Essential Novelists - Maria Edgeworth. Maria Edgeworth

some very substantial reason. It seemed as if Marriott was in possession of some secret, which should for ever remain unknown. This idea had occurred to Miss Portman more than once, but never so forcibly as upon the present occasion. There had always been some mystery about her ladyship’s toilette: at certain hours doors were bolted, and it was impossible for any body but Marriott to obtain admission. Miss Portman at first imagined that Lady Delacour dreaded the discovery of her cosmetic secrets, but her ladyship’s rouge was so glaring, and her pearl powder was so obvious, that Belinda was convinced there must be some other cause for this toilette secrecy. There was a little cabinet beyond her bedchamber, which Lady Delacour called her boudoir, to which there was an entrance by a back staircase; but no one ever entered there but Marriott. One night, Lady Delacour, after dancing with great spirit at a ball, at her own house, fainted suddenly: Miss Portman attended her to her bedchamber, but Marriott begged that her lady might be left alone with her, and she would by no means suffer Belinda to follow her into the boudoir. All these things Belinda recollected in the space of a few seconds, as she stood contemplating Marriott and the dresses. The hurry of getting ready for the masquerade, however, dispelled these thoughts, and by the time she was dressed, the idea of what Clarence Hervey would think of her appearance was uppermost in her mind. She was anxious to know whether he would discover her in the character of the comic muse. Lady Delacour was discontented with her tragic attire, and she grew still more out of humour with herself, when she saw Belinda.

      “I protest Marriott has made a perfect fright of me,” said her ladyship, as she got into her carriage, “and I’m positive my dress would become you a million of times better than your own.”

      Miss Portman regretted that it was too late to change.

      “Not at all too late, my dear,” said Lady Delacour; “never too late for women to change their minds, their dress, or their lovers. Seriously, you know, we are to call at my friend Lady Singleton’s — she sees masks to-night: I’m quite intimate there; I’ll make her let me step up to her own room, where no soul can interrupt us, and there we can change our dresses, and Marriott will know nothing of the matter. Marriott’s a faithful creature, and very fond of me; fond of power too — but who is not? — we must all have our faults: one would not quarrel with such a good creature as Marriott for a trifle.” Then suddenly changing her tone, she said, “Not a human being will find us out at the masquerade; for no one but Mrs. Freke knows that we are the two muses. Clarence Hervey swears he should know me in any disguise — but I defy him — I shall take special delight in puzzling him. Harriot Freke has told him, in confidence, that I’m to be the widow Brady, in man’s clothes: now that’s to be Harriot’s own character; so Hervey will make fine confusion.”

      As soon as they got to Lady Singleton’s, Lady Delacour and Miss Portman immediately went up stairs to exchange dresses. Poor Belinda, now that she felt herself in spirits to undertake the comic muse, was rather vexed to be obliged to give up her becoming character; but there was no resisting the polite energy of Lady Delacour’s vanity. Her ladyship ran as quick as lightning into a closet within the dressing-room, saying to Lady Singleton’s woman, who attempted to follow with —“Can I do any thing for your ladyship?”—“No, no, no — nothing, nothing — thank ye, thank ye — I want no assistance — I never let any body do any thing for me but Marriott;” and she bolted herself in the closet. In a few minutes she half opened the door, threw out her tragic robes, and cried, “Here, Miss Portman, give me yours — quick — and let’s see whether comedy or tragedy will be ready first.”

      “Lord bless and forgive me,” said Lady Singleton’s woman, when Lady Delacour at last threw open the door, when she was completely dressed —“but if your la’ship has not been dressing all this time in that den, without any thing in the shape of a looking-glass, and not to let me help! I that should have been so proud.”

      Lady Delacour put half a guinea into the waiting-maid’s hand, laughed affectedly at her own whimsicalities, and declared that she could always dress herself better without a glass than with one. All this went off admirably well with every body but Miss Portman; she could not help thinking it extraordinary that a person who was obviously fond of being waited upon would never suffer any person to assist her at her toilet except Marriott, a woman of whom she was evidently afraid. Lady Delacour’s quick eye saw curiosity painted in Belinda’s countenance, and for a moment she was embarrassed; but she soon recovered herself, and endeavoured to turn the course of Miss Portman’s thoughts by whispering to her some nonsense about Clarence Hervey — a cabalistical name, which she knew had the power, when pronounced in a certain tone, of throwing Belinda into confusion.

      The first person they saw, when they went into the drawing-room at Lady Singleton’s, was this very Clarence Hervey, who was not in a masquerade dress. He had laid a wager with one of his acquaintance, that he could perform the part of the serpent, such as he is seen in Fuseli’s well-known picture. For this purpose he had exerted much ingenuity in the invention and execution of a length of coiled skin, which he manoeuvred with great dexterity, by means of internal wires; his grand difficulty had been to manufacture the rays that were to come from his eyes. He had contrived a set of phosphoric rays, which he was certain would charm all the fair daughters of Eve. He forgot, it seems, that phosphorus could not well be seen by candlelight. When he was just equipped as a serpent, his rays set fire to part of his envelope, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he was extricated. He escaped unhurt, but his serpent’s skin was utterly consumed; nothing remained but the melancholy spectacle of its skeleton. He was obliged to give up the hopes of shining at the masquerade, but he resolved to be at Lady Singleton’s that he might meet Lady Delacour and Miss Portman. The moment that the tragic and comic muse appeared, he invoked them with much humour and mock pathos, declaring that he knew not which of them could best sing his adventure. After a recital of his misfortune had entertained the company, and after the muses had performed their parts to the satisfaction of the audience and their own, the conversation ceased to be supported in masquerade character; muses and harlequins, gipsies and Cleopatras, began to talk of their private affairs, and of the news and the scandal of the day.

      A group of gentlemen, amongst whom was Clarence Hervey, gathered round the tragic muse; as Mr. Hervey had hinted that he knew she was a person of distinction, though he would not tell her name. After he had exercised his wit for some time, without obtaining from the tragic muse one single syllable, he whispered, “Lady Delacour, why this unnatural reserve? Do you imagine that, through this tragical disguise, I have not found you out?”

      The tragic muse, apparently absorbed in meditation, vouchsafed no reply.

      “The devil a word can you get for your pains, Hervey,” said a gentleman of his acquaintance, who joined the party at this instant. “Why didn’t you stick to t’other muse, who, to do her justice, is as arrant a flirt as your heart could wish for?”

      “There’s danger in flirting,” said Clarence, “with an arrant flirt of Mrs. Stanhope’s training. There’s a kind of electricity about that girl. I have a sort of cobweb feeling, an imaginary net coming all over me.”

      “Fore-warned is fore-armed,” replied his companion: “a man must be a novice indeed that could be taken in at this time of day by a niece of Mrs. Stanhope’s.”

      “That Mrs. Stanhope must be a good clever dame, faith,” said a third gentleman: “there’s no less than six of her nieces whom she has got off within these four winters — not one of ’em now that has not made a catch-match. — There’s the eldest of the set, Mrs. Tollemache, what had she, in the devil’s name, to set up with in the world but a pair of good eyes? — her aunt, to be sure, taught her the use of them early enough: they might have rolled to all eternity before they would have rolled me out of my senses; but you see they did Tollemache’s business. However, they are going to part now, I hear: Tollemache was tired of her before the honey-moon was over, as I foretold. Then there’s the musical girl. Joddrell, who has no more ear than a post, went and married her, because he had a mind to set up for a connoisseur in music; and Mrs. Stanhope flattered him that he was one.”

      The gentlemen joined in the general laugh: the tragic muse sighed.

      “Even were she at the School for Scandal,