Stanhope’s, I have seen this day, and have seen with surprise, symptoms of artless feeling about you. This was what tempted me to open my mind to you when I found that I had lost the only friend—but I will think no more of that—if you have a heart, you must feel for me. Leave me now—tomorrow you shall hear my whole history—now I am quite exhausted—ring for Marriott.” Marriott appeared with a face of constrained civility and latent rage. “Put me to bed, Marriott,” said Lady Delacour, with a subdued voice; “but first light Miss Portman to her room—she need not—yet—see the horrid business of my toilette.”
Belinda, when she was left alone, immediately opened her shutters, and threw up the sash, to refresh herself with the morning air. She felt excessively fatigued, and in the hurry of her mind she could not think of anything distinctly. She took off her masquerade dress, and went to bed in hopes of forgetting, for a few hours, what she felt indelibly impressed upon her imagination. But it was in vain that she endeavoured to compose herself to sleep; her ideas were in too great and painful confusion. For some time, whenever she closed her eyes, the face and form of Lady Delacour, such as she had just beheld them, seemed to haunt her; afterwards, the idea of Clarence Hervey, and the painful recollection of the conversation she had overheard, recurred to her: the words, “Do you think I don’t know that Belinda Portman is a composition of art and affectation?” fixed in her memory. She recollected with the utmost minuteness every look of contempt which she had seen in the faces of the young men whilst they spoke of Mrs. Stanhope, the matchmaker. Belinda’s mind, however, was not yet sufficiently calm to reflect; she seemed only to live over again the preceding night. At last, the strange motley figures which she had seen at the masquerade flitted before her eyes, and she sunk into an uneasy slumber.
Lady Delacour’s History
Miss Portman was awakened by the ringing of Lady Delacour’s bedchamber bell. She opened her eyes with the confused idea that something disagreeable had happened; and before she had distinctly recollected herself, Marriott came to her bedside, with a note from Lady Delacour: it was written with a pencil.
“DELACOUR—my lord!!!! is to have today what Garrick used to call a gander feast—will you dine with me tête-à-tête, and I’ll write an excuse, alias a lie, to Lady Singleton, in the form of a charming note—I pique myself sur l’éloquence du billet—then we shall have the evening to ourselves. I have much to say, as people usually have when they begin to talk of themselves.
“I have taken a double dose of opium, and am not so horribly out of spirits as I was last night; so you need not be afraid of another scene.
“Let me see you in my dressing room, dear Belinda, as soon as you have adored
‘With head uncover’d the cosmetic powers.’
“But you don’t paint—no matter—you will—you must—everybody must, sooner or later. In the meantime, whenever you want to send a note that shall not be opened by the bearer, put your trust neither in wafer nor wax, but twist it as I twist mine. You see I wish to put you in possession of some valuable secrets before I leave this world—this, by-the-bye, I don’t, upon second thoughts, which are always best, mean to do yet. There certainly were such people as Amazons—I hope you admire them—for who could live without the admiration of Belinda Portman?—not Clarence Hervey assuredly—nor yet
“T. C. H. Delacour.”
Belinda obeyed the summons to her ladyship’s dressing room: she found Lady Delacour with her face completely repaired with paint, and her spirits with opium. She was in high consultation with Marriott and Mrs. Franks, the milliner, about the crape petticoat of her birth-night dress, which was extended over a large hoop in full state. Mrs. Franks descanted long and learnedly upon festoons and loops, knots and fringes, submitting all the time everything to her ladyship’s better judgment.
Marriott was sulky and silent. She opened her lips but once upon the question of laburnum or no laburnum flowers.
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