“Such a mother was never heard of,” continued Mrs. Delacour, “since the days of Savage and Lady Macclesfield. I am convinced that she hates her daughter. Why she never speaks of her—she never sees her—she never thinks of her!”
“Some mothers speak more than they think of their children, and others think more than they speak of them,” said Lady Anne.
“I always thought,” said Mr. Hervey, “that Lady Delacour was a woman of great sensibility.”
“Sensibility!” exclaimed the indignant old lady, “she has no sensibility, sir—none—none. She who lives in a constant round of dissipation, who performs no one duty, who exists only for herself; how does she show her sensibility?—Has she sensibility for her husband—for her daughter—for any one useful purpose upon earth?—Oh, how I hate the cambric handkerchief sensibility that is brought out only to weep at a tragedy!—Yes; Lady Delacour has sensibility enough, I grant ye, when sensibility is the fashion. I remember well her performing the part of a nurse with vast applause; and I remember, too, the sensibility she showed, when the child that she nursed fell a sacrifice to her dissipation. The second of her children, that she killed—”
“Killed!—Oh! surely, my dear Mrs. Delacour, that is too strong a word,” said Lady Anne: “you would not make a Medea of Lady Delacour!”
“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 passes 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 passes 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 ladyship’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, passionate old woman—I could not have been what you have been to that child—God bless you!—God 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.