RIGHTS OF WOMAN.
Belinda was alone, and reading, when Mrs. Freke dashed into the room.
“How do, dear creature?” cried she, stepping up to her, and shaking
hands with her boisterously--“How do?--Glad to see you, faith!--Been
long here?--Tremendously hot to-day!”
She flung herself upon the sofa beside Belinda, threw her hat upon the
table, and then continued speaking.
“And how d’ye go on here, poor child?--Gad! I’m glad you’re
alone--expected to find you encompassed by a whole host of the
righteous. Give me credit for my courage in coming to deliver you out of
their hands. Luttridge and I had such compassion upon you, when we heard
you were close prisoner here! I swore to set the distressed damsel free,
in spite of all the dragons in Christendom; so let me carry you off in
triumph in my unicorn, and leave these good people to stare when they
come home from their sober walk, and find you gone. There’s nothing I
like so much as to make good people stare--I hope you’re of my way o’
thinking---you don’t look as if you were, though; but I never mind
young ladies’ looks--always give the lie to their thoughts. Now we talk
o’ looks--never saw you look so well in my life--as handsome as an angel!
And so much the better for me. Do you know, I’ve a bet of twenty guineas
on your head--on your face, I mean. There’s a young bride at Harrowgate,
Lady H----, they’re all mad about her; the men swear she’s the
handsomest woman in England, and I swear I know one ten times as
handsome. They’ve dared me to make good my word, and I’ve pledged myself
to produce my beauty at the next ball, and to pit her against their
belle for any money. Most votes carry it. I’m willing to double my
bet since I’ve seen you again. Come, had not we best be off? Now don’t
refuse me and make speeches--you know that’s all nonsense--I’ll take all
the blame upon myself.”
Belinda, who had not been suffered to utter a word whilst Mrs. Freke ran
on in this strange manner, looked in unfeigned astonishment; but when
she found herself seized and dragged towards the door, she drew back
with a degree of gentle firmness that astonished Mrs. Freke. With a
smiling countenance, but a steady tone, she said, “that she was sorry
Mrs. Freke’s knight-errantry should not be exerted in a better cause,
for that she was neither a prisoner, nor a distressed damsel.”
“And will you make me lose my bet?” cried Mrs. Freke “Oh, at all events,
you must come to the ball!--I’m down for it. But I’ll not press it now,
because you’re frightened out of your poor little wits, I see, at the
bare thoughts of doing any thing considered out of rule by these good
people. Well, well! it shall be managed for you--leave that to me: I’m
used to managing for cowards. Pray tell me--you and Lady Delacour are
off, I understand?--Give ye joy!--She and I were once great friends;
that is to say, I had over her ‘that power which strong minds have over
weak ones,’ but she was too weak for me--one of those people that have
neither courage to be good, nor to be bad.”
“The courage to be bad,” said Belinda, “I believe, indeed, she does not
possess.”
Mrs. Freke stared. “Why, I heard you had quarrelled with her!”
“If I had,” said Belinda, “I hope that I should still do justice to her
merits. It is said that people are apt to suffer more by their friends
than their enemies. I hope that will never be the case with Lady
Delacour, as I confess that I have been one of her friends.”
“‘Gad, I like your spirit--you don’t want courage, I see, to fight even
for your enemies. You are just the kind of girl I admire. I see you have
been prejudiced against me by Lady Delacour; but whatever stories she
may have trumped up, the truth of the matter is this, there’s no living
with her, she’s so jealous--so ridiculously jealous--of that lord of
hers, for whom all the time she has the impudence to pretend not to care
more than I do for the sole of my boot,” said Mrs. Freke, striking it,
with her whip; “but she hasn’t the courage to give him tit for tat: now
this is what I call weakness. Pray, how do she and Clarence Hervey go on
together?--Are they out o’ the hornbook of platonics yet?”
“Mr. Hervey was not in town when I left it,” said Belinda.
“Was not he?--Ho! ho!--He’s off then!--Ay, so I prophesied; she’s not
the thing for him: he has some strength of mind--some soul--above vulgar
prejudices; so must a woman be to hold him. He was caught at first by
her grace and beauty, and that sort of stuff; but I knew it could not
last--knew she’d dilly dally with Clary, till he would turn upon his
heel and leave her there.”
“I fancy that you are entirely mistaken both with respect to Mr. Hervey
and Lady Delacour,” Belinda very seriously began to say. But Mrs. Freke
interrupted her, and ran on; “No! no! no! I’m not mistaken; Clarence has
found her out. She’s a _very_ woman--_that_ he could forgive her, and
so could I; but she’s a _mere_ woman--and that he can’t forgive--no more
can I.”
