Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth

But this composure outlived not the first hours of the morning; as they vainly advanced, producing no loved presence, no letter, no summons; solicitude revived, disappointment sunk her heart, and dread preyed again upon her nerves. She started at every sound; every breath of wind seemed portentous; she listened upon the stairs; she dragged her feeble limbs to the parlour, to be nearer at hand; she forced them back again to her bed-room, to strain her aching eyes out of the window; but still no voice demanded her, and no person approached.

Peggy, who repeatedly came to tell her the hour, now assured her it was dinner time: unable to eat, she was heedless of the hint this conveyed, and it obtained from her no orders, till Peggy gave her innocently to understand the expectations of her host and hostess; but when, at five o'clock, the table was served, all force and courage forsook her. To be left thus to herself, when her situation was known; to be abandoned at an inn where she had confessed she thought herself dying; 'My Mother,' she cried, 'cannot forgive me! my Father himself deserts me! O Edgar! you did well to fly so unhallowed a connexion!'

She left her dinner for Peggy, and crawling up stairs, cast herself upon the bed, with a desperate supplication she might rise from it no more. 'The time,' cried she, 'is past for consolation, and dead for hope! my parents' own prayers have been averted, and their prognostics fulfilled. May the dread forfeiture, said my dearest Father, not extend through my daughters! – Alas! Lionel himself has not brought upon him a disgrace such as I have done! —May Heaven, said my honoured Mother, spare me evil under your shape at least! – but under that it has come to her the most heavily!'

Dissolving, then, in sorrowing regret, recollections of maternal tenderness bathed her pillow with her tears, and reversing all the inducements to her sad resignation, abolished every wish but to fall again at the parental feet. 'To see,' cried she, 'once more, the dear authors of my being! to receive their forgiveness, their blessing … to view again their honoured countenances! – to hear once more their loved speech… Alas! was it I that fled the voice of my Mother? That voice which, till that moment, had been music to my mind! and never reached my ear, but as the precursor of all kindness! why did I not sooner at once kneel at her feet, and seek my lost path under my first and best guide?'

Shocked and contrite in this tardy view of the step she ought to have taken, she now languished to petition for pardon even for an offence unknown; and rising, took up a pen to relate the whole transaction. But her head was confused, and the attempt shewed her she was more ill than she had even herself suspected. She thought all rapidly advancing, and enthusiastically rejoiced.

Yet a second time she took the pen; but it had not touched the paper, when a buzzing, confused, stifled sort of noise from without drew her to the window.

She then perceived an immense crowd of people approaching slowly, and from a distance, towards the inn.

As they advanced, she was struck to hear no encrease of noise, save from the nearer trampling of feet. No voice was distinguishable; no one spoke louder than the rest; they seemed even to tread the ground with caution. They consisted of labourers, workmen, beggars, women, and children, joined by some accidental passengers: yet the general 'hum of many' was all that was heard; they were silent though numerous, solemn though mixt.

As they came near, she thought she perceived something in the midst of them like a bier, and caught a glimpse of a gentleman's habit. Startled, she drew in; but soon, upon another view, discerned clearly a well-dressed man, stretched out his full length, and apparently dead.

Recoiling, shuddering, she hastily shut the window, 'Yet why,' she cried, the next moment, 'and whence this emotion? Is not death what I am meeting? – seeking? – desiring? – what I court? what I pray for?'

She sighed, walked feebly up and down the room, breathed hard and with effort, and then forced herself again to open the window, determined to contemplate steadily the anticipating object of her fervent demand.

Yet not without severe self-compulsion she flung up again the sash; but when she looked out, the crowd alone remained; the bier was gone.

Whether carried on, or brought into the house, she now wished to know, with some particulars, of whom it might be, and what belonged to so strange and horrible an appearance.

She rang for little Peggy; but Peggy came not. She rang again, but no one answered the bell. She opened her door, meaning to descend to her little parlour for information; but the murmuring buzz she had before heard upon the road, was now within the house, which seemed filled with people, all busy and occupied, yet speaking low, and appearing to partake of a general awe.

She could not venture to encounter so many spectators; she shut her door, to wait quietly till this first commotion should be passed.

