Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth

Mrs. Tyrold scarce noticed this declaration; but his brother endeavoured to dissuade him from so sudden and partial a measure: he would not, however, listen; he made what speed he could down stairs, called hastily for his hat and stick, commanded all his servants to attend him, and muttering frequent ejaculations to himself, that he would not trust to changing his mind, he proceeded to the family chapel, and approaching with eager steps to the altar, knelt down, and bidding every one hear and witness what he said, made a solemn vow, 'That if he might be cleared of the crime of murder, by the recovery of Eugenia, he would atone what he could for the ill he had done her, by bequeathing to her every thing he possessed in the world, in estate, cash, and property, without the deduction of a sixpence.'

He told all present to remember and witness this, in case of an apoplexy before his new will could be written down.

Returning then to the house, lightened, he said, from a load of self-reproach, which had rendered the last fortnight insupportable to him, he sent for the attorney of a neighbouring town, and went upstairs, with a firmer mind, to wait his arrival in the sick room.

'O my dear uncle,' cried his long banished Camilla, who hearing him upon the stairs, skipt lightly after him, 'how glad I am to see you again! I almost thought I should see you no more!'

Here ended at once the just acquired tranquility of Sir Hugh; all his satisfaction forsook him at the appearance of his little darling; he considered her as an innocent creature whom he was preparing to injure; he could not bear to look at her; his heart smote him in her favour; his eyes filled with tears; he was unable to go on, and with slow and trembling steps, he moved again towards his own room.

'My dearest uncle!' cried Camilla, holding by his coat, and hanging upon his arm, 'won't you speak to me?'

'Yes, my dear, to be sure I will,' he answered, endeavouring to hide his emotion, 'only not now; so don't follow me Camilla, for I'm going to be remarkably busy!'

'O uncle!' she cried, plaintively, 'and I have not seen you so long! And I have wished so to see you! and I have been so unhappy about Eugenia! and you have always locked your door; and I would not rap hard at it, for fear you should be asleep: But why would you not see me, uncle? and why will you send me away?'

'My dear Camilla,' he replied, with increased agitation, 'I have used you very ill; I have been your worst enemy, which is the very reason I don't care to see you; so go away, I beg, for I am bad enough without all this. But I give you my thanks for all your little playful gambols, having nothing better now to offer you; which is but a poor return from an uncle to a niece!'

He then shut himself into his room, leaving Camilla drowned in tears at the outside of the door.

Wretched in reflecting upon the shock and disappointment which the new disposition of his affairs must occasion her, he had not fortitude to inform her of his intention. He desired to speak with Edgar Mandlebert, who, with all the Tyrold family, resided, for the present, at Cleves, and abruptly related to him the new destination he had just vowed of his wealth; beseeching that he would break it in the softest manner to his poor little favourite, assuring her she would be always the first in his love, though a point of mere conscience had forced him to make choice of another heiress.

Edgar, whose zeal to serve and oblige had never been put to so severe a test, hesitated how to obey this injunction; yet he would not refuse it, as he found that all the servants of the house were enabled, if they pleased, to anticipate more incautiously the ill news. He followed her, therefore, into the garden, whither she had wandered to weep unobserved; but he stopt short at sight of her distress, conceiving his errand to be already known to her, and determined to consult with Indiana, to whom he communicated his terrible embassy, entreating her to devise some consolation for her poor cousin.

Indiana felt too much chagrined at her own part in this transaction, to give her attention to Camilla; she murmured without scruple at the deprivation of what she had once expected for herself, and at another time for her brother; and expressed much resentment at the behaviour of her uncle, mingled with something very near repining, not merely at his late preference of Camilla, but even at the recovery of the little Eugenia. Edgar heard her with surprise, and wondered to find how much less her beauty attracted him from the failure of her good nature.

He now pursued the weeping Camilla, who, dispersing her tears at his approach, pretended to be picking some lavender, and keeping her eyes steadfastly upon the bush, asked him if he would have any? He took a sprig, but spoke to her in a voice of such involuntary compassion, that she soon lost her self-command, and the big drops again rolled fast down her cheeks. Extremely concerned, he strove gently to sooth her; but the expressions of regret at her uncle's avoidance, which then escaped her, soon convinced him his own task was still to be performed. With anxious fear of the consequences of a blow so unlooked for, he executed it with all the speed, yet all the consideration in his power. Camilla, the moment she understood him, passionately clasped her hands, and exclaimed: 'O if that is all! If my uncle indeed loves me as well as before all this; I am sure I can never, never be so wicked, as to envy poor little Eugenia, who has suffered so much, and almost been dying, because she will be richer than I shall be!'

