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 but Eugenia, taking his arm, besought that nothing 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 forward, if nobody 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 compassion 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! Within these last twenty-four hours I have been the most wretched... the happiest... and again the most agonized of human beings! I have thought Camilla bestowed upon another,... I have believed her,... oh, Doctor!... my own!... I have conceived myself at the summit of all earthly felicity!... I find myself, at this moment deluded and undone!’
He then detailed the account, calling upon the Doctor to unravel to him the insupportable ?|nigma of his destiny; to tell him for what purpose Camilla had shewn him a tenderness so bewitching, at the very time she was carrying on a clandestine intercourse with another? with a man, who, though destitute neither of wit nor good qualities, it was impossible she should love, since she was as incapable of admiring as of participating in his defects? To what incomprehensible motives attribute such incongruities? Why accept and suffer her friends to accept him, if engaged to Sir Sedley? why, if seriously meaning to be his, this secret correspondence? Why so early, so private, so strange a meeting? ‘Whence, Doctor Marchmont, the daring boldness of his seizing her hand? whence the never-to-be-forgotten licence with which he presumed to lift it to his lips, and there hardily to detain it, so as never man durst do, whose hopes were not all alive, from his own belief in their encouragement! explain, expound to me this work of darkness and amazement; tell me why, with every appearance of the most artless openness, I find her thus eternally disingenuous and unintelligible? why, though I have cast myself wholly into her power, she retains all her mystery... she heightens it into deceit next perjury?’
‘Ask me, my dear young friend, why the sun does not give night, and the moon day; then why women practise coquetry. Alas! my season for surprise has long been passed! They will rather trifle, even with those they despise, than be candid even with those they respect. The young baronet, probably, has been making his court to her, or she has believed such was his design; but as you first came to the point, she would not hazard rejecting you, while uncertain if he were serious. She was, possibly, putting him to the test, by the account of your declaration, at the moment of your unseasonable intrusion.’
‘If this, Doctor, is your statement, and if your statement is just, in how despicable a lottery have I risked the peace of my life! You suppose then... that, if sure of Sir Sedley... I am discarded?’
‘You know what I think of your situation: can I, when to yet more riches I add a title, suppose that of Sir Sedley less secure?’
The shuddering start, the distracted look of Edgar, with his hand clapped to his burning forehead, now alarmed the Doctor, who endeavoured to somewhat soften his sentence, dissuading him against any immediate measures, and advising him to pass over these first moments of emotion, and then coolly to suffer inquiry to take place of decision. But Edgar could not hear him; he shook hands with him, faintly smiled, as an apology for not speaking; and, hurrying off, without waiting for his servant, galloped towards the New Forest: leaving his absence from Cleves to declare his defection, and bent only to fly from Camilla, and all that belonged to her.
All, however, that belonged to Camilla was precisely what followed him; pursued him in every possible form, clung to his heart-strings, almost maddened his senses. He could not bear to reflect; retrospection was torture, anticipation was horror. To lose thus, without necessity, without calamity, the object of his dearest wishes,... to lose her from mere declension of esteem..., ‘Any inevitable evil,’ he cried, ‘I could have sustained; any blow of fortune, however severe; any stroke of adversity, however terrible;... but this... this error of all my senses... this deception of all my hopes... this extinction of every feeling I have cherished’–
He rode on yet harder, leaping over every thing, thoughtless rather than fearless of every danger he could encounter, and galloping with the speed and violence of some pursuit, though wholly without view, and almost without consciousness; as if hoping by flight, to escape from the degenerate portrait of Camilla: but its painter was his own imagination, and mocked the attempt.
From the other side of a five-barred gate, which, with almost frantic speed, he was approaching with a view to clear, a voice halloo’d to stop him; and, at the same time, a man who was leading one horse, and riding another, dismounted, and called ‘Why, as sure as I’m alive, it’s ‘Squire Mandlebert!’
Edgar now, perceiving Jacob, was going to turn back to avoid him; but, restraining this first movement, faintly desired him to stand by, as he had not a moment to lose.
‘Good lack!’ cried Jacob, with the freedom of an old servant, who had known him from a boy; ‘why, I would not but have happened to come this way for never so much! why you might have broke your neck, else! Leap such a gate as this here? why, I can’t let you do no such a thing! Miss Camilla’s like a child of my own as one may say; and she’ll never hold up her head again, I’ll be bound for it, if you should come to any harm; and, as to poor old master! ’twould go nigh to break his heart.’
Struck with words which, from so faithful an old servant, could not but be touching, Edgar was brought suddenly to himself, and felt the claim of the Tyrold family for a conduct more guarded. He endeavoured to put his own feelings apart, and consider how best he might spare those of the friends of Camilla; those of Camilla herself he concluded to be out of his reach, except as they might simply relate to the female pride and vanity of refusing rather than being given up.
He paused, now, to weigh how he might obviate any offence; and, after first r............