Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth
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In the excess of his tribulation, he was galloping past the whole group, without discerning one of its figures; when Sir Hugh called out, 'Why it's young Mr. Edgar! So now we've walked all this way for nothing! and Clermont may be still at Jericho, or at Rome, for anything we know to the contrary!'
Edgar stopt short. He felt himself shiver at sight of Camilla, but dismounted, gave his horse to his groom, and joined the party.
Eugenia recovering, now fearlessly looked up; but Camilla, struck and affected, shook in every limb, and was forced to hold by Lavinia.
Edgar called upon his utmost presence of mind to carry him through what he conceived to be a final trial. He spoke to Sir Hugh, and compelled himself to speak separately to every one else; but, when he addressed Camilla, to whom he said something not very distinctly, about Tunbridge, she curtsied to him slightly, and turned away, without making any answer. Her mind, taking suddenly a quick retrospection of all that had passed between them, presented him to her view as uncertain and delusive; and, casting upon him, internally, the whole odium of her present distress, and her feelings were so indignant, that, in her present desperate state, she deemed it beneath her to disguise them, either from himself or the world.
Edgar, to whose troubled imagination everything painted his rival, concluded the Major had been heard with favour; and his own adverse counsel was now recollected with resentment.
Sir Hugh, far more fatigued by his disappointment than by his walk, said he should go no further, as he found it in vain to expect Clermont; and accepted the arm of Edgar to aid his stick in helping him home.
Camilla, still leaning upon Lavinia, mounted a little bank, which she knew Sir Hugh could not ascend, that she might walk on where Edgar could not join her; involuntarily ejaculating, 'Lavinia! if you would avoid deceit and treachery, look at a man as at a picture, which tells you only the present moment! Rely upon nothing of time to come! They are not like us, Lavinia. They think themselves free, if they have made no verbal profession; though they may have pledged themselves by looks, by actions, by attentions, and by manners, a thousand, and a thousand times!'
Edgar observed her avoidance with the keenest apprehension; and, connecting it with her failure at the Rooms, imagined the Major had now influenced her to an utter aversion of him.
Sir Hugh meanwhile, though wholly unheard, related, in a low voice, to Edgar, the history of his preparations for Clermont; begging him, however, to take no notice of them to Eugenia: and, then, adding, 'Very likely, Mr. Edgar, you are just come from Tunbridge? and, if so, you may have met with that young Captain that has been with us this morning; who, I understand to be a Major?'
Edgar was thrown into the utmost trepidation; the artless openness of Sir Hugh gave him every reason to suppose he should immediately gather full intelligence, and all his peace and all his hopes might hang upon another word. He could only bow to the question; but before Sir Hugh could go on, a butcher's boy, who was riding by, from a wanton love of mischief, gave a signal to his attending bull-dog, to attack the old spaniel that accompanied Sir Hugh.
Sustained by his master many a year, the proud old favourite, though unequal to the combat, disdained to fly; and the fierce bull-dog would presently have demolished him, had not Edgar, recovering all his vigour from his earnest desire to rescue an animal so dear to Sir Hugh, armed himself with the baronet's stick, and thrust it dexterously across the jaws of this intended antagonist.
Nothing, however, could withstand the fangs of the bull-dog; they soon severed it, and, again, he made at the spaniel; but Edgar rushed between them, with no other weapons than the broken fragments of the stick: and, while the baronet and Eugenia screamed out to old Rover to return to them, and Lavinia, with more readiness of common sense, exerted the fullest powers of which her gentle voice was capable, to conjure the wicked boy to call off his dog, Camilla, who was the last to look round at this scene, only turned about as the incensed and disappointed bull-dog, missing his object, aimed at Edgar himself. Roused at once from her sullen calm to the most agonising sensibility, every thing and every body, herself most of all, were forgotten in the sight of his danger; and, with a piercing shriek, she darted down the bank, and arrived at the tremendous spot, at the same instant that the more useful exhortations of Lavinia, had induced the boy to withdraw the fierce animal; who, with all his might, and all his fury, obeyed the weak whistle of a little urchin he had been bred to love and respect, for bringing him his daily food.
Camilla perceived not if the danger were impending, or over; gasping, pale, and agitated, she caught Mandlebert by the arm, and, in broken accents, half pronounced, 'O Edgar!.. are you hurt?'
