Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “How would you improve the state of society?” asked Mr. Percival, calmly.

  “I’m not tinker-general to the world,” said she.

  “I’m glad of it,” said Mr. Percival; “for I have heard that tinkers often spoil more than they mend.”

  “But if you want to know,” said Mrs. Freke, “what I would do to improve the world, I’ll tell you: I’d have both sexes call things by their right names.”

  “This would doubtless be a great improvement,” said Mr. Percival; “but you would not overturn society to attain it, would you? Should we find things much improved by tearing away what has been called the decent drapery of life?”

  “Drapery, if you ask me my opinion,” cried Mrs. Freke, “drapery, whether wet or dry, is the most confoundedly indecent thing in the world.”

  “That depends on public opinion, I allow,” said Mr. Percival. “The Lacedaemonian ladies, who were veiled only by public opinion, were better covered from profane eyes than some English ladies are in wet drapery.”

  “I know nothing of the Lacedaemonian ladies: I took my leave of them when I was a schoolboy — girl, I should say. But pray, what o’clock is it by you? I’ve sat till I’m cramped all over,” cried Mrs. Freke, getting up and stretching herself so violently that some part of her habiliments gave way. “Honi soit qui mal y pense!” said she, bursting into a horse laugh.

  Without sharing in any degree that confusion which Belinda felt for her, she strode out of the room, saying, “Miss Portman, you understand these things better than I do; come and set me to rights.”

  When she was in Belinda’s room, she threw herself into an arm-chair, and laughed immoderately.

  “How I have trimmed Percival this morning!” said she.

  “I am glad you think so,” said Belinda; “for I really was afraid he had been too severe upon you.”

  “I only wish,” continued Mrs. Freke, “I only wish his wife had been by. Why the devil did not she make her appearance? I suppose the prude was afraid of my demolishing and unrigging her.”

  “There seems to have been more danger of that for you than for any body else,” said Belinda, as she assisted to set Mrs. Freke’s rigging, as she called it, to rights.

  “I do of all things delight in hauling good people’s opinions out of their musty drawers, and seeing how they look when they’re all pulled to pieces before their faces! Pray, are those Lady Anne’s drawers or yours?” said Mrs. Freke, pointing to a chest of drawers.

  “Mine.”

  “I’m sorry for it; for if they were hers, to punish her for shirking me, by the Lord, I’d have every rag she has in the world out in the middle of the floor in ten minutes! You don’t know me — I’m a terrible person when provoked — stop at nothing!”

  As Mrs. Freke saw no other chance left of gaining her point with Belinda, she tried what intimidating her would do.

  “I stop at nothing,” repeated she, fixing her eyes upon Miss Portman, to fascinate her by terror. “Friend or foe! peace or war! Take your choice. Come to the ball at Harrowgate, I win my bet, and I’m your sworn friend. Stay away, I lose my bet, and am your sworn enemy.”

  “It is not in my power, madam,” said Belinda, calmly, “to comply with your request.”

  “Then you’ll take the consequences,” cried Mrs. Freke. She rushed past her, hurried down stairs, and called out, “Bid my blockhead bring my unicorn.”

  She, her unicorn, and her blockhead, were out of sight in a few minutes.

  Good may be drawn from evil. Mrs. Freke’s conversation, though at the time it confounded Belinda, roused her, upon reflection, to examine by her reason the habits and principles which guided her conduct. She had a general feeling that they were right and necessary; but now, with the assistance of Lady Anne and Mr. Percival, she established in her own understanding the exact boundaries between right and wrong upon many subjects. She felt a species of satisfaction and security, from seeing the demonstration of those axioms of morality, in which she had previously acquiesced. Reasoning gradually became as agreeable to her as wit; nor was her taste for wit diminished, it was only refined by this process. She now compared and judged of the value of the different species of this brilliant talent.

  Mrs. Freke’s wit, thought she, is like a noisy squib, the momentary terror of passengers; Lady Delacour’s like an elegant firework, which we crowd to see, and cannot forbear to applaud; but Lady Anne Percival’s wit is like the refulgent moon, we

  “Love the mild rays, and bless the useful light.”

