Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “But why, mamma,” said Charles Percival, “is Mr. Vincent gone away? I am sorry he is gone; I hope he will soon come back. In the mean time, I must run and water my carnations.”

  “His sorrow for his friend Mr. Vincent’s departure does not seem to affect his spirits much,” said Lady Anne. “People who expect sentiment from children of six years old will be disappointed, and will probably teach them affectation. Surely it is much better to let their natural affections have time to expand. If we tear the rosebud open we spoil the flower.” Belinda smiled at this parable of the rosebud, which, she said, might be applied to men and women, as well as to children.

  “And yet, upon reflection,” said Lady Anne, “the heart has nothing in common with a rosebud. Nonsensical allusions pass off very prettily in conversation. I mean, when we converse with partial friends: but we should reason ill, and conduct ourselves worse, if we were to trust implicitly to poetical analogies. Our affections,” continued Lady Anne, “arise from circumstances totally independent of our will.”

  “That is the very thing I meant to say,” interrupted Belinda, eagerly.

  “They are excited by the agreeable or useful qualities that we discover in things or in persons.”

  “Undoubtedly,” said Belinda.

  “Or by those which our fancies discover,” said Lady Anne.

  Belinda was silent; but, after a pause, she said, “That it was certainly very dangerous, especially for women, to trust to fancy in bestowing their affections.” “And yet,” said Lady Anne, “it is a danger to which they are much exposed in society. Men have it in their power to assume the appearance of every thing that is amiable and estimable, and women have scarcely any opportunities of detecting the counterfeit.”

  “Without Ithuriel’s spear, how can they distinguish the good from the evil?” said Belinda. “This is a common-place complaint, I know; the ready excuse that we silly young women plead, when we make mistakes for which our friends reproach us, and for which we too often reproach ourselves.”

  “The complaint is common-place precisely because it is general and just,” replied Lady Anne. “In the slight and frivolous intercourse, which fashionable belles usually have with those fashionable beaux who call themselves their lovers, it is surprising that they can discover any thing of each other’s real character. Indeed they seldom do; and this probably is the cause why there are so many unsuitable and unhappy marriages. A woman who has an opportunity of seeing her lover in private society, in domestic life, has infinite advantages; for if she has any sense, and he has any sincerity, the real character of both may perhaps be developed.”

  “True,” said Belinda (who now suspected that Lady Anne alluded to Mr. Vincent); “and in such a situation a woman would readily be able to decide whether the man who addressed her would suit her taste or not; so she would be inexcusable if, either from vanity or coquetry, she disguised her real sentiments.”

  “And will Miss Portman, who cannot, by any one to whom she is known, be suspected of vanity or coquetry, permit me to speak to her with the freedom of a friend?”

  Belinda, touched by the kindness of Lady Anne’s manner, pressed her hand, and exclaimed, “Yes, dear Lady Anne, speak to me with freedom — you cannot do me a greater favour. No thought of my mind, no secret feeling of my heart, shall be concealed from you.”

  “Do not imagine that I wish to encroach upon the generous openness of your temper,” said Lady Anne; “tell me when I go too far, and I will be silent. One who, like Miss Portman, has lived in the world, has seen a variety of characters, and probably has had a variety of admirers, must have formed some determinate idea of the sort of companion that would make her happy, if she were to marry — unless,” said Lady Anne, “she has formed a resolution against marriage.”

  “I have formed no such resolution,” said Belinda. “Indeed, since I have seen the happiness which you and Mr. Percival enjoy in your own family, I have been much more disposed to think that a union — that a union such as yours, would increase my happiness. At the same time, my aversion to the idea of marrying from interest, or convenience, or from any motives but esteem and love, is increased almost to horror. O Lady Anne! there is nothing that I would not do to please the friends to whom I am under obligations, except sacrificing my peace of mind, or my integrity, the happiness of my life, by—”

  Lady Anne, in a gentle tone, assured her, that she was the last person in the world who would press her to any union which would make her unhappy. “You perceive that Mr. Vincent has spoken to me of what passed between you yesterday. You perceive that I am his friend, but do not forget that I am also yours. If you fear undue influence from any of your relations in favour of Mr. Vincent’s large fortune, &c. let his proposal remain a secret between ourselves, till you can decide, from farther acquaintance with him, whether it will be in your power to return his affection.”