This was not for more than an hour; when observing, from her window, that the crowd was dispersed, she again listened at the door, and found that the general disturbance was succeeded by a stillness the most profound.

She then rang again, and little Peggy appeared, but looking pale and much frightened.

Camilla asked what had been the matter.

'O ma'am,' she answered, crying, 'here's been murder! A gentleman has been murdered – and nobody knows who he is, nor who has done it!'

She then related that he had been found dead in a wood hard by, and one person calling another, and another, he had been brought to the inn to be owned.

'And is he here now?' with an involuntary shudder asked Camilla.

Yes, she answered, but her mistress had ordered her not to own it, for fear of frightening the young lady; and said he would soon be carried away.

The tale was shocking, and, though scarce conscious why, Camilla desired Peggy to stay with her.

The little girl was most willing; but she was presently called down stairs; and Camilla, with strong shame of nameless fears and weak horrour, strove to meditate to some use upon this scene.

But her mind was disturbed, her composure was gone; her thoughts were broken, abrupt, unfixed, and all upon which she could dwell with any steadiness, was the desire of one more appeal to her family, that yet they would consent to see her, if they received it in time; or that they should know in what frame of mind she expired, should it bring them too late.

With infinite difficulty, she then wrote the following lines; every bending down of her head making it ache nearly to distraction.

'Adieu, my dearest parents, if again it is denied me to see you! Adieu, my darling sisters! my tender uncle! I ask not now your forgiveness; I know I shall possess it fully; my Father never withheld it, – and my Mother, if against herself alone I had sinned, would have been equally lenient; would have probed but to heal, have corrected, but to pardon. O tenderest of united partners! bless, then, the early ashes of your erring, but adoring daughter, who, from the moment she inflicted one wound upon your bosoms, has found existence intolerable, and prays now but for her earthly release!

'Camilla Tyrold.'

This she gave to Peggy, with a charge that, at any expence, it might be conveyed to the rectory at Etherington immediately.

'And shall I not,' thought she, when she had rested from this exertion, 'and may I not at such a period, with innocence, with propriety, write one poor word to him who was so near becoming first to me in all things?'

She again took her pen, but had only written 'O Edgar! in this last farewell be all displeasure forgotten! – from the first to the final moment of my short life, dear and sole possessor of my heart!' – when the shooting anguish of her head stopt her hand, and hastily writing the direction, lest she could write no more, she, with difficulty added, 'Not to be delivered till I am dead;' and was forced to lie down, and shut all light from her strained and aching eyes.

Peggy presently brought her word that all the horses were out, and every body was engaged, and that the note could not possibly go till the next day.

Extremely disappointed, she begged to speak with Mrs. Marl; who sent her word she was much engaged, but would wait upon her as soon as she was able.

Vainly, however, she expected her; it grew dusk; she felt herself worse every moment; flushed with fever, or shivering with cold, and her head nearly split asunder with agony. She determined to go once more down stairs, and offer to her host himself any reward he could claim, so he would undertake the immediate delivery of the letter.

With difficulty she arose; with slow steps, and tottering, she descended; but as she approached her little parlour, she heard voices in it, and stopt. They spoke low, and she could not distinguish them. The door of an adjoining room was open, and by its stillness empty; she resolved to ring there, to demand to speak with Mr. Marl. But as she dragged her weak limbs into the apartment, she saw, stretched out upon a large table, the same form, dress, and figure she had seen upon the bier.

Starting, almost fainting, but too much awed to call out, she held trembling by the door.

The bodily feebleness which impeded her immediate retreat, gave force to a little mental reflexion: Do I shrink thus, thought she, from what so earnestly I have prayed to become … and so soon I must represent … a picture of death?

She now impelled herself towards the table. A cloth covered the face; she stood still, hesitating if she had power to remove it: but she thought it a call to her own self-examination; and though mentally recoiling, advanced. When close to the table, she stood still, violently trembling. Yet she would not allow herself to retreat. She now put forth her hand; but it shook suspended over the linen, without courage to draw it aside. At length, however, with enthusiastic self-compulsion, slightly and fearfully, she lifted it up … but instantly, and with instinctive horrour, snatched her hand away, and placed it before her shut eyes.

