Camilla or A Picture of Youth Part 131

'Why to be sure, Sir Hugh, if you set about thinking of a young fellow by the pattern of my friend Clermont, I can't say I'm much surprised you don't care to give him a good word; I can't say I am. I am pretty much of the same way of thinking. I love to speak the truth.' He then took Mr. Tyrold apart, and ran on with a history of all he had gathered, while at Leipsic, of the conduct and way of life of Clermont Lynmere.

'He was a disgrace,' said he, 'even to the English name, as a Professor told me, that I can't remember the name of, it's so prodigious long; but, if it had not been for my son, he told me, they'd have thought all the English young fellows good for nothing, except extravagance, and eating and drinking! "They'd all round have got an ill name," says he, "if it had not been for your son," were his words which I shall never forget. I sent him over a n.o.ble pipe of Madeira, which I'd just got for myself, as soon as I came home. I took to him very much, I can't say but I did; he was a very good man; he had prodigiously the look of an Englishman. He said Hal was an ornament to the university. I took it very well of him. I wish he had not such a hard name. I can never call it to mind. I hate a hard name. I can never speak it without a blunder.'

Sir Hugh now, who had been talking with Henry, called upon Mr. Westwyn, to beg his pardon for not speaking of him more respectfully, saying: 'I see he's quite agreeable, which I should have noticed from the first, only being what I did not know; which I hope is my excuse; my head, my dear friend, not getting on much, in point of quickness: though I can't say it's for want of pains, since you and I used to live so much together; but to no great end, for I always find myself in the back, however it happens: which your son, Master Hal, is, I see, quite the contrary.'

Mr. Westwyn was so much gratified by this praise, that he immediately confessed the scheme and wish he had formed of marrying Hal to Camilla, only for her not approving it. Sir Hugh protested nothing could give him more pleasure than such a connexion, and significantly added, he had other nieces, besides Camilla.

'Why, yes,' said Mr. Westwyn, 'and I can't keep from looking at 'em; I like 'em all mightily. I'm a great friend to taking from a good stock. I chuse to know what I'm about. That girl at Southampton hit my fancy prodigiously. But I'm not for the beauty. A beauty won't make a good wife. It takes her too much time to put her cap on. That little one, there, with the hump, which I don't mind, nor the limp, neither, I like vastly. But I'm afraid Hal won't take to her. A young man don't much fancy an ugly girl. He's always hankering after something pretty.

There's that other indeed, Miss Lavinia, is as handsome a girl as I'd wish to see. And she seems as good, too. However, I'm not for judging all by the eye. I'm past that. An old man should not play the fool.

Which I wish somebody would whisper to a certain Lord that I know of, that don't behave quite to my mind. I'm not fond of an old fool: nor a young one neither. They make me sick.'

Sir Hugh heard and agreed to all this, with the same simplicity with which it was spoken; and, soon after, Yorks.h.i.+re becoming their theme, Mr. Tyrold had the pleasure of seeing his brother so much re-animated by the revival of old scenes, ideas, and connexions, that he heartily joined in pressing the Mr. Westwyns to spend a fortnight at Cleves, to which they consented with pleasure.

CHAPTER X

_A Bride's Resolves_

With every allowance for a grief in which so deeply he shared, Mr.

Tyrold felt nearly bowed down with sorrow, when he observed his own tenderness abate of its power to console, and his exhortations of their influence with his miserable daughter, whose complicated afflictions seemed desperate to herself, and to him nearly hopeless.

He now began to fear the rigid oeconomy and retirement of their present lives might add secret disgust or fatigue to the disappointment of her heart. He sighed at an idea so little in unison with all that had hitherto appeared of her disposition; yet remembered she was very young and very lively, and thought that, if caught by a love of gayer scenes than Etherington afforded, she was at a season of life which brings its own excuse for such venial ambition.

He mentioned, therefore, with great kindness, their exclusion from all society, and proposed making an application to Mrs. Needham, a lady high in the esteem of Mrs. Tyrold, to have the goodness to take the charge of carrying them a little into the world, during the absence of their mother. 'I can neither exact nor desire,' he said, 'to sequester you from all amus.e.m.e.nt for a term so utterly indefinite as that of her restoration; since it is now more than ever desirable to regain the favour of your uncle Relvil for Lionel, who has resisted every profession for which I have sought to prepare him; though his idle and licentious courses so little fit him for contentment with the small patrimony he will one day inherit.'

