Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth

Camilla, who still saw nothing of Edgar, yet still thought it possible he might come, joined them as soon as she was able. Miss Margland was full of complaints about Dr. Orkborne, for his affording them no assistance in the yacht, and not coming home even to dinner, nor to attend them to Lord Pervil's; and Eugenia, who was sincerely attached to the Doctor, from the many years he had been her preceptor, was beginning to express her serious uneasiness at his thus strangely vanishing; when Clermont, with the most obstreperous laughter, made up to them, and said: 'I'll tell you a monstrous good joke! the best thing you ever heard in your life! the old Doctor's been upon the very point of being drowned! – and he has not had a morsel to eat all day!'

He then related that his man, having seen him composedly seated, and musing upon a pile of planks which were seasoning upon the beach, with his face turned away from the company to avoid its interruptions, had enquired if he had any commands at home, whither he was going: 'Not for meaning to do them,' continued Lynmere; 'No, no! catch Bob at that! but only to break in upon him; for Bob's a rare hand at a joke. He says he's ready to die with laughing, when he speaks to the old Doctor while he's studying, because he looks so much as if he wished we were all hanged. However, he answered tolerably civilly, and only desired that nobody might go into his room till he came home from the sail, for he'd forgot to lock it. So Bob, who smoked how the matter was, says: 'The sail, Sir, what are you going alone, then? for all the company's been gone these two hours.' So this put him in such a taking, Bob says he never laughed so much in his life. He jumped up as if he'd been bit: 'Gone?' says he, 'why where's Miss Eugenia, I promised Sir Hugh not to lose sight of her.' So he said he'd go after her that very moment. 'Call me a boat,' said he: just as if he'd ordered a hackney coach; for he knows about as much of winds and tides as my little bay Filly, that I bought of Halder yesterday for fifty pounds, but that I shall make worth seventy in less than a month. Well, there was nothing to be had but a small fishing boat, so Bob winks at the man to take in a friend; for he has all those fellows in a string. So in went his Latinship, and off they put. Bob fell into such a fit of laughter, he says I might have heard him a mile off. I don't think Bob has his fellow upon earth for fun.'

Eugenia now interrupted the narration, with a serious enquiry where Dr. Orkborne was at present.

Lynmere, shouting at what he thought the ridicule of this concern, answered, that Bob had told the fisherman to go about his own business, unless the Doctor offered to pay him handsomely for taking him on board the yacht; but thinking it would be a good joke to know what was become of him, he had gone himself, with Halder, and some more choice blades, to the beach, about half an hour ago, to make Bob see if the fishing boat was come in; and, by good luck, they arrived at the very nick of time, and saw the Doctor, the fish, and the fishing-tackle, all hauled out together. 'And a better sight was never seen before, I promise you!' continued Lynmere; 'I thought I should quite have burst my sides with looking at him, he was so wet and so cold, and so miserable; and when I thought of his having had no dinner, I shouted till I was ready to roll on the beach – and he smelt so of the fish, that I could have hugged Bob, 'twas such monstrous good sport. He got three half crowns in a minute for his ingenuity. Halder began; – and two others of us gave two more.'

'Poor Dr. Orkborne! and where is he now?' said Eugenia.

'Why we got about the fisherman, and then we had all the same fun over again: He says, that, at first, the poor gentleman was in a great taking, fretting and fuming, and looking out for the yacht, and seeming almost beside himself for hurry to get to it; but after that, he takes out a little red book and a pencil, and falls to writing, just as hard as if he'd come into the boat for nothing else; insomuch, that when they were just coming along-side the yacht, he never lifted up his head, nor listened to one word, but kept making a motion with his hand to be let alone: and when the man said the yacht would be passed, he bid him hold his peace, and not interrupt him so, in such a pettish manner, that the man resolved to take honest Bob's advice, and go on about his own business. And so he did, and the Doctor was as content as a lord, till he had scribbled all he could scratch out of his noddle: but then came the best sport of all; for when he had nothing more to write, and looked up, and saw the boat stock still, and the man fishing at his leisure, and heard the yacht had been bound homeward of a good hour, he was in such a perilous passion, the man says, that he actually thought he'd have jumped overboard. I'll bet what you will he won't ask Bob to call him a boat again in a hurry.'

'As to his behaviour,' said Miss Margland, 'it's the last thing in the world to surprize me, after what I have seen myself; nor any body else, I believe, neither. Who is Dr. Orkborne? I doubt much if any body ever heard his name before. I should like to know if any body can tell who was his grandfather!'

