Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth

Mr. Tyrold, contented with virtuous exertions, demanded not impossibilities; he left to nature that first grief which too early exhortation or controul rather inflames than appeases. He then brought her back to his apartment.

He conjured her, there, to remember that she grieved not alone; that where the tears flowed not so fast from the eyes, the sources were not dry whence they sprung, and that bridled sorrow was sometimes the most suffering.

'Alas, my dearest father, to think you mourn too – and for me! – will that lessen what I feel?'

'Yes, my dear child, by a generous duty it will point out to watch that the excess of one affliction involve you not in another.'

'What a motive,' she answered, 'for exertion! If the smallest part of your happiness – of my honoured mother's – depends upon mine, I shall be unhappy, I think, no more!'

A gush of tears ill accorded with this fond declaration; but Mr. Tyrold, without noticing them, kindly replied, 'Let your filial affection, my child, check the inordinacy of your affliction, and I will accept with pleasure for your virtuous mother, and with thanks for myself, the exertion which, beginning for our sakes, may lead you to that self denial which is the parent of our best human actions, and approximates us the most to what is divine.'

Broken-hearted as was Camilla, her sorrows would, at least apparently, have abated from consolation so tender, if all she felt had been known; if no latent and lurking evil had hung upon her spirits, defeating all argument, and blighting all comfort, by the cruel consciousness of concealed mischief, which while incessantly she studied the best moment for revealing, accident might prematurely betray.

Upon this subject her thoughts were unremittingly bent, till, in a few days time, she received a letter from Mrs. Mittin, informing her she had just seen the money-lender, Mr. Clykes, who, finding her so much under age, would not undertake the business for less than ten per cent, nor without a free premium of at least twenty pounds.

The latter demand, so entirely out of her power to grant, gave to her the mental strength she had yet sought in vain; and determining to end this baneful secret, she seized her own first moment of emotion to relate to her father the whole of her distresses, and cast herself upon his mercy.

I shall be happier, she cried, much happier, as, with tottering steps, she hurried to the study; he will be lenient, I know; – and even if not, what displeasure can I incur so severe as the eternal apprehension of doing wrong?

But her plan, though well formed, had fixed upon an ill-timed moment for its execution. She entered the room with an agitation which rather sought than shunned remark, that some enquiry might make an opening for her confession: but Mr. Tyrold was intently reading a letter, and examining some papers, from which he raised not his eyes at her approach. She stood fearfully before him till he had done; but then, still not looking up, he leant his head upon his hand, with a countenance so disturbed, that, alarmed from her design, by the apprehension he had received some ill tidings from Lisbon, she asked, in a faint voice, if the foreign post were come in?

'I hope not!' he answered: 'I should look with pain, at this moment, upon the hand of your unhappy mother!'

Camilla, affrighted, knew not now what to conjecture; but gliding into her pocket the letter of Mrs. Mittin, stood suspended from her purpose.

'What a reception,' he presently added, 'is preparing for that noblest of women when her exile may end! That epoch, to which I have looked forward as the brightener of my every view upon earth – how is it now clouded!'

Giving her, then, the letter and papers; 'The son,' he said, 'who once I had hoped would prove the guardian of his sisters, the honour of his mother's days, the future prop of my own – See, Camilla, on how sandy a foundation mortal man builds mortal hopes!'

The letter was from a very respectable tradesman, containing a complaint that, for the three years Lionel had been at the University, he had never paid one bill, though he continually ordered new articles: and begging Mr. Tyrold would have the goodness to settle the accounts he enclosed; the young gentleman, after fixing a day for payment, having suddenly absconded without notice to any one.

'The sum, you see,' continued Mr. Tyrold, 'amounts to one hundred and seventy-one pounds; a sum, for my income, enormous. The allowance I made this cruel boy, was not only adequate to all his proper wants, and reasonable desires, but all I could afford without distressing myself, or injuring my other children: yet it has served him, I imagine, but for pocket money! The immense sums he has extorted from both his uncles, must have been swallowed up at a gaming table. Into what wretched courses has he run! These bills, large as they are, I regard but as forerunners of others; all he has received he has squandered upon his vices, and to-morrow, and the next day, and the next, I may expect an encreasing list of his debts, from his hatter, his hosier, his shoe-maker, his taylor, – and whoever he has employed.

Camilla, overwhelmed with internal shame, yet more powerful than grief itself, stood motionless. These expences appeared but like a second part of her own, with her milliner, her jeweller, and her haberdasher; which now seemed to herself not less wanton in extravagance.