The sisters mutually and sincerely declined this proposition; Lavinia had too much employment to find time ever slow of pa.s.sage; and Camilla, joined to the want of all spirit for recreation, had a dread of appearing in the county, lest she should meet with Sir Sedley Clarendel, whose two hundred pounds were amongst the evils ever present to her. The money which Eugenia meant to save for this account had all been given to Lionel; and now her marriage was at an end, and no particular sum expected, she must be very long in replacing it; especially as Jacob was first to be considered; though he had kindly protested he was in no haste to be paid.

Mr. Tyrold was not sorry to have his proposition declined; yet saw the sadness of Camilla unabated, and suggested, for a transient diversity, a visit to the Grove; enquiring why an acquaintance begun with so much warmth and pleasure, seemed thus utterly relinquished. Camilla had herself thought with shame of her apparently ungrateful neglect of Mrs.

Arlbery; but the five guineas she had borrowed, and forgotten to pay, while she might yet have asked them of Sir Hugh, and which now she had no ability any where to raise, made the idea of meeting with her painful. And thus, overwhelmed with regret and repentance for all around, her spirits gone, and her heart sunk, she desired never more, except for Cleves, to stir from Etherington.

Had he seen the least symptom of her revival, Mr. Tyrold would have been gratified by her strengthened love of home; but this was far from being the case; and, upon the marriage of Miss Dennel, which was now celebrated, he was glad of an opportunity to force her abroad, from the necessity of making a congratulatory visit to the bride's aunt, Mrs.

Arlbery.

The chariot, therefore, of Sir Hugh being borrowed, she was compelled into this exertion; which was ill repaid by her reception from Mrs.

Arlbery, who, hurt as well as offended by her long absence and total silence, wore an air of the most chilling coldness. Camilla felt sorry and ashamed; but too much disturbed to attempt any palliation for her non-appearance, and remissness of even a note or message.

The room was full of morning visitors, all collected for the same complimentary purpose; but she was relieved with respect to her fears of Sir Sedley Clarendel, in hearing of his tour to the Hebrides.

Her mournful countenance soon, however, dispersed the anger of Mrs.

Arlbery. 'What,' cried she, 'has befallen you, my fair friend? if you are not immeasurably unhappy, you are very seriously ill.'

'Yes,--no,--my spirits--have not been good--' answered she, stammering;--'but yours may, perhaps, a.s.sist to restore them.'

The composition of Mrs. Arlbery had no particle of either malice or vengeance; she now threw off, therefore, all reserve, and taking her by the hand, said: 'shall I keep you to spend the day with me? Yes, or no?

Peace or war?'

And without waiting for an answer, she sent back the chariot, and a message to Mr. Tyrold, that she would carry home his daughter in the evening.

'And now, my faithless Fair,' cried she, as soon as they were alone, 'tell me what has led you to this abominable fickleness? with me, I mean! If you had grown tired of any body else, I should have thought nothing so natural. But you know, I suppose, that the same thing we philosophise into an admirable good joke for our neighbours, we moralise into a crime against ourselves.'

'I thought,' said Camilla, attempting to smile, 'none but country cousins ever made apologies?'

'Nay, now, I must forgive you without one word more!' answered Mrs.

Arlbery, laughing, and shaking hands with her; 'a happy citation of one _bon mot_, is worth any ten offences. So, you see, you have nine to commit, in store, clear of all damages. But the pleasure of finding one has not said a good thing only for once, thence to be forgotten and die away in the winds, is far greater than you can yet awhile conceive. In the first pride of youth and beauty, our attention is all upon how we are looked at. But when those begin to be somewhat on the wane--when that barbarous time comes into play, which revenges upon poor miserable woman all the airs she has been playing upon silly man--our ambition, then, is how we are listened to. So now, cutting short reproach and excuse, and all the wearying round of explanation, tell me a little of your history since we last met.'

This was the last thing Camilla meant to undertake: but she began, in a hesitating manner, to speak of her little debt. Mrs. Arlbery, eagerly interrupting her, insisted it should not be mentioned; adding: 'I go on vastly well again; I am breaking in two ponies, and building a new phaeton; and I shall soon pay for both, without the smallest inconvenience,--except just pinching my servants, and starving my visitors. But tell me something of your adventures. You are not half so communicative as Rumour, which has given me a thousand details of you, and married you and your whole set to at least half a dozen men a piece, since you were last at the Grove. Amongst others, it a.s.serts, that my old Lord Valhurst was seriously at your feet? That prating Mrs. Mittin, who fastened upon my poor little niece at Tunbridge, and who is now her factotum, pretends that my lord's own servants spoke of it publicly at Mrs. Berlinton's.'