She then declared, if she could get any soul to fetch him, he should still come, if it were only that he might not pass the evening all in his own way, which would be just the thing to encourage him to hide himself out of sight, on purpose not to help them another time.

Eugenia was going to beg he might not be disturbed, when Melmond, all alacrity to seize any means of absenting himself from the two cousins, who produced in him so severe a conflict, offered his services to carry a message to the Doctor; which, being readily accepted, he set off.

Indiana and Eugenia, not wholly without similarity of sensation, looked after him. Indiana had now caught his eye; and though quickness was no part of her character, the tale it told had convinced her that her power, though no longer acknowledged was not extinguished; it required neither elemental precepts, nor sagacious perceptions, to make this discovery, and she exultingly determined to appease her late mortification, by reducing him to her feet. She stopt not to enquire what such a step might be to Eugenia, nor what was likely, or even desirable to be its event. Where narrow minds imagine they have received injury, they seek revenge rather than redress, from an opinion that such a conduct asserts their own importance.

Still vainly, and wretchedly, the eyes of Camilla sought Edgar: the evening advanced, but he came not; yet, catching at every possible chance for hope, she thought some other room that they had not visited, might be open for company, where, finally, they might meet.

Dr. Orkborne accompanied Melmond back. Miss Margland was preparing him a reproachful reception, but was so much offended by the fishy smell which he brought into the room, that she had immediate recourse to her salts, and besought him to stand out of her way. He complied without reluctance, though with high disdain.

The young ladies were all dancing. Indiana had no sooner perceived Melmond, than she determined to engage his attention: the arts of coquetry require but slender parts, where the love of admiration is potent; she pretended, therefore, to feel extremely ill, put her hand to her forehead, and telling her partner, Mr. Halder, she could not stand another minute, hastened to Miss Margland, and cast herself, as if fainting, upon her neck.

This had all the success with Melmond that his own lively imagination could give it. He flew to a side-table to get her a glass of water, which his trembling hand could scarce hold, but which she received from him with a languishing sweetness, that dissolved every tie but of love, and he 'hung over her enamoured[4 - Milton];' while Miss Margland related that she could hardly keep from fainting herself, so much she had been shocked and disordered by the horrid smell of Dr. Orkborne.

Indiana now caught the infection, and protested she was so much worse, that if she had not a little air she should die. Melmond was flying to open a window, but a lady who sat close to it, objected; and he had then recourse to two folding doors, leading to a portico open to a large garden.

Hither Indiana permitted herself to be led, and led by the thrice happy, yet thrice miserable Melmond. Miss Margland was accompanying them, but Lady Pervil, advancing to enquire what went wrong, gave her an opportunity irresistible to inveigh against Dr. Orkborne; and as her well-bred hearer, though little interested in such a detail, would not interrupt it, Indiana arrived alone in the portico with Melmond. Halder, who had danced with her, followed, but supposing Melmond the favoured man, walked singing off, and made the tour of the garden.

This situation was to Melmond as dangerous, as to Indiana it was exulting. She now suddenly withdrew her hand, with an air of poignant disdain, which the illuminated portico and house made amply visible; and when, surprised and much moved, he tremblingly enquired if she were worse, she answered, 'Why do you ask? I am sure you do not care.'

Easily deprived of all forbearance, 'Heavens!' he exclaimed, 'do I live, yet suffer this imputation! O divine Indiana! load me with every other reproach, rather than this dreadful charge of insensibility to all that is most lovely, most perfect upon earth!'

'I thought,' said Indiana, again softening her fine eyes, 'you had quite forgot me, and all the vows you made to me.'

'Wretch that I am,' cried Melmond nearly distracted by this charge, and by the regret at losing him, which seemed its purpose, 'condemned to every species of woe! O fair, angelic Indiana! in a cottage with you would I have dwelt, more delightedly, and more proudly, than any potentate in the most gorgeous palace: but, alas! from you – formed to enchant all mankind, and add grace to every dignity – from you could I dare ask such a sacrifice?'

Indiana now listened with an attentive softness no longer factitious; though all her views wafted her to splendour and high life, her ear could not withstand the romantic sound of love and a cottage; and though no character was ever less formed to know and taste the blessings such a spot may bestow and reciprocate, she imagined she might there be happy, for she considered such a habitation but as a bower of eglantine and roses, in which she might repose and be adored all day long.

