Cecilia Volume 1

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CECILIA

OR

Memoirs of an Heiress

by

FRANCES BURNEY

PREFACE

"Fanny's Cecilia came out last summer, and is as much liked and read,
I believe, as any book ever was," wrote Charlotte Burney in Jan.
1783. "She had 250 pounds for it from Payne and Cadell. Most people
say she ought to have had a thousand. It is now going into the third
edition, though Payne owns that they printed two thousand at the
first edition, and Lowndes told me five hundred was the common number
for a novel." [Footnote: _The Early Diary of Frances Burney, with a
selection from her correspondence, and from the journals of her
sisters Susan and Charlotte Burney._ Edited by Annie Raine Ellis.
1889. Vol. II. p. 307.]

The manuscript of _Cecilia_ was submitted to Dr Burney and Mr
Crisp during its composition, and their suggestions were in some
cases adopted, as we learn from the _Diary_. Dr Johnson was not
consulted, but a desire at once to imitate and to please him
evidently controlled the work.

Under these circumstances it is naturally less fresh and spontaneous
than _Evelina_, but it is more mature. The touch is surer and
the plot more elaborate. We cannot to-day fully appreciate the
"conflict scene between mother and son," for which, Miss Burney
tells us, the book was written; but the pictures of eighteenth
century affectations are all alive, and the story is thoroughly
absorbing, except, perhaps, in the last book.

Miss Burney often took the name of her characters from her
acquaintances, and it seems probable that some of the "types" in
_Cecilia_ are also drawn from real life. The title of Miss
Austen's _Pride and Prejudice_ was borrowed from _Cecilia_,
and some points of resemblance may be traced between
the two novels.

The present edition is reprinted from:--

CECILIA, or, Memoirs of an Heiress. By the author of Evelina. In
five volumes. London: Printed for T. Payne and Son, at the Newsgate,
and T. Cadell in the Strand. MDCCLXXXII. R. B. J.

THE RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE TO MISS F. BURNEY. (AFTER READING
CECILIA.)

Madam,--I should feel exceedingly to blame if I could refuse to
myself the natural satisfaction, and to you the just but poor
return, of my best thanks for the very great instruction and
entertainment I have received from the new present you have bestowed
on the public. There are few--I believe I may say fairly there are
none at all--that will not find themselves better informed
concerning human nature, and their stock of observation enriched, by
reading your "Cecilia." They certainly will, let their experience in
life and manners be what it may. The arrogance of age must submit to
be taught by youth. You have crowded into a few small volumes an
incredible variety of characters; most of them well planned, well
supported, and well contrasted with each other. If there be any
fault in this respect, it is one in which you are in no great danger
of being imitated. Justly as your characters are drawn, perhaps they
are too numerous. But I beg pardon; I fear it is quite in vain to
preach economy to those who are come young to excessive and sudden
opulence.

I might trespass on your delicacy if I should fill my letter to you
with what I fill my conversation to others. I should be troublesome
to you alone if I should tell you all I feel and think on the
natural vein of humour, the tender pathetic, the comprehensive and
noble moral, and the sagacious observation, that appear quite
throughout that extraordinary performance.

In an age distinguished by producing extraordinary women, I hardly
dare to tell you where my opinion would place you amongst them. I
respect your modesty, that will not endure the commendations which
your merit forces from everybody.

I have the honour to be, with great gratitude, respect, and esteem,
madam, your most obedient and most humble servant,

EDM. BURKE

WHITEHALL, _July 19, 1782_.

My best compliments and congratulations to Dr Burney on the great
honour acquired to his family.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The indulgence shewn by the Public to Evelina, which, unpatronized,
unaided, and unowned, past through Four Editions in one Year, has
encouraged its Author to risk this SECOND attempt. The animation of
success is too universally acknowledged, to make the writer of the
following sheets dread much censure of temerity; though the
precariousness of any power to give pleasure, suppresses all vanity
of confidence, and sends CECILIA into the world with scarce more
hope, though far more encouragement, than attended her highly-
honoured predecessor, Evelina.

July, 1782

CHAPTER i

A JOURNEY.

