Belinda

Maria Edgeworth was born at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire,

England, Jan. 1, 1767, and eleven years later her father

removed to Ireland and settled on his own estate at

Edgeworthstown. "Belinda," published in 1801, is Maria

Edgeworth's one early example of a novel not placed in Irish

surroundings, but dealing with fashionable life. Issued just a

year after the appearance of her first Irish tale, "Castle

Rackrent," it betrays entirely the influence of the novelist's

autocratic and eccentric father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth,

with whom the daughter had been previously collaborating. No

one could be less suited than he to advise about fiction, yet

to his daughter his advice was almost the equivalent of a

command. The story is interesting as an example of literary

workmanship outside of the scenes in which special success had

been achieved. Miss Edgeworth died at Edgeworthstown on May

22, 1849.

_I.--A Match-Maker's Handicap_

Mrs. Stanhope, a well-bred woman, accomplished in the art of rising in

the world, had, with but a small fortune, contrived to live in the

highest company. She prided herself upon having established half a dozen

nieces most happily--that is to say, upon having married them to men of

fortunes far superior to their own. One niece still remained unmarried,

Belinda Portman, of whom she determined to get rid with all convenient

expedition; but finding that, owing to declining health, she could not

go out with her as much as she wished, she succeeded in fastening her

upon the fashionable Lady Delacour for a winter in London.

"Nothing, to my mind, can be more miserable than the situation of a poor

girl who fails in her matrimonial expectations (as many do merely from

not beginning to speculate in time)," she wrote from Bath. "She finds

herself at five or six-and-thirty a burden to her friends, destitute of

the means of rendering herself independent--for the girls I speak of

never think of _learning_ to play cards--_de trop_ in society, yet

obliged to hang upon all her acquaintances, who wish her in heaven,

because she is unqualified to make the _expected_ return for civilities,

having no home--I mean no establishment, no house, etc.--fit for the

reception of company of certain rank. My dearest Belinda, may this never

be your case. I have sent your bracelet to you by Mr. Clarence Hervey,

an acquaintance of Lady Delacour, an uncommonly pleasant young man,

highly connected, a wit and a gallant, and having a fine independent

fortune; so, my dear Belinda, I make it a point--look well when he is

introduced to you, and remember that nobody _can_ look well without

taking some pains to please."

Belinda had been charmed by Lady Delacour, who was the most agreeable,

the most fascinating person she had ever beheld; and to be a visitor at

her house was a delightful privilege. But, a short time after her

arrival, she began to see through the thin veil with which politeness

covers domestic misery. Abroad, Lady Delacour appeared all spirit, life,

and good humour; at home, listless, fretful, and melancholy, a prey to

thoughts, seemingly, of the most painful nature.

The first time Belinda saw his lordship he was dead drunk in the arms of

two footmen; his lady, who had just returned from Ranelagh, passed him

on the stairs with the utmost contempt.

"Don't look so shocked and amazed, Belinda. Don't look so _new_, child.

This funeral of my lord's intellects is to me a nightly ceremony; or,"

said her ladyship, looking at her watch and yawning, "I believe I should

say a daily ceremony--six o'clock, I protest!"

The next morning Clarence Hervey called, and Belinda found him a most

uncommonly pleasant young man. Lord Delacour was jealous of him; but

although he would have started with horror at the idea of disturbing the

peace of a family, in that family, he said, there was no peace to

disturb. Consequently, he visited her ladyship every day, and every day

viewed Belinda with increasing admiration, and with increasing dread of

being taken in to marry a niece of that "catch-matchmaker," as Mrs.

Stanhope was known amongst the men of his acquaintance.

Under the guise of a tragic muse--in which character Lady Delacour had

pretended she was going to a masquerade--Belinda heard his true

sentiments with regard to her.

"You don't believe I go to Lady Delacour's to look for a wife? Do you

think I'm an idiot? Do you think I could be taken in by one of the

Stanhope school?" he said to the facetious friends who rallied him on

his attachment. "Do you think I don't see as plainly as any of you that

Belinda Portman is a composition of art and affectation?"

"Melpomene, hast thou forgot thyself to warble?" asked Lady Delacour,

tripping towards them as the comic muse.

"I am not very well," whispered Miss Portman. "Could we get away?"

"Do see if you can find any of my people!" cried Lady Delacour to

Clarence Hervey, who had followed them downstairs.

"Lady Delacour, the comic muse!" exclaimed he. "I had thought----"

"No matter what you thought!" interrupted her ladyship. "Let my carriage

draw up, and put this lady into it!" And he obeyed without uttering a

syllable.