  “I fear, my dear Lady Anne,” cried Belinda, “that it is not in my power to return his affection.”

  “And may I ask your objections?”

  “Is it not a sufficient objection, that I am persuaded I cannot love him?”

  “No; for you may be mistaken in that persuasion. Remember what we said a little while ago, about fancy and spontaneous affections. Does Mr. Vincent appear to you defective in any of the qualities which you think essential to happiness? Mr. Percival has known him from the time he was a man, and can answer for his integrity and his good temper. Are not these the first points you would consider? They ought to be, I am sure, and I believe they are. Of his understanding I shall say nothing, because you have had full opportunities of judging of it from his conversation.”

  “Mr. Vincent appears to have a good understanding,” said Belinda.

  “Then to what do you object? — Is there any thing disgusting to you in his person or manners?”

  “He is very handsome, he is well bred, and his manners are unaffected,” said Belinda; “but — do not accuse me of caprice — altogether he does not suit my taste; and I cannot think it sufficient not to feel disgust for a husband — though I believe this is the fashionable doctrine.”

  “It is not mine, I assure you,” said Lady Anne. “I am not one of those who think it ‘safest to begin with a little aversion;’ but since you acknowledge that Mr. Vincent possesses the essential good qualities that entitle him to your esteem, I am satisfied. We gradually acquire knowledge of the good qualities of those who endeavour to please us; and if they are really amiable, their persons become agreeable to us by degrees, when we become accustomed to them.”

  “Accustomed!” said Belinda, smiling: “one does grow accustomed even to disagreeable things certainly; but at this rate, my dear Lady Anne, I do not doubt but one might grow accustomed to Caliban.”

  “My belief in the reconciling power of custom does not go quite so far,” said Lady Anne. “It does not extend to Caliban, or even to the hero of La Belle et La Bête; but I do believe, that, in a mind so well regulated as yours, esteem may certainly in time be improved into love. I will tell Mr. Vincent so, my dear.”

  “No, my dear Lady Anne! no; you must not — indeed you must not. You have too good an opinion of me — my mind is not so well regulated — I am much weaker, much sillier, than you imagine — than you can conceive,” said Belinda.

  Lady Anne soothed her with the most affectionate expressions, and concluded with saying, “Mr. Vincent has promised not to return from Harrowgate, to torment you with his addresses, if you be absolutely determined against him. He is of too generous, and perhaps too proud a temper, to persecute you with vain solicitations; and however Mr. Percival and I may wish that he could obtain such a wife, we shall have the common, or uncommon, sense and good-nature to allow our friends to be happy their own way.”

  “You are very good — too good. But am I then to be the cause of banishing Mr. Vincent from all his friends — from Oakly-park?”

  “Will he not do what is most prudent, to avoid the charming Miss Portman,” said Lady
Anne, smiling, “if he must not love her? This was at least the advice I gave him, when he consulted us yesterday evening. But I will not sign his writ of banishment lightly. Nothing but the assurance that the heart is engaged can be a sufficient cause for despair; nothing else could, in my eyes, justify you, my dear Belinda, from the charge of caprice.”

  “I can give you no such assurance, I hope — I believe,” said Belinda, in great confusion; “and yet I would not for the world deceive you: you have a right to my sincerity.” She paused; and Lady Anne said with a smile, “Perhaps I can spare you the trouble of telling me in words what a blush told me, or at least made me suspect, yesterday evening, when we were standing by the river side, when little Charles asked you—”

  “Yes, I remember — I saw you look at me.”

  “Undesignedly, believe me.”

  “Undesignedly, I am sure; but I was afraid you would think—”

  “The truth.”

  “No; but more than the truth. The truth you shall hear; and the rest I will leave to your judgment and to your kindness.”

