September 22.
I WAS surprized to-day by a visitor
to my mother. Miss Burchell came to
pay her respects to her: I have told you
they corresponded. My mother, it seems,
had given her notice of the time she intended
being in town: the young lady
had been to wait on her in St. James's-street, and was from thence directed by
the servant, who kept the house, to our
new lodgings.
She is really a very lovely young woman;
and there is something so insinuating
in her manner, that there is no seeing
her without being prejudiced in her favour.
She changed colour when my mother
presented me to her by my name;
but, at the same time, surveyed me with
a scrutinous eye. My mother asked her,
had she seen Mr. Faulkland since his return
to England. She answered, No, with
a sigh; but that she believed he had been
at Putney. To see his son? said my mother,
without reflecting, that Miss Burchell had
avoided mentioning that circumstance,
and stopped upon naming the place
where the child was at nurse. Yes, she
replied, in a timorous accent, and stealing
a look at me. The woman told me,
that a young gentleman had been there
about six weeks ago, who said he came
from the child's father abroad, and made
her a handsome present. As I did not
then know Mr. Faulkland was returned
to England, I should not have suspected
it was he himself who had called, if his
housekeeper (that gentlewoman in whose
care he left me) had not come to me
from him. She is settled now in a lodging-house; and Mr. Faulkland, on his
coming to London, went to her, to inquire
where the child was. She told me
he inquired civilly after me, and gave her
a letter for me, which the good-natured
woman joyfully brought me; but it contained
nothing but a bill of a hundred
pounds, with two or three lines, polite
indeed, but not kind, to inform me it
was for the child's use; and I have heard
nothing of his since.
My mother told her, that as Mr.
Faulkland was returned again, probably
to continue in England, she did not despair
of his being brought o do her justice;
especially as she must suppose the sight of
the child had made an impression on him.
She then, without ceremony, entered into
a detail of my unhappy story: she was
full of it; and being, as you know, of a
very communicative temper, made no
scruple to inform Miss Burchell of every
particular. She seemed very much affected
with the story, and grew red and
pale by turns; especially at finding her
aunt so deeply concerned in it. She exclaimed
against her barbarity, reproached
Mr. Arnold for his injurious suspicions,
and condoled obligingly with me on the
wrongs I had received; and yet, my Cecilia,
would you believe it, I thought I
could discover, through all this, that Miss
Burchell was not intirely free from doubt
in regard to my innocence. This observation
I gathered only from certain looks
that she cast at me, as my mother related
the passages. There are little minute
touches on the countenance sometimes,
which are so transient they can hardly be
overtaken by the eye, and which, from
the passions being strongly guarded that
give rise to these emotions, are so slight,
that a common observer cannot discover
them at all. I am sure my mother did
not; but my sensibility was particularly
rouzed at her relating a story that I did
not then wish to have divulged; and I was
too much interested in the narrative, not
to attend precisely to its effects on the
hearer. I am neither angry with, or
surprized at, Miss Burchell, for her scepticism
on this occasion. She loves Mr.
Faulkland, and had not herself the power
to resist him: she knows he once loved
me, and may fansy he does so still; nay,
thinks perhaps I am not indifferent towards
him: she is a stranger to
my heart;
but is convinced that her aunt is base
enough, first to ensnare to vice, and then
to betray. Upon the whole, there is nothing
unnatural in her suspicions; but I
think they could not proceed from a virtuous
mind.
Upon Miss Burchell's taking leave, my
mother gave her a general invitation to
come to her as often as she had leisure:
telling her, she must not take it amiss if
she did not return her visits, as her health
would not permit her to go much abroad.
Miss Burchell, it seems, has a house
(not lodgings) in a retired street in Westminster,
where she has been ever since she
quitted her aunt, to whom she never discovered
where she lived. Her fortune
enables her to appear very genteely in the
private manner she chooses to live. She
goes but seldom into publick, and has
but a narrow circle of acquaintance.
Those are all of her own sex, and of the
best character; and she has had the good
fortune to preserve her reputation unsuspected;
so that, I hope, she may yet retrieve
her error by an advantageous match,
should Mr. Faulkland still continue averse
to her.