Melmond saw but too quickly the relenting cast of her countenance; and ecstasy and despair combated which should bear sway in his breast. 'Ah, madam,' he cried, 'most adorable and most adored of women! you know my terrible situation, but you know not the sufferings, nor the constancy of my heart! – the persecution of friends, the pressure of distress, the hopelessness of my idolized Indiana – '

A deep sigh interrupted him – it came not from Indiana – startled, he looked round – and beheld Eugenia, leaning against the door by which she seemed to have intended entering, pale, petrified, aghast.

Shame now tied his tongue, and tingled, with quick reproach, through his whole frame. He looked at Indiana with despair, at Eugenia with remorse; injured rectitude and blushing honour urged him to the swiftest termination of so every way terrible a scene, and bowing low to Eugenia, 'I durst not, madam,' he cried, 'ever hope for your pardon! yet I rather deluded myself than deceived you when I ventured to solicit your acceptance. Alas! I am a bankrupt both in fortune and in heart, and can only pray you will hasten to forget – that you may forbear to execrate me!'

He then disappeared, finding a way out by the garden, to avoid re-entering the ball-room.

Eugenia, who, in this speech, comprehended an eternal adieu, sunk upon the seat of the portico, cold, shivering, almost lifeless. Little prepared for such an event, she had followed Indiana the moment she was disengaged from the dance, not suspicious of any tête-à-tête, from believing Halder of the party. The energy of Melmond made her approach unheard; and the words she unavoidably caught, nearly turned her to marble.

Indiana was sorry for her distress, yet felt a triumph in its cause; and wondered how so plain a little creature could take it into her head to think of marrying.

Camilla now joined them, affrighted at the evident anguish of Eugenia, who, leaning upon her affectionate bosom, had the relief excited by pity, of bursting into tears, while despondingly she uttered: 'All is over, my sister, and over for life with Eugenia! Melmond flies and detests me! I am odious in his sight! I am horror to this thoughts!'

Camilla wept over her in silent, but heart-breaking sympathy. Indiana returned to the dance: but the two suffering sisters remained in the portico till summoned to depart. They were insensible to the night air, from the fever of their minds. They spoke no more; they felt the insufficiency of words to express their griefs, and their mutual compassion was all that softened their mutual sorrows.

CHAPTER III

An Adieu

Lost to all happiness, and for the first time in her life, divested of hope, Camilla at a late hour returned to Mrs. Berlinton's. And here, her heart-breaking disappointment received the cruel aggravation of the most severe self-reproach, when, in facing the mirror to deposit her ornaments upon the toilette table, she considered the expensive elegance of her whole dress, now, even in her own estimation, by its abortive purpose, rendered glaringly extravagant. Since her project had failed, she saw the impropriety of having risked so much in its attempt; and a train of just reflections ensued, to which her understanding was always equal, though her gaiety was seldom disposed. 'Would Edgar,' thought she, 'wait the event of a meeting at a ball to decide his conduct? Had he not every title to claim a conference with me, if he had the smallest inclination? Rejected as he calls himself, I had not pretended to demand our separation from any doubts, any displeasure of my own. From the moment he suffered me to quit, without reclamation, the roof under which I had proposed our parting, I ought to have seen it was but his own desire, perhaps design, I was executing. And all the reluctance he seemed to feel, which so weakly I attributed to regard, was but the expiring sensibility of the last moment of intercourse. Not with murmurs, he says, he will quit me – nor with murmurs will I now resign him! – with blessings, he says, he leaves me – O Edgar! mayest thou too be blest! The erring and unequal Camilla deserved thee not!'

A more minute examination of her attire was not calculated to improve her serenity. Her robe was everywhere edged with the finest Valencienne lace; her lilac shoes, sash, and gloves, were richly spangled with silver, and finished with a silver fringe; her ear-rings and necklace were of lilac and gold beads; her fan and shoe roses were brilliant with lilac foil, and her bouquet of artificial lilac flowers, and her plumes of lilac feathers, were here and there tipt with the most tiny transparent white beads, to give them the effect of being glittering with the dew.

Of the cost of all this she was no judge, but, certain its amount must be high, a warm displeasure arose against the incorrigible Mrs. Mittin, who had not only taken the pattern, but the value of Mrs. Berlinton's dress for her guide: and a yet greater dissatisfaction ensued with herself, for trusting the smallest commission to so vain and ungovernable an agent. She could only hope to hoard the payment from the whole of her next year's allowance, by living in so forbearing and retired a manner, as to require nothing for herself.

