Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  To this observation Clarence Hervey assented; but he immediately seized a pen from the doctor’s writing table, and began a letter to Belinda. The doctor threw himself upon the sofa, saying, “Waken me when you want me,” and in a few minutes he was fast asleep.

  “Doctor, upon second thoughts,” said Clarence, rising suddenly, and tearing his letter down the middle, “I cannot write to her yet — I forgot the reformation of Lady Delacour: how soon do you think she will be well? Besides, I have another reason for not writing to Belinda at present — you must know, my dear doctor, that I have, or had, another mistress.”

  “Another mistress, indeed!” cried Dr. X —— , trying to waken himself.

  “Good Heavens! I do believe you’ve been asleep.”

  “I do believe I have.”

  “But is it possible that you could fall sound asleep in that time?”

  “Very possible,” said the doctor: “what is there so extraordinary in a man’s falling asleep? Men are apt to sleep sometime within the four-and-twenty hours, unless they have half-a-dozen mistresses to keep them awake, as you seem to have, my good friend.”

  A servant now came into the room with a letter, that had just arrived express from the country for Dr. X —— .

  “This is another affair,” cried he, rousing himself.

  The letter required the doctor’s immediate attendance. He shook hands with Clarence Hervey: “My dear friend, I am really concerned that I cannot stay to hear the history of your six mistresses; but you see that this is an affair of life and death.”

  “Farewell,” said Clarence: “I have not six, I have only three goddesses; even if you count Lady Delacour for one. But I really wanted your advice in good earnest.”

  “If your case be desperate, you can write, cannot you? Direct to me at Horton-hall, Cambridge. In the mean time, as far as general rules go, I can give you my advice gratis, in the formula of an old Scotch song ——

  “’Tis good to be merry and wise,

  ’Tis good to be honest and true,

  ’Tis good to be off with the old love

  Before you be on with the new.’”

  CHAPTER XI. — DIFFICULTIES.

  Before he left town, Dr. X —— called in Berkeley-square, to see Lady Delacour; he found that she was out of all immediate danger. Miss Portman was sorry that he was obliged to quit her at this time, but she felt the necessity for his going; he was sent for to attend Mr. Horton, an intimate friend of his, a gentleman of great talents, and of the most active benevolence, who had just been seized with a violent fever, in consequence of his exertions in saving the poor inhabitants of a village in his neighbourhood from the effects of a dreadful fire, which broke out in the middle of the night.

  Lady Delacour, who heard Dr. X —— giving this account to Belinda, drew back her curtain, and said, “Go this instant, doctor — I am out of all immediate danger, you say; but if I were not — I must die in the course of a few months, you know-and what is my life, compared with the chance of saving your excellent friend! He is of some use in the world — I am of none-go this instant, doctor.”

  “What a pity,” said Dr. X —— , as he left the room, “that a woman who is capable of so much magnanimity should have wasted her life on petty objects!”

  “Her life is not yet at an end — oh, sir, if you could save her!” cried Belinda.

  Doctor X —— shook his head; but returning to Belinda, after going half way down stairs, he added, “when you read this paper, you will know all that I can tell you upon the subject.”

  Belinda, the moment the doctor was gone, shut herself up in her own room to read the paper which he had given to her. Dr. X —— first stated that he was by no means certain that Lady Delacour really had the complaint which she so much dreaded; but it was impossible for him to decide without farther examination, to which her ladyship could not be prevailed upon to submit. Then he mentioned all that he thought would be most efficacious in mitigating the pain that Lady Delacour might feel, and all that could be done, with the greatest probability of prolonging her life. And he concluded with the following words: “These are all temporizing expedients: according to the usual progress of the disease, Lady Delacour may live a year, or perhaps two.

  “It is possible that her life might be saved by a skilful surgeon. By a few words that dropped from her ladyship last night, I apprehend that she has some thoughts of submitting to an operation, which will be attended with much pain and danger, even if she employ the most experienced surgeon in London; but if she put herself, from a vain hope of secrecy, into ignorant hands, she will inevitably destroy herself.”

  After reading this paper, Belinda had some faint hopes that Lady Delacour’s life might be saved; but she determined to wait till Dr. X —— should return to town, before she mentioned his opinion to his patient; and she earnestly hoped that no idea of putting herself into ignorant hands would recur to her ladyship.

