“But these will weigh not a grain in the estimation of her truly disinterested and noble-minded niece. Mrs. Stanhope knows nothing of Mr. Vincent’s proposals; and it is well for him she does not, for her worldly good word would mar the whole. Not so as to Lady Anne and Mr. Percival’s approbation—their opinion is all in all with my friend. How they have contrived it, I know not, but they have gained over Belinda’s mind a degree of power almost equal to parental authority; so you may guess that the doubtful beam will not much longer nod from side to side: indeed it seems to me scarcely necessary to throw in the sword of authority to turn the scale.
“If you can persuade yourself to finish your picturesque tour before the ides of the charming month of November, do, my dear Clarence! make haste and come back to us in time for Belinda’s wedding—and do not forget my commission about the Dorsetshire angel; bring me one in your right hand with a gold ring upon her taper finger—so help you, Cupid! or never more expect a smile
“From your sincere friend and admirer,
“T.C.H. DELACOUR.”
“P.S. Observe, my good sir, that I am not in such a desperate hurry to congratulate you on your marriage, that I should be satisfied with an ordinary Mrs. Hervey: so do not, under pretence of obliging me, or for any other consideration, yoke yourself to some damsel that you will be ashamed to produce. For one woman worthy to be Clarence Hervey’s wife, I have seen, at a moderate computation, a hundred fit to be his mistress. If he should, on this subject, mistake the fitness of things or of persons, he would indeed be in a fair way to be unhappy for life.
“The substance of a lady’s letter, it has been said, always is comprised in the postscript.”
After Lady Delacour had finished this letter, which she had no doubt would bring Clarence immediately to town, she left it with Marriott, with orders to have it sent by the next post. Much fatigued, she then retired to rest, and was not visible the next day till near dinner-time. When Miss Portman returned the packet of Mr. Hervey’s letters, her ladyship was dissatisfied with the measured terms of Belinda’s approbation, and she said, with a sarcastic smile, “So, they have made a complete philosopher of you at Oakly-park! You are perfect in the first lesson—not to admire. And is the torch of Cupid to be extinguished on the altar of Reason?”
“Rather to be lighted there, if possible,” said Belinda; and she endeavoured to turn the conversation to what she thought must be more immediately interesting to Lady Delacour—her own health. She assured her, with perfect truth, that she was at present more intent upon her situation than upon Cupid or his torch.
“I believe you, my generous Belinda!” said Lady Delacour; “and for that very reason I am interested in your affairs, I am afraid, even to the verge of impertinence. May I ask why this preux chevalier of yours did not attend you, or follow you to town?”
“Mr. Vincent?—He knew that I came to attend your ladyship. I told him that you had been confined by a nervous fever, and that it would be impossible for me to see him at present; but I promised, when you could spare me, to return to Oakly-park.”
Lady Delacour sighed, and opened Clarence Hervey’s letters one after another, looking over them without seeming well to know what she was about. Lord Delacour came into the room whilst these letters were still in her hand. He had been absent since the preceding morning, and he now seemed as if he were just come home, much fatigued. He began in a tone of great anxiety to inquire after Lady Delacour’s health. She was piqued at his having left home at such a time, and, merely bowing her head to him, she went on reading. His eyes glanced upon the letters which she held in her hand; and when he saw the well-known writing of Clarence Hervey, his manner immediately altered, and, stammering out some common-place phrases, he threw himself into an arm-chair by the fireside, protesting that he was tired to death—that he was half dead—that he had been in a post-chaise for three hours, which he hated—had ridden fifty miles since yesterday; and he muttered that he was a fool for his pains—an observation which, though it reached her ladyship’s ears, she did not think proper to contradict.
His lordship had then recourse to his watch, his never-failing friend in need, which he always pulled out with a particular jerk when he was vexed.
“It is time for me to be gone—I shall be late at Studley’s.”
“You dine with his lordship then?” said Lady Delacour, in a careless tone.
“Yes; and his good burgundy, I hope, will wind me up again,” said he, stretching himself, “for I am quite down.”
“Quite down? Then we may conclude that my friend Mrs. Luttridge is not yet come to Rantipole. Rantipole, my dear,” continued Lady Delacour, turning to Miss Portman, “is the name of Harriot Freke’s villa in Kent. However strange it may sound to your ears and mine, I can assure you the name has made fortune amongst a certain description of wits. And candour must allow that, if not elegant, it is appropriate; it gives a just idea of the manners and way of life of the place, for every thing at Rantipole is rantipole. But I am really concerned, my lord, you should have ridden yourself down in this way for nothing. Why did not you get better intelligence before you set out? I am afraid you feel the loss of Champfort. Why did not you contrive to learn for certain, my dear good lord, whether the Luttridge was at Rantipole, before you set out on this wild goose chase?”
“My dear good lady,” replied Lord Delacour, assuming a degree of spirit which startled her as much as it became him, “why do you not get better intelligence before you suspect me of being a brute and a liar? Did not I promise you yesterday, that I would break with the Luttridge, as you call her? and how could you imagine that the instant afterwards, just at the time I was wrung to the soul, as you know I was—how could you imagine I would leave you to go to Rantipole, or to any woman upon earth?”
