“She is very amiable,” he continued, “too amiable, indeed, for her situation, since her relations, her brother alone excepted, are all utterly unworthy of her.”
He stopt; but Cecilia made no answer, and he presently added “Perhaps you do not think her amiable?—you may have seen more of her, and know something to her disadvantage?”
“O no!” cried Cecilia, with a forced alacrity, “but only I was thinking that—did you say you knew all her relations?”
“No,” he answered, “but when I have been with Mr Belfield, some of them have called upon him.”
Again they were both silent; and then Cecilia, ashamed of her apparent backwardness to give praise, compelled herself to say, “Miss Belfield is indeed a very sweet girl, and I wish—” she stopt, not well knowing herself what she meant to add.
“I have been greatly pleased,” said he, after waiting some time to hear if she would finish her speech, “by being informed of your goodness to her, and I think she seems equally to require and to deserve it. I doubt not you will extend it to her when she is deprived of her brother, for then will be the time that by doing her most service, it will reflect on yourself most honour.”
Cecilia, confounded by this recommendation, faintly answered “Certainly,—whatever is in my power,—I shall be very glad—”
And just then Mrs Delvile made her appearance, and during the mutual apologies that followed, her son left the room. Cecilia, glad of any pretence to leave it also, insisted upon giving no interruption to Mrs Delvile's letter writing, and having promised to spend all the next day with her, hurried back to her chair.
The reflections that followed her thither were by no means the most soothing; she began now to apprehend that the pity she had bestowed upon Miss Belfield, Miss Belfield in a short time might bestow upon her; at any other time, his recommendation would merely have served to confirm her opinion of his benevolence, but in her present state of anxiety and uncertainty, every thing gave birth to conjecture, and had power to alarm her. He had behaved to her of late with the strangest coldness and distance,—his praise of Henrietta had been ready and animated,—Henrietta she knew adored him, and she knew not with what reason,—but an involuntary suspicion arose in her mind, that the partiality she had herself once excited, was now transferred to that little dreaded, but not less dangerous rival.
Yet, if such was the case, what was to become either of the pride or the interest of his family? Would his relations ever pardon an alliance stimulated neither by rank nor riches? would Mr Delvile, who hardly ever spoke but to the high-born, without seeming to think his dignity somewhat injured, deign to receive for a daughter-in-law the child of a citizen and tradesman? would Mrs Delvile herself, little less elevated in her notions, though infinitely softer in her manners, ever condescend to acknowledge her? Cecilia's own birth and connections, superior as they were to those of Miss Belfield, were even openly disdained by Mr Delvile, and all her expectations of being received into his family were founded upon the largeness of her fortune, in favour of which the brevity of her genealogy might perhaps pass unnoticed. But what was the chance of Miss Belfield, who neither had ancestors to boast, nor wealth to allure?