Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “Yes. She has had concerts and balls since her illness. You will hear a play read to-night,” said Belinda, “by that French gentleman whom Lady Anne Percival mentioned to me yesterday.”

  “But there is a great deal of company, then, with mamma?”

  “Nobody is with her now: so come into the library with me,” said Belinda. “Lady Delacour, here is the young lady who sent you the gold fishes.”

  “Helena!” cried Lady Delacour.

  “You must, I am sure, acknowledge that Mr. Hervey was in the right, when he said that the lady was a striking resemblance of your ladyship.”

  “Mr. Hervey knows how to flatter. I never had that ingenuous countenance, even in my best days: but certainly the hair of her head is like mine — and her hands and arms. But why do you tremble, Helena? Is there any thing so very terrible in the looks of your mother?”

  “No, only —— —”

  “Only what, my dear?”

  “Only — I was afraid — you might not like me.”

  “Who has filled your little foolish head with these vain fears? Come, simpleton, kiss me, and tell me how comes it that you are not at Oakly-hall, or — What’s the name of the place? — Oakly-park?”

  “Lady Anne Percival would not take me out of town, she said, whilst you were ill; because she thought that you might wish — I mean she thought that I should like to see you — if you pleased.”

  “Lady Anne is very good — very obliging — very considerate.”

  “She is very good-natured,” said Helena.

  “You love this Lady Anne Percival, I perceive.”

  “Oh, yes, that I do. She has been so kind to me! I love her as if she were — —”

  “As if she were — What? finish your sentence.”

  “My mother,” said Helena, in a low voice, and she blushed.

  “You love her as well as if she were your mother,” repeated Lady Delacour: “that is intelligible: speak intelligibly whatever you say, and never leave a sentence unfinished.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Nothing can be more ill-bred, nor more absurd; for it shows that you have the wish without the power to conceal your sentiments. Pray, my dear,” continued Lady Delacour, “go to Oakly-park immediately — all farther ceremony towards me may be spared.”

  “Ceremony, mamma!” said the little girl, and the tears came into her eyes. Belinda sighed; and for some moments there was a dead silence.

  “I mean only to say, Miss Portman,” resumed Lady Delacour, “that I hate ceremony: but I know that there are people in the world who love it, who think all virtue, and all affection, depend on ceremony — who are

  ‘Content to dwell in decencies for ever.’

  I shall not dispute their merits. Verily, they have their reward in the good opinion and good word of all little minds, that is to say, of above half the world. I envy them not their hard-earned fame. Let ceremony curtsy to ceremony with Chinese decorum; but, when ceremony expects to be paid with affection, I beg to be excused.”

  “Ceremony sets no value upon affection, and therefore would not desire to be paid with it,” said Belinda.

  “Never yet,” continued lady Delacour, pursuing the train of her own thoughts without attending to Belinda, “never yet was any thing like real affection won by any of these ceremonious people.”

  “Never,” said Miss Portman, looking at Helena; who, having quickness enough to perceive that her mother aimed this tirade against ceremony at Lady Anne Percival, sat in the most painful embarrassment, her eyes cast down, and her face and neck colouring all over. “Never yet,” said Miss Portman, “did mere ceremonious person win any thing like real affection; especially from children, who are often excellent, because unprejudiced, judges of character.”

  “We are all apt to think, that an opinion that differs from our own is a prejudice,” said Lady Delacour: “what is to decide?”

  “Facts, I should think,” said Belinda.

  “But it is so difficult to get at facts, even about the merest trifles,” said Lady Delacour. “Actions we see, but their causes we seldom see — an aphorism worthy of Confucius himself: now to apply. Pray, my dear Helena, how came you by the pretty gold fishes that you were so good as to send to me yesterday?”

  “Lady Anne Percival gave them to me, ma’am.”

  “And how came her ladyship to give them to you, ma’am?”

  “She gave them to me,” said Helena, hesitating.