"Peace to the spirits of my honoured parents, respected be their
remains, and immortalized their virtues! may time, while it moulders
their frail relicks to dust, commit to tradition the record of their
goodness; and Oh, may their orphan-descendant be influenced through
life by the remembrance of their purity, and be solaced in death,
that by her it was unsullied!"

Such was the secret prayer with which the only survivor of the
Beverley family quitted the abode of her youth, and residence of her
forefathers; while tears of recollecting sorrow filled her eyes, and
obstructed the last view of her native town which had excited them.

Cecilia, this fair traveller, had lately entered into the one-and-
twentieth year of her age. Her ancestors had been rich farmers in
the county of Suffolk, though her father, in whom a spirit of
elegance had supplanted the rapacity of wealth, had spent his time
as a private country gentleman, satisfied, without increasing his
store, to live upon what he inherited from the labours of his
predecessors. She had lost him in her early youth, and her mother had
not long survived him. They had bequeathed to her 10,000 pounds, and
consigned her to the care of the Dean of ------, her uncle. With this
gentleman, in whom, by various contingencies, the accumulated
possessions of a rising and prosperous family were centred, she had
passed the last four years of her life; and a few weeks only had yet
elapsed since his death, which, by depriving her of her last
relation, made her heiress to an estate of 3000 pounds per annum;
with no other restriction than that of annexing her name, if she
married, to the disposal of her hand and her riches.

But though thus largely indebted to fortune, to nature she had yet
greater obligations: her form was elegant, her heart was liberal;
her countenance announced the intelligence of her mind, her
complexion varied with every emotion of her soul, and her eyes, the
heralds of her speech, now beamed with understanding and now
glistened with sensibility.

For the short period of her minority, the management of her fortune
and the care of her person, had by the Dean been entrusted to three
guardians, among whom her own choice was to settle her residence:
but her mind, saddened by the loss of all her natural friends,
coveted to regain its serenity in the quietness of the country, and
in the bosom of an aged and maternal counsellor, whom she loved as
her mother, and to whom she had been known from her childhood.

The Deanery, indeed, she was obliged to relinquish, a long repining
expectant being eager, by entering it, to bequeath to another the
anxiety and suspense he had suffered himself; though probably
without much impatience to shorten their duration in favour of the
next successor; but the house of Mrs Charlton, her benevolent
friend, was open for her reception, and the alleviating tenderness
of her conversation took from her all wish of changing it.

Here she had dwelt since the interment of her uncle; and here, from
the affectionate gratitude of her disposition, she had perhaps been
content to dwell till her own, had not her guardians interfered to
remove her.

Reluctantly she complied; she quitted her early companions, the
friend she most revered, and the spot which contained the relicks of
all she had yet lived to lament; and, accompanied by one of her
guardians, and attended by two servants, she began her journey from
Bury to London.

Mr Harrel, this gentleman, though in the prime of his life, though
gay, fashionable and splendid, had been appointed by her uncle to be
one of her trustees; a choice which had for object the peculiar
gratification of his niece, whose most favourite young friend Mr
Harrel had married, and in whose house he therefore knew she would
most wish to live.

Whatever good-nature could dictate or politeness suggest to dispel
her melancholy, Mr Harrel failed not to urge; and Cecilia, in whose
disposition sweetness was tempered with dignity, and gentleness with
fortitude, suffered not his kind offices to seem ineffectual; she
kissed her hand at the last glimpse a friendly hill afforded of her
native town, and made an effort to forget the regret with which she
lost sight of it. She revived her spirits by plans of future
happiness, dwelt upon the delight with which she should meet her
young friend, and, by accepting his consolation, amply rewarded his
trouble.

Her serenity, however, had yet another, though milder trial to
undergo, since another friend was yet to be met, and another
farewell was yet to be taken.

At the distance of seven miles from Bury resided Mr Monckton, the
richest and most powerful man in that neighbourhood, at whose house
Cecilia and her guardian were invited to breakfast in their journey.

