Читать книгу Essential Novelists - Maria Edgeworth - Maria Edgeworth - Страница 8

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MISS PORTMAN WAS AWAKENED by the ringing of Lady Delacour’s bedchamber bell. She opened her eyes with the confused idea that something disagreeable had happened; and before she had distinctly recollected herself, Marriott came to her bedside, with a note from Lady Delacour: it was written with a pencil.

“DELACOUR—my lord!!!! is to have to-day what Garrick used to call a gander feast— will you dine with me tête-à-tête, and I’ll write an excuse, alias a lie, to Lady Singleton, in the form of a charming note — I pique myself sur l’éloquence du billet— then we shall have the evening to ourselves. I have much to say, as people usually have when they begin to talk of themselves.

“I have taken a double dose of opium, and am not so horribly out of spirits as I was last night; so you need not be afraid of another scene.

“Let me see you in my dressing-room, dear Belinda, as soon as you have adored

‘With head uncover’d the cosmetic powers.’

“But you don’t paint — no matter — you will — you must — every body must, sooner or later. In the mean time, whenever you want to send a note that shall not be opened by the bearer, put your trust neither in wafer nor wax, but twist it as I twist mine. You see I wish to put you in possession of some valuable secrets before I leave this world — this, by-the-bye, I don’t, upon second thoughts, which are always best, mean to do yet. There certainly were such people as Amazons — I hope you admire them — for who could live without the admiration of Belinda Portman? — not Clarence Hervey assuredly — nor yet

“T. C. H. DELACOUR.”

Belinda obeyed the summons to her ladyship’s dressing-room: she found Lady Delacour with her face completely repaired with paint, and her spirits with opium. She was in high consultation with Marriott and Mrs. Franks, the milliner, about the crape petticoat of her birthnight dress, which was extended over a large hoop in full state. Mrs. Franks descanted long and learnedly upon festoons and loops, knots and fringes, submitting all the time every thing to her ladyship’s better judgment.

Marriott was sulky and silent. She opened her lips but once upon the question of laburnum or no laburnum flowers.

Against them she quoted the memoirs and authority of the celebrated Mrs. Bellamy, who has a case in point to prove that “straw colour must ever look like dirty white by candlelight.” Mrs. Franks, to compromise the matter, proposed gold laburnums, “because nothing can look better by candlelight, or any light, than gold;” and Lady Delacour, who was afraid that the milliner’s imagination, now that it had once touched upon gold, might be led to the vulgar idea of ready money, suddenly broke up the conference, by exclaiming,

“We shall be late at Phillips’s exhibition of French china. Mrs. Franks must let us see her again to-morrow, to take into consideration your court dress, my dear Belinda —‘Miss Portman presented by Lady Delacour’— Mrs. Franks, let her dress, for heaven’s sake, be something that will make a fine paragraph:— I give you four-and-twenty hours to think of it. I have done a horrid act this day,” continued she, after Mrs. Franks had left the room —“absolutely written a twisted note to Clarence Hervey, my dear — but why did I tell you that? Now your head will run upon the twisted note all day, instead of upon ‘The Life and Opinions of a Lady of Quality, related by herself.’”

After dinner Lady Delacour having made Belinda protest and blush, and blush and protest, that her head was not running upon the twisted note, began the history of her life and opinions in the following manner:—

“I do nothing by halves, my dear. I shall not tell you my adventures as Gil Blas told his to the Count d’Olivarez — skipping over the usefulpassages. I am no hypocrite, and have nothing worse than folly to conceal: that’s bad enough — for a woman who is known to play the fool is always suspected of playing the devil. But I begin where I ought to end — with my moral, which I dare say you are not impatient to anticipate. I never read or listened to a moral at the end of a story in my life:— manners for me, and morals for those that like them. My dear, you will be woefully disappointed if in my story you expect any thing like a novel. I once heard a general say, that nothing was less like a review than a battle; and I can tell you that nothing is more unlike a novel than real life. Of all lives, mine has been the least romantic. No love in it, but a great deal of hate. I was a rich heiress — I had, I believe, a hundred thousand pounds, or more, and twice as many caprices: I was handsome and witty — or, to speak with that kind of circumlocution which is called humility, the world, the partial world, thought me a beauty and a bel-esprit. Having told you my fortune, need I add, that I, or it, had lovers in abundance — of all sorts and degrees — not to reckon those, it may be presumed, who died of concealed passions for me? I had sixteen declarations and proposals in form; then what in the name of wonder, or of common sense — which by-the-bye is the greatest of wonders — what, in the name of common sense, made me marry Lord Delacour? Why, my dear, you — no, not you, but any girl who is not used to have a parcel of admirers, would think it the easiest thing in the world to make her choice; but let her judge by what she feels when a dexterous mercer or linen-draper produces pretty thing after pretty thing — and this is so becoming, and this will wear for ever, as he swears; but then that’s so fashionable; — the novice stands in a charming perplexity, and after examining, and doubting, and tossing over half the goods in the shop, it’s ten to one, when it begins to get late, the young lady, in a hurry, pitches upon the very ugliest and worst thing that she has seen. Just so it was with me and my lovers, and just so —

