EDGAR remained behind, almost petrified: he stood in the little building, looking after them, yet neither descending nor stirring, till one of the workmen advanced to fetch the ladder. He then hastily quitted the spot, mounted his horse, and galloped after the carriage; though without any actual design to follow it, or any formed purpose whither to go.
The sight, however, of the Major, pursuing the same route, made him, with deep disgust, turn about, and take the shortest road to Beech Park.
He hardly breathed the whole way from indignation; yet his wrath was without definition, and nearly beyond comprehensibility even to himself, till suddenly recurring to the lovely smile with which Camilla had accepted the assistance of Major Cerwood, he involuntarily clasped his hands and called out: ‘O happy Major!’
Awakened by his ejaculation to the true state of his feelings, he started as from a sword held at his breast. ‘Jealousy!’ he cried, ‘am I reduced to so humiliating a passion? Am I capable of love without trust? Unhappy enough to cherish it with hope? No! I will not be such a slave to the delusions of inclination. I will abandon neither my honour nor my judgment to my wishes. It is not alone even her heart that can fully satisfy me; its delicacy must be mine as well as its preference. Jealousy is a passion for which my mind is not framed, and which I must not find a torment, but an impossibility!’
He now began to fear he had made a choice the most injudicious, and that coquetry and caprice had only waited opportunity, to take place of candour and frankness.
Yet, recollecting the disclaiming speeches he had been compelled to make at Cleves, he thought, if she had heard them, she might be actuated by resentment. Even then, however, her manner of shewing it was alarming, and fraught with mischief. He reflected with fresh repugnance upon the gay and dissipated society with which she was newly mixing, and which, from her extreme openness and facility, might so easily, yet so fatally, sully the fair artlessness of her mind.
He then felt tempted to hint to Mr. Tyrold, who, viewing all things, and all people in the best light, rarely foresaw danger, and never suspected deception, the expediency of her breaking off this intercourse, till she could pursue it under the security of her mother’s penetrating protection. But it occurred to him next, it was possible the Major might have pleased her. Ardent as were his own views, they had never been declared, while those of the Major seemed proclaimed without reserve. He felt his face tingle at the idea, though it nearly made his heart cease to beat; and determined to satisfy his conjecture ere he took any measure for himself.
To speak to her openly, he thought the surest as well as fairest way, and resolved, with whatever anguish, should he find the Major favoured, to aid her choice in his fraternal character, and then travel till he should forget her in every other.
For this purpose, it was necessary to make immediate enquiry into the situation of the Major, and then, if she would hear him, relate to her the result; well assured to gather the state of her heart upon this subject, by her manner of attending to the least word by which it should be introduced.
Camilla, meanwhile, was somewhat comforted by the exertion she had shewn, and by her hopes it had struck Edgar with respect.
* * *
The next morning, Sir Hugh sent for her again, and begged she would pass the whole day with her sister Eugenia, and use all her pretty ways to amuse her; for she had returned home, the preceding morning, quite moped with melancholy, and had continued pining ever since; refusing to leave her room, even for meals, yet giving no reason for her behaviour. What had come to her he could not tell; but to see her so, went to his heart; for she had always, he said, till now, been chearful and even tempered, though thinking over her learning made her not much of a young person.
Camilla flew up stairs, and found her, with a look of despondence seated in a corner of her room, which she had darkened by nearly shutting all the shutters.
She knew but too well the rude shock she had received, and sought to revive her with every expression of soothing kindness. But she shook her head, and continued mute, melancholy, and wrapt in meditation.
More than an hour was spent thus, the strict orders of Sir Hugh forbidding them any intrusion: but when, at length, Camilla ventured to say, ‘Is it possible, my dearest Eugenia, the passing insolence of two or three brutal wretches can affect you thus deeply?’ She awakened from her silent trance, and raising her head, while something bordering upon resentment began to kindle in her breast, cried, ‘Spare me this question, Camilla, and I will spare you all reproach.’
‘What reproach, my dear sister,’ cried Camilla, amazed, ‘what reproach have I merited?’
‘The reproach,’ answered she, solemnly; ‘that, from me, all my family merit! the reproach of representing to me, that thousands resembled me! of assuring me I had nothing peculiar to myself, though I was so unlike all my family-of deluding me into utter ignorance of my unhappy defects, and then casting me, all unconscious and unprepared, into the wide world to hear them!’
She would now have shut herself into her book-closet; but Camilla, forcing her way, and almost kneeling to be heard, conjured her to drive such cruel ideas from her mind, and to treat the barbarous insults that she had suffered with the contempt they deserved.
‘Camilla,’ said she, firmly; ‘I am no longer to be deceived nor trifled with. I will no more expose to the light a form and face so hideous:–I will retire from all mankind, and end my destined course in a solitude that no one shall discover.’
Camilla, terrified, besought her to form no such plan, bewailed the unfortunate adventure of the preceding day, inveighed against the inhuman women, and pleaded the love of all her family with the most energetic affection.
‘Those women,’ said she, calmly, ‘are not to blame; they have been untutored, but not false; and they have only uttered such truths as I ought to have learnt from my cradle. My own blindness has been infatuated; but it sprung from inattention and ignorance.–It is now removed!–Leave me, Camilla; give notice to my Uncle he must find me some retreat. Tell all that has passed to my father. I will myself write to my mother-and when my mind is more subdued, and when sincerely and unaffectedly I can forgive you all from my heart, I may consent to see you again.’
She then positively insisted upon being left.
Camilla, penetrated with her undeserved, yet irremediable distress, still continued at her door, supplicating for re-admittance in the softest terms; but without any success till the second dinner bell summoned her down stairs. She then fervently called upon her sister to speak once more, and tell her what she must do, and what say?
Eugenia steadily answered: ‘You have already my commission: I have no change to make in it.’
Unable to obtain anything further, she painfully descended: but the voice of her Uncle no sooner reached her ears from the dining parlour, than, shocked to convey to him so terrible a message, she again ran up stairs, and casting herself against her sister’s door, called out ‘Eugenia, I dare not obey you! would you kill my poor Uncle? My Uncle, who loves us all so tenderly? Would you afflict-would you make him unhappy?’
‘No, not for the universe!’ she answered, opening the door; and then, more gently, yet not less steadfastly, looking at her, ‘I know,’ she continued, ‘you are all very good; I know all was meant for the best; I know I must be a monster not to love you for the very error to which I am a victim.–I forgive you therefore all! and I blush to have felt angry.–But yet-at the age of fifteen-at the instant of entering into the world-at the approach of forming a connection which–O Camilla! what a time, what a period, to discover-to know-that I cannot even be seen without being derided and offended!’
Her voice faltered and, running to the window curtain, she entwined herself in its folds, and called out: ‘O hide me! hide me! from every human eye, from every thing that lives and breathes! Pursue me, persecute me no longer, but suffer me to abide by myself, till my fortitude is better strengthened to meet my destiny!’
The least impatience from Eugenia was too rare to be opposed; and Camilla, who, in common with all her family, notwithstanding her extreme youth, respected as much as she loved her, sought only to appease her by promising compliance. She gave to her, therefore, an unresisted, though unreturned embrace, and went to the dining-parlour.
Sir Hugh was much disappointed to see her without her sister; but she evaded any account of her commission till the meal was over, and then begged to speak with him alone.
Gently and gradually she disclosed the source of the sadness of Eugenia: but Sir Hugh heard it with a dismay that almost overwhelmed him. All his co............