Essential Novelists - Maria Edgeworth. Maria Edgeworth
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thousand pounds, or more, and twice as many caprices: I was handsome and witty — or, to speak with that kind of circumlocution which is called humility, the world, the partial world, thought me a beauty and a bel-esprit. Having told you my fortune, need I add, that I, or it, had lovers in abundance — of all sorts and degrees — not to reckon those, it may be presumed, who died of concealed passions for me? I had sixteen declarations and proposals in form; then what in the name of wonder, or of common sense — which by-the-bye is the greatest of wonders — what, in the name of common sense, made me marry Lord Delacour? Why, my dear, you — no, not you, but any girl who is not used to have a parcel of admirers, would think it the easiest thing in the world to make her choice; but let her judge by what she feels when a dexterous mercer or linen-draper produces pretty thing after pretty thing — and this is so becoming, and this will wear for ever, as he swears; but then that’s so fashionable; — the novice stands in a charming perplexity, and after examining, and doubting, and tossing over half the goods in the shop, it’s ten to one, when it begins to get late, the young lady, in a hurry, pitches upon the very ugliest and worst thing that she has seen. Just so it was with me and my lovers, and just so —
‘Sad was the hour, and luckless was the day,’
I pitched upon Viscount Delacour for my lord and judge. He had just at that time lost at Newmarket more than he was worth in every sense of the word; and my fortune was the most convenient thing in the world to a man in his condition. Lozenges are of sovereign use in some complaints. The heiress lozenge is a specific in some consumptions. You are surprised that I can laugh and jest about such a melancholy thing as my marriage with Lord Delacour; and so am I, especially when I recollect all the circumstances; for though I bragged of there being no love in my history, there was when I was a goose or a gosling of about eighteen — just your age, Belinda, I think — something very like love playing about my heart, or my head. There was a certain Henry Percival, a Clarence Hervey of a man — no, he had ten times the sense, begging your pardon, of Clarence Hervey — his misfortune, or mine, was, that he had too much sense — he was in love with me, but not with my faults; now I, wisely considering that my faults were the greatest part of me, insisted upon his being in love with my faults. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t — I said wouldn’t, he said couldn’t. I had been used to see the men about me lick the dust at my feet, for it was gold dust. Percival made wry faces — Lord Delacour made none. I pointed him out to Percival as an example — it was an example he would not follow. I was provoked, and I married in hopes of provoking the man I loved. The worst of it was, I did not provoke him as much as I expected. Six months afterwards I heard of his marriage with a very amiable woman. I hate those very amiable women. Poor Percival! I should have been a very happy woman, I fancy, if I had married you — for I believe you were the only man who ever really loved me; but all that is over now! — Where were we? O, I married my Lord Delacour, knowing him to be a fool, and believing that, for this reason, I should find no trouble in governing him. But what a fatal mistake!-a fool, of all animals in the creation, is the most difficult to govern. We set out in the fashionable world with a mutual desire to be as extravagant as possible. Strange, that with this similarity of taste we could never agree! — strange, that this similarity of taste was the cause of our perpetual quarrels! During the first year of our marriage, I had always the upper hand in these disputes, and the last word; and I was content. Stubborn as the brute was, I thought I should in time break him in. From the specimens you have seen, you may guess that I was even then a tolerable proficient in the dear art of tormenting. I had almost gained my point, just broken my lord’s heart, when one fair morning I unluckily told his man Champfort that he knew no more how to cut hair than a sheep-shearer. Champfort, who is conceit personified, took mortal offence at this; and the devil, who is always at hand to turn anger into malice, put it into Champfort’s head to put it into my lord’s head, that the world thought —’My lady governed him.’ My lord took fire. They say the torpedo, the coldest of cold creatures, sometimes gives out a spark — I suppose when electrified with anger. The next time that innocent I insisted upon my Lord Delacour’s doing or not doing — I forget which — the most reasonable thing in the world, my lord turns short round, and answers —‘My Lady Delacour, I am not a man to be governed by a wife.’— And from that time to this the words, ‘I am not a man to be governed by a wife,’ have been written in his obstinate face, as all the world who can read the human countenance may see. My dear, I laugh; but even in the midst of laughter there is sadness. But you don’t know what it is — I hope you never may — to have an obstinate fool for a bosom friend.