“Oh, my lord! I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon a thousand times,” cried Lady Delacour, rising with much emotion; and, going towards him with a sudden impulse, she kissed his forehead.
“And so you ought to beg my pardon,” said Lord Delacour, in a faltering voice, but without moving his posture.
“You will acknowledge you left me, however, my lord? That is clear.”
“Left you! Yes, so I did; to ride all over the country in search of a house that would suit you. For what else did you think I could leave you at such a time as this?”
Lady Delacour again stooped, and leaned her arm upon his shoulder.
“I wish to Heaven, my dear,” said his lordship, shrinking as he put away her hand, which still held Clarence Hervey’s letters, “I wish to Heaven, my dear, you would not hold those abominable perfumed papers just under my very nose. You know I cannot stand perfumes.”
“Are they perfumed? Ay; so every thing is that I keep in that cabinet of curiosities. Thank you, my dear Miss Portman,” said her ladyship, as Belinda rose to take the letters from her hand. “Will you have the goodness to put them back into their cabinet, if you can endure to touch them, if the perfume has not overcome you as well as my lord? After all, it is only ottar of roses, to which few people’s olfactory nerves have an antipathy.”
“I have the honour to be one of the few,” said his lordship, rising from his seat with so sudden a motion as to displace Lady Delacour’s arm which leaned upon him. “For my part,” continued he, taking down one of the Argand lamps from the chimney-piece, and trimming it, “I would rather a hundred to one snuff up the oil of this cursed lamp.”
Whilst his lordship applied himself to trimming the lamp with great earnestness, Lady Delacour negligently walked away to the farthest end of the room, where stood the cabinet, which Belinda was trying to unlock.
“Stay, my love; it has a secret lock, which I alone can manage.”
“Oh, my dear Lady Delacour!” whispered Belinda, holding her hand as she gave her the key, “I never can love or esteem you if you use Lord Delacour ill now.”
“Ill now? ill now? This lock is spoilt, I do believe,” said she aloud.
“Nay, you understand me, Lady Delacour! You see what is passing in his mind.”
“To be sure: I am not a fool, though he is. I see he is jealous, though he has had such damning proof that all’s right—the man’s a fool, that’s all. Are you sure this is the key I gave you, my dear?”
“And can you think him a fool,” pursued Belinda, in a still more earnest whisper, “for being more jealous of your mind than of your person? Fools have seldom so much penetration, or so much delicacy.”
“But, Lord! what would you have me do? what would you have me say? That Lord Delacour writes better letters than these?”
“Oh, no! but show him these letters, and you will do justice to him, to yourself, to Cla——, to every body.”
“I am sure I should be happy to do justice to every body.”
“Then pray do this very instant, my dearest Lady Delacour! and I shall love you for it all my life.”
“Done!—for who can withstand that offer?—Done!” said her ladyship. Then turning to Lord Delacour, “My lord, will you come here and tell us what can be the matter with this lock?”
“If the lock be spoiled, Lady Delacour, you had better send for a locksmith,” replied his lordship, who was still employed about the wick of the Argand: “I am no locksmith—I do not pretend to understand locks—especially secret locks.”
“But you will not desert us at our utmost need, I am sure, my lord,” said Belinda, approaching him with a conciliatory smile.
“You want the light, I believe, more than I do,” said his lordship, advancing with the lamp to meet her. “Well! what is the matter with this confounded lock of yours, Lady Delacour? I know I should be at Studley’s by this time—but how in the devil’s name can you expect me to open a secret lock when I do not know the secret, Lady Delacour?”
“Then I will tell you the secret, Lord Delacour—that there is no secret at all in the lock, or in the letters. Here, if you can stand the odious smell of ottar of roses, take these letters and read them, foolish man; and keep them till the shocking perfume is gone off.”
Lord Delacour could scarcely believe his senses; he looked in Lady Delacour’s eyes to see whether he had understood her rightly.
“But I am afraid,” said she, smiling, “that you will find the perfume too overcoming.”
“Not half so overcoming,” cried he, seizing her hand, and kissing it often with eager tenderness, “not half so overcoming as this confidence, this kindness, this condescension from you.”
“Miss Portman will think us both a couple of old fools,” said her ladyship, making a slight effort to withdraw her hand. “But she is almost as great a simpleton herself, I think,” continued she, observing that the tears stood in Belinda’s eyes.
“My lord,” said a footman who came in at this instant, “do you dress? The carriage is at the door, as you ordered, to go to Lord Studley’s.”
“I’d see Lord Studley at the devil, sir, and his burgundy along with him, before I’d go to him to-day; and you may tell him so, if you please,” cried Lord Delacour.
“Very well, my lord,” said the footman.
“My lord dines at home—they may put up the carriage—that’s all,” said Lady Delacour: “only let us have dinner directly,” added she, as the servant shut the door. “Miss Portman will be famished amongst us: there is no living upon sentiment.”
