Lord Delacour had this very morning sent home to her ladyship a handsome diamond ring, which had been intended as a present for Mrs. Luttridge, and which he imagined would therefore be peculiarly acceptable to his lady. In the evening, when his lordship asked her how she liked the ring, which he desired the jeweller to leave for her to look at it, she answered, that it was a handsome ring, but that she hoped he had not purchased it for her.
“It is not actually bought, my dear,” said his lordship; “but if it suits your fancy, I hope you will do me the honour to wear it for my sake.”
“I will wear it for your sake, my lord,” said Lady Delacour, “if you desire it; and as a mark of your regard it is agreeable: but as to the rest —
‘My taste for diamonds now is o’er,
The sparkling baubles please no more.’
If you wish to do me a kindness, I will tell you what I should like much better than diamonds, though I know it is rather ungracious to dictate the form and fashion of a favour. But as my dictatorship in all human probability cannot last much longer—”
“Oh, my dear Lady Delacour! I must not hear you talk in this manner: your dictatorship, as you call it, will I hope last many, many happy years. But to the point — what should you like better, my dear, than this foolish ring?”
Her ladyship then expressed her wish that a small annuity might be settled upon a poor old man, whom she said she had unwittingly injured. She told the story of the rival galas and the aloe, and concluded by observing, that her lord was in some measure called upon to remedy part of the unnumbered ills which had sprung from her hatred of Mrs. Luttridge, as he had originally been the cause of her unextinguishable ire. Lord Delacour was flattered by this hint, and the annuity was immediately promised to the old gardener.
In talking to this old man afterward, Lady Delacour found, that the family in whose service he lately lived had a house at Twickenham that would just answer her purpose. Lord Delacour’s inquiries had hitherto been unsuccessful; he was rejoiced to find what he wanted just as he was giving up the search. The house was taken, and the old man hired as gardener — a circumstance which seemed to give him almost as much pleasure as the annuity; for there was a morello cherry-tree in the garden which had succeeded the aloe in his affection: “it would have grieved him sorely,” he said, “to leave his favourite tree to strangers, after all the pains he had been at in netting it to keep off the birds.”
As the period approached when her fate was to be decided, Lady Delacour’s courage seemed to rise; and at the same time her anxiety, that her secret should not be discovered, appeared to increase.
“If I survive this business,” said she, “it is my firm intention to appear in a new character, or rather to assert my real character. I will break through the spell of dissipation — I will at once cast off all the acquaintance that are unworthy of me — I will, in one word, go with you, my dear Belinda, to Mr. Percival’s. I can bear to be mortified for my good; and I am willing, since I find that Lady Anne Percival has behaved generously to me, with regard to Helena’s affections, I am willing that the recovery of my moral health should be attributed to the salubrious air of Oakly-park. But it would be inexpressible, intolerable mortification to me, to have it said or suspected in the world of fashion, that I retreated from the ranks disabled instead of disgusted. A voluntary retirement is graceful and dignified; a forced retreat is awkward and humiliating. You must be sensible that I could not endure to have it whispered—’Lady Delacour now sets up for being a prude, because she can no longer be a coquette.’ Lady Delacour would become the subject of witticisms, epigrams, caricatures without end. It would just be the very thing for Mrs. Luttridge; then she would revenge herself without mercy for the ass and her panniers. We should have ‘Lord and Lady D —— , or the Domestic Tête-à-tête,’ or ‘The Reformed Amazon,’ stuck up in a print-shop window! Oh, my dear, think of seeing such a thing! I should die with vexation; and of all deaths, that is the death I should like the least.”
Though Belinda could not entirely enter into those feelings, which thus made Lady Delacour invent wit against herself, and anticipate caricatures; yet she did every thing in her power to calm her ladyship’s apprehension of a discovery.
