Edgar, too, so nearly a brother to them both, would guard the secret of Lionel better, in all probability, than he would guard it himself; and could draw no personal inferences from the trust and obligation when he found its sole incitement was sooner to owe an obligation to a ward of her father, than to a new acquaintance of her own.
Pleased at the seeming necessity of an application that would lead so naturally to a demand of the counsel she languished to claim, she determined not to suffer Sir Sedley to wait even another minute under his mistake; but, since she now could speak of returning the money, to take courage for meeting what might either precede or ensue in a conference.
Down, therefore, she went; but as she opened the parlour door, she heard Sir Sedley say to Mrs. Arlbery, who had just entered before her: ‘O, fie! fie! you know she will be cruel to excruciation! you know me destined to despair to the last degree.’
Camilla, whose so speedy re-appearance was the last sight he expected, was too far advanced to retreat; and the resentment that tinged her whole complexion shewed she had heard what he said, and had heard it with an application the most offensive.
An immediate sensibility to his own impertinence now succeeded in its vain display; he looked not merely concerned, but contrite; and, in a voice softened nearly to timidity, attempted a general conversation, but kept his eyes, with an anxious expression, almost continually fixed upon her’s.
Anger with Camilla was a quick, but short-lived sensation; and this sudden change in the Baronet from conceit to respect, produced a change equally sudden in herself from disdain to inquietude. Though mortified in the first moment by his vanity, it was less seriously painful to her than any belief that under it was couched a disposition towards a really steady regard. With Mrs. Arlbery she was but slightly offended, though certain she had been assuring him of all the success he could demand: her way of thinking upon the subject had been openly avowed, and she did justice to the kindness of her motives.
No opportunity, however, arose to mention the return of the draft; Mrs. Arlbery saw displeasure in her air, and not doubting she had heard what had dropt from Sir Sedley, thought the moment unfavorable for a tête-à-tête, and resolutely kept her place, till Camilla herself, weary of useless waiting, left the room.
Following her then to her chamber, ‘My dear Miss Tyrold,’ she cried, ‘do not let your extreme youth stand in the way of all your future life. A Baronet, rich, young, and amiable, is upon the very point of becoming your slave for ever; yet, because you discover him to be a little restive in the last agonies of his liberty, you are eager, in the high-flown disdain of juvenile susceptibility, to cast him and his fortune away; as if both were such every-day baubles, that you might command or reject them without thought of future consequence.’
‘Indeed no, dear madam; I am not actuated by pride or anger; I owe too much to Sir Sedley to feel either above a moment, even where I think them ... pardon me!... justly excited. But I should ill pay my debt, by accepting a lasting attachment, where certain I can return nothing but lasting, eternal, unchangeable indifference.’
‘You sacrifice, then, both him and yourself, to the fanciful delicacy of a first love?’
‘No, indeed!’ cried she blushing. ‘I have no thought at all but of the single life. And I sincerely hope Sir Sedley has no serious intentions towards me; for my obligations to him are so infinite, I should be cruelly hurt to appear to him ungrateful.’
‘You would appear to him, I confess, a little surprising,’ said Mrs. Arlbery, laughing; ‘for diffidence certainly is not his weak part. However, with all his foibles, he is a charming creature, and prepossession only can blind you to his merit.’
Camilla again denied the charge, and strove to prevail with her to undeceive the Baronet from any false expectations. But she protested she would not be accessary to so much after-repentance; and left her.
The business now wore a very serious aspect to Camilla. Mrs. Arlbery avowed she thought Sir Sedley in earnest, and he knew she had herself heard him speak with security of his success. The bullfinch had gone far, but the draft seemed to have riveted the persuasion. The bird it was now impossible to return till her departure from Tunbridge; but she resolved not to defer another moment putting upon her brother alone the obligation of the draft, to stop the further progress of such dangerous inference.
Hastily, therefore, she wrote to him the following note:
To Sir Sedley Clarendel, Bart.