Mr Monckton, who was the younger son of a noble family, was a man of
parts, information and sagacity; to great native strength of mind he
added a penetrating knowledge of the world, and to faculties the
most skilful of investigating the character of every other, a
dissimulation the most profound in concealing his own. In the bloom
of his youth, impatient for wealth and ambitious of power, he had
tied himself to a rich dowager of quality, whose age, though sixty-
seven, was but among the smaller species of her evil properties, her
disposition being far more repulsive than her wrinkles. An
inequality of years so considerable, had led him to expect that the
fortune he had thus acquired, would speedily be released from the
burthen with which it was at present incumbered; but his
expectations proved as vain as they were mercenary, and his lady was
not more the dupe of his protestations than he was himself of his
own purposes. Ten years he had been married to her, yet her health
was good, and her faculties were unimpaired; eagerly he had watched
for her dissolution, yet his eagerness had injured no health but his
own! So short-sighted is selfish cunning, that in aiming no further
than at the gratification of the present moment, it obscures the
evils of the future, while it impedes the perception of integrity
and honour.

His ardour, however, to attain the blessed period of returning
liberty, deprived him neither of spirit nor inclination for
intermediate enjoyment; he knew the world too well to incur its
censure by ill-treating the woman to whom he was indebted for the
rank he held in it; he saw her, indeed, but seldom, yet he had the
decency, alike in avoiding as in meeting her, to shew no abatement
of civility and good breeding: but, having thus sacrificed to
ambition all possibility of happiness in domestic life, he turned
his thoughts to those other methods of procuring it, which he had so
dearly purchased the power of essaying.

The resources of pleasure to the possessors of wealth are only to be
cut off by the satiety of which they are productive: a satiety which
the vigorous mind of Mr Monckton had not yet suffered him to
experience; his time, therefore, was either devoted to the expensive
amusements of the metropolis, or spent in the country among the
gayest of its diversions.

The little knowledge of fashionable manners and of the characters of
the times of which Cecilia was yet mistress, she had gathered at the
house of this gentleman, with whom the Dean her uncle had been
intimately connected: for as he preserved to the world the same
appearance of decency he supported to his wife, he was everywhere
well received, and being but partially known, was extremely
respected: the world, with its wonted facility, repaying his
circumspect attention to its laws, by silencing the voice of
censure, guarding his character from impeachment, and his name from
reproach.

Cecilia had been known to him half her life; she had been caressed
in his house as a beautiful child, and her presence was now
solicited there as an amiable acquaintance. Her visits, indeed, had
by no means been frequent, as the ill-humour of Lady Margaret
Monckton had rendered them painful to her; yet the opportunities
they had afforded her of mixing with people of fashion, had served
to prepare her for the new scenes in which she was soon to be a
performer.

Mr Monckton, in return, had always been a welcome guest at the
Deanery; his conversation was to Cecilia a never-failing source of
information, as his knowledge of life and manners enabled him to
start those subjects of which she was most ignorant; and her mind,
copious for the admission and intelligent for the arrangement of
knowledge, received all new ideas with avidity.

Pleasure given in society, like money lent in usury, returns with
interest to those who dispense it: and the discourse of Mr Monckton
conferred not a greater favour upon Cecilia than her attention to it
repaid. And thus, the speaker and the hearer being mutually
gratified, they had always met with complacency, and commonly parted
with regret.

This reciprocation of pleasure had, however, produced different
effects upon their minds; the ideas of Cecilia were enlarged, while
the reflections of Mr Monckton were embittered. He here saw an
object who to all the advantages of that wealth he had so highly
prized, added youth, beauty, and intelligence; though much her
senior, he was by no means of an age to render his addressing her an
impropriety, and the entertainment she received from his
conversation, persuaded him that her good opinion might with ease be
improved into a regard the most partial. He regretted the venal
rapacity with which he had sacrificed himself to a woman he
abhorred, and his wishes for her final decay became daily more
fervent. He knew that the acquaintance of Cecilia was confined to a
circle of which he was himself the principal ornament, that she had
rejected all the proposals of marriage which had hitherto been made
to her, and, as he had sedulously watched her from her earliest
years, he had reason to believe that her heart had escaped any
dangerous impression. This being her situation, he had long looked
upon her as his future property; as such he had indulged his
admiration, and as such he had already appropriated her estate,
though he had not more vigilantly inspected into her sentiments,
than he had guarded his own from a similar scrutiny.