She felt, now, she had tried herself beyond her courage, and, deeply moved, was fain to retreat; but in letting down her hand, to see her way, she found she had already removed the linen from a part of the face, and the view she unintentionally caught almost petrified her.

For some instants she stood motionless, from want of strength to stir, but with closed eyes, that feared to confirm their first surmise; but when, turning from the ghastly visage, she attempted, without another glance, to glide away, an unavoidable view of the coat, which suddenly she recognized, put her conjecture beyond all doubt, that she now saw dead before her the husband of her sister.

Resentment, in gentle minds, however merited and provoked, survives not the breath of the offender. With the certainty no further evil can be practised, perishes vengeance against the culprit, though not hatred of the guilt: and though, with the first movement of sisterly feelings, she would have said, Is Eugenia then released? the awe was too great, his own change was too solemn. He was now where no human eye could follow, no human judgment overtake him.

Again she endeavoured to escape the dreadful scene, but her shaking limbs were refractory, and would not support her. The mortal being requires use to be reconciled to its own visible mortality; dismal is its view; grim, repulsive, terrific its aspect.

But no sooner was her head turned from the dire object, than alarm for her sister took possession of her soul; and with what recollection she possessed, she determined to go to Belfont.

An idea of any active service invigorates the body as well as the mind. She made another effort to depart, but a glance she knew not how to avoid shewed her, upon the coat of the right arm and right side of this ghastly figure, large splashes of blood.

With horrour thus accumulate, she now sunk upon the floor, inwardly exclaiming: He is murdered indeed!.. and where may be Eugenia?

A woman who had in charge to watch by the corpse, but who had privately stolen out for some refreshment, now returning, saw with affright the new person in the room, and ran to call Mrs. Marl; who, alarmed also at the sight of the young lady, and at her deplorable condition, assisted the woman to remove her from the apartment, and convey her to the chamber, where she was laid down upon the bed, though she resisted being undressed, and was seized with an aguish shivering fit, while her eyes seemed emitting sparks of fire.

'It is certainly now,' cried she, 'over, and hence I move no more!'

The joy with which, a few minutes before, she would have welcomed such a belief, was now converted into an awe unspeakable, undefinable. The wish of death is commonly but disgust of life, and looks forward to nothing further than release from worldly care: – but the something yet beyond … the something unknown, untried, yet to come, the bourne whence no traveller returns to prepare succeeding passengers for what they may expect, now abruptly presented itself to her consideration, … but came to scare, not to soothe.

All here, she cried, I have wished to leave … but … have I fitted myself for what I am to meet?

Conscience now suddenly took the reins from the hands of imagination, and a mist was cleared away that hitherto, obscuring every duty by despondence, had hidden from her own perceptions the faulty basis of her desire. Conscience took the reins – and a mist was cleared away that had concealed from her view the cruelty of this egotism.

Those friends, it cried, which thus impatiently thou seekest to quit, have they not loved, cherished, reared thee with the most exquisite care and kindness? If they are offended, who has offended them? If thou art now abandoned, may it not be from necessity, or from accident? When thou hast inflicted upon them the severe pain of harbouring anger against what is so dear to them, wouldst thou load them with regret that they manifested any sensibility of thy errours? Hast thou plunged thy house in calamity, and will no worthier wish occur to thee, than to leave it to its sorrows and distress, with the aggravating pangs of causing thy afflicting, however blamable self-desertion? of coming to thee … perhaps even now!.. with mild forgiveness, and finding thee a self-devoted corpse? – not fallen, indeed, by the profane hand of daring suicide, but equally self-murdered through wilful self-neglect.

Had the voice been allowed sound which spoke this dire admonition, it could scarcely with more horrour, or keener repentance have struck her. 'That poor man,' she cried, 'now delivering up his account, by whatever hand he perished, since less principled, less instructed than myself, may be criminal, perhaps, with less guilt!'