Sir,
Some particular business compelled my brother so abruptly to quit Tunbridge, that he could not have the honour to first wait upon you with his thanks for the loan you so unexpectedly put into his hands; by mine, however, all will be restored to-morrow morning, except his gratitude for your kindness.
I am, sir, in both our names,
your obliged humble servant,
Camilla Tyrold.
Mount Pleasant,
Thursday Evening.
She now waited till she was summoned down stairs to the carriage, and then gave her little letter to a servant, whom she desired to deliver it to Sir Sedley’s man.
Sir Sedley did not accompany them to the Rooms, but promised to follow.
Camilla, on her arrival, with palpitating pleasure, looked round for Edgar. She did not, however, see him. She was accosted directly by the Major; who, as usual, never left her, and whose assiduity to seek her favour seemed increased.
She next joined Mrs. Berlinton; but still she saw nothing of Edgar. Her eyes incessantly looked towards the door, but the object they sought never met them.
When Sir Sedley entered, he joined the group of Mrs. Berlinton.
Camilla tried to look at him and to speak to him with her customary civility and chearfulness, and nearly succeeded; while in him she observed only an expressive attention, without any marks of presumption.
Thus began and thus ended the evening. Edgar never appeared.
Camilla was in the utmost amaze and deepest vexation. Why did he stay away? was his wrath so great at her own failure the preceding night, that he purposely avoided her? what, also, could she do with Sir Sedley? how meet him the next morning without the draft she had now promised?’
In this state of extreme chagrin, when she retired to her chamber, she found the following letter upon her table:
To Miss Camilla Tyrold.
Can you think of such a trifle? or deem wealth so truly contemptible, as to deny it all honourable employment? Ah, rather, enchanting Camilla! deign further to aid me in dispensing it worthily!
Sedley Clarendel.
Camilla now was touched, penetrated, and distressed beyond what she had been in any former time. She looked upon this letter as a positive intimation of the most serious designs; and all his good qualities, as painted by Mrs. Arlbery, with the very singular obligation she owed to him, rose up formidably to support the arguments and remonstrances of that lady; though every feeling of her heart, every sentiment of her mind, and every wish of her soul, opposed their smallest weight.
CHAPTER XVI
An Helper
The next morning, as Camilla had accompanied Mrs. Arlbery, in earnest discourse, from her chamber to the hall, she heard the postman say Miss Tyrold as he gave in a letter. She seized it, saw the hand-writing of Lionel, and ran eagerly into the parlour, which was empty, to read it, in some hopes it would at least contain an acknowledgment of the draft, that might be shewn to Sir Sedley, and relieve her from the pain of continuing the principal in such an affair.
The letter, however, was merely a sportive rhapsody, beginning; My dear Lady Clarendel; desiring her favour and protection, and telling her he had done what he could for her honour, by adding two trophies to the victorious car of Hymen, driven by the happy Baronet.
Wholly at a loss how to act, she sat ruminating over this letter, till Mrs. Arlbery opened the door. Having no time to fold it, and dreading her seeing the first words, she threw her handkerchief, which was then in her hand, over it, upon the table, hoping prese
ntly to draw it away unperceived.
‘My dear friend,’ said Mrs. Arlbery, ‘I am glad to see you a moment alone. Do you know any thing of Mandlebert?’
‘No!’ answered she affrighted, lest any evil had happened.
‘Did he not take leave of you at the Rooms the other night?’
‘Leave of me? is he gone any where?’
‘He has left Tunbridge.’
Camilla remained stupified.
‘Left it,’ she continued, ‘without the poor civility of a call, to ask if you had any letters or messages for Hampshire.’
Camilla coloured high; she felt to her heart this evident coldness, and she knew it to be still more marked than Mrs. Arlbery could divine; for he was aware she wished particularly to speak with him; and though she had failed in her appointment, he had not inquired why.
‘And this is the man for whom you would relinquish all mankind? this is the grateful character who is to render you insensible to every body?’
