Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth

The note from Mrs. Berlinton contained a tender supplication for the return of Camilla, and a pressing and flattering invitation that her sister should join their little party, as the motives of honour and discretion which made her, at the request and for the sake of her brother, sacrifice her eagerness to be presented to Miss Lynmere, operated not to impede her acquaintance with Miss Eugenia.

This proposition had exquisite charms for Eugenia. To become acquainted with the sister of him to whom, henceforward, she meant to devote her secret thoughts, enchanted her imagination. Camilla, therefore, negotiated the visit with Miss Margland, who, though little pleased by this separate invitation, knew not how to refuse her concurrence; but Indiana, indignant that the sister of Melmond should not, first, have waited upon her, and solicited her friendship, privately resolved, in pique of this disrespect, to punish the brother with every rigour she could invent.

Camilla, upon her return, found Mrs. Mittin already deeply engaged in proposing an alteration in the dress of Eugenia, which she was aiding Molly Mill to accomplish; and so much she found to say and to do, to propose and to object to, to contrive and to alter, that, from the simplicity of the mistress, and the ignorance of the maid, the one was soon led to conclude she should have appeared improperly before Mrs. Berlinton, without such useful advice; and the other to believe she must shortly have lost her place, now her young lady was come forth into the world, if she had not thus miraculously met with so good a friend.

During these preparations, Camilla was summoned back to the dining-room to receive Mr. Westwyn.

She did not hear this call with serenity. The danger which, however unwittingly, she had caused his son, and the shocking circumstances which were its foundation, tingled her cheeks, and confounded her wish of making acknowledgments, with an horror that such an obligation could be possible.

The door of the dining-room was open, and as soon as her steps were heard, Mr. Westwyn came smiling forth to receive her. She hung back involuntarily; but, pacing up to her, and taking her hand, 'Well, my good young lady,' he cried, 'I have brought you my son; but he's no boaster, that I can assure you, for though I told him how you wanted him to come to you, and was so good as to say you were so much obliged to him, I can't make him own he has ever seen you in his life; which I tell him is carrying his modesty over far; I don't like affectation … I have no taste for it.'

Camilla, discovering by this speech, as well as by his pleased and tranquil manner, that he had escaped hearing of the intended duel, and that his son was still ignorant whose cause he had espoused, ardently wished to avert farther shame by concealing herself; and, step by step, kept retreating back towards the room of Eugenia; though she could not disengage her hand from the old gentleman, who, trying to draw her on, said: 'Come, my dear! don't go away. Though my son won't confess what he has done for you, he can't make me forget that you were such a dear soul as to tell me yourself, of his good behaviour, and of your having such a kind opinion of him. And I have been telling him, and I can assure you I'll keep my word, that if he has done a service to the niece of my dear old friend, Sir Hugh Tyrold, it shall value him fifty pound a-year more to his income, if I straighten myself never so much. For a lad, that knows how to behave in that manner, will never spend his money so as to make his old father ashamed of him. And that's a good thing for a man to know.'

'Indeed, sir, this is some mistake,' said the young man himself, now advancing into the passage, while Camilla was stammering out an excuse from entering; 'it's some great mistake; I have not the honour to know…'

He was going to add Miss Tyrold, but he saw her at the same moment, and instantly recollecting her face, stopt, blushed, and looked amazed.

The retreating effort of Camilla, her shame and her pride, all subsided by his view, and gave place to the more generous feelings of gratitude for his intuitive good opinion, and emotion for the risk he had run in her defence: and with an expression of captivating sweetness in her eyes and manner, 'That you did not know me,' she cried, 'makes the peculiarity of your goodness, which, indeed, I am more sensible to than I can express.'

'Why, there! there, now! there!' cried Mr. Westwyn, while his son, enchanted to find whose character he had sustained, bowed almost to the ground with respectful gratitude for such thanks; 'only but listen! she says the very same things to your face, that she said behind your back! though I am afraid, it's only to please an old father; for if not, I can't for my life find out any reason why you should deny it. Come, Hal, speak out, Hal!'