The thought now of her Father, – the piety he had striven to inculcate into her mind; his resignation to misfortune, and his trust through every suffering, all came home to her heart, with religious veneration; and making prayer succeed to remorse, guided her to what she knew would be his guidance if present, and she desired to hear the service for the sick.

Peggy could not read; Mrs. Marl was too much engaged; the whole house had ample employment, and her request was unattainable.

She then begged they would procure her a prayer-book, that she might try to read herself; but her eyes, heavy, aching, and dim, glared upon the paper, without distinguishing the print from the margin.

'I am worse!' she cried faintly, 'my wish comes fast upon me! Ah! not for my punishment let it finally arrive!'

With terror, however, even more than with malady, she now trembled. The horrible sight she had witnessed, brought death before her in a new view. She feared she had been presumptuous; she felt that her preparations had all been worldly, her impatience wholly selfish. She called back her wish, with penitence and affright: her agitation became torture, her regret was aggravated to remorse, her grief to despair.

CHAPTER X

A Vision

When the first violence of this paroxysm of sorrow abated, Camilla again strove to pray, and found that nothing so much stilled her. Yet, her faculties confused, hurried, and in anguish, permitted little more than incoherent ejaculations. Again she sighed for her Father; again the spirit of his instructions recurred, and she enquired who was the clergyman of the parish, and if he would be humane enough to come and pray by one who had no claim upon him as a parishioner.

Peggy said he was a very good gentleman, and never refused even the poorest person, that begged his attendance.

'O go to him, then,' cried she, 'directly! Tell him a sick and helpless stranger implores that he will read to her the prayers for the dying!.. Should I yet live … they will compose and make me better; – if not … they will give me courage for my quick exit.'

Peggy went forth, and she lay her beating head upon the pillow, and endeavoured to quiet her nerves for the sacred ceremony she demanded.

It was dark, and she was alone; the corpse she had just quitted seemed still bleeding in full view. She closed her eyes, but still saw it; she opened them, but it was always there. She felt nearly stiff with horrour, chilled, frozen, with speechless apprehension.

A slumber, feverish nearly to delirium, at length surprised her harassed faculties; but not to afford them rest. Death, in a visible figure, ghastly, pallid, severe, appeared before her, and with its hand, sharp and forked, struck abruptly upon her breast. She screamed – but it was heavy as cold, and she could not remove it. She trembled; she shrunk from its touch; but it had iced her heart-strings. Every vein was congealed; every stiffened limb stretched to its full length, was hard as marble: and when again she made a feeble effort to rid her oppressed lungs of the dire weight that had fallen upon them, a voice hollow, deep, and distant, dreadfully pierced her ear, calling out: 'Thou hast but thy own wish! Rejoice, thou murmurer, for thou diest!' Clearer, shriller, another voice quick vibrated in the air: 'Whither goest thou,' it cried, 'and whence comest thou?'