  Lord Delacour, in the morning, when he was sober, retained but a confused idea of the events of the preceding night; but he made an awkwardly good-natured apology to Miss Portman for his intrusion, and for the disturbance he had occasioned, which, he said, must be laid to the blame of Lord Studley’s admirable burgundy. He expressed much concern for Lady Delacour’s terrible accident; but he could not help observing, that if his advice had been taken, the thing could not have happened — that it was the consequence of her ladyship’s self-willedness about the young horses.

  “How she got the horses without paying for them, or how she got money to pay for them, I know not,” said his lordship; “for I said I would have nothing to do with the business, and I have kept to my resolution.”

  His lordship finished his morning visit to Miss Portman, by observing that “the house would now be very dull for her: that the office of a nurse was ill-suited to so young and beautiful a lady, but that her undertaking it with so much cheerfulness was a proof of a degree of good-nature that was not always to be met with in the young and handsome.”

  The manner in which Lord Delacour spoke convinced Belinda that he was in reality attached to his wife, however the fear of being, or of appearing to be, governed by her ladyship might have estranged him from her, and from home. She now saw in him much more good sense, and symptoms of a more amiable character, than his lady had described, or than she ever would allow that he possessed.

  The reflections, however, which Miss Portman made upon the miserable life this ill-matched couple led together, did not incline her in favour of marriage in general; great talents on one side, and good-nature on the other, had, in this instance, tended only to make each party unhappy. Matches of interest, convenience, and vanity, she was convinced, diminished instead of increasing happiness. Of domestic felicity she had never, except during her childhood, seen examples — she had, indeed, heard from Dr. X —— descriptions of the happy family of Lady Anne Percival, but she feared to indulge the romantic hope of ever being loved by a man of superior genius and virtue, with a temper and manners suited to her taste. The only person she had seen, who at all answered this description, was Mr. Hervey; and it was firmly fixed in her mind, that he was not a marrying man, and consequently not a man of whom any prudent woman would suffer herself to think with partiality. She could not doubt that he liked her society and conversation; his manner had sometimes expressed more than cold esteem. Lady Delacour had assured her that it expressed love; but Lady Delacour was an imprudent woman in her own conduct, and not scrupulous as to that of others. Belinda was not guided by her opinions of propriety; and now that her ladyship was confined to her bed, and not in a condition to give her either advice or protection, she felt that it was peculiarly incumbent on her to guard, not only her conduct from reproach, but her heart from the hopeless misery of an ill-placed attachment. She examined herself with firm impartiality; she recollected the excessive pain that she had endured, when she first heard Clarence Hervey say, that Belinda Portman was a compound of art and affectation; but this she thou
ght was only the pain of offended pride — of proper pride. She recollected the extreme anxiety she had felt, even within the last four-and-twenty hours, concerning the opinion which he might form of the transaction about the key of the boudoir — but this anxiety she justified to herself; it was due, she thought, to her reputation; it would have been inconsistent with female delicacy to have been indifferent about the suspicions that necessarily arose from the circumstances in which she was placed. Before Belinda had completed her self-examination, Clarence Hervey called to inquire after Lady Delacour. Whilst he spoke of her ladyship, and of his concern for the dreadful accident of which he believed himself to be in a great measure the cause, his manner and language were animated and unaffected; but the moment that this subject was exhausted, he became embarrassed; though he distinctly expressed perfect confidence and esteem for her, he seemed to wish, and yet to be unable, to support the character of a friend, contradistinguished to an admirer. He seemed conscious that he could not, with propriety, advert to the suspicions and jealousy which he had felt the preceding night; for a man who has never declared love would be absurd and impertinent, were he to betray jealousy. Clarence was destitute neither of address nor presence of mind; but an accident happened, when he was just taking leave of Miss Portman, which threw him into utter confusion. It surprised, if it did not confound, Belinda. She had forgotten to ask Dr. X —— for his direction; and as she thought it might be necessary to write to him concerning Lady Delacour’s health, she begged of Mr. Hervey to give it to her. He took a letter out of his pocket, and wrote the direction with a pencil; but as he opened the paper, to tear off the outside, on which he had been writing, a lock of hair dropped out of the letter; he hastily stooped for it, and as he took it up from the ground the lock unfolded. Belinda, though she cast but one involuntary, hasty glance at it, was struck with the beauty of its colour, and its uncommon length. The confusion of Clarence Hervey convinced her that he was extremely interested about the person to whom the hair belonged, and the species of alarm which she had felt at this discovery opened her eyes effectually to the state of her own heart. She was sensible that the sight of a lock of hair, however long, or however beautiful, in the hands of any man but Clarence Hervey, could not possibly have excited any emotion in her mind. “Fortunately,” thought she, “I have discovered that he is attached to another, whilst it is yet in my power to command my affections; and he shall see that I am not so weak as to form any false expectations from what I must now consider as mere common-place flattery.” Belinda was glad that Lady Delacour was not present at the discovery of the lock of hair, as she was aware that she would have rallied her unmercifully upon the occasion; and she rejoiced that she had not been prevailed upon to give Madame la Comtesse de Pomenars a lock of her belle chevelure. She could not help thinking, from the recollection of several minute circumstances, that Clarence Hervey had endeavoured to gain an interest in her affections, and she felt that there would be great impropriety in receiving his ambiguous visits during Lady Delacour’s confinement to her room. She therefore gave orders that Mr. Hervey should not in future be admitted, till her ladyship should again see company. This precaution proved totally superfluous, for Mr. Hervey never called again, during the whole course of Lady Delacour’s confinement, though his servant regularly came every morning with inquiries after her ladyship’s health. She kept her room for about ten days; a confinement to which she submitted with extreme impatience: bodily pain she bore with fortitude, but constraint and ennui she could not endure.

