Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth

Faintly she answered, 'Yes, sir;' and he then added: 'I am just arrived, and in search of Sir Hugh and the young ladies; one of them, they told me, was this way; but I can trace nobody. Have you seen any of them?'

More and more confounded, she could make no reply. Inattentive to her embarrassment, and still looking every way around, he repeated his question. She then pointed towards the great gate, stammering she believed they went that way. 'Thank you;' he answered, with a nod, and then hurried off.

She now thought no more of moving nor of rising; she felt a kind of stupor, in which, fixed, and without reflection, she remained, till, startled by the sound of her uncle's voice, she got up, made what haste she was able to the house by a private path, and ascended to her own room by a back stair case.

That an interview to which she had so long looked forward, for which, with unwearied assiduity, she had so many years laboured to prepare herself, and which was the declared precursor of the most important æra of her life, should pass over so abruptly, and be circumstanced so aukwardly, equally dispirited and confused her.

In a few minutes, Molly Mill, entering, said: 'They're all come back, and Sir Hugh's fit to eat the young squire up; and no wonder, for he's a sweet proper gentleman, as ever I see. Come, miss, I hope you'll put on something else, for that hat makes you look worse than any thing. I would not have the young squire see you such a figure for never so much.'

The artlessness of unadorned truth, however sure in theory of extorting administration, rarely, in practice, fails inflicting pain or mortification. The simple honesty of Molly redoubled the chagrin of her young mistress, who, sending her away, went anxiously to the looking-glass, whence, in a few moments, she perceived her uncle, from the window, laughing, and making significant signs to some one out of her sight. Extremely ashamed to be so surprised, she retreated to the other end of the room, though not till she had heard Sir Hugh say: 'Ay, ay, she's getting ready for you; I told you why she would not walk out with us, so don't let's hurry her, though I can't but commend your being a little impatient, which I dare say so is she, only young girls can't so well talk about it.'

Eugenia now found that Clermont had no suspicion he had seen her. Sir Hugh concluded she had not left her room, and asked no questions that could lead to the discovery.

Presently the baronet came up stairs himself, and tapping at her door, said: 'Come, my dear, don't be too curious, the breakfast having been spoilt this hour already; besides your cousin's having nothing on himself but his riding dress.'

Happy she could at least clear herself from so derogatory a design, she opened her door. Sir Hugh, surveying her with a look of surprise and vexation, exclaimed: 'What my dear! an't you dizen'd yet? why I thought to have seen you in all your best things!'

'No, sir,' answered she calmly; 'I shall not dress till dinner-time.'

'My dear girl,' cried he, kindly, though a little distressed how to explain himself; 'there's no need you should look worse than you can help; though you can do better things, I know, than looking well at any time; only what I mean is, you should let him see you to the best advantage at the first, for fear of his taking any dislike before he knows about Dr. Orkborne, and that.'

'Dislike, sir!' repeated she, extremely hurt; 'if you think he will take any dislike … I had better not see him at all!'

'My dear girl, you quite mistake me, owing to my poor head's always using the wrong word; which is a remarkable thing that I can't help. But I don't mean in the least to doubt his being pleased with you, except only at the beginning, from not being used to you; for as to all your studies, there's no more Greek and Latin in one body's face than in another's; but, however, if you won't dress, there's no need to keep the poor boy in hot water for nothing.'

He then took her hand, and rather dragged than drew her down stairs, saying as they went: 'I must wish you joy, though, for I assure you he's a very fine lad, and hardly a bit of a coxcomb.'

The family was all assembled in the parlour, except Camilla, for whom the baronet had instantly dispatched Edgar, and Mr. Tyrold, who was not yet returned from a morning ride, but for whom Sir Hugh had ordered the great dinner bell to be rung, as a signal of something extraordinary.

Young Lynmere was waiting the arrival of Eugenia with avowed and unbridled impatience. Far from surmising it was her he had met in the park, he had concluded it was one of the maids, and thought of her no more. He asked a thousand questions in a breath when his uncle was gone. Was she tall? was she short? was she plump? was she lean? was she fair? was she brown? was she florid? was she pale? But as he asked them of every body, nobody answered; yet all were in some dismay at a curiosity implying such entire ignorance, except Indiana, who could not, without simpering, foresee the amazement of her brother at her cousin's person and appearance.