Edgar, delighted and relieved, thought she was grown a thousand times more beautiful than Indiana; and eagerly taking her hand, ran with her to the apartment of the poor disconsolate Sir Hugh; where his own eyes soon overflowed from tenderness and admiration, at the uncommon scene he witnessed, of the generous affection with which Camilla consoled the fond distress of her uncle, though springing from her own disappointment and loss.

They stayed till the arrival of the attorney, who took the directions of Sir Hugh, and drew up, for his immediate satisfaction, a short deed, making over, according to his vow, all he should die possessed of, without any let or qualification whatsoever, to his niece Eugenia. This was properly signed and sealed, and Sir Hugh hastened up stairs with a copy of it to Mr. Tyrold.

All remonstrance was ineffectual; his conscience, he protested, could no other way be appeased; his noble little Camilla had forgiven him her ill usage, and he could now bear to look at the change for the worse in Eugenia, without finding his heart-strings ready to burst at the sight. 'You,' he cried, 'brother, who do not know what it is I have suffered through my conscience, can't tell what it is to get a little ease; for if she had died, you might all have had the comfort to say 'twas I murdered her, which would have given you the satisfaction of having had no hand in it. But then, what would have become of poor me, having it all upon my own head? However, now thank Heaven, I have no need to care about the matter; for as to the mere loss of beauty, pretty as it is to look at, I hope it is no such great injury, as she'll have a splendid fortune, which is certainly a better thing, in point of lasting. For as to beauty, Lord help us! what is it? except just to the eye.'

He then walked up to the child, intending to kiss her, but stopt and sighed involuntarily as he looked at her, saying: 'After all, she's not like the same thing! no more than I am myself. I shall never think I know her again, never as long as I live! I can't so much as believe her to be the same, though I am sure of its being true. However, it shall make no change in my love for her, poor little dear, for it's all my own doing; though innocently enough, as to any meaning, God knows!'

It was still some time before the little girl recovered, and then a new misfortune became daily more palpable, from some latent and incurable mischief, owing to her fall, which made her grow up with one leg shorter than the other, and her whole figure diminutive and deformed: These additional evils reconciled her parents to the partial will of her uncle, which they now, indeed, thought less wanting in equity, since no other reparation could be offered to the innocent sufferer for ills so insurmountable.

CHAPTER IV

Studies of a grown Gentleman

When the tumult of this affair subsided, Mr. Tyrold and his family prepared to re-establish themselves at Etherington; and Mrs. Tyrold, the great inducement for the separation being over, was earnest to take home again the disinherited Camilla. Sir Hugh, whose pleasure in her sight was how embittered by regret and remorse, had not courage to make the smallest opposition; yet he spent the day of her departure in groans and penitence. He thought it right, however, to detain Eugenia, who, as his decided heiress, was left to be brought up at Cleves.

The loss of the amusing society of his favourite; the disappointment he had inflicted upon her, and the sweetness with which she had borne it, preyed incessantly upon his spirits; and he knew not how to employ himself, which way to direct his thoughts, nor in what manner to beguile one moment of his time, after the children were gone to rest.

The view of the constant resources which his brother found in literature, augmented his melancholy at his own imperfections; and the steady industry with which Mr. Tyrold, in early youth, had attained them, and which, while devoted to field sports, he had often observed with wonder and pity, he now looked back to with self-reproach, and recognised in its effect with a reverence almost awful.

His imagination, neither regulated by wisdom, nor disciplined by experience, having once taken this turn, he soon fancied that every earthly misfortune originated in a carelessness of learning, and that all he wished, and all he wanted, upbraided him with his ignorance. If disease and pain afflicted him, he lamented the juvenile inattention that had robbed him of acquirements which might have taught him not to regard them; if the word scholar was named in his presence, he heaved the deepest sigh; if an article in a newspaper, with which he was unacquainted, was discussed, he reviled his early heedlessness of study; and the mention of a common pamphlet, which was unknown to him, gave him a sensation of disgrace: even inevitable calamities he attributed to the negligence of his education, and construed every error, and every evil of his life, to his youthful disrespect of Greek and Latin.

Such was the state of his mind, when his ordinary maladies had the serious aggravation of a violent fit of the gout.

In the midst of the acute anguish, and useless repentance, which now alternately ravaged his happiness, it suddenly occurred to him, that, perhaps, with proper instruction, he might even yet obtain a sufficient portion of this enviable knowledge, to enable him to pass his evenings with some similarity to his brother.

