A FAMILY PARTY.
They found Lady Anne Percival in the midst of her children, who all
turned their healthy, rosy, intelligent faces towards the door, the
moment that they heard their father’s voice. Clarence Hervey was so much
struck with the expression of happiness in Lady Anne’s countenance, that
he absolutely forgot to compare her beauty with Lady Delacour’s. Whether
her eyes were large or small, blue or hazel, he could not tell; nay,
he might have been puzzled if he had been asked the colour of her hair.
Whether she were handsome by the rules of art, he knew not; but he felt
that she had the essential charm of beauty, the power of prepossessing
the heart immediately in her favour. The effect of her manners, like
that of her beauty, was rather to be felt than described. Every body
was at ease in her company, and none thought themselves called upon to
admire her. To Clarence Hervey, who had been used to the brilliant and
_exigeante_ Lady Delacour, this respite from the fatigue of admiration
was peculiarly agreeable. The unconstrained cheerfulness of Lady Anne
Percival spoke a mind at ease, and immediately imparted happiness by
exacting sympathy; but in Lady Delacour’s wit and gaiety there was an
appearance of art and effort, which often destroyed the pleasure that
she wished to communicate. Mr. Hervey was, perhaps unusually, disposed
to reflection, by having just escaped from drowning; for he had made all
these comparisons, and came to this conclusion, with the accuracy of a
metaphysician, who has been accustomed to study cause and effect--indeed
there was no species of knowledge for which he had not taste and
talents, though, to please fools, he too often affected “the bliss of
ignorance.”
The children at Lady Anne Percival’s happened to be looking at some gold
fish, which were in a glass globe, and Dr. X----, who was a general
favourite with the younger as well as with the elder part of the family,
was seized upon the moment he entered the room: a pretty little girl of
five years old took him prisoner by the flap of the coat, whilst two of
her brothers assailed him with questions about the ears, eyes, and
fins of fishes. One of the little boys filliped the glass globe, and
observed, that the fish immediately came to the surface of the water,
and seemed to hear the noise very quickly; but his brother doubted
whether the fish heard the noise, and remarked, that they might be
disturbed by seeing or feeling the motion of the water, when the glass
was struck.
Dr. X---- observed, that this was a very learned dispute, and that the
question had been discussed by no less a person than the Abbé Nollet;
and he related some of the ingenious experiments tried by that
gentleman, to decide whether fishes can or cannot hear. Whilst the
doctor was speaking, Clarence Hervey was struck with the intelligent
countenance of one of the little auditors, a girl of about ten or twelve
years old; he was surprised to discover in her features, though not in
their expression, a singular resemblance to Lady Delacour. He remarked
this to Mr. Percival, and the child, who overheard him, blushed as red
as scarlet. Dinner was announced at this instant, and Clarence Hervey
thought no more of the circumstance, attributing the girl’s blush
to confusion at being looked at so earnestly. One of the little boys
whispered as they were going down to dinner, “Helena, I do believe that
this is the good-natured gentleman who went out of the path to make room
for us, instead of running over us as the other man did.” The children
agreed that Clarence Hervey certainly was the _good-natured gentleman_,
and upon the strength of this observation, one of the boys posted
himself next to Clarence at dinner, and by all the little playful
manoeuvres in his power endeavoured to show his gratitude, and to
cultivate a friendship which had been thus auspiciously commenced.
Mr. Hervey, who piqued himself upon being able always to suit his
conversation to his companions, distinguished himself at dinner by an
account of the Chinese fishing-bird, from which he passed to the various
ingenious methods of fishing practised by the Russian Cossacks. From
modern he went to ancient fish, and he talked of that which was so much
admired by the Roman epicures for exhibiting a succession of beautiful
colours whilst it is dying; and which was, upon that account,
always suffered to die in the presence of the guests, as part of the
entertainment.--Clarence was led on by the questions of the children
from fishes to birds; he spoke of the Roman aviaries, which were
so constructed as to keep from the sight of the prisoners that they
contained, “the fields, woods, and every object which might remind them
of their former liberty.”--From birds he was going on to beasts, when he
was nearly struck dumb by the forbidding severity with which an elderly
lady, who sat opposite to him, fixed her eyes upon him. He had not,
till this instant, paid the smallest attention to her; but her stern
countenance was now so strongly contrasted with the approving looks of
the children who sat next to her, that he could not help remarking it.
He asked her to do him the honour to drink a glass of wine with him. She
declined doing him that honour; observing that she never drank more than
one glass of wine at dinner, and that she had just taken one with Mr.