“My dear,” said Lady Delacour, “I have perfect confidence in Lord Delacour’s promise, and in his good-nature, of which he has within these few days given me proofs that are not lost upon my heart; but he is not the most discreet man in the world. Whenever he is anxious about any thing, you may read it a mile off in his eyes, nose, mouth, and chin. And to tell you all my fears in one word, Marriott informed me this morning, that the Luttridge, who came from Harrowgate to Rantipole, to meet Lord Delacour, finding that there was no drawing him to her, has actually brought herself to town.
“To town! — At this strange time of year! How will my lord resist this unequivocal, unprecedented proof of passion? If she catch hold of him again, I am undone. Or, even suppose him firm as a rock, her surprise, her jealousy, her curiosity, will set all engines at work, to find out by what witchcraft I have taken my husband from her. Every precaution that prudence could devise against her malicious curiosity I have taken. Marriott, you know, is above all temptation. That vile wretch (naming the person whose quack medicines had nearly destroyed her), that vile wretch will be silent from fear, for his own sake. He is yet to be paid and dismissed. That should have been done long ago, but I had not money both for him and Mrs. Franks the milliner. She is now paid: and Lord Delacour — I am glad to tell his friend how well he deserves her good opinion — Lord Delacour in the handsomest manner supplied me with the means of satisfying this man. He is to be here at three o’clock to-day; and this is the last interview he will ever have with Lady Delacour in the mysterious boudoir.”
The fears which her ladyship expressed of Mrs. Luttridge’s malicious curiosity were not totally without foundation. Champfort was at work for her and for himself. The memorable night of Lady Delacour’s overturn, and the bustle that Marriott made about the key of the boudoir, were still fresh in his memory; and he was in hopes that, if he could discover the mystery, he should at once regain his power over Lord Delacour, reinstate himself in his lucrative place, and obtain a handsome reward, or, more properly speaking, bribe, from Mrs. Luttridge. The means of obtaining information of all that passed in Lady Delacour’s family were, he thought, still in his power, though he was no longer an inmate of the house. The stupid maid was not so stupid as to be impenetrable to the voice of flattery, or, as Mr. Champfort called it, the voice of love. He found it his interest to court, and she her pleasure to be courted. On these “coquettes of the second table,” on these underplots in the drama, much of the comedy, and some of the tragedy, of life depend. Under the unsuspected mask of stupidity this worthy mistress of our intriguing valet-de-chambre concealed the quick ears of a listener, and the demure eyes of a spy. Long, however, did she listen, and long did she spy in vain, till at last Mr. Champfort gave her notice in writing that his love would not last another week, unless she could within that time contrive to satisfy his curiosity; and that, in short, she must find out the reason why the boudoir was always locked, and why Mrs. Marriott alone was to be trusted with the key. Now it happened that this billet-doux was received on the very day appointed for Lady Delacour’s last interview with the quack surgeon in the mysterious boudoir. Marriott, as it was her custom upon such occasions, let the surgeon in, and showed him up the back stairs into the boudoir, locked the door, and bade him wait there till her lady came. The man had not been punctual to the hour appointed; and Lady Delacour, giving up all expectation of his coming till the next day, had retired to her bedchamber, where she of late usually at this hour secluded herself to read methodistical books, or to sleep. Marriott, when she went up to let her lady know that the person, as she always called him, was come, found her so fast asleep that she thought it a pity to waken her, as she had not slept at all the preceding night. She shut the door very softly, and left her lady to repo
se. At the bottom of the stairs she was met by the stupid maid, whom she immediately despatched with orders to wash some lace: “Your lady’s asleep,” said she, “and pray let me have no running up and down stairs.” The room into which the stupid maid went was directly underneath the boudoir; and whilst she was there she thought that she heard the steps of a man’s foot walking over head. She listened more attentively — she heard them again. She armed herself with a glass of jelly in her hand, for my lady, and hurried up stairs instantly to my lady’s room. She was much surprised to see my lady fast asleep. Her astonishment at finding that Mrs. Marriott had told her the truth was such, as for a moment to bereave her of all presence of mind, and she stood with the door ajar in her hand. As thus she stood she was roused by the sound of some one clearing his throat very softly in the boudoir — his throat; for she recollected the footsteps she had heard before, and she was convinced it could be no other than a masculine throat. She listened again, and stooped down to try whether any feet could be seen under the door. As she was in this attitude, her lady suddenly turned on her bed, and the book which she had been reading fell from the pillow to the floor with a noise, that made the listener start up instantaneously in great terror. The noise, however, did not waken Lady Delacour, who was in that dead sleep which is sometimes the effect of opium. The noise was louder than what could have been made by the fall of a book alone, and the girl descried a key that had fallen along with the book. It occurred to her that this might possibly be the key of the boudoir. From one of those irresistible impulses which some people make an excuse for doing whatever they please, she seized it, resolved at all hazards to open the mysterious door. She was cautiously putting the key into the key-hole, so as not to make the least noise, when she was suddenly startled by a voice behind her, which said, “Who gave you leave to open that door?”
