Lady Delacour recollected her own promise, to give her sincere congratulations to the victorious knight; and she endeavoured to treat Mr. Vincent with impartiality. She was, however, now still less inclined to like him, from a discovery, which she accidentally made, of his being still upon good terms with odious Mrs. Luttridge. Helena, one morning, was playing with Mr. Vincent’s large dog, of which he was excessively fond. It was called Juba, after his faithful servant.
“Helena, my dear,” said Lady Delacour, “take care! don’t trust your hand in that creature’s monstrous mouth.”
“I can assure your ladyship,” cried Mr. Vincent, “that he is the very quietest and best creature in the world.”
“No doubt,” said Belinda, smiling, “since he belongs to you; for you know, as Mr. Percival tells you, every thing animate or inanimate that is under your protection, you think must be the best of its kind in the universe.”
“But, really, Juba is the best creature in the world,” repeated Mr. Vincent, with great eagerness. “Juba is, without exception, the best creature in the universe.”
“Juba, the dog, or Juba, the man?” said Belinda: “you know, they cannot be both the best creatures in the universe.”
“Well! Juba, the man, is the best man — and Juba, the dog, is the best dog, in the universe,” said Mr. Vincent, laughing, with his usual candour, at his own foible, when it was pointed out to him. “But, seriously, Lady Delacour, you need not be in the least afraid to trust Miss Delacour with this poor fellow; for, do you know, during a whole month that I lent him to Mrs. Luttridge, at Harrowgate, she used constantly to let him sleep in the room with her; and now, whenever he sees her, he licks her hand as gently as if he were a lapdog; and it was but yesterday, when I had him there, she declared he was more gentle than any lapdog in London.”
At the name of Luttridge, Lady Delacour changed countenance, and she continued silent for some time. Mr. Vincent, attributing her sudden seriousness to dislike or fear of his dog, took him out of the room.
“My dear Lady Delacour,” said Belinda, observing that she still retained an air of displeasure, “I hope your antipathy to odious Mrs. Luttridge does not extend to every body who visits her.”
“Tout au contraire,” cried Lady Delacour, starting from her reverie, and assuming a playful manner: “I have made a general gaol-delivery of all my old hatreds; and even odious Mrs. Luttridge, though a hardened offender, must be included in this act of grace: so you need not fear that Mr. Vincent should fall under my royal displeasure for consorting with this state criminal. Though I can’t sympathize with him, I forgive him, both for liking that great dog, and that little woman; especially, as I shrewdly suspect, that he likes the lady’s E O table better than the lady.”
“E O table! Good Heavens! you do not imagine Mr. Vincent — —”
“Nay, my dear, don’t look so terribly alarmed! I assure you, I did not mean to hint that there was any serious, improper attachment to the E O table; only a little flirtation, perhaps, to which his passion for you has, doubtless, put a stop.”
“I’ll ask him the moment I see him,” cried Belinda, “if he is fond of play: I know he used to play at billiards at Oakly-park, but merely as an amusement. Games of address are not to be put upon a footing with games of hazard.’
“A man may, however, contrive to lose a good deal of money at billiards, as poor Lord Delacour can tell you. But I beseech you, my dear, do not betray me to Mr. Vincent; ten to one I am mistaken, for his great dog put me out of humour — —”
“But with such a doubt upon my mind, unsatisfied — —”
“It shall be satisfied; Lord Delacour shall make inquiries for me. Lord Delacour shall make inquiries, did I say? — will, I should have said. If Champfort had heard me, to what excellent account he might have turned that unlucky shall. What a nice grammarian a woman had need to be, who would live well with a husband inferior to her in understanding! With a superior or an equal, she might use shall and will as inaccurately as she pleases. Glorious privilege! How I shall envy it you, my dear Belinda! But how can you ever hope to enjoy it? Where is your superior? Where is your equal?”