‘Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,’

I pitched upon Viscount Delacour for my lord and judge. He had just at that time lost at Newmarket more than he was worth in every sense of the word; and my fortune was the most convenient thing in the world to a man in his condition. Lozenges are of sovereign use in some complaints. The heiress lozenge is a specific in some consumptions. You are surprised that I can laugh and jest about such a melancholy thing as my marriage with Lord Delacour; and so am I, especially when I recollect all the circumstances; for though I bragged of there being no love in my history, there was when I was a goose or a gosling of about eighteen — just your age, Belinda, I think — something very like love playing about my heart, or my head. There was a certain Henry Percival, a Clarence Hervey of a man — no, he had ten times the sense, begging your pardon, of Clarence Hervey — his misfortune, or mine, was, that he had too much sense — he was in love with me, but not with my faults; now I, wisely considering that my faults were the greatest part of me, insisted upon his being in love with my faults. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t — I said wouldn’t, he said couldn’t. I had been used to see the men about me lick the dust at my feet, for it was gold dust. Percival made wry faces — Lord Delacour made none. I pointed him out to Percival as an example — it was an example he would not follow. I was provoked, and I married in hopes of provoking the man I loved. The worst of it was, I did not provoke him as much as I expected. Six months afterwards I heard of his marriage with a very amiable woman. I hate those very amiable women. Poor Percival! I should have been a very happy woman, I fancy, if I had married you — for I believe you were the only man who ever really loved me; but all that is over now! — Where were we? O, I married my Lord Delacour, knowing him to be a fool, and believing that, for this reason, I should find no trouble in governing him. But what a fatal mistake!-a fool, of all animals in the creation, is the most difficult to govern. We set out in the fashionable world with a mutual desire to be as extravagant as possible. Strange, that with this similarity of taste we could never agree! — strange, that this similarity of taste was the cause of our perpetual quarrels! During the first year of our marriage, I had always the upper hand in these disputes, and the last word; and I was content. Stubborn as the brute was, I thought I should in time break him in. From the specimens you have seen, you may guess that I was even then a tolerable proficient in the dear art of tormenting. I had almost gained my point, just broken my lord’s heart, when one fair morning I unluckily told his man Champfort that he knew no more how to cut hair than a sheep-shearer. Champfort, who is conceit personified, took mortal offence at this; and the devil, who is always at hand to turn anger into malice, put it into Champfort’s head to put it into my lord’s head, that the world thought —’My lady governed him.’ My lord took fire. They say the torpedo, the coldest of cold creatures, sometimes gives out a spark — I suppose when electrified with anger. The next time that innocent I insisted upon my Lord Delacour’s doing or not doing — I forget which — the most reasonable thing in the world, my lord turns short round, and answers —‘My Lady Delacour, I am not a man to be governed by a wife.’— And from that time to this the words, ‘I am not a man to be governed by a wife,’ have been written in his obstinate face, as all the world who can read the human countenance may see. My dear, I laugh; but even in the midst of laughter there is sadness. But you don’t know what it is — I hope you never may — to have an obstinate fool for a bosom friend.