Revived by this suggestion, he sent for Mr. Tyrold, to communicate to him his idea, and to beg he would put him into a way to recover his lost time, by recommending to him a tutor, with whom he might set about a course of studies: – 'Not that I want,' cried he, 'to make any particular great figure as a scholar; but if I could only learn just enough to amuse me at odd hours, and make me forget the gout, it's as much as I desire.'

The total impossibility that such a project should answer its given purpose, deterred not Mr. Tyrold from listening to his request. The mild philosophy of his character saw whatever was lenient to human sufferings as eligible, and looked no further for any obstacles to the wishes of another, than to investigate if their gratification would be compatible with innocence. He wrote, therefore, to a college associate of his younger years, whom he knew to be severely embarrassed in his affairs, and made proposals for settling him in the house of his brother. These were not merely gratefully accepted by his old friend, but drew forth a confession that he was daily menaced with a public arrest for debts, which he had incurred without luxury or extravagance, from mere ignorance of the value of money, and of œconomy.

In the award of cool reason, to attend to what is impracticable, appears a folly which no inducement can excuse. Mrs. Tyrold treated this scheme with calm, but complete contempt. She allowed no palliation for a measure of which the abortive end was glaring; to hearken to it displeased her, as a false indulgence of childish vanity; and her understanding felt shocked that Mr. Tyrold would deign to humour his brother in an enterprise which must inevitably terminate in a fruitless consumption of time.

Sir Hugh soon, but without anger, saw her disapprobation of his plan; her opinions, from a high superiority to all deceit, were as unreserved as those of the baronet, from a nature incapable of caution. He told her he was sorry to perceive that she thought he should make no proficiency, but entreated her to take notice there was at least no great presumption in his attempt, as he meant to begin with the very beginning, and to go no farther at the first than any young little school-boy; for he should give himself fair play, by trying his hand with the rudiments, which would no sooner be run over, than the rest would become plain sailing: 'And if once,' he added, 'I should conquer the mastery of the classics, I shall make but very short work of all the rest.'

Mr. Tyrold saw, as forcibly as his wife, the utter impossibility that Sir Hugh could now repair the omissions of his youth; but he was willing to console his want of knowledge, and sooth his mortifications; and while he grieved for his bodily infirmities, and pitied his mental repinings, he considered his idea as not illaudable, though injudicious, and in favour of its blamelessness, forgave its absurdity.

He was gratified, also, in offering an honourable provision to a man of learning in distress, whose time and attention could not fail to deserve it, if dedicated to his brother, in whatever way they might be bestowed.

He took care to be at Cleves on the day Dr. Orkborne, this gentleman, was expected, and he presented him to Sir Hugh with every mark of regard, as a companion in whose conversation, he flattered himself, pain might be lightened, and seclusion from mixt company cheerfully supported.

Dr. Orkborne expressed his gratitude for the kindness of Mr. Tyrold, and promised to make it his first study to merit the high consideration with which he had been called from his retirement.

A scholastic education was all that had been given to Dr. Orkborne by his friends; and though in that their hopes were answered, no prosperity followed. His labours had been seconded by industry, but not enforced by talents; and they soon found how wide the difference between acquiring stores, and bringing them into use. Application, operating upon a retentive memory, had enabled him to lay by the most ample hoards of erudition; but these, though they rendered him respectable amongst the learned, proved nearly nugatory in his progress through the world, from a total want of skill and penetration to know how or where they might turn to any account. Nevertheless, his character was unexceptionable, his manners were quiet, and his fortune was ruined. These were the motives which induced rather the benevolence than the selection of Mr. Tyrold to name him to his brother, in the hope that, while an asylum at Cleves would exonerate him from all pecuniary hardships, his very deficiency in brilliancy of parts, and knowledge of mankind, which though differently modified, was equal to that of Sir Hugh himself, would obviate regret of more cultivated society, and facilitate their reciprocal satisfaction.

The introduction over, Mr. Tyrold sought by general topics to forward their acquaintance, before any allusion should be made to the professed plan of Sir Hugh; but Sir Hugh was too well pleased with its ingenuity to be ashamed of its avowal; he began, therefore, immediately to descant upon the indolence of his early years, and to impeach the want of timely severity in his instructors: 'For there is an old saying,' he cried, 'but remarkably true, That learning is better than house or land; which I am an instance of myself, for I have house and land plenty, yet don't know what to do with them properly, nor with myself neither, for want of a little notion of things to guide me by.' His brother, he added, had been too partial in thinking him already fitted for such a master as Dr. Orkborne; though he promised, notwithstanding his time of life, to become the most docile of pupils, and he hoped before long to do no discredit to the Doctor as his tutor.

