Read Ebook: Tales and Novels — Volume 03 Belinda by Edgeworth Maria

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 2245 lines and 178039 words, and 45 pages

BELINDA

CHARACTERS.

Mrs. Stanhope, a well-bred woman, accomplished in that branch of knowledge which is called the art of rising in the world, had, with but a small fortune, contrived to live in the highest company. She prided herself upon having established half a dozen nieces most happily, that is to say, upon having married them to men of fortunes far superior to their own. One niece still remained unmarried--Belinda Portman, of whom she was determined to get rid with all convenient expedition. Belinda was handsome, graceful, sprightly, and highly accomplished; her aunt had endeavoured to teach her that a young lady's chief business is to please in society, that all her charms and accomplishments should be invariably subservient to one grand object--the establishing herself in the world:

"For this, hands, lips, and eyes were put to school, And each instructed feature had its rule."

Mrs. Stanhope did not find Belinda such a docile pupil as her other nieces, for she had been educated chiefly in the country; she had early been inspired with a taste for domestic pleasures; she was fond of reading, and disposed to conduct herself with prudence and integrity. Her character, however, was yet to be developed by circumstances.

Mrs. Stanhope lived at Bath, where she had opportunities of showing her niece off, as she thought, to advantage; but as her health began to decline, she could not go out with her as much as she wished. After manoeuvring with more than her usual art, she succeeded in fastening Belinda upon the fashionable Lady Delacour for the season. Her ladyship was so much pleased by Miss Portman's accomplishments and vivacity, as to invite her to spend the winter with her in London. Soon after her arrival in town, Belinda received the following letter from her aunt Stanhope.

"Crescent, Bath.

"Lady Delacour has an incomparable taste in dress: consult her, my dear, and do not, by an ill-judged economy, counteract my views--apropos, I have no objection to your being presented at court. You will, of course, have credit with all her ladyship's tradespeople, if you manage properly. To know how and when to lay out money is highly commendable, for in some situations, people judge of what one can afford by what one actually spends.--I know of no law which compels a young lady to tell what her age or her fortune may be. You have no occasion for caution yet on one of these points.

"I have covered my old carpet with a handsome green baize, and every stranger who comes to see me, I observe, takes it for granted that I have a rich carpet under it. Say every thing that is proper, in your best manner, for me to Lady Delacour.

"Adieu, my dear Belinda,

"Yours, very sincerely,

"SELINA STANHOPE."

A short time after her arrival at Lady Delacour's, Belinda began to see through the thin veil with which politeness covers domestic misery.--Abroad, and at home, Lady Delacour was two different persons. Abroad she appeared all life, spirit, and good humour--at home, listless, fretful, and melancholy; she seemed like a spoiled actress off the stage, over-stimulated by applause, and exhausted by the exertions of supporting a fictitious character.--When her house was filled with well-dressed crowds, when it blazed with lights, and resounded with music and dancing, Lady Delacour, in the character of Mistress of the Revels, shone the soul and spirit of pleasure and frolic: but the moment the company retired, when the music ceased, and the lights were extinguishing, the spell was dissolved.

She would sometimes walk up and down the empty magnificent saloon, absorbed in thoughts seemingly of the most painful nature.

For some days after Belinda's arrival in town she heard nothing of Lord Delacour; his lady never mentioned his name, except once accidentally, as she was showing Miss Portman the house, she said, "Don't open that door--those are only Lord Delacour's apartments."--The first time Belinda ever saw his lordship, he was dead drunk in the arms of two footmen, who were carrying him up stairs to his bedchamber: his lady, who was just returned from Ranelagh, passed by him on the landing-place with a look of sovereign contempt.

"What is the matter?--Who is this?" said Belinda.

The next morning, as her ladyship and Miss Portman were sitting at the breakfast-table, after a very late breakfast, Lord Delacour entered the room.

"Lord Delacour, sober, my dear,"--said her ladyship to Miss Portman, by way of introducing him. Prejudiced by her ladyship, Belinda was inclined to think that Lord Delacour sober would not be more agreeable or more rational than Lord Delacour drunk. "How old do you take my lord to be?" whispered her ladyship, as she saw Belinda's eye fixed upon the trembling hand which carried his teacup to his lips: "I'll lay you a wager," continued she aloud--"I'll lay your birth-night dress, gold fringe, and laurel wreaths into the bargain, that you don't guess right."

"I hope you don't think of going to this birth-night, lady Delacour?" said his lordship.

"I'll give you six guesses, and I'll bet you don't come within sixteen years," pursued her ladyship, still looking at Belinda.

"You cannot have the new carriage you have bespoken," said his lordship. "Will you do me the honour to attend to me, Lady Delacour?"

"Then you won't venture to guess, Belinda," said her ladyship --"Well, I believe you are right--for certainly you would guess him to be six-and-sixty, instead of six-and-thirty; but then he can drink more than any two-legged animal in his majesty's dominions, and you know that is an advantage which is well worth twenty or thirty years of a man's life--especially to persons who have no other chance of distinguishing themselves."

"If some people had distinguished themselves a little less in the world," retorted his lordship, "it would have been as well!"

"As well!--how flat!"

"Flatly then I have to inform you, Lady Delacour, that I will neither be contradicted nor laughed at--you understand me,--it would be as well, flat or not flat, my Lady Delacour, if your ladyship would attend more to your own conduct, and less to others!"

"I never will oblige you, my lord, that you may depend upon," cried her ladyship, with a look of indignant contempt.

