Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth

This was the last thing Camilla meant to undertake: but she began, in a hesitating manner, to speak of her little debt. Mrs. Arlbery, eagerly interrupting her, insisted it should not be mentioned; adding: 'I go on vastly well again; I am breaking in two ponies, and building a new phaeton; and I shall soon pay for both, without the smallest inconvenience, – except just pinching my servants, and starving my visitors. But tell me something of your adventures. You are not half so communicative as Rumour, which has given me a thousand details of you, and married you and your whole set to at least half a dozen men a piece, since you were last at the Grove. Amongst others, it asserts, that my old Lord Valhurst was seriously at your feet? That prating Mrs. Mittin, who fastened upon my poor little niece at Tunbridge, and who is now her factotum, pretends that my lord's own servants spoke of it publicly at Mrs. Berlinton's.'

This was a fact that, being thus divulged, a very few questions made impossible to deny; though Camilla was highly superior to the indelicacy and ingratitude of repaying the preference of any gentleman by publishing his rejection.

'And what in the world, my dear child,' said Mrs. Arlbery, 'could provoke you to so wild an action as refusing him?'

'Good Heaven, Mrs. Arlbery!'

'O, what – you were not in love with him? I believe not! – but if he was in love with you, take my word for it, that would have done quite as well. 'Tis such a little while that same love lasts, even when it is begun with, that you have but a few months to lose, to be exactly upon a par with those who set out with all the quivers of Cupid, darting from heart to heart. He has still fortune enough left for a handsome settlement; you can't help outliving him, and then, think but how delectable would be your situation! Freedom, money at will, the choice of your own friends, and the enjoyment of your own humour!'

'You would but try me, my dear Mrs. Arlbery; for you cannot, I'm sure, believe me capable of making so solemn an engagement for such mercenary hopes, and selfish purposes.'

'This is all the romance of false reasoning. You have not sought the man, but the man you. You would not have solicited his acceptance, but yielded to his solicitation of yours. The balance is always just, where force is not used. The man has his reasons for chusing you; you have your reasons for suffering yourself to be chosen. What his are, you have no business to enquire; nor has he the smallest right to investigate yours.'

This was by no means the style in which Camilla had been brought up to think of marriage; and Mrs. Arlbery presently added: 'You are grave? yet I speak but as a being of the world I live in: though I address one that knows nothing about it. Tell me, however, a little more of your affairs. What are all these marriages and no marriages, our neighbourhood is so busy in making and unmaking?'

Camilla returned the most brief and quiet answers in her power; but was too late to save the delicacy of Eugenia in concealing her late double disappointments, the abortive preparations of Sir Hugh having travelled through all the adjoining country. 'Poor little dear ugly thing!' cried Mrs. Arlbery, 'she must certainly go off with her footman; – unless, indeed, that good old pedant, who teaches her that vast quantity of stuff she will have to unlearn, when once she goes a little about, will take compassion upon her and her thousands, and put them both into his own pockets.'

This raillery was painful nearly to disgust to Camilla; who frankly declared she saw her sister with no eyes but those of respect and affection, and could not endure to hear her mentioned in so ridiculous a manner.

'Never judge the heart of a wit,' answered she, laughing, 'by the tongue! We have often as good hearts, ay, and as much good nature, too, as the careful prosers who utter nothing but what is right, or the heavy thinkers who have too little fancy to say anything that is wrong. But we have a pleasure in our own rattle that cruelly runs away with our discretion.'

She then more seriously apologized for what she had said, and declared herself an unaffected admirer of all she had heard of the good qualities of Eugenia.

Other subjects were then taken up, till they were interrupted by a visit from the young bride, Mrs. Lissin.

Jumping into the room, 'I'm just run away,' she cried, 'without saying a word to any body! I ordered my coach myself, and told my own footman to whisper me when it came, that I might get off, without saying a word of the matter. Dear! how they'll all stare when they miss me! I hope they'll be frightened!'

'And why so, you little chit? why do you want to make them uneasy?'

'O! I don't mind! I'm so glad to have my own way, I don't care for anything else. Dear, how do you do, Miss Camilla Tyrold? I wonder you have not been to see me! I had a great mind to have invited you to have been one of my bride's maids. But papa was so monstrous cross, he would not let me do hardly any thing I liked. I was never so glad in my life as when I went out of the house to be married! I'll never ask him about any one thing as long as I live again. I'll always do just what I chuse.'

