Left now to herself, sensations unfelt before filled the heart of
Cecilia. All that had passed for a while appeared a dream; her ideas
were indistinct, her memory was confused, her faculties seemed all out
of order, and she had but an imperfect consciousness either of the
transaction in which she had just been engaged, or of the promise she
had bound herself to fulfil: even truth from imagination she scarcely
could separate; all was darkness and doubt, inquietude and disorder!
But when at length her recollection more clearly returned, and her
situation appeared to her such as it really was, divested alike of
false terrors or delusive expectations, she found herself still
further removed from tranquility.
Hitherto, though no stranger to sorrow, which the sickness and early
loss of her friends had first taught her to feel, and which the
subsequent anxiety of her own heart had since instructed her to bear, she had yet invariably possessed the consolation of self-approving reflections: but the step she was now about to take, all her principles opposed; it terrified her as undutiful, it shocked her as clandestine, and scarce was Delvile out of sight, before she regretted her consent to it as the loss of her self-esteem, and believed, even if a reconciliation took place, the remembrance of a wilful fault would still follow her, blemish in her own eyes the character she had hoped to support, and be a constant allay to her happiness, by telling her how unworthily she had obtained it.
Where frailty has never been voluntary, nor error stubborn, where the
pride of early integrity is unsubdued, and the first purity of
innocence is inviolate, how fearfully delicate, how "tremblingly
alive," is the conscience of man! strange, that what in its first
state is so tender, can in its last become so callous!
Compared with the general lot of human misery, Cecilia had suffered
nothing; but compared with the exaltation of ideal happiness, she had
suffered much; willingly, however, would she again have borne all that
had distressed her, experienced the same painful suspence, endured the
same melancholy parting, and gone through the same cruel task of
combating inclination with reason, to have relieved her virtuous mind
from the new-born and intolerable terror of conscientious reproaches.
The equity of her notions permitted her not from the earnestness of
Delvile's entreaties to draw any palliation for her consent to his
proposal; she was conscious that but for her own too great facility
those entreaties would have been ineffectual, since she well knew how
little from any other of her admirers they would have availed.
But chiefly her affliction and repentance hung upon Mrs Delvile, whom
she loved, reverenced and honoured, whom she dreaded to offend, and
whom she well knew expected from her even exemplary virtue. Her
praises, her partiality, her confidence in her character, which
hitherto had been her pride, she now only recollected with shame and
with sadness. The terror of the first interview never ceased to be
present to her; she shrunk even in imagination from her wrath-darting
eye, she felt stung by pointed satire, and subdued by cold contempt.
Yet to disappoint Delvile so late, by forfeiting a promise so
positively accorded; to trifle with a man who to her had been
uniformly candid, to waver when her word was engaged, and retract when
he thought himself secure,—honour, justice and shame told her the
time was now past.
"And yet is not this," cried she, "placing nominal before actual evil? Is it not studying appearance at the expence of reality? If agreeing to wrong is criminal, is not performing it worse? If repentance for ill actions calls for mercy, has not repentance for ill intentions a yet higher claim?—And what reproaches from Delvile can be so bitter as my own? What separation, what sorrow, what possible calamity can hang upon my mind with such heaviness, as the sense of committing voluntary evil?"
This thought so much affected her, that, conquering all regret either
for Delvile or herself, she resolved to write to him instantly, and
acquaint him of the alteration in her sentiments.
This, however, after having so deeply engaged herself, was by no means
easy; and many letters were begun, but not one of them was finished, when a sudden recollection obliged her to give over the attempt,—for she knew not whither to direct to him.