“O dear, no, sir; you have been misinformed,” resumed she. “The bishop has been returned from Spa this great while, and he has refused to see his nephew, to my certain knowledge. After all, I cannot but pity poor Clarence for being driven into this match. Mr. Hartley has a prodigious fine fortune, to be sure, and he hurried things forward at an amazing rate, to patch up his daughter’s reputation. He said, as I am credibly informed, yesterday morning, that if Clarence did not marry the girl before night, he would carry her and her fortune off the next day to the West Indies. Now the fortune was certainly an object.”
“My dear Lady Boucher,” interrupted Lord Delacour, “you must be misinformed in that particular: fortune is no object to Clarence Hervey; he is too generous a fellow to marry for fortune. What do you think—what do you say, Lady Delacour?”
“I say, and think, and feel, as you do, my lord,” said Lady Delacour.
“You say, and think, and feel the same as my lord.—Very extraordinary indeed!” said the dowager. “Then if it were not for the sake of the fortune, pray why did Mr. Hervey marry at all? Can any body guess?”
“I should guess because he was in love,” said Lord Delacour “for I remember that was the reason I married myself.”
“My dear good lord—but when I tell you the girl had been his mistress, till he was tired of her—”
“My Lady Boucher,” said Mrs. Margaret Delacour, who had hitherto listened in silence, “my Lady Boucher, you have been misinformed; Miss Hartley never was Clarence Hervey’s mistress.”
“I’m mighty glad you think so, Mrs. Delacour; but I assure you nobody else is so charitable. Those who live in the world hear a great deal more than those who live out of the world. I can promise you, nobody will visit the bride, and that is the thing by which we are to judge.”
Then the dowager and the rest of the company continued to descant upon the folly of the match. Those who wished to pay their court to Lady Delacour were the loudest in their astonishment at his throwing himself away in this manner. Her ladyship smiled, and kept them in play by her address, on purpose to withdraw all eyes from Miss Portman, whilst, from time to time, she stole a glance at Belinda, to observe how she was affected by what passed: she was provoked by Belinda’s self-possession. At last, when it had been settled that all the Herveys were odd, but that this match of Clarence’s was the oddest of all the odd things that any of the family had done for many generations, Mrs. Delacour calmly said, “Are you sure, Lady Boucher, that Mr. Hervey is married?”
“Positive! as I said before, positive! Madam, my woman had it from Lady Newland’s Swiss, who had it from Lady Singleton’s Frenchwoman, who had it from Longueville, the hairdresser, who had it from Lady Almeria’s own woman, who was present at the ceremony, and must know if any body does.”