“I at first flattered myself that my lord’s was not an inveterate, incurable malady: but from his obvious weakness, I might have seen that there was no hope; for cases of obstinacy are always dangerous in proportion to the weakness of the patient. My lord’s case was desperate. Kill or cure was my humane or prudent maxim. I determined to try the poison of jealousy, by way of an alterative. I had long kept it in petto as my ultimate remedy. I fixed upon a proper subject — a man with whom I thought that I could coquette to all eternity, without any danger to myself — a certain Colonel Lawless, as empty a coxcomb as you would wish to see. The world, said I to myself, can never be so absurd as to suspect Lady Delacour with such a man as this, though her lord may, and will; for nothing is too absurd for him to believe. Half my theory proved just; that is saying a great deal for any theory. My lord swallowed the remedy that I had prepared for him with an avidity and a bonhommie which it did me good to behold; my remedy operated beyond my most sanguine expectations. The poor man was cured of his obstinacy, and became stark mad with jealousy. Then indeed I had some hopes of him; for a madman can be managed, a fool cannot. In a month’s time I made him quite docile. With a face longer than the weeping philosopher’s, he came to me one morning, and assured me, ‘he would do every thing I pleased, provided I would consult my own honour and his, and give up Colonel Lawless.’

“‘Give up!’— I could hardly forbear laughing at the expression. I replied, ‘that as long as my lord treated me with becoming respect, I had never in thought or deed given him just cause of complaint; but that I was not a woman to be insulted, or to be kept, as I had hitherto been, in leading-strings by a husband.’ My lord, flattered as I meant he should be with the idea that it was possible he should be suspected of keeping a wife in leading-strings, fell to making protestations —‘He hoped his future conduct would prove,’ &c. Upon this hint, I gave the reins to my imagination, and full drive I went into a fresh career of extravagance: if I were checked, it was an insult, and I began directly to talk of leading-strings. This ridiculous game I played successfully enough for some time, till at length, though naturally rather slow at calculation, he actually discovered, that if we lived at the rate of twenty thousand a-year, and had only ten thousand a-year to spend, we should in due time have nothing left. This notable discovery he communicated to me one morning, after a long preamble. When he had finished prosing, I agreed that it was demonstrably just that he should retrench his expenses; but that it was equally unjust and impossible that I could make any reformation in mycivil list: that economy was a word which I had never heard of in my life till I married his lordship; that, upon second recollection, it was true I had heard of such a thing as national economy, and that it would be a very pretty, though rather hackneyed topic of declamation for a maiden speech in the House of Lords. I therefore advised him to reserve all he had to say upon the subject for the noble lord upon the woolsack; nay, I very graciously added, that upon this condition I would go to the house myself to give his arguments and eloquence a fair hearing, and that I would do my best to keep myself awake. This was all mighty playful and witty; but it happened that my Lord Delacour, who never had any great taste for wit, could not this unlucky morning at all relish it. Of course I grew angry, and reminded him, with an indelicacy which his want of generosity justified, that an heiress, who had brought a hundred thousand pounds into his family, had some right to amuse herself, and that it was not my fault if elegant amusements were more expensive than others.

“Then came a long criminating and recriminating chapter. It was, ‘My lord, your Newmarket blunders’—‘My lady, your cursed theatricals‘—‘My lord, I have surely a right’— and, ‘My lady, I have surely as good a right.’

“But, my dear Belinda, however we might pay one another, we could not pay all the world with words. In short, after running through thousands and tens of thousands, we were actually in distress for money. Then came selling of lands, and I don’t know what devices for raising money, according to the modes of lawyers and attorneys. It was quite indifferent to me how they got money, provided they did get it. By what art these gentlemen raised money, I never troubled myself to inquire; it might have been the black art, for any thing I know to the contrary. I know nothing of business. So I signed all the papers they brought to me; and I was mighty well pleased to find, that by so easy an expedient as writing ’T. C. H. Delacour,’ I could command money at will. I signed, and signed, till at last I was with all due civility informed that my signature was no longer worth a farthing; and when I came to inquire into the cause of this phenomenon, I could nowise understand what my Lord Delacour’s lawyer said to me: he was a prig, and I had not patience either to listen to him or to look at him. I sent for an old uncle of mine, who used to manage all my money matters before I was married: I put the uncle and the lawyer into a room, together with their parchments, to fight the matter out, or to come to a right understanding if they could. The last, it seems, was quite impossible. In the course of half an hour, out comes my uncle in such a rage! I never shall forget his face — all the bile in his body had gotten into it; he had literally no whites to his eyes. ‘My dear uncle,’ said I, ‘what is the matter? Why, you are absolutely gold stick in waiting.’

