THE serenity of virtue would now again have made its abode the breast of Mr. Tyrold, but for the constant wretchedness to which he saw his daughter a prey. With the benignest pity he strove to revive her; a pity unabated by any wonder, unalloyed with any blame. His wonder fell all upon Edgar, whom he considered as refining away mortal happiness, by dissatisfaction that it was not divine; but his censure, which he reserved wholly for vice, exonerated them both. Still, however, he flattered himself that ere long, to her youthful mind and native chearfulness, tranquillity, if not felicity, would imperceptibly return, from such a union for exertion of filial and sisterly duties: that industry would sweeten rest, virtue gild privation, and self-approvance convert every sacrifice into enjoyment.
But peace such as this was far from her bosom. While the desertion of Edgar had tolled the death bell to all her hopes, an unremitting contention disturbed her mind, whether to avow or conceal her situation with regard to the money-lender. The reflections of every night brought a dissatisfaction in her conduct, which determined her upon an openness the most undisguised for the following morning: but timidity, and the desire of reprieve from the fearful task, again, the following morning, regularly postponed her purpose.
In the first horror occasioned by her father’s distress from the bills of her brother, she wrote a supplicating letter to Mrs. Mittin, to intreat she would endeavour to quiet her creditors till she could arrange something for their payment. And while this produced a correspondence replete with danger, difficulty, and impropriety, a new circumstance occurred, which yet more cruelly embittered her conflicting emotions. Lavinia, in the virtuous eagerness of her heart to forward the general oeconomy, insisted wholly to relinquish, for this year, her appropriate allowance; declaring that, by careful management, she could dispense with anything new, and that the very few expences she might find utterly unavoidable, she would demand from time to time as they occurred. Camilla, at this proposition, retreated, in agony, to her chamber. To make the same was impossible; for how, then, find interest for the money-lender? yet to withstand so just an example, seemed a disgrace to every duty and every feeling.
Lavinia, who, in her countenance and abrupt departure, read the new distress she had incautiously excited, with a thousand self-reproaches followed her. She had considered but the common cause when she spoke, without weighing the strange appearance of not being seconded by her sister: But her mind was amongst the last to covet the narrow praise of insidious comparison; and her concern for the proposal she had made, when she saw its effect, was as deep as that of Camilla in hearing it, though not attended with the same aggravations.
Mr. Tyrold remained utterly surprized. The generous and disinterested nature of Camilla, made it impossible to suspect her restrained by a greater love of money than Lavinia; and he could not endure to suppose her late visits to public places, had rendered personal oeconomy more painful.
But he would make no enquiry that might seem a reproach; nor suffer any privation or contribution that was not chearful and voluntary.
* * *
The purchases for the wedding of Miss Dennel being now made, that young lady came down to the country to solemnize her nuptials, accompanied by Mrs. Mittin, who instantly visited Camilla.
She could settle nothing, she said, with the money-lender, without the premium; but she had coaxed all the creditors, by assuring them, that, as the debtor was a great heiress, they were certain of their money when she came to her estate. Camilla could not endure to owe their forbearance to a falsehood; though to convince Mrs. Mittin of her errour, in contradiction to the assertion of Lionel, was a vain attempt. The business, however, pressed; and to keep back these but too just claimants was her present most fervent desire. Mrs. Mittin was amongst the most expert of expedient-mongers, and soon started a method for raising the premium. She asked to look at what Camilla possessed of trinkets: and the prize ear-rings of Tunbridge, the ear-rings and necklace of Southampton, and several small toys occasionally given her, were collected. The locket she also demanded, to make weight; but neither that, nor the peculiar gifts, as keep-sakes, of her father, mother, or uncle, consisting of a seal, a ring, and a watch, would she part with.
What she would relinquish, however, Mrs. Mittin disposed of to one of her numerous friends; but they raised only, when intrinsically valued, sixteen pounds. Lavinia then insisted upon coming forward with a contribution of every trinket she was worth, save what had the same sacred motives of detention: and the twenty pounds, without any ceremony of acknowledgment, were delivered to Mr. Clykes; who then took into his own hands the payment of the hundred and eighteen pounds; for which he received a bond, signed by Camilla, and witnessed by Mrs. Mittin; and another note of hand, promising ten per cent. interest for the sum, till the principal were repaid. These two notes, he acknowledged, were mere pledges of honour, as the law would treat her as an infant: but he never acted without them, as they prevented mistakes in private dealings.
This important affair arranged, Camilla felt somewhat more at ease; she was relieved from hourly alarms, and left the mistress to make her confession as circumstances directed. But she obtained not for nothing the agency of Mrs. Mittin, who was not a character to leave self out of consideration in her transactions for others; and at every visit made at Etherington from this time, she observed something in the apparel of Camilla that was utterly old fashioned, or too mean for her to wear; but which would do well enough for herself, when vamped up, as she knew how. Her obligations and inexperience made it impossible to her to resist, though, at this season of saving care, she gave up nothing which she could not have rendered useful, by industry and contrivance.
* * *
During this unhappy period at Etherington, a brighter, though not unclouded scene, was exhibited at Cleves. Melmond arrived; he was permitted to pay his addresses to the fair Indiana, and believed felicity celestial accorded to him even upon earth.