A voice from within, over which she thought she had no controul, though it seemed issuing from her vitals, low, hoarse, and tremulous, answered, 'Whither I go, let me rest! Whence I come from let me not look back! Those who gave me birth, I have deserted; my life, my vital powers I have rejected.' Quick then another voice assailed her, so near, so loud, so terrible … she shrieked at its horrible sound. 'Prematurely,' it cried, 'thou art come, uncalled, unbidden; thy task unfulfilled, thy peace unearned. Follow, follow me! the Records of Eternity are opened. Come! write with thy own hand thy claims, thy merits to mercy!' A repelling self-accusation instantaneously overwhelmed her. 'O, no! no! no!' she exclaimed, 'let me not sign my own miserable insufficiency!' In vain was her appeal. A force unseen, yet irresistible, impelled her forward. She saw the immense volumes of Eternity, and her own hand involuntarily grasped a pen of iron, and with a velocity uncontroulable wrote these words: 'Without resignation, I have prayed for death: from impatience of displeasure, I have desired annihilation: to dry my own eyes, I have left … pitiless, selfish, unnatural!.. a Father the most indulgent, a Mother almost idolizing, to weep out their's!' Her head would have sunk upon the guilty characters; but her eye-lids refused to close, and kept them glaring before her. They became, then, illuminated with burning sulphur. She looked another way; but they partook of the same motion; she cast her eyes upwards, but she saw the characters still; she turned from side to side; but they were always her object. Loud again sounded the same direful voice: 'These are thy deserts; write now thy claims: – and next, – and quick, – turn over the immortal leaves, and read thy doom…' 'Oh, no!' she cried, 'Oh, no!.. O, let me yet return! O, Earth, with all thy sorrows, take, take me once again, that better I may learn to work my way to that last harbour, which rejecting the criminal repiner, opens its soft bosom to the firm, though supplicating sufferer!' In vain again she called; – pleaded, knelt, wept in vain. The time, she found, was past; she had slighted it while in her power; it would return to her no more; and a thousand voices at once, with awful vibration, answered aloud to every prayer, 'Death was thy own desire!' Again, unlicensed by her will, her hand seized the iron instrument. The book was open that demanded her claims. She wrote with difficulty … but saw that her pen made no mark! She looked upon the page, when she thought she had finished, … but the paper was blank!.. Voices then, by hundreds, by thousands, by millions, from side to side, above, below, around, called out, echoed and re-echoed, 'Turn over, turn over … and read thy eternal doom!' In the same instant, the leaf, untouched, burst open … and … she awoke. But in a trepidation so violent, the bed shook under her, the cold sweat, in large drops, fell from her forehead, and her heart still seemed labouring under the adamantine pressure of the inflexibly cold grasp of death. So exalted was her imagination, so confused were all her thinking faculties, that she stared with wild doubt whether then, or whether now, what she experienced were a dream.

In this suspensive state, fearing to call, to move, or almost to breathe, she remained, in perfect stillness, and in the dark, till little Peggy crept softly into the chamber.

Certain then of her situation, 'This has been,' she cried, 'only a vision – but my conscience has abetted it, and I cannot shake it off.'

When she became calmer, and further recollected herself, she anxiously enquired if the clergyman would not come.

Peggy, hesitatingly, acknowledged he had not been sent for; her mistress had imagined the request proceeded from a disturbance of mind, owing to the sight of the corpse, and said she was sure, after a little sleep, it would be forgotten.

'Alas!' said Camilla, disappointed, 'it is more necessary than ever! my senses are wandering; I seem hovering between life and death – Ah! let not my own fearful fancies absorb this hour of change, which religious rites should consecrate!'

She then told Peggy to plead for her to her mistress, and assure her that nothing else, after the dreadful shock she had received, could still her mind.

Mrs. Marl, not long after came into the room herself; and enquiring how she did, said, if she was really bent upon such a melancholy thing, the clergyman had luckily just called, and would read the service to her directly, if it would give her any comfort.

'O, great and infinite comfort!' she cried, and begged he might come immediately, and read to her the prayer for those of whom there is but small hope of recovery. She would have risen, that she might kneel; but her limbs would not second her desire, and she was obliged to lie still upon the outside of the bed. Peggy drew the curtains, to shade her eyes, as a candle was brought into the room; but when she heard Mrs. Marl say: 'Come in, Sir,' – and 'here's the prayer-book;' overpowered with tender recollection of her Father, to whom such offices were frequent, she burst into an agony of tears, and hid her face upon the pillow.

She soon, however, recovered, and the solemnity of the preparation overawed her sorrow. Mrs. Marl placed the light as far as possible from the bed, and when Camilla waved her hand in token of being ready, said, 'Now, Sir, if you please.'

He complied, though not immediately; but no sooner had he begun, no sooner devoutly, yet tremblingly, pronounced, O Father of Mercies! than a faint scream issued from the bed. —

He stopt; but she did not speak; and after a short pause, he resumed: but not a second sentence was pronounced when she feebly ejaculated, 'Ah heaven!' and the book fell from his hands.

She strove to raise her head; but could not; she opened, however, the side curtain, to look out; he advanced, at the same moment, to the foot of the bed … fixed his eyes upon her face, and in a voice that seemed to come from his soul, exclaimed, 'Camilla!'

With a mental emotion that, for an instant, restored her strength, she drew again the curtain, covered up her face, and sobbed even audibly, while the words, 'O Edgar!' vainly sought vent.