“‘No matter what I am, child,’ said the uncle; ‘I’ll tell you what you are, with all your wit — a dupe: ’tis a shame for a woman of your sense to be such a fool, and to know nothing of business; and if you knew nothing yourself, could not you send for me?’

“‘I was too ignorant to know that I know nothing,’ said I. But I will not trouble you with all the said I’s and said he’s. I was made to understand, that if Lord Delacour were to die the next day, I should live a beggar. Upon this I grew serious, as you may imagine. My uncle assured me that I had been grossly imposed upon by my lord and his lawyer; and that I had been swindled out of my senses, and out of my dower. I repeated all that my uncle said, very faithfully, to Lord Delacour; and all that either he or his lawyer could furnish out by way of answer was, that ‘Necessity had no law.’ Necessity, it must be allowed, though it might be the mother of law, was never with my lord the mother of invention. Having now found out that I had a good right to complain, I indulged myself in it most gloriously; in short, my dear, we had a comfortable family quarrel. Love quarrels are easily made up, but of money quarrels there is no end. From the moment these money quarrels commenced, I began to hate Lord Delacour; before, I had only despised him. You can have no notion to what meanness extravagance reduces men. I have known Lord Delacour shirk, and look so shabby, and tell so many lies to people about a hundred guineas — a hundred guineas! — what do I say? — about twenty, ten, five! O, my dear, I cannot bear the thoughts of it!

“But I was going on to tell you, that my good uncle and all my relations quarrelled with me for having ruined myself, as they said; but I said they quarrelled with me for fear I should ask them for some of their ’vile trash.’ Accordingly, I abused and ridiculed them, one and all; and for my pains, all my acquaintance said, that ‘Lady Delacour was a woman of a vast deal of spirit.’

“We were relieved from our money embarrassments by the timely death of a rich nobleman, to whose large estate my Lord Delacour was heir-at-law. I was intoxicated with the idle compliments of all my acquaintance, and I endeavoured to console myself for misery at home by gaiety abroad. Ambitious of pleasing universally, I became the worst of slaves —— a slave to the world. Not a moment of my time was at my own disposal — not one of my actions; I may say, not one of my thoughts was my own; I was obliged to find things ‘charming’ every hour, which tired me to death; and every day it was the same dull round of hypocrisy and dissipation. You wonder to hear me speak in this manner, Belinda — but one must speak the truth sometimes; and this is what I have been saying to Harriot Freke continually, for these ten years past. Then why persist in the same kind of life? you say. Why, my dear, because I could not stop: I was fit for this kind of life and for no other: I could not be happy at home; for what sort of a companion could I have made of Lord Delacour? By this time he was tired of his horse Potatoe, and his horse Highflyer, and his horse Eclipse, and Goliah, and Jenny Grey, &c.; and he had taken to hard drinking, which soon turned him, as you see, quite into a beast.