The revulsion that had operated in her mind took now its ample turn in that of Mandlebert; he could hardly trust his senses, hardly believe he existed; yet he felt the pressure of her hand upon his arm, and saw in her countenance terror the most undisguised, and tenderness that went straight to his soul. 'Is it Camilla,' he cried, 'who thus speaks to me?.. Is not my safety or my destruction alike indifferent to Camilla?'
'O no! O no!' cried she, scarce conscious she answered at all, till called to recollection by his own changed looks; changed from incredulity and amazement to animation that lightened up every feature, to eyes that shot fire. Abashed, astonished, ashamed, she precipitately drew away her hand, and sought quietly to retire.
But Edgar was no longer master of himself; he conceived he was on a pinnacle, whence he could only, and without any gradation, turn to happiness or despair. He followed her, trembling and uncertain, his joy fading into alarm at her retreat, his hope transforming into apprehension at her resumed coldness of demeanor. 'Do you repent,' he cried, 'that you have shewn me a little humanity?.. will the Major … the happy Major!.. be offended you do less than detest me?'
'The Major!' repeated she, looking back, surprised, 'can you think the Major has any influence with me?'
'Ah, Heaven!' he cried, 'what do you say!..'
Enchanted, affrighted, bewildered, yet silent, she hurried on; Edgar could not forget himself more than a moment; he forbore, therefore, to follow, and, though with a self-denial next to torture, returned to Sir Hugh, to whom his arm was doubly necessary, from the scene he had just witnessed, and the loss of his stick.
The butcher's boy and his bull-dog were decamped; and the baronet and Eugenia were rivalling each other in fondling the rescued spaniel, and in pouring thanks and praise unlimited upon Edgar.
They then walked back as before; and, as soon as they re-entered the mansion, the female party went upstairs, and Sir Hugh, warmly shaking Edgar by the hand, said: 'My dear Mr. Edgar, this is one of the happiest days of my life, except just that of my nephew's coming over, which it is but right to put before it. But here, first, my dear Camilla's refused that young Captain, who would have carried her the Lord knows where, immediately, as I make no doubt; and next, I've saved the life of my poor old Rover, by the means of your good-nature.'
'Refused?' cried Edgar; 'my dear Sir Hugh! – did you say refused?'
Sir Hugh innocently gratified him with the repetition of the word, but begged him not to mention it, 'For fear,' he said, 'it should hurt the young man when he falls in love somewhere else; which I heartily hope he will do soon, poor gentleman! for the sake of its not fretting him.'
'Miss Camilla, then, has refused him?' again repeated Edgar, with a countenance that, to any man but the baronet, must have betrayed his whole soul.
'Yes, poor gentleman! this very morning; for which I am thankful enough: for what do we know of those young officers, who may all be sent to the East Indies, or Jamaica, every day of their lives? Not but what I have the proper pity for him, which, I hope, is all that can be expected.'
Edgar walked about the room, in a perturbation of hope, fear, and joy, that disabled him from all further appearance of attention. He wished to relate this transaction to Dr. Marchmont, yet dreaded any retarding advice; he languished to make Camilla herself the sole mistress of his destiny: the interest she had shewn for his safety seemed to admit but one interpretation; and, finally, he resolved to stay at Cleves till he could meet with her alone.
Camilla had not uttered a word after the adventure of the bull-dog. The smallest idea that she could excite the least emotion in Edgar, brought a secret rapture to her heart, that, at any former period, would alone have sufficed to render her happy: but, at this instant of entanglement with another, she revolted from the indulgence of such pleasure; and instead of dwelling, as she would have done before, on the look, the accent, the manner, that were susceptible, by any construction, of partiality, she checked every idea that did not represent Edgar as unstable and consistent; and sought, with all her power, to regard him as Mrs. Arlbery had painted him, and to believe him, except in a few casual moments of caprice, insensible and hard of heart.
Yet this entanglement, in which, scarce knowing how, she now seemed to be entwined with Sir Sedley, grew more and more terrific; and when she considered that her sisters themselves thought her independence gone, and her honour engaged, she was seized with so much wonderment, how it had all been brought about, that her understanding seemed to play her false, and she believed the whole a dream.