'Here's a noble girl for you!' cried Sir Hugh, opening the door with a flourish; 'for all she's got so many best things, she's come down in her worst, for the sake of looking ill at the beginning, to the end that there may be no fault to be found afterwards; which is the wiseness that does honour to her education.'

This was, perhaps, the first time an harangue from the baronet had been thought too short; but the surprise of young Lynmere, at the view of his destined bride, made him wish he would speak on, merely to annul any necessity for speaking himself. Eugenia aimed in vain to recover the calmness of her nature, or to borrow what might resemble it from her notions of female dignity. The injudicious speech of Sir Hugh, but publicly forcing upon the whole party the settled purpose of the interview, covered her with blushes, and gave a tremor to her frame that obliged her precipitately to seat herself, while her joined hands supplicated his silence.

'Well, my dear, well!' said he, kissing her, 'don't let me vex you; what I said having no meaning, except for the best; though your cousin might as well have saluted you before you sat down, I think; which, however, I suppose may be out of fashion now, every thing changing since my time; which, Lord help me! it will take me long enough to learn.'

Lynmere noticed not this hint, and they all seated themselves round the breakfast table; Sir Hugh scarce able to refrain from crying for joy, and continually exclaiming: 'This is the happiest day of all my life, for all I've lived so long! To see us all together, at last, and my dear boy come home to his native old England!'

Miss Margland made the tea, and young Lynmere instantly and almost voraciously began eating of every thing that was upon the table. Indiana, when she saw her brother as handsome as her cousin was deformed, thought the contrast so droll, she could look at neither without tittering; Lavinia observed, with extreme concern, the visible distress of her sister; Dr. Orkborne forbore to ruminate upon his work, in expectation, every moment, of being called upon to converse with the learned young traveller; but Sir Hugh alone spoke, though his delight and his loquacity joined to his pleasure in remarking the good old English appetite which his nephew had brought with him from foreign parts, prevented his being struck with the general taciturnity.

The entrance of Mr. Tyrold proved a relief to all the party, though a pain to himself. He suffered in seeing the distressed confusion of Eugenia, and felt something little short of indignation at the supercilious air with which Clermont seemed to examine her; holding his head high and back, as if measuring his superior height, while every line round his mouth marked that ridicule was but suppressed by contempt.

When Sir Hugh, at length, observed that the young traveller uttered not a syllable, he exclaimed: 'Lord help us! what fools it makes of us, being overjoyed! here am I talking all the talk to myself, while my young scholar says nothing! which I take to be owing to my speaking only English; which, however, I should not do, if it was not for the misfortune of knowing no other, which I can't properly call a fault, being out of no idleness, as that gentleman can witness for me; for I'll warrant nobody's taken more pains; but our heads won't always do what we want.'

He then gave a long and melancholy detail of his studies and their failure.

When the carriage arrived with Camilla, young Lynmere loitered to a window, to look at it; Eugenia arose, meaning to seize the opportunity to escape to her room; but seeing him turn round upon her moving, she again sat down, experiencing, for the first time, a sensation of shame for her lameness, which, hitherto, she had regularly borne with fortitude, when she had not forgotten from indifference: neither did she feel spirits to exhibit, again, before his tall and strikingly elegant figure, her diminutive little person.

Camilla entered with traces of a disordered mind too strongly marked in her countenance to have escaped observation, had she been looked at with any attention. But Eugenia and Lynmere ingrossed all eyes and all thoughts. Even herself, at first sight of the husband elect of her sister, lost, for a moment, all personal consideration, and looked at him only with the interesting idea of the future fate of Eugenia. But it was only for a moment; when she turned round, and saw nothing of Edgar, when her uncle's inquiry what had become of him convinced her he was gone elsewhere, her heart sunk, she felt sick, and would have glided out of the room, had not Sir Hugh, thinking her faint for want of her breakfast, begged Miss Margland to make her some fresh tea; adding, 'As this is a day in which I intend us all to be happy alike, I beg nobody will go out of the room, for the sake of our enjoying it all together.'

This summons to happiness produced the usual effect of such calls; a general silence, succeeded by a general yawning, and a universal secret wish of separation, to the single exception of Sir Hugh, who, after a pause, said, 'Why nobody speaks but me! which I really think odd enough. However, my dear nephew, if you don't care for our plain English conversation, which, indeed, after all your studies, one can't much wonder at, nobody can be against you and the Doctor jabbering together a little of your Greek and Latin.'