“I forgot to tell you that I had three children during the first five years of my marriage. The first was a boy: he was born dead; and my lord, and all his odious relations, laid the blame upon me, because I would not be kept prisoner half a year by an old mother of his, a vile Cassandra, who was always prophesying that my child would not be born alive. My second child was a girl; but a poor diminutive, sickly thing. It was the fashion at this time for fine mothers to suckle their own children: so much the worse for the poor brats. Fine nurses never made fine children. There was a prodigious rout made about the matter; a vast deal of sentiment and sympathy, and compliments and inquiries; but after the novelty was over, I became heartily sick of the business; and at the end of about three months my poor child was sick too — I don’t much like to think of it — it died. If I had put it out to nurse, I should have been thought by my friends an unnatural mother; but I should have saved its life. I should have bewailed the loss of the infant more, if Lord Delacour’s relations and my own had not made such lamentations upon the occasion that I was stunned. I couldn’t or wouldn’t shed a tear; and I left it to the old dowager to perform in public, as she wished, the part of chief mourner, and to comfort herself in private by lifting up her hands and eyes, and railing at me as the most insensible of mothers. All this time I suffered more than she did; but that is what she shall never have the satisfaction of knowing. I determined, that if ever I had another child, I would not have the barbarity to nurse it myself. Accordingly when my third child, a girl, was born, I sent it off immediately to the country, to a stout, healthy, broad-faced nurse, under whose care it grew and flourished; so that at three years old, when it was brought back to me, I could scarcely believe the chubby little thing was my own child. The same reasons which convinced me I ought not to nurse my own child, determined me, à plus forte raison, not to undertake its education. Lord Delacour could not bear the child, because it was not a boy. The girl was put under the care of a governess, who plagued my heart out with her airs and tracasseries for three or four years; at the end of which time, as she turned out to be Lord Delacour’s mistress in form, I was obliged — in form — to beg she would leave my house: and I put her pupil into better hands, I hope, at a celebrated academy for young ladies. There she will, at any rate, be better instructed than she could be at home. I beg your pardon, my dear, for this digression on nursing and schooling; but I wanted only to explain to you why it was that, when I was weary of the business, I still went on in a course of dissipation. You see I had nothing at home, either in the shape of husband or children, to engage my affections. I believe it was this ‘aching void’ in my heart which made me, after looking abroad some time for a bosom friend, take such a prodigious fancy to Mrs. Freke. She was just then coming into fashion; she struck me, the first time I met her, as being downright ugly; but there was a wild oddity in her countenance which made one stare at her, and she was delighted to be stared at, especially by me; so we were mutually agreeable to each other — I as starer, and she as staree. Harriot Freke had, without comparison, more assurance than any man or woman I ever saw; she was downright brass, but of the finest kind — Corinthian brass. She was one of the first who brought what I call harum scarum manners into fashion. I told you that she had assurance —impudence I should have called it, for no other word is strong enough. Such things as I have heard Harriot Freke say! —— You will not believe it — but her conversation at first absolutely made me, like an old-fashioned fool, wish I had a fan to play with. But, to my astonishment, all this took surprisingly with a set of fashionable young men. I found it necessary to reform my manners. If I had not taken heart of grace, and publicly abjured the heresies of false delicacy, I should have been excommunicated. Lady Delacour’s sprightly elegance — allow me to speak of myself in the style in which the newspaper writers talk of me — Lady Delacour’s sprightly elegance was but pale, not to say faded pink, compared with the scarlet of Mrs. Freke’s dashing audacity. As my rival, she would on certain ground have beat me hollow; it was therefore good policy to make her my friend: we joined forces, and nothing could stand against us. But I have no right to give myself credit for good policy in forming this intimacy; I really followed the dictates of my heart or my imagination. There was a frankness in Harriot’s manner which I mistook for artlessness of character: she spoke with such unbounded freedom on certain subjects, that I gave her credit for unbounded sincerity on all subjects: she had the talent of making the world believe that virtue to be invulnerable by nature which disdained the common outworks of art for its defence. I, amongst others, took it for granted, that the woman who could make it her sport to ‘touch the brink of all we hate,’ must have a stronger head than other people. I have since been convinced, however, of my mistake. I am persuaded that few can touch the brink without tumbling headlong down the precipice. Don’t apply this, my dear, literally, to the person of whom we were speaking; I am not base enough to betray her secrets, however I may have been provoked by her treachery. Of her character and history you shall hear nothing but what is necessary for my own justification. The league of amity between us was scarcely ratified before my Lord Delacour came, with his wise remonstrating face, to beg me ‘to consider what was due to my own honour and his.’ Like the cosmogony-man in the Vicar of Wakefield, he came out over and over with this cant phrase, which had once stood him in stead. ‘Do you think, my lord,’ said I, ‘that because I gave up poor Lawless to oblige you, I shall give up all common sense to suit myself to your taste? Harriot Freke is visited by every body but old dowagers and old maids: I am neither an old dowager nor an old maid — the consequence is obvious, my lord.’ Pertness in dialogue, my dear, often succeeds better with my lord than wit: I therefore saved the sterling gold, and bestowed upon him nothing but counters. I tell you this to save the credit of my taste and judgment.

