Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “You surprise me, doctor!” said Lady Delacour; “for I assure you that you have the character of being very liberal in your opinions.”

  “I hope I am liberal in my opinions,” replied the doctor, “and that I give your ladyship a proof of it.”

  “You would not then persecute a man or woman with ridicule for believing more than you do?” said Lady Delacour.

  “Those who persecute, to overturn religion, can scarcely pretend to more philosophy, or more liberality, than those who persecute to support it,” said Dr. X —— .

  “Perhaps, doctor, you are only speaking popularly?”

  “I believe what I now say to be true,” said Dr. X —— , “and I always endeavour to make truth popular.”

  “But possibly these are only truths for ladies. Doctor X —— may be such an ungallant philosopher, as to think that some truths are not fit for ladies. He may hold a different language with gentlemen.”

  “I should not only be an ungallant but a weak philosopher,” said Dr. X —— , “if I thought that truth was not the same for all the world who can understand it. And who can doubt Lady Delacour’s being of that number?”

  Lady Delacour, who, at the beginning of this conversation, had spoken guardedly, from the fear of lowering the doctor’s opinion of her understanding, was put at her ease by the manner in which he now spoke; and, half laying aside the tone of raillery, she said to him, “Well, doctor! seriously, I am not so illiberal as to condemn all chaplains for one, odious as he was. But where to find his contrast in these degenerate days? Can you, who are a defender of the faith, and so forth, assist me? Will you recommend a chaplain to my lord?”

  “Willingly,” said Dr. X —— ; “and that is what I would not say for a world of fees, unless I were sure of my man.”

  “What sort of a man is he?”

  “Not a buck parson.”

  “And I hope not a pedant, not a dogmatist, for that would be almost as bad. Before we domesticate another chaplain, I wish to know all his qualities, and to have a full and true description of him.”

  “Shall I then give you a full and true description of him in the words of Chaucer?”

  “In any words you please. But Chaucer’s chaplain must be a little old-fashioned by this time, I should think.”

  “Pardon me. Some people, as well as some things, never grow old-fashioned. I should not be ashamed to produce Chaucer’s parish priest at this day to the best company in England — I am not ashamed to produce him to your ladyship; and if I can remember twenty lines in his favour, I hope you will give me credit for being a sincere friend to the worthy part of the clergy. Observe, you must take them as I can patch them together; I will not promise that I can recollect twenty lines de suite, and without missing a word; that is what I would not swear to do for His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

  “His Grace will probably excuse you from swearing; at least I will,” said Lady Delacour, “on the present occasion: so now for your twenty lines in whatever order you please.”

  Doctor X —— , with sundry intervals of recollection, which may be spared the reader, repeated the following lines:

  “Yet has his aspect nothing of severe,

  But such a face as promised him sincere.

  Nothing reserved or sullen was to see,

  But sweet regards, and pleasing sanctity,

  Mild was his accent, and his action free.

  With eloquence innate his tongue was arm’d,

  Though harsh the precept, yet the preacher charm’d;

  For, letting down the golden chain from high,

  He drew his audience upwards to the sky.

  He taught the Gospel rather than the law,

  And forced himself to drive, but loved to draw.

  The tithes his parish freely paid, he took;

  But never sued, or curs’d with bell and book.

  Wide was his parish, not contracted close

  In streets — but here and there a straggling house.

  Yet still he was at hand, without request,

  To serve the sick, and succour the distressed.

  The proud he tamed, the penitent he cheer’d,

  Nor to rebuke the rich offender fear’d.

  His preaching much, but more his practice wrought,

  A living sermon of the truths he taught.”

  Lady Delacour wished that she could find a chaplain, who in any degree resembled this charming parish priest, and Dr. X —— promised that he would the next day introduce to her his friend Mr. Moreton.

  “Mr. Moreton!” said Belinda, “the gentleman of whom Mr. Percival spoke, Mrs. Freke’s Mr. Moreton?”

