Lady Delacour suddenly drew the curtain between her and Belinda, saying, “Well, my dear, at all events, I am glad to hear you don’t forget your promise of staying with me. You are, perhaps, prudent to refuse me your assistance, all circumstances considered. Good night: I have kept you up too long—good night!”
“Good night!” said Belinda, drawing aside the curtain, “You will not be displeased with me, when you reflect coolly.”
“The light blinds me,” said Lady Delacour; and she turned her face away from Miss Portman, and added, in a drowsy voice, “I will think of what has been said some time or other: but just now I would rather go to sleep than say or hear any more; for I am more than half asleep already.”
Belinda closed the curtains and left the room. But Lady Delacour, notwithstanding the drowsy tone in which she pronounced these last words, was not in the least inclined to sleep. A passion had taken possession of her mind, which kept her broad awake the remainder of the night—the passion of jealousy. The extreme eagerness with which Belinda had urged her to consult Lord Delacour, and to trust him with her secret, displeased her; not merely as an opposition to her will, and undue attention to his lordship’s feelings, but as “confirmation strong” of a hint which had been dropped by Sir Philip Baddely, but which never till now had appeared to her worthy of a moment’s consideration. Sir Philip had observed, that, “if a young lady had any hopes of being a viscountess, it was no wonder she thought a baronet beneath her notice.” “Now,” thought Lady Delacour, “this is not impossible. In the first place, Belinda Portman is niece to Mrs. Stanhope; she may have all her aunt’s art, and the still greater art to conceal it under the mask of openness and simplicity: Volto sciolto, pensieri stretti, is the grand maxim of the Stanhope school.” The moment Lady Delacour’s mind turned to suspicion, her ingenuity rapidly supplied her with circumstances and arguments to confirm and justify her doubts.
“Miss Portman fears that my husband is growing too fond of me: she says, he has been very attentive to me of late. Yes, so he has; and on purpose to disgust him with me, she immediately urges me to tell him that I have a loathsome disease, and that I am about to undergo a horrid operation. How my eyes have been blinded by her artifice! This last stroke was rather too bold, and has opened them effectually, and now I see a thousand things that escaped me before. Even to-night, the Sortes Virgilianae, the myrtle leaf, Miss Portman’s mark, left in the book exactly at the place where Marmontel gives a receipt for managing a husband of Lord Delacour’s character. Ah, ah! By her own confession, she had been reading this: studying it. Yes, and she has studied it to some purpose; she has made that poor weak lord of mine think her an angel. How he ran on in her praise the other day, when he honoured me with a morning visit! That morning visit, too, was of her suggestion; and the bank-notes, as he, like a simpleton, let out in the course of the conversation, had been offered to her first. She, with a delicacy that charmed my short-sighted folly, begged that they might go through my hands. How artfully managed! Mrs. Stanhope herself could not have done better. So, she can make Lord Delacour do whatever she pleases; and she condescends to make him behave prettily to me, and desires him to bring me peace-offerings of bank-notes! She is, in fact, become my banker; mistress of my house, my husband, and myself! Ten days I have been confined to my room. Truly, she has made a good use of her time: and I, fool that I am, have been thanking her for all her disinterested kindness!
“Then her attention to my daughter! disinterested, too, as I thought!—But, good Heavens, what an idiot I have been! She looks forward to be the step-mother of Helena; she would win the simple child’s affections even before my face, and show Lord Delacour what a charming wife and mother she would make! He said some such thing to me, as well as I remember, the other day. Then her extreme prudence! She never coquets, not she, with any of the young men who come here on purpose to see her. Is this natural? Absolutely unnatural—artifice! artifice! To contrast herself with me in Lord Delacour’s opinion is certainly her object. Even to Clarence Hervey, with whom she was, or pretended to be, smitten, how cold and reserved she is grown of late; and how haughtily she rejected my advice, when I hinted that she was not taking the way to win him! I could not comprehend her; she had no designs on Clarence Hervey, she assured me. Immaculate purity! I believe you.
“Then her refusal of Sir Philip Baddely!—a baronet with fifteen thousand a year to be refused by a girl who has nothing, and merely because he is a fool! How could I be such a fool as to believe it? Worthy niece of Mrs. Stanhope, I know you now! And now I recollect that extraordinary letter of Mrs. Stanhope’s which I snatched out of Miss Portman’s hands some months ago, full of blanks, and inuendoes, and references to some letter which Belinda had written about my disputes with my husband! From that moment to this, Miss Portman has never let me see another of her aunt’s letters. So I may conclude they are all in the same style; and I make no doubt that she has instructed her niece, all this time, how to proceed. Now I know why she always puts Mrs. Stanhope’s letters into her pocket the moment she receives them, and never opens them in my presence. And I have been laying open my whole heart, telling my whole history, confessing all my faults and follies, to this girl! And I have told her that I am dying! I have taught her to look forward with joy and certainty to the coronet, on which she has fixed her heart.
“On my knees I conjured her to stay with me to receive my last breath. Oh, dupe, miserable dupe, that I am! could nothing warn me? In the moment that I discovered the treachery of one friend, I went and prostrated myself to the artifices of another—of another a thousand times more dangerous—ten thousand times more beloved! For what was Harriot Freke in comparison with Belinda Portman? Harriot Freke, even whilst she diverted me most, I half despised. But Belinda!—Oh, Belinda! how entirely have I loved—trusted—admired—adored—respected—revered you!”
Exhausted by the emotions to which she had worked herself up by the force of her powerful imagination, Lady Delacour, after passing several restless hours in bed, fell asleep late in the morning; and when she awaked, Belinda was standing by her bedside. “What could you be dreaming of?” said Belinda, smiling. “You started, and looked at me with such horror, when you opened your eyes, as if I had been your evil genius.” It is not in human nature, thought Lady Delacour, suddenly overcome by the sweet smile and friendly tone of Belinda, it is not in human nature to be so treacherous; and she stretched out both her arms to Belinda, saying, “You my evil genius? No. My guardian angel, my dearest Belinda, kiss me, and forgive me.”
“Forgive you for what?” said Belinda; “I believe you are dreaming still, and I am sorry to awaken you; but I am come to tell you a wonderful thing—that Lord Delacour is up, and dressed, and actually in the breakfast-room; and that he has been talking to me this half hour—of what do you think?—of Helena. He was quite surprised, he said, to see her grown such a fine girl, and he declares that he no longer regrets that she was not a boy; and he says that he will dine at home to-day, on purpose to drink Helena’s health in his new burgundy; and, in short, I never saw him in such good spirits, or so agreeable: I always thought he was one of the best-natured men I had ever seen. Will not you get up to breakfast? Lord Delacour has asked for you ten times within these five minutes.”