“But to return to my friendship for Harriot Freke. I, of course, repeated to her every word which had passed between my husband and me. She out-heroded Herod upon the occasion; and laughed so much at what she called my folly in pleading guilty in the Lawless cause, that I was downright ashamed of myself, and, purely to prove my innocence, I determined, upon the first convenient opportunity, to renew my intimacy with the colonel. The opportunity which I so ardently desired of redeeming my independence was not long wanting. Lawless, as my stars (which you know are always more in fault than ourselves) would have it, returned just at this time from the continent, where he had been with his regiment; he returned with a wound across his forehead and a black fillet, which made him look something more like a hero, and ten times more like a coxcomb, than ever. He was in fashion, at all events; and amongst other ladies, Mrs. Luttridge, odious Mrs. Luttridge! smiled upon him. The colonel, however, had taste enough to know the difference between smile and smile: he laid himself and his laurels at my feet, and I carried him and them about in triumph. Wherever I went, especially to Mrs. Luttridge’s, envy and scandal joined hands to attack me, and I heard wondering and whispering wherever I went. I had no object in view but to provoke my husband; therefore, conscious of the purity of my intentions, it was my delight to brave the opinion of the wondering world. I gave myself no concern about the effect my coquetry might have upon the object of this flirtation. Poor Lawless! Heart, I took it for granted, he had none; how should a coxcomb come by a heart? Vanity I knew he had in abundance, but this gave me no alarm, as I thought that if it should ever make him forget him self, I mean forget what was due to me, I could, by one flash of my wit, strike him to the earth, or blast him for ever. One night we had been together at Mrs. Luttridge’s; — she, amongst other good things, kept a faro bank, and, I am convinced, cheated. Be that as it may, I lost an immensity of money, and it was my pride to lose with as much gaiety as any body else could win; so I was, or appeared to be, in uncommonly high spirits, and Lawless had his share of my good humour. We left Mrs. Luttridge’s together early, about half-past one. As the colonel was going to hand me to my carriage, a smart-looking young man, as I thought, came up close to the coach door, and stared me full in the face: I was not a woman to be disconcerted at such a thing as this, but I really was startled when the young fellow jumped into the carriage after me: I thought he was mad: I had only courage enough to scream. Lawless seized hold of the intruder to drag him out, and out he dragged the youth, exclaiming, in a high tone, ‘What is the meaning of all this, sir? Who the devil are you? My name’s Lawless: who the devil are you?’ The answer to this was a convulsion of laughter. By the laugh I knew it to be Harriot Freke. ‘Who am I? only a Freke!’ cried she: ‘shake hands.’ I gave her my hand, into the carriage she sprang, and desired the colonel to follow her: Lawless laughed, we all laughed, and drove away. ‘Where do you think I’ve been?’ said Harriot; ‘in the gallery of the House of Commons; almost squeezed to death these four hours; but I swore I’d hear Sheridan’s speech to-night, and I did; betted fifty guineas I would with Mrs. Luttridge, and have won. Fun and Freke for ever, huzza!’ Harriot was mad with spirits, and so noisy and unmanageable, that, as I told her, I was sure she was drunk. Lawless, in his silly way, laughed incessantly, and I was so taken up with her oddities, that, for some time, I did not perceive we were going the Lord knows where; till, at last, when the ‘larum of Harriot’s voice ceased for an instant, I was struck with the strange sound of the carriage. ‘Where are we? not upon the stones, I’m sure,’ said I; and putting my head out of the window, I saw we were beyond the turnpike. ‘The coachman’s drunk as well as you, Harriot,’ said I; and I was going to pull the string to stop him, but Harriot had hold of it. ‘The man is going very right,’ said she; ‘I’ve told him where to go. Now don’t fancy that Lawless and I are going to run away with you. All this is unnecessary now-a-days, thank God!’ To this I agreed, and laughed for fear of being ridiculous. ‘Guess where you are going,’ said Harriot, I guessed and guessed, but could not guess right; and my merry companions were infinitely diverted with my perplexity and impatience, more especially as, I believe, in spite of all my efforts, I grew rather graver than usual. We went on to the end of Sloane-street, and quite out of town; at last we stopped. It was dark; the footman’s flambeau was out; I could only just see by the lamps that we were at the door of a lone, odd-looking house. The house door opened, and an old woman appeared with a lantern in her hand.

“‘Where is this farce, or freak, or whatever you call it, to end?’ said I, as Harriot pulled me into the dark passage along with her.

“Alas! my dear Belinda,” said Lady Delacour, pausing, “I little foresaw where or how it was to end. But I am not come yet to the tragical part of my story, and as long as I can laugh I will. As the old woman and her miserable light went on before us, I could almost have thought of Sir Bertrand, or of some German horrifications; but I heard Lawless, who never could help laughing at the wrong time, bursting behind me, with a sense of his own superiority.