Equally at a loss how either to avow or evade what had passed in the presence of Camilla, young Westwyn began a stammering and awkward apology; but Camilla, feeling doubly his forbearance, said: 'Silence may in you be delicate … but in me it would be graceless.' Then, turning from him to old Mr. Westwyn, 'you may be proud, sir,' she cried, 'of your son! It was the honour of an utter stranger he was protecting, as helpless as she was unknown at the time she excited his interest; nor had he even in view this poor mede he now receives of her thanks!'

'My dearest Hal!' cried Mr. Westwyn, wringing him by the hand; 'if you have but one small grain of regard for me, don't persist in denying this! I'd give the last hundred pounds I had in the world to be sure it was true!'

'That to hear the name of this lady,' said the young man, 'should not be necessary to inspire me with respect for her, who can wonder? that any opportunity could arise in which she should want defence, is all that can give any surprise.'

'You own it, then, my dear Hal? you own you've done her a kindness? why then, my dear Hal, you've done one to me! and I can't help giving you a hug for it, let who will think me an old fool.'

He then fervently embraced his son, who confused, though gratified, strove vainly to make disclaiming speeches. 'No, no, my dear Hal,' he cried, 'you sha'n't let yourself down with me again, I promise you, though you've two or three times tried to make me think nothing of you; but this young lady here, dear soul, speaks another language; she says I may be proud of my son! and I dare say she knows why, for she's a charming girl, as ever I saw; so I will be proud of my son! Poor dear Hal! thou hast got a good friend, I can tell thee, in that young lady! and she's niece to the best man I ever knew; and I value her good opinion more than anybody's.'

'You are much too good,' cried Camilla, in an accent of tender pleasure, the result of grateful joy, that she had not been the means of destroying the paternal happiness of so fond a father, joined to the dreadful certainty how narrowly she had escaped that misery; 'you are much too good, and I blush even to thank you, when I think – '

What she meant to add was in a moment forgotten, and that she blushed ceased to be metaphorical, when now, as they all three entered the dining-room together, the first object that met her eyes was Edgar.

Their eyes met not again; delighted and conscious, she turned hers hastily away. He comes, thought she, to [claim] me! he will not submit to the separation; he comes to re-assure me of his esteem, and to receive once more my faithful heart!

Edgar had seen, by chance, the Westwyns pass to the room of the Cleves party, and felt the most ardent desire to know if they would meet with Camilla, and what would be her reception of her young champion, whose sword, with extreme trouble, he had himself that morning sheathed, and whose gallantry he attributed to a vehement, however, sudden passion. Dr. Marchmont acknowledged the epoch to be highly interesting for observation, and, presuming upon their old right of intimacy with all the party, they abruptly made a second visit.

Miss Margland and Indiana, who were examining some goods sent by Mrs. Mittin, had received them all four without much mark of civility; and Mr. Westwyn immediately desired Camilla to be sent for, and kept upon the watch, till her step made him hasten out to meet her.

Edgar could not hear unmoved the dialogue which ensued; he imagined an amiable rival was suddenly springing up in young Westwyn, at the very moment of his own dismission, which he now even thought possible this incipient conquest had urged; and when Camilla, walking between the father and the son, with looks of softest sensibility, came into the room, he thought he had never seen her so lovely, and that her most bewitching smiles were purposely lavished for their captivation.

With this idea, he found it impossible to speak to her; their situation, indeed, was too critical for any common address, and when he saw that she turned from him, he attempted to converse with the other ladies upon their purchases; and Camilla, left to her two new beaux, had the unavoidable appearance of being engrossed by them, though the sight of Edgar instantly robbed them of all her real attention.

Soon after, the door was again opened, and Mr. Girt, the young perfumer, came, smirking and scraping, into the room, with a box of various toys, essences, and cosmetics, recommended by Mrs. Mittin.

Ignorant of the mischief he had done her, and not even recollecting to have seen him, Camilla made on to look at his goods; but Edgar, to whom his audacious assertions were immediately brought back by his sight, would have made him feel the effects of his resentment, had not his passion for Camilla been of so solid, as well as warm a texture, as to induce him to prefer guarding her delicacy, to any possible display he could make of his feelings to others, or even to herself.