The death of the Dean her uncle had, indeed, much alarmed him; he
grieved at her leaving Suffolk, where he considered himself the
first man, alike in parts and in consequence, and he dreaded her
residing in London, where he foresaw that numerous rivals, equal to
himself in talents and in riches, would speedily surround her;
rivals, too, youthful and sanguine, not shackled by present ties,
but at liberty to solicit her immediate acceptance. Beauty and
independence, rarely found together, would attract a crowd of
suitors at once brilliant and assiduous; and the house of Mr Harrel
was eminent for its elegance and gaiety; but yet, undaunted by
danger, and confiding in his own powers, he determined to pursue the
project he had formed, not fearing by address and perseverance to
ensure its success.

CHAPTER ii

AN ARGUMENT.

Mr Monckton had, at this time, a party of company assembled at his
house for the purpose of spending the Christmas holidays. He waited
with anxiety the arrival of Cecilia, and flew to hand her from the
chaise before Mr Harrel could alight. He observed the melancholy of
her countenance, and was much pleased to find that her London
journey had so little power to charm her. He conducted her to the
breakfast parlour, where Lady Margaret and his friends expected her.

Lady Margaret received her with a coldness that bordered upon
incivility; irascible by nature and jealous by situation, the
appearance of beauty alarmed, and of chearfulness disgusted her. She
regarded with watchful suspicion whoever was addressed by her
husband, and having marked his frequent attendance at the Deanery,
she had singled out Cecilia for the object of her peculiar
antipathy; while Cecilia, perceiving her aversion though ignorant of
its cause, took care to avoid all intercourse with her but what
ceremony exacted, and pitied in secret the unfortunate lot of her
friend.

The company now present consisted of one lady and several gentlemen.

Miss Bennet, the lady, was in every sense of the phrase, the humble
companion of Lady Margaret; she was low-born, meanly educated, and
narrow-minded; a stranger alike to innate merit or acquired
accomplishments, yet skilful in the art of flattery, and an adept in
every species of low cunning. With no other view in life than the
attainment of affluence without labour, she was not more the slave
of the mistress of the house, than the tool of its master; receiving
indignity without murmur, and submitting to contempt as a thing of
course.

Among the gentlemen, the most conspicuous, by means of his dress,
was Mr Aresby, a captain in the militia; a young man who having
frequently heard the words red-coat and gallantry put together,
imagined the conjunction not merely customary, but honourable, and
therefore, without even pretending to think of the service of his
country, he considered a cockade as a badge of politeness, and wore
it but to mark his devotion to the ladies, whom he held himself
equipped to conquer, and bound to adore.

The next who by forwardness the most officious took care to be
noticed, was Mr Morrice, a young lawyer, who, though rising in his
profession, owed his success neither to distinguished abilities, nor
to skill-supplying industry, but to the art of uniting suppleness to
others with confidence in himself. To a reverence of rank, talents,
and fortune the most profound, he joined an assurance in his own
merit, which no superiority could depress; and with a presumption
which encouraged him to aim at all things, he blended a good-humour
that no mortification could lessen. And while by the pliability of
his disposition he avoided making enemies, by his readiness to
oblige, he learned the surest way of making friends by becoming
useful to them.

There were also some neighbouring squires; and there was one old
gentleman, who, without seeming to notice any of the company, sat
frowning in a corner.

But the principal figure in the circle was Mr Belfield, a tall, thin
young man, whose face was all animation, and whose eyes sparkled
with intelligence. He had been intended by his father for trade, but
his spirit, soaring above the occupation for which he was designed,
from repining led him to resist, and from resisting, to rebel. He
eloped from his friends, and contrived to enter the army. But, fond
of the polite arts, and eager for the acquirement of knowledge, he
found not this way of life much better adapted to his inclination
than that from which he had escaped; he soon grew weary of it, was
reconciled to his father, and entered at the Temple. But here, too
volatile for serious study, and too gay for laborious application,
he made little progress: and the same quickness of parts and vigour
of imagination which united with prudence, or accompanied by
judgment, might have raised him to the head of his profession, being
unhappily associated with fickleness and caprice, served only to
impede his improvement, and obstruct his preferment. And now, with
little business, and that little neglected, a small fortune, and
that fortune daily becoming less, the admiration of the world, but
that admiration ending simply in civility, he lived an unsettled and
unprofitable life, generally caressed, and universally sought, yet
careless of his interest and thoughtless of the future; devoting his
time to company, his income to dissipation, and his heart to the
Muses.