“‘Now you will learn your destiny, Lady Delacour!’ said Harriot, in a solemn tone.

“‘Yes! from the celebrated Mrs. W— — the modern dealer in art magic,’ said I, laughing, ‘for, now I guess whereabouts I am. Colonel Lawless’s laugh broke the spell. Harriot Freke, never whilst you live expect to succeed in the sublime.’ Harriot swore at the colonel for the veriest spoil-sport she had ever seen, and she whispered to me —‘The reason he laughs is because he is afraid of our suspecting the truth of him, that he believes tout de bon in conjuration, and the devil, and all that.’ The old woman, whose cue I found was to be dumb, opened a door at the top of a narrow staircase, and pointing to a tall figure, completely enveloped in fur, left us to our fate. I will not trouble you with a pompous description of all the mummery of the scene, my dear, as I despair of being able to frighten you out of your wits. I should have been downright angry with Harriot Freke for bringing me to such a place, but that I knew women of the first fashion had been with Mrs. W—— before us — some in sober sadness, some by way of frolic. So as there was no fear of being ridiculous, there was no shame, you know, and my conscience was quite at ease. Harriot had no conscience, so she was always at ease; and never more so than in male attire, which she had been told became her particularly. She supported the character of a young rake with such spirit and truth, that I am sure no common conjuror could have discovered any thing feminine about her. She rattled on with a set of nonsensical questions; and among other things she asked, ‘How soon will Lady Delacour marry again after her lord’s death?’