The disturbed mind of Camilla needed not this speech; her debt to Sir Sedley, cast wholly upon herself by the thoughtless Lionel; her inability to pay it, the impressive lines the Baronet had addressed to her, and the cruel and pointed indifference of Edgar, all forcibly united to make her wish, at this moment, her heart at her own disposal.
In a few minutes, the voice of Sir Sedley, gaily singing, caught her ear. He was entering the hall, the street door being open. She started up; Mrs. Arlbery would have detained her, but she could not endure to encounter him, and without returning his salutation, or listening to his address, crossed him in the hall, and flew up stairs.
There, however, she had scarcely taken breath, when she recollected the letter which she had left upon the table, and which the afflicting intelligence that Edgar had quitted Tunbridge, had made her forget she had received. In a terror immeasurable, lest her handkerchief should be drawn aside, and betray the first line, she re-descended the stairs, and hastily entered the room. Her shock was then inexpressible. The handkerchief, which her own quick motion in retiring had displaced, was upon the floor, the letter was in full view; the eyes of Sir Sedley were fixed upon his own name, with a look indefinable between pleasure and impertinence, and Mrs. Arlbery was laughing with all her might.
She seized the letter, and was running away with it, when Mrs. Arlbery slipt out of the room, and Sir Sedley, shutting the door, half archly, half tenderly repeated, from the letter, ‘My dear Lady Clarendel!’
In a perfect agony, she hid her face, exclaiming: ‘O Lionel! my foolish ... cruel brother!...’
‘Not foolish, not cruel, I think him,’ cried Sir Sedley, taking her hand, ‘but amiable ... he has done honour to my name, and he will use it, I hope, henceforth, as his own.’
‘Forget, forget his flippancy,’ cried she, withdrawing impatiently her hand; ‘and pardon his sister’s breach of engagement for this morning. I hope soon, very soon, to repair it, and I hope....’
She did not know what to add; she stopt, stammered, and then endeavoured to make her retreat.
‘Do not go,’ cried he, gently detaining her; ‘incomparable Camilla! I have a thousand things to say to you. Will you not hear them?’
‘No!’ cried she, disengaging herself; ‘no, no, no! I can hear nothing!...’
‘Do you fascinate then,’ said he, half reproachfully, ‘like the rattlesnake, only to destroy?’
Camilla conceived this as alluding to her recent encouragement, and stood trembling with expectation it would be followed by a claim upon her justice.
But Sir Sedley, who was far from any meaning so pointed, lightly added; ‘What thus agitates the fairest of creatures? can she fear a poor captive entangled in the witchery of her loveliness, and only the more enslaved the more he struggles to get free?’
‘Let me go,’ cried she, eager to stop him; ‘I beseech you, Sir Sedley!’
‘All beauteous Camilla!’ said he, retreating yet still so as to intercept her passage; ‘I am bound to submit; but when may I see you again?’
‘At any time,’ replied she hastily; ‘only let me pass now!’
‘At any time! adorable Camilla! be it then to-night! be it this evening!... be it at noon!... be it....’
‘No, no, no, no!’ cried she, panting with shame and alarm; ‘I do not mean at any time! I spoke without thought ... I mean....’
‘Speak so ever and anon,’ cried he, ‘if thought is my enemy! This evening then....’
He stopt, as if irresolute how to finish his phrase, but soon added: ‘Adieu, till this evening, adieu!’ and opened the door for her to pass.
Triumph sat in his eye; exultation spoke in every feature; yet his voice betrayed constraint, and seemed checked, as if from fear of entrusting it with his sentiments. The fear, however, was palpably not of diffidence with respect to Camilla, but of indecision with regard to himself.
Camilla, almost sinking with shame now hung back, from a dread of leaving him in this dangerous delusion. She sat down, and in a faltering voice, said: ‘Sir Sedley! hear me, I beg!...’
‘Hear you?’ cried he, gallantly casting himself at her feet; ‘yes! from the fervid rays of the sun, to the mild lustre of the moon!... from....’
