The doctor now followed Belinda, and satisfied himself by ocular demonstration, that this cabinet was the retirement of disease, and not of pleasure.

It was about eight o'clock in the morning when Dr. X---- got home; he found Clarence Hervey waiting for him. Clarence seemed to be in great agitation, though he endeavoured, with all the power which he possessed over himself, to suppress his emotion.

"You have been to see Lady Delacour," said he, calmly: "is she much hurt?--It was a terrible accident."

"She has been much hurt," said Dr. X----, "and she has been for some hours delirious; but ask me no more questions now, for I am asleep, and must go to bed, unless you have any thing to say that can waken me: you look as if some great misfortune had befallen you; what is the matter?"

"Oh, my dear friend," said Hervey, taking his hand, "do not jest with me; I am not able to bear your raillery in my present temper--in one word, I fear that Belinda is unworthy of my esteem: I can tell you no more, except that I am more miserable than I thought any woman could make me."

"You are in a prodigious hurry to be miserable," said Dr. X----. "Upon my word I think you would make a mighty pretty hero in a novel; you take things very properly for granted, and, stretched out upon that sofa, you act the distracted lover vastly well--and to complete the matter, you cannot tell me why you are more miserable than ever man or hero was before. I must tell you, then, that you have still more cause for jealousy than you suspect. Ay, start--every jealous man starts at the sound of the word jealousy--a certain symptom this of the disease."

"You mistake me," cried Clarence Hervey; "no man is less disposed to jealousy than I am--but----"

"But your mistress--no, not your mistress, for you have never yet declared to her your attachment--but the lady you admire will not let a drunken man unlock a door, and you immediately suppose--"

"She has mentioned the circ.u.mstance to you!" exclaimed Hervey, in a joyful tone: "then she _must_ be innocent."

"Admirable reasoning!--I was going to have told you just now, if you would have suffered me to speak connectedly, that you have more reason for jealousy than you suspect, for Miss Portman has actually unlocked for me--for me! look at me--the door, the mysterious door--and whilst I live, and whilst she lives, we can neither of us ever tell you the cause of the mystery. All I can tell you is, that no lover is in the case, upon my honour--and now, if you should ever mistake curiosity in your own mind for jealousy, expect no pity from me."

"I should deserve none," said Clarence Hervey; "you have made me the happiest of men."

"The happiest of men!--No, no; keep that superlative exclamation for a future occasion. But now you behave like a reasonable creature, you deserve to hear the praises of your Belinda--I am so much charmed with her, that I wish--"

"When can I see her?" interrupted Hervey; "I'll go to her this instant."

"Gently," said Dr. X----, "you forget what time of the day it is--you forget that Miss Portman has been up all night--that Lady Delacour is extremely ill--and that this would be the most unseasonable opportunity you could possibly choose for your visit."

To this observation Clarence Hervey a.s.sented; but he immediately seized a pen from the doctor's writing table, and began a letter to Belinda.

The doctor threw himself upon the sofa, saying, "Waken me when you want me," and in a few minutes he was fast asleep.

"Doctor, upon second thoughts," said Clarence, rising suddenly, and tearing his letter down the middle, "I cannot write to her yet--I forgot the reformation of Lady Delacour: how soon do you think she will be well? Besides, I have another reason for not writing to Belinda at present--you must know, my dear doctor, that I have, or had, another mistress."

"Another mistress, indeed!" cried Dr. X----, trying to waken himself.

"Good Heavens! I do believe you've been asleep."

"I do believe I have."

"But is it possible that you could fall sound asleep in that time?"

"Very possible," said the doctor: "what is there so extraordinary in a man's falling asleep? Men are apt to sleep sometime within the four-and-twenty hours, unless they have half-a-dozen mistresses to keep them awake, as you seem to have, my good friend."

A servant now came into the room with a letter, that had just arrived express from the country for Dr. X----.

"This is another affair," cried he, rousing himself.

The letter required the doctor's immediate attendance. He shook hands with Clarence Hervey: "My dear friend, I am really concerned that I cannot stay to hear the history of your six mistresses; but you see that this is an affair of life and death."

"Farewell," said Clarence: "I have not six, I have only three G.o.ddesses; even if you count Lady Delacour for one. But I really wanted your advice in good earnest."

"If your case be desperate, you can write, cannot you? Direct to me at Horton-hall, Cambridge. In the mean time, as far as general rules go, I can give you my advice gratis, in the formula of an old Scotch song----

"'Tis good to be merry and wise, 'Tis good to be honest and true, 'Tis good to be off with the old love Before you be on with the new.'"

CHAPTER XI.

DIFFICULTIES.