Surprised by her entire silence, Mr. Tyrold looked up. Her cheeks, rather livid than pale, and the deep dismay of her countenance, extremely affected him. The kindness of his embraces relieved her by melting her into tears, though the speech which accompanied them was, to her consciousness, but reproach: 'Let not your sisterly feelings thus subdue you, my dearest Camilla. Be comforted that you have given us no affliction yourself, save what we must feel for your own undeservedly altered prospects. No unthinking imprudence, no unfeeling selfishness, has ever, for an instant, driven from your thoughts what you owe to your duty, or weakened your pleasure in every endearing filial tie. Let this cheer you, my child; and let us all try to submit calmly to our general disappointment.'

Praise thus ill-timed, rather probed than healed her wounds. Am I punished? am I punished? She internally exclaimed; but could not bear to meet the eyes of her father, whose indulgence she felt as if abusing, and whose good opinion seemed now but a delusion. Again, he made her over to the gentle Lavinia for comfort, and fearing serious ill effects from added misery, exerted himself, from this time, to appear cheerful when she was present.

His predictions failed not to be fulfilled: the application made by one creditor, soon reached every other, and urged similar measures. Bills, therefore, came in daily, with petitions for payment; and as Lionel still wanted a month or two of being of age, his creditors depended with confidence upon the responsibility of his father.

Nor here closed the claims springing from general ill conduct. Two young men of fashion, hard pressed for their own failures, stated to Mr. Tyrold the debts of honour owing them from Lionel: and three notorious gamesters, who had drawn in the unthinking youth to his ruin, enforced the same information, with a hint that, if they were left unsatisfied, the credit of the young man would fall the sacrifice of their ill treatment.

The absence of Mrs. Tyrold at this period, by sparing her daily difficulty as well as pain, was rejoiced in by her husband; though never so strongly had he wanted her aiding counsel, her equal interest, and her consoling participation. Obliged to act without them, his deliberation was short and decisive for his measures, but long and painful for their means of execution. He at once determined to pay, though for the last time, all the trades people; but the manner of obtaining the money required more consideration.

The bills, when all collected, amounted to something above five hundred pounds, which was but one hundred short of his full yearly income.

Of this, he had always contrived to lay by an hundred pounds annually, which sum, with its accumulating interest, was destined to be divided between Lavinia and Camilla. Eugenia required nothing; and Lionel was to inherit the paternal little fortune. The portion of Mrs. Tyrold, which was small, the estate of her father having been almost all entailed upon Mr. Relvil, was to be divided equally amongst her children.

To take from the little hoard which, with so tender a care, he had heaped for the daughters, so large a share for the son, and to answer demands so unduly raised, and ill deserved, was repulsive to his inclination, and shocked his strong sense of equal justice. To apply to Mr. Relvil would be preposterous; for though upon him dwelt all his ultimate hopes for Lionel, he knew him, at this moment, to be so suffering and so irritated by his means, that to hear of any new misdemeanours might incense him to an irrevocable disinheritance.

With regard to Sir Hugh, nothing was too much to expect from his generous kindness; yet he knew that his bountiful heart had always kept his income from overflowing; and that, for three years past, Lionel had drained it without mercy. His preparations, also, for the double marriages had, of late, much straitened him. To take up even the smallest part of what, in less expensive times, he had laid by, he would regard as a breach of his solemn vow, by which he imagined himself bound to leave Eugenia the full property she would have possessed, had he died instantly upon making it. Reason might have shewn this a tie of supererogation; but where any man conceived himself obeying the dictates of his conscience, Mr. Tyrold held his motives too sacred for dispute.

The painful result of this afflicting meditation, was laying before his daughters the whole of his difficulties, and demanding if they would willingly concur in paying their brother's bills from their appropriate little store, by adopting an altered plan of life, and severe self-denial of their present ease and elegance, to aid its speedy replacement.

Their satisfaction in any expedient to serve their brother that seemed to fall upon themselves, was sincere, was even joyful: but they jointly besought that the sum might be freely taken up, and deducted for ever more from the hoard; since no earthly gratification could be so great to them, as contributing their mite to prevent any deprivation of domestic enjoyment to their beloved parents.

His eyes glistened, but not from grief; it was the pleasure of virtuous happiness in their purity of filial affection. But though he knew their sincerity, he would not listen to their petition. 'You are not yet,' said he, 'aware what your future calls may be for money. What I have yet been able to save, without this unexpected seizure, would be inadequate to your even decent maintenance, should any accident stop short its encrease. Weep not, my dear children! my health is still good, and my prospect of lengthened life seems fair. It would be, however, a temporal folly as well as a spiritual presumption, to forget the precarious tenure of human existence. My life, my dear girls, will be happier, without being shorter, for making provisions for its worldly cessation.'

