When the company was retired, and Mr Arnott only remained with the ladies, Cecilia, with no little surprise, inquired for Mr Harrel, observing that she had not seen him the whole day.
“O!” cried his lady, “don’t think of wondering at that, for it happens continually. He dines at home, indeed, in general, but otherwise I should see nothing of him at all.”
“Indeed? why, how does he fill up his time?”
“That I am sure I cannot tell, for he never consults me about it; but I suppose much in the same way that other people do.”
“Ah, Priscilla!” cried Cecilia, with some earnestness, “how little did I ever expect to see you so much a fine lady!”
“A fine lady?” repeated Mrs Harrel; “why, what is it I do? Don’t I live exactly like every body else that mixes at all with the world?”
“You, Miss Beverley,” said Mr Arnott in a low voice, “will I hope give to the world an example, not take one from it.”
Soon after, they separated for the night.
The next morning, Cecilia took care to fill up her time more advantageously, than in wandering about the house in search of a companion she now expected not to find: she got together her books, arranged them to her fancy, and secured to herself for the future occupation of her leisure hours, the exhaustless fund of entertainment which reading, that richest, highest, and noblest source of intellectual enjoyment, perpetually affords.
While they were yet at breakfast, they were again visited by Miss Larolles. “I am come,” cried she, eagerly, “to run away with you both to my Lord Belgrade’s sale. All the world will be there; and we shall go in with tickets, and you have no notion how it will be crowded.”
“What is to be sold there?” said Cecilia.
“Oh, every thing you can conceive; house, stables, china, laces, horses, caps, everything in the world.”
“And do you intend to buy any thing?”
“Lord, no; but one likes to see the people’s things.”
Cecilia then begged they would excuse her attendance.
“O, by no means!” cried Miss Larolles; “you must go, I assure you; there’ll be such a monstrous crowd as you never saw in your life. I dare say we shall be half squeezed to death.”
“That,” said Cecilia, “is an inducement which you must not expect will have much weight with a poor rustic just out of the country: it must require all the polish of a long residence in the metropolis to make it attractive.”
“O but do go, for I assure you it will be the best sale we shall have this season. I can’t imagine, Mrs Harrel, what poor Lady Belgrade will do with herself; I hear the creditors have seized every thing; I really believe creditors are the cruelest set of people in the world! they have taken those beautiful buckles out of her shoes! Poor soul! I declare it will make my heart ache to see them put up. It’s quite shocking, upon my word. I wonder who’ll buy them. I assure you they were the prettiest fancied I ever saw. But come, if we don’t go directly, there will be no getting in.”
Cecilia again desired to be excused accompanying them, adding that she wished to spend the day at home.
“At home, my dear?” cried Mrs Harrel; “why we have been engaged to Mrs Mears this month, and she begged me to prevail with you to be of the party. I expect she’ll call, or send you a ticket, every moment.”
“How unlucky for me,” said Cecilia, “that you should happen to have so many engagements just at this time! I hope, at least, there will not be any for to-morrow.”
“O yes; to-morrow we go to Mrs Elton’s.”
“Again to-morrow? and how long is this to last?”
“O, heaven knows; I’ll shew you my catalogue.”
She then produced a book which contained a list of engagements for more than three weeks. “And as these,” she said, “are struck off, new ones are made; and so it is we go on till after the birth-day.”
When this list had been examined and commented upon by Miss Larolles, and viewed and wondered at by Cecilia, it was restored to its place, the two ladies went together to the auction, permitting Cecilia, at her repeated request, to return to her own apartment.
She returned, however, neither satisfied with the behaviour of her friend, nor pleased with her own situation: the sobriety of her education, as it had early instilled into her mind the pure dictates of religion, and strict principles of honour, had also taught her to regard continual dissipation as an introduction to vice, and unbounded extravagance as the harbinger of injustice. Long accustomed to see Mrs Harrel in the same retirement in which she had hitherto lived herself, when books were their first amusement, and the society of each other was their chief happiness, the change she now perceived in her mind and manners equally concerned and surprised her. She found her insensible to friendship, indifferent to her husband, and negligent of all social felicity. Dress, company, parties of pleasure, and public places, seemed not merely to occupy all her time; but to gratify all her wishes. Cecilia, in whose heart glowed the warmest affections and most generous virtue, was cruelly depressed and mortified by this disappointment; yet she had the good sense to determine against upbraiding her, well aware that if reproach has any power over indifference, it is only that of changing it into aversion.
Mrs Harrel, in truth, was innocent of heart, though dissipated in life; married very young, she had made an immediate transition from living in a private family and a country town, to becoming mistress of one of the most elegant houses in Portman-square, at the head of a splendid fortune, and wife to a man whose own pursuits soon showed her the little value he himself set upon domestic happiness. Immersed in the fashionable round of company and diversions, her understanding, naturally weak, was easily dazzled by the brilliancy of her situation; greedily, therefore, sucking in air impregnated with luxury and extravagance, she had soon no pleasure but to vie with some rival in elegance, and no ambition but to exceed some superior in expence.
The Dean of–in naming Mr Harrel for one of the guardians of his niece, had no other view than that of indulging her wishes by allowing her to reside in the house of her friend: he had little personal knowledge of him, but was satisfied with the nomination, because acquainted with his family, fortune, and connections, all which persuaded him to believe without further enquiry, that it was more peculiarly proper for his niece than any other he could make.
In his choice of the other two trustees he had been more prudent; the first of these, the honourable Mr Delvile, was a man of high birth and character; the second, Mr Briggs, had spent his whole life in business, in which he had already amassed an immense fortune, and had still no greater pleasure than that of encreasing it. From the high honour, therefore, of Mr Delvile, he expected the most scrupulous watchfulness that his niece should in nothing be injured, and from the experience of Mr Briggs in money matters, and his diligence in transacting business, he hoped for the most vigilant observance that her fortune, while under his care, should be turned to the best account. And thus, as far as he was able, he had equally consulted her pleasure, her security, and her pecuniary advantage.
Mrs Harrel returned home only in time to dress for the rest of the day.
When Cecilia was summoned to dinner, she found, besides her host and hostess and Mr Arnott, a gentleman she had not before seen, but who as soon as she entered the parlour, Mr Harrel presented to her, saying at the same time he was one of the most intimate of his friends.
This gentleman, Sir Robert Floyer, was about thirty years of age; his face was neither remarkable for its beauty nor its ugliness, but sufficiently distinguished by its expression of invincible assurance; his person, too, though neither striking for its grace nor its deformity, attracted notice from the insolence of his deportment. His manners, haughty and supercilious, marked the high opinion he cherished of his own importance; and his air and address, at once bold and negligent, announced his happy perfection in the character at which he aimed, that of an accomplished man of the town.