  Belinda gave a full account of her acquaintance with Clarence Hervey; of the variations in his manner towards her; of his excellent conduct with respect to Lady Delacour (of this, by-the-by, she spoke at large). But she was more concise when she touched upon the state of her own heart; and her voice almost failed when she came to the history of the lock of beautiful hair, the Windsor incognita, and the picture of Virginia. She concluded by expressing her conviction of the propriety of forgetting a man, who was in all probability attached to another, and she declared it to be her resolution to banish him from her thoughts. Lady Anne said, “that nothing could be more prudent or praiseworthy than forming such a resolution — except keeping it.” Lady Anne had a high opinion of Mr. Hervey; but she had no doubt, from Belinda’s account, and from her own observations on Mr. Hervey, and from slight circumstances which had accidentally come to Mr. Percival’s knowledge, that he was, as Belinda suspected, attached to another person. She wished, therefore, to confirm Miss Portman in this belief, and to turn her thoughts towards one who, beside being deserving of her esteem and love, felt for her the most sincere affection. She did not, however, press the subject farther at this time, but contented herself with requesting that Belinda would take three days (the usual time given for deliberation in fairy tales) before she should decide against Mr. Vincent.

  The next day they went to look at a porter’s lodge, which Mr. Percival had just built; it was inhabited by an old man and woman, who had for many years been industrious tenants, but who, in their old age, had been reduced to poverty, not by imprudence, but by misfortune. Lady Anne was pleased to see them comfortably settled in their new habitation; and whilst she and Belinda were talking to the old couple, their grand-daughter, a pretty looking girl of about eighteen, came in with a basket of eggs in her hand. “Well, Lucy,” said Lady Anne, “have you overcome your dislike to James Jackson?” The girl reddened, smiled, and looked at her grand-mother, who answered for her in an arch tone, “Oh, yes, my lady! We are not afraid of Jackson now; we are grown very great friends. This pretty cane chair for my good man was his handiwork, and these baskets he made for me. Indeed, he’s a most industrious, ingenious, good-natured youth; and our Lucy takes no offence at his courting her now, my lady, I can assure you. That necklace, which is never off her neck now, he turned for her, my lady; it is a present of his. So I tell him he need not be discouraged, though so be she did not take to him at the first; for she’s a good girl, and a sensible girl — I say it, though she’s my own; and the eyes are used to a face after a time, and then it’s nothing. They say, fancy’s all in all in love: now in my judgment, fancy’s little or nothing with girls that have sense. But I beg pardon for prating at this rate, more especially when I am so old as to have forgot all the little I ever knew about such things.”

  “But you have the best right in the world to speak about such things, and your grand-daughter has the best reason in the world to listen to you,” said Lady Anne, “because, in spite of all the crosses of fortune, you have been an excellent and happy wife, at least ever since I can remember.”

  “And ever since I can remember, that’s more; no offence to your ladyship,” said the old man, striking his crutch against the ground. “Ever since I can remember, she has made me the happiest man in the whole world, in the whole parish, as every body knows, and I best of all!” cried he, with a degree of enthusiasm that lighted up his aged countenance, and animated his feeble voice.

  “And yet,” said the honest dame, “if I had followed my fancy, and taken up with my first love, it would not ha’ been with he, Lucy. I had a sort of a fancy (since my lady’s so good as to let me speak), I had a sort of a fancy for an idle young man; but he, very luckily for me, took it into his head to fall in love with another young woman, and then I had leisure enough left me to think of your grandfather, who was not so much to my taste like at first. But when I found out his goodness and cleverness, and joined to all, his great tenderness for me, I thought better of it, Lucy (as who knows but you may do, though there shall not be a word said on my part to press you, for poor Jackson?); and my thinking better is the cause why I have been so happy ever since, and am so still in my old age. Ah, Lucy! dear, what a many years that same old age lasts, after all! But young folks, for the most part, never think what’s to come after thirty or forty at farthest. But I don’t say this for you, Lucy; for you are a good girl, and a sensible girl, though my own grand-daughter, as I said before, and therefore won’t be run away with by fancy, which is soon past and gone: but make a prudent choice, that you won’t never have cause to repent of. But I’ll not say a word more; I’ll leave it all to yourself and James Jackson.”

