Camilla or A Picture of Youth Part 101

Indiana, when she saw her brother as handsome as her cousin was deformed, thought the contrast so droll, she could look at neither without t.i.ttering; 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 appet.i.te 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 n.o.body'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 fort.i.tude, 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 n.o.body 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 n.o.body 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, n.o.body 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 compa.s.sionating her apprehensions, whispered to Sir Hugh to dispense with a _tete-a-tete_ so early: and, taking her hand, accompanied her himself to her room, composing, and re-a.s.suring 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, t.i.ttering, 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-gla.s.s, and, standing before it, in an easy and most a.s.sured att.i.tude, '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 gla.s.s, '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 t.i.ttered 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.

His laughter than gave place to a storm of rage. He called himself ruined, blasted, undone; and abused Sir Hugh as a good-for-nothing dotard, defrauding him of his just rights and expectations.

'Why, that's the reason,' said Indiana, 'he wants to marry you to cousin Eugenia; because, he says, it's to make you amends.'

This led him to a rather more serious consideration of the affair; for, he protested, the money was what he could not do without. Yet, again parading to the gla.s.s, 'What a shame, Indiana,' he cried, 'what a shame would it be to make such a sacrifice? If he'll only pay a trifle of money for me, and give me a few odd hundreds to begin with, I'll hold him quit of all else, so he'll but quit me of that wizen little stump.'

A newspaper, procured from the nearest public house, being now brought, he pinched Indiana by the chin, said she was the finest girl he had seen in England, and whistled off to his appointed chamber.

Clermont Lynmere so entirely resembled his sister in person, that now, in his first youth, he might almost have been taken for her, even without change of dress: but the effect produced upon the beholders bore not the same parallel: what in her was beauty in its highest delicacy, in him seemed effeminacy in its lowest degradation. The brilliant fairness of his forehead, the transparent pink of his cheeks, the pouting vermillion of his lips, the liquid l.u.s.tre of his languis.h.i.+ng blue eyes, the minute form of his almost infantine mouth, and the snowy whiteness of his small hands and taper fingers, far from bearing the attraction which, in his sister, rendered them so lovely, made him considered by his own s.e.x as an unmanly fop, and by the women, as too conceited to admire any thing but himself.

With respect to his understanding, his superiority over his sister was rather in education than in parts, and in practical intercourse with the world, than in any higher reasoning faculties. His character, like his person, wanted maturing, the one being as distinct from intellectual decision, as the other from masculine dignity. He had youth without diffidence, sprightliness without wit, opinion without judgment, and learning without knowledge. Yet, as he contemplated his fine person in the gla.s.s, he thought himself without one external fault; and, early cast upon his own responsibility, was not conscious of one mental deficiency.

CHAPTER IX

_Offs and Ons_

Mr. Tyrold left Eugenia to her sisters, unwilling to speak of Lynmere till he had seen something more of him. Sir Hugh, also, was going, for he had no time, he said, to lose in his preparations: but Eugenia, taking his arm, besought that nothing of that kind might, at present, be mentioned.

'Don't trouble yourself about that, my dear,' he answered; 'for it's what I take all into my own hands; your cousin being a person that don't talk much; by which, how can any thing be brought forward, if n.o.body interferes? A girl, you know, my dear, can't speak for herself, let her wish it never so much.'

'Alas!' said Eugenia, when he was gone, 'how painfully am I situated!

Clermont will surely suppose this precipitance all mine; and already, possibly, concludes it is upon my suggestion he has thus prematurely been called from his travels, and impeded in his praise-worthy ambition of studying the laws, manners, and customs of the different nations of Europe!'

The wan countenance of Camilla soon, however, drew all observation upon herself, and obliged her to narrate the cruel adventure of the morning.

The sisters were both petrified by the account of Sir Sedley; and their compa.s.sion for his expected despair was changed into disgust at his insulting impertinence. They were of opinion that his bird and his letters should immediately be returned; and their horror of any debt with a character mingling such presumption with such levity, made Eugenia promise that, as soon as she was mistress of so much money, she would send him, in the name of Lionel, his two hundred pounds.

The bird, therefore, by Tom Hodd, was instantly conveyed to Clarendel-Place; but the letters Camilla retained, till she could first shew them to Edgar, ... if this event had not lost him to her for ever, and if he manifested any desire of an explanation.

Edgar himself, meanwhile, in a paroxysm of sudden misery, and torturing jealousy, had galloped furiously to the rector of Cleves.

'O, Doctor Marchmont!' he cried, 'what a tale have I now to unfold!