Before he left town, Dr. X---- called in Berkeley-square, to see Lady Delacour; he found that she was out of all immediate danger. Miss Portman was sorry that he was obliged to quit her at this time, but she felt the necessity for his going; he was sent for to attend Mr. Horton, an intimate friend of his, a gentleman of great talents, and of the most active benevolence, who had just been seized with a violent fever, in consequence of his exertions in saving the poor inhabitants of a village in his neighbourhood from the effects of a dreadful fire, which broke out in the middle of the night.

Lady Delacour, who heard Dr. X---- giving this account to Belinda, drew back her curtain, and said, "Go this instant, doctor--I am out of all immediate danger, you say; but if I were not--I must die in the course of a few months, you know-and what is my life, compared with the chance of saving your excellent friend! He is of some use in the world--I am of none-go this instant, doctor."

"What a pity," said Dr. X------, as he left the room, "that a woman who is capable of so much magnanimity should have wasted her life on petty objects!"

"Her life is not yet at an end--oh, sir, if you _could_ save her!" cried Belinda.

Doctor X---- shook his head; but returning to Belinda, after going half way down stairs, he added, "when you read this paper, you will know all that I can tell you upon the subject."

Belinda, the moment the doctor was gone, shut herself up in her own room to read the paper which he had given to her. Dr. X---- first stated that he was by no means certain that Lady Delacour really had the complaint which she so much dreaded; but it was impossible for him to decide without farther examination, to which her ladyship could not be prevailed upon to submit. Then he mentioned all that he thought would be most efficacious in mitigating the pain that Lady Delacour might feel, and all that could be done, with the greatest probability of prolonging her life. And he concluded with the following words: "These are all temporizing expedients: according to the usual progress of the disease, Lady Delacour may live a year, or perhaps two.

"It is possible that her life might be saved by a _skilful_ surgeon. By a few words that dropped from her ladyship last night, I apprehend that she has some thoughts of submitting to an operation, which will be attended with much pain and danger, even if she employ the most experienced surgeon in London; but if she put herself, from a vain hope of secrecy, into ignorant hands, she will inevitably destroy herself."

After reading this paper, Belinda had some faint hopes that Lady Delacour's life might be saved; but she determined to wait till Dr.

X----should return to town, before she mentioned his opinion to his patient; and she earnestly hoped that no idea of putting herself into ignorant hands would recur to her ladyship.

Lord Delacour, in the morning, when he was sober, retained but a confused idea of the events of the preceding night; but he made an awkwardly good-natured apology to Miss Portman for his intrusion, and for the disturbance he had occasioned, which, he said, must be laid to the blame of Lord Studley's admirable burgundy. He expressed much concern for Lady Delacour's terrible accident; but he could not help observing, that if his advice had been taken, the thing could not have happened--that it was the consequence of her ladyship's self-willedness about the young horses.

"How she got the horses without paying for them, or how she got money to pay for them, I know not," said his lordship; "for I said I would have nothing to do with the business, and I have kept to my resolution."

His lordship finished his morning visit to Miss Portman, by observing that "the house would now be very dull for her: that the office of a nurse was ill-suited to so young and beautiful a lady, but that her undertaking it with so much cheerfulness was a proof of a degree of good-nature that was not always to be met with in the young and handsome."

The manner in which Lord Delacour spoke convinced Belinda that he was in reality attached to his wife, however the fear of being, or of appearing to be, governed by her ladyship might have estranged him from her, and from home. She now saw in him much more good sense, and symptoms of a more amiable character, than his lady had described, or than she ever would allow that he possessed.

The reflections, however, which Miss Portman made upon the miserable life this ill-matched couple led together, did not incline her in favour of marriage in general; great talents on one side, and good-nature on the other, had, in this instance, tended only to make each party unhappy. Matches of interest, convenience, and vanity, she was convinced, diminished instead of increasing happiness. Of domestic felicity she had never, except during her childhood, seen examples--she had, indeed, heard from Dr. X----- descriptions of the happy family of Lady Anne Percival, but she feared to indulge the romantic hope of ever being loved by a man of superior genius and virtue, with a temper and manners suited to her taste. The only person she had seen, who at all answered this description, was Mr. Hervey; and it was firmly fixed in her mind, that he was not a marrying man, and consequently not a man of whom any prudent woman would suffer herself to think with partiality.

She could not doubt that he liked her society and conversation; his manner had sometimes expressed more than cold esteem. Lady Delacour had a.s.sured her that it expressed love; but Lady Delacour was an imprudent woman in her own conduct, and not scrupulous as to that of others.