Mr. Girt, in the midst of his exhibition of memorandum books, smelling bottles, tooth-pick cases, and pocket mirrours; with washes to immortalize the skin, powders becoming to all countenances, and pomatums to give natural tresses to old age, suddenly recollected Camilla. The gross mistake he had made he had already discovered, by having dodged her to the house of Mrs. Berlinton; but all alarm at it hid ceased, by finding, through a visit made to his shop by Mrs. Mittin, that she was uninformed he had propagated it. Not gifted with the discernment to see in the air and manner of Camilla her entire, though unassuming superiority to her accidental associate, he concluded them both to be relations of some of the upper domestics; and with a look and tone descending from the most profound adulation, with which he was presenting his various articles to Miss Margland and Indiana, into a familiarity the most facetious, 'O dear, ma'am,' he cried, 'I did not see you at first; I hope t'other lady's well that's been so kind as to recommend me? Indeed I saw her just now.'

Young Westwyn, to whom, as to Edgar, the bold defamation of Girt occurred with his presence, but whom none of the nameless delicacies of the peculiar situation, and peculiar character of Edgar, restrained into silence, felt such a disgust at the presumption of effrontery that gave him courage for this facetious address, to a young lady whose innocence of his ill usage made him think its injury double, that, unable to repress his indignation, he abruptly whispered in his ear, 'Walk out of the room, sir!'

The amazed perfumer, at this haughty and unexpected order, stared, and cried aloud, 'No offence, I hope, sir?'

Mr. Westwyn asked what was the matter? while Camilla, crimsoned by the familiar assurance with which she had been addressed, retired to a window.

'Nothing of any moment, sir,' answered Henry; and again, in a low but still more positive voice, he repeated his command to Girt.

'Sir, I'm not used to be used in this manner!' answered he, hardily, and hoping, by raising his tone, for the favourable intervention of the company.

Indiana, now, was preparing to scream, and Miss Margland was looking round to see whom she should reprehend; but young Westwyn, coolly opening the door, with a strong arm, and an able jerk, twisted the perfumer into the passage, saying, 'You may send somebody for your goods.'

Girt, who equally strong, but not equally adroit as Henry, strove in vain to resist, vowed vengeance for this assault. Henry, without seeming to hear him, occupied himself with looking at what he had left. Camilla felt her eyes suffuse with tears; and Edgar, for the first time in his life, found himself visited by the baleful passion of envy.

Miss Margland could not comprehend what this meant; Indiana comprehended but too much in finding there was some disturbance of which she was not the object; but Mr. Westwyn, losing his look of delight, said, with something of severity, 'Ha! what did you turn that man out of the room for?'

'He is perfectly aware of my reason, sir,' said Henry; and then added it was a long story, which he begged to relate another time.

The blank face of Mr. Westwyn shewed displeasure and mortification. He lifted the head of his cane to his mouth, and after biting it for some time, with a frowning countenance, muttered, 'I don't like to see a man turned out of a room. If he's done any harm, tell him so; and if it's worse than harm, souse him in a horsepond; I've no objection: But I don't like to see a man turned out of a room; it's very unmannerly; and I did not think Hal would do such a thing.' Then suddenly, and with a succinct bow, bidding them all good bye, he took a hasty leave; still, however, muttering, all the way along the passage, and down the stairs, loud enough to be heard: 'Kicking and jerking a man about does not prove him to be in the wrong. I thought Hal had been more of a gentleman. If I don't find the man turns out to be a rascal, Hal shall beg his pardon; for I don't like to see a man turned out of a room.'

Henry, whose spirit was as irritable as it was generous, felt acutely this public censure, which, though satisfied he did not deserve, every species of propriety prohibited his explaining away. With a forced smile, therefore, and a silent bow, he followed his father.

Miss Margland and Indiana now burst forth with a torrent of wonders, conjectures, and questions; but the full heart of Camilla denied her speech, and the carriage of Mrs. Berlinton being already at the door, she called upon Eugenia, and followed, perforce, by Mrs. Mittin, left the hotel.

Edgar and Dr. Marchmont gave neither surprise nor concern by retiring instantly to their own apartment.

'Dr. Marchmont,' said the former, in a tone of assumed moderation, 'I have lost Camilla! I see it plainly. This young man steps forward so gallantly, so ingenuously, nay so amiably, that the contrast … chill, severe, and repulsive … must render me … in this detestable state … insupportable to all her feelings. Dr. Marchmont! I have not a doubt of the event!'