'But, Sir! but my father!' cried Camilla, hanging over him, and losing in filial tenderness her personal distresses; 'if your manner of living is altered, and my dear mother returns home and sees you relinquishing any of your small, your temperate indulgencies, may it not yet more embitter her sufferings and her displeasure for the unhappy cause? For her sake then, if not for ours – '

'Do not turn away, dearest Sir!' cried Lavinia; 'what mother ever merited to have her peace the first study of her children, if it is not ours?'

'O Providence benign!' said Mr. Tyrold, folding them to his heart, 'how am I yet blessed in my children! – True and excellent daughters of my invaluable wife – this little narration is the solace I shall have to offer for the grief I must communicate.'

He would not, however, hearken to their proposition; his peace, he said, required not only immediate measures for replacing what he must borrow, but also that no chasm should have lieu in funding his usual annual sum for them. All he would accept was the same severe forbearance he should instantly practice himself, and which their mother, when restored to them, would be the first to adopt and improve. And this, till its end was answered, they would all steadily continue, and then, with cheerful self-approvance, resume their wonted comforts.

Mr. Tyrold had too frequent views of the brevity of human life to postpone, even from one sun to another, any action he deemed essential. A new general system, therefore, immediately pervaded his house. Two of the servants, with whom he best could dispense, were discharged; which hurt him more than any other privation, for he loved, and was loved by every domestic who lived with him. His table, always simple though elegant, was now reduced to plain necessaries; he parted with every horse, but one to whose long services he held himself a debtor; and whatever, throughout the whole economy of his small establishment, admitted simplifying, deducting, or abolishment, received, without delay, its requisite alteration or dismission.

These new regulations were quietly, but completely, put in practice, before he would discharge one bill for his son; to whom, nevertheless, though his conduct was strict, his feelings were still lenient. He attributed not to moral turpitude his errours nor his crimes, but to the prevalence of ill example, and to an unjustifiable and dangerous levity, which irresistibly led him to treat with mockery and trifling the most serious subjects. The punishment, however, which he had now drawn upon himself, would yet, he hoped, touch his heart.

But the debts called debts of honour, met not with similar treatment. He answered with spirited resentment demands he deemed highly flagitious, counselling those who sent them, when next they applied to an unhappy family to whose calamities they had contributed, to enquire first if its principles, as well as its fortune, made the hazards of gaming amongst its domestic responsibilities.

CHAPTER IX

A Lover's Eye

The serenity of virtue would now again have made its abode the breast of Mr. Tyrold, but for the constant wretchedness to which he saw his daughter a prey. With the benignest pity he strove to revive her; a pity unabated by any wonder, unalloyed with any blame. His wonder fell all upon Edgar, whom he considered as refining away mortal happiness, by dissatisfaction that it was not divine; but his censure, which he reserved wholly for vice, exonerated them both. Still, however, he flattered himself that ere long, to her youthful mind and native cheerfulness, tranquillity, if not felicity, would imperceptibly return, from such a union for exertion of filial and sisterly duties: that industry would sweeten rest, virtue gild privation, and self-approvance convert every sacrifice into enjoyment.

But peace such as this was far from her bosom. While the desertion of Edgar had tolled the death bell to all her hopes, an unremitting contention disturbed her mind, whether to avow or conceal her situation with regard to the money-lender. The reflections of every night brought a dissatisfaction in her conduct, which determined her upon an openness the most undisguised for the following morning: but timidity, and the desire of reprieve from the fearful task, again, the following morning, regularly postponed her purpose.

In the first horror occasioned by her father's distress from the bills of her brother, she wrote a supplicating letter to Mrs. Mittin, to intreat she would endeavour to quiet her creditors till she could arrange something for their payment. And while this produced a correspondence replete with danger, difficulty, and impropriety, a new circumstance occurred, which yet more cruelly embittered her conflicting emotions. Lavinia, in the virtuous eagerness of her heart to forward the general œconomy, insisted wholly to relinquish, for this year, her appropriate allowance; declaring that, by careful management, she could dispense with anything new, and that the very few expences she might find utterly unavoidable, she would demand from time to time as they occurred. Camilla, at this proposition, retreated, in agony, to her chamber. To make the same was impossible; for how, then, find interest for the money-lender? yet to withstand so just an example, seemed a disgrace to every duty and every feeling.