She turned, and saw Helena standing at the half open bedchamber door.
“Mercy, Miss Delacour! who thought of seeing you? For God’s sake, don’t make a noise to waken my lady!”
“Did my mother desire you to go into that room?” repeated Helena.
“Dear me! no, miss,” said the maid, putting on her stupid face; “but I only thought to open the door, to let in a little air to freshen the room, which my lady always likes, and bids me to do — and I thought—”
Helena took the key gently from her hand without listening to any more of her thoughts, and the woman left the room muttering something about jelly and my lady, Helena went to the side of her mother’s bed, determined to wait there till she awakened, then to give her the key, and tell her the circumstance. Notwithstanding the real simplicity of this little girl’s character, she was, as her mother had discovered, a nice observer, and she had remarked that her mother permitted no one but Marriott to go into the boudoir. This remark did not excite her to dive into the mystery: on the contrary, she carefully repressed all curiosity, remembering the promise she had given to her mother when she talked of Zobeide and the porter. She had not been without temptation to break this promise; for the maid who usually attended her toilette had employed every art in her power to stimulate her curiosity. As she was dressing Helena this morning, she had said to her, “The reason I was so late calling you, miss, this morning, was because I was so late myself last night; for I went to the play, miss, last night, which was Bluebeard. Lord bless us! I’m sure, if I had been Bluebeard’s wife, I should have opened the door, if I’d died for it; for to have the notion of living all day long, and all night too, in a house in which there was a room that one was never to go into, is a thing I could not put up with.” Then after a pause, and after waiting in vain for some reply from Helena, she added, “Pray, Miss Delacour, did you ever go into that little room within my lady’s bedchamber, that Mrs. Marriott keeps the key of always?”
“No,” said Helena.
“I’ve often wondered what’s in it: but then that’s only because I’m a simpleton. I thought to be sure, you knew.”
Observing that Helena looked much displeased, she broke off her speech, hoping that what she had said would operate in due time, and that she should thus excite the young lady to get the secret from Marriott, which she had no doubt afterward of worming from Miss Delacour.
In all this she calculated ill; for what she had said only made Helena distrust and dislike her. It was the recollection of this conversation that made her follow the maid to her mother’s bedchamber, to see what detained her there so long. Helena had heard Marriott say, that “she ought not to run up and down stairs, because her lady was asleep,” and it appeared extraordinary that but a few minutes after this information she should have gone into the room with a glass of jelly in her hand.
“Ah, mamma!” thought Helena, as she stood beside her mother’s bed, “you did not understand, and perhaps you did not believe me, when I said that I would not try to find out any thing that you wished me not to know. Now I hope you will understand me better.”
Lady Delacour opened her eyes: “Helena,” cried she, starting up, “how came you by that key?”
“Oh, mother! don’t look as if you suspected me.” She then told her mother how the key came into her hands.