CHAPTER V
An Oak Tree
When the sisters were summoned down stairs to dinner, planted at the door, ready to receive them at their entrance, stood Edgar. Lavinia and Eugenia addressed him as usual; but Camilla could not speak, could not return his salutation, could not look at him. She sat hastily down in her accustomed place by her uncle, and even the presence of her father scarcely restrained her tears, as she contrasted the hopeless uncertainties of Edgar, with the perilous pursuit of Sir Sedley.
Edgar, for the first time, saw her avoidance without suspecting that it flowed from repugnance. The interest she had shewn for his safety was still bounding in his breast, and as, from time to time, he stole a glance at her, and observed her emotion, his heart whispered him the softest hopes, that soon the most perfect confidence would make every feeling reciprocal.
But these hopes were not long without alloy; he soon discerned something that far exceeded what could give him pleasure in her perturbation; he read in it not merely hurry and alarm, but suffering and distress.
He now ventured to look at her no more; his confidence gave place to pity; he saw she was unhappy, and breathed no present wish but to relieve and console her.
When the dessert was served, she was preparing to retire; but she caught the eye of her father, and saw she should not long be alone; she re-seated herself, therefore, in haste, to postpone, at least, his scrutiny.
Every body, at length, arose, and Sir Hugh proposed that they should all walk in the park, during his nap, but keep close to the pales, that they might listen for all passengers, in case of Clermont's coming.
To this, also, Camilla could make no objection, and they set out. She took an arm of each sister, and indulged the heaviness of her heart in not uttering a word.
They had not gone far, when a servant ran after Mr. Tyrold with a pacquet, just arrived, by a private hand, from Lisbon. He returned to read it in his own room; Lavinia and Eugenia accompanied him to hear its contents, and Camilla, for the first time, seemed the least affectionate of his daughters; she durst not encounter him but in the mixt company of all the house; she told Lavinia to make haste back with the news, and took the arm of Indiana.
The compulsion of uninteresting discourse soon became intolerable; and no longer chained to the party by the awe of her father, she presently left Indiana to Miss Margland, and perceiving that Edgar was conversing with Dr. Orkborne, said she would wait for her sisters; and, turning a little aside, sat down upon a bench under a large oak.
Here her painful struggle and unwilling forbearance ended; she gave free vent to her tears, and thought herself the most wretched of human beings; she found her heart, her aching heart, more than ever devoted to Mandlebert, filled with his image, revering his virtues, honouring even his coldness, from a persuasion she deserved not his affection, and sighing solely for the privilege to consign herself to his remembrance for life, though unknown to himself, and unsuspected by the world. The very idea of Sir Sedley was horror to her; she felt guilty to have involved herself in an intercourse so fertile of danger; she thought over, with severest repentance, her short, but unjustifiable deviation from that transparent openness, and undesigning plainness of conduct, which her disposition as much as her education ought to have rendered unchangeable. To that, alone, was owing all her actual difficulty, for to that alone was owing her own opinion of any claim upon her justice. How dearly, she cried, do I now pay for the unthinking plan with which I risked the peace of another, for the re-establishment of my own! She languished to throw herself into the arms of her father, to unbosom to him all her errors and distresses, and owe their extrication to his wisdom and kindness. She was sure he would be unmoved by the glare of a brilliant establishment, and that far from desiring her to sacrifice her feelings to wealth and shew, he would himself plead against the alliance when he knew the state of her mind, and recommend to her, so circumstanced, the single life, in the true spirit of Christian philosophy and moderation: but all was so closely interwoven in the affairs and ill conduct of her brother, that she believed herself engaged in honour to guard the fatal secret, though hazarding by its concealment impropriety and misery.
These afflicting ruminations were at length interrupted by the sound of feet; she took her handkerchief from her eyes, expecting to see her sisters; she was mistaken, and beheld Mandlebert.
She started and rose; she strove to chace the tears from her eyes without wiping them, and asked what he had done with Dr. Orkborne?
'You are in grief!' cried he in a tone of sympathy; 'some evil has befallen you!.. let me ask…'
'No; I am only waiting for my sisters. They have just received letters from Lisbon.'