A loud knock at the street door, and a ringing at the same time at the bell, made him rise, meaning to shut again the door of the parlour, but he was prevented by the entrance of a man into the hall, calling out, in a voice that reached to every part of the house, ‘An express for Miss Camilla Tyrold.’
Camilla started up, concluding it some strange intelligence concerning Edgar. But a letter was put into her hand, and she saw it was the writing of Lavinia.
It was short, but most affectionate. It told her that news was just arrived from the Continent, which gave reason for hourly expectation of their cousin Lynmere at Cleves, in consequence of which Sir Hugh was assembling all the family to receive him. She was then, with her father, going thither from Etherington, where the restored health of her uncle had, for a week past, enabled them to reside, and she was ordered to send off an express to Tunbridge, to beg Camilla would prepare immediately for the post-chaise of Sir Hugh, which would be sent for her, with the Cleves housekeeper, and reach Mount Pleasant within a few hours after this notice.
A hundred questions assailed Camilla when she had run over this letter, the noise of the express having brought Mrs. Arlbery and the Dennels into the parlour.
She produced the letter, and putting it in the hands of Mrs. Arlbery, relieved her painful confusion, by quitting the room without again meeting the eyes of Sir Sedley.
She could make no preparation, however, for her journey, from mingled desire and fear of an explanation with the Baronet before her departure.
Again, therefore, in a few minutes she went down; gathering courage from the horror of a mistake that might lead to so much mischief.
She found only Mrs. Arlbery in the parlour.
Involuntarily staring, ‘Where,’ she cried, ‘is Sir Sedley?’
‘He is gone,’ answered Mrs. Arlbery, laughing at her earnestness; ‘but no doubt you will soon see him at Cleves.’
‘Then I am undone!’ cried she, bursting into tears, and running back to her chamber.
Mrs. Arlbery instantly followed, and kindly inquired what disturbed her.
‘O, Mrs. Arlbery!’ she cried, ‘lend me, I beseech you, some aid, and spare me, in pity, your raillery! Sir Sedley, I fear, greatly mistakes me; set him right, I conjure you....’
‘Me, my dear? and do you think if some happy fatality is at work at this moment to force you to your good, I will come forth, like your evil genius, to counteract its operations?’
‘I must write, then ... yet, in this haste, this confusion, I fear to involve rather than extricate myself!’
‘Ay, write by all means; there is nothing so prettily forwards these affairs, as a correspondence between the parties undertaken to put an end to them.’
She went, laughing, out of the chamber, and Camilla, who had seized a
pen, distressfully flung it from her.
What indeed could she say? he had made no direct declaration; she could give, therefore, no direct repulse; and though, through her brother’s cruel want of all consideration, she was so deeply in his debt, she durst no longer promise its discharge; for the strange departure of Edgar robbed her of all courage to make to him her meditated application.
Yet to leave Sir Sedley in this errour was every way terrible. If, which still seemed very possible, from his manner and behaviour, he should check his partiality, and make the whole of what had passed end in mere public-place gallantry, she must always have the mortification to know he had considered her as ready to accept him: If, on the contrary, encouraging what he felt for her, from the belief she returned his best opinion, he should seriously demand her hand ... how could she justify the apparent attention she once paid him? and how assert, while so hopelessly his debtor, the independence to reject one who so many ways seemed to hold himself secure?
She was broken in upon by Mrs. Mittin, who entered full of lamentation at the intelligence she had just heard from Miss Dennel of her sudden departure; which she ended with, ‘But as you are going in such haste, my dear, you must have fifty things to do, so pray now, let me help you. Come, what shall I pack up for you? Where’s all your things?’
Camilla, incapable of doing any business for herself, accepted the offer.
‘Well then, now where’s your gowns? Bless me! what a one is here? why it’s been in the dew, and then in the dust, and then in the dew again, till all the bottom must be cut off; why you can never shew it amongst your friends; it will quite bring a disgrace upon poor Tunbridge; come, I think you must give it to me; I’ve got a piece of muslin just like it, and I can piece it so that it won’t appear; but it will never do for you again.’
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 210