Mr. Vincent, who had by this time seen his dog fed, which was one of his daily pleasures, returned, and politely assured Lady Delacour that Juba should not again intrude. To make her peace with Mr. Vincent, and to drive the E O table from Belinda’s thoughts, her ladyship now turned the conversation from Juba the dog, to Juba the man. She talked of Harriot Freke’s phosphoric Obeah woman, of whom, she said, she had heard an account from Miss Portman. From thence she went on to the African slave trade, by way of contrast, and she finished precisely where she intended, and where Mr. Vincent could have wished, by praising a poem called ‘The dying Negro,’ which he had the preceding evening brought to read to Belinda. This praise was peculiarly agreeable, because he was not perfectly sure of his own critical judgment, and his knowledge of English literature was not as extensive as Clarence Hervey’s; a circumstance which Lady Delacour had discovered one morning, when they went to see Pope’s famous villa at Twickenham. Flattered by her present confirmation of his taste, Mr. Vincent readily complied with a request to read the poem to Belinda. They were all deeply engaged by the charms of poetry, when they were suddenly interrupted by the entrance of — Clarence Hervey!
The book dropped from Vincent’s hand the instant that he heard his name. Lady Delacour’s eyes sparkled with joy. Belinda’s colour rose, but her countenance maintained an expression of calm dignity. Mr. Hervey, upon his first entrance, appeared prepared to support an air of philosophic composure, which forsook him before he had walked across the room. He seemed overpowered by the kindness with which Lady Delacour received his congratulations on her recovery — struck by the reserve of Belinda’s manner — but not surprised, or displeased, at the sight of Mr. Vincent. On the contrary, he desired immediately to be introduced to him, with the air of a man resolute to cultivate his friendship. Provoked and perplexed, Lady Delacour, in a tone of mingled reproach and astonishment, exclaimed, “Though you have not done me the honour, Mr. Hervey, to take any other notice of my last letter, I am to understand, I presume, by the manner in which you desire me to introduce you to our friend Mr. Vincent, that it has been received.”
“Received! Good Heavens! have not you had my answer?” cried Clarence Hervey, with a voice and look of extreme surprise and emotion: “Has not your ladyship received a packet?”
“I have had no packet — I have had no letter. Mr. Vincent, do me the favour to ring the bell,” cried Lady Delacour, eagerly: “I’ll know, this instant, what’s become of it.”
“Your ladyship must have thought me — ,” and, as he spoke, his eye involuntarily glanced towards Belinda.
“No matter what I thought you,” cried Lady Delacour, who forgave him every thing for this single glance; “if I did you a little injustice, Clarence, when I was angry, you must forgive me; for, I assure you, I do you a great deal of justice at other times.”
“Did any letter, any packet, come here for me? Inquire, inquire,” said she, impatiently, to the servant who came in. No letter or packet was to be heard of. It had been directed, Mr. Hervey now remembered, to her ladyship’s house in town. She gave orders to have it immediately sent for; but scarcely had she given them, when, turning to Mr. Hervey, she laughed and said, “A very foolish compliment to you and your letter, for you certainly can speak as well as you can write; nay, better, I think — though you don’t write ill, neither — but you can tell me, in two words, what in writing would take half a volume. Leave this gentleman and lady to ‘the dying Negro,’ and let me hear your two words in Lord Delacour’s dressing-room, if you please,” said she, opening the door of an adjoining apartment. “Lord Delacour will not be jealous if he find you tête-à-tête with me, I promise you. But you shall not be compelled. You look—”
“I look,” said Mr. Hervey, affecting to laugh, “as if I felt the impossibility of putting half a volume into two words. It is a
long story, and—”
“And I must wait for the packet, whether I will or no — well, be it so,” said Lady Delacour. Struck with the extreme perturbation into which he was thrown, she pressed him with no farther raillery, but instantly attempted to change the conversation to general subjects.