"Dry up your tears, _keep on your mask_, and elbow your way through the

crowd," she said, when she had heard Belinda's story. "If you stop to be

civil and 'hope I don't hurt ye,' you will be trod underfoot."

She insisted on driving to the Panthéon instead of going home, but to

Belinda the night seemed long and dull. The masquerade had no charm to

keep her thoughts from the conversation that had given her so much pain.

_II.--Fashion and Fortitude_

"How happy you are, Lady Delacour!" she said, when they got into the

carriage to go home. "How happy to have such an amazing flow of

spirits!"

And then she learnt the reason of her ladyship's strange unevenness of

temper. She was dying of an incurable complaint, which she kept hidden

from all the world except her maid, Marriott, who attended on her in a

mysterious cabinet full of medicines and linen rags, the door of which

she had hitherto kept locked.

"You are shocked, Belinda," said she, "but as yet you have seen nothing.

Look here!" And baring one half of her bosom, she revealed a hideous

spectacle.

"Am I humbled? Am I wretched enough?" she asked. "No matter. I will die

as I have lived, the envy and admiration of the world. Promise--swear to

me that you will never reveal what you have seen to-night!" And Belinda

promised not only that, but to remain with her as long as ever she

wished.

Belinda's quiet avoidance of Clarence Hervey made him begin to believe

that she might not be "a compound of art and affectation," and he was

mortified to find that, though she joined with ease and dignity in the

general conversation with the others, her manner to him was grave and

reserved. To divert her, he declared he was convinced he was as well

able to manage a hoop as any woman in England, except Lady Delacour;

accordingly he was dressed by Marriott, and made his _entree_ with very

composed assurance and grace, being introduced as the Countess de

Pomenars to the purblind dowager, Lady Boucher, who had come to call. He

managed his part well, speaking French and broken English, until Lady

Delacour dexterously let down Belinda's beautiful tresses, and, calling

the French lady to admire _la belle chevelure,_ artfully let fall her

comb.

Totally forgetting his hoop and his character, he stooped to pick it up,

and lost his wager by knocking over a music-stand. He would have liked a

lock of her hair, but she refused with a modest, graceful dignity; she

was glad she had done so later when a tress of hair dropped from his

pocket-book, and his confusion showed her he was extremely interested

about the person to whom it belonged.

During her absence from the room Clarence entreated Lady Delacour to

make his peace with her. She consented on condition that he found her a

pair of horses from Tattersall's, on which Belinda, she said, had

secretly set her heart. He was vexed to find Belinda had so little

delicacy, and relapsed into his former opinion of Mrs. Stanhope's niece,

addressing her with the air of a man of gallantry, who thought his peace

had been cheaply made.

The horses ran away with Lady Delacour, injuring her ankle, and on her

being brought home by Clarence, Lord Delacour wished to enter the locked

cabinet for _arque-busade._ On being denied entrance, he seized the key,

believing a lover of hers was concealed there, until Belinda sprang

forward and took it from him, leaving them to believe what they would.

This circumstance was afterwards explained by Dr. X----, a mutual

friend, and Hervey was so much charmed with Belinda that he would have

gone to her at once--only that he had undertaken the reformation of Lady

Delacour.

_III.--An Unexpected Suitor_

In the meantime, after spending a morning in tasting wines, and thinking

that, although he had never learned to swim, some recollection he had of

an essay on swimming would ensure his safety, he betted his friends a

hundred guineas that he would swim to a certain point, and flinging

himself into the Serpentine, would have drowned before their eyes but

for the help of Mr. Percival. The breach caused by this affair induced

Sir Philip Baddely, a gentleman who always supplied "each vacuity of

sense" with an oath, to endeavour to cut him out by proposing to

Belinda.

"Damme, you're ten times handsomer than the finest woman I ever saw,

for, damme, I didn't know what it was to be in love then," he said,

heaving an audible sigh. "I'll trouble you for Mrs. Stanhope's

direction, Miss Portman; I believe, to do the thing in style, I ought to

write to her before I speak to you."

Belinda looked at him in astonishment, and then, finding he was in

earnest, assured him it was not in her power to encourage his addresses,

although she was fully sensible of the honour he had done her.

"Confusion seize me!" cried he, starting up, "if it isn't the most

extraordinary thing I ever heard! Is it to Sir Philip Baddely's

fortune--£15,000 a year--you object, or to his family, or to his person?

Oh, curse it!" said he, changing his tone, "you're only quizzing me to

see how I should look--you do it too well, you little coquette!"