There was a kind of drollery about Mrs. Freke, which, with some people,
made the odd things she said pass for wit. Humour she really possessed;
and when she chose it, she could be diverting to those who like
buffoonery in women. She had set her heart upon winning Belinda over to
her party. She began by flattery of her beauty; but as she saw that this
had no effect, she next tried what could be done by insinuating that she
had a high opinion of her understanding, by talking to her as an esprit
fort.
“For my part,” said she, “I own I should like a strong devil better than
a weak angel.”
“You forget,” said Belinda, “that it is not Milton, but Satan, who says,
‘Fallen spirit, to be weak is to be miserable.’”
“You read, I see!--I did not know you were a reading girl. So was I
once; but I never read now. Books only spoil the originality of genius:
very well for those who can’t think for themselves--but when one has
made up one’s opinion, there is no use in reading.”
“But to make them up,” replied Belinda, “may it not be useful?”
“Of no use upon earth to minds of a certain class. You, who can think
for yourself, should never read.”
“But I read that I may think for myself.”
“Only ruin your understanding, trust me. Books are full of
trash--nonsense, conversation is worth all the books in the world.”
“And is there never any nonsense in conversation?”
“What have you here?” continued Mrs. Freke, who did not choose to attend
to this question; exclaiming, as she reviewed each of the books on the
table in their turns, in the summary language of presumptuous
ignorance, “Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments--milk and water! Moore’s
Travels--hasty pudding! La Bruyère--nettle porridge! This is what you
were at when I came in, was it not?” said she, taking up a book[8]
in which she saw Belinda’s mark: “Against Inconsistency in our
Expectations. Poor thing! who bored you with this task?”
“Mr. Percival recommended it to me, as one of the best essays in the
English language.”
“The devil! they seem to have put you in a course of the bitters--a
course of the woods might do your business better. Do you ever
hunt?--Let me take you out with me some morning--you’d be quite an angel
on horseback; or let me drive you out some day in my unicorn.”
Belinda declined this invitation, and Mrs. Freke strode away to the
window to conceal her mortification, threw up the sash, and called out
to her groom, “Walk those horses about, blockhead!”
Mr. Percival and Mr. Vincent at this instant came into the room.
“Hail, fellow! well met!” cried Mrs. Freke, stretching out her hand to
Mr. Vincent.
It has been remarked, that an antipathy subsists between creatures,
who, without being the same, have yet a strong external resemblance. Mr.
Percival saw this instinct rising in Mr. Vincent, and smiled.
“Hail, fellow! well met! I say. Shake hands and be friends, man! Though
I’m not in the habit of making apologies, if it will be any satisfaction
to you, I beg your pardon for frightening your poor devil of a black.”
Then turning towards Mr. Percival, she measured him with her eye, as a
person whom she longed to attack. She thought, that if Belinda’s opinion
of the understanding of _these Percivals_ could be lowered, she should
rise in her esteem: accordingly, she determined to draw Mr. Percival
into an argument.
“I’ve been talking treason, I believe, to Miss Portman,” cried she; “for
I’ve been opposing some of your opinions, Mr. Percival.”
“If you opposed them all, madam,” said Mr. Percival, “I should not think
it treason.”
“Vastly polite!--But I think all our politeness hypocrisy: what d’ye say
to that?”
“You know that best, madam!”
“Then I’ll go a step farther; for I’m determined you shall contradict
me: I think all virtue is hypocrisy.”
“I need not contradict you, madam,” said Mr. Percival, “for the terms
which you make use of contradict themselves.”
“It is my system,” pursued Mrs. Freke, “that shame is always the cause
of the vices of women.”
“It is sometimes the effect,” said Mr. Percival; “and, as cause and
effect are reciprocal, perhaps you may, in some instances, be right.”
“Oh! I hate qualifying arguers--plump assertion or plump denial for me:
you sha’n’t get off so. I say shame is the cause of all women’s vices.”
“False shame, I suppose you mean?” said Mr. Percival.
“Mere play upon words! All shame is false shame--we should be a great
deal better without it. What say you, Miss Portman?--Silent, hey?
Silence that speaks.”
“Miss Portman’s blushes,” said Mr. Vincent, “speak _for her_.”
“_Against_ her,” said Mrs. Freke: “women blush because they understand.”
“And you would have them understand without blushing?” said Mr.
Percival. “I grant you that nothing can be more different than innocence
and ignorance. Female delicacy--”
“This is just the way you men spoil women,” cried Mrs. Freke, “by
talking to them of the _delicacy of their sex_, and such stuff. This
_delicacy_ enslaves the pretty delicate dears.”
