The reading party went on, and Lady Delacour made her appearance as the company were drinking orgeat, between the fourth and fifth act. "Helena, _my dear_," said she, "will you bring me a gla.s.s of orgeat?"

Clarence Hervey looked at Belinda with a congratulatory smile: "do not you think," whispered he, "that we shall succeed? Did you see that look of Lady Delacour's?"

Nothing tends more to increase the esteem and affection of two people for each other than their having one and the same benevolent object.

Clarence Hervey and Belinda seemed to know one another's thoughts and feelings this evening better than they had ever done before during the whole course of their acquaintance.

After the play was over, most of the company went away; only a select party of _beaux esprits_ stayed to supper; they were standing at the table at which the count had been reading: several volumes of French plays and novels were lying there, and Clarence Hervey, taking up one of them, cried, "Come, let us try our fate by the Sortes Virgilianae."

Lady Delacour opened the book, which was a volume of Marmontel's Tales.

"La femme comme il y en a peu!" exclaimed Hervey.

"Who will ever more have faith in the Sortes Virgilianae?" said Lady Delacour, laughing; but whilst she laughed she went closer to a candle, to read the page which she had opened. Belinda and Clarence Hervey followed her. "Really, it is somewhat singular, Belinda, that I should have opened upon this pa.s.sage," continued she, in a low voice, pointing it out to Miss Portman.

It was a description of the manner in which la femme comme il y en a peu managed a husband, who was excessively afraid of being thought to be governed by his wife. As her ladyship turned over the page, she saw a leaf of myrtle which Belinda, who had been reading the story the preceding day, had put into the book for a mark.

"Whose mark is this? Yours, Belinda, I am sure, by its elegance," said Lady Delacour. "So! this is a concerted plan between you two, I see,"

continued her ladyship, with an air of pique: "you have contrived prettily de me dire des verites! One says, 'Let us try our fate by the Sortes Virgilianae;' the other has dexterously put a mark in the book, to make it open upon a lesson for the naughty child."

Belinda and Mr. Hervey a.s.sured her that they had used no such mean arts, that nothing had been concerted between them.

"How came this leaf of myrtle here, then?" said Lady Delacour.

"I was reading that story yesterday, and left it as my mark."

"I cannot help believing you, because you never yet deceived me, even in the merest trifle: you are truth itself, Belinda. Well, you see that _you_ were the cause of my drawing such an extraordinary lot; the book would not have opened here but for your mark. My fate, I find, is in your hands: if Lady Delacour is ever to be la femme comme il y en a peu, which is the most _improbable_ thing in the world, Miss Portman will be the cause of it."

"Which is the most probable thing in the world," said Clarence Hervey.

"This myrtle has a delightful perfume," added he, rubbing the leaf between his fingers.

"But, after all," said Lady Delacour, throwing aside the book, "This heroine of Marmontel's is not la femme comme il y en a peu, but la femme comme il n'y en a _point_."

"Mrs. Margaret Delacour's carriage, my lady, for Miss Delacour," said a footman to her ladyship.

"Helena stays with me to-night--my compliments," said Lady Delacour.

"How pleased the little gipsy looks!" added she, turning to Helena, who heard the message; "and how handsome she looks when she is pleased!--Do these auburn locks of yours, Helena, curl naturally or artificially?"

"Naturally, mamma."

"Naturally! so much the better: so did mine at your age."

Some of the company now took notice of the astonishing resemblance between Helena and her mother; and the more Lady Delacour considered her daughter as a part of herself, the more she was inclined to be pleased with her. The gla.s.s globe containing the gold fishes was put in the middle of the table at supper; and Clarence Hervey never paid her ladyship such respectful attention in his life as he did this evening.

The conversation at supper turned upon a magnificent and elegant entertainment which had lately been given by a fashionable d.u.c.h.ess, and some of the company spoke in high terms of the beauty and accomplishments of her grace's daughter, who had for the first time appeared in public on that occasion.