Belinda again assured him she was entirely in earnest, and that she was

incapable of the sort of coquetry which he ascribed to her. To punish

her for this rejection he spread the report of Hervey's entanglement

with a beautiful girl named Virginia, whose picture he had sent to an

exhibition. He also roused Lady Delacour's jealousy into the belief that

Belinda meant to marry her husband, the viscount, after her death.

In her efforts to bring husband and wife together, Belinda had forgotten

that jealousy could exist without love, and a letter from Mrs. Stanhope,

exaggerating the scandalous reports in the hope of forcing her niece to

marry Sir Philip Baddely, shocked her so much that when Lady Delacour

quarrelled with her, she accepted an invitation from Lady Anne Percival,

and went there at once.

There she became acquainted with Mr. Percival's ward, Augustus Vincent,

a Creole, about two-and-twenty, tall and remarkably handsome, with

striking manners and an engaging person, who fixed his favourable

attention on her. The Percivals would have wished her to marry him, but

she still thought too much of Clarence Hervey to consent, although she

believed he had some engagement with the lovely Virginia.

_IV.--Explanation and Reconciliation_

Quite unexpectedly a summons came from Lady Delacour, and Belinda

returned to her at once, to find her so seriously ill that she persuaded

her at last to consent to an operation, and inform her husband of the

dangerous disease from which she was suffering. He believed from her

preamble that she was about to confess her love for another man; he

tried to stop her with an emotion and energy he had never shown until

now.

"I am not sufficiently master of myself. I once loved you too well to

hear such a stroke. Say no more--trust me with no such secret! you have

said enough--too much. I forgive you, that is all I can do; but we must

part, Lady Delacour!" said he, breaking from her with agony expressed in

his countenance.

"The man has a heart, a soul, I protest! You knew him better that I did,

Miss Portman. Nay, you are not gone yet, my lord! You really love me, I

find."

"No, no, no!" cried he vehemently. "Weak as you take me to be, Lady

Delacour, I am incapable of loving a woman who has disgraced me,

disgraced herself, her--" His utterance failed.

"Oh, Lady Delacour," cried Belinda, "how can you trifle in this manner?"

"I meant not," said her ladyship, "to trifle; I am satisfied. My lord, I

can give you the most irrefragable proof that whatever may have been the

apparent levity of my conduct, you have had no serious cause for

jealousy. But the proof will shock, disgust you. Have you courage to

know more? Then follow me."

He followed her. Belinda heard the boudoir door unlocked. In a few

minutes they returned. Grief and horror and pity were painted on Lord

Delacour's countenance as he passed hastily out of the room.

"My dearest friend, I have taken your advice; would to heaven I had

taken it sooner!" said Lady Delacour. "I have revealed to Lord Delacour

my real situation. Poor man, he was shocked beyond expression. The

moment his foolish jealousy was extinguished, his love for me revived in

full."

Lady Delacour awaited the operation with the utmost fortitude; but, to

everyone's joy, it was found there was no necessity for it; she had been

deceived by a villainous quack, who knew too well how to make a wound

hideous and painful, and had continued her delusion for his own

advantage.

Meanwhile, Belinda having permitted Mr. Vincent to address her, he was

being given a fair trial whether he could win her love. They had heard

reports of Clarence Hervey's speedy marriage with an heiress, Miss

Hartley, and found them confirmed by a letter Lady Delacour received

from him. Some years ago he had formed the romantic idea of educating a

wife for himself, and having found a beautiful, artless girl in the New

Forest, he had taken her under his care on the death of her grandmother.

She felt herself bound in honour and gratitude to him when her fortune

changed, and she was acknowledged by her father, Mr. Hartley, who had

long been searching for her, and who had traced her at last by the

picture Clarence Hervey had caused to be exhibited.

With the utmost magnanimity, Hervey, although he saw a successful rival

for Belinda's hand in Augustus Vincent, rescued him from ruin at the

gaming-table, and induced him to promise never to gamble again.

"I was determined Belinda's husband should be my friend. I have

succeeded beyond my hopes," he said.

But Vincent's love of play had decided Belinda at last. She refused him

finally in a letter which she confessed she found difficult to write,

but which she sent because she had promised she would not hold him in

suspense once she had made her decision.

After this Virginia Hartley confessed to her attachment for one Captain

Sunderland, and Clarence was free to avow his passion for Belinda.

"And what is Miss Portman to believe," cried one of Belinda's friends,

"when she has seen you on the very eve of marriage with another lady?"

"The strongest merit I can plead with such a woman as Miss Portman," he

replied, "is that I was ready to sacrifice my own happiness to a sense

of duty."

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