  “You need not blush, nor repeat to me that she gave them to you; that I have heard already — that is the fact: now for the cause — unless it be a secret. If it be a secret which you have been desired to keep, you are quite right to keep it. I make no doubt of its being necessary, according to some systems of education, that children should be taught to keep secrets; and I am convinced (for Lady Anne Percival is, I have heard, a perfect judge of propriety) that it is peculiarly proper that a daughter should know how to keep secrets from her mother: therefore, my dear, you need not trouble yourself to blush or hesitate any more — I shall ask no farther questions: I was not aware that there was any secret in the case.”

  “There is no secret in the world in the case, mamma,” said Helena; “I only hesitated because—”

  “You hesitated only because, I suppose you mean. I presume Lady Anne Percival will have no objection to your speaking good English?”

  “I hesitated only because I was afraid it would not be right to praise myself. Lady Anne Percival one day asked us all—”

  “Us all?”

  “I mean Charles, and Edward, and me, to give her an account of some experiments, on the hearing of fishes, which Dr. X —— had told to us: she promised to give the gold fishes, of which we were all very fond, to whichever of us should give the best account of them — Lady Anne gave the fishes to me.”

  “And is this all the secret? So it was real modesty made her hesitate, Belinda? I beg your pardon, my dear, and Lady Anne’s: you see how candid I am, Belinda. But one question more, Helena: Who put it into your head to send me your gold fishes?”

  “Nobody, mamma; no one put it into my head. But I was at the bird-fancier’s yesterday, when Miss Portman was trying to get some bird for Mrs. Marriott, that could not make any noise to disturb you; so I thought my fishes would be the nicest things for you in the world; because they cannot make the least noise, and they are as pretty as any birds in the world — prettier, I think — and I hope Mrs. Marriott thinks so too.”

  “I don’t know what Marriott thinks about the matter, but I can tell you what I think,” said Lady Delacour, “that you are one of the sweetest little girls in the world, and that you would make me love you if I had a heart of stone, which I have not, whatever some people may think. — Kiss me, my child!”

  The little girl sprang forwards, and threw her arms round her mother, exclaiming, “Oh, mamma, are you in earnest?” and she pressed close to her mother’s bosom, clasping her with all her force.

  Lady Delacour screamed, and pushed her daughter away.

  “She is not angry with you, my love,” said Belinda, “she is in sudden and violent pain — don’t be alarmed — she will be better soon. No, don’t ring the bell, but try whether you can open these window-shutters, and throw up the sash.”

  Whilst Belinda was supporting Lady Delacour, and whilst Helena was trying to open the window, a servant came into the room to announce the Count de N —— .

  “Show him into the drawing-room,” said Belinda. Lady Delacour, though in great pain, rose and retired to her dressing-room. “I shall not be able to go down to these people yet,” said she; “you must make my excuses to the count and to every body; and tell poor Helena I was not angry, though I pushed her away. Keep her below stairs: I will come as soon as I am able. Send Marriott. Do not forget, my dear, to tell Helena I was not angry.”

  The reading party went on, and Lady Delacour made her appearance as the company were drinking orgeat, between the fourth and fifth act. “Helena, my dear,�
� said she, “will you bring me a glass of orgeat?”

  Clarence Hervey looked at Belinda with a congratulatory smile: “do not you think,” whispered he, “that we shall succeed? Did you see that look of Lady Delacour’s?”

  Nothing tends more to increase the esteem and affection of two people for each other than their having one and the same benevolent object. Clarence Hervey and Belinda seemed to know one another’s thoughts and feelings this evening better than they had ever done before during the whole course of their acquaintance.

  After the play was over, most of the company went away; only a select party of beaux esprits stayed to supper; they were standing at the table at which the count had been reading: several volumes of French plays and novels were lying there, and Clarence Hervey, taking up one of them, cried, “Come, let us try our fate by the Sortes Virgilianae.”

  Lady Delacour opened the book, which was a volume of Marmontel’s Tales.

  “La femme comme il y en a peu!” exclaimed Hervey.

