Essential Novelists - Maria Edgeworth. Maria Edgeworth

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