Camilla or A Picture of Youth Part 63

There is also another motive, important to us all, which calls for the most rigid circ.u.mspection. The person in question is not merely amiable; he is also rich: mankind at large, therefore, would not give merely to a sense of excellence any obvious predilection. This hint will, I know, powerfully operate upon your disinterested spirit.

Never from personal experience may you gather, how far from soothing, how wide from honourable, is the species of compa.s.sion ordinarily diffused by the discovery of an unreturned female regard. That it should be felt unsought may be considered as a mark of discerning sensibility; but that it should be betrayed uncalled for, is commonly, however ungenerously, imagined rather to indicate ungoverned pa.s.sions, than refined selection. This is often both cruel and unjust; yet, let me ask--Is the world a proper confident for such a secret? Can the woman who has permitted it to go abroad, reasonably demand that consideration and respect from the community, in which she has been wanting to herself? To me it would be unnecessary to observe, that her indiscretion may have been the effect of an inadvertence which owes its origin to artlessness, not to forwardness: She is judged by those, who, hardened in the ways of men, accustom themselves to trace in evil every motive to action; or by those, who, preferring ridicule to humanity, seek rather to amuse themselves wittily with her susceptibility, than to feel for its innocence and simplicity.

In a state of utter constraint, to appear natural is, however, an effort too difficult to be long sustained; and neither precept, example, nor disposition, have enured my poor child to the performance of any studied part. Discriminate, nevertheless, between hypocrisy and discretion. The first is a vice; the second a conciliation to virtue. It is the bond that keeps society from disunion; the veil that shades our weakness from exposure, giving time for that interior correction, which the publication of our infirmities would else, with respect to mankind, make of no avail.

It were better no doubt, worthier, n.o.bler, to meet the scrutiny of our fellow-creatures by consent, as we encounter, per force, the all-viewing eye of our Creator: but since for this we are not sufficiently without blemish, we must allow to our unstable virtues all the encouragement that can prop them. The event of discovered faults is more frequently callousness than amendment; and propriety of example is as much a duty to our fellow-creatures, as purity of intention is a debt to ourselves.

To delicacy, in fine, your present exertions will owe their future recompence, be your ultimate lot in life what it may. Should you, in the course of time, belong to another, you will be shielded from the regret that a former attachment had been published; or should you continue mistress of yourself, from a blush that the world is acquainted it was not by your choice.

I shall now conclude this little discourse by calling upon you to annex to whatever I have offered you of precept, the constant remembrance of your mother for example.

In our joint names, therefore, I adjure you, my dearest Camilla, not to embitter the present innocence of your suffering by imprudence that may attach to it censure, nor by indulgence that may make it fasten upon your vitals! Imprudence cannot but end in the demolition of that dignified equanimity, and modest propriety, which we wish to be uniformly remarked as the attributes of your character: and indulgence, by fixing, may envenom a dart that as yet may be gently withdrawn, from a wound which kindness may heal, and time may close; but which, if neglected, may wear away, in corroding disturbance, all your life's comfort to yourself, and all its social purposes to your friends and to the world.

AUGUSTUS TYROLD.

CHAPTER VI

_A Chat_

The calm sadness with which Camilla had opened her letter was soon broken in upon by the interest of its contents, the view it displayed of her duties, her shame at her recent failures, and her fears for their future execution; and yet more than all, by the full decision in which it seemed written, that the unhappy partiality she had exposed, had been always, and would for ever remain unreturned.

She started at the intimation how near she stood to detection even from Edgar himself, and pride, reason, modesty, all arose to strengthen her with resolution, to guard every future conflict from his observation.

The article concerning fortune touched her to the quick. Nothing appeared to her so degrading as the most distant idea that such a circ.u.mstance could have any force with her. But the justice done to Edgar she gloried in, as an apology for her feelings, and exculpatory of her weakness. Her tears flowed fast at every expression of kindness to herself, her burning blushes dried them up as they were falling, at every hint of her feebleness, and the hopelessness of its cause; but wholly subdued by the last paragraph, which with reverence she pressed to her lips, she offered up the most solemn vows of a strict and entire observance of every injunction which the letter contained.

She was thus employed, unnoticing the pa.s.sage of time, when Mrs. Arlbery tapped at her door, and asked if she wished to dine in her own room.

Surprised at the question, and ashamed to be thus seen, she was beginning a thousand apologies for not being yet dressed: but Mrs.

Arlbery, interrupting her, said, 'I never listen to excuses. 'Tis the only battery that overpowers me. If, by any mischance, and in an evil hour, some country cousin, not knowing my ways, or some antediluvian prig, not minding them, happen to fall upon me with formal speeches, where I can make no escape, a fit of yawning takes me immediately, and I am demolished for the rest of the day.'

Camilla, attempting to smile, promised to play the country cousin no more. Mrs. Arlbery then observed she had been weeping; and taking her hand, with an examining look, 'My lovely young friend,' she cried, 'this will never do!'

'What, ma'am?... how?... what?...'

'Nay, nay, don't be frightened. Come down to dinner, and we'll talk over the hows? and the whats? afterwards. Never mind your dress; we go no where this evening; and I make a point not to suffer any body to change their attire in my house, merely because the afternoon is taking place of the morning. It seems to me a miserable compliment to the mistress of a mansion, to see her guests only equip themselves for the table. For my part, I deem the garb that is good enough for me, good enough for my geese and turkies ... apple and oyster-sauce included.'

Camilla then followed her down stairs, where she found no company but Sir Sedley Clarendel.