  “Who will ever more have faith in the Sortes Virgilianae?” said Lady Delacour, laughing; but whilst she laughed she went closer to a candle, to read the page which she had opened. Belinda and Clarence Hervey followed her. “Really, it is somewhat singular, Belinda, that I should have opened upon this passage,” continued she, in a low voice, pointing it out to Miss Portman.

  It was a description of the manner in which la femme comme il y en a peu managed a husband, who was excessively afraid of being thought to be governed by his wife. As her ladyship turned over the page, she saw a leaf of myrtle which Belinda, who had been reading the story the preceding day, had put into the book for a mark.

  “Whose mark is this? Yours, Belinda, I am sure, by its elegance,” said Lady Delacour. “So! this is a concerted plan between you two, I see,” continued her ladyship, with an air of pique: “you have contrived prettily de me dire des vérités! One says, ‘Let us try our fate by the Sortes Virgilianae;’ the other has dexterously put a mark in the book, to make it open upon a lesson for the naughty child.”

  Belinda and Mr. Hervey assured her that they had used no such mean arts, that nothing had been concerted between them.

  “How came this leaf of myrtle here, then?” said Lady Delacour.

  “I was reading that story yesterday, and left it as my mark.”

  “I cannot help believing you, because you never yet deceived me, even in the merest trifle: you are truth itself, Belinda. Well, you see that you were the cause of my drawing such an extraordinary lot; the book would not have opened here but for your mark. My fate, I find, is in your hands: if Lady Delacour is ever to be la femme comme il y en a peu, which is the most improbable thing in the world, Miss Portman will be the cause of it.”

  “Which is the most probable thing in the world,” said Clarence Hervey. “This myrtle has a delightful perfume,” added he, rubbing the leaf between his fingers.

  “But, after all,” said Lady Delacour, throwing aside the book, “This heroine of Marmontel’s is not la femme comme il y en a peu, but la femme comme il n’y en a point.”

  “Mrs. Margaret Delacour’s carriage, my lady, for Miss Delacour,” said a footman to her ladyship.

  “Helena stays with me to-night — my compliments,” said Lady Delacour.

  “How pleased the little gipsy looks!” added she, turning to Helena, who heard the message; “and how handsome she looks when she is pleased! — Do these auburn locks of yours, Helena, curl naturally or artificially?”

  “Naturally, mamma.”

  “Naturally! so much the better: so did mine at your age.”

  Some of the company now took notice of the astonishing resemblance between Helena and her mother; and the more Lady Delacour considered her daughter as a part of herself, the more she was inclined to be pleased with her. The glass globe containing the gold fishes was put in the middle of the table at supper; and Clarence Hervey never paid her ladyship such respectful attention in his life as he did this evening.

  The conversation at supper turned upon a magnificent and elegant entertainment which had lately been given by a fashionable duchess, and some of the company spoke in high terms of the beauty and accomplishments of her grace’s daughter, who had for the first time appeared in public on that occasion.

  “The daughter will eclipse, totally eclipse, the mother,” said Lady Delacour. “That total eclipse has been foretold by many knowing people,” said Clarence Hervey; “but how can there be an eclipse between two bodies which never cross one another and that I understand to be the case between the duchess and her daughter.”

  This observation seemed to make a great impression upon Lady Delacour. Clarence Hervey went on, and with much eloquence expressed his admiration of the mother who had stopped short in the career of dissipation to employ her inimitable talents in the education of her children; who had absolutely brought Virtue into fashion by the irresistible powers of wit and beauty.

  “Really, Clarence,” said Lady Delacour, rising from table, “vous parlez avec beaucoup d’onction. I advise you to write a sentimental comedy, a comédie larmoyante, or a drama on the German model, and call it The School for Mothers, and beg her grace of —— to sit for your heroine.”

  “Your ladyship, surely, would not be so cruel as to send a faithful servant a begging for a heroine?” said Clarence Hervey.

  Lady Delacour smiled at first at the compliment, but a few minutes afterwards she sighed bitterly. “It is too late for me to think of being a heroine,” said she.

  “Too late?” cried Hervey, following her eagerly as she walked out of the supper-room; “too late? Her grace of —— is some years older than your ladyship.”

