Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth

'I am perfectly satisfied, then, my good friend,' said the Ensign, shaking him by the hand with an heartiness that gave him no small share of the pail's contents; 'when a gentleman tells me a thing seriously, I make it a point to believe him; especially if he has a good honest countenance, that assures me he would not refuse me satisfaction, in the case he had meant to make game of me.'

'And do you always terminate your jests with the ceremony of a tilting match?' cried Sir Sedley.

'Yes, Sir! if I'm made a joke of by a man of any honour. For, to tell you a piece of my mind, there's no one thing upon earth I hate like a joke; unless it's against another person; and then it only gives me a little joy inwardly; for I make it a point of complaisance not to laugh out: except where I happen to wish for a little private conversation with the person that gives me the diversion.'

'Facetious in the extreme!' cried Sir Sedley, 'an infallibly excellent mode to make a man die of laughter? Droll to the utmost!'

'With regard to that, Sir, I have no objection to a little wit or humour, provided a person has the politeness to laugh only at himself, and his own particular friends and relations; but if once he takes the liberty to turn me into ridicule, I look upon it as an affront, and expect the proper reparation.'

'O, to refuse that would be without bowels to a degree!'

Lionel now ran up stairs, to beg the ladies would come and see the theatre; but suddenly exclaimed, as he looked around, 'Ah ha!' and hastily galloped down, and to the bottom of the house. Mrs. Arlbery descended with her young party, and the Ensign, in mock heroics, solemnly prostrated himself to Miss Dennel, pouring into her delighted ears, from various shreds and scraps of different tragedies, the most high flown and egregiously ill-adapted complements: while the Major, less absurdly, though scarce less passionately, made Camilla his Juliet, and whispered the tenderest lines of Romeo.

Lionel presently running, out of breath, up stairs again, cried: 'Mrs. Arlbery, I have drawn you in a new beau.'

'Have you?' cried she, coolly; 'why then I permit you to draw him out again. Had you told me he had forced himself in, you had made him welcome. But I foster only willing slaves. So off, if you please, with your boast and your beau.'

'I can't, upon my word, ma'am, for he is at my heels.'

Mandlebert, at the same moment, not hearing what passed, made his appearance.

The surprised and always unguarded Camilla, uttered an involuntary exclamation, which instantly catching his ear, drew his eye towards the exclaimer, and there fixed it; with an astonishment which suspended wholly his half made bow, and beginning address to Mrs. Arlbery.

Lionel had descried him upon the little hill before the house; where, as he was passing on, his own attention had been caught by the sound of horns and clarinets, just as, without any explanation, Lionel flew to tell him he was wanted, and almost forced him off his horse, and up the stairs.

Mrs. Arlbery, in common with those who dispense with all forms for themselves, exacted them punctiliously from all others. The visit therefore of Mandlebert not being designed for her, afforded her at first no gratification, and produced rather a contrary feeling, when she observed the total absence of all pleasure in the surprise with which he met Camilla at her house. She gave him a reception of cold civility, and then chatted almost wholly with the General, or Sir Sedley.

Edgar scarce saw whether he was received or not; his bow was mechanical, his apology for his intrusion was unintelligible. Amazement at seeing Camilla under this roof, disappointment at her breach of implied promise, and mortification at the air of being at home, which he thought he remarked in her situation, though at an acquaintance he had taken so much pains to keep aloof from her, all conspired to displease and perplex him; and though his eyes could with difficulty look any other way, he neither spoke to nor approached her.

Nor was even thus meeting her all he had to give him disturbance; the palpable devoirs of Major Cerwood incensed as well astonished him; for, under pretext of only following the humour of the day, in affecting to act the hero in love, the Major assailed her, without reserve, with declarations of his passion, which though his words passed off as quotations, his looks and manner made appropriate. How, already, thought Edgar, has he obtained such a privilege? such confidence? To have uttered one such sentence, my tongue would have trembled, my lips would have quivered!