  “Miss Portman,” said Mr. Percival, “are not you afraid of making an enemy of Mrs. Freke, by declining her invitation to Harrowgate?”

  “I think her friendship more to be dreaded than her enmity,” replied Belinda.

  “Then you are not to be terrified by an obeah-woman?” said Mr. Vincent.

  “Not in the least, unless she were to come in the shape of a false friend,” said Belinda.

  “Till lately,” said Mr. Vincent, “I was deceived in the character of Mrs. Freke. I thought her a dashing, free-spoken, free-hearted sort of eccentric person, who would make a staunch friend and a jolly companion. As a mistress, or a wife, no man of any taste could think of her. Compare that woman now with one of our Creole ladies.”

  “But why with a creole?” said Mr. Percival.

  “For the sake of contrast, in the first place: our creole women are all softness, grace, delicacy — —”

  “And indolence,” said Mr. Percival.

  “Their indolence is but a slight, and, in my judgment, an amiable defect; it keeps them out of mischief, and it attaches them to domestic life. The activity of a Mrs. Freke would never excite their emulation; and so much the better.”

  “So much the better, no doubt,” said Mr. Percival. “But is there no other species of activity that might excite their ambition with propriety? Without diminishing their grace, softness, or delicacy, might not they cultivate their minds? Do you think ignorance, as well as indolence, an amiable defect, essential to the female character?”

  “Not essential. You do not, I hope, imagine that I am so much prejudiced in favour of my countrywomen, that I can neither see nor feel the superiority in some instances of European cultivation? I speak only in general.”

  “And in general,” said Lady Anne Percival, “does Mr. Vincent wish to confine our sex to the bliss of ignorance?”

  “If it be bliss,” said Mr. Vincent, “what reason would they have for complaint?”

  “If,” said Belinda; “but that is a question which you have not yet decided.”

  “And how can we decide it?” said Mr. Vincent, “The taste and feelings of individuals must be the arbiters of their happiness.”

  “You leave reason quite out of the question, then,” said Mr. Percival, “and refer the whole to taste and feeling? So that if the most ignorant person in the world assert that he is happier than you are, you are bound to believe him.”

  “Why should not I?” said Mr. Vincent.

  “Because,” said Mr. Percival, “though he can judge of his own pleasures, he cannot judge of yours; his are common to both, but yours are unknown to him. Would you, at this instant, change places with that ploughman yonder, who is whistling as he goes for want of thought? or, would you choose to go a step higher in the bliss of ignorance, and turn savage?”

  Mr. Vincent laughed, and protested that he should be very unwilling to give up his title to civilized society; and that, instead of wishing to have less knowledge, he regretted that he had not more. “I am sensible,” said he, “that I have many prejudices; — Miss Portman has made me ashamed of some of them.”

  There was a degree of candour in Mr. Vincent’s manner and conversation, which interested every body in his favour; Belinda amongst the rest. She was perfectly at ease in Mr. Vincent’s company, because she considered him as a person who wished for her friendship, without having any design to engage her affections. From several hints that dropped from him, from Mr. Percival, and from
Lady Anne, she was persuaded that he was attached to some creole lady; and all that he said in favour of the elegant softness and delicacy of his countrywomen confirmed this opinion.

  Miss Portman was not one of those young ladies who fancy that every gentleman who converses freely with them will inevitably fall a victim to the power of their charms, and will see in every man a lover, or nothing.

  CHAPTER XVIII. — A DECLARATION.

  “I’ve found it! — I’ve found it, mamma!” cried little Charles Percival, running eagerly into the room with a plant in his hand. “Will you send this in your letter to Helena Delacour, and tell her that is the thing that gold fishes are so fond of? And tell her that it is called lemna, and that it may be found in any ditch or pool.”

  “But how can she find ditches and pools in Grosvenor-square, my dear?”

  “Oh, I forgot that. Then will you tell her, mamma, that I will send her a great quantity?”

  “How, my dear?”

  “I don’t know, mamma, yet — but I will find out some way.”

