The Collected Works of Frances Burney (Illustrated Edition). Frances Burney
“unless you take better care of him. He has confessed to me that after being out in the storm last Wednesday, he sat in his wet cloaths all the evening.”
“Dear,” cried Lady Honoria, “and what would that do to him? I have no notion of a man’s always wanting a cambric handkerchief about his throat.”
“Perhaps your ladyship had rather make him apply it to his eyes?” cried the doctor: “however, sitting inactive in wet cloaths would destroy a stouter man than Mr Delvile; but he forgot it, he says! which of you two young ladies could not have given as good reason?”
“Your most obedient,” said Lady Honoria and why should not a lady give as good a reason as a gentleman?”
“I don’t know,” answered he, drily, “but from want of practice, I believe.”
“O worse and worse!” cried Lady Honoria; you shall never be my physician; if I was to be attended by you, you’d make me sick instead of well.”
“All the better,” answered he, “for then I must have the honour of attending you till I made you well instead of sick.” And with a good-humoured smile, he left them; and Lord Derford, at the same time, coming into the room, Cecilia contrived to stroll out into the park.
The account to which she had been listening redoubled her uneasiness; she was conscious that whatever was the indisposition of Delvile, and whether it was mental or bodily, she was herself its occasion: through her he had been negligent, she had rendered him forgetful, and in consulting her own fears in preference to his peace, she had avoided an explanation, though he had vigilantly sought one. She knew not, he told her, half the wretchedness of his heart. — Alas! thought she, he little conjectures the state of mine!
Lady Honoria suffered her not to be long alone; in about half an hour she ran after her, gaily calling out, “O Miss Beverley, you have lost the delightfullest diversion in the world! I have just had the most ridiculous scene with my Lord Derford that you ever heard in your life! I asked him what put it in his head to be in love with you — and he had the simplicity to answer, quite seriously, his father!”
“He was very right,” said Cecilia, “if the desire of uniting two estates is to be denominated being in love; for that, most certainly, was put into his head by his father.”
“O but you have not heard half. I told him, then, that, as a friend, in confidence I must acquaint him, I believed you intended to marry Mortimer —”
“Good heaven, Lady Honoria!”
“O, you shall hear the reason; because, as I assured him, it was proper he should immediately call him to account.”
“Are you mad, Lady Honoria?”
“For you know, said I, Miss Beverley has had one duel fought for her already, and a lady who has once had that compliment paid her, always expects it from every new admirer; and I really believe your not observing that form is the true cause of her coldness to you.”
“Is it possible you can have talked so wildly?”
“Yes, and what is much better, he believed every word I said!”
“Much better? — No, indeed, it is much worse! and if, in fact, he is so uncommonly weak, I shall really be but little indebted to your ladyship for giving him such notions.”
“O I would not but have done it for the world! for I never laughed so immoderately in my life. He began assuring me he was not afraid, for he said he had practised fencing more than any thing: so I made him promise to send a challenge to Mortimer as soon as he is well enough to come down again: for Dr Lyster has ordered him to keep his room.”
Cecilia, smothering her concern for this last piece of intelligence by pretending to feel it merely for the former, expostulated with Lady Honoria upon so mischievous a frolic, and earnestly entreated her to go back and contradict it all.
“No, no, not for the world!” cried she; “he has not the least spirit, and I dare say he would not fight to save the whole nation from destruction; but I’ll make him believe that it’s necessary, in order to give him something to think of, for really his poor head is so vacant, that I am sure if one might but play upon it with sticks, it would sound just like a drum.”
Cecilia, finding it vain to combat with her fantasies, was at length obliged to submit.
The rest of the day she passed very unpleasantly; Delvile appeared not; his father was restless and disturbed, and his mother, though attentive to her guests, and, for their sakes rallying her spirits, was visibly ill disposed to think or to talk but of her son.
One diversion, however, Cecilia found for herself; Delvile had a favourite spaniel, which, when he walked followed him, and when he rode, ran by his horse; this dog, who was not admitted into the house, she now took under her own care; and spent almost the whole day out of doors, chiefly for the satisfaction of making him her companion.
The next morning, when Dr Lyster came again, she kept in the way, in order to hear his opinion; and was sitting with Lady Honoria in the parlour, when he entered it to write a prescription.
Mrs Delvile, in a few moments, followed him, and with a face and voice of the tenderest maternal apprehensions, said “Doctor, one thing entrust me with immediately; I can neither bear imposition nor suspense; — you know what I would say! — tell me if I have any thing to fear, that my preparations may be adequate!”
“Nothing, I believe, in the world.”
“You believe!” repeated Mrs Delvile, starting; “Oh doctor!”
“Why you would not have me say I am certain, would you? these are no times for Popery and infallibility; however, I assure you I think him perfectly safe. He has done a foolish and idle trick, but no man is wise always. We must get rid of his fever, and then if his cold remains, with any cough, he may make a little excursion to Bristol.”
“To Bristol! nay then — I understand you too well!”
“No, no, you don’t understand me at all; I don’t send him to Bristol because he is in a bad way, but merely because I mean to put him in a good one.”
“Let him, then, go immediately; why should he increase the danger by waiting a moment? I will order —”
“Hold, hold! I know what to order myself! ’Tis a strange thing people will always teach me my own duty! why should I make a man travel such weather as this in a fever? do you think I want to confine him in a mad-house, or be confined in one myself?”
“Certainly you know best — but still if there is any danger —”
“No, no, there is not! only we don’t chuse there should be any. And how will he entertain himself better than by going to Bristol? I send him merely on a jaunt of pleasure; and I am sure he will be safer there than shut up in a house with two such young ladies as these.”
And then he made off. Mrs Delvile, too anxious for conversation, left the room, and Cecilia, too conscious for silence, forced herself into discourse with Lady Honoria.
Three days she passed in this uncertainty what she had to expect; blaming those fears which had deferred an explanation, and tormented by Lady Honoria, whose raillery and levity now grew very unseasonable. Fidel, the favourite spaniel, was almost her only consolation, and she pleased herself not inconsiderably by making a friend of the faithful animal.
CHAPTER 7
AN ANECDOTE
On the fourth day the house wore a better aspect; Delvile’s fever was gone, and Dr Lyster permitted him to leave his room: a cough, however, remained, and his journey to Bristol was settled to take place in three days. Cecilia, knowing he was now expected down stairs, hastened out of the parlour the moment she had finished her breakfast; for affected by his illness, and hurt