Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress — Volume 3Burney, Fanny
General
Cecilia; Or, Memoirs of an Heiress — Volume 3
Burney, Fanny
England -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction; Love stories; Young women -- Fiction
“Oh my Miss Beverley!” cried Henrietta, “do you hear how they all
upbraid me? how they all want to force me away from you, and to hinder
me even from looking at you! Speak for me, sweet lady! speak for me
yourself! tell them the poor Henrietta will not do you any harm; tell
them she only wishes just to sit by you, and to see you!--I will hold by
this dear hand,--I will cling to it till the last minute; and you will
not, I know you will not, give orders to have it taken away from me!”
Dr Lyster, though his own good nature was much affected by this fond
sorrow, now half angrily represented to her the impropriety of indulging
it: but Henrietta, unused to disguise or repress her feelings, grew only
the more violent, the more she was convinced of Cecilia's danger: “Oh
look but at her,” she exclaimed, “and take me from her if you can!
see how her sweet eyes are fixed! look but what a change in her
complexion!--She does not see me, she does not know me,--she does not
hear me! her hand seems quite lifeless already, her face is all fallen
away!--Oh that I had died twenty deaths before I had lived to see this
sight!--poor wretched Henrietta, thou bast now no friend left in the
world! thou mayst go and lie down in some corner, and no one will come
and say to thee a word of comfort!”
“This must not be!” said Dr Lyster, “you must take her away.”
“You shall not!” cried she, desperately, “I will stay with her till she
has breathed her last, and I will stay with her still longer! and if she
was to speak to you this moment, she would tell you that she chose it.
She loved the poor Henrietta, and loved to have her near her; and when
she was ill, and in much distress, she never once bid me leave her room.
Is it not true, my sweet Miss Beverley? do you not know it to be true?
Oh look not so dreadfully! turn to your unhappy Henrietta; sweetest,
best of ladies! will you not speak to her once more? will you not say to
her one single word?”
Dr Lyster now grew very angry, and telling her such violence might have
fatal consequences, frightened her into more order, and drew her away
himself. He had then the kindness to go with her into another room,
where, when her first vehemence was spent, his remonstrances and
reasoning brought her to a sense of the danger she might occasion, and
made her promise not to return to the room till she had gained strength
to behave better.
When Dr Lyster went again to Delvile, he found him greatly alarmed
by his long stay; he communicated to him briefly what had passed, and
counselled him to avoid encreasing his own grief by the sight of
what was suffered by this unguarded and ardent girl. Delvile readily
assented, for the weight of his own woe was too heavy to bear any
addition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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