  One morning as she was sitting up in bed, looking over a large collection of notes, and cards of inquiry after her health, she exclaimed —

  “These people will soon be tired of4 bidding their footman put it into their heads to inquire whether I am alive or dead — I must appear amongst them again, if it be only for a few minutes, or they will forget me. When I am fatigued, I will retire, and you, my dear Belinda, shall represent me; so tell them to open my doors, and unmuffle the knocker: let me hear the sound of music and dancing, and let the house be filled again, for Heaven’s sake. Dr. Zimmermann should never have been my physician, for he would have prescribed solitude. Now solitude and silence are worse for me than poppy and mandragora. It is impossible to tell how much silence tires the ears of those who have not been used to it. For mercy’s sake, Marriott,” continued her ladyship, turning to Marriott, who just then came softly into the room, “for mercy’s sake, don’t walk to all eternity on tiptoes: to see people gliding about like ghosts makes me absolutely fancy myself amongst the shades below. I would rather be stunned by the loudest peal that ever thundering footman gave at my door, than hear Marriott lock that boudoir, as if my life depended on my not hearing the key turned.”

  “Dear me! I never knew any lady that was ill, except my lady, complain of one’s not making a noise to disturb her,” said Marriott.

  “Then to please you, Marriott, I will complain of the only noise that does, or ever did disturb me — the screaming of your odious macaw.”

  Now Marriott had a prodigious affection for this macaw, and she defended it with as much eagerness as if it had been her child.

  “Odious! O dear, my lady! to call my poor macaw odious! — I didn’t expect it would ever have come to this — I am sure I don’t deserve it — I’m sure I don’t deserve that my lady should have taken such a dislike to me.”

  And here Marriott actually burst into tears. “But, my dear Marriott,” said Lady Delacour, “I only object to your macaw — may not I dislike your macaw without disliking you? — I have heard of ‘love me, love my dog;’ but I never heard of ‘love me, love my bird’ — did you, Miss Portman?”

  Marriott turned sharply round upon Miss Portman, and darted a fiery look at her through the midst of her tears. “Then ’tis plain,” said she, “who I’m to thank for this;” and as she left the room her lady could not complain of her shutting the door after her too gently.

  “Give her three minutes’ grace and she will come to her senses,” said Lady Delacour, “for she is not a bankrupt in sense. Oh, three minutes won’t do; I must allow her three days’ grace, I perceive,” said Lady Delacour when Marriott half an hour afterward reappeared, with a face which might have sat for the picture of ill-humour. Her ill-humour, however, did not prevent her from attending her lady as usual; she performed all her customary offices with the most officious zeal but in profound silence, except every now and then she would utter a sigh, which seemed to say, “See how much I’m attached to my lady, and yet my lady hates my macaw!” Her lady, who perfectly understood the language of sighs, and felt the force of Marriott’s, forbore to touch again on the tender subject of the macaw, hoping that when her house was once more filled with company, she should be relieved by more agreeable noises from continually hearing this pertinacious tormentor.

  As soon as it was known that Lady Delacour was sufficiently recovered to receive company, her door was crowded with carriages; and as soon as it was understood that balls and concerts were to go on as usual at her house, her “troops of friends” appeared to congratulate her, and to amuse themselves.

