Belinda, after her ladyship’s departure, retired to the library. Her time passed so agreeably during Lady Delacour’s absence, that she was surprised when she heard the clock strike twelve.
“Is it possible,” thought she, “that I have spent two hours by myself in a library without being tired of my existence?—How different are my feelings now from what they would have been in the same circumstances six months ago!—I should then have thought the loss of a birthnight ball a mighty trial of temper. It is singular, that my having spent a winter with one of the most dissipated women in England should have sobered my mind so completely. If I had never seen the utmost extent of the pleasures of the world, as they are called, my imagination might have misled me to the end of my life; but now I can judge from my own experience, and I am convinced that the life of a fine lady would never make me happy. Dr. X—— told me, the other day, that he thinks me formed for something better, and he is incapable of flattery.”
The idea of Clarence Hervey was so intimately connected with that of his friend, that Miss Portman could seldom separate them in her imagination; and she was just beginning to reflect upon the manner in which Clarence looked, whilst he declared to Sir Philip Baddely, that he would never give up Dr. X——, when she was startled by the entrance of Marriott.
“Oh, Miss Portman, what shall we do? what shall we do?-My lady! my poor lady!” cried she.
“What is the matter?” said Belinda.
“The horses—the young horses!—Oh, I wish my lady had never seen them. Oh, my lady, my poor lady, what will become of her?”
It was some minutes before Belinda could obtain from Marriott any intelligible account of what had happened.
“All I know, ma’am, is what James has just told me,” said Marriott. “My lady gave the coachman orders upon no account to let Mrs. Luttridge’s carriage get before hers. Mrs. Luttridge’s coachman would not give up the point either. My lady’s horses were young and ill broke, they tell me, and there was no managing of them no ways. The carriages got somehow across one another, and my lady was overturned, and all smashed to atoms. Oh, ma’am,” continued Marriott, “if it had not been for Mr. Hervey, they say, my lady would never have been got out of the crowd alive. He’s bringing her home in his own carriage, God bless him!”
“But is Lady Delacour hurt?” cried Belinda.
“She must,—to be sure, she must, ma’am,” cried Marriott, putting her hand upon her bosom. “But let her be ever so much hurt, my lady will keep it to herself: the footmen swear she did not give a scream, not a single scream; so it’s their opinion she was no ways hurt—but that, I know, can’t be—and, indeed, they are thinking so much about the carriage, that they can’t give one any rational account of any thing; and, as for myself, I’m sure I’m in such a flutter. Lord knows, I advised my lady not to go with the young horses, no later than—”