X——, “you forget what time of the day it is—you forget that Miss Portman has been up all night—that Lady Delacour is extremely ill—and that this would be the most unseasonable opportunity you could possibly choose for your visit.”
To this observation Clarence Hervey assented; but he immediately seized a pen from the doctor’s writing table, and began a letter to Belinda. The doctor threw himself upon the sofa, saying, “Waken me when you want me,” and in a few minutes he was fast asleep.
“Doctor, upon second thoughts,” said Clarence, rising suddenly, and tearing his letter down the middle, “I cannot write to her yet—I forgot the reformation of Lady Delacour: how soon do you think she will be well? Besides, I have another reason for not writing to Belinda at present—you must know, my dear doctor, that I have, or had, another mistress.”
“Another mistress, indeed!” cried Dr. X——, trying to waken himself.
“Good Heavens! I do believe you’ve been asleep.”
“I do believe I have.”
“But is it possible that you could fall sound asleep in that time?”
“Very possible,” said the doctor: “what is there so extraordinary in a man’s falling asleep? Men are apt to sleep sometime within the four-and-twenty hours, unless they have half-a-dozen mistresses to keep them awake, as you seem to have, my good friend.”
A servant now came into the room with a letter, that had just arrived express from the country for Dr. X——.
“This is another affair,” cried he, rousing himself.
The letter required the doctor’s immediate attendance. He shook hands with Clarence Hervey: “My dear friend, I am really concerned that I cannot stay to hear the history of your six mistresses; but you see that this is an affair of life and death.”
“Farewell,” said Clarence: “I have not six, I have only three goddesses; even if you count Lady Delacour for one. But I really wanted your advice in good earnest.”
“If your case be desperate, you can write, cannot you? Direct to me at Horton-hall, Cambridge. In the meantime, as far as general rules go, I can give you my advice gratis, in the formula of an old Scotch song—
“’Tis good to be merry and wise,
’Tis good to be honest and true,
’Tis good to be off with the old love
Before you be on with the new.’”
Difficulties
Before he left town, Dr. X—— called in Berkeley Square, to see Lady Delacour; he found that she was out of all immediate danger. Miss Portman was sorry that he was obliged to quit her at this time, but she felt the necessity for his going; he was sent for to attend Mr. Horton, an intimate friend of his, a gentleman of great talents, and of the most active benevolence, who had just been seized with a violent fever, in consequence of his exertions in saving the poor inhabitants of a village in his neighbourhood from the effects of a dreadful fire, which broke out in the middle of the night.
Lady Delacour, who heard Dr. X—— giving this account to Belinda, drew back her curtain, and said, “Go this instant, doctor—I am out of all immediate danger, you say; but if I were not—I must die in the course of a few months, you know-and what is my life, compared with the chance of saving your excellent friend! He is of some use in the world—I am of none-go this instant, doctor.”
“What a pity,” said Dr. X——, as he left the room, “that a woman who is capable of so much magnanimity should have wasted her life on petty objects!”
“Her life is not yet at an end—oh, sir, if you could save her!” cried Belinda.
Doctor X—— shook his head; but returning to Belinda, after going half way down stairs, he added, “when you read this paper, you will know all that I can tell you upon the subject.”
Belinda, the moment the doctor was gone, shut herself up in her own room to read the paper which he had given to her. Dr. X—— first stated that he was by no means certain that Lady Delacour really had the complaint which she so much dreaded; but it was impossible for him to decide without farther examination, to which her ladyship could not be prevailed upon to submit. Then he mentioned all that he thought would be most efficacious in mitigating the pain that Lady Delacour might feel, and all that could be done, with the greatest probability of prolonging her life. And he concluded with the following words: “These are all temporizing expedients: according to the usual progress of the disease, Lady Delacour may live a year, or perhaps two.
“It is possible that her life might be saved by a skilful surgeon. By a few words that dropped from her ladyship last night, I apprehend that she has some thoughts of submitting to an operation, which will be attended with much pain and danger, even if she employ the most experienced surgeon in London; but if she put herself, from a vain hope of secrecy, into ignorant hands, she will inevitably destroy herself.”
After reading this paper, Belinda had some faint hopes that Lady Delacour’s life might be saved; but she determined to wait till Dr. X—— should return to town, before she mentioned his opinion to his patient; and she earnestly hoped that no idea of putting herself into ignorant hands would recur to her ladyship.
Lord Delacour, in the morning, when he was sober, retained but a confused idea of the events of the preceding night; but he made an awkwardly good-natured apology to Miss Portman for his intrusion, and for the disturbance he had occasioned, which, he said, must be laid to the blame of Lord Studley’s admirable burgundy. He expressed much concern for Lady Delacour’s terrible accident; but he could not help observing, that if his advice had been taken, the thing could not have happened—that it was the consequence of her ladyship’s self-willedness about the young horses.
“How she got the horses without paying for them, or how she got money to pay for them, I know not,” said his lordship; “for I said I would have nothing to do with the business, and I have kept to my resolution.”
His lordship finished his morning visit to Miss Portman, by observing that “the house would now be very dull for her: that the office of a nurse was ill-suited to so young and beautiful a lady, but that her undertaking it with so much cheerfulness was a proof of a degree of good-nature that was not always to be met with in the young and handsome.”
The manner in which Lord Delacour spoke convinced Belinda that he was in reality attached to his wife, however the fear of being, or of appearing to be, governed by her ladyship might have estranged him from her, and from home. She now saw in him much more good sense, and symptoms of a more amiable character, than his lady had described, or than she ever would allow that he possessed.
The reflections, however, which Miss Portman made upon the miserable life this ill-matched couple led together, did not incline her in favour of marriage in general; great talents on one side, and good-nature on the other, had, in this instance, tended only to make each party unhappy.
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