Belinda was not guided by _her_ opinions of propriety; and now that her ladyship was confined to her bed, and not in a condition to give her either advice or protection, she felt that it was peculiarly inc.u.mbent on her to guard, not only her conduct from reproach, but her heart from the hopeless misery of an ill-placed attachment. She examined herself with firm impartiality; she recollected the excessive pain that she had endured, when she first heard Clarence Hervey say, that Belinda Portman was a compound of art and affectation; but this she thought was only the pain of offended pride--of proper pride. She recollected the extreme anxiety she had felt, even within the last four-and-twenty hours, concerning the opinion which he might form of the transaction about the key of the boudoir--but this anxiety she justified to herself; it was due, she thought, to her reputation; it would have been inconsistent with female delicacy to have been indifferent about the suspicions that necessarily arose from the circ.u.mstances in which she was placed. Before Belinda had completed her self-examination, Clarence Hervey called to inquire after Lady Delacour. Whilst he spoke of her ladyship, and of his concern for the dreadful accident of which he believed himself to be in a great measure the cause, his manner and language were animated and unaffected; but the moment that this subject was exhausted, he became embarra.s.sed; though he distinctly expressed perfect confidence and esteem for her, he seemed to wish, and yet to be unable, to support the character of a friend, contradistinguished to an admirer. He seemed conscious that he could not, with propriety, advert to the suspicions and jealousy which he had felt the preceding night; for a man who has never declared love would be absurd and impertinent, were he to betray jealousy. Clarence was dest.i.tute neither of address nor presence of mind; but an accident happened, when he was just taking leave of Miss Portman, which threw him into utter confusion. It surprised, if it did not confound, Belinda. She had forgotten to ask Dr. X---- for his direction; and as she thought it might be necessary to write to him concerning Lady Delacour's health, she begged of Mr. Hervey to give it to her. He took a letter out of his pocket, and wrote the direction with a pencil; but as he opened the paper, to tear off the outside, on which he had been writing, a lock of hair dropped out of the letter; he hastily stooped for it, and as he took it up from the ground the lock unfolded. Belinda, though she cast but one involuntary, hasty glance at it, was struck with the beauty of its colour, and its uncommon length.

The confusion of Clarence Hervey convinced her that he was extremely interested about the person to whom the hair belonged, and the species of alarm which she had felt at this discovery opened her eyes effectually to the state of her own heart. She was sensible that the sight of a lock of hair, however long, or however beautiful, in the hands of any man but Clarence Hervey, could not possibly have excited any emotion in her mind. "Fortunately," thought she, "I have discovered that he is attached to another, whilst it is yet in my power to command my affections; and he shall see that I am not so weak as to form any false expectations from what I must now consider as mere common-place flattery." Belinda was glad that Lady Delacour was not present at the discovery of the lock of hair, as she was aware that she would have rallied her unmercifully upon the occasion; and she rejoiced that she had not been prevailed upon to give _Madame la Comtesse de Pomenars_ a lock of her _belle chevelure_. She could not help thinking, from the recollection of several minute circ.u.mstances, that Clarence Hervey had endeavoured to gain an interest in her affections, and she felt that there would be great impropriety in receiving his ambiguous visits during Lady Delacour's confinement to her room. She therefore gave orders that Mr. Hervey should not in future be admitted, till her ladyship should again see company. This precaution proved totally superfluous, for Mr. Hervey never called again, during the whole course of Lady Delacour's confinement, though his servant regularly came every morning with inquiries after her ladyship's health. She kept her room for about ten days; a confinement to which she submitted with extreme impatience: bodily pain she bore with fort.i.tude, but constraint and ennui she could not endure.

One morning as she was sitting up in bed, looking over a large collection of notes, and cards of inquiry after her health, she exclaimed--

"These people will soon be tired of[4] bidding their footman put it into their heads to inquire whether I am alive or dead--I must appear amongst them again, if it be only for a few minutes, or they will forget me.

When I am fatigued, I will retire, and you, my dear Belinda, shall represent me; so tell them to open my doors, and unm.u.f.fle the knocker: let me hear the sound of music and dancing, and let the house be filled again, for Heaven's sake. Dr. Zimmermann should never have been my physician, for he would have prescribed solitude. Now solitude and silence are worse for me than poppy and mandragora. It is impossible to tell how much silence tires the ears of those who have not been used to it. For mercy's sake, Marriott," continued her ladyship, turning to Marriott, who just then came softly into the room, "for mercy's sake, don't walk to all eternity on tiptoes: to see people gliding about like ghosts makes me absolutely fancy myself amongst the shades below. I would rather be stunned by the loudest peal that ever thundering footman gave at my door, than hear Marriott lock that boudoir, as if my life depended on my not hearing the key turned."

"Dear me! I never knew any lady that was ill, except my lady, complain of one's not making a noise to disturb her," said Marriott.