“Indeed!” said Lady Delacour, rubbing her eyes. “All this is vastly wonderful; but I wish you had not awakened me so soon.”
“Nay, nay,” said Belinda, “I know by the tone of your voice, that you do not mean what you say; I know you will get up, and come down to us directly—so I will send Marriott.”
Lady Delacour got up, and went down to breakfast, in much uncertainty what to think of Miss Portman; but ashamed to let her into her mind, and still more afraid that Lord Delacour should suspect her of doing him the honour to be jealous, Belinda had not the least guess of what was really passing in her ladyship’s heart; she implicitly believed her expressions of complete indifference to her lord; and jealousy was the last feeling which Miss Portman would have attributed to Lady Delacour, because she unfortunately was not sufficiently aware that jealousy can exist without love. The idea of Lord Delacour as an object of attachment, or of a coronet as an object of ambition, or of her friend’s death as an object of joy, were so foreign to Belinda’s innocent mind, that it was scarcely possible she could decipher Lady Delacour’s thoughts. Her ladyship affected to be in “remarkable good spirits this morning,” declared that she had never felt so well since her illness, ordered her carriage as soon as breakfast was over, and said she would take Helena to Maillardet’s, to see the wonders of his little conjuror and his singing-bird. “Nothing equal to Maillardet’s singing-bird has ever been seen or heard of, my dear Helena, since the days of Aboulcasem’s peacock in the Persian Tales. Since Lady Anne Percival has not shown you these charming things, I must.”
“But I hope you won’t tire yourself, mamma,” said the little girl.
“I’m afraid you will,” said Belinda. “And you know, my dear,” added Lord Delacour, “that Miss Portman, who is so very obliging and good-natured, could go just as well with Helena; and I am sure, would, rather than that you should tire yourself, or give yourself an unnecessary trouble.”
“Miss Portman is very good,” answered Lady Delacour, hastily; “but I think it no unnecessary trouble to give my daughter any pleasure in my power. As to its tiring me, I am neither dead, nor dying, yet; for the rest, Miss Portman, who understands what is proper, blushes for you, as you see, my lord, when you propose that she, who is not yet a married woman, should chaperon a young lady. It is quite out of rule; and Mrs. Stanhope would be shocked if her niece could, or would, do such a thing to oblige any body.”
Lord Delacour was too much in the habit of hearing sarcastic, and to him incomprehensible speeches from her ladyship, to take any extraordinary notice of this; and if Belinda blushed, it was merely from the confusion into which she was thrown by the piercing glance of Lady Delacour’s black eyes—a glance which neither guilt nor innocence could withstand. Belinda imagined that her ladyship still retained some displeasure from the conversation that had passed the preceding night, and the first time that she was alone with Lady Delacour, she again touched upon the subject, in hopes of softening or convincing her. “At all events, my dear friend,” said she, “you will not, I hope, be offended by the sincerity with which I speak—I can have no object but your safety and happiness.”
“Sincerity never offends me,” was her ladyship’s cold answer. And all the time that they were out together, she was unusually ceremonious to Miss Portman; and there would have been but little conversation, if Helena had not been present, to whom her mother talked with fluent gaiety. When they got to Spring Gardens, Helena exclaimed, “Oh! there’s Lady Anne Percival’s carriage, and Charles and Edward with her—they are going to the same place that we are, I dare say, for I heard Charles ask Lady Anne to take him to see Maillardet’s little bird—Mr. Hervey mentioned it to us, and he said it was a curious piece of machinery.”
“I wish you had told me sooner that Lady Anne was likely to be there—I don’t wish to meet her so awkwardly: I am not well enough yet, indeed, to go to these odious, hot, close places; and, besides, I hate seeing sights.”
Helena, with much good humour, said that she would rather give up seeing the sight than be troublesome to her mother. When they came to Maillardet’s, however, Lady Delacour saw Mrs. —— getting out of her carriage, and to her she consigned Helena and Miss Portman, saying that she would take a turn or two in the park, and call for them in half an hour. When the half hour was over, and her ladyship returned, she carelessly asked, as they were going home, whether they had been pleased with their visit to the bird and the conjuror. “Oh, yes, mamma!” said Helena: “and do you know, that one of the questions that the people ask the conjuror is, Where is the happiest family to be found?” And Charles and Edward immediately said, “if he is a good conjuror, if he tells truth, he’ll answer, ‘At Oakly-park.’”