  “You do right,” said Lady Anne: “good morning to you! Farewell, Lucy! That’s a pretty necklace, and is very becoming to you — fare ye well!”

  She hurried out of the cottage with Belinda, apprehensive that the talkative old dame might weaken the effect of her good sense and experience by a farther profusion of words.

  “One would think,” said Belinda, with an ingenuous smile, “that this lesson upon the dangers of fancy was intended for me: at any rate, I may turn it to my own advantage!”

  “Happy those who can turn all the experience of others to their own advantage!” said Lady Anne: “this would be a more valuable privilege than the power of turning every thing that is touched to gold.”

  They walked on in silence for a few minutes; and then Miss Portman, pursuing the train of her own thoughts, and unconscious that she had not explained them to Lady Anne, abruptly exclaimed, “But if I should be entangled, so as not to be able to retract! — and if it should not be in my power to love him at last, he will think me a coquette, a jilt, perhaps: he will have reason to complain of me, if I waste his time, and trifle with his affections. Then is it not better that I should avoid, by a decided refusal, all possibility of injury to Mr. Vincent, and of blame to myself?”

  “There is no danger of Mr. Vincent’s misunderstanding or misrepresenting you. The risk that he runs is by his voluntary choice; and I am sure that if, after farther acquaintance with him, you find it impossible to return his affection, he will not consider himself as ill-used by your refusal.”

  “But after a certain time — after the world suspects that two people are engaged to each other, it is scarcely possible for the woman to recede: when they come within a certain distance, they are pressed to unite, by the irresistible force of external circumstances. A woman is too often reduced to this dilemma: either she must marry a man she does not love, or she must be blamed by the world — either she must sacrifice a portion of her reputation, or the whole of her happiness.”

  “The world is indeed often too curious, and too rash in these affairs,” said Lady Anne. “A young woman is not in this respect allowed sufficient time for freedom of deliberation. She sees, as Mr. Percival once said, ‘the drawn sword of tyrant custom suspended over her head by a single h
air.’”

  “And yet, notwithstanding you are so well aware of the danger, your ladyship would expose me to it?” said Belinda.

  “Yes; for I think the chance of happiness, in this instance, overbalances the risk,” said Lady Anne. “As we cannot alter the common law of custom, and as we cannot render the world less gossiping, or less censorious, we must not expect always to avoid censure; all we can do is, never to deserve it — and it would be absurd to enslave ourselves to the opinion of the idle and ignorant. To a certain point, respect for the opinion of the world is prudence; beyond that point, it is weakness. You should also consider that the world at Oakly-park and in London are two different worlds. In London if you and Mr. Vincent were seen often in each other’s company, it would be immediately buzzed about that Miss Portman and Mr. Vincent were going to be married; and if the match did not take place, a thousand foolish stories might be told to account for its being broken off. But here you are not surrounded by busy eyes and busy tongues. The butchers, bakers, ploughmen, and spinsters, who compose our world, have all affairs of their own to mind. Besides, their comments can have no very extensive circulation; they are used to see Mr. Vincent continually here; and his staying with us the remainder of the autumn will not appear to them any thing wonderful or portentous.”

  Their conversation was interrupted. Mr. Vincent returned to Oakly-park — but upon the express condition that he should not make his attachment public by any particular attentions, and that he should draw no conclusions in his favour from Belinda’s consenting to converse with him freely upon every common subject. To this treaty of amity Lady Anne Percival was guarantee.

  CHAPTER XIX. — A WEDDING.

  Belinda and Mr. Vincent could never agree in their definition of the-word flattery; so that there were continual complaints on the one hand of a breach of treaty, and, on the other, solemn protestations of the most scrupulous adherence to his compact. However this might be, it is certain that the gentleman gained so much, either by truth or fiction, that, in the course of some weeks, he got the lady as far as “gratitude and esteem.”