'The juncture is, indeed, perilous, and the trial of extremest hazard; but it is such as draws all uncertainty to a crisis, and, therefore, is not much to be lamented. You may safely, I think, rest upon it your destiny. To a general female heart a duel is the most dangerous of all assaults, and the most fascinating of all charms; and a duellist, though precisely what a woman most should dread, as most exposing her to public notice, is the person of all others she can, commonly, least resist. By this test, then, prove your Camilla. Her champion seems evidently her admirer, and his father her adorer. Her late engagement with you may possibly not reach them; or reaching but with its dissolution, serve only to render them more eager.'

'Do you suppose him,' cried Edgar, after a pause of strong disturbance; 'do you suppose him rich?'

'Certainly not. That the addition of fifty pounds a-year to his income should be any object, proves his fortune to be very moderate.'

'Clear her, then, at least,' said he, with a solemnity almost reproachful; 'clear her, at least, of every mercenary charge! If I lose her …' he gasped for breath … 'she will not, you find, be bought from me! and pique, anger, injustice, nay inconstancy, all are less debasing than the sordid corruption of which you suspected her.'

'This does not, necessarily, prove her disinterested; she is too young, yet, to know herself the value she may hereafter set upon wealth. And, independent of that inexperience, there is commonly so little stability, so little internal hold, in the female character, that any sudden glare of adventitious lure, will draw them, for the moment, from any and every regular plan of substantial benefit. It remains, therefore, now to be tried, if Beech Park, and its master united, can vie with the bright and intoxicating incense of a life voluntarily risked, in support … not of her fair fame, that was unknown to its defender … but simply of the fair countenance which seemed its pledge.'

Edgar, heartless and sad, attempted no further argument; he thought the Doctor prejudiced against the merits of Camilla; yet it appeared, even to himself, that her whole conduct, from the short period of his open avowal, had seemed a wilful series of opposition to his requests and opinions. And while terror for surrounding dangers gave weight to his disapprobation of her visiting Southampton, with a lady she knew him to think more attractive than safe or respectable, her sufferance of the vulgar and forward Mrs. Mittin, with whom again he saw her quit the hotel, was yet more offensive, since he could conceive for it no other inducement than a careless, if not determined humour, to indulge every impulse, in equal contempt of his counsel, and her own reflection.

All blame, however, of Camilla, was short of his self-dissatisfaction, in the distance imposed upon him by uncertainty, and the coldness dictated by discretion. At a period so sensitive, when her spirit was alarmed, and her delicacy was wounded, that a stranger should start forward, to vindicate her innocence, and chastise its detractors, was singular, was unfortunate, was nearly intolerable; and he thought he could with thankfulness, have renounced half his fortune, to have been himself the sole protector of Camilla.

CHAPTER VIII

The Power of Prepossession

The two sisters were silent from the hotel to the house of Mrs. Berlinton… From the height of happiest expectation, raised by the quick return of Edgar, Camilla was sunk into the lowest despondence, by the abortive conclusion of the meeting: while Eugenia was absorbed in mute joy, and wrapt expectation. But Mrs. Mittin, undisturbed by the pangs of uncertainty, and unoccupied by any romantic persuasion of bliss, spoke amply, with respect to quantity, for all three.

Mrs. Berlinton, though somewhat struck at first sight of Eugenia, with her strange contrast to Camilla, received her with all the distinguishing kindness due to the sister of her friend.

She had the poems of Collins in her hand; and, at their joint desire, instead of putting the book aside, read aloud, and with tenderest accent, one of his most plaintive odes.

Eugenia was enraptured. Ah! thought she, this is indeed the true sister of the accomplished Melmond!.. She shall share with him my adoration. My heart shall be devoted … after my own dear family … to the homage of their perfections!

The ode, to her great delight, lasted till the dinner was announced, when Melmond appeared: but her prepossession could alone give any charm to his sight: he could barely recollect that he had seen her, or even Camilla before; he had conversed with neither; his eyes had been devoted to Indiana, and the despondence which had become his portion since the news of the marriage of his aunt, seemed but rendered the more peculiarly bitter, by this intimate connection with the family of an object so adored.