Percival. Her manner was well-bred, but haughty in the extreme; and
she was so passionate, that her anger sometimes conquered even her
politeness. Her dislike to Clarence Hervey was apparent, even in her
silence. “If the old gentlewoman has taken an antipathy to me at first
sight, I cannot help it,” thought he, and he went on to the beasts. The
boy, who sat next him, had asked some questions about the proboscis of
the elephant, and Mr. Hervey mentioned Ives’s account of the elephants
in India, who have been set to watch young children, and who draw them
back gently with their trunks, when they go out of bounds. He talked
next of the unicorn; and addressing himself to Dr. X---- and Mr.
Percival, he declared that in his opinion Herodotus did not deserve to
be called the father of lies; he cited the mammoth to prove that
the apocryphal chapter in the history of beasts should not be
contemned--that it would in all probability be soon established as true
history. The dessert was on the table before Clarence had done with the
mammoth.
As the butler put a fine dish of cherries upon the table, he said,
“My lady, these cherries are a present from the old gardener to Miss
Delacour.”
“Set them before Miss Delacour then,” said Lady Anne. “Helena, my dear,
distribute your own cherries.”
At the name of Delacour, Clarence Hervey, though his head was still half
full of the mammoth, looked round in astonishment; and when he saw
the cherries placed before the young lady, whose resemblance to Lady
Delacour he had before observed, he could not help exclaiming,
“That young lady then is not a daughter of your ladyship’s?”
“No; but I love her as well as if she were,” replied Lady Anne.--“What
were you saying about the mammoth?”
“That the mammoth is supposed to be------------” but interrupting
himself, Clarence said in an inquiring tone--“A _niece_ of Lady
Delacour’s?”
“Her ladyship’s _daughter_, sir,” said the severe old lady, in a voice
more terrific than her looks.
“Shall I give you some strawberries, Mr. Hervey,” said lady Anne, “or
will you let Helena help you to some cherries?”
“Her ladyship’s _daughter!_” exclaimed Clarence Hervey in a tone of
surprise.
“Some cherries, sir?” said Helena; but her voice faltered so much, that
she could hardly utter the words.
Clarence perceived that he had been the cause of her agitation, though
he knew not precisely by what means; and he now applied himself in
silence to the picking of his strawberries with great diligence.
The ladies soon afterwards withdrew, and as Mr. Percival did not touch
upon the subject again, Clarence forbore to ask any further questions,
though he was considerably surprised by this sudden discovery. When he
went into the drawing-room to tea, he found his friend, the stern old
lady, speaking in a high declamatory tone. The words which he heard as
he came into the room were--
“If there were no Clarence Herveys, there would be no Lady
Delacours.”--Clarence bowed as if he had received a high compliment--the
old lady walked away to an antechamber, fanning herself with great
energy.
“Mrs. Margaret Delacour,” said Lady Anne, in a low voice to Hervey,
“is an aunt of Lord Delacour’s. A woman whose heart is warmer than her
temper.”
“And that is never cool,” said a young lady, who sat next to Lady Anne.
“I call Mrs. Margaret Delacour the volcano; I’m sure I am never in her
company without dreading an eruption. Every now and then out comes with
a tremendous noise, fire, smoke, and rubbish.”
“And precious minerals,” said Lady Anne, “amongst the rubbish.”
“But the best of it is,” continued the young lady, “that she is seldom
in a passion without making a hundred mistakes, for which she is usually
obliged afterwards to ask a thousand pardons.”
“By that account,” said Lady Anne, “which I believe to be just, her
contrition is always ten times as great as her offence.”
“Now you talk of contrition, Lady Anne,” said Mr. Hervey, “I should
think of my own offences: I am very sorry that my indiscreet questions
gave Miss Delacour any pain--my head was so full of the mammoth, that I
blundered on without seeing what I was about till it was too late.”
“Pray, sir,” said Mrs. Margaret Delacour, who now returned, and took her
seat upon a sofa, with the solemnity of a person who was going to sit in
judgment upon a criminal, “pray, sir, may I ask how long you have been
acquainted with my Lady Delacour?”
Clarence Hervey took up a book, and with great gravity kissed it, as if
he had been upon his oath in a court of justice, and answered,
“To the best of my recollection, madam, it is now four years since I had
first the pleasure and honour of seeing Lady Delacour.”
“And in that time, intimately as you have had the pleasure of being
acquainted with her ladyship, you have never discovered that she had a
daughter?”
“Never,” said Mr. Hervey.
“There, Lady Anne!--There!” cried Mrs. Delacour, “will you tell me after
this, that Lady Delacour is not a monster?”
“Every body says that she’s a prodigy,” said Lady Anne; “and prodigies
and monsters are sometimes thought synonymous terms.”
“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.
“Young man,” said she, “it is very unfashionable to treat age and
infirmity with politeness. I wish that your friend, Lady Delacour,
may at my time of life meet with as much respect, as she has met
with admiration and gallantry in her youth. Poor woman, her head has
absolutely been turned with admiration--and if fame say true, Mr. Hervey
has had his share in turning that head by his flattery.”