"The daughter will eclipse, totally eclipse, the mother," said Lady Delacour. "That total eclipse has been foretold by many knowing people,"

said Clarence Hervey; "but how can there be an eclipse between two bodies which never cross one another and that I understand to be the case between the d.u.c.h.ess and her daughter."

This observation seemed to make a great impression upon Lady Delacour.

Clarence Hervey went on, and with much eloquence expressed his admiration of the mother who had stopped short in the career of dissipation to employ her inimitable talents in the education of her children; who had absolutely brought Virtue into fashion by the irresistible powers of wit and beauty.

"Really, Clarence," said Lady Delacour, rising from table, "vous parlez avec beaucoup d'onction. I advise you to write a sentimental comedy, a comedie larmoyante, or a drama on the German model, and call it The School for Mothers, and beg her grace of ---- to sit for your heroine."

"Your ladyship, surely, would not be so cruel as to send a faithful servant a begging for a heroine?" said Clarence Hervey.

Lady Delacour smiled at first at the compliment, but a few minutes afterwards she sighed bitterly. "It is too late for me to think of being a heroine," said she.

"Too late?" cried Hervey, following her eagerly as she walked out of the supper-room; "too late? Her grace of ---- is _some_ years older than your ladyship."

"Well, I did not mean to say _too late_," said Lady Delacour; "but let us go on to something else. Why were you not at the fete champetre the other day? and where were you all this morning? And pray can you tell me when your friend doctor X---- returns to town?"

"Mr. Horton is getting better," said Clarence, "and I hope that we shall have Dr. X---- soon amongst us again. I hear that he is to be in town in the course of a few days."

"Did he inquire for me?--Did he ask how I did?"

"No. I fancy he took it for granted that your ladyship was quite well; for I told him you were getting better every day, and that you were in charming spirits."

"Yes," said Lady Delacour, "but I wear myself out with these charming spirits. I am very nervous still, I a.s.sure you, and sitting up late is not good for me: so I shall wish you and all the world a good night. You see I am absolutely a reformed rake."

CHAPTER XIV.

THE EXHIBITION.

Two hours after her ladyship had retired to her room, as Belinda was pa.s.sing by the door to go to her own bedchamber, she heard Lady Delacour call to her.

"Belinda, you need not walk so softly; I am not asleep. Come in, will you, my dear? I have something of consequence to say to you. Is all the world gone?"

"Yes; and I thought that you were asleep. I hope you are not in pain."

"Not just at present, thank you; but that was a terrible embrace of poor little Helena's. You see to what accidents I should be continually exposed, if I had that child always about me; and yet she seems of such an affectionate disposition, that I wish it were possible to keep her at home. Sit down by my bedside, my dear Belinda, and I will tell you what I have resolved upon."

Belinda sat down, and Lady Delacour was silent for some minutes.

"I am resolved," said she, "to make one desperate effort for my life.

New plans, new hopes of happiness, have opened to my imagination, and, with my hopes of being happy, my courage rises. I am determined to submit to the dreadful operation which alone can radically cure me--you understand me; but it must be kept a profound secret. I know of a person who could be got to perform this operation with the utmost secrecy."

"But, surely," said Belinda, "safety must be your first object!"

"No, secrecy is my first object. Nay, do not reason with me; it is a subject on which I cannot, will not, reason. Hear me--I will keep Helena with me for a few days; she was surprised by what pa.s.sed in the library this evening--I must remove all suspicion from her mind."

"There is no suspicion in her mind," said Belinda.

"So much the better: she shall go immediately to school, or to Oakly-park. I will then stand my trial for life or death; and if I live I will be, what I have never yet been, a mother to Helena. If I die, you and Clarence Hervey will take care of her; I know you will. That young man is worthy of you, Belinda. If I die, I charge you to tell him that I knew his value; that I had a soul capable of being touched by the eloquence of virtue." Lady Delacour, after a pause, said, in an altered tone, "Do you think, Belinda, that I shall survive this operation?"