Complete Works of Frances Burney

by Frances Burney

  ‘Treachery! Lord help us! treachery!’ cried Sir Hugh, fondly embracing her, ‘don’t I know you are as innocent as the baby unborn? and more innocent too, from the advantage of having more sense to guide you by! treachery, my dear Camilla! why, I think there’s nobody so good in the wide world! — by which I mean no reflections, never thinking it right to make any.’

  Indiana, sullenly pouting, spoke not a word; but Miss Margland, with a tone of plausibility that was some covert to its malice, said ‘Why then all may be well, and the young ladies as good friends as ever, and Mr. Mandlebert return to the conduct of a gentleman, only just by Miss Camilla’s doing as she would be done by; for nothing that all of us can say will have any effect, if she does not discourage him from dangling about after her in the manner he does now, speaking to nobody else, and always asking her opinion about every trifle, which is certainly doing no great justice to Miss Lynmere.’

  Indiana, with a toss of the head, protested his notice was the last thing she desired.

  ‘My dear Indiana,’ said Sir Hugh, ‘don’t mind all that outward shew. Mr. Mandlebert is a very good boy, and as to your cousin Camilla, I am sure I need not put you in mind how much she is the same; but I really think, whatever’s the reason, the young youths of now-a-days grow backwarder and backwarder. Though I can’t say but what in my time it was just the same; witness myself; which is what I have been sorry for often enough, though I have left off repenting it now, because it’s of no use; age being a thing there’s no getting ahead of.’

  ‘Well, then, all that remains is this,’ said Miss Margland, ‘let Miss Camilla keep out of Mr. Mandlebert’s way; and let her order the carriage, and go to Mrs. Arlbery’s to-morrow, and take no notice of his likings and dislikings; and I’ll be bound for it he will soon think no more of her, and then, of course, he will give the proper attention to Miss Lynmere.’

  ‘O, if that’s all,’ cried Sir Hugh, ‘my dear Camilla, I am sure, will do it, and as much again too, to make her cousin easy. And so now, I hope, all is settled, and my two good girls will kiss one another, and be friends; which I am sure I am myself, with all my heart.’

  Camilla hung her head, in speechless perturbation, at a task which appeared to her equally hard and unjust; but while fear and shame kept her silent, Sir Hugh drew her to Indiana, and a cold, yet unavoidable salute, gave a species of tacit consent to a plan which she did not dare oppose, from the very strength of the desire that urged her opposition.

  They then separated; Sir Hugh delighted, Miss Margland triumphant, Indiana half satisfied, half affronted, and Camilla with a mind so crowded, a heart so full, she scarcely breathed. Sensations the most contrary, of pain, pleasure, hope, and terror, at once assailed her. Edgar, of whom so long she had only thought as of the destined husband of Indiana, she now heard named with suspicions of another regard, to which she did not dare give full extension; yet of which the most distant surmise made her consider herself, for a moment, as the happiest of human beings, though she held herself the next as the most culpable for even wishing it.

  She found Eugenia still in her room, who, perceiving her increased emotion, tenderly enquired, if there were any new cause.

  ‘Alas! yes, my dearest Eugenia! they have been exacting from me the most cruel of sacrifices! They order me to fly from Edgar Mandlebert — to resist his advice — to take the very measures I have promised to forbear — to disoblige, to slight, to behave to him even offensively! my uncle himself, lenient, kind, indulgent as he is, my uncle himself has been prevailed with to inflict upon me this terrible injunction.’

  ‘My uncle,’ answered Eugenia, ‘is incapable of giving pain to any body, and least of all to you, whom he loves with such fondness; he has not therefore comprehended the affair; he only considers, in general, that to please or to displease Edgar Mandlebert can be a matter of no moment to you, when compared with its importance to Indiana.’

  ‘It is a thousand and a thousand, a million and a million times more important to me, than it can ever be to her!’ exclaimed the ardent Camilla, ‘for she values not his kindness, she knows not his worth, she is insensible to his virtues!’

  ‘You judge too hastily, my dear Camilla; she has not indeed your warmth of heart; but if she did not wish the union to take place, why would she shew all this disquiet in the apprehension of its breach?’

  Camilla, surprised into recollection, endeavoured to become calmer.

  ‘You, indeed,’ continued the temperate Eugenia, ‘if so situated, would not so have behaved; you would not have been so unjust; and you could not have been so weak; but still, if you had received, however causelessly, any alarm for the affection of the man you meant to marry, and that man were as amiable as Edgar, you would have been equally disturbed.’