Again she had recourse to ‘the dying Negro.’ Mr. Vincent, to whom she now addressed herself, said, “For my part, I neither have, nor pretend to have, much critical taste; but I admire in this poem the manly, energetic spirit of virtue which it breathes.” From the poem, an easy transition was made to the author; and Clarence Hervey, exerting himself to join in the conversation, observed, “that this writer (Mr. Day) was an instance that genuine eloquence must spring from the heart. Cicero was certainly right,” continued he, addressing himself to Mr. Vincent, “in his definition of a great orator, to make it one of the first requisites, that he should be a good man.”
Mr. Vincent coldly replied, “This definition would exclude too many men of superior talents, to be easily admitted.”
“Perhaps the appearance of virtue,” said Belinda, “might, on many occasions, succeed as well as the reality.”
“Yes, if the man be as good an actor as Mr. Hervey,” said, Lady Delacour, “and if he suit ‘the action to the word’—’the word to the action.’”
Belinda never raised her eyes whilst her ladyship uttered these words; Mr. Vincent was, or seemed to be, so deeply engaged in looking for something in the book, which he held in his hand, that he could take no farther part in the conversation; and a dead silence ensued.
Lady Delacour, who was naturally impatient in the extreme, especially in the vindication of her friends, could not bear to see, as she did by Belinda’s countenance, that she had not forgotten Marriott’s story of Virginia St. Pierre; and though her ladyship was convinced that the packet would clear up all mysteries, yet she could not endure that even in the interim ‘poor Clarence’ should he unjustly suspected; nor could she refrain from trying an expedient, which just occurred to her, to satisfy herself and every body present. She was the first to break silence.
“To do ye justice, my friends, you are all good company this morning. Mr. Vincent is excusable, because he is in love; and Belinda is excusable, because — because — Mr. Hervey, pray help me to an excuse for Miss Portman’s stupidity, for I am dreadfully afraid of blundering out the truth. But why do I ask you to help me? In your present condition, you seem totally unable to help yourself. — Not a word! — Run over the common-places of conversation — weather — fashion — scandal — dress — deaths — marriages. — Will none of these do? Suppose, then, you were to entertain me with other people’s thoughts, since you have none of your own unpacked — Forfeit to arbitrary power,” continued her ladyship, playfully seizing Mr. Vincent’s book. “I have always observed that none submit with so good a grace to arbitrary power from our sex as your true men of spirit, who would shed the last drop of their blood to resist it from one of their own. Inconsistent creatures, the best of you! So read this charming little poem to us, Mr. Hervey, will you?”
He was going to begin immediately, but Lady Delacour put her hand upon the book, and stopped him.
“Stay; though I am tyrannical, I will not be treacherous. I warn you, then, that I have imposed upon you a difficult, a dangerous task. If you have any ‘sins unwhipt of justice,’ there are lines which I defy you to read without faltering — listen to the preface.”
Her ladyship began as follows:
“Mr. Day, indeed, retained during all the period of his life, as might be expected from his character, a strong detestation of female seduction —— Happening to see some verses, written by a young lady, on a recent event of this nature, which was succeeded by a fatal catastrophe — the unhappy young woman, who had been a victim to the perfidy of a lover, overpowered by her sensibility of shame, having died of a broken heart — he expresses his sympathy with the fair poetess in the following manner.”
Lady Delacour paused, and fixed her eyes upon Clarence Hervey. He, with all the appearance of conscious innocence, received the book, without hesitation, from her hands, and read aloud the lines, to which she pointed.
“Swear by the dread avengers of the tomb,
By all thy hopes, by death’s tremendous gloom,
That ne’er by thee deceived, the tender maid
Shall mourn her easy confidence betray’d,
Nor weep in secret the triumphant art,
With bitter anguish rankling in her heart;
So may each blessing, which impartial fate
Throws on the good, but snatches from the great,
Adorn thy favour’d course with rays divine,
And Heaven’s best gift, a virtuous love, be thine!”
Mr. Hervey read these lines with so much unaffected, unembarrassed energy, that Lady Delacour could not help casting a triumphant look at Belinda, which said or seemed to say — you see I was right in my opinion of Clarence!