“I am sure her ladyship has turned mine by her charms,” said Clarence;
“and I certainly am not to be blamed for admiring what all the world
admires.”
“I wish,” said the old lady, “for her own sake, for the sake of her
family, and for the sake of her reputation, that my Lady Delacour had
fewer admirers, and more friends.”
“Women who have met with so many admirers, seldom meet with many
friends,” said Lady Anne.
“No,” said Mrs. Delacour, “for they seldom are wise enough to know their
value.”
“We learn the value of all things, but especially of friends, by
experience,” said Lady Anne; “and it is no wonder, therefore, that those
who have little experience of the pleasures of friendship should not be
wise enough to know their value.”
“This is very good-natured sophistry; but Lady Delacour is too vain ever
to have a friend,” said Mrs. Delacour. “My dear Lady Anne, you don’t
know her as well as I do--she has more vanity than ever woman had.”
“That is certainly saying a great deal,” said Lady Anne; “but then we
must consider, that Lady Delacour, as an heiress, a beauty, and a wit,
has a right to a triple share at least.”
“Both her fortune and her beauty are gone; and if she had any wit left,
it is time it should teach her how to conduct herself, I think,” said
Mrs. Delacour: “but I give her up--I give her up.”
“Oh, no,” said Lady Anne, “you must not give her up yet, I have been
informed, and upon _the best authority_, that Lady Delacour was not
always the unfeeling, dissipated fine lady that she now appears to be.
This is only one of the transformations of fashion--the period of her
enchantment will soon be at an end, and she will return to her natural
character. I should not be at all surprised, if Lady Delacour were to
appear at once _la femme comme il y en a pen_.”
“Or _la bonne mère_?” said Mrs. Delacour, sarcastically, “after thus
leaving her daughter----”
“_Pour bonne bouche_,” interrupted Lady Anne, “when she is tired of
the insipid taste of other pleasures, she will have a higher relish for
those of domestic life, which will be new and fresh to her.”
“And so you really think, my dear Lady Anne, that my Lady Delacour will
end by being a domestic woman. Well,” said Mrs. Margaret, after taking
two pinches of snuff, “some people believe in the millennium; but I
confess I am not one of them--are you, Mr. Hervey?”
“If it were foretold to me by a good angel,” said Clarence, smiling,
as his eye glanced at Lady Anne; “if it were foretold to me by a good
angel, how could I doubt it?”
Here the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of one of Lady
Anne’s little boys, who came running eagerly up to his mother, to ask
whether he might have “the sulphurs to show to Helena Delacour. I
want to show her Vertumnus and Pomona, mamma,” said he. “Were not the
cherries that the old gardener sent very good?”
“What is this about the cherries and the old gardener, Charles?” said
the young lady who sat beside Lady Anne: “come here and tell me the
whole story.”
“I will, but I should tell it you a great deal better another time,”
said the boy, “because now Helena’s waiting for Vertumnus and Pomona.”
“Go then to Helena,” said Lady Anne, “and I will tell the story for
you.”
Then turning to the young lady she began--“Once upon a time there lived
an old gardener at Kensington; and this old gardener had an aloe, which
was older than himself; for it was very near a hundred years of age, and
it was just going to blossom, and the old gardener calculated how much
he might make by showing his aloe, when it should be in full blow, to
the generous public--and he calculated that he might make a 100l.; and
with this 100l. he determined to do more than was ever done with a 100l.
before: but, unluckily, as he was thus reckoning his blossoms before
they were blown, he chanced to meet with a fair damsel, who ruined all
his calculations.”
“Ay, Mrs. Stanhope’s maid, was not it?” interrupted Mrs. Margaret
Delacour. “A pretty damsel she was, and almost as good a politician as
her mistress. Think of that jilt’s tricking this poor old fellow out of
his aloe, and--oh, the meanness of Lady Delacour, to accept of that aloe
for one of her extravagant entertainments!”
“But I always understood that she paid fifty guineas for it,” said Lady
Anne.
“Whether she did or not,” said Mrs. Delacour, “her ladyship and Mrs.
Stanhope between them were the ruin of this poor old man. He was taken
in to marry that jade of a waiting-maid; she turned out just as you
might expect from a pupil of Mrs. Stanhope’s--the match-making Mrs.
Stanhope--you know, sir.” (Clarence Hervey changed colour.) “She turned
out,” continued Mrs. Delacour, “every thing that was bad--ruined her
husband--ran away from him--and left him a beggar.”
“Poor man!” said Clarence Hervey.
