Tales and Novels Volume III Part 10

"It would have been better if I had," cried Mrs. Delacour, "I can understand that there may be such a thing in nature as a jealous wife, but an unfeeling mother I cannot comprehend--that pa.s.ses my powers of imagination."

"And mine, so much," said Lady Anne, "that I cannot believe such a being to exist in the world--notwithstanding all the descriptions I have heard of it: as you say, my dear Mrs. Delacour, it pa.s.ses my powers of imagination. Let us leave it in Mr. Hervey's apocryphal chapter of animals, and he will excuse us if I never admit it into true history, at least without some better evidence than I have yet heard."

"Why, my dear, dear Lady Anne," cried Mrs. Delacour--"I've made this coffee so sweet, there's no drinking it--what evidence would you have?"

"None," said Lady Anne, smiling, "I would have none." "That is to say, you will take none," said Mrs. Delacour: "but can any thing be stronger evidence than her ladys.h.i.+p's conduct to _my_ poor Helen--to _your_ Helen, I should say--for you have educated, you have protected her, you have been a mother to her. I am an infirm, weak, ignorant, pa.s.sionate old woman--I could not have been what you have been to that child--G.o.d bless you!--G.o.d will bless you!"

She rose as she spoke, to set down her coffee-cup on the table. Clarence Hervey took it from her with a look which said much, and which she was perfectly capable of understanding.

"Young man," said she, "it is very unfas.h.i.+onable to treat age and infirmity with politeness. I wish that your friend, Lady Delacour, may at my time of life meet with as much respect, as she has met with admiration and gallantry in her youth. Poor woman, her head has absolutely been turned with admiration--and if fame say true, Mr. Hervey has had his share in turning that head by his flattery."

"I am sure her ladys.h.i.+p has turned mine by her charms," said Clarence; "and I certainly am not to be blamed for admiring what all the world admires."

"I wish," said the old lady, "for her own sake, for the sake of her family, and for the sake of her reputation, that my Lady Delacour had fewer admirers, and more friends."

"Women who have met with so many admirers, seldom meet with many friends," said Lady Anne.

"No," said Mrs. Delacour, "for they seldom are wise enough to know their value."

"We learn the value of all things, but especially of friends, by experience," said Lady Anne; "and it is no wonder, therefore, that those who have little experience of the pleasures of friends.h.i.+p should not be wise enough to know their value."

"This is very good-natured sophistry; but Lady Delacour is too vain ever to have a friend," said Mrs. Delacour. "My dear Lady Anne, you don't know her as well as I do--she has more vanity than ever woman had."

"That is certainly saying a great deal," said Lady Anne; "but then we must consider, that Lady Delacour, as an heiress, a beauty, and a wit, has a right to a triple share at least."

"Both her fortune and her beauty are gone; and if she had any wit left, it is time it should teach her how to conduct herself, I think," said Mrs. Delacour: "but I give her up--I give her up."

"Oh, no," said Lady Anne, "you must not give her up yet, I have been informed, and upon _the best authority_, that Lady Delacour was not always the unfeeling, dissipated fine lady that she now appears to be.

This is only one of the transformations of fas.h.i.+on--the period of her enchantment will soon be at an end, and she will return to her natural character. I should not be at all surprised, if Lady Delacour were to appear at once _la femme comme il y en a pen_."

"Or _la bonne mere_?" said Mrs. Delacour, sarcastically, "after thus leaving her daughter----"

"_Pour bonne bouche_," interrupted Lady Anne, "when she is tired of the insipid taste of other pleasures, she will have a higher relish for those of domestic life, which will be new and fresh to her."

"And so you really think, my dear Lady Anne, that my Lady Delacour will end by being a domestic woman. Well," said Mrs. Margaret, after taking two pinches of snuff, "some people believe in the millennium; but I confess I am not one of them--are you, Mr. Hervey?"

"If it were foretold to me by a good angel," said Clarence, smiling, as his eye glanced at Lady Anne; "if it were foretold to me by a good angel, how could I doubt it?"

Here the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of one of Lady Anne's little boys, who came running eagerly up to his mother, to ask whether he might have "the sulphurs to show to Helena Delacour. I want to show her Vertumnus and Pomona, mamma," said he. "Were not the cherries that the old gardener sent very good?"

"What is this about the cherries and the old gardener, Charles?" said the young lady who sat beside Lady Anne: "come here and tell me the whole story."

"I will, but I should tell it you a great deal better another time,"

said the boy, "because now Helena's waiting for Vertumnus and Pomona."

"Go then to Helena," said Lady Anne, "and I will tell the story for you."

Then turning to the young lady she began--"Once upon a time there lived an old gardener at Kensington; and this old gardener had an aloe, which was older than himself; for it was very near a hundred years of age, and it was just going to blossom, and the old gardener calculated how much he might make by showing his aloe, when it should be in full blow, to the generous public--and he calculated that he might make a 100l.; and with this 100l. he determined to do more than was ever done with a 100l.

before: but, unluckily, as he was thus reckoning his blossoms before they were blown, he chanced to meet with a fair damsel, who ruined all his calculations."