His lordship whistled, rang for his horses, and looked at his nails with a smile. Belinda, shocked and in a great confusion, rose to leave the room, dreading the gross continuance of this matrimonial dialogue.

"Mr. Hervey, my lady," said a footman, opening the door; and he was scarcely announced, when her ladyship went forward to receive him with an air of easy familiarity.--"Where have you buried yourself, Hervey, this age past?" cried she, shaking hands with him: "there's absolutely no living in this most stupid of all worlds without you.--Mr. Hervey--Miss Portman--but don't look as if you were half asleep, man--What are you dreaming of, Clarence? Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?"

"Oh! I have passed a miserable night," replied Clarence, throwing himself into an actor's attitude, and speaking in a fine tone of stage declamation.

"What was your dream, my lord? I pray you, tell me,"

said her ladyship in a similar tone.--Clarence went on--

"O, Mrs. Luttridge to the life!" cried Lady Delacour: "I know where you have been now, and I pity you--but sit down," said she, making room for him between Belinda and herself upon the sofa, "sit down here, and tell me what could take you to that odious Mrs. Luttridge's."

Mr. Hervey threw himself on the sofa; Lord Delacour whistled as before, and left the room without uttering a syllable.

"But my dream has made me forget myself strangely," said Mr. Hervey, turning to Belinda, and producing her bracelet: "Mrs. Stanhope promised me that if I delivered it safely, I should be rewarded with the honour of putting it on the owner's fair arm." A conversation now took place on the nature of ladies' promises--on fashionable bracelets--on the size of the arm of the Venus de Medici--on Lady Delacour's and Miss Portman's--on the thick legs of ancient statues--and on the various defects and absurdities of Mrs. Luttridge and her wig. On all these topics Mr. Hervey displayed much wit, gallantry, and satire, with so happy an effect, that Belinda, when he took leave, was precisely of her aunt's opinion, that he was a most uncommonly pleasant young man.

Belinda's fears of Lady Delacour, as a dangerous rival, were much quieted by the artful insinuations of Mrs. Stanhope, with respect to her age, &c.; and in proportion as her fears subsided, she blamed herself for having written too harshly of her ladyship's conduct. The idea that whilst she appeared as Lady Delacour's friend she ought not to propagate any stories to her disadvantage, operated powerfully upon Belinda's mind, and she reproached herself for having told even her aunt what she had seen in private. She thought that she had been guilty of treachery, and she wrote again immediately to Mrs. Stanhope, to conjure her to burn her last letter; to forget, if possible, its contents; and to believe that not a syllable of a similar nature should ever more be heard from her: she was just concluding with the words--"I hope my dear aunt will consider all this as an error of my judgment, and not of my heart," when Lady Delacour burst into the room, exclaiming, in a tone of gaiety, "Tragedy or comedy, Belinda? The masquerade dresses are come. But how's this?" added she, looking full in Belinda's face--"tears in the eyes! blushes in the cheeks! tremors in the joints! and letters shuffling away! But, you novice of novices, how awkwardly shuffled!--A niece of Mrs. Stanhope's, and so unpractised a shuffler!--And is it credible she should tremble in this ridiculous way about a love-letter or two?"

"No love-letters, indeed, Lady Delacour," said Belinda, holding the paper fast, as her ladyship, half in play, half in earnest, attempted to snatch it from her.

"No love-letters! then it must be treason; and see it I must, by all that's good, or by all that's bad--I see the name of Delacour!"--and her ladyship absolutely seized the letters by force, in spite of all Belinda's struggles and entreaties.

"You beg! you entreat! you conjure! Why, this is like the Duchess de Brinvilliers, who wrote on her paper of poisons, 'Whoever finds this, I entreat, I conjure them, in the name of more saints than I can remember, not to open the paper any farther.'--What a simpleton, to know so little of the nature of curiosity!"

Belinda was in too much confusion either to speak or think.

"You were right to swear they were not love-letters," pursued her ladyship, laying down the papers. "I protest I snatched them by way of frolic--I beg pardon. All I can do now is not to read the rest."

"Nay--I beg--I wish--I insist upon your reading mine," said Belinda.

Lady Delacour spoke with a tone of feeling which Belinda had never heard from her before, and which at this moment touched her so much, that she took her ladyship's hand and kissed it.

MASKS

"Whichever suits your ladyship's taste least."

"Why, my woman, Marriott, says I ought to be tragedy; and, upon the notion that people always succeed best when they take characters diametrically opposite to their own--Clarence Hervey's principle--perhaps you don't think that he has any principles; but there you are wrong; I do assure you, he has sound principles--of taste."

"Of that," said Belinda, with a constrained smile, "he gives the most convincing proof, by his admiring your ladyship so much."

"And by his admiring Miss Portman so much more. But whilst we are making speeches to one another, poor Marriott is standing in distress, like Garrick, between tragedy and comedy."

Lady Delacour opened her dressing-room door, and pointed to her as she stood with the dress of the comic muse on one arm, and the tragic muse on the other.

"I am afraid I have not spirits enough to undertake the comic muse," said Miss Portman.

Marriott, who was a personage of prodigious consequence, and the judge in the last resort at her mistress's toilette, looked extremely out of humour at having been kept waiting so long; and yet more so at the idea that her appellant jurisdiction could be disputed.

"Your ladyship's taller than Miss Portman by half ahead," said Marriott, "and to be sure will best become tragedy with this long train; besides, I had settled all the rest of your ladyship's dress. Tragedy, they say, is always tall; and, no offence, your ladyship's taller than Miss Portman by half a head."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet