Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth

'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.

Mr. Tyrold, though it had been his constant study to bring up his children without any reference to their rich uncles, had never internally doubted, but that the bachelor brother of Mrs. Tyrold would leave his fortune to the son of his only sister, who was his sole near relation. And Lionel, he knew, in defiance of his admonitions, had built upon it himself, rather as a certainty than a hope. 'He will now see,' said Mr. Tyrold, 'his presumption, and feel, by what he suffers, what he has earned. Yet culpable as he has been, he is now, also, unfortunate; and where crimes are followed by punishment, it is not for mortal man to harbour unabating resentment. I will write a few lines of comfort to him.'

Camilla, in this concession, experienced all she could feel of satisfaction; but the short sensation died away at the last words of the letter of her Mother, which Mr. Tyrold read aloud.

'You, I well know, will immediately in this evil, find for yourself, and impart to our children, something of instruction, if not of comfort. Shall I recollect this without emulation? No, I will bear up from this stroke, which, at least, permits my return to Etherington; where, in the bosom of my dear family, and supported by its honoured chief, I will forget my voyage, my painful absence, and my disappointment, in exertions of practical œconomy, strict, but not rigid, which our good children will vie with each other to adopt: sedulous, all around, to shew in what we can most forbear. I hope almost immediately to claim my share in these labours, which such motives will make light, and such companions render precious.'

In agony past repression at these words, Camilla glided out of the room. The return of her Mother was now horrour to her, not joy; her shattered nerves could not bear the interview, while under a cloud threatening to burst in such a storm; and she entreated Lavinia to tell her Father that she accepted his proposal for going to Mrs. Berlinton's; 'and there,' she cried, 'Lavinia, I will wait, till Eugenia has told the dreadful history that thus humbles me to the dust!'

Lavinia was too timid to oppose reason to this suffering; and Mr. Tyrold, already cruelly apprehensive the obscurity of their recluse lives contributed to her depression, and believing she compared her present privations to the lost elegancies of Beech Park, sighed heavily, yet said he was glad she would remove from a spot in which reminiscence was so painful. This was not, indeed, he added, the period he should have selected for her visiting the capital, or residing at Mrs. Berlinton's; but she was too much touched by the state of her family, not to be guarded in her expences; and the pressure of her even augmenting sadness, was heavier upon his mind than any other alarm.

The conscience-struck Camilla could make no profession, no promise; nor yet, though ardently wishing it, refuse his offered advance of her next quarter's allowance, lest she should be reduced again to the necessity of borrowing.

This step once decided, brought with it something like a gloomy composure. 'I shall avoid,' she cried, 'at least, with my Mother, these killing caresses of deluded kindness that break my heart with my Father. She, too, would soon discover there was something darker in my sadness than even grief! She would be sure that even my exquisite loss could not render me ungrateful to all condolement; she would know that a daughter whom she had herself reared and instructed, would blush so unceasingly to publish any personal disappointment, let her feel it how she might. O my loved Mother! how did the delight of knowing your kind expectations keep me, while under your guidance in the way I ought to go! O Mother of my heart! what a grievous disappointment awaits your sad return! To find, at the first opening of your virtuous schemes of general saving – that I, as well as Lionel, have involved my family in debts – that I, as well as Clermont, have committed them clandestinely to a usurer!'

Lavinia undertook to give Eugenia proper instructions for her commission; but news arrived, the next day, that Sir Hugh would take no denial to Eugenia's being herself of the party. This added not, however, to the courage of Camilla for staying, and her next determination was to reveal the whole by letter.

Mr. Tyrold would not send her to Cleves to take leave, that her uncle might not be tempted to exercise his wonted, but now no longer convenient generosity, nor yet be exposed to the pain of withholding it. 'You will go, now, my dear girl,' he said, 'in your pristine simplicity, and what can so every way become you? It is not for a scheme of pleasure, but for a stimulus to mental exertion, I part with you. When you return, your excellent Mother will aid your task, and reward its labour. Remember but, while in your own hands, that open œconomy, springing from discretion, is always respected. It is false shame alone that begets ridicule.'

Weeping and silent she heard him, and his fears gained ground that her disappointment, joined to a view of gayer life, had robbed Etherington of all charms to her. Bitterly he regretted he had ever suffered her to leave his roof, though he would not now force her stay. Compulsion could only detain her person; and might heighten the disgust of her mind.

The little time which remained was given wholly to packing and preparing; and continued employment hid from Mr. Tyrold her emotion, which encreased every moment, till the carriage of Sir Hugh stopt at the gate. Lost, then, to all sensation, but the horrour of the avowal that must intervene 'ere they met again, with incertitude if again he would see her with the same kindness, she flew into his arms, rather agonised than affectionate; kissed his hands with fervour, kissed every separate finger, rested upon his shoulder, hid her face in his bosom, caught and pressed to her lips even the flaps of his coat, and scarce restrained herself from bending to kiss his feet; yet without uttering a word, without even shedding a tear.

Strangely surprised, and deeply affected, Mr. Tyrold, straining her to his breast, said: 'Why, my dear child, why, my dearest Camilla, if thus agitated by our parting, do you leave me?'

This question brought her to recollection, by the impossibility she found to answer it; she tore herself, therefore, away from him, embraced Lavinia, and hurried into the coach.

