Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth

When they came upon the Pantiles, they were accosted by Mr. Dubster; who having solemnly asked them, one by one, how they all did, joined Mrs. Mittin, saying: 'Well, I can't pretend as I'm over sorry you've got neither of those two comical gentlemen with you, that behaved so free to me for nothing. I don't think it's particular agreeable being treated so; though it's a thing I don't much mind. It's not worth fretting about.'

'Well, don't say any more about it,' cried Mrs. Mittin, endeavouring to shake him off; 'I dare say you did something to provoke 'em, or they're too genteel to have taken notice of you.'

'Me provoke them! why what did I do? I was just like a mere lamb, as one may say, at the very time that young Captain fell abusing me so, calling of me a little dirty fellow, without no provocation. If I'm little, or big, I don't see that it's any business of his. And as to dirty, I'd put on all clean linen but the very day before, as the people can tell you at the inn; so the whole was a mere piece of falsehood from one end to t'other.'

'Well, well, what do you talk about it for any more? You should never take anything ill of a young gentleman. It's only aggravating him so much the worse.'

'Aggravating him, Mrs. Mittin! why what need I mind that? Do you think I'm to put up with his talking of caning me, and such like, because of his being a young gentleman? Not I, I assure you! I'm no such person. And if once I feel his switch across these here shoulders, it won't be so well for him!'

The party now entered the shop where the raffle was to be held.

Edgar was already there; he had no power to keep away from any place where he was sure to behold Camilla; and a raffle brought to his mind the most tender recollections. He was now with Lord O'Lerney, in whose candour and benevolence of character he took great delight, and with whom he had joined Lady Isabella Irby, who had been drawn, as a quiet spectatress, to the sight, by a friend, who, having never seen the humours of a raffle, had entreated, through her means, to look on. He languished to see Camilla presented to this lady, in whose manners and conversation, dignity and simplicity were equally blended.

While he was yet, though absently, conversing with them, Lord O'Lerney pointed out Camilla to Lady Isabella.

'I have taken notice of her already at the Rooms;' answered her Ladyship; 'and I have seldom, I think, seen a more interesting young creature.'

'The character of her countenance,' said Lord O'Lerney, 'strikes me very peculiarly. 'Tis so intelligent, yet so unhackneyed, so full of meaning, yet so artless, that, while I look at her, I feel myself involuntarily anxious for her welfare.'

'I don't think she seems happy,' said Lady Isabella; 'Do you know who she is, my Lord?'

Edgar, here, with difficulty suppressed a sigh. Not happy! thought he; ah! wherefore? what can make Camilla unhappy?

'I understand she is a niece of Sir Hugh Tyrold,' answered his Lordship; 'a Yorkshire Baronet. She is here with an acquaintance of mine, Mrs. Arlbery, who is one of the first women I have ever known, for wit and capacity. She has an excellent heart, too; though her extraordinary talents, and her carelessness of opinion make it sometimes, but very unjustly, doubted.'

Edgar heard this with much pleasure. A good word from Lord O'Lerney quieted many fears; he hoped he had been unnecessarily alarmed; he determined, in future, to judge her more favourably.

'I should be glad,' continued his Lordship, 'to hear this young lady were either well established, or returned to her friends without becoming an object of public notice. A young woman is no where so rarely respectable, or respected, as at these water-drinking places, if seen at them either long or often. The search of pleasure and dissipation, at a spot consecrated for restoring health to the sick, the infirm, and the suffering, carries with it an air of egotism, that does not give the most pleasant idea of the feeling and disposition.'

'Yet, may not the sick, my Lord, be rather amended than hurt by the sight of gaiety around them?'

'Yes, my dear Lady Isabella; and the effect, therefore, I believe to be beneficial. But as this is not the motive why the young and the gay seek these spots, it is not here they will find themselves most honoured. And the mixture of pain and illness with splendor and festivity, is so unnatural, that probably it is to that we must attribute that a young woman is no where so hardly judged. If she is without fortune, she is thought a female adventurer, seeking to sell herself for its attainment; if she is rich, she is supposed a willing dupe, ready for a snare, and only looking about for an ensnarer.'

'And yet, young women seldom, I believe, my Lord, merit this severity of judgment. They come but hither in the summer, as they go to London in the winter, simply in search of amusement, without any particular purpose.'

'True; but they do not weigh what their observers weigh for them, that the search of public recreation in the winter is, from long habit, permitted without censure; but that the summer has not, as yet, prescription so positively in its favour; and those who, after meeting them all the winter at the opera, and all the spring at Ranelagh, hear of them all the summer at Cheltenham, Tunbridge, &c. and all the autumn at Bath, are apt to inquire, when is the season for home.'

'Ah, my Lord! how wide are the poor inconsiderate little flutterers from being aware of such a question! How necessary to youth and thoughtlessness is the wisdom of experience!'

Why does she not come this way? thought Edgar; why does she not gather from these mild, yet understanding moralists, instruction that might benefit all her future life?

'There is nothing,' said Lord O'Lerney, 'I more sincerely pity than the delusions surrounding young females. The strongest admirers of their eyes are frequently the most austere satirists of their conduct.'

The entrance of Lord Newford, Sir Theophilus Jarard, and Sir Sedley Clarendel, all noisily talking and laughing together, interrupted any further conversation. The two former no sooner saw Camilla, and perceived neither Lady Alithea Selmore, nor Mrs. Berlinton, than they made up to her; and Sir Sedley, who now found she was completely established in the bon ton, felt something of pride mix with pleasure in publicly availing himself of his intimacy with her; and something like interest mix with curiosity, in examining if Edgar were struck with her ready attention to him.