Had Mr. Vincent been left to his own observations, he would have seen the simple truth; but he was alarmed and deceived by Lady Delacour’s imprudent expressions of joy, and by the significant looks that she gave her friend Miss Portman, which seemed to be looks of mutual intelligence. He scarcely dared to turn his eyes toward his mistress, or upon him whom he thought his rival: but he kept them anxiously fixed upon her ladyship, in whose face, as in a glass, he seemed to study every thing that was passing.
“Pray, have you ever played at chess, since we saw you last?” said Lady Delacour to Clarence. “I hope you do not forget that you are my knight. I do not forget it, I assure you — I own you as my knight to all the world, in public and private — do not I, Belinda?”
A dark cloud overspread Mr. Vincent’s brow — he listened not to Belinda’s answer. Seized with a transport of jealousy, he darted at Mr. Hervey a glance of mingled scorn and rage; and, after saying a few unintelligible words to Miss Portman and Lady Delacour, he left the room.
Clarence Hervey, who seemed afraid to trust himself longer with Belinda, withdrew a few minutes afterward.
“My dear Belinda,” exclaimed Lady Delacour, the moment that he was out of the room, “how glad I am he is gone, that I may say all the good I think of him! In the first place, Clarence Hervey loves you. Never was I so fully convinced of it as this day. Why had we not that letter of his sooner? that will explain all to us: but I ask for no explanation, I ask for no letter, to confirm my opinion, my conviction — that he loves you: on this point I cannot be mistaken — he fondly loves you.”
“He fondly loves her! — Yes, to be sure, I could have told you that news long ago,” cried the dowager Lady Boucher, who was in the room before they were aware of her entrance; they had both been so eager, the one listening, and the other speaking.
“Fondly loves her!” repeated the dowager: “yes; and no secret, I promise you, Lady Delacour:” and then, turning to Belinda, she began a congratulatory speech, upon the report of her approaching marriage with Mr. Vincent. Belinda absolutely denied the truth of this report: but the dowager continued, “I distress you, I see, and it’s quite out of rule, I am sensible, to speak in this sort of way, Miss Portman; but as I’m an old acquaintance, and an old friend, and an old woman, you’ll excuse me. I can’t help saying, I feel quite rejoiced at your meeting with such a match.” Belinda again attempted to declare that she was not going to be married; but the invincible dowager went on: “Every way eligible, and every way agreeable. A charming young man, I hear, Lady Delacour: I see I must only speak to you, or I shall make Miss Portman sink to the centre of the earth, which I would not wish to do, especially at such a critical moment as this. A charming young man, I hear, with a noble West Indian fortune, and a noble spirit, and well connected, and passionately in love — no wonder. But I have done now, I promise you; I’ll ask no questions: so don’t run away, Miss Portman; I’ll ask no questions, I promise you.”
To ensure the performance of the promise, Lady Delacour asked wha
t news there was in the world? This question, she knew, would keep the dowager in delightful employment. “I live quite out of the world here; but since Lady Boucher has the charity to come to see me, we shall hear all the ‘secrets worth knowing,’ from the best authority.”
“Then, the first piece of news I have for you is, that my Lord and my Lady Delacour are absolutely reconciled; and that they are the happiest couple that ever lived.”
“All very true,” replied Lady Delacour.
“True!” repeated Lady Boucher: “why, my dear Lady Delacour, you amaze me! — Are you in earnest? — Was there ever any thing so provoking? — There have I been contradicting the report, wherever I went; for I was convinced that the whole story was a mistake, and a fabrication.”
“The history of the reformation might not be exact, but the reformation itself your ladyship may depend upon, since you hear it from my own lips.”
“Well, how amazing! how incredible! — Lord bless me! But your ladyship certainly is not in earnest? for you look just the same, and speak just in the same sort of way: I see no alteration, I confess.”
“And what alteration, my good Lady Boucher, did you expect to see? Did you think that, by way of being exemplarily virtuous, I should, like Lady Q —— , let my sentences come out of my mouth only at the rate of a word a minute?
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