  “Yes,” said Dr. X —— , “the clergyman whom Mrs. Freke hanged in effigy, and to whom Clarence Hervey has given a small living.”

  These circumstances, even if he had not precisely resembled Chaucer’s character of a benevolent clergyman, would have strongly interested Lady Delacour in his favour. She found him, upon farther acquaintance, a perfect contrast to her former chaplain; and he gradually acquired such salutary influence over her mind, that he relieved her from the terrors of methodism, and in their place substituted the consolations of mild and rational piety.

  Her conscience was now at peace; her spirits were real and equable, and never was her conversation so agreeable. Animated with the new feelings of returning health, and the new hopes of domestic happiness, she seemed desirous to impart her felicity to all around her, but chiefly to Belinda, who had the strongest claims upon her gratitude, and the warmest place in her affections. Belinda never made her friend feel the weight of any obligation, and consequently Lady Delacour’s gratitude was a voluntary pleasure — not an expected duty. Nothing could be more delightful to Miss Portman than thus to feel herself the object at once of esteem, affection, and respect; to see that she had not only been the means of saving her friend’s life, but that the influence she had obtained over her mind was likely to be so permanently beneficial both to her and to her family.

  Belinda did not take all the merit of this reformation to herself: she was most willing to share it, in her own imagination, not only with Dr. X —— and Mr. Moreton, but with poor Clarence Hervey. She was pleased to observe that Lady Delacour never omitted any occasion of doing justice to his merit, and she loved her for that generosity, which sometimes passed the bounds of justice in her eulogiums. But Belinda was careful to preserve her consistency, and to guard her heart from the dangerous effect of these enthusiastic praises; and as Lady Delacour was now sufficiently re-established in her health, she announced her intention of returning immediately to Oakly-park, according to her promise to Lady Anne Percival and to Mr. Vincent.

  “But, my dear,” said Lady Delacour, “one week more is all I ask from you — may not friendship ask such a sacrifice from love?”

  “You expect, I know,” said Miss Portman, ingenuously, “that before the end of that time Mr. Hervey will be here.”

  “True. And have you no friendship for him?” said Lady Delacour with an arch smile, “or is friendship for every man in the creation, one Augustus Vincent always excepted, prohibited by the statutes of Oakly-park?”

  “By the statutes of Oakly-park nothing is forbidden,” said Belinda, “but what reason—”

  “Reason! Oh, I have done if you go to reason! You are invulnerable to the light shafts of wit, I know, when you are cased in this heavy armour of reason; Cupid himself may strain his bow, and exhaust his quiver upon you in vain. But have a care — you cannot live in armour all your life — lay it aside but for a moment, and the little bold urchin will make it his prize. Remember, in one of Raphael’s pictures, Cupid creeping into the armour of the conqueror of the world.”

  “I am sufficiently aware,” said Belinda, smiling, “of the power of Cupid, and of his wiles. I would not brave his malice, but I will fly from it.”

  “It is so cowardly to fly!”

  “Surely prudence, not courage, is the virtue of our sex; and seriously, my dea
r Lady Delacour, I entreat you not to use your influence over my mind, lest you should lessen my happiness, though you cannot alter my determination.”

  Moved by the earnest manner in which Belinda uttered these words, Lady Delacour rallied her no more, nor did she longer oppose her resolution of returning immediately to Oakly-park.

  “May I remind you,” said Miss Portman, “though it is seldom either politic or polite, to remind people of their promises, — but may I remind you of something like a promise you made, to accompany me to Mr. Percival’s?”

  “And would you have me behave so brutally to poor Lord Delacour, as to run away from him in this manner the moment I have strength to run?”

  “Lord Delacour is included in this invitation,” said Miss Portman, putting the last letter that she had received from Lady Anne Percival into her hands.