Lynmere, letting fall his bread upon the table, leaned back in his chair, and, sticking his hands in his side, looked at his uncle with an air of astonishment.

'Nay,' continued the baronet, 'I don't pretend I should be much the wiser for it; however, it's what I've no objection to hear: so come, Doctor! you're the oldest; break the ice!'

A verse of Horace with which Dr. Orkborne was opening his answer, was stopt short, by the eager manner in which Lynmere re-seized his bread with one hand, while, with the other, to the great discomposure of the exact Miss Margland, he stretched forth for the tea-pot, to pour out a bason of tea; not ceasing the libation till the saucer itself, overcharged, sent his beverage in trickling rills from the tablecloth to the floor.

The ladies all moved some paces from the table, to save their clothes; and Miss Margland reproachfully inquired if she had not made his tea to his liking.

'Don't mind it, I beg, my dear boy,' cried Sir Hugh; 'a little slop's soon wiped up; and we're all friends: so don't let that stop your Latin.'

Lynmere, noticing neither the Latin, the mischief, nor the consolation, finished his tea in one draught, and then said: 'Pray, sir, where do you keep all your newspapers?'

'Newspapers, my dear nephew? I've got no newspapers: what would you have us do with a mere set of politics, that not one of us understand, in point of what may be their true drift; now we're all met together o'purpose to be comfortable?'

'No newspapers, sir?' cried Lynmere, rising, and vehemently ringing the bell; and, with a scornful laugh, adding, half between his teeth, 'Ha! ha! live in the country without newspapers! a good joke, faith!'

A servant appearing, he gave orders for all the morning papers that could be procured.

Sir Hugh looked much amazed; but presently, starting up, said, 'My dear nephew, I believe I've caught your meaning, at last; for if you mean, as I take for granted, that we're all rather dull company, why I'll take your hint, and leave you and a certain person together, to make a better acquaintance; which you can't do so well while we're all by, on account of modesty.'

Eugenia, frightened almost to sickness, [was] caught by her two sisters; and Mr. Tyrold, tenderly compassionating her apprehensions, whispered to Sir Hugh to dispense with a tête-à-tête so early: and, taking her hand, accompanied her himself to her room, composing, and re-assuring her by the way.

Sir Hugh, though vexed, then followed, to issue some particular orders; the rest of the party dispersed, and young Lynmere remained with his sister.

Walking on tiptoe to the door, he shut it, and put his ear to the key-hole, till he no longer heard any footstep. Turning then hastily round, he flung himself, full length, upon a sofa, and burst into so violent a fit of laughter, he was forced to hold his sides.

Indiana, tittering, said, 'Well, brother, how do you like her?'

'Like her!' he repeated, when able to speak; 'why the old gentleman doats! He can never, else, seriously suppose I'll marry her.'

'He! he! he! yes, but he does, indeed, brother. He's got every thing ready.'

'Has he, faith?' cried Lynmere, again rolling on the sofa, almost suffocated with violent laughter: from which, suddenly recovering, he started up to stroam to a large looking-glass, and, standing before it, in an easy and most assured attitude, 'Much obliged to him, 'pon honour!' he exclaimed: 'Don't you think,' turning carelessly, yet in an elegant position, round to his sister, 'don't you think I am, Indiana?'

'Me, brother? la! I'm sure I think she's the ugliest little fright, poor thing! I ever saw in the world, poor thing! such a little, short, dumpty, hump backed, crooked, limping figure of a fright … poor thing!'

'Yes, yes,' cried he, changing his posture, but still undauntedly examining himself before the glass, 'he has taken amazing care of me, I confess; matched me most exactly!'

Then sitting down, as if to consider the matter more seriously, he took Indiana by the arm, and, with some displeasure, said, 'Why, what does the old quoz mean? Does he want me to toss him in a blanket?'

Indiana tittered more than ever at this idea, till her brother angrily demanded of her, why she had not written herself some description of this young Hecate, to prepare him for her sight? Sir Hugh having merely given him to understand that she was not quite beautiful.

Indiana had no excuse to plead, but that she did not think of it. She had, indeed, grown up with an aversion to writing, in common with whatever else gave trouble, or required attention; and her correspondence with her brother rarely produced more than two letters in a year, which were briefly upon general topics, and read by the whole family.

She now related to him the history of the will, and the vow, which only in an imperfect, and but half-credited manner had reached him.