“No; it enslaves us,” said Mr. Vincent.
“I hate slavery! Vive la liberté!” cried Mrs. Freke. “I’m a champion for
the Rights of Woman.”
“I am an advocate for their happiness,” said Mr. Percival, “and for
their delicacy, as I think it conduces to their happiness.”
“I’m an enemy to their delicacy, as I am sure it conduces to their
misery.”
“You speak from experience?” said Mr. Percival.
“No, from observation. Your most delicate women are always the greatest
hypocrites; and, in my opinion, no hypocrite can or ought to be happy.”
“But you have not proved the hypocrisy,” said Belinda. “Delicacy is not,
I hope, an indisputable proof of it? If you mean _false_ delicacy----”
“To cut the matter short at once,” cried Mrs. Freke, “why, when a woman
likes a man, does not she go and tell him so honestly?”
Belinda, surprised by this question from a woman, was too much abashed
instantly to answer.
“Because she’s a hypocrite. That is and must be the answer.”
“No,” said Mr. Percival; “because, if she be a woman of sense, she knows
that by such a step she would disgust the object of her affection.”
“Cunning!--cunning!--cunning!--the arms of the weakest.”
“Prudence! prudence!--the arms of the strongest. Taking the best means
to secure our own happiness without injuring that of others is the
best proof of sense and strength of mind, whether in man or woman.
Fortunately for society, the same conduct in ladies which best secures
their happiness most increases ours.”
Mrs. Freke beat the devil’s tattoo for some moments, and then exclaimed,
“You may say what you will, but the present system of society is
radically wrong:--whatever is, is wrong.”
“How would you improve the state of society?” asked Mr. Percival,
calmly.
“I’m not tinker-general to the world,” said she.
“I’m glad of it,” said Mr. Percival; “for I have heard that tinkers
often spoil more than they mend.”
“But if you want to know,” said Mrs. Freke, “what I would do to improve
the world, I’ll tell you: I’d have both sexes call things by their right
names.”
“This would doubtless be a great improvement,” said Mr. Percival; “but
you would not overturn society to attain it, would you? Should we find
things much improved by tearing away what has been called the decent
drapery of life?”
“Drapery, if you ask me my opinion,” cried Mrs. Freke, “drapery, whether
wet or dry, is the most confoundedly indecent thing in the world.”
“That depends on _public_ opinion, I allow,” said Mr. Percival. “The
Lacedaemonian ladies, who were veiled only by public opinion, were
better covered from profane eyes than some English ladies are in wet
drapery.”
“I know nothing of the Lacedaemonian ladies: I took my leave of them
when I was a schoolboy--girl, I should say. But pray, what o’clock is it
by you? I’ve sat till I’m cramped all over,” cried Mrs. Freke, getting
up and stretching herself so violently that some part of her habiliments
gave way. “Honi soit qui mal y pense!” said she, bursting into a horse
laugh.
Without sharing in any degree that confusion which Belinda felt for her,
she strode out of the room, saying, “Miss Portman, you understand these
things better than I do; come and set me to rights.”
When she was in Belinda’s room, she threw herself into an arm-chair, and
laughed immoderately.
“How I have trimmed Percival this morning!” said she.
“I am glad you think so,” said Belinda; “for I really was afraid he had
been too severe upon you.”
“I only wish,” continued Mrs. Freke, “I only wish his wife had been by.
Why the devil did not she make her appearance? I suppose the prude was
afraid of my demolishing and unrigging her.”
“There seems to have been more danger of that for you than for any body
else,” said Belinda, as she assisted to set Mrs. Freke’s rigging, as she
called it, to rights.
“I do of all things delight in hauling good people’s opinions out of
their musty drawers, and seeing how they look when they’re all pulled
to pieces before their faces! Pray, are those Lady Anne’s drawers or
yours?” said Mrs. Freke, pointing to a chest of drawers.
“Mine.”
“I’m sorry for it; for if they were hers, to punish her for _shirking_
me, by the Lord, I’d have every rag she has in the world out in the
middle of the floor in ten minutes! You don’t know me--I’m a terrible
person when provoked--stop at nothing!”
As Mrs. Freke saw no other chance left of gaining her point with
Belinda, she tried what intimidating her would do.
“I stop at nothing,” repeated she, fixing her eyes upon Miss Portman, to
fascinate her by terror. “Friend or foe! peace or war! Take your choice.
Come to the ball at Harrowgate, I win my bet, and I’m your sworn friend.
Stay away, I lose my bet, and am your sworn enemy.”
“It is not in my power, madam,” said Belinda, calmly, “to comply with
your request.”
