Belinda. Maria Edgeworth

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СКАЧАТЬ Leave all that to your aunt Stanhope, or to me, and then you know your conscience will be all the time as white as your hands,—which, by-the-bye, Clarence Hervey, the other day, said were the whitest hands he had ever seen. Perhaps all this time you have taken it into your head that full dress will not become you; but I assure you that it will—you look well in any thing—

      ‘But from the hoop’s bewitching round,

       The very shoe has power to wound.’

      So come down to Mrs. Franks, and order your birthnight dress like a reasonable creature.”

      Like a reasonable creature, Miss Portman followed Lady Delacour, and bespoke, or rather let her ladyship bespeak for her, fifty guineas’ worth of elegance and fashion. “You must go to the drawing-room with me next week, and be presented,” said Lady Delacour, “and then, as it is the first time, you must be elegantly dressed, and you must not wear the same dress on the birthnight. So, Mrs. Franks, let this be finished first, as fast as you can, and by that time, perhaps, we shall think of something superlatively charming for the night of nights.”

      Mrs. Franks departed, and Belinda sighed. “A silver penny for your thoughts!” cried Lady Delacour. “You are thinking that you are like Camilla, and I like Mrs. Mitten. Novel reading.—as I dare say you have been told by your governess, as I was told by mine, and she by hers, I suppose—novel reading for young ladies is the most dangerous——

      “Oh, Clarence Hervey, I protest!” cried Lady Delacour, as he at this instant entered the room. “Do, pray, Clarence, help me out, for the sake of this young lady, with a moral sentence against novel reading: but that might go against your conscience, or your interest; so we’ll spare you. How I regret that we had not the charming serpent at the masquerade the other night!”

      The moment her ladyship mentioned the masquerade, the conversation which had passed at Lady Singleton’s came full into Clarence Hervey’s recollection, and his embarrassment was evident—not indeed to Belinda, who had turned away to look over some new music that lay upon a stand at the farthest end of the room; and she found this such a wonderfully interesting occupation, that she did not for some minutes hear, or appear to hear, one word of the conversation which was going on between Mr. Hervey and Lady Delacour. At last, her ladyship tapped her upon the shoulder, saying, in a playful tone, “Miss Portman, I arrest your attention at the suit of Clarence Hervey: this gentleman is passionately fond of music—to my curse—for he never sees my harp but he worries me with reproaches for having left off playing upon it. Now he has just given me his word that he will not reproach me again for a month to come if you will favour us with one air. I assure you, Clarence, that Belinda touches a harp divinely—she would absolutely charm——” “Your ladyship should not waste such valuable praise,” interrupted Belinda. “Do you forget that Belinda Portman and her accomplishments have already been as well advertised as Packwood’s razor-strops?”

      The manner in which these words were pronounced made a great impression upon Clarence Hervey, and he began to believe it was possible that a niece of the match-making Mrs. Stanhope might not be “a compound of art and affectation.” “Though her aunt has advertised her,” said he to himself, “she seems to have too much dignity to advertise herself, and it would be very unjust to blame her for the faults of another person. I will see more of her.”

      Some morning visitors were announced, who for the time suspended Clarence Hervey’s reflections: the effect of them, however, immediately appeared; for as his good opinion of Belinda increased, his ambition to please her was strongly excited. He displayed all his powers of wit and humour; and not only Lady Delacour but every body present observed, “that Mr. Hervey, who was always the most entertaining man in the world, this morning surpassed himself, and was absolutely the most entertaining man in the universe.” He was mortified, notwithstanding; for he distinctly perceived, that whilst Belinda joined with ease and dignity in the general conversation, her manner towards him was grave and reserved. The next morning he called earlier than usual; but though Lady Delacour was always at home to him, she was then unluckily dressing to go to court: he inquired whether Miss Portman would accompany her ladyship, and he learnt from his friend Marriott that she was not to be presented this day, because Mrs. Franks had not brought home her dress. Mr. Hervey called again two hours afterwards.—Lady Delacour was gone to court. He asked for Miss Portman. “Not at home,” was the mortifying answer; though, as he had passed by the windows, he had heard the delightful sound of her harp. He walked up and down in the square impatiently, till he saw Lady Delacour’s carriage appear.

      “The drawing-room has lasted an unconscionable time this morning,” said he, as he handed her ladyship out of her coach, “Am not I the most virtuous of virtuous women,” said Lady Delacour, “to go to court such a day as this? But,” whispered she, as she went up stairs, “like all other amazingly good people, I have amazingly good reasons for being good. The queen is soon to give a charming breakfast at Frogmore, and I am paying my court with all my might, in hopes of being asked; for Belinda must see one of their galas before we leave town, that I’m determined upon.—But where is she?” “Not at home,” said Clarence, smiling. “Oh, not at home is nonsense, you know. Shine out, appear, be found, my lovely Zara!” cried Lady Delacour, opening the library door. “Here she is—what doing I know not—studying Hervey’s Meditations on the Tombs, I should guess, by the sanctification of her looks. If you be not totally above all sublunary considerations, admire my lilies of the valley, and let me give you a lecture, not upon heads, or upon hearts, but on what is of much more consequence, upon hoops. Every body wears hoops, but how few—‘tis a melancholy consideration—how very few can manage them! There’s my friend Lady C——; in an elegant undress she passes for very genteel, but put her into a hoop and she looks as pitiable a figure, as much a prisoner, and as little able to walk, as a child in a go-cart. She gets on, I grant you, and so does the poor child; but, getting on, you know, is not walking. Oh, Clarence, I wish you had seen the two Lady R.‘s sticking close to one another, their father pushing them on together, like two decanters in a bottle-coaster, with such magnificent diamond labels round their necks!”

      Encouraged by Clarence Hervey’s laughter, Lady Delacour went on to mimic what she called the hoop awkwardness of all her acquaintance; and if these could have failed to divert Belinda, it was impossible for her to be serious when she heard Clarence Hervey declare that he was convinced he could manage a hoop as well as any woman in England, except Lady Delacour.

      “Now here,” said he, “is the purblind dowager, Lady Boucher, just at the door, Lady Delacour; she would not know my face, she would not see my beard, and I will bet fifty guineas that I come into a room in a hoop, and that she does not find me out by my air—that I do not betray myself, in short, by my masculine awkwardness.”

      “I hold you to your word, Clarence,” cried Lady Delacour. “They have let the purblind dowager in; I hear her on the stairs. Here—through this way you can go: as you do every thing quicker than any body else in the world, you will certainly be full dressed in a quarter of an hour; I’ll engage to keep the dowager in scandal for that time. Go! Marriott has old hoops and old finery of mine, and you have all-powerful influence, I know, with Marriott: so go and use it, and let us see you in all your glory—though I vow I tremble for my fifty guineas.”

      Lady Delacour kept the dowager in scandal, according to her engagement, for a good quarter of an hour; then the dresses at the drawing-room took up another quarter; and, at last, the dowager began to give an account of sundry wonderful cures that had been performed, to her certain knowledge, by her favourite concentrated extract or anima of quassia. She entered into the history of the negro slave named Quassi, who discovered this medical wood, which he kept a close secret till Mr. Daghlberg, a magistrate of Surinam, wormed it out of him, brought a branch of the tree to Europe, and communicated it to the great Linnaeus—when Clarence Hervey was announced by the title of “The Countess de Pomenars.”

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