“And there is no living with such belles without being something more of a beau,” said Lord Delacour, looking at his splashed boots. “I will be ready for dinner before dinner is ready for me.” With activity very unusual to him, he hurried out of the room to change his dress.
“O day of wonders!” exclaimed Lady Delacour. “And, O night of wonders! if we can get him through the evening without the help of Lord Studley’s wine. You must give us some music, my good Belinda, and make him accompany you with his flute. I can tell you he has really a very pretty taste for music, and knows fifty times more of the matter than half the dilettanti, who squeeze the human face divine into all manner of ridiculous shapes, by way of persuading you that they are in ecstasy! And, my dear, do not forget to show us the charming little portfolio of drawings that you have brought from Oakly-park. Lord Delacour was with me at Harrowgate in the days of his courtship: he knows the charming views that you have been taking about Knaresborough and Fountain’s Abbey, and all those places. I will answer for it, he remembers them a hundred times better than I do. And, my love, I assure you he is a better judge of drawing than many whom we saw ogling Venus rising from the sea, in the Orleans gallery. Lord Delacour has let his talents go to sleep in a shameless manner; but really he has talents, if they could be wakened. By-the-by, pray make him tell you the story of Lord Studley’s original Titian: he tells that story with real humour. Perhaps you have not found it out, but Lord Delacour has a vast deal of drollery in his own way, and——”
“Dinner’s ready, my lady!”
“That is a pity!” whispered Lady Delacour; “for if they had let me go on in my present humour, I should have found out that my lord has every accomplishment under the sun, and every requisite under the moon, to make the marriage state happy.”
With the assistance of Belinda’s portfolio and her harp, and the good-humour and sprightliness of Lady Delacour’s wit, his lordship got through the evening much to his own satisfaction. He played on the flute, he told the story of Studley’s original Titian, and he detected a fault that had escaped Mr. Percival in the perspective of Miss Portman’s sketch of Fountain’s Abbey. The perception that his talents were called out, and that he appeared to unusual advantage, made him excellent company: he found that the spirits can be raised by self-complacency even more agreeably than by burgundy.
Whilst they were at breakfast the next morning in Lady Delacour’s dressing-room, Marriott knocked at the door, and immediately opening it, exclaimed in a joyful tone, “Miss Portman, they’re eating it! Ma’am, they’re eating it as fast as ever they can!”
“Bring them in; your lady will give you leave, Marriott, I fancy,” said Miss Portman. Marriott brought in her gold fishes; some green leaves were floating on the top of the water in the glass globe.
“See, my lady,” said she, “what Miss Portman has been so good as to bring from Oakly-park for my poor gold fishes, who, I am sure, ought to be much obliged to her, as well as myself.” Marriott set the globe beside her lady, and retired.
“From Oakly-park! And by what name impossible to pronounce must I call these green leaves, to please botanic ears?” said Lady Delacour.
“This,” replied Belinda, “is what
and it is to be found in any ditch or standing pool.”
“And what possessed you, my dear, for the sake of Marriott and her gold fishes, to trouble yourself to bring such stuff a hundred and seventy miles?”
“To oblige little Charles Percival,” said Miss Portman. “He was anxious to keep his promise of sending it to your Helena. She found out in some book that she was reading with him last summer, that gold fishes are fond of this plant; and I wish,” added Belinda, in a timid voice, “that she were here at this instant to see them eat it.”
Lady Delacour was silent for some minutes, and kept her eye steadily upon the gold fishes. At length she said, “I never shall forget how well the poor little creature behaved about those gold fishes. I grew amazingly fond of her whilst she was with me. But you know, circumstanced as I was, after you left me, I could not have her at home.”
“But now I am here,” said Belinda, “will she he any trouble to you? And will she not make your home more agreeable to you, and to Lord Delacour, who was evidently very fond of her?”
“Ah, my dear!” said Lady Delacour, “you forget, and so do I at times, what I have to go through. It is in vain to talk, to think of making home, or any place, or any thing, or any person, agreeable to me now. What am I? The outside rind is left—the sap is gone. The tree lasts from day to day by miracle—it cannot last long. You would not wonder to hear me talk in this way, if you knew the terrible time I had last night after we parted. But I have these nights constantly now. Let us talk of something else. What have you there—a manuscript?”
“Yes, a little journal of Edward Percival’s, which he sent for the entertainment of Helena.”
Lady Delacour stretched out her hand for it. “The boy will write as like his father as possible,” said she, turning over the leaves. “I wish to have this poor girl with me—but I have no spirits. And you know, whenever Lord Delacour can find a house that will suit us, we shall leave town, and I could not take Helena with me. But this may be the last opportunity I may ever have of seeing her; and I can refuse you nothing, my dear. So will you go for her? She can stay with us a few days. Lady Boucher, that most convenient dowager, who likes going about, no matter where, all the morning, will go with you to Mrs. Dumont’s academy in Sloane-street. I would as soon go to a bird-fancier’s as to a boarding-school for young ladies: indeed, I am not well enough to go any where. So I will throw myself upon a sofa, and read this child’s journal. I wonder how that or any thing else can interest me now.”