  “Well, I did not mean to say too late,” said Lady Delacour; “but let us go on to something else. Why were you not at the fète champêtre the other day? and where were you all this morning? And pray can you tell me when your friend doctor X —— returns to town?”

  “Mr. Horton is getting better,” said Clarence, “and I hope that we shall have Dr. X —— soon amongst us again. I hear that he is to be in town in the course of a few days.”

  “Did he inquire for me? — Did he ask how I did?”

  “No. I fancy he took it for granted that your ladyship was quite well; for I told him you were getting better every day, and that you were in charming spirits.”

  “Yes,” said Lady Delacour, “but I wear myself out with these charming spirits. I am very nervous still, I assure you, and sitting up late is not good for me: so I shall wish you and all the world a good night. You see I am absolutely a reformed rake.”

  CHAPTER XIV. — THE EXHIBITION.

  Two hours after her ladyship had retired to her room, as Belinda was passing by the door to go to her own bedchamber, she heard Lady Delacour call to her.

  “Belinda, you need not walk so softly; I am not asleep. Come in, will you, my dear? I have something of consequence to say to you. Is all the world gone?”

  “Yes; and I thought that you were asleep. I hope you are not in pain.”

  “Not just at present, thank you; but that was a terrible embrace of poor little Helena’s. You see to what accidents I should be continually exposed, if I had that child always about me; and yet she seems of such an affectionate disposition, that I wish it were possible to keep her at home. Sit down by my bedside, my dear Belinda, and I will tell you what I have resolved upon.”

  Belinda sat down, and Lady Delacour was silent for some minutes.

  “I am resolved,” said she, “to make one desperate effort for my life. New plans, new hopes of happiness, have opened to my imagination, and, with my hopes of being happy, my courage rises. I am determined to submit to the dreadful operation which alone can radically cure me — you understand me; but it must be kept a profound secret. I know of a person who could be got to perform this operation with the utmost secrecy.”

  “But, surely,” said Belinda, “safety must be your first object!”

  “No, secrecy is my first object. Na
y, do not reason with me; it is a subject on which I cannot, will not, reason. Hear me — I will keep Helena with me for a few days; she was surprised by what passed in the library this evening — I must remove all suspicion from her mind.”

  “There is no suspicion in her mind,” said Belinda.

  “So much the better: she shall go immediately to school, or to Oakly-park. I will then stand my trial for life or death; and if I live I will be, what I have never yet been, a mother to Helena. If I die, you and Clarence Hervey will take care of her; I know you will. That young man is worthy of you, Belinda. If I die, I charge you to tell him that I knew his value; that I had a soul capable of being touched by the eloquence of virtue.” Lady Delacour, after a pause, said, in an altered tone, “Do you think, Belinda, that I shall survive this operation?”

  “The opinion of Dr. X —— ,” said Belinda, “must certainly be more satisfactory than mine;” and she repeated what the doctor had left with her in writing upon this subject. “You see,” said Belinda, “that Dr. X —— is by no means certain that you have the complaint which you dread.”

  “I am certain of it,” said Lady Delacour, with a deep sigh. Then, after a pause, she resumed: “So it is the doctor’s opinion, that I shall inevitably destroy myself if, from a vain hope of secrecy, I put myself into ignorant hands? These are his own words, are they? Very strong; and he is prudent to leave that opinion in writing. Now, whatever happens, he cannot be answerable for ‘measures which he does not guide:’ nor you either, my dear; you have done all that is prudent and proper. But I must beg you to recollect, that I am neither a child nor a fool; that I am come to years of discretion, and that I am not now in the delirium of a fever; consequently, there can be no pretence for managing me. In this particular I must insist upon managing myself. I have confidence in the skill of the person whom I shall employ: Dr. X —— , very likely, would have none, because the man may not have a diploma for killing or curing in form. That is nothing to the purpose. It is I that am to undergo the operation: it is my health, my life, that is risked; and if I am satisfied, that is enough. Secrecy, as I told you before, is my first object.”