“‘She will never marry after her lord’s death,’ answered the oracle. ‘Then she will marry during his lifetime,’ said Harriot. ‘True,’ answered the oracle. Colonel Lawless laughed; I was angry; and the colonel would have been quiet, for he was a gentleman, but there was no such thing as managing Mrs. Freke, who, though she had laid aside the modesty of her own sex, had not acquired the decency of the other. ‘Who is to be Lady Delacour’s second husband?’ cried she; ‘you’ll not offend any of the present company by naming the man.’ ‘Her second husband I cannot name,’ replied the oracle, ‘but let her beware of a Lawless lover.’ Mrs. Freke and Colonel Lawless, encouraged by her, triumphed over me without mercy — I may say, without shame! Well, my dear, I am in a hurry to have done with all this: though I ’doted upon folly,’ yet I was terrified at the thoughts of any thing worse. The idea of a divorce, the public brand of a shameful life, shocked me in spite of all my real and all my assumed levity. O that I had, at this instant, dared to be myself! But my fear of ridicule was greater than my fear of vice. ‘Bless me, my dear Lady Delacour,’ whispered Harriot, as we left this house, ‘what can make you in such a desperate hurry to get home? You gape and fidget: one would think you had never sat up a night before in your life. I verily believe you are afraid to trust yourself with us. Which of us are you afraid of, Lawless, or me, or yourself?’ There was a tone of contempt in the last words which piqued me to the quick; and however strange it may seem, I was now anxious only to convince Harriot that I was not afraid of myself. False shame made me act as if I had no shame. You would not suspect me of knowing any thing of false shame, but depend upon it, my dear, many, who appear to have as much assurance as I have, are secretly its slaves. I moralize, because I am come to a part of my story which I should almost be glad to omit; but I promised you that there should be no sins of omission. It was light, but not broad daylight, when we got to Knightsbridge. Lawless, encouraged (for I cannot deny it) by the levity of my manner, as well as of Harriot’s, was in higher and more familiar spirits than I ever saw him. Mrs. Freke desired me to set her down at her sister’s, who lived in Grosvenor-place: I did so, and I beg you to believe that I was in an agony, to get rid of my colonel at the same time; but you know I could not, before Harriot Freke, absolutely say to him, ‘Get out!’ Indeed, to tell things as they were, it was scarcely possible to guess by my manner that I was under any anxiety, I acted my part so well, or so ill. As Harriot Freke jumped out of the coach, a cock crowed in the area of her sister’s house: ‘There!’ cried Harriot, ‘do you hear the cock crow, Lady Delacour? Now it’s to be hoped your fear of goblins is over, else I would not be so cruel as to leave the pretty dear all alone.’ ‘All alone!’ answered I: ‘your friend the colonel Is much obliged to you for making nobody of him.’ ‘My friend the colonel,’ whispered Harriot, leaning with her bold masculine arms on the coach door —‘my friend the colonel is much obliged to me, I’m sure, for remembering what the cunning or the knowing woman told us just now: so when I said I left you alone, I was not guilty of a bull, was I?’ I had the grace to be heartily ashamed of this speech, and called out, in utter confusion, ‘To Berkley-square. But where shall I set you down, colonel? Harriot, good morning: don’t forget you are in man’s clothes.’ I did not dare to repeat the question of ‘where shall I set you down, colonel?’ at this instant, because Harriot gave me such an arch, sneering look, as much as to say, ‘Still afraid of yourself!’ We drove on: I’m persuaded that the confusion which, in spite of all my efforts, broke through my affected levity, encouraged Lawless, who was naturally a coxcomb and a fool, to believe that I was actually his, else he never could have been so insolent. In short, my dear, before we had got through the turnpike gate, I was downright obliged to say to him, ‘Get out!’ which I did with a degree of indignation that quite astonished him. He muttered something about ladies knowing their minds; and I own, though I went off with flying colours, I secretly blamed myself as much as I did him, and I blamed Harriot more than I did either. I sent for her the next day, as soon as I could, to consult her. She expressed such astonishment, and so much concern at this catastrophe of our night’s frolic, and blamed herself with so many oaths, and execrated Lawless for a coxcomb, so much to the ease and satisfaction of my conscience, that I was confirmed in my good opinion of her, and indeed felt for her the most lively affection and esteem; for observe, with me esteem ever followed affection, instead of affection following esteem. Woe be to all who in morals preposterously put the cart before the horse! But to proceed with my history: all fashionable historians stop to make reflections, supposing that no one else can have the sense to make any. My esteemed friend agreed with me that it would be best for all parties concerned to hush up this business; that as Lawless was going out of town in a few days, to be elected for a borough, we should get rid of him in the best way possible, without ‘more last words;’ that he had been punished sufficiently on the spot, and that to punish twice for the same offence, once in private and once in public, would be contrary to the laws of Englishmen and Englishwomen, and in my case would be contrary to the evident dictates of prudence, because I could not complain without calling upon Lord Delacour to call Lawless out; this I could not do without acknowledging that his lordship had been in the right, in warning me about his honour and my own, which old phrase I dreaded to hear for the ninety-ninth time: besides, Lord Delacour was the last man in the world I should have chosen for my knight, though unluckily he was my lord; besides, all things considered, I thought the whole story might not tell so well in the world for me, tell it which way I would: we therefore agreed that it would be most expedient to hold our tongues. We took it for granted that Lawless would hold his, and as for my people, they knew nothing, I thought, or if they did, I was sure of them. How the thing got abroad I could not at the time conceive, though now I am well acquainted with the baseness and treachery of the woman I called my friend. The affair was known and talked of every where the next day, and the story was told especially at odious Mrs. Luttridge’s, with such exaggerations as drove me almost mad. I was enraged, inconceivably enraged with Lawless, from whom I imagined the reports originated.

“I was venting my indignation against him in a room full of company, where I had just made my story good, when a gentleman, to whom I was a stranger, came in breathless, with the news that Colonel Lawless was killed in a duel by Lord Delacour; that they were carrying him home to his mother’s, and that the body was just going by the door. The company all crowded to the windows immediately, and I was left standing alone till I could stand no longer. What was said or done after this I do not remember; I only know that when I came to myself, the most dreadful sensation I ever experienced was the certainty that I had the blood of a fellow-creature to answer for. — I wonder,” said Lady Delacour, breaking off at this part of her history, and rising suddenly, “I wonder what is become of Marriott! — surely it is time for me to have my drops. Miss Portman, have the goodness to ring, for I must have something immediately.” Belinda was terrified at the wildness of her manner. Lady Delacour became more composed, or put more constraint upon herself, at the sight of Marriott. Marriott brought from the closet in her lady’s room the drops, which Lady Delacour swallowed with precipitation. Then she ordered coffee, and afterward chasse-café, and at last, turning to Belinda, with a forced smile, she said —

“Now shall the Princess Scheherazade go on with her story?”