Belinda, who had been used to the variations of Lady Delacour’s spirits, was not much alarmed by the despondent strain in which she now spoke, especially when she considered that the thoughts of the dreadful trial this unfortunate woman was soon to go through must naturally depress her courage. Rejoiced at the permission that she had obtained to go for Helena, Miss Portman sent immediately to Lady Boucher, who took her to Sloane-street.
“Now, my dear, considerate Miss Portman,” said Lady Boucher, “I must beg, and request that you will hurry Miss Delacour into the carriage as fast as possible. I have not a moment to spare; for I am to be at a china auction at two, that I would not miss for the whole world. Well, what’s the matter with the people? Why does not James knock at the door? Can’t the man read? Can’t the man see?” cried the purblind dowager. “Is not that Mrs. Dumont’s name on the door before his eyes?”
“No, ma’am, I believe this name is Ellicot,” said Belinda.
“Ellicot, is it? Ay, true. But what’s the man stopping for, then? Mrs. Dumont’s is the next door, tell the blind dunce. Mercy on us! To waste one’s time in this way! I shall, as sure as fate, be too late for the china auction. What upon earth stops us?”
“Nothing but a little covered cart, which stands at Mrs. Dumont’s door. There, now it is going; an old man is drawing it out of the way as fast as he can.”
“Open the coach-door, James!” cried Lady Boucher the moment that they had drawn up. “Now, my dear, considerate Miss Portman, remember the auction, and don’t let Miss Delacour stay to change her dress or any thing.”
Belinda promised not to detain her ladyship a minute. The door at Mrs. Dumont’s was open, and a servant was assisting an old man to carry in some geraniums and balsams out of the covered cart which had stopped the way. In the hall a crowd of children were gathered round a high stand, on which they were eagerly arranging their flower-pots; and the busy hum of voices was so loud, that when Miss Portman first went in, she could neither hear the servant, nor make him hear her name. Nothing was to be heard but “Oh, how beautiful! Oh, how sweet! That’s mine! That’s yours! The great rose geranium for Miss Jefferson! The white Provence rose for Miss Adderly! No, indeed, Miss Pococke, that’s for Miss Delacour; the old man said so.”
“Silence, silence, mesdemoiselles!” cried the voice of a French woman, and all was silence. The little crowd looked towards the hall door; and from the midst of her companions, Helena Delacour, who now caught a glimpse of Belinda, sprang forward, throwing down her white Provence rose as she passed.
“Lady Boucher’s compliments, ma’am,” said the servant to Mrs. Dumont; “she’s in indispensable haste, and she begs you won’t let Miss Delacour think of changing her dress.”
It was the last thing of which Miss Delacour was likely to think at this instant. She was so much overjoyed, when she heard that Belinda was come by her mamma’s desire to take her home, that she would scarcely stay whilst Mrs. Dumont was tying on her straw hat, and exhorting her to let Lady Delacour know how it happened that she was “so far from fit to be seen.”
“Yes, ma’am; yes, ma’am, I’ll remember; I’ll be sure to remember,” said Helena, tripping down the steps. But just as she was getting into the carriage she stopped at the sight of the old man, and exclaimed, “Oh, good old man! I must not forget you.”
“Yes, indeed, you must, though, my dear Miss Delacour,” said Lady Boucher, pulling her into the carriage: “‘tis no time to think of good old men now.”
“But I must. Dear Miss Portman, will you speak for me? I must pay—I must settle—and I have a great deal to say.”
Miss Portman desired the old man to call in Berkley-square at Lady Delacour’s; and this satisfying all parties, they drove away.
When they arrived in Berkley-square, Marriott told them that her lady was just gone to lie down. Edward Percival’s little journal, which she had been reading, was left on the sofa, and Belinda gave it to Helena, who eagerly began to look over it.
“Thirteen pages! Oh, how good he has been to write so much for me!” said she; and she had almost finished reading it before her mother came into the room.
Lady Delacour shrunk back as her daughter ran towards her; for she recollected too well the agony she had once suffered from an embrace of Helena’s. The little girl appeared more grieved than surprised at this; and after kissing her mother’s hand, without speaking, she again looked down at the manuscript.
“Does that engross your attention so entirely, my dear,” said Lady Delacour, “that you can neither spare one word nor one look for your mother?”
“Oh, mamma! I only tried to read, because I thought you were angry with me.”
“An odd reason for trying to read, my dear!” said Lady Delacour with a smile: “have you any better reason for thinking I was angry with you?”
“Ah, I know you are not angry now, for you smile,” said Helena; “but I thought at first that you were, mamma, because you gave me only your hand to kiss.”
“Only my hand! The next time, simpleton, I’ll give you only my foot to kiss,” said her ladyship, sitting down, and holding out her foot playfully.
Her daughter threw aside the book, and kneeling down kissed her foot, saying, in a low voice, “Dear mamma, I never was so happy in my life; for you never looked so very, very kindly at me before.”