“But now,” said Lady Anne, “let’s come to the best part of the
story--mark how good comes out of evil. If this poor man had not lost
his aloe and his wife, I probably should never have been acquainted with
Mrs. Delacour, or with my little Helena. About the time that the old
gardener was left a beggar, as I happened to be walking one fine evening
in Sloane-street, I met a procession of school-girls--an old man begged
from them in a most moving voice; and as they passed, several of the
young ladies threw halfpence to him. One little girl, who observed that
the old man could not stoop without great difficulty, stayed behind
the rest of her companions, and collected the halfpence which they had
thrown to him, and put them into his hat. He began to tell his story
over again to her, and she stayed so long listening to it, that her
companions had turned the corner of the street, and were out of sight.
She looked about in great distress; and I never shall forget the
pathetic voice with which she said, ‘Oh! what will become of me? every
body will be angry with me.’ I assured her that nobody should be angry
with her, and she gave me her little hand with the utmost innocent
confidence. I took her home to her schoolmistress, and I was so pleased
with the beginning of this acquaintance, that I was determined to
cultivate it. One good acquaintance I have heard always leads to
another. Helena introduced me to her aunt Delacour as her best friend.
Mrs. Margaret Delacour has had the goodness to let her little niece
spend the holidays and all her leisure time with me, so that our
acquaintance has grown into friendship. Helena has become quite one of
my family.”
“And I am sure she has become quite a different creature since she has
been so much with you,” cried Mrs. Delacour; “her spirits were quite
broken by her mother’s neglect of her: young as she is, she has a great
deal of real sensibility; but as to her mother’s sensibility--”
At the recollection of Lady Delacour’s neglect of her child, Mrs.
Delacour was going again to launch forth into indignant invective, but
Lady Anne stopped her, by whispering--
“Take care what you say of the mother, for here is the daughter coming,
and she has, indeed, a great deal of real sensibility.”
Helena and her young companions now came into the room, bringing with
them the sulphurs at which they had been looking.
“Mamma,” said little Charles Percival, “we have brought the sulphurs to
you, because there are some of them that I don’t know.”
“Wonderful!” said Lady Anne; “and what is not quite so wonderful, there
are some of them that I don’t know.”
The children spread the sulphurs upon a little table, and all the
company gathered round it.
“Here are all the nine muses for you,” said the least of the boys, who
had taken his seat by Clarence Hervey at dinner; “here are all the muses
for you, Mr. Hervey: which do you like best?--Oh, that’s the tragic muse
that you have chosen!--You don’t like the tragic better than the comic
muse, do you?”
Clarence Hervey made no answer, for he was at that instant recollecting
how Belinda looked in the character of the tragic muse.
“Has your ladyship ever happened to meet with the young lady who has
spent this winter with Lady Delacour?” said Clarence to Lady Anne.
“I sat near her one night at the opera,” said Lady Anne: “she has a
charming countenance.”
“Who?--Belinda Portman, do you mean?” said Mrs. Delacour. “I am sure if
I were a young man, I would not trust to the charming countenance of a
young lady who is a pupil of Mrs. Stanhope’s, and a friend of--Helena,
my dear, shut the door--the most dissipated woman in London.”
“Indeed,” said Lady Anne, “Miss Portman is in a dangerous situation;
but some young people learn prudence by being placed in dangerous
situations, as some young horses, I have heard Mr. Percival say, learn
to be sure-footed, by being left to pick their own way on bad roads.”
Here Mr. Percival, Dr. X----, and some other gentlemen, came up
stairs to tea, and the conversation took another turn. Clarence Hervey
endeavoured to take his share in it with his usual vivacity, but he was
thinking of Belinda Portman, dangerous situations, stumbling horses, &c;
and he made several blunders, which showed his absence of mind.
“What have you there, Mr. Hervey?” said Dr. X----, looking over his
shoulder--“the tragic muse? This tragic muse seems to rival Lady
Delacour in your admiration.”
“Oh,” said Clarence, smiling, “you know I was always a votary of the
muses.”
“And a favoured votary,” said Dr. X----. “I wish for the interests of
literature, that poets may always be lovers, though I cannot say that
I desire lovers should always be poets. But, Mr. Hervey, you must never
marry, remember,” continued Dr. X----, “never--for your true poet must
always be miserable. You know Petrarch tells us, he would not have been
happy if he could; he would not have married his mistress if it had been
in his power; because then there would have been an end of his beautiful
sonnets.”
“Every one to his taste,” said Clarence; “for my part I have even less
ambition to imitate the heroism than hope of being inspired with the
poetic genius of Petrarch. I have no wish to pass whole nights composing
sonnets. I would (am I not right, Mr. Percival?) infinitely rather be a
slave of the ring than a slave of the lamp.”
Here the conversation ended; Clarence took his leave, and Mrs. Margaret
Delacour said, the moment he had left the room, “Quite a different sort
of young man from what I had expected to see!”