Cecilia, Memoirs of an Heiress, vol 1 | Page 3

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