  “How stupid it is,” said Lady Delacour to Belinda, “to hear congratulatory speeches from people, who would not care if I were in the black hole at Calcutta this minute; but we must take the world as it goes — dirt and precious stones mixed together. Clarence Hervey, however, n’a pas une ame de boue; he, I am sure, has been really concerned for me: he thinks that his young horses were the sole cause of the whole evil, and he blames himself so sincerely, and so unjustly, that I really was half tempted to undeceive him; but that would have been doing him an injury, for you know great philosophers tell us that there is no pleasure in the world equal to that of being well deceived, especially by the fair sex. Seriously, Belinda, is it my fancy, or is not Clarence wonderfully changed? Is not he grown pale, and thin, and serious, not to say melancholy? What have you done to him since I have been ill?”

  “Nothing — I have never seen him.�
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  “No! then the thing is accounted for very naturally — he is in despair because he has been banished from your divine presence.”

  “More likely because he has been in anxiety about your ladyship,” said Belinda.

  “I will find out the cause, let it be what it may,” said Lady Delacour: “luckily my address is equal to my curiosity, and that is saying a great deal.”

  Notwithstanding all her ladyship’s address, her curiosity was baffled; she could not discover Clarence Hervey’s secret, and she began to believe that the change which she had noticed in his looks and manner was imaginary or accidental. Had she seen more of him at this time, she would not have so easily given up her suspicions; but she saw him only for a few minutes every day, and during that time he talked to her with all his former gaiety; besides, Lady Delacour had herself a daily part to perform, which occupied almost her whole attention. Notwithstanding the vivacity which she affected, Belinda perceived that she was now more seriously alarmed than she had ever been about her health. It was all that her utmost exertions could accomplish, to appear for a short time in the day — some evenings she came into company only for half an hour, on other days only for a few minutes, just walked through the rooms, paid her compliments to every body, complained of a nervous head-ache, left Belinda to do the honours for her, and retired.

  Miss Portman was now really placed in a difficult and dangerous situation, and she had ample opportunities of learning and practising prudence. All the fashionable dissipated young men in London frequented Lady Delacour’s house, and it was said that they were drawn thither by the attractions of her fair representative. The gentlemen considered a niece of Mrs. Stanhope as their lawful prize. The ladies wondered that the men could think Belinda Portman a beauty; but whilst they affected to scorn, they sincerely feared her charms. Thus left entirely to her own discretion, she was exposed at once to the malignant eye of envy, and the insidious voice of flattery — she had no friend, no guide, and scarcely a protector: her aunt Stanhope’s letters, indeed, continually supplied her with advice, but with advice which she could not follow consistently with her own feelings and principles. Lady Delacour, even if she had been well, was not a person on whose counsels she could rely; our heroine was not one of those daring spirits, who are ambitious of acting for themselves; she felt the utmost diffidence of her own powers, yet at the same time a firm resolution not to be led even by timidity into follies which the example of Lady Delacour had taught her to despise. Belinda’s prudence seemed to increase with the necessity for its exertion. It was not the mercenary wily prudence of a young lady, who has been taught to think it virtue to sacrifice the affections of her heart to the interests of her fortune — it was not the prudence of a cold and selfish, but of a modest and generous woman. She found it most difficult to satisfy herself in her conduct towards Clarence Hervey: he seemed mortified and miserable if she treated him merely as a common acquaintance, yet she felt the danger of admitting him to the familiarity of friendship. Had she been thoroughly convinced that he was attached to some other woman, she hoped that she could freely converse with him, and look upon him as a married man; but notwithstanding the lock of beautiful hair, she could not entirely divest herself of the idea that she was beloved, when she observed the extreme eagerness with which Clarence Hervey watched all her motions, and followed her with his eye as if his fate depended upon her. She remarked that he endeavoured as much as possible to prevent this species of attention from being noticed, either by the public or by herself; his manner towards her every day became more distant and respectful, more constrained and embarrassed; but now and then a different look and expression escaped. She had often heard of Mr. Hervey’s great address in affairs of gallantry, and she was sometimes inclined to believe that he was trifling with her, merely for the glory of a conquest over her heart; at other times she suspected him of deeper designs upon her, such as would deserve contempt and detestation; but upon the whole she was disposed to believe that he was entangled by some former attachment from which he could not extricate himself with honour; and upon this supposition she thought him worthy of her esteem, and of her pity.