'And you are quite sure Mr. Lissin will never interfere with that resolution?'

'O, I sha'n't let him! I dare say he would else. That's one reason I came out so, just now, on purpose to let him see I was my own mistress. And I told my coachman, and my own footman, and my maid, all three, that if they said one word, I'd turn 'em all away. For I intend always to turn 'em away when I don't like 'em. I shall never say anything to Mr. Lissin first, for fear of his meddling. I'm quite determined I won't be crossed any more, now I've servants of my own. I'm sure I've been crossed long enough.'

Then, turning to Camilla, 'Dear,' she cried, 'how grave you look! Dear, I wonder you don't marry too! When I ordered my coach, just now, I was ready to cry for joy, to think of not having to ask papa about it. And to-day, at breakfast, I dare say I rung twenty times, for one thing or another. As fast as ever I could think of any thing, I went to ringing again. For when I was at papa's, every time I rang the bell, he always asked me what I wanted. Only think of keeping one under so!'

'And what in the world said Mr. Lissin to so prodigious an uproar?'

'O, he stared like any thing. But he could not say much: I intend to use him to it from the first, that he may never plague me, like papa, with asking me what's the reason for every thing. If I don't like the dinner to-day, I'll order a new one, to be dressed for me on purpose. And Mr. Lissin, and papa, and Mrs. Mittin, and the rest of 'em, may eat the old one. Papa never let me order the dinner at home; he always would know what there was himself, and have what he chose. I'm resolved I'll have every thing I like best, now, every day. I could not get at the cook alone this morning, because so many of 'em were in the way; though I rung for her a dozen times. But to-morrow, I'll tell her of some things I intend to have the whole year through; in particular, currant tarts, and minced veal, and mashed potatoes. I've been determined upon that these three years, for against I was married.'

Then, taking Camilla by the hand, she begged she would accompany her to next room, saying, 'Pray excuse me, Aunt Arlbery, because I want to talk to Miss Tyrold about a secret.'

When they came to another apartment, after carefully shutting the door, 'Only think,' she cried, 'Miss Camilla Tyrold, of my marrying Mr. Lissin at last! Pray did you ever suspect it? I'm sure I did not. When papa told me of it, you can't think how I was surprised. I always thought it would have been Colonel Andover, or Mr. Macdersey, or else Mr. Summers; unless it had been Mr. Wiggan; or else your brother; but Mr. Lissin never once came into my head, because of his being so old. I dare say he's seven and twenty! only think! – But I believe he and papa had settled it all along, only papa never told it me, till just before hand. I don't like him much; do you?'

'I have not the pleasure to know him: but I hope you will endeavour to like him better, now.'

'I don't much care whether I do or not, for I shall never mind him. I always determined never to mind a husband. One minds one's papa because one can't help it: But only think of my being married before you! though you're seventeen years old – almost eighteen, I dare say – and I'm only just fifteen. I could not help thinking of it all the time I was dressing for a bride. You can't think how pretty my dress was. Papa made Mrs. Mittin buy it, because, he said, she could get every thing so cheap: but I made her get it the dearest she could, for all that. Papa's monstrous stingy.'

This secret conference was broken up by a violent ringing at the gate, succeeded by the appearance of Mr. Lissin, who, without any ceremony, opened the door of the chamber into which the ladies had retired.

'So, ma'am!' said he, visibly very angry, 'I have the pleasure at last to find you! dinner has waited till it is spoilt, and I hope, therefore, now, you will do us the favour to come and sit at the head of your table.'

She looked frightened, and he took her hand, which she had not courage to draw back, though in a voice that spoke a sob near at hand, 'I'm sure,' she cried, 'this is not being treated like a married woman! and I'm sure if I'd known I might not do as I like, and come out when I'd a mind, I would not have married at all!'

Mr. Lissin, with little or no apology to Mrs. Arlbery, then conveyed his fair bride to her coach.