'Come, my dear Miss Tyrold,' said Mrs. Arlbery, 'you and I may now consider ourselves as _tete-a-tete_; Sir Sedley won't be much in our way. He hears and sees nothing but himself.'

'Ecstatically flattering that!' cried Sir Sedley; 'dulcet to every nerve!'

'O, I know you listen just now, because you are yourself my theme. But the moment I take another, you will forget we are either of us in the room.'

'Inhuman to the quick!' cried he; 'barbarous to a point!'

'This is a creature so strange, Miss Tyrold,' said Mrs. Arlbery, 'that I must positively initiate you a little into his character;--or, rather, into its own caricature; for as to character, he has had none intelligible these three years.--See but how he smiles at the very prospect of being portrayed, in defiance of all his efforts to look unconcerned! yet he knows I shall shew him no mercy. But, like all other egotists, the only thing to really disconcert him, would be to take no notice of him. Make him but the first subject of discourse, and praise or abuse are pretty much the same to him.'

'O shocking! shocking! killing past resuscitation! Abominably horrid, I protest!'

'O I have not begun yet. This is an observation to suit thousands. But do not fear; you shall have all your appropriations. Miss Tyrold, you are to be auditor and judge: and I will save you the time and the trouble which decyphering this animal, so truly a non-descript, might cost you.'

'What a tremendous exordium! distressing to a degree! I am agued with trepidation!

'O you wretch! you know you are enchanted. But no further interruption!

I send you to Coventry for the next ten minutes.'

'This man, my dear Miss Tyrold, whom we are about to delineate, was meant by nature, and prepared by art, for something greatly superior to what he now appears: but, unhappily, he had neither solidity of judgment, nor humility of disposition, for bearing meekly the early advantages with which he set out in life; a fine person, fine parts, and a fine estate, all dashed into consciousness at the presuming age of one and twenty. By this aggregate of wealthy, of mental, and of personal prosperity, he has become at once self spoilt, and world spoilt. Had you known him, as I have done, before he was seized with this systematic affectation, which, I am satisfied, causes him more study than the united pedants of both universities could inflict upon him, you would have seen the most delightful creature breathing! a creature combining, in one animated composition, the very essences of spirit, of gaiety, and of intelligence. But now, with every thing within his reach, nothing seems worth his attainment. He has not sufficient energy to make use of his own powers. He has no one to command him, and he is too indolent to command himself. He has therefore turned fop from mere wantonness of time and of talents; from having nothing to do, no one to care for, and no one to please. Take from him half his wit, and by lessening his presumption, you will cure him of all his folly. Rob him of his fortune, and by forcing him into exertion, you will make him one of the first men of his day. Deface and maim his features and figure, and by letting him see that to appear and be admired is not the same thing, you will render him irresistible.'

'Have you done?' cried the baronet smiling.

'I protest,' said Mrs. Arlbery, 'I believe you are a little touched! And I don't at all want to reform you. A perfect character only lulls me to sleep.'

'Obliging in the superlative! I must then take as a consolation, that I have never given you a nap?'

'Never, Clarendel, I a.s.sure you; and yet I don't hate you! Vice is detestable; I banish all its appearances from my coteries; and I would banish its reality, too, were I sure I should then have any thing but empty chairs in my drawing-room--but foibles make all the charm of society. They are the only support of convivial raillery, and domestic wit. If formerly, therefore, you more excited my admiration, it is now, believe me, you contribute most to my entertainment.'

'Condoling to a phenomenon! I have really, then, the vastly prodigious honour to be exalted in your fair graces to the level of a mountebank? a quack doctor? his merry Andrew? or any other such respectable buffoon?'

'Piqued! piqued! I declare! this exceeds my highest ambition. But I must not weaken the impression by dwelling upon it.'

She then asked Camilla if she had any message for Cleves, as one of her servants was going close to the park gate.

Camilla, glad to withdraw, said she would write a few words to her father, and retired for that purpose.

'What in the world, my dear Clarendel,' said Mrs. Arlbery, 'can I do with this poor thing? She has lost all her sprightliness, and vapours me but to look at her. She has all the symptoms upon her of being in the full meridian of that common girlish disease, an hopeless pa.s.sion.'

'Poor little tender dove!' cried the baronet. ''Twould be odious to cure her. Unfeeling to excess. What in nature can be half so mellifluously interesting? I shall now look at her with most prodigious softness.

Ought one not to sigh as she approaches?'

'The matter to be sure is silly enough,' answered Mrs. Arlbery; 'but, this nonsense apart, she is a charming girl. Besides, I perceive I am a violent favourite with her; and flattery, my dear Clarendel, will work its way, even with me! I really owe her a good turn: Else I should no longer endure her; for the tender pa.s.sion has terribly flattened her. If we can't restore her spirits, she will be a mere dead weight to me.'

'O a very crush! a cannon ball would be a b.u.t.terfly in the comparison!

But who is the irresistible? What form has the little blind traitor a.s.sumed?'

'O, a.s.sure yourself, that of the first young man who has come in her sight. Every damsel, as she enters the world, has some picture ready painted upon her imagination, of an object worthy to enslave her: and before any experience forms her judgment, or any comparison her taste, she is the dupe of the first youth who presents himself to her, in the firm persuasion of her ductile fancy, that he is just the model it had previously created.'

She then added, she had little doubt but young Mandlebert was the hero, from their private conferences after the raffle, and from her blushes when forced to name him.

'Nay, nay, this is not the first incongruity!' said the young baronet, 'not romantic to outrage. Beech Park has nothing very horrific in it.

Nothing invincibly beyond the standard of a young lady's philosophy.'