The new, but all powerful guest which now assailed her, unhappiness, had still kept her eyes from closing, when she was called up to Mr. Tennet, the landlord of Higden. Her fuller knowledge of her own hopeless debts, could not make her faithless to her engagement; for her acquaintance with misery awakened but more pity for the misery of others. She admitted him, therefore, without demur; and found he was a land surveyor, who had often been employed by Sir Hugh at Cleves. He accepted her verbal promise to be answerable for the rent now due, declining her note of hand, which her minority made illegal, and engaging not to hurry her for the money; well satisfied, by the Tyrold character in the whole county, he might abide by her word of honour, founded upon the known munificence of her uncle.

This delay was a relief, as it saved a partial demand, that must have forced an abrupt confession of her own debts, or have deceived the baronet into a belief she had nothing to solicit.

When this business was transacted, she hastened to Eugenia, to console whose sufferings was all that could mitigate her own.

One of the maids then came to say she had forgotten to inform her, that, some time after she had set out for Lord Pervil's a stranger, much muffled up, and with a hat flapped over his face so as wholly to hide it, had enquired for her, and seemed much disturbed when he heard she was at the ball, but said he would call again the next day at noon.

No conjecture occurred to Camilla but that this must be Edgar; it was contrary to all probability; but no other image could find way to her mind. She hastened, inexpressibly perturbed, to her sister, determining to be at home before twelve o'clock, and fashioning to herself all the varieties such a meeting could afford; every one of which, however they began, ended regularly with a reconciliation.

She found Eugenia weeping in bed. She embraced her with the extremest tenderness: 'Ah my sister!' said the unhappy mourner, 'I weep not for my disappointment, great as it may be – and I do not attempt describing it! – it is but my secondary sorrow. I weep, Camilla, for my own infatuation! for the folly, the blindness of which I find myself culpable. O Camilla! is it possible I could ever – for a moment, a single moment, suppose Melmond could willingly be mine! could see his exquisite susceptibility of every thing that is most perfect, yet persuade myself, he could take, by choice, the poor Eugenia for his wife! the mangled, deformed, – unfortunate Eugenia!'

Camilla, touched to the heart, wept now more than her sister. 'That Eugenia,' she cried, 'has but to be known, to leave all beauty, all figure, every exterior advantage aloof, by the nobler, the more just superiority of intrinsic worth. Let our estimates but be mental, and who will not be proud to be placed in parallel with Eugenia?'

She was then beginning her own sad relation, when an unopened letter upon the toilette table caught her eye. It had been placed there by Molly Mill, who thought her mistress asleep. Struck by the shape of the seal, Camilla rose to examine it: what was her palpitation, then, to see the cypher E M, and, turning to the other side, to perceive the hand writing of Edgar!

She put it into her sister's hand, with expectation too big for speech. Eugenia opened it, and they read it silently together.

To Miss Eugenia Tyrold

    Southampton.

'Tis yet but a short time – in every account but my own – since I thought myself forming a legal claim to address Miss Eugenia Tyrold as my sister. Every other claim to that affectionate and endearing title has been hers beyond her own memory; hers by the filial love I bear her venerated parents; hers, by the tender esteem due to the union of almost every virtue. These first and early ties must remain for ever. Disappointment here cannot pierce her barbarous shafts, fortune cannot wanton in reversing, nor can time dissolve them. —

'O Edgar!' exclaimed Camilla, stopping the reading, and putting her hand, as in benediction, upon the paper, 'do you deign to talk of disappointment? do you condescend to intimate you are unhappy? Ah, my Eugenia, you shall clear this dreadful error! – 'tis to you he applies – you shall be peace-maker; restorer!'

Eugenia dried her tears at the thought of so sweet an office, and they read on.

Of the other – yet nearer claim, I will not speak. You have probably known longer than myself, its annihilation, and I will not pain your generous heart with any view of my sufferings in such a deprivation. I write but to take with my pen the leave I dare not trust myself to take by word of mouth; to wish to your opening prospects all the happiness that has flown mine, and to entreat you to answer for me to the whole of your loved family, that its name is what, through life, my ear with most reverence will hear, my heart with most devotion will love.

    Edgar Mandlebert.