'Poor simple girl!' exclaimed Mrs. Arlbery. 'Mr. Lissin, who is a country squire of Northwick, will soon teach her another lesson, than that of ordering her carriage just at dinner time! The poor child took it into her head that, because, upon marrying, she might say, "my house," "my coach," and "my servants," instead of "my papa's;" and ring her bell for [whom] she pleased, and give her own orders, that she was to arrive at complete liberty and independence, and that her husband had merely to give her his name, and lodge in the same dwelling: and she will regard him soon, as a tyrant and a brute, for not letting her play all day long the part of a wild school girl, just come home for the holidays.'

The rest of the visit passed without further investigation on the part of Mrs. Arlbery, or embarrassment on that of Camilla; who found again some little pleasure in the conversation which, at first, had so much charmed, and the kindness which even her apparent neglect had not extinguished.

Mrs. Arlbery, in two days, claimed her again. Mr. Tyrold would not permit her to send an excuse, and she found that lady more kindly disposed to her than ever; but with an undisguised compassion and concern in her countenance and manner. She had now learnt that Edgar was gone abroad; and she had learnt that Camilla had private debts, to the amount of one hundred and eighteen pounds.

The shock of Camilla, when spoken to upon this subject, was terrible. She soon gathered, she had been betrayed by Mrs. Mittin, who, though she had made the communication as a profound secret to Mrs. Arlbery, with whom she had met at Mrs. Lissin's, there was every reason to suppose would whisper it, in the same manner, to an hundred persons besides.

Mrs. Arlbery, seeing her just uneasiness, promised, in this particular, to obviate it herself, by a conference with Mrs. Mittin, in which she would represent, that her own ruin would be the consequence of divulging this affair, from the general opinion which would prevail, that she had seduced a young lady under age, to having dealings with a usurer.

Camilla, deeply colouring, accepted her kind offer; but was forced upon a confession of the transaction; though with a shame for her trust in such a character as Mrs. Mittin, that made her deem the relation a penance almost adequate to its wrong.

CHAPTER XI

The Workings of Sorrow

The visit of the Westwyns to Sir Hugh shewed Lavinia in so favourable a light, that nothing less than the strong prepossession already conceived for Camilla could have guarded the heart of the son, or the wishes of the father, from the complete captivation of her modest beauty, her intrinsic worth, and the cheerful alacrity, and virtuous self-denial, with which she presided in the new œconomy of the rectory. But though the utter demolition of hope played with Henry its usual part of demolishing, also, half the fervour of admiration, he still felt, in consequence of his late failure, a distaste of any similar attempt: and Mr. Westwyn, unbribed by the high praise of his son, which had won him in Camilla, left him master of his choice. Each, however, found a delight in the Tyrold society, that seconded the wishes of the Baronet to make them lengthen their visit.

The retrenchments, by which the debts of Clermont were to be paid, could no longer, nevertheless, be deferred; and Mr. Tyrold was just setting out for Cleves, to give his counsel for their arrangement, when his daughters were broken in upon by Mrs. Mittin.

Camilla could scarcely look at her, for displeasure at her conduct; but soon observed she seemed herself full of resentment and ill humour. She desired a private interview; and Camilla then found, that Mrs. Arlbery had not only represented her fault, and frightened her with its consequences, but occasioned, though most undesignedly, new disturbances and new dangers to herself: for Mrs. Mittin at length learnt, in this conference, with equal certainty, surprise, and provocation, that the inheritance of Sir Hugh was positively and entirely settled upon his youngest niece; and that the denials of all expectation on the part of Camilla, which she had always taken for closeness, conveyed but the simple truth. Alarmed lest she should incur the anger of Mr. Clykes, who was amongst her most useful friends, she had written him word of the discovery, with her concern at the mistake: and Mr. Clykes, judging now he had no chance of the gratuity finally promised for honour and secrecy, and even that his principal was in danger, had sent an enraged answer, with an imperious declaration, that he must either immediately be repaid all he had laid out, or receive some security for its being refunded, of higher value than the note of a minor of no fortune nor expectations.

Mrs. Mittin protested she did not know which way to turn, she was so sorry to have disobliged so good a friend; and broke forth into a vehement invective against Mr. Dubster, for pretending he knew the truth from young Squire Tyrold himself.