Mr. Tyrold, whose own benign countenance could scarce refrain from a smile at this unqualified opening, endeavoured to divert to some other subject the grave astonishment of Dr. Orkborne, who, previously aware of the age and ill health of the baronet, naturally concluded himself called upon to solace the privacy of his life by reading or discourse, but suggested not the most distant surmise he could be summoned as a preceptor.

Sir Hugh, however, far from palliating any design, disguised not even a feeling; he plunged deeper and deeper in the acknowledgment of his ignorance, and soon set wholly apart the delicate circumspection of his brother, by demanding of Dr. Orkborne what book he thought he had best buy for a beginning?

Receiving from the wondering Doctor no answer, he good humouredly added, 'Come, don't be ashamed to name the easiest, for this reason; you must know my plan is one of my own, which it is right to tell you. As fast as I get on, I intend, for the sake of remembering my lesson, to send for one of my nephews, and teach it all over again to him myself; which will be doing service to us all at once.'

Mr. Tyrold now, though for a few moments he looked down, thought it best to leave the matter to its own course, and Dr. Orkborne to his own observations; fully persuaded, that the smiles Sir Hugh might excite would be transient, and that no serious or lasting ridicule could be attached to his character, in the mind of a worthy man, to whom time and opportunity would be allowed for an acquaintance with its habitual beneficence. He excused himself, therefore, from staying any longer, somewhat to the distress of Dr. Orkborne, but hardly with the notice of the baronet, whose eagerness in his new pursuit completely engrossed him.

His late adventure, and his new heiress, now tormented him no more; Indiana was forgotten, Camilla but little thought of, and his whole mind became exclusively occupied by this fruitful expedient for retrieving his lost time.

Dr. Orkborne, whose life had been spent in any study rather than that of human nature, was so little able to enter into the character of Sir Hugh, that nothing less than the respect he knew to be due to Mr. Tyrold, could have saved him, upon his first reception, from a suspicion that he had been summoned in mere mockery. The situation, however, was peculiarly desirable to him, and the experiment, in the beginning, corresponded with the hopes of Mr. Tyrold. Placed suddenly in ease and affluence, Dr. Orkborne, with the most profound desire to please, sought to sustain so convenient a post, by obliging the patron, whom he soon saw it would be vain to attempt improving; while Sir Hugh, in return, professed himself the most fortunate of men, that he had now met with a scholar who had the good nature not to despise him.

Relief from care thus combining with opportunity, Dr. Orkborne was scarce settled, ere he determined upon the execution of a long, critical, and difficult work in philology, which he had often had in contemplation, but never found leisure to undertake. By this means he had a constant resource for himself; and the baronet, observing that time never hung heavy upon his hands, conceived a yet higher admiration of learning, and felt his spirits proportionably re-animated by the fair prospect of participating in such advantages.

From this dream, however, he was soon awakened; a parcel, by the direction of Dr. Orkborne, arrived from his bookseller, with materials for going to work.

Sir Hugh then sent off a message to the parsonage-house, informing his brother and his family, that they must not be surprised if they did not see or hear of him for some time, as he had got his hands quite full, and should be particularly engaged for a week or two to come.

Dr. Orkborne, still but imperfectly conceiving the extent, either of the plan, or of the simplicity of his new pupil, proposed, as soon as the packet was opened, that they should read together; but Sir Hugh replied, that he would do the whole in order, and by no means skip the rudiments.

The disappointment which followed, may be easily imagined; with neither quickness to learn, nor memory to retain, he aimed at being initiated in the elements of a dead language, for which youth only can find time and application, and even youth but by compulsion. His head soon became confused, his ideas were all perplexed, his attention was vainly strained, and his faculties were totally disordered.

Astonished at his own disturbance, which he attributed solely to not getting yet into the right mode, he laughed off his chagrin, but was steady in his perseverance; and continued wholly shut up from his family and friends, with a zeal worthy better success.

Lesson after lesson, however, only aggravated his difficulties, till his intellects grew so embarrassed he scarce knew if he slept or waked. His nights became infected by the perturbation of the day; his health visibly suffered from the restlessness of both, and all his flattering hopes of new and unknown happiness were ere long exchanged for despair.