“I at first flattered myself that my lord’s was not an inveterate, incurable malady: but from his obvious weakness, I might have seen that there was no hope; for cases of obstinacy are always dangerous in proportion to the weakness of the patient. My lord’s case was desperate. Kill or cure was my humane or prudent maxim. I determined to try the poison of jealousy, by way of an alterative. I had long kept it in petto as my ultimate remedy. I fixed upon a proper subject — a man with whom I thought that I could coquette to all eternity, without any danger to myself — a certain Colonel Lawless, as empty a coxcomb as you would wish to see. The world, said I to myself, can never be so absurd as to suspect Lady Delacour with such a man as this, though her lord may, and will; for nothing is too absurd for him to believe. Half my theory proved just; that is saying a great deal for any theory. My lord swallowed the remedy that I had prepared for him with an avidity and a bonhommie which it did me good to behold; my remedy operated beyond my most sanguine expectations. The poor man was cured of his obstinacy, and became stark mad with jealousy. Then indeed I had some hopes of him; for a madman can be managed, a fool cannot. In a month’s time I made him quite docile. With a face longer than the weeping philosopher’s, he came to me one morning, and assured me, ‘he would do every thing I pleased, provided I would consult my own honour and his, and give up Colonel Lawless.’
“‘Give up!’— I could hardly forbear laughing at the expression. I replied, ‘that as long as my lord treated me with becoming respect, I had never in thought or deed given him just cause of complaint; but that I was not a woman to be insulted, or to be kept, as I had hitherto been, in leading-strings by a husband.’ My lord, flattered as I meant he should be with the idea that it was possible he should be suspected of keeping a wife in leading-strings, fell to making protestations —‘He hoped his future conduct would prove,’ &c. Upon this hint, I gave the reins to my imagination, and full drive I went into a fresh career of extravagance: if I were checked, it was an insult, and I began directly to talk of leading-strings. This ridiculous game I played successfully enough for some time, till at length, though naturally rather slow at calculation, he actually discovered, that if we lived at the rate of twenty thousand a-year, and had only ten thousand a-year to spend, we should in due time have nothing left. This notable discovery he communicated to me one morning, after a long preamble. When he had finished prosing, I agreed that it was demonstrably just that he should retrench his expenses; but that it was equally unjust and impossible that I could make any reformation in mycivil list: that economy was a word which I had never heard of in my life till I married his lordship; that, upon second recollection, it was true I had heard of such a thing as national economy, and that it would be a very pretty, though rather hackneyed topic of declamation for a maiden speech in the House of Lords. I therefore advised him to reserve all he had to say upon the subject for the noble lord upon the woolsack; nay, I very graciously added, that upon this condition I would go to the house myself to give his arguments and eloquence a fair hearing, and that I would do my best to keep myself awake. This was all mighty playful and witty; but it happened that my Lord Delacour, who never had any great taste for wit, could not this unlucky morning at all relish it. Of course I grew angry, and reminded him, with an indelicacy which his want of generosity justified, that an heiress, who had brought a hundred thousand pounds into his family, had some right to amuse herself, and that it was not my fault if elegant amusements were more expensive than others.
“Then came a long criminating and recriminating chapter. It was, ‘My lord, your Newmarket blunders’—‘My lady, your cursed theatricals‘—‘My lord, I have surely a right’— and, ‘My lady, I have surely as good a right.’
“But, my dear Belinda, however we might pay one another, we could not pay all the world with words. In short, after running through thousands and tens of thousands, we were actually in distress