“Do not judge always of the kindness people feel for you, child, by their looks; and remember that it is possible a person might have felt more than you could guess by their looks. Pray now, Helena, you are such a good judge of physiognomy, should you guess that I was dying, by my looks?”
The little girl laughed, and repeated “Dying? Oh, no, mamma.”
“Oh, no! because I have such a fine colour in my cheeks, hey?”
“Not for that reason, mamma,” said Helena, withdrawing her eyes from her mother’s face.
“What, then you know rouge already when you see it?—You perceive some difference, for instance, between Miss Portman’s colour and mine? Upon my word, you are a nice observer. Such nice observers are sometimes dangerous to have near one.”
“I hope, mother,” said Helena, “that you do not think I would try to find out any thing that you wish, or that I imagined you wished, I should not know.”
“I do not understand you, child,” cried Lady Delacour, raising herself suddenly upon the sofa, and looking full in her daughter’s face.
Helena’s colour rose to her temples; but, with a firmness that surprised even Belinda, she repeated what she had said nearly in the same words.
“Do you understand her, Miss Portman?” said Lady Delacour.
“She expresses, I think,” said Belinda, “a very honourable sentiment, and one that is easily understood.”
“Ay, in general, certainly,” said Lady Delacour, checking herself; “but I thought that she meant to allude to something in particular—that was what I did not understand. Undoubtedly, my dear, you have just expressed a very honourable sentiment, and one that I should scarcely have expected from a child of your age.
“Helena, my dear,” said her mother, after a silence of some minutes, “did you ever read the Arabian Tales?—‘Yes, mamma,’ I know must be the answer. But do you remember the story of Zobeide, who carried the porter home with her on condition that, let him hear or see what he might, he would ask no questions?”
“Yes, mamma.”
“On the same conditions should you like to stay with me for a few days?”
“Yes. On any conditions, mamma, I should like to stay with you.”
“Agreed, then, my dear!” said Lady Delacour. “Now let us go to the gold fishes, and see them eat lemna, or whatever you please to call it.”
While they were looking at the gold fishes, the old man, who had been desired by Miss Portman to call, arrived. “Who is this fine, gray-haired old man?” said Lady Delacour. Helena, who did not know the share which Belinda’s aunt and her own mother had in the transaction, began with great eagerness to tell the history of the poor gardener, who had been cheated by some fine ladies out of his aloe, &c. She then related how kind Lady Anne Percival and her Aunt Margaret had been to him; that they had gotten him a place as a gardener at Twickenham; and that he had pleased the family to whom he was recommended so much by his good behaviour, that, as they were leaving their house, and obliged to part with him, they had given him all the geraniums and balsams out of the green-house of which he had the care, and these he had been this day selling to the young ladies at Mrs. Dumont’s. “I received the money for him, and I was just going to pay him,” said Helena, “when Miss Portman came; and that put every thing else out of my head. May I go and give him his money now, mamma?”
“He can wait a few minutes,” said Lady Delacour, who had listened to this story with much embarrassment and impatience. “Before you go, Helena, favour us with the names of the fine ladies who cheated this old gardener out of his aloe.”
“Indeed, mamma, I don’t know their names.”
“No!—Did you never ask Lady Anne Percival, or your aunt Margaret?—Look in my face, child! Did they never inform you?”
“No, ma’am, never. I once asked Lady Anne, and she said that she did not choose to tell me; that it would be of no use to me to know.”
“I give Lady Anne Percival more credit and more thanks for this,” cried Lady Delacour, “than for all the rest. I see she has not attempted to lower me in my child’s opinion. I am the fine lady, Helena—I was the cause of his being cheated—I was intent upon the noble end of outshining a certain Mrs. Luttridge—the noble means I left to others, and the means have proved worthy of the end. I deserve to be brought to shame for my folly; yet my being ashamed will do nobody any good but myself. Restitution is in these cases the best proof of repentance. Go, Helena, my love! settle your little affairs with this old man, and bid him call here again to-morrow. I will see what we can do for him.”
Lord Delacour had this very morning sent home to her ladyship a handsome diamond ring, which had been intended as a present for Mrs. Luttridge, and which he imagined would therefore be peculiarly acceptable to his lady. In the evening, when his lordship asked her how she liked the ring, which he desired the jeweller to leave for her to look at it, she answered, that it was a handsome ring, but that she hoped he had not purchased it for her.
“It is not actually bought, my dear,” said his lordship; “but if it suits your fancy, I hope you will do me the honour to wear it for my sake.”
“I will wear it for your sake, my lord,” said Lady Delacour, “if you desire it; and as a mark of your regard it is agreeable: but as to the rest—
If you wish to do me a kindness, I will tell you what I should like much better than diamonds, though I know it is rather ungracious to dictate the form and fashion of a favour. But as my dictatorship in all human probability cannot last much longer—”
“Oh, my dear Lady Delacour! I must not hear you talk in this manner: your dictatorship, as you call it, will I hope last many, many happy years. But to the point—what should you like better, my dear, than this foolish ring?”