"I bring you," said Mr Monckton, as he attended Cecilia into the
room, "a subject of sorrow in a young lady who never gave
disturbance to her friends but in quitting them."

"If sorrow," cried Mr Belfield, darting upon her his piercing eyes,
"wears in your part of the world a form such as this, who would wish
to change it for a view of joy?"

"She's divinely handsome, indeed!" cried the Captain, affecting an
involuntary exclamation.

Meantime, Cecilia, who was placed next to the lady of the house,
quietly began her breakfast; Mr Morrice, the young lawyer, with the
most easy freedom, seating himself at her side, while Mr Monckton
was elsewhere arranging the rest of his guests, in order to secure
that place for himself.

Mr Morrice, without ceremony, attacked his fair neighbour; he talked
of her journey, and the prospects of gaiety which it opened to her
view; but by these finding her unmoved, he changed his theme, and
expatiated upon the delights of the spot she was quitting. Studious
to recommend himself to her notice, and indifferent by what means,
one moment he flippantly extolled the entertainments of the town;
and the next, rapturously described the charms of the country. A
word, a look sufficed to mark her approbation or dissent, which he
no sooner discovered, than he slided into her opinion, with as much
facility and satisfaction as if it had originally been his own.

Mr Monckton, suppressing his chagrin, waited some time in
expectation that when this young man saw he was standing, he would
yield to him his chair: but the remark was not made, and the
resignation was not thought of. The Captain, too, regarding the lady
as his natural property for the morning, perceived with indignation
by whom he was supplanted; while the company in general, saw with
much surprize, the place they had severally foreborne to occupy from
respect to their host, thus familiarly seized upon by the man who,
in the whole room, had the least claim, either from age or rank, to
consult nothing but his own inclination.

Mr Monckton, however, when he found that delicacy and good manners
had no weight with his guest, thought it most expedient to allow
them none with himself; and therefore, disguising his displeasure
under an appearance of facetiousness, he called out, "Come, Morrice,
you that love Christmas sports, what say you to the game of move-
all?"

"I like it of all things!" answered Morrice, and starting from his
chair, he skipped to another.

"So should I too," cried Mr Monckton, instantly taking his place,
"were I to remove from any seat but this."

Morrice, though he felt himself outwitted, was the first to laugh,
and seemed as happy in the change as Mr Monckton himself.

Mr Monckton now, addressing himself to Cecilia, said, "We are going
to lose you, and you seem concerned at leaving us; yet, in a very
few months you will forget Bury, forget its inhabitants, and forget
its environs."

"If you think so," answered Cecilia, "must I not thence infer that
Bury, its inhabitants, and its environs, will in a very few months
forget me?"

"Ay, ay, and so much the better!" said Lady Margaret, muttering
between her teeth, "so much the better!" "I am sorry you think so,
madam," cried Cecilia, colouring at her ill-breeding.

"You will find," said Mr Monckton, affecting the same ignorance of
her meaning that Cecilia really felt, "as you mix with the world,
you will find that Lady Margaret has but expressed what by almost
every body is thought: to neglect old friends, and to court new
acquaintance, though perhaps not yet avowedly delivered as a precept
from parents to children, is nevertheless so universally recommended
by example, that those who act differently, incur general censure
for affecting singularity."

"It is happy then, for me," answered Cecilia, "that neither my
actions nor myself will be sufficiently known to attract public
observation."

"You intend, then, madam," said Mr Belfield, "in defiance of these
maxims of the world, to be guided by the light of your own
understanding."

"And such," returned Mr Monckton, "at first setting out in life, is
the intention of every one. The closet reasoner is always refined in
his sentiments, and always confident in his virtue; but when he
mixes with the world, when he thinks less and acts more, he soon
finds the necessity of accommodating himself to such customs as are
already received, and of pursuing quietly the track that is already
marked out."

"But not," exclaimed Mr Belfield, "if he has the least grain of
spirit! the beaten track will be the last that a man of parts will
deign to tread,

For common rules were ne'er designed
Directors of a noble mind."

"A pernicious maxim! a most pernicious maxim!" cried the old
gentleman, who sat frowning in a corner of the room.

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