“My dear child, you have done me an essential service,” said Lady Delacour: “you know not its importance, at least in my estimation. But what gives me infinitely more satisfaction, you have proved yourself worthy of my esteem — my love.”
Marriott came into the room, and whispered a few words to her lady.
“You may speak out, Marriott, before my Helena,” said Lady Delacour, rising from the bed as she spoke: “child as she is, Helena has deserved my confidence; and she shall be convinced that, where her mother has once reason to confide, she is incapable of suspicion. Wait here for a few minutes, my dear.”
She went to her boudoir, paid and dismissed the surgeon expeditiously, then returned, and taking her daughter by the hand, she said, “You look all simplicity, my dear! I see you have no vulgar, school-girl curiosity. You will have all your mother’s strength of mind; may you never have any of her faults, or any of her misfortunes! I speak to you not as to a child, Helena, for you have reason far above your years; and you will remember what I now say to you as long as you live. You will possess talents, beauty, fortune; you will be admired, followed, and flattered, as I have been: but do not throw away your life as I have thrown away mine — to win the praise of fools. Had I used but half the talents I possess, as I hope you will use yours, I might have been an ornament to my sex — I might have been a Lady Anne Percival.”
Here Lady Delacour’s voice failed; but commanding her emotion, she in a few moments went on speaking.
“Choose your friends well, my dear daughter! It was my misfortune, my folly, early in life to connect myself with a woman, who under the name of frolic led me into every species of mischief. You are too young, too innocent, to hear the particulars of my history now; but you will hear them all at a proper time from my best friend, Miss Portman. I shall leave you to her care, my dear, when I die.”
“When you die! — Oh, mother!” said Helena, “but why do you talk of dying?” and she threw her arms round her mother.
“Gently, my love!” said Lady Delacour, shrinking back; and she seized this moment to explain to her daughter why she shrunk in this manner from her caresses, and why she talked of dying.
Helena was excessively shocked.
“I wished, my dear,” resumed her mother, calmly, “I wished to have spared you the pain of knowing all this. I have given you but little pleasure in my life; it is unjust to give you so much pain. We shall go to Twickenham to-morrow, and I will leave you with your Aunt Margaret, my dear, till all is over. If I die, Belinda will take you with her immediately to Oakly-park — you shall have as little sorrow as possible. If you had shown me less of your affectionate temper, you would have spared yourself the anguish that you now feel, and you would have spared me—”
“My dear, kind mother,” interrupted Helena, throwing herself
on her knees at her mother’s feet, “do not send me away from you — I don’t wish to go to my Aunt Margaret — I don’t wish to go to Oakly-park — I wish to stay with you. Do not send me away from you; for I shall suffer ten times more if I am not with you, though I know I can be of no use.”
Overcome by her daughter’s entreaties, Lady Delacour at last consented that she should remain with her, and that she should accompany her to Twickenham.
The remainder of this day was taken up in preparations for their departure. The stupid maid was immediately dismissed. No questions were asked, and no reasons for her dismissal assigned, except that Lady Delacour had no farther occasion for her services. Marriott alone was to attend her lady to Twickenham. Lord Delacour, it was settled, should stay in town, lest the unusual circumstance of his attending his lady should excite public curiosity. His lordship, who was naturally a good-natured man, and who had been touched by the kindness his wife had lately shown him, was in extreme agitation during the whole of this day, which he thought might possibly be the last of her existence. She, on the contrary, was calm and collected; her courage seemed to rise with the necessity for its exertion.
In the morning, when the carriage came to the door, as she parted with Lord Delacour, she put into his hand a paper that contained some directions and requests with which, she said, she hoped that he would comply, if they should prove to be her last. The paper contained only some legacies to her servants, a provision for Marriott, and a bequest to her excellent and beloved friend, Belinda Portman, of the cabinet in which she kept Clarence Hervey’s letters.
Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth Page 47