Her ladyship then expressed her wish that a small annuity might be settled upon a poor old man, whom she said she had unwittingly injured. She told the story of the rival galas and the aloe, and concluded by observing, that her lord was in some measure called upon to remedy part of the unnumbered ills which had sprung from her hatred of Mrs. Luttridge, as he had originally been the cause of her unextinguishable ire. Lord Delacour was flattered by this hint, and the annuity was immediately promised to the old gardener.
In talking to this old man afterward, Lady Delacour found, that the family in whose service he lately lived had a house at Twickenham that would just answer her purpose. Lord Delacour’s inquiries had hitherto been unsuccessful; he was rejoiced to find what he wanted just as he was giving up the search. The house was taken, and the old man hired as gardener—a circumstance which seemed to give him almost as much pleasure as the annuity; for there was a morello cherry-tree in the garden which had succeeded the aloe in his affection: “it would have grieved him sorely,” he said, “to leave his favourite tree to strangers, after all the pains he had been at in netting it to keep off the birds.”
As the period approached when her fate was to be decided, Lady Delacour’s courage seemed to rise; and at the same time her anxiety, that her secret should not be discovered, appeared to increase.
“If I survive this business,” said she, “it is my firm intention to appear in a new character, or rather to assert my real character. I will break through the spell of dissipation—I will at once cast off all the acquaintance that are unworthy of me—I will, in one word, go with you, my dear Belinda, to Mr. Percival’s. I can bear to be mortified for my good; and I am willing, since I find that Lady Anne Percival has behaved generously to me, with regard to Helena’s affections, I am willing that the recovery of my moral health should be attributed to the salubrious air of Oakly-park. But it would be inexpressible, intolerable mortification to me, to have it said or suspected in the world of fashion, that I retreated from the ranks disabled instead of disgusted. A voluntary retirement is graceful and dignified; a forced retreat is awkward and humiliating. You must be sensible that I could not endure to have it whispered—‘Lady Delacour now sets up for being a prude, because she can no longer be a coquette.’ Lady Delacour would become the subject of witticisms, epigrams, caricatures without end. It would just be the very thing for Mrs. Luttridge; then she would revenge herself without mercy for the ass and her panniers. We should have ‘Lord and Lady D——, or the Domestic Tête-à-tête,’ or ‘The Reformed Amazon,’ stuck up in a print-shop window! Oh, my dear, think of seeing such a thing! I should die with vexation; and of all deaths, that is the death I should like the least.”
Though Belinda could not entirely enter into those feelings, which thus made Lady Delacour invent wit against herself, and anticipate caricatures; yet she did every thing in her power to calm her ladyship’s apprehension of a discovery.
“My dear,” said Lady Delacour, “I have perfect confidence in Lord Delacour’s promise, and in his good-nature, of which he has within these few days given me proofs that are not lost upon my heart; but he is not the most discreet man in the world. Whenever he is anxious about any thing, you may read it a mile off in his eyes, nose, mouth, and chin. And to tell you all my fears in one word, Marriott informed me this morning, that the Luttridge, who came from Harrowgate to Rantipole, to meet Lord Delacour, finding that there was no drawing him to her, has actually brought herself to town.
“To town!—At this strange time of year! How will my lord resist this unequivocal, unprecedented proof of passion? If she catch hold of him again, I am undone. Or, even suppose him firm as a rock, her surprise, her jealousy, her curiosity, will set all engines at work, to find out by what witchcraft I have taken my husband from her. Every precaution that prudence could devise against her malicious curiosity I have taken. Marriott, you know, is above all temptation. That vile wretch (naming the person whose quack medicines had nearly destroyed her), that vile wretch will be silent from fear, for his own sake. He is yet to be paid and dismissed. That should have been done long ago, but I had not money both for him and Mrs. Franks the milliner. She is now paid: and Lord Delacour—I am glad to tell his friend how well he deserves her good opinion—Lord Delacour in the handsomest manner supplied me with the means of satisfying this man. He is to be here at three o’clock to-day; and this is the last interview he will ever have with Lady Delacour in the mysterious boudoir.”