  “When I recollect,” said Lady Delacour, as she looked over the letter, “how well this Lady Anne of yours has behaved to me about Helena, when I recollect, that, though you have been with her so long, she has not supplanted me in your affections, and that she did not attempt to detain you when I sent Marriott to Oakly-park, and when I consider how much for my own advantage it will be to accept this invitation, I really cannot bring myself, from pride, or folly, or any other motive, to refuse it. So, my dear Belinda, prevail upon Lord Delacour to spend his Christmas at Oakly-park, instead of at Studley-manor (Rantipole, thank Heaven! is out of the question), and prevail upon yourself to stay a few days for me, and you shall take us all with you in triumph.”

  Belinda was convinced that, when Lady Delacour had once tasted the pleasures of domestic life, she would not easily return to that dissipation which she had followed from habit, and into which she had first been driven by a mixture of vanity and despair. All the connexions which she had imprudently formed with numbers of fashionable but extravagant and thoughtless women would insensibly be broken off by this measure; for Lady Delacour, who was already weary of their company, would be so much struck with the difference between their insipid conversation and the animated and interesting society in Lady Anne Percival’s family, that she would afterwards think them not only burdensome but intolerable. Lord Delacour’s intimacy with Lord Studley was one of his chief inducements to that intemperance, which injured almost equally his constitution and his understanding: for some weeks past he had abstained from all excess, and Belinda was well aware, that, when the immediate motive of humanity to Lady Delacour ceased to act upon him, he would probably return to his former habits, if he continued to visit his former associates. It was therefore of importance to break at once his connexion with Lord Studley, and to place him in a situation where he might form new habits, and where his dormant talents might be roused to exertion. She was convinced that his understanding was not so much below par as she had once been taught to think it: she perceived, also, that since their reconciliation, Lady Delacour was anxious to make him appear to advantage: whenever he said any thing that was worth hearing, she looked at Belinda with triumph; and whenever he happened to make a mistake in conversation, she either showed involuntary signs of uneasiness, or passed it off with that easy wit, by which she generally knew how “to make the worse appear the better reason.” Miss Portman knew that Mr. Percival possessed the happy talent of drawing out all the abilities of those with whom he conversed, and that he did not value men merely for their erudition, science, or literature; he was capable of estimating the potential as well as the actual range of the mind. Of his generosity she could not doubt, and she was persuaded that he would take every possible means which good nature, joined to good sense, could suggest, to raise Lord Delacour in his lady’s esteem, and to make that union happy which was indissoluble. All these reflections passed with the utmost rapidity in Belinda’s mind, and the result of them was, that she consented to wait Lady Delacour’s leisure for her journey.

  CHAPTER XXIV. — PEU À PEU.

  Things were in this situation, when one day Marriott made her appearance at her lady’s toilette with a face which at once proclaimed that something had discomposed her, and that she was impatient to be asked what it was.

  “What is the matter, Marriott?” said Lady Delacour; “for I know you want me to ask.”

  “Want you to ask! Oh, dear, my lady, no! — for I’m sure, it’s a thing that goes quite against me to tell; for I thought, indeed, my lady, superiorly of the person in question; so much so, indeed, that I wished what I declare I should now be ashamed to mention, especially in the presence of Miss Portman, who deserves the best that this world can afford of every denomination. Well, ma’am, in one word,” continued she, addressing herself to Belinda, “I am extremely rejoiced that things are as they are, though I confess that was not always my wish or opinion, for which I beg Mr. Vincent’s pardon and yours; but I hope to be forgiven, since I’m now come entirely round to my Lady Anne Percival’s way of thinking, which I learnt from good authority at Oakly-park; and I am now convinced and confident, Miss Portman, that every thing is for the best.”

  “Marriott will inform us, in due course of time, what has thus suddenly and happily converted her,” said Lady Delacour to Belinda, who was thrown into some surprise and confusion by Marriott’s address; but Marriott went on with much warmth —

  Dear me! I’m sure I thought we had got rid of all double-dealers, when the house was cleared of Mr. Champfort; but, oh, mercy! there’s not traps enough in the world for them all; I only wish they were all caught as finely as some people were. “Tis what all double-dealers, and Champfort at the head of the whole regiment, deserve — that’s certain.”