Camilla felt confounded by his presence, from the consciousness of the ill opinion she must excite by this second apparent disregard of a given engagement. She would fain have explained to him it's history; but she could not free herself from the Major, whose theatrical effusions were not now to be repressed, since, at first, she had unthinkingly attended to them.

Lionel joined with Macdersey in directing similar heroics to Miss Dennel, who, simply enchanted, called out: 'I'm determined when I've a house of my own, I'll have just such a room as this at the top of it, on purpose to act a play every night.'

'And when, my dear,' said Mrs. Arlbery, 'do you expect to have a house of your own?'

'O, as soon as I am married, you know.'

'Is your marrying, then, already decided?'

'Dear no, not that I know of, aunt. I'm sure I never trouble myself about it; only I suppose it will happen some day or other.'

'And when it does, you are very sure your husband will approve your acting plays every night?'

'O, as to that, I shan't ask him. Whenever I'm married I'll be my own mistress, that I'm resolved upon. But papa's so monstrous cross, he says he won't let me act plays now.'

'Papas and mamas,' cried Sir Sedley, 'are ever most egregiously in the way. 'Tis prodigiously surprising they have never yet been banished society. I know no mark more irrefragable of the supineness of mankind.'

Then rising, and exclaiming: 'What savage heat! I wish the weather had a little feeling!' he broke up the party by ordering his curricle, and being the first to depart.

'That creature,' cried Mrs. Arlbery, 'if one had the least care for him, is exactly an animal to drive one mad! He labours harder to be affected than any ploughman does for his dinner. And, completely as his conceit obscures it, he has every endowment nature can bestow, except common sense!'

They now all descended to take leave, except the Ensign and Lionel, who went, arm in arm, prowling about, to view all the garrets, followed on tip-toe by Miss Dennel. Lavinia called vainly after her brother; but Camilla, hoping every instant she might clear her conduct to Edgar, was not sorry to be detained.

They had not, however, been five minutes in the parlour, before a violent and angry noise from above, induced them all to remount to the top of the house; and there, upon entering a garret whence it issued, they saw Miss Dennel, decorated with the Ensign's cocked hat and feather, yet looking pale with fright; Lionel accoutred in the maid's cloaths, and almost in a convulsion of laughter; and Macdersey, in a rage utterly incomprehensible, with the coachman's large bob-wig hanging loose upon his head.

It was sometime before it was possible to gather, that having all paraded into various garrets, in search of adventures, Lionel, after attiring himself in the maid's gown, cap, and apron, had suddenly deposited upon Miss Dennel's head the Ensign's cocked hat, replacing it with the coachman's best wig upon the toupee of Macdersey; whose resentment was so violent at this liberty, that it was still some minutes before he could give it articulation.

The effect of this full buckled bob-jerom which stuck hollow from the young face and powdered locks of the Ensign, was irresistibly ludicrous; yet he would have deemed it a greater indignity to take it quietly off, than to be viewed in it by thousands; though when he saw the disposition of the whole company to sympathise with Lionel, his wrath rose yet higher, and stamping with passion, he fiercely said to him – 'Take it off, sir! – take it off my head!'

Lionel, holding this too imperious a command to be obeyed, only shouted louder. Macdersey then, incensed beyond endurance, lowered his voice with stifled choler, and putting his arms a-kimbo, said – 'If you take me for a fool, sir, I shall demand satisfaction; for it's what I never put up with!'

Then, turning to the rest, he solemnly added – 'I beg pardon of all the worthy company for speaking this little whisper, which certainly I should scorn to do before ladies, if it had not been a secret.'

Mrs. Arlbery, alarmed at the serious consequences now threatening this folly, said – 'No, no; I allow of no secrets in my house, but what are entrusted to myself. I insist, therefore, upon being umpire in this cause.'

'Madam,' said Macdersey, 'I hope never to become such a debased brute of the creation, as to contradict the commands of a fair lady: except when it's upon a point of honour. But I can't consent to pass for a fool; and still more not for a poltroon – You'll excuse the little hint.'