The fears which her ladyship expressed of Mrs. Luttridge’s malicious curiosity were not totally without foundation. Champfort was at work for her and for himself. The memorable night of Lady Delacour’s overturn, and the bustle that Marriott made about the key of the boudoir, were still fresh in his memory; and he was in hopes that, if he could discover the mystery, he should at once regain his power over Lord Delacour, reinstate himself in his lucrative place, and obtain a handsome reward, or, more properly speaking, bribe, from Mrs. Luttridge. The means of obtaining information of all that passed in Lady Delacour’s family were, he thought, still in his power, though he was no longer an inmate of the house. The stupid maid was not so stupid as to be impenetrable to the voice of flattery, or, as Mr. Champfort called it, the voice of love. He found it his interest to court, and she her pleasure to be courted. On these “coquettes of the second table,” on these underplots in the drama, much of the comedy, and some of the tragedy, of life depend. Under the unsuspected mask of stupidity this worthy mistress of our intriguing valet-de-chambre concealed the quick ears of a listener, and the demure eyes of a spy. Long, however, did she listen, and long did she spy in vain, till at last Mr. Champfort gave her notice in writing that his love would not last another week, unless she could within that time contrive to satisfy his curiosity; and that, in short, she must find out the reason why the boudoir was always locked, and why Mrs. Marriott alone was to be trusted with the key. Now it happened that this billet-doux was received on the very day appointed for Lady Delacour’s last interview with the quack surgeon in the mysterious boudoir. Marriott, as it was her custom upon such occasions, let the surgeon in, and showed him up the back stairs into the boudoir, locked the door, and bade him wait there till her lady came. The man had not been punctual to the hour appointed; and Lady Delacour, giving up all expectation of his coming till the next day, had retired to her bedchamber, where she of late usually at this hour secluded herself to read methodistical books, or to sleep. Marriott, when she went up to let her lady know that the person, as she always called him, was come, found her so fast asleep that she thought it a pity to waken her, as she had not slept at all the preceding night. She shut the door very softly, and left her lady to repose. At the bottom of the stairs she was met by the stupid maid, whom she immediately despatched with orders to wash some lace: “Your lady’s asleep,” said she, “and pray let me have no running up and down stairs.” The room into which the stupid maid went was directly underneath the boudoir; and whilst she was there she thought that she heard the steps of a man’s foot walking over head. She listened more attentively—she heard them again. She armed herself with a glass of jelly in her hand, for my lady, and hurried up stairs instantly to my lady’s room. She was much surprised to see my lady fast asleep. Her astonishment at finding that Mrs. Marriott had told her the truth was such, as for a moment to bereave her of all presence of mind, and she stood with the door ajar in her hand. As thus she stood she was roused by the sound of some one clearing his throat very softly in the boudoir—his throat; for she recollected the footsteps she had heard before, and she was convinced it could be no other than a masculine throat. She listened again, and stooped down to try whether any feet could be seen under the door. As she was in this attitude, her lady suddenly turned on her bed, and the book which she had been reading fell from the pillow to the floor with a noise, that made the listener start up instantaneously in great terror. The noise, however, did not waken Lady Delacour, who was in that dead sleep which is sometimes the effect of opium. The noise was louder than what could have been made by the fall of a book alone, and the girl descried a key that had fallen along with the book. It occurred to her that this might possibly be the key of the boudoir. From one of those irresistible impulses which some people make an excuse for doing whatever they please, she seized it, resolved at all hazards to open the mysterious door. She was cautiously putting the key into the key-hole, so as not to make the least noise, when she was suddenly startled by a voice behind her, which said, “Who gave you leave to open that door?”
She turned, and saw Helena standing at the half open bedchamber door.
“Mercy, Miss Delacour! who thought of seeing you? For God’s sake, don’t make a noise to waken my lady!”
“Did my mother desire you to go into that room?” repeated Helena.
“Dear me! no, miss,” said the maid, putting on her stupid face; “but I only thought to open the door, to let in a little air to freshen the room, which my lady always likes, and bids me to do—and I thought—”
Helena took the key gently from her hand without listening to any more of her thoughts, and the woman left the room muttering something about jelly and my lady, Helena went to the side of her mother’s bed, determined to wait there till she awakened, then to give her the key, and tell her the circumstance. Notwithstanding the real simplicity of this little girl’s character, she was, as her mother had discovered, a nice observer, and she had remarked that her mother permitted no one but Marriott to go into the boudoir. This remark did not excite her to dive into the mystery: on the contrary, she carefully repressed all curiosity, remembering the promise she had given to her mother when she talked of Zobeide and the porter. She had not been without temptation to break this promise; for the maid who usually attended her toilette had employed every art in her power to stimulate her curiosity. As she was dressing Helena this morning, she had said to her, “The reason I was so late calling you, miss, this morning, was because I was so late myself last night; for I went to the play, miss, last night, which was Bluebeard. Lord bless us! I’m sure, if I had been Bluebeard’s wife, I should have opened the door, if I’d died for it; for to have the notion of living all day long, and all night too, in a house in which there was a room that one was never to go into, is a thing I could not put up with.” Then after a pause, and after waiting in vain for some reply from Helena, she added, “Pray, Miss Delacour, did you ever go into that little room within my lady’s bedchamber, that Mrs. Marriott keeps the key of always?”
“No,” said Helena.
“I’ve often wondered what’s in it: but then that’s only because I’m a simpleton. I thought to be sure, you knew.”
Observing that Helena looked much displeased, she broke off her speech, hoping that what she had said would operate in due time, and that she should thus excite the young lady to get the secret from Marriott, which she had no doubt afterward of worming from Miss Delacour.
In all this she calculated ill; for what she had said only made Helena distrust and dislike her. It was the recollection of this conversation that made her follow the maid to her mother’s bedchamber, to see what detained her there so long. Helena had heard Marriott say, that “she ought not to run up and down stairs, because her lady was asleep,” and it appeared extraordinary that but a few minutes after this information she should have gone into the room with a glass of jelly in her hand.