  “We must take patience, my dear Belinda,” said Lady Delacour, calmly, “till Marriott has exhausted all the expletives in and out of the English language; and presently, when she has fought all her battles with Champfort over again, we may hope to get at the fact.”

  “Dear! my lady, it has nothing to do with Mr. Champfort, nor any such style of personage, I can assure you; for, I’m positive, I’d rather think contemptibly of a hundred million Mr. Champforts than of one such gentleman as Mr. Clarence Hervey.”

  “Clarence Hervey!” exclaimed Lady Delacour: taking it for granted that Belinda blushed, her ladyship, with superfluous address, instantly turned, so as to hide her friend’s face from Mrs. Marriott. “Well, Marriott, what of Mr. Hervey?”

  “Oh, my lady, something you’ll be surprised to hear, and Miss Portman, too. It is not, by any means, that I am more of a prude than is becoming, my lady: nor that I take upon me to be so innocent as not to know that young gentlemen of fortune will, if it be only for fashion’s sake, have such things as kept mistresses (begging pardon for mentioning such trash); but no one that has lived in the world thinks any thing of that, except,” added she, catching a glimpse of Belinda’s countenance, “except, to be sure, ma’am, morally speaking, it’s very wicked and shocking, and makes one blush before company, till one’s used to it, and ought certainly to be put down by act of parliament, ma’am; but, my lady, you know, in point of surprising any body, or being discreditable in a young gentleman of Mr. Hervey’s fortune and pretensions, it would be mere envy and scandal to deem it any thing — worth mentioning.”

  “Then, for mercy’s sake, or mine,” said Lady Delacour, “go on to something that is worth mentioning.”

  “Well, my lady, you must know, then, that yesterday I wanted some hempseed for my bullfinch — Miss Helena’s bullfinch, I mean; for it was she found it by accident, you know, Miss Portman, the day after we came here. Poor thing! it got itself so entangled in the net over the morello cherry tree, in the garden, that it could neither get itself in nor out; but very luckily Miss Helena saw it, and saved, and brought it in: it was almost dead, my lady.”

  “Was it? — I mean I am very sorry for it: that is what you expect me to say. Now, go on — get us once past the bullfinch, or tell us what it has to do with Clarence Hervey.”

  “That is what I am aiming at, as fast as possible, my lady. So I sent for som
e hempseed for the bullfinch, and along with the hempseed they brought me wrapped round it, as it were, a printed handbill, as it might be, or advertisement, which I threw off, disregardingly, taking for granted it might have been some of those advertisements for lozenges or razor-strops, that meet one wherever one goes; but Miss Delacour picked it up, and found it was a kind of hue and cry after a stolen or strayed bullfinch. Ma’am, I was so provoked, I could have cried, when I learnt it was the exact description of our little Bobby to a feather — gray upon the back, and red on — —”

  “Oh! spare me the description to a feather. Well, you took the bird, bullfinch, or Bobby, as you call it, home to its rightful owner, I presume? Let me get you so far on your way.”

  “No, I beg your pardon, my lady, that is not the thing.”

  “Then you did not take the bird home to its owner — and you are a bird-stealer? With all my heart: be a dog-stealer, if you will — only go on.”

  “But, my lady, you hurry me so, it puts every thing topsy-turvy in my head; I could tell it as fast as possible my own way.”

  “Do so, then.”

  “I was ready to cry, when I found our little Bobby was claimed from us, to be sure; but Miss Delacour observed, that those with whom it had lived till it was grey must be sorrier still to part with it: so I resolved to do the honest and genteel thing by the lady who advertised for it, and to take it back myself, and to refuse the five guineas reward offered. The lady’s name, according to the advertisement, was Ormond.”

  “Ormond!” repeated Lady Delacour, looking eagerly at Belinda: “was not that the name Sir Philip Baddely mentioned to us — you remember?”

  “Yes, Ormond was the name, as well as I recollect,” said Belinda, with a degree of steady composure that provoked her ladyship. “Go on, Marriott.”