Then, while making a profound and ceremonious bow, his wig fell over his head on the ground.

'This is very unlucky,' cried he, with a look of vexation; 'for certainly, and to be sure no human mortal should have made me take it off myself, before I was righted.'

Camilla, picking it up, to render the affair merely burlesque, pulled off the maid's cap from her brother's head, and put on the wig in its place, saying – 'There, Lionel, you have played the part of Lady Wrong Head long enough; be so good now as to perform that of Sir Francis.'

This ended the business, and the whole party, in curricles, on horseback, or on foot, departed from the Grove.

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I

A Few Explanations

The last words of Dr. Marchmont, in taking leave of Edgar, were injunctions to circumspection, and representations of the difficulty of drawing back with honour, if once any incautious eagerness betrayed his partiality. To this counsel he was impelled to submit, lest he should risk for Camilla a report similar to that which for Indiana had given him so much disturbance. There, indeed, he felt himself wholly blameless. His admiration was but such as he always experienced at sight of a beautiful picture, nor had it ever been demonstrated in any more serious manner. He had distinguished her by no particular attention, singled her out by no pointed address, taken no pains to engage her good opinion, and manifested no flattering pleasure at her approach or presence.

His sense of right was too just to mislead him into giving himself similar absolution with respect to Camilla. He had never, indeed, indulged a voluntary vent to his preference; but the candour of his character convinced him that what so forcibly he had felt, he must occasionally have betrayed. Yet the idea excited regret without remorse; for though it had been his wish, as well as intention, to conceal his best hopes, till they were ratified by his judgment, he had the conscious integrity of knowing that, should her heart become his prize, his dearest view in life would be to solicit her hand.

To preserve, therefore, the appearance of an undesigning friend of the house, he had forced himself to refrain, for two days, from any visit to the rectory, whither he was repairing, when thus, unlooked and unwished for, he surprized Camilla at the Grove.

Disappointed and disapproving feelings kept him, while there, aloof from her; by continual suggestions, that her character was of no stability, that Dr. Marchmont was right in his doubts, and Miss Margland herself not wrong in accusing her of caprice; and when he perceived, upon her preparing to walk home with her brother and sister, that Major Cerwood stept forward to attend her, he indignantly resolved to arrange without delay his continental excursion. But again, when, as she quitted the room, he saw her head half turned round, with an eye of enquiry if he followed, he determined frankly, and at once, in his capacity of a friend, to request some explanation of this meeting.

The assiduities of the Major made it difficult to speak to her; but the aid of her desire for a conversation, which was equally anxious, and less guarded than his own, anticipated his principal investigation, by urging her, voluntarily to seize an opportunity of relating to him the history of her first visit to Mrs. Arlbery; and of assuring him that the second was indispensably its consequence.

Softened by this apparent earnestness for his good opinion, all his interest and all his tenderness for her returned; and though much chagrined at the accident, or rather mischief, which had thus established the acquaintance, he had too little to say, whatever he had to feel, of positive weight against it, to propose its now being relinquished. He thanked her impressively for so ready an explanation; and then gently added; 'I know your predilection in favour of this lady, and I will say nothing to disturb it; but as she is yet new to you, and as all residence, all intercourse, from your own home or relations, is new to you also – tell me, candidly, sincerely tell me, can you condescend to suffer an old friend, though in the person of but a young man, to offer you, from time to time, a hint, a little counsel, a few brief words of occasional advice? and even, perhaps, now and then, to torment you into a little serious reflection?'

'If you,' cried she, gaily, 'will give me the reflection, I promise, to the best of my power, to give you in return, the seriousness; but I can by no means engage for both!'

'O, never, but from your own prudence,' he answered, gratefully, 'may your delightful vivacity know a curb! If now I seem myself to fear it, it is not from moroseness, it is not from insensibility to its charm – '