'You have been weeping! you are weeping now! why do you turn away from me? I will not obtrusively demand your confidence … yet, could I give you the most distant idea what a weight it might remove from my mind, … you would find it difficult to deny yourself the pleasure of doing so much good!'
The tears of Camilla now streamed afresh. Words so kind from Edgar, the cold, the hard-hearted Edgar, surprised and overset her; yet she endeavoured to hide her face, and made an effort to pass him.
'Is not this a little unkind?' cried he, gravely; 'however, I have no claim to oppose you.'
'Unkind!' she repeated, and involuntarily turning to him, shewed a countenance so disconsolate, that he lost his self-control, and taking her reluctant hand, said: 'O Camilla! torture me no longer!'
Almost transfixed with astonishment, she looked at him for a moment in a speechless wonder; but the interval of doubt was short; the character of Edgar, for unalienable steadiness, unalterable honour, was fixed in her mind, like 'truths from holy writ,' and she knew, with certainty incontrovertible, that his fate was at her disposal, from the instant he acknowledged openly her power over his feelings.
Every opposite sensation, that with violence the most ungovernable could encounter but to combat, now met in her bosom, elevating her to rapture, harrowing her with terror, menacing even her understanding. The most exquisite wish of her heart seemed accorded at a period so nearly too late for its acceptance, that her faculties, bewildered, confused, deranged, lost the capacity of clearly conceiving if still she were a free agent or not.
He saw her excess of disorder with alarm; he sought to draw her again to her seat; but she put her hand upon her forehead, and leant it against the bark of the tree.
'You will not speak to me!' cried he; 'you will not trust me! shall I call you cruel? No! for you are not aware of the pain you inflict, the anguish you make me suffer! the generosity of your nature would else, unbidden, impulsively interfere.'
'You suffer! you!' cried she, again distressfully, almost incredulously, looking at him, while her hands were uplifted with amazement: 'I thought you above any suffering! superior to all calamity!.. almost to all feeling!..'
'Ah, Camilla! what thus estranges you from candor? from justice? what is it can prompt you to goad thus a heart which almost from its first beating…'
He stopt, desirous to check himself; while penetrated by his softness, and ashamed of what, in the bitterness of her spirit, she had pronounced, she again melted into tears, and sunk down upon the bench; yet holding out to him one hand, while with the other she covered her face: 'Forgive me,' she cried, 'I entreat … for I scarce know what I say.'
Such a speech, and so accompanied, might have demolished the stoicism of an older philosopher than Edgar; he fervently kissed her proferred hand, exclaiming: 'Forgive you! can Camilla use such a word? has she the slightest care for my opinion? the most remote concern for me, or for my happiness?'
'Farewell! farewell!' cried she, hastily drawing away her hand, 'go now, I beseech you!'
'What a moment to expect me to depart! O Camilla! my soul sickens of this suspence! End it, generous Camilla! beloved as lovely! my heart is all your own! use it gently, and accept it nobly!'
Every other emotion, now, in the vanquished Camilla, every retrospective fear, every actual regret, yielded to the conquering charm of grateful tenderness; and restoring the hand she had withdrawn: 'O Edgar,' she cried, 'how little can I merit such a gift! yet I prize it … far, far beyond all words!'
The agitation of Edgar was, at first, too mighty and too delicious for speech; but his eyes, now cast up to heaven, now fixed upon her own, spoke the most ardent, yet purest felicity; while her hand, now held to his heart, now pressed to his lips, strove vainly to recover its liberty. 'Blest moment!' he at length uttered, 'that finishes for every such misery of uncertainty! that gives my life to happiness … my existence to Camilla!'
Again speech seemed too poor for him. Perfect satisfaction is seldom loquacious; its character is rather tender than gay; and where happiness succeeds abruptly to long solicitude and sorrow, its enjoyment is fearful; it softens rather than exhilarates. Sudden joy is sportive, but sudden happiness is awful.
The pause, however, that on his side was ecstatic thankfulness, soon became mixt, on that of Camilla, with confusion and remorse: Sir Sedley returned to her memory, and with him every reflection, and every apprehension, that most cruelly could sully each trembling, though nearly gratified hope.
The cloud that so soon dimmed the transient radiance of her countenance, was instantly perceived by Edgar; but as he was beginning the most anxious inquiries, the two sisters approached, and Camilla, whose hand he then relinquished, rushed forward, and throwing her arms around their necks, wept upon their bosoms.
