The Collected Works of Frances Burney (Illustrated Edition). Frances Burney
town till Mr Harrel is settled; for though I am as sensible of your wisdom as of your beauty, I find myself too weak to bear the distress of my unhappy sister, and therefore I run from the sight, nor shall any letter or message follow me, unless it comes from Miss Beverley herself, lest she should in future refuse the only favour I dare presume to solicit, that of sometimes deigning to honour with her directions, the most humble and devoted of her servants, J. ARNOTT.
In the midst of her apprehensions for herself and her own interest, Cecilia could not forbear rejoicing that Mr Arnott, at least, had escaped the present storm: yet she was certain it would fall the more heavily upon herself; and dreaded the sight of Mrs Harrel after the shock which this flight would occasion.
Her expectations were but too quickly fulfilled: Mrs Harrel in a short time after rushed wildly into the room, calling out “My brother is gone! he has left me for ever! Oh save me, Miss Beverley, save me from abuse and insult!” And she wept with so much violence she could utter nothing more.
Cecilia, quite tortured by this persecution, faintly asked what she could do for her?
“Send,” cried she, “to my brother, and beseech him not to abandon me! send to him, and conjure him to advance this thousand pound! — the chaise is already ordered — Mr Harrel is fixed upon going — yet he says without that money we must both starve in a strange land — O send to my cruel brother! he has left word that nothing must follow him that does not come from you.”
“For the world, then,” cried Cecilia, “would I not baffle his discretion! indeed you must submit to your fate, indeed Mrs Harrel you must endeavour to bear it better.”
Mrs Harrel, shedding a flood of tears, declared she would try to follow her advice, but again besought her in the utmost agony to send after her brother, protesting she did not think even her life would be safe in making so long a journey with Mr Harrel in his present state of mind: his character, she said, was totally changed, his gaiety, good humour, and sprightliness were turned into roughness and moroseness, and, since his great losses at play, he was grown so fierce and furious, that to oppose him even in a trifle, rendered him quite outrageous in passion.
Cecilia, though truly concerned, and almost melted, yet refused to interfere with Mr Arnott, and even thought it but justice to acknowledge she had advised his retreat.
“And can you have been so cruel?” cried Mrs Harrel, with still encreasing violence of sorrow, “to rob me of my only friend, to deprive me of my Brother’s affection, at the very time I am forced out of the kingdom, with a husband who is ready to murder me, and who says he hates the sight of me, and all because I cannot get him this fatal, fatal money! — O Miss Beverley, how could I have thought to have had such an office from you?”
Cecilia was beginning a justification, when a message came from Mr Harrel, desiring to see his wife immediately.
Mrs Harrel, in great terror, cast herself at Cecilia’s feet, and clinging to her knees, called out “I dare not go to him! I dare not go to him! he wants to know my success, and when he hears my brother is run away, I am sure he will kill me! — Oh Miss Beverley, how could you send him away? how could you be so inhuman as to leave me to the rage of Mr Harrel?”
Cecilia, distressed and trembling herself, conjured her to rise and be consoled; but Mrs Harrel, weak and frightened, could only weep and supplicate: “I don’t ask you,” she cried, “to give the money yourself, but only to send for my brother, that he may protect me, and beg Mr Harrel not to treat me so cruelly — consider but what a long, long journey I am going to make! consider how often you used to say you would love me for ever! consider you have robbed me of the tenderest brother in the world! — Oh Miss Beverley, send for him back, or be a sister to me yourself, and let not your poor Priscilla leave her native land without help or pity!”
Cecilia, wholly overcome, now knelt too, and embracing her with tears, said “Oh Priscilla, plead and reproach no more! what you wish shall be yours — I will send for your brother — I will do what you please!”
“Now you are my friend indeed!” cried Mrs Harrel, “let me but see my brother, and his heart will yield to my distress, and he will soften Mr Harrel by giving his unhappy sister this parting bounty.”
Cecilia then took a pen in her hand to write to Mr Arnott; but struck almost in the same moment with a notion of treachery in calling him from a retreat which her own counsel made him seek, professedly to expose him to a supplication which from his present situation might lead him to ruin, she hastily flung it from her, and exclaimed “No, excellent Mr Arnott, I will not so unworthily betray you!”
“And can you, Miss Beverley, can you at last,” cried Mrs Harrel, “be so barbarous as to retract?”
“No, my poor Priscilla,” answered Cecilia, “I cannot so cruelly disappoint you; my pity shall however make no sufferer but myself — I cannot send for Mr Arnott — from me you must have the money, and may it answer the purpose for which it is given, and restore to you the tenderness of your husband, and the peace of your own heart!”
Priscilla, scarce waiting to thank her, flew with this intelligence to Mr Harrel; who with the same impetuosity, scarce waiting to say he was glad of it, ran himself to bring the Jew from whom the money was to be procured. Every thing was soon settled, Cecilia had no time for retracting, and repentance they had not the delicacy to regard: again, therefore, she signed her name for paying the principal and interest of another 1000_l. within ten days after she was of age: and having taken the money, she accompanied Mr and Mrs Harrel into another room. Presenting it then with an affecting solemnity to Mrs Harrel, “accept, Priscilla,” she cried, “this irrefragable mark of the sincerity of my friendship: but suffer me at the same time to tell you, it is the last to so considerable an amount I ever mean to offer; receive it, therefore, with kindness, but use it with discretion.”
She then embraced her, and eager now to avoid acknowledgment, as before she had been to escape importunities, she left them together.
The soothing recompense of succouring benevolence, followed not this gift, nor made amends for this loss: perplexity and uneasiness, regret and resentment, accompanied the donation, and rested upon her mind; she feared she had done wrong; she was certain Mr Monckton would blame her; he knew not the persecution she suffered, nor would he make any allowance for the threats which alarmed, or the intreaties which melted her.
Far other had been her feelings at the generosity she exerted for the Hills; no doubts then tormented her, and no repentance embittered her beneficence. Their worth was without suspicion, and their misfortunes were not of their own seeking; the post in which they had been stationed they had never deserted, and the poverty into which they had sunk was accidental and unavoidable.
But here, every evil had been wantonly incurred by vanity and licentiousness, and shamelessly followed by injustice and fraud: the disturbance of her mind only increased by reflection, for when the rights of the creditors with their injuries occurred to her, she enquired of herself by what title or equity, she had so liberally assisted Mr Harrel in eluding their claims, and flying the punishment which the law would inflict.
Startled by this consideration, she most severely reproached herself for a compliance of which she had so lightly weighed the consequences, and thought with the utmost dismay, that while she had flattered herself she was merely indulging the dictates of humanity, she might perhaps be accused by the world as an abettor of guile and injustice.
“And yet,” she continued, “whom can I essentially have injured but myself? would his creditors have been benefitted by my refusal? had I braved the execution of his dreadful threat, and quitted his house before I was wrought upon to assist him, would his suicide have lessened their losses, or secured their demands? even if he had no intention but to intimidate me, who will be wronged by my enabling him to go abroad, or who would be better paid were he seized and confined? All that remains of his shattered fortune may still be claimed, though I have saved him from a lingering imprisonment, desperate for himself and his wife, and useless for those he has plundered.”
And thus, now soothed by the purity of her intentions, and now uneasy from the rectitude of her principles, she alternately