Lavinia, who, in her countenance and abrupt departure, read the new distress she had incautiously excited, with a thousand self-reproaches followed her. She had considered but the common cause when she spoke, without weighing the strange appearance of not being seconded by her sister: But her mind was amongst the last to covet the narrow praise of insidious comparison; and her concern for the proposal she had made, when she saw its effect, was as deep as that of Camilla in hearing it, though not attended with the same aggravations.

Mr. Tyrold remained utterly surprized. The generous and disinterested nature of Camilla, made it impossible to suspect her restrained by a greater love of money than Lavinia; and he could not endure to suppose her late visits to public places, had rendered personal œconomy more painful. But he would make no enquiry that might seem a reproach; nor suffer any privation or contribution that was not cheerful and voluntary.

The purchases for the wedding of Miss Dennel being now made, that young lady came down to the country to solemnize her nuptials, accompanied by Mrs. Mittin, who instantly visited Camilla. She could settle nothing, she said, with the money-lender, without the premium; but she had coaxed all the creditors, by assuring them, that, as the debtor was a great heiress, they were certain of their money when she came to her estate. Camilla could not endure to owe their forbearance to a falsehood; though to convince Mrs. Mittin of her errour, in contradiction to the assertion of Lionel, was a vain attempt. The business, however, pressed; and to keep back these but too just claimants was her present most fervent desire. Mrs. Mittin was amongst the most expert of expedient-mongers, and soon started a method for raising the premium. She asked to look at what Camilla possessed of trinkets: and the prize ear-rings of Tunbridge, the ear-rings and necklace of Southampton, and several small toys occasionally given her, were collected. The locket she also demanded, to make weight; but neither that, nor the peculiar gifts, as keep-sakes, of her father, mother, or uncle, consisting of a seal, a ring, and a watch, would she part with. What she would relinquish, however, Mrs. Mittin disposed of to one of her numerous friends; but they raised only, when intrinsically valued, sixteen pounds. Lavinia then insisted upon coming forward with a contribution of every trinket she was worth, save what had the same sacred motives of detention: and the twenty pounds, without any ceremony of acknowledgment, were delivered to Mr. Clykes; who then took into his own hands the payment of the hundred and eighteen pounds; for which he received a bond, signed by Camilla, and witnessed by Mrs. Mittin; and another note of hand, promising ten per cent. interest for the sum, till the principal were repaid. These two notes, he acknowledged, were mere pledges of honour, as the law would treat her as an infant: but he never acted without them, as they prevented mistakes in private dealings.

This important affair arranged, Camilla felt somewhat more at ease; she was relieved from hourly alarms, and left the mistress to make her confession as circumstances directed. But she obtained not for nothing the agency of Mrs. Mittin, who was not a character to leave self out of consideration in her transactions for others; and at every visit made at Etherington from this time, she observed something in the apparel of Camilla that was utterly old fashioned, or too mean for her to wear; but which would do well enough for herself, when vamped up, as she knew how. Her obligations and inexperience made it impossible to her to resist, though, at this season of saving care, she gave up nothing which she could not have rendered useful, by industry and contrivance.

During this unhappy period at Etherington, a brighter, though not unclouded scene, was exhibited at Cleves. Melmond arrived; he was permitted to pay his addresses to the fair Indiana, and believed felicity celestial accorded to him even upon earth.

But this adored object herself suffered some severe repining at her fate, when she saw, from her window, her lover gallop into the park without equipage, without domestics, and mounted on a hired horse. The grimacing shrugs of Miss Margland shewed she entered into this mortification; and they were nearly conspiring to dismiss the ignoble pretender, when a letter, which he modestly sent up, from his sister, inviting Indiana to pass a few weeks in Grosvenor Square, once again secured the interest of the brother. She suffered, therefore, Sir Hugh to hand her down stairs, and the enamoured Melmond thought himself the most blest of men.

The sight of such eager enjoyment, and the really amiable qualities of this youth, soon completely reconciled the Baronet to this new business; for he saw no reason, he said, in fact, why one niece had not as good a right to be married first as another. The generous and sentimental Eugenia never ceased her kind offices, and steadily wore an air of tolerable cheerfulness all day, though her pillow was nightly wetted with tears for her unfortunate lot.

Nor, with all her native equanimity and acquired philosophy, was this a situation to bring back serenity. The enthusiastic raptures of Melmond elevated him, in her eyes, to something above human; and while his adoration of Indiana presented to her a picture of all she thought most fascinating, his grateful softness of respect to herself, was penetratingly touching to her already conquered heart.