"Ay, Mrs. Stanhope's maid, was not it?" interrupted Mrs. Margaret Delacour. "A pretty damsel she was, and almost as good a politician as her mistress. Think of that jilt's tricking this poor old fellow out of his aloe, and--oh, the meanness of Lady Delacour, to accept of that aloe for one of her extravagant entertainments!"

"But I always understood that she paid fifty guineas for it," said Lady Anne.

"Whether she did or not," said Mrs. Delacour, "her ladys.h.i.+p and Mrs.

Stanhope between them were the ruin of this poor old man. He was taken in to marry that jade of a waiting-maid; she turned out just as you might expect from a pupil of Mrs. Stanhope's--the match-making Mrs.

Stanhope--you know, sir." (Clarence Hervey changed colour.) "She turned out," continued Mrs. Delacour, "every thing that was bad--ruined her husband--ran away from him--and left him a beggar."

"Poor man!" said Clarence Hervey.

"But now," said Lady Anne, "let's come to the best part of the story--mark how good comes out of evil. If this poor man had not lost his aloe and his wife, I probably should never have been acquainted with Mrs. Delacour, or with my little Helena. About the time that the old gardener was left a beggar, as I happened to be walking one fine evening in Sloane-street, I met a procession of school-girls--an old man begged from them in a most moving voice; and as they pa.s.sed, several of the young ladies threw halfpence to him. One little girl, who observed that the old man could not stoop without great difficulty, stayed behind the rest of her companions, and collected the halfpence which they had thrown to him, and put them into his hat. He began to tell his story over again to her, and she stayed so long listening to it, that her companions had turned the corner of the street, and were out of sight.

She looked about in great distress; and I never shall forget the pathetic voice with which she said, 'Oh! what will become of me? every body will be angry with me.' I a.s.sured her that n.o.body should be angry with her, and she gave me her little hand with the utmost innocent confidence. I took her home to her schoolmistress, and I was so pleased with the beginning of this acquaintance, that I was determined to cultivate it. One good acquaintance I have heard always leads to another. Helena introduced me to her aunt Delacour as her best friend.

Mrs. Margaret Delacour has had the goodness to let her little niece spend the holidays and all her leisure time with me, so that our acquaintance has grown into friends.h.i.+p. Helena has become quite one of my family."

"And I am sure she has become quite a different creature since she has been so much with you," cried Mrs. Delacour; "her spirits were quite broken by her mother's neglect of her: young as she is, she has a great deal of real sensibility; but as to her mother's sensibility--"

At the recollection of Lady Delacour's neglect of her child, Mrs.

Delacour was going again to launch forth into indignant invective, but Lady Anne stopped her, by whispering--

"Take care what you say of the mother, for here is the daughter coming, and she has, indeed, a great deal of real sensibility."

Helena and her young companions now came into the room, bringing with them the sulphurs at which they had been looking.

"Mamma," said little Charles Percival, "we have brought the sulphurs to you, because there are some of them that I don't know."

"Wonderful!" said Lady Anne; "and what is not quite so wonderful, there are some of them that I don't know."

The children spread the sulphurs upon a little table, and all the company gathered round it.

"Here are all the nine muses for you," said the least of the boys, who had taken his seat by Clarence Hervey at dinner; "here are all the muses for you, Mr. Hervey: which do you like best?--Oh, that's the tragic muse that you have chosen!--You don't like the tragic better than the comic muse, do you?"

Clarence Hervey made no answer, for he was at that instant recollecting how Belinda looked in the character of the tragic muse.

"Has your ladys.h.i.+p ever happened to meet with the young lady who has spent this winter with Lady Delacour?" said Clarence to Lady Anne.

"I sat near her one night at the opera," said Lady Anne: "she has a charming countenance."

"Who?--Belinda Portman, do you mean?" said Mrs. Delacour. "I am sure if I were a young man, I would not trust to the charming countenance of a young lady who is a pupil of Mrs. Stanhope's, and a friend of--Helena, my dear, shut the door--the most dissipated woman in London."

"Indeed," said Lady Anne, "Miss Portman is in a dangerous situation; but some young people learn prudence by being placed in dangerous situations, as some young horses, I have heard Mr. Percival say, learn to be sure-footed, by being left to pick their own way on bad roads."

Here Mr. Percival, Dr. X----, and some other gentlemen, came up stairs to tea, and the conversation took another turn. Clarence Hervey endeavoured to take his share in it with his usual vivacity, but he was thinking of Belinda Portman, dangerous situations, stumbling horses, &c; and he made several blunders, which showed his absence of mind.

"What have you there, Mr. Hervey?" said Dr. X----, looking over his shoulder--"the tragic muse? This tragic muse seems to rival Lady Delacour in your admiration."

"Oh," said Clarence, smiling, "you know I was always a votary of the muses."

"And a favoured votary," said Dr. X----. "I wish for the interests of literature, that poets may always be lovers, though I cannot say that I desire lovers should always be poets. But, Mr. Hervey, you must never marry, remember," continued Dr. X----, "never--for your true poet must always be miserable. You know Petrarch tells us, he would not have been happy if he could; he would not have married his mistress if it had been in his power; because then there would have been an end of his beautiful sonnets."