance of hope, knew too well the weakness of his claims to be confident of success, and had been too familiar with rebuffs to be much hurt by receiving them. He might possibly have something to gain, but he knew he had nothing to lose.
“I had the pleasure,” he continued, “to leave all our friends well, except poor Lady Margaret, and she has had an attack of the asthma; yet she would not have a physician, though Mr Monckton would fain have persuaded her: however, I believe the old lady knows better things.” And he looked archly at Cecilia: but perceiving that the insinuation gave her nothing but disgust, he changed his tone, and added, “It is amazing how well they live together; nobody would imagine the disparity in their years. Poor old lady! Mr Monckton will really have a great loss of her when she dies.”
“A loss of her!” repeated Mrs Harrel, “I am sure she is an exceeding ill-natured old woman. When I lived at Bury, I was always frightened out of my wits at the sight of her.”
“Why indeed, ma’am,” said Morrice, “I must own her appearance is rather against her: I had myself a great aversion to her at first sight. But the house is chearful — very chearful; I like to spend a few days there now and then of all things. Miss Bennet, too, is agreeable enough, and ——”
“Miss Bennet agreeable!” cried Mrs Harrel, “I think she’s the most odious creature I ever knew in my life; a nasty, spiteful old maid!”
“Why indeed, ma’am, as you say,” answered Morrice, “she is not very young; and as to her temper, I confess I know very little