Long as was her lamentation, and satisfied as she always felt to hear her own voice, her pause still came too soon for any reply from Camilla, who now felt the discovery of her situation to be inevitable, compulsatory and disgraceful. Self-upbraidings that she had ever listened to such an expedient, assailed her with the cruellest poignancy, mingling almost self-detestation with utter despair.

In vain Mrs. Mittin pressed for some satisfaction; she was mute from inability to devise any; till the coachman of Mr. Lissin sent word he could wait no longer. She then, in a broken voice, said, 'Be so good as to write to Mr. Clykes, that if he will have the patience to wait a few days, I will prepare my friends to settle my accounts with him.'

Mrs. Mittin then, recovering from her own fright in this business, answered, 'O, if that's the case, my dear young lady, pray don't be uneasy, for it grieves me to vex you; and I'll promise you I'll coax my good friend to wait such a matter as that; for he's a vast regard for me; he'll do any thing I ask him, I know.'

She now went away; and Lavinia, who ran to her sister, found her in a state of distress, that melted her gentle heart to behold: but when she gathered what had passed, 'This disclosure, my dearest Camilla,' she cried, 'can never be so tremendous as the incessant fear of its discovery. Think of that, I conjure you! and endeavour to bear the one great shock, that will lead to after peace and ease.'

'No, my dear sister, peace and ease are no more for me! – My happiness was already buried; – and now, all that remained of consolation will be cut off also, in the lost good opinion of my father and mother! – that destroyed – and Edgar gone – what is life to me? – I barely exist!'

'And is it possible you can even a moment doubt their forgiveness? dear as you are to them, cherished, beloved! – '

'No – not their forgiveness – but their esteem, their confidence, their pleasure in their daughter will all end! – think, Lavinia, of my mother! – when she finds I, too, have contributed to the distress and disturbance of my father – that on my account, too, his small income is again straitened, his few gratifications are diminished – O Lavinia! how has she strove to guard her poor tottering girl from evil! And how has her fondness been always the pride of my life! What a conclusion is this to her cares! what a reward to all the goodness of my father!'

In this state of desperate wretchedness, she was still incapable to make the avowal which was now become indispensable, and which must require another loan from the store her father held so sacred. Lavinia had even less courage; and they determined to apply to Eugenia, who, though as softly feeling as either, mingled in her character a sort of heroic philosophy, that enabled her to execute and to endure the hardest tasks, where she thought them the demand of virtue. They resolved, therefore, the next morning, to send a note to Cleves for the carriage, and to commit the affair to this inexperienced and youthful female sage.

Far from running, as she was wont, to meet her father upon his entrance, Camilla was twice sent for before she could gain strength to appear in his presence; nor could his utmost kindness enable her to look up.

The heart of Mr. Tyrold was penetrated by her avoidance, and yet more sunk by her sight. His best hopes were all defeated of affording her parental comfort, and he was still to seek for her revival or support.

He related what had passed at Cleves, with the accustomed openness with which he conversed with his children as his friends. Clermont, he said, was arrived, and had authenticated all the accounts, with so little of either shame or sense, that a character less determined upon indulgence than that of Sir Hugh, must have revolted from affording him succour, if merely to mortify him into repentance. The manner of making payment, however, had been the difficult discussion of the whole day. Sir Hugh was unequal to performing any thing, though ready to consent to every thing. When he proposed the sale of several of his numerous horses, he objected, that what remained would be hard worked: when he mentioned diminishing his table, he was afraid the poor would take it ill, as they were used to have his orts: and when he talked of discharging some of his servants, he was sure they would think it very unkind. 'His heart,' continued Mr. Tyrold, 'is so bountiful, and so full of kindness, that he pleads his tender feelings, and regretting wishes, against the sound reason of hard necessity. What is right, however, must only in itself seek what is pleasant; and there, when it ceases to look more abroad, it is sure to find it.'

He stopt, hearing a deep sigh from Camilla, who secretly ejaculated a prayer that this sentence might live, henceforward, in her memory. He divined the wish, which devoutly he echoed, and continued:

'There is so little, in fine, that he could bear to relinquish, that, with my utmost efforts, I could not calculate any retrenchment, to which he will agree, at more than an hundred a year. Yet his scruples concerning his vow resist all the entreaties of our disinterested Eugenia, to either sell out for the sum, or cut down any trees in Yorkshire. These difficulties, too potent for his weak frame, were again sinking him into that despondence which we should all sedulously guard against, as the most prevailing of foes to active virtue, when, to relieve him, I made a proposal which my dear girls will both, I trust, find peculiar pleasure in seconding.'