  “Would it not be as well, my dear,” said his mother, smiling, “to consider how you can perform your promises before you make them?”

  “A gentleman,” said Mr. Vincent, “never makes a promise that he cannot perform.”

  “I know that very well,” said the boy, proudly: “Miss Portman, who is very good-natured, will, I am sure, be so good, when she goes back to Lady Delacour, as to carry food for the gold fishes to Helena — you see that I have found out a way to keep my promise.”

  “No, I’m afraid not,” said Belinda; “for I am not going back to Lady Delacour’s.”

  “Then I am very glad of it!” said the boy, dropping the weed, and clapping his hands joyfully; “for then I hope you will always stay here, don’t you, mamma? — don’t you, Mr. Vincent? Oh, you do, I am sure, for I heard you say so to papa the other day! But what makes you grow so red?”

  His mother took him by the hand, as he was going to repeat the question, and leading him out of the room, desired him to show her the place where he found the food for the gold fishes.

  Belinda, to Mr. Vincent’s great relief, seemed not to take any notice of the child’s question, nor to have any sympathy in his curiosity; she was intently copying Westall’s sketch of Lady Anne Percival and her family, and she had been roused, by the first mention of Helena Delacour’s name, to many painful and some pleasing recollections. “What a charming woman, and what a charming family!” said Mr. Vincent, as he looked at the drawing; “and how much more interesting is this picture of domestic happiness than all the pictures of shepherds and shepherdesses, and gods and goddesses, that ever were drawn!”

  “Yes,” said Belinda, “and how much more interesting this picture is to us, from our knowing that it is not a fancy-piece; that the happiness is real, not imaginary: that this is the natural expression of affection in the countenance of the mother; and that these children, who crowd round her, are what they seem to be — the pride and pleasure of her life!”

  “There cannot,” exclaimed Mr. Vincent, with enthusiasm, “be a more delightful picture! Oh, Miss Portman, is it possible that you should not feel what you can paint so well?”

  “Is it possible, sir,” said Belinda, “that you should suspect me of such wretched hypocrisy, as to affect to admire what I am incapable of feeling?”

  “You misunderstand — you totally misunderstand me. Hypocrisy! No; there is not a woman upon earth whom I believe to be so far above all hypocrisy, all affectation. But I imagined — I feared—”

  As he spoke these last words he was in some confusion, and hastily turned over the prints in a portfolio which lay upon the table. Belinda’s eye was caught by an engraving of Lady Delacour in the character of the comic muse. Mr. Vincent did not know the intimacy that had subsisted between her ladyship and Miss Portman — she sighed from the recollection of Clarence Hervey, and of all that had passed at the masquerade.

  “What a contrast!” said Mr. Vincent, placing the print of Lady Delacour beside the picture of Lady Anne Percival. “What a contrast! Compare their pictures — compare their characters — compare—”

  “Excuse me,” interrupted Belinda; “Lady Delacour was once my friend, and I do not like to make a comparison so much to her disadvantage. I have never seen any woman who would not suffer by a comparison with Lady Anne Percival.”

  “I have been more fortunate, I have seen one — one equally worthy of esteem — admiration — love.”

  Mr. Vincent’s voice faltered in pronouncing the word love; yet Belinda, prepossessed by the idea that he was attached to some creole lady, simply answered, without looking up from her drawing, “You are indeed very fortunate — peculiarly fortunate. Are the West-Indian ladies — —”

  “West-Indian ladies!” interrupted Mr. Vincent. “Surely, Miss Portman cannot imagine that I am at this instant thinking of any West-Indian lady!” Belinda looked up with an air of surprise. “Charming Miss Portman,” continued he, “I have learnt to admire European beauty, European excellence! I have acquired new ideas of the female character — ideas — feelings that must henceforward render me exquisitely happy or exquisitely miserable.”