Upon Edgar, however, it made not the slightest impression. While Sir Sedley had appeared to him a mere fop, he had thought it degraded her; but how he regarded him as her preserver, it seemed both natural and merited.

Sir Sedley, not aware of this reasoning, was somewhat piqued; and taking him to another part of the shop, whispered: 'I am horribly vapoured! Do you know I have some thoughts of trying that little girl? Do you think one could make anything of her?'

'How? what do you mean?' cried Edgar, with sudden alarm.

Sir Sedley, a little flattered, affectedly answered: 'O, if you have any serious designs that way, incontestably I won't interfere.'

'Me!' cried Edgar, surprised and offended; 'believe me, no! I have all my life considered her – as my sister.'

Sir Sedley saw this was spoken with effort; and negligently replied: 'Nay you are just at the first epocha for marrying from inclination; but you are in the right not to perform so soon the funeral honours of liberty. 'Tis what you may do at any time. So many girls want establishments, that a man of sixty can just as easily get a wife of eighteen, as a man of one-and-twenty. The only inconvenience in that sort of alliance is, that though she begins with submitting to her venerated husband as prettily as to her papa, she is terribly apt to have a knack of running away from him, afterwards, with equal facility.'

'That is rather a discouraging article, I confess,' cried Edgar, 'for the tardy votaries of Hymen!'

'O, no! 'tis no great matter!' answered he, patting his snuffbox; 'we are impenetrable in the extreme to those sort of grievances now-a-days. We are at such prodigious expence of sensibility in public, for tales of sorrow told about pathetically, at a full board, that if we suffered much for our private concerns to boot, we must always meet one another with tears in our eyes. We never weep now, but at dinner, or at some diversion.'

Lord Newford, pulling him by the arm, called out: 'Come, Clary, what art about, man? we want thee.'

'Come, Clary! don't shirk, Clary,' cried Sir Theophilus; 'I can't possibly patronise this shirking.' And they hauled him to a corner of the shop, where all three resumed their customary laughing whispers.

'You will not, perhaps, suspect, Lady Isabella,' said Lord O'Lerney, smiling, 'that one of that triumvirate is by no means deficient in parts, and can even, when he desires it, be extremely pleasing?'

'Your Lordship judges right, I confess! I had not, indeed, done him such justice!'

'See then,' said his Lordship, 'how futile an animal is man, without some decided character and principle!

He's every thing by turns, and nothing long[3 - Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel.].

Wise, foolish; virtuous, vicious; active, indolent; prodigal and avaricious! No contrast is too strong for him while guided but by accident or impulse. This gentleman also, in common with the rest of his tonnish brethren, is now daily, though unconsciously, hoarding up a world of unprepared-for mortification, by not foreseeing that the more he is celebrated in his youth, for being the leader of the ton, and the man of the day, the earlier he will be regarded as a creature out of date, an old beau, and a fine gentleman of former times. But 'tis by reverses, such as these, that folly and impropriety pay their penalties. We might spare all our anger against the vanity of the beauty, or the conceit of the coxcomb. Are not wrinkles always in waiting to punish the one, and age, without honour, to chastise and degrade the other?'

All the rafflers were now arrived, except Mrs. Berlinton, who was impatiently expected. Lady Alithea Selmore had already sent a proxy to throw for her in her own woman; much to the dissatisfaction of most part of the company. A general rising and inquietude to look out for Mrs. Berlinton, gave Edgar, at length, an opportunity to stand next to Camilla. 'How I grieve,' he cried 'you should not know Lady Isabella Irby! she seems to me a model for a woman of rank in her manners, and a model for a woman of every station in her mind. The world, I believe, could scarce have tempted her to so offensive a mark of superiority as has just been exhibited by Lady Alithea Selmore, who has ingeniously discovered a method of being signalised as the most important person out of twenty, by making herself nineteen enemies.'

'I wonder,' said Camilla, 'she can think the chance of the ear-rings worth so high a price!'

A footman, in a splendid livery, now entering, inquired for Miss Tyrold. She was pointed out to him by Major Cerwood, and he delivered her a letter from Mrs. Berlinton.

The contents were to entreat she would throw for that lady, who was in the midst of Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination, and could not tear herself away from them.

Camilla blushed excessively in proclaiming she was chosen Mrs. Berlinton's proxy. Edgar saw with tenderness her modest confusion, and, with a pleasure the most touching, read the favourable impression it made upon Lord O'Lerney and Lady Isabella.

This seemed an opportunity irresistible for venting his fears and cautions about Mrs. Berlinton; and, taking the bustling period in which the rafflers were arranging the order and manner of throwing, he said, in a low, and diffident tone of voice, 'You have committed to me an important and, I fear, an importunate office; yet, while I hold, I cannot persuade myself not to fulfil it; though I know that to give advice which opposes sentiment and feeling, is repugnant to independence and to delicacy. Such, therefore, I do not mean to enforce; but merely to offer hints – intimations – and observations – that without controlling, may put you upon your guard.'

Camilla, affected by this unexpected address, could only look her desire for an explanation.

'The lady,' he continued, 'whom you are presently to represent, appears to be uncommonly engaging? – '

'Indeed she is! She is attractive, gentle, amiable.'

'She seems, also, already to have caught your affection?'

'Who could have withheld it, that had seen her as I have seen her? She is as unhappy as she is lovely…'

'I have heard of your first meeting, with as much pleasure in the presence of mind it called forth on one side, as with doubt and perplexity, upon every circumstance I can gather, of the other. – '