This was a fact that, being thus divulged, a very few questions made impossible to deny; though Camilla was highly superior to the indelicacy and ingrat.i.tude of repaying the preference of any gentleman by publis.h.i.+ng his rejection.

'And what in the world, my dear child,' said Mrs. Arlbery, 'could provoke you to so wild an action as refusing him?'

'Good Heaven, Mrs. Arlbery!'

'O, what--you were not in love with him? I believe not!--but if he was in love with you, take my word for it, that would have done quite as well. 'Tis such a little while that same love lasts, even when it is begun with, that you have but a few months to lose, to be exactly upon a par with those who set out with all the quivers of Cupid, darting from heart to heart. He has still fortune enough left for a handsome settlement; you can't help outliving him, and then, think but how delectable would be your situation! Freedom, money at will, the choice of your own friends, and the enjoyment of your own humour!'

'You would but try me, my dear Mrs. Arlbery; for you cannot, I'm sure, believe me capable of making so solemn an engagement for such mercenary hopes, and selfish purposes.'

'This is all the romance of false reasoning. You have not sought the man, but the man you. You would not have solicited his acceptance, but yielded to his solicitation of yours. The balance is always just, where force is not used. The man has his reasons for chusing you; you have your reasons for suffering yourself to be chosen. What his are, you have no business to enquire; nor has he the smallest right to investigate yours.'

This was by no means the style in which Camilla had been brought up to think of marriage; and Mrs. Arlbery presently added: 'You are grave? yet I speak but as a being of the world I live in: though I address one that knows nothing about it. Tell me, however, a little more of your affairs.

What are all these marriages and no marriages, our neighbourhood is so busy in making and unmaking?'

Camilla returned the most brief and quiet answers in her power; but was too late to save the delicacy of Eugenia in concealing her late double disappointments, the abortive preparations of Sir Hugh having travelled through all the adjoining country. 'Poor little dear ugly thing!' cried Mrs. Arlbery, 'she must certainly go off with her footman;--unless, indeed, that good old pedant, who teaches her that vast quant.i.ty of stuff she will have to unlearn, when once she goes a little about, will take compa.s.sion upon her and her thousands, and put them both into his own pockets.'

This raillery was painful nearly to disgust to Camilla; who frankly declared she saw her sister with no eyes but those of respect and affection, and could not endure to hear her mentioned in so ridiculous a manner.

'Never judge the heart of a wit,' answered she, laughing, 'by the tongue! We have often as good hearts, ay, and as much good nature, too, as the careful prosers who utter nothing but what is right, or the heavy thinkers who have too little fancy to say anything that is wrong. But we have a pleasure in our own rattle that cruelly runs away with our discretion.'

She then more seriously apologized for what she had said, and declared herself an unaffected admirer of all she had heard of the good qualities of Eugenia.

Other subjects were then taken up, till they were interrupted by a visit from the young bride, Mrs. Lissin.

Jumping into the room, 'I'm just run away,' she cried, 'without saying a word to any body! I ordered my coach myself, and told my own footman to whisper me when it came, that I might get off, without saying a word of the matter. Dear! how they'll all stare when they miss me! I hope they'll be frightened!'

'And why so, you little chit? why do you want to make them uneasy?'

'O! I don't mind! I'm so glad to have my own way, I don't care for anything else. Dear, how do you do, Miss Camilla Tyrold? I wonder you have not been to see me! I had a great mind to have invited you to have been one of my bride's maids. But papa was so monstrous cross, he would not let me do hardly any thing I liked. I was never so glad in my life as when I went out of the house to be married! I'll never ask him about any one thing as long as I live again. I'll always do just what I chuse.'

'And you are quite sure Mr. Lissin will never interfere with that resolution?'

'O, I sha'n't let him! I dare say he would else. That's one reason I came out so, just now, on purpose to let him see I was my own mistress.

And I told my coachman, and my own footman, and my maid, all three, that if they said one word, I'd turn 'em all away. For I intend always to turn 'em away when I don't like 'em. I shall never say anything to Mr.

Lissin first, for fear of his meddling. I'm quite determined I won't be crossed any more, now I've servants of my own. I'm sure I've been crossed long enough.'

Then, turning to Camilla, 'Dear,' she cried, 'how grave you look! Dear, I wonder you don't marry too! When I ordered my coach, just now, I was ready to cry for joy, to think of not having to ask papa about it. And to-day, at breakfast, I dare say I rung twenty times, for one thing or another. As fast as ever I could think of any thing, I went to ringing again. For when I was at papa's, every time I rang the bell, he always asked me what I wanted. Only think of keeping one under so!'