Yet, though nothing could be more spiritless than the hour of dinner, Eugenia discovered in it no deficiency; she had previously settled, that the presence of Melmond could only breathe sweets and perfection, and the magic of prejudice works every event into its own circle of expectation.

Melmond did not even accompany them back to the drawing-room. Eugenia sighed; but nobody heard her. Mrs. Mittin said, she had something of great consequence to do in her own room, and Mrs. Berlinton, to divert the languor she found creeping upon them all, had recourse to Hammond's elegies.

These were still reading, when a servant brought in the name of Lord Valhurst. 'O, deny me to him! deny me to him!' cried Mrs. Berlinton; ''tis a relation of Mr. Berlinton's, and I hate him.'

The order was given, however, too late; he entered the room.

The name, as Camilla knew it not, she had heard unmoved; but the sight of a person who had so largely contributed to shock and terrify her in the bathing-house, struck her with horror. Brought up with the respect of other times, she had risen at his entrance; but she turned suddenly round upon recollecting him, and instead of the courtsie she intended making, involuntarily moved away her chair from the part of the room to which he was advancing.

This was unnoticed by Mrs. Berlinton, whose chagrin at his intrusion made her wish to walk away also; while with Lord Valhurst it only passed, joined to her rising, for a mark of her being but little accustomed to company. That Eugenia rose too was not perceived, as she rather lost than gained in height by standing.

Most obsequiously, but most unsuccessfully, the peer made his court to Mrs. Berlinton; inquiring after her health, with fulsome tenderness, and extolling her good looks with nearly gross admiration. Mrs. Berlinton listened, for she was incapable of incivility; though, weary and disgusted, she seldom made the smallest answer.

The two sisters might, with ease, equally have escaped notice, since, though Mrs. Berlinton occasionally addressed them the peer never turned from herself, had not Mrs. Mittin, abruptly entering in search of a pair of scissors, perceived him, and hastily called out, 'O lauk, sir, if it is not you! I know you again well enough! But I hope, now you see us in such good company as this good lady's, you'll believe me another time, when I tell you we're not the sort of persons you took us for! Miss Tyrold, my dear, I hope you've spoke to the gentleman?'

Lord Valhurst with difficulty recollected Mrs. Mittin, from the very cursory view his otherwise occupied eyes had taken of her; but when the concluding words made him look at Camilla, whose youth and beauty were not so liable to be forgotten, he knew at once her associate, and was aware of the meaning of her harangue.

Sorry to appear before his fair kinswoman to any disadvantage, though by no means displeased at an opportunity of again seeing a young creature he had thought so charming, he began an apology to Mrs. Mittin, while his eyes were fixed upon Camilla, vindicating himself from every intention that was not respectful, and hoping she did not so much injure as to mistake him.

Mrs. Mittin was just beginning to answer that she knew better, when the words, 'Why, my Lord, how have you offended Mrs. Mittin?' dropping from Mrs. Berlinton, instantly new strung all her notions. To find him a nobleman was to find him innocent; for, though she did not quite suppose that a peer was not a mortal, she had never spoken to one before; and the power of title upon the ear, like that of beauty upon the eye, is, in its first novelty, all-commanding; manifold as are the drawbacks to the influence of either, when awe is lost by familiarity, and habitual reflection takes place of casual and momentary admiration. Title then, as well as beauty, demands mental auxiliaries; and those who possess either, more watched than the common race, seem of higher responsibility; but proportioned to the censure they draw where they err, is the veneration they inspire where their eminence is complete. Nor is this the tribute of prejudice, as those who look up to all superiority with envy love to aver; the impartial and candid reflectors upon human frailty, who, in viewing it, see with its elevation its surrounding temptations, will call it but the tribute of justice.

To Mrs. Mittin, however, the mere sound of a title was enough; she felt its ascendance without examining its claims, and, dropping the lowest courtsie her knees could support, confusedly said, she hoped his lordship would excuse her speaking so quick and improperly, which she only did from not knowing who he was; for, if she had known him better, she should have been sure he was too much the gentleman to do anything with an ill design.