A LETTER.
As soon as Mrs Charlton was acquainted with the departure
of young Delvile, she returned to Cecilia, impatient
to be informed what had passed. The narration
she heard both hurt and astonished her; that Cecilia,
the Heiress of such a fortune, the possessor of so
much beauty, descended of a worthy family, and formed
and educated to grace a noble one, should be rejected
by people to whom her wealth would be most useful,
and only in secret have their alliance proposed to
her, she deemed an indignity that called for nothing
but resentment, and approved and enforced the resolution
of her young friend to resist all solicitations which
Mr and Mrs Delvile did not second themselves.
About, two hours after Delvile was gone, his letter
arrived. Cecilia opened it with trepidation,
and read as follows.
To Miss Beverley.
September_ 20, 1779.
What could be the apprehensions, the suspicions of
Miss Beverley when so earnestly she prohibited my
writing? From a temper so unguarded as mine could
she fear any subtlety of doctrine? Is my character
so little known to her that she can think me capable
of craft or duplicity? Had I even the desire,
I have neither the address nor the patience to practice
them; no, loveliest Miss Beverley, though sometimes
by vehemence I may incautiously offend, by sophistry,
believe me, I never shall injure: my ambition,
as I have told you, is to convince, not beguile, and
my arguments shall be simple as my professions shall
be sincere.
Yet how again may I venture to mention a proposal
which so lately almost before you had heard you rejected?
Suffer me, however, to assure you it resulted neither
from insensibility to your delicacy, nor to my own
duty; I made it, on the contrary, with that reluctance
and timidity which were given me by an apprehension
that both seemed to be offended by it:—but
alas! already I have said what with grief I must repeat,
I have no resource, no alternative, between receiving
the honour of your hand in secret or foregoing you
for ever.
You will wonder, you may well wonder at such a declaration;
and again that severe renunciation with which you
wounded me, will tremble on your lips,—Oh
there let it stop! nor let the air again be agitated
with sounds so discordant!
In that cruel and heart-breaking moment when I tore
myself from you at Delvile Castle, I confessed to
you the reason of my flight, and I determined to see
you no more. I named not to you, then, my family,
the potency of my own objections against daring to
solicit your favour rendering theirs immaterial:
my own are now wholly removed, but theirs remain in
full force.
My father, descended of a race which though decaying
in wealth, is unsubdued in pride, considers himself
as the guardian of the honour of his house, to which
he holds the name of his ancestors inseparably annexed
my mother, born of the same family, and bred to the
same ideas, has strengthened this opinion by giving
it the sanction of her own.