  Miss Portman had been too often called “charming” to be much startled or delighted by the sound: the word would have passed by unnoticed, but there was something so impassioned in Mr. Vincent’s manner, that she could no longer mistake it for common gallantry, and she was in evident confusion. Now for the first time the idea of Mr. Vincent as a lover came into her mind: the next instant she accused herself of vanity, and dreaded that he should read her thoughts. “Exquisitely miserable!” said she, in a tone of raillery: “I should not suppose, from what I have seen of Mr. Vincent, that any thing could make him exquisitely miserable.”

  “Then you do not know my character — you do not know my heart: it is in your power to make me exquisitely miserable. Mine is not the cold, hackneyed phrase of gallantry, but the fervid language of passion,” cried he, seizing her hand.

  At this instant one of the children came in with some flowers to Belinda; and, glad of the interruption, she hastily put up her drawings and left the room, observing that she should scarcely have time to dress before dinner. However, as soon as she found herself alone, she forgot how late it was; and though she sat down before the glass to dress, she made no progress in the business, but continued for some time motionless, endeavouring to recollect and to understand all that had passed. The result of her reflections was the conviction that her partiality for Clarence Hervey was greater than she ever had till this moment suspected. “I have told my aunt Stanhope,” thought she, “that the idea of Mr. Hervey had no influence in my refusal of Sir Philip Baddely; I have said that my affections are entirely at my own command: then why do I feel this alarm at the discovery of Mr. Vincent’s views? Why do I compare him with one whom I thought I had forgotten? — And yet how are we to judge of character? How can we form any estimate of what is amiable, of what will make us happy or miserable, but by comparison? Am I to blame for perceiving superiority? Am I to blame if one person be more agreeable, or seem to be more agreeable, than another? Am I to blame if I cannot love Mr. Vincent?”

  Before Belinda had answered these questions to her satisfaction, the dinner-bell rang. There happened to dine this day at Mr. Percival’s a gentleman who had just arrived from Lisbon, and the conversation turned upon the sailors’ practice of stilling the waves over the bar of Lisbon by throwing oil upon the water. Charles Percival’s curiosity was excited by this conversation, and he wished to see the experiment. In the evening his father indulged his wishes. The children were delighted at the sight, and little Charles insisted upon Belinda’s following him to a particular spot, where he was well convinced that she could see better than any where else in the world. “Take care,” cried Lady Anne, “or you will lead your friend into the river, Charles.” The boy paused, and soon afterwards asked his father several questions about swimming and drowning, and bringing people
to life after they had been drowned. “Don’t you remember, papa,” said he, “that Mr. Hervey, who was almost drowned in the Serpentine river in London?” — Belinda coloured at hearing unexpectedly the name of the person of whom she was at that instant thinking, and the child continued—”I liked that Mr. Hervey very much — I liked him from the first day I saw him. What a number of entertaining things he told us at dinner! We used to call him the good-natured gentleman: I like him very much — I wish he was here this minute. Did you ever see him, Miss Portman? Oh, yes, you must have seen him; for it was he who carried Helena’s gold fishes to her mother, and he used often to be at Lady Delacour’s — was not he?”

  “Yes, my dear, often.”

  “And did not you like him very much?” — This simple question threw Belinda into inexpressible confusion: but fortunately the crimson on her face was seen only by Lady Anne Percival. To Belinda’s great satisfaction, Mr. Vincent forbore this evening any attempt to renew the conversation of the morning; he endeavoured to mix, with his usual animation and gaiety, in the family society; and her embarrassment was much lessened when she heard the next day, at breakfast, that he was gone to Harrowgate. Lady Anne Percival took notice that she was this morning unusually sprightly.

  After breakfast, as they were passing through the hall to take a walk in the park, one of the little boys stopped to look at a musical instrument which hung up against the wall.

  “What is this, mamma? — It is not a guitar, is it?”

  “No, my dear, it is called a banjore; it is an African instrument, of which the negroes are particularly fond. Mr. Vincent mentioned it the other day to Miss Portman, and I believe she expressed some curiosity to see one. Juba went to work immediately to make a banjore, I find. Poor fellow! I dare say that he was very sorry to go to Harrowgate, and to leave his African guitar half finished; especially as it was intended for an offering to Miss Portman. He is the most grateful, affectionate creature I ever saw.”