“Then you’ll take the consequences,” cried Mrs. Freke. She rushed past
her, hurried down stairs, and called out, “Bid my blockhead bring my
unicorn.”
She, her unicorn, and her blockhead, were out of sight in a few minutes.
Good may be drawn from evil. Mrs. Freke’s conversation, though at the
time it confounded Belinda, roused her, upon reflection, to examine by
her reason the habits and principles which guided her conduct. She had
a general feeling that they were right and necessary; but now, with the
assistance of Lady Anne and Mr. Percival, she established in her own
understanding the exact boundaries between right and wrong upon many
subjects. She felt a species of satisfaction and security, from
seeing the demonstration of those axioms of morality, in which she had
previously acquiesced. Reasoning gradually became as agreeable to her as
wit; nor was her taste for wit diminished, it was only refined by this
process. She now compared and judged of the value of the different
species of this brilliant talent.
Mrs. Freke’s wit, thought she, is like a noisy squib, the momentary
terror of passengers; Lady Delacour’s like an elegant firework, which
we crowd to see, and cannot forbear to applaud; but Lady Anne Percival’s
wit is like the refulgent moon, we
“Love the mild rays, and bless the useful light.”
“Miss Portman,” said Mr. Percival, “are not you afraid of making an
enemy of Mrs. Freke, by declining her invitation to Harrowgate?”
“I think her friendship more to be dreaded than her enmity,” replied
Belinda.
“Then you are not to be terrified by an obeah-woman?” said Mr. Vincent.
“Not in the least, unless she were to come in the shape of a false
friend,” said Belinda.
“Till lately,” said Mr. Vincent, “I was deceived in the character of
Mrs. Freke. I thought her a dashing, free-spoken, free-hearted sort of
eccentric person, who would make a staunch friend and a jolly companion.
As a mistress, or a wife, no man of any taste could think of her.
Compare that woman now with one of our Creole ladies.”
“But why with a creole?” said Mr. Percival.
“For the sake of contrast, in the first place: our creole women are all
softness, grace, delicacy----”
“And indolence,” said Mr. Percival.
“Their indolence is but a slight, and, in my judgment, an amiable
defect; it keeps them out of mischief, and it attaches them to domestic
life. The activity of a Mrs. Freke would never excite their emulation;
and so much the better.”
“So much the better, no doubt,” said Mr. Percival. “But is there
no other species of activity that might excite their ambition with
propriety? Without diminishing their grace, softness, or delicacy,
might not they cultivate their minds? Do you think ignorance, as well as
indolence, an amiable defect, essential to the female character?”
“Not essential. You do not, I hope, imagine that I am so much prejudiced
in favour of my countrywomen, that I can neither see nor feel the
superiority in _some instances_ of European cultivation? I speak only in
general.”
“And in general,” said Lady Anne Percival, “does Mr. Vincent wish to
confine our sex to the bliss of ignorance?”
“If it be bliss,” said Mr. Vincent, “what reason would they have for
complaint?”
“_If_,” said Belinda; “but that is a question which you have not yet
decided.”
“And how can we decide it?” said Mr. Vincent, “The taste and feelings of
individuals must be the arbiters of their happiness.”
“You leave reason quite out of the question, then,” said Mr. Percival,
“and refer the whole to taste and feeling? So that if the most ignorant
person in the world assert that he is happier than you are, you are
bound to believe him.”
“Why should not I?” said Mr. Vincent.
“Because,” said Mr. Percival, “though he can judge of his own pleasures,
he cannot judge of yours; his are common to both, but yours are unknown
to him. Would you, at this instant, change places with that ploughman
yonder, who is whistling as he goes for want of thought? or, would you
choose to go a step higher in the bliss of ignorance, and turn savage?”
Mr. Vincent laughed, and protested that he should be very unwilling to
give up his title to civilized society; and that, instead of wishing to
have less knowledge, he regretted that he had not more. “I am sensible,”
said he, “that I have many prejudices;--Miss Portman has made me ashamed
of some of them.”
There was a degree of candour in Mr. Vincent’s manner and conversation,
which interested every body in his favour; Belinda amongst the rest. She
was perfectly at ease in Mr. Vincent’s company, because she considered
him as a person who wished for her friendship, without having any design
to engage her affections. From several hints that dropped from him, from
Mr. Percival, and from Lady Anne, she was persuaded that he was attached
to some creole lady; and all that he said in favour of the elegant
softness and delicacy of his countrywomen confirmed this opinion.
Miss Portman was not one of those young ladies who fancy that every
gentleman who converses freely with them will inevitably fall a victim
to the power of their charms, and will see in every man a lover, or
nothing.