'Sweet sisters!' cried Edgar, embracing them all three in one; 'long may ye thus endearingly entwine each other, in the sacred links of affectionate affinity! Where shall I find our common father?.. where is Mr. Tyrold?'
The amazed sisters could with difficulty answer that he was with their uncle, to whom he was communicating news from their mother.
Edgar looked tenderly at Camilla, but, perceiving her emotion, forbore to speak to her, though he could not deny himself the pleasure of snatching one kiss of the hand which hung down upon the shoulder of Eugenia; he then whispered to both the sisters: 'You will not, I trust, be my enemies?' and hurried to the house.
'What can this mean?' cried Eugenia and Lavinia in a breath.
'It means,' said Camilla, 'that I am the most distressed … yet the happiest of human beings!'
This little speech, began with the deepest sigh, but finished with the most refulgent smile, only added to their wonder.
'I hope you have been consulting with Edgar,' said the innocent Eugenia; 'nobody can more ably advise you, since, in generosity to Lionel, you are prohibited from counselling with my father.'
Again the most expressive smiles played in every feature through the tears of Camilla, as she turned, with involuntary archness, to Eugenia, and answered: 'And shall I follow his counsel, my dear sister, if he gives me any?'
'Why not? he is wise, prudent, and much attached to us all. How he can have supposed it possible we could be his enemies, is past all divination!'
Gaiety was so truly the native growth of the mind of Camilla, that neither care nor affliction could chace it long from its home. The speeches of the unsuspicious Eugenia, that a moment before would have past unheeded, now regaled her renovated fancy with a thousand amusing images, which so vigorously struggled against her sadness and her terrors, that they were soon nearly driven from the field by their sportive assailants; and, by the time she reached her chamber, whither, lost in amaze, her sisters followed her, the surprise she had in store for them, the pleasure with which she knew they would sympathise in her happiness, and the security of Edgar's decided regard, had liberated her mind from the shackles of reminiscence, and restored her vivacity to its original spirit.
Fastening, then, her door, she turned to them with a countenance of the brightest animation; alternately and almost wildly embraced them, and related the explicit declaration of Edgar; now hiding in their bosoms the blushes of her modest joy, now offering up to Heaven the thanksgiving of her artless rapture, now dissolving in the soft tears of the tenderest sensibility, according to the quick changing impulses of her natural and lively, yet feeling and susceptible character. Nor once did she look at the reverse of this darling portrait of chosen felicity, till Eugenia, with a gentle sigh, uttered: 'Unhappy Sir Sedley Clarendel! how may this stroke be softened to him?'
'Ah Eugenia!' she cried; 'that alone is my impediment to the most perfect, the most unmixt content! why have you made me think of him?'
'My dear Camilla,' said Eugenia, with a look of curious earnestness, and taking both her hands, while she seemed examining her face, 'you are then, it seems, in love? and with Edgar Mandlebert?'
Camilla, blushing, yet laughing, broke away from her, denying the charge.
A consultation succeeded upon the method of proceeding with the young baronet. Tommy Hodd was not yet returned with the answer; it was five miles to Clarendel Place, which made going and returning his day's work. She resolved to wait but this one reply, and then to acknowledge to Edgar the whole of her situation. The delicacy of Lavinia, and the high honour of Eugenia, concurred in the propriety of this confession; and they all saw the urgent necessity of an immediate explanation with Sir Sedley, whose disappointment might every hour receive added weight from delay. Painful, therefore, confusing and distasteful, as was the task, Camilla determined upon the avowal, and as completely to be guided by Edgar in this difficult conjuncture, as if his advice were already sanctioned by conjugal authority.
CHAPTER VI
A Call of the House
Edgar returned to the parlour with a countenance so much brightened, a joy so open, a confidence so manly, and an air so strongly announcing some interesting intelligence, that his history required no prelude. 'Edgar,' said Mr. Tyrold, 'you have a look to disarm care of its corrosion. You could not take a better time to wear so cheering an aspect; I have just learnt that my wife can fix no sort of date for her return; I must borrow, therefore, some reflected happiness; and none, after my children, can bring its sunshine so home to my bosom as yourself.'