BOOK X

CHAPTER I

A Surprise

Camilla strove to check her grief upon entering the carriage, in which Miss Margland had again the charge of the young party; but the interrogatory of her Father, Why will you leave me? was mentally repeated without ceasing. Ah! why, indeed! thought she, at a moment when every filial duty called more than ever for my stay! – Well, might he not divine the unnatural reason! can I believe it myself? – Believe such an hour arrived? – when my Mother – the best of Mothers! – is expected – when she returns to her family, Camilla seeks another abode! is not this a dream? and may I not one day awake from it?

Miss Margland was in the highest good humour at this expedition: and Indiana was still enraptured to visit London, from old expectations which she knew not how to relinquish; though they were fixed to no point, and as fantastic as vague. Eugenia, whose dejection had made Sir Hugh press her into the party, found nothing in it to revive her; and Camilla entered Grosvenor-square with keen dissatisfaction of every sort. The cautions of Edgar against Mrs. Berlinton broke into all the little relief she might have experienced upon again seeing her. She had meant to keep his final exhortations constantly in her mind, and to make all his opinions and counsels the rule and measure of her conduct: but a cruel perversity of events seemed to cast her every action into an apparent defiance of his wishes.

Mrs. Berlinton, who, in a mansion the most splendid, received her with the same gentle sweetness she had first sought her regard, was delighted by the unexpected sight of Eugenia, whose visit had been settled too late to be announced by letter; and caressed Indiana immediately as a sister. Miss Margland, who came but for two days, sought with much adulation to obtain an invitation for a longer stay; but Mrs. Berlinton, though all courtesy and grace, incommoded herself with no society that she did not find pleasing.

Melmond, who had accompanied them on horseback, was eager to engage the kindness of his sister for Indiana; and Mrs. Berlinton, in compliment to her arrival, refused all parties for the evening, and bestowed upon her an almost undivided attention.

This was not quite so pleasant to him in proof as in hope. Passionless, in this case, herself, the delusions of beauty deceived not her understanding; and half an hour sufficed to shew Indiana to be frivolous, uncultivated, and unmeaning. The perfection, nevertheless, of her face and person, obviated either wonder or censure of the choice of her brother; though she could not but regret that he had not seen with mental eyes the truly superior Eugenia.

The wretched Camilla quitted them all as soon as possible, to retire to her chamber, and ruminate upon her purposed letter. She meant, at first, to write in detail; but her difficulties accumulated as she weighed them. 'What a season,' cried she, 'to sink Lionel still deeper in disgrace! What a treachery, after voluntarily assisting him, to complain of, and betray him! ah! let my own faults teach me mercy for the faults of others!' yet, without this acknowledgment, what exculpation could she offer for the origin of her debts? and all she had incurred at Tunbridge? those of Southampton she now thought every way unpardonable. Even were she to relate the vain hopes which had led to the expence of the ball dress, could she plead, to an understanding like that of her Mother, that she had been deceived and played upon by such a woman as Mrs. Mittin? 'I am astonished now myself,' she cried, 'at that passive facility! – but to me, alas, thought comes only with repentance!' The Higden debt, both for the rent and the stores, was the only one at which she did not blush, since, great as was her indiscretion, in not enquiring into her powers before she plighted her services, it would be palliated by her motive.

Vainly she took up her pen; not even a line could she write. 'How enervating,' she cried, 'is all wrong! I have been, till now, a happy stranger to fear! Partially favoured, and fondly confiding, I have looked at my dear Father, I have met my beloved Mother, with the same courage, and the same pleasure that I looked at and met my brother and my sisters, and only with more reverence. How miserable a change! I shudder now at the presence of the most indulgent of Fathers! I fly with guilty cowardice from the fondest of Mothers!'

Eugenia, when able, followed her; and had no sooner heard the whole history, than, tenderly embracing her, she said, 'Let not this distress seem so desperate to you, my dearest sister! your own account points out to me how to relieve it, without either betraying our poor Lionel, or further weighing down our already heavily burthened friends.'

'And how, my dear Eugenia?' cried Camilla, with fearful gratitude, and involuntarily reviving by the most distant idea of such a project.

By adopting, she said, the same means that had been invented by Mrs. Mittin. She had many valuable trinkets, the annual offerings of her munificent uncle, the sale of which would go far enough, she could not doubt, towards the payment of the principal, to induce the money-lender to accept interest for the rest, till the general affairs of their house were re-established; when what remained of the sum could be discharged, without difficulty, by herself; now no longer wanting money, nor capable of receiving any pleasure from it, but by the pleasure she might give.

Camilla pressed her in her arms, almost kneeling with fond acknowledgments, and accepted, without hesitation, her generous offer.

'All, then, is arranged,' said Eugenia, with a smile so benign it seemed nearly beautiful; 'and to friendship, and each other, we will devote our future days. My spirits will revive in the revival of Camilla. To see her again gay will be renovation to my uncle; and who knows, my dear sister, but our whole family may again be blest, 'ere long, with peace?'

The next morning they sent off a note to the money-lender, whose direction Camilla had received from Mrs. Mittin, entreating his patience for a fortnight, or three weeks, when he would receive the greatest part of his money, with every species of acknowledgment.