But this adored object herself suffered some severe repining at her fate, when she saw, from her window, her lover gallop into the park without equipage, without domestics, and mounted on a hired horse. The grimacing shrugs of Miss Margland shewed she entered into this mortification; and they were nearly conspiring to dismiss the ignoble pretender, when a letter, which he modestly sent up, from his sister, inviting Indiana to pass a few weeks in Grosvenor Square, once again secured the interest of the brother. She suffered, therefore, Sir Hugh to hand her down stairs, and the enamoured Melmond thought himself the most blest of men.
The sight of such eager enjoyment, and the really amiable qualities of this youth, soon completely reconciled the Baronet to this new business; for he saw no reason, he said, in fact, why one niece had not as good a right to be married first as another. The generous and sentimental Eugenia never ceased her kind offices, and steadily wore an air of tolerable chearfulness all day, though her pillow was nightly wetted with tears for her unfortunate lot.
Nor, with all her native equanimity and acquired philosophy, was this a situation to bring back serenity. The enthusiastic raptures of Melmond elevated him, in her eyes, to something above human; and while his adoration of Indiana presented to her a picture of all she thought most fascinating, his grateful softness of respect to herself, was penetratingly touching to her already conquered heart.
Indiana, meanwhile, began ere long, to catch some of the pleasure she inspired. The passionate animation of Melmond, soon not only resumed its first power, but became even essential to her. No one else had yet seemed to think her so completely a goddess, except Mr. Macdersey, whom she scarce expected ever to see again. With Melmond she could do nothing that did not make her appear to him still more lovely: and though her whims, thus indulged, became almost endless, they but kindled with fresh flame his admiration. If she fretted, he thought her all sensibility; if she pouted, all dignity; if her laughter was unmeaning, she was made up of innocent gaiety; if what she said was shallow, he called her the child of pure nature; if she were angry, how becoming was her spirit! if illiberal, how noble was her frankness! Her person charmed his eye, but his own imagination framed her mind, and while his enchanted faculties were the mere slaves of her beauty, they persuaded themselves they were vanquished by every other perfection.
* * *
Mr. Tyrold had not yet related Edgar’s defection to Sir Hugh; though from the moment the time of hope was past, he wished to end that of expectation. But the pressure of the affairs of Lionel detained him at Etherington, and he could not bear to give grief to his brother, till he could soften its effect by the consolation of some residence at Cleves. This time now arrived; and the next day was fixed for his painful task, in which he meant to spare Camilla any share, when Jacob begged immediate admittance into the study, where Mr. Tyrold and his daughters were drinking tea.
His scared look instantly announced ill news. Mr. Tyrold was alarmed, Lavinia was frightened, and Camilla exclaimed, ‘Jacob, speak at once!’
He begged to sit down.
Camilla ran to get him a chair.
‘Is my brother well, Jacob?’ cried Mr. Tyrold.
‘Why, pretty well, considering, Sir,-but these are vast bad times for us!’
‘O! if my uncle is but well,’ cried Camilla, relieved from her first dreadful doubt, ‘all, I hope, will do right!’
‘Why, ay, Miss,’ said Jacob, smiling, ‘I knew you’d be master’s best comfort; and so I told him, and so he says, for that matter himself, as I’ve got to tell you from him. But, for all that, he takes on prodigious bad. I never saw him in the like way, except just that time when Miss Geny had the small pox.’
They all supplicated him to forbear further comments, and then gathered, that a money-agent, employed by young Lynmere, had just arrived at Cleves; where, with bitter complaints, he related that, having been duped into believing him heir to Sir Hugh Tyrold, he had been prevailed with to grant him money, from time to time, to pay certain bills, contracted not only there, but in London, for goods sent thence by his order, to the amount of near thirteen hundred pounds, without the interest, of which he should give a separate account; that he had vainly applied to the young gentleman for re-imbursement, who finally assured him he was just disinherited by his uncle. No hope, therefore, remained to save him from the ruin of this affair, but in the compassion of the Baronet, which he now came to most humbly solicit.
While Mr. Tyrold, in silent surprise and concern, listened to an account that placed his brother in difficulties so similar to his own, Camilla, sinking back in her chair, looked pale, looked almost lifeless. The history of the debts she already knew, and had daily expected to hear; but the circumstance of the money-lender, and the delusion concerning the inheritance, so resembled her own terrible, and yet unknown story, that she felt personally involved in all the shame and horror of the relation.
Mr. Tyrold, who believed her suffering all for her uncle, made further enquiries, while Lavinia tenderly sustained her. ‘Don’t take on so, dear Miss,’ said Jacob, ‘for all our hope is in you, as Master and I both said; and he bid me tell your papa, that if he’d only give young ‘Squire Mandlebert a jog, to egg him on, that he might not be so shilly shally, as soon as ever the wedding’s over, he’d accept his kind invitation to Beech Park, and bide there till he got clear, as one may say.’
Mr. Tyrold now required no assigned motive for the excessive distress of his daughter, and hastened to turn Jacob from this too terribly trying subject, by saying, ‘My brother then means to pay these demands............