“There’s my good girl!” cried Lady Delacour, kissing her: “all may yet turn out well. Read those letters—take them to your room, read them, read them; and depend upon it, my dearest Belinda! you are not the sort of woman that will, that can be happy, if you make a mere match of convenience. Forgive me—I love you too well not to speak the truth, though it may offend for a moment.”
“You do not offend, but you misunderstand me,” said Belinda. “Have patience with me, and you shall find that I am incapable of making a mere match of convenience.”
Then Miss Portman gave Lady Delacour a simple but full account of all that had passed at Oakly-park relative to Mr. Vincent. She repeated the arguments by which Lady Anne Percival had first prevailed upon her to admit of Mr. Vincent’s addresses. She said, that she had been convinced by Mr. Percival, that the omnipotence of a first love was an idea founded in error, and realized only in romance; and that to believe that none could be happy in marriage, except with the first object of their fancy or their affections, would be an error pernicious to individuals and to society. When she detailed the arguments used by Mr. Percival on this subject, Lady Delacour sighed, and observed that Mr. Percival was certainly right, judging from his own experience, to declaim against the folly of first loves; “and for the same reason,” added she, “perhaps I may be pardoned if I retain some prejudice in their favour.” She turned aside her head to hide a starting tear, and here the conversation dropped. Belinda, recollecting the circumstances of her ladyship’s early history, reproached herself for having touched on this tender subject, yet at the same time she felt with increased force, at this moment, the justice of Mr. Percival’s observations; for, evidently, the hold which this prejudice had kept in Lady Delacour’s mind had materially injured her happiness, by making her neglect, after her marriage, all the means of content that were in her reach. Her incessant comparisons between her first love and her husband excited perpetual contempt and disgust in her mind for her wedded lord, and for many years precluded all perception of his good qualities, all desire to live with him upon good terms, and all idea of securing that share of domestic happiness that was actually in her power. Belinda resolved at some future moment, whenever she could, with propriety and with effect, to suggest these reflections to Lady Delacour, and in the mean time she was determined to turn them to her own advantage. She perceived that she should have need of all her steadiness to preserve her judgment unbiassed by her ladyship’s wit and persuasive eloquence on the one hand, and on the other by her own high opinion of Lady Anne Percival’s judgment, and the anxious desire she felt to secure her approbation. The letters from Clarence Hervey she read at night, when she retired to her own room; and they certainly raised not only Belinda’s opinion of his talents, but her esteem for his character. She saw that he had, with great address, made use of the influence he possessed over Lady Delacour, to turn her mind to every thing that could make her amiable, estimable, and happy—she saw that Clarence, so far from attempting, for the sake of his own vanity, to retain his pre-eminence in her ladyship’s imagination, used on the contrary “his utmost skill” to turn the tide of her affections toward her husband and her daughter. In one of his letters, and but in one, he mentioned Belinda. He expressed great regret in hearing from Lady Delacour that her friend, Miss Portman, was no longer with her. He expatiated on the inestimable advantages and happiness of having such a friend—but this referred to Lady Delacour, not to himself. There was an air of much respect and some embarrassment in all he said of Belinda, but nothing like love. A few words at the end of this paragraph were cautiously obliterated, however; and, without any obvious link of connexion, the writer began a new sentence with a general reflection upon the folly and imprudence of forming romantic projects. Then he enumerated some of the various schemes he had formed in his early youth, and humorously recounted how they had failed, or how they had been abandoned. Afterward, changing his tone from playful wit to serious philosophy, he observed the changes which these experiments had made in his own character.
“My friend, Dr. X——,” said he, “divides mankind into three classes: those who learn from the experience of others—they are happy men; those who learn from their own experience—they are wise men; and, lastly, those who learn neither from their own nor from other people’s experience—they are fools. This class is by far the largest. I am content,” continued Clarence, “to be in the middle class—perhaps you will say because I cannot be in the first: however, were it in my power to choose my own character, I should, forgive me the seeming vanity of the speech, still be content to remain in my present station upon this principle—the characters of those who are taught by their own experience must be progressive in knowledge and virtue. Those who learn from the experience of others may become stationary, because they must depend for their progress on the experiments that we brave volunteers, at whose expense they are to live and learn, are pleased to try. There may be much safety in thus snugly fighting, or rather seeing the battle of life, behind the broad shield of a stouter warrior; yet it seems to me to be rather an ignominious than an enviable situation.
“Our friend, Dr. X——, would laugh at my insisting upon being amongst the class of learners by their own experience. He would ask me, whether it be the ultimate end of my philosophy to try experiments, or to be happy. And what answer should I make? I have none ready. Common sense stares me in the face, and my feelings, even at this instant, alas! confute my system. I shall pay too dear yet for some of my experiments. ‘Sois grand homme, et sois malheureux,’ is, I am afraid, the law of nature, or rather the decree of the world. Your ladyship will not read this without a smile; for you will immediately infer, that I think myself a great man; and as I detest hypocrisy yet more than vanity, I shall not deny the charge. At all events, I feel that I am at present—however gaily I talk of it—in as fair a way to be unhappy for life, as if I were, in good earnest, the greatest man in Europe.
“Your ladyship’s most respectful admirer, and sincere friend,
“CLARENCE HERVEY.”
“P. S.—Is there any hope that your friend, Miss Portman, may spend the winter in town?”
Though Lady Delacour had been much fatigued by the exertion of her spirits during the day, she sat up at night to write to Mr. Hervey. Her love and gratitude to Miss Portman interested her most warmly for her happiness, and she was persuaded that the most effectual way to secure it would be to promote her union with her first love. Lady Delacour, who had also the best opinion of Clarence Hervey, and the most sincere friendship for him, thought she was likewise acting highly for his interest; and she felt that she had some merit in at once parting with him from the train of her admirers, and urging him to become a dull, married man. Besides these generous motives, she was, perhaps, a little influenced by jealousy of the superior power which Lady Anne Percival had in so short a time acquired over Belinda’s mind. “Strange,” thought she, “if love and I be not a match for Lady Anne Percival and reason!” To do Lady Delacour justice, it must be observed, that she took the utmost care in her letter not to commit her friend; she wrote with all the delicate address of which she was mistress. She began by rallying her correspondent on his indulging himself so charmingly in the melancholy of genius; and she prescribed as a cure to her malheureux imaginaire, as she called him, those joys of domestic life which he so well knew how to paint.
“Précepte commence, exemple achève,” said her ladyship. “You will never see me la femme comme il y en a peu, till I see you le bon mari. Belinda Portman has this day returned to me from Oakly-park, fresh, blooming, wise, and gay, as country air, flattery, philosophy, and love can make her. It seems that she has had full employment for her head and heart. Mr. Percival and Lady Anne, by right of science and reason, have taken possession of the head, and a Mr. Vincent, their ci-devant ward and declared favourite, has laid close siege to the heart, of which he is in a fair way, I think, to take possession, by the right of conquest. As far as I can understand—for I have not yet seen le futur—he deserves my Belinda; for besides being as handsome as any hero of romance, ancient or modern, he has a soul in which neither spot nor blemish can be found, except the amiable weakness of being desperately in love—a weakness which we ladies are apt to prefer to the most philosophic stoicism: apropos of philosophy—we may presume, that notwithstanding Mr. V—— is a creole, he has been bred up by his guardian in the class of men who learn by the experience of others. As such, according to your system, he has a right to expect to be a happy man, has not he? According to Mrs. Stanhope’s system, I am sure that he has: for his thousands and tens of thousands, as I am credibly informed, pass the comprehension of the numeration table.