“Ah, mamma!” thought Helena, as she stood beside her mother’s bed, “you did not understand, and perhaps you did not believe me, when I said that I would not try to find out any thing that you wished me not to know. Now I hope you will understand me better.”
Lady Delacour opened her eyes: “Helena,” cried she, starting up, “how came you by that key?”
“Oh, mother! don’t look as if you suspected me.” She then told her mother how the key came into her hands.
“My dear child, you have done me an essential service,” said Lady Delacour: “you know not its importance, at least in my estimation. But what gives me infinitely more satisfaction, you have proved yourself worthy of my esteem—my love.”
Marriott came into the room, and whispered a few words to her lady.
“You may speak out, Marriott, before my Helena,” said Lady Delacour, rising from the bed as she spoke: “child as she is, Helena has deserved my confidence; and she shall be convinced that, where her mother has once reason to confide, she is incapable of suspicion. Wait here for a few minutes, my dear.”
She went to her boudoir, paid and dismissed the surgeon expeditiously, then returned, and taking her daughter by the hand, she said, “You look all simplicity, my dear! I see you have no vulgar, school-girl curiosity. You will have all your mother’s strength of mind; may you never have any of her faults, or any of her misfortunes! I speak to you not as to a child, Helena, for you have reason far above your years; and you will remember what I now say to you as long as you live. You will possess talents, beauty, fortune; you will be admired, followed, and flattered, as I have been: but do not throw away your life as I have thrown away mine—to win the praise of fools. Had I used but half the talents I possess, as I hope you will use yours, I might have been an ornament to my sex—I might have been a Lady Anne Percival.”
Here Lady Delacour’s voice failed; but commanding her emotion, she in a few moments went on speaking.
“Choose your friends well, my dear daughter! It was my misfortune, my folly, early in life to connect myself with a woman, who under the name of frolic led me into every species of mischief. You are too young, too innocent, to hear the particulars of my history now; but you will hear them all at a proper time from my best friend, Miss Portman. I shall leave you to her care, my dear, when I die.”
“When you die!—Oh, mother!” said Helena, “but why do you talk of dying?” and she threw her arms round her mother.
“Gently, my love!” said Lady Delacour, shrinking back; and she seized this moment to explain to her daughter why she shrunk in this manner from her caresses, and why she talked of dying.
Helena was excessively shocked.
“I wished, my dear,” resumed her mother, calmly, “I wished to have spared you the pain of knowing all this. I have given you but little pleasure in my life; it is unjust to give you so much pain. We shall go to Twickenham to-morrow, and I will leave you with your Aunt Margaret, my dear, till all is over. If I die, Belinda will take you with her immediately to Oakly-park—you shall have as little sorrow as possible. If you had shown me less of your affectionate temper, you would have spared yourself the anguish that you now feel, and you would have spared me—”
“My dear, kind mother,” interrupted Helena, throwing herself on her knees at her mother’s feet, “do not send me away from you—I don’t wish to go to my Aunt Margaret—I don’t wish to go to Oakly-park—I wish to stay with you. Do not send me away from you; for I shall suffer ten times more if I am not with you, though I know I can be of no use.”
Overcome by her daughter’s entreaties, Lady Delacour at last consented that she should remain with her, and that she should accompany her to Twickenham.
The remainder of this day was taken up in preparations for their departure. The stupid maid was immediately dismissed. No questions were asked, and no reasons for her dismissal assigned, except that Lady Delacour had no farther occasion for her services. Marriott alone was to attend her lady to Twickenham. Lord Delacour, it was settled, should stay in town, lest the unusual circumstance of his attending his lady should excite public curiosity. His lordship, who was naturally a good-natured man, and who had been touched by the kindness his wife had lately shown him, was in extreme agitation during the whole of this day, which he thought might possibly be the last of her existence. She, on the contrary, was calm and collected; her courage seemed to rise with the necessity for its exertion.
In the morning, when the carriage came to the door, as she parted with Lord Delacour, she put into his hand a paper that contained some directions and requests with which, she said, she hoped that he would comply, if they should prove to be her last. The paper contained only some legacies to her servants, a provision for Marriott, and a bequest to her excellent and beloved friend, Belinda Portman, of the cabinet in which she kept Clarence Hervey’s letters.
Interlined in this place, Lady Delacour had written these words: “My daughter is nobly provided for; and lest any doubt or difficulty should arise from the omission, I think it necessary to mention that the said cabinet contains the valuable jewels left to me by my late uncle, and that it is my intention that the said jewels should be part of my bequest to the said Belinda Portman.—If she marry a man of good fortune, she will wear them for my sake: if she do not marry an opulent husband, I hope she will sell the jewels without scruple, as they are intended for her convenience, and not as an ostentatious bequest. It is fit that she should be as independent in her circumstances as she is in her mind.”
Lord Delacour with much emotion looked over this paper, and assured her ladyship that she should be obeyed, if—he could say no more.
“Farewell, then, my lord!” said she: “keep up your spirits, for I intend to live many years yet to try them.”