Camilla had already [attempted] to raise her drooping head, conscience struck at what was said of despondence; and now endeavoured to join in the cheerful confidence expressed by Lavinia, that he could not be mistaken.

'The little hoard, into which already we have broken for Lionel,' he went on, 'I have offered to lend him for present payment, as far as it will go, and to receive it again at stated periods. In the mean while, I shall accept from him the same interest as from the bank. For this I am to have also security. I run no risk of the little all I have to leave to my two girls.'

He now looked at them both, expecting to see pleasure even in Camilla, that what was destined, hereafter, for herself, could prove of the smallest utility to Sir Hugh; but his disappointment, and her shock were equal. Too true for the most transitory disguise, the keenest anguish shot from her eye; and Mr. Tyrold, amazed, said: 'Is it Camilla who would draw back from any service to her uncle?'

'Ah no!' cried she, with clasped hands, 'I would die to do him any good! and O! – that my death at this moment – '

She stopt, affrighted, for Mr. Tyrold frowned. A frown upon a face so constantly benign, was new, was awful to her; but she instantly recollected his condemnation of wishes so desperate, and fearfully taking his hand, besought his forgiveness.

His brow instantly resumed its serenity. 'I have nothing,' said he, 'my dearest child, to forgive, from the moment you recollect yourself. But try, for your own sake, to keep in mind, that the current sorrows, however acute, of current life, are but uselessly aggravated by vain wishes for death. The smallest kind office better proves affection than any words, however elevated.'

The conference here broke up; something incomprehensible seemed to Mr. Tyrold to be blended with the grief of Camilla; and though from her birth she had manifested, by every opportunity, the most liberal disregard of wealth, the something not to be understood seemed always to have money for its object. What this might be, he now fervently wished to explore; yet still hoped, by patient kindness, to receive her confidence voluntarily.

Camilla now was half dead; Lavinia could with difficulty sustain, but by no possible means revive her. What a period was this to disclose to her Father that she must deprive him, in part, even of his promised solace in his intended assistance to his brother, to satisfy debts of which he suspected not the existence!

When forced down stairs, by a summons to supper, Mr. Tyrold, to console her for his momentary displeasure, redoubled his caresses; but his tenderness only made her weep yet more bitterly, and he looked at her with a heart rent with anguish. For Lavinia, for Eugenia, he would have felt similar grief; but their far less gay, though equally innocent natures, would have made the view of their affliction less strikingly oppressive. Camilla had, hitherto, seemed in the spring of joy yet more than of life. Anxiety flew at her approach, and animation took its place. Nothing could shake his resignation; yet to behold her constant sadness, severely tried his fortitude. To see tears trickling incessantly down the pale cheeks so lately blooming; to see her youthful countenance wear the haggard expression of care; to see life, in its wish and purposes seem at an end, 'ere, in its ordinary calculation, it was reckoned to have begun, drew him from every other consideration, and filled his whole mind with monopolizing apprehension.

He now himself pressed her, for change of scene, to accept an invitation she had received from Mrs. Berlinton to Grosvenor Square, whither Indiana was going in a few days, to spend a fortnight or three weeks before her marriage. But she declined the excursion, as not more unseasonable in its expence, than ungenial to her feelings.

The following morning, while they were at their melancholy breakfast, a letter arrived from Lisbon, which Mr. Tyrold read with visible disturbance, exclaiming, from time to time, 'Lionel, thou art indeed punished!'

The sisters were equally alarmed, but Lavinia alone could make any enquiry.

Mr. Tyrold then informed them, their uncle Relvil had just acknowledged to their Mother, that he could no longer, in justice, conceal that, previously to his quitting England, he had privately married his house-keeper, to induce her to accompany him in his voyage: and that, during his first wrath upon the detection of Lionel, he had disinherited him in favour of a little boy of her own, by a former marriage, whom they had brought with them to Lisbon.