  Camilla, convinced, yet shocked, felt the flutter of her heart give a thousand hues to her face, and walking to the window, leaned far out to gasp for breath.

  ‘Weigh the request more coolly, and you cannot refuse a short compliance. I am sure you would not make Indiana unhappy.’

  ‘O, no! not for the world!’ cried she, struggling to seem more reasonable than she felt.

  ‘Yet how can she be otherwise, if she imagines you have more of the notice and esteem of Edgar than herself?’

  Camilla now had not a word to say; the subject dropt; she took up a book, and by earnest internal remonstrances, commanded herself to appear at tea-time with tolerable serenity.

  The evening was passed in spiritless conversation, or in listening to the piano-forte, upon which Indiana, with the utmost difficulty, played some very easy lessons.

  At night, the following answer arrived from Dr. Marchmont:

  To Edgar Mandlebert, Esq.

  Parsonage House, Cleves,

  Friday Night.

  My Dear Friend,

  I must be thankful, in a moment of such enthusiasm, that you can pay the attention of even recollecting those evils with which my zeal only has, you think, encompassed you. I cannot insist upon the practice of caution which you deem unfounded; but as you wait my answer, I will once more open upon my sentiments, and communicate my wishes. It is now only I can speak them; the instant you have informed the young lady of your own, silences them for ever. Your honour and her happiness become then entangled in each other, and I know not which I would least willingly assail. What in all men is base, would to you, I believe, be impossible — to trifle with such favour as may be the growth of your own undisguised partiality.

  Your present vehemence to ascertain the permanent possession of one you conceive formed for your felicity, obscures, to your now absorbed faculties, the thousand nameless, but tenacious, delicacies annexed by your species of character to your powers of enjoyment. In two words, then, let me tell you, what, in a short time, you will daily tell yourself: you cannot be happy if not exclusively loved; for you cannot excite, you cannot bestow happiness.

  By exclusively, I do not mean to the exclusion of other connections and regard; far from it; those who covet in a bride the oblivion of all former friendships, all early affections, weaken the finest ties of humanity, and dissolve the first compact of unregistered but genuine integrity. The husband, who would rather rationally than with romance be loved himself, should seek to cherish, not obliterate the kind feelings of nature in its first expansions. These, where properly bestowed, are the guarantees to that constant and respectable tenderness, which a narrow and selfish jealousy rarely fails to convert into distaste and disgust.

  The partiality which I mean you to ascertain, injures not these prior claims; I mean but a partiality exclusive of your situation in life, and of all declaration of your passion: a partiality, in fine, that is appropriate to yourself, not to the rank in the world with which you may tempt her ambition, nor to the blandishments of flattery, which only soften the heart by intoxicating the understanding.

  Observe, therefore, if your general character, and usual conduct, strike her mind; if her esteem is yours without the attraction of assi
duity and adulation; if your natural disposition and manners make your society grateful to her, and your approbation desirable.

  It is thus alone you can secure your own contentment; for it is thus alone your reflecting mind can snatch from the time to come the dangerous surmises of a dubious retrospection.

  Remember, you can always advance; you can never, in honour, go back; and believe me when I tell you, that the mere simple avowal of preference, which only ultimately binds the man, is frequently what first captivates the woman. If her mind is not previously occupied, it operates with such seductive sway, it so soothes, so flatters, so bewitches her self-complacency, that while she listens, she imperceptibly fancies she participates in sentiments, which, but the minute before, occurred not even to her imagination; and while her hand is the recompence of her own eulogy, she is not herself aware if she has bestowed it where her esteem and regard, unbiassed by the eloquence of acknowledged admiration, would have wished it sought, or if it has simply been the boon of her own gratified vanity.

  I now no longer urge your acquiescence, my dear friend; I merely entreat you twice to peruse what I have written, and then leave you to act by the result of such perusal.

  I remain

  Your truly faithful and obliged

  Gabriel Marchmont.

  Edgar ran through this letter with an impatience wholly foreign to his general character. ‘Why,’ cried he, ‘will he thus obtrude upon me these fastidious doubts and causeless difficulties? I begged but the restitution of my promise, and he gives it me in words that nearly annihilate my power of using it.’

  Disappointed and displeased, he hastily put it into his pocket-book, resolving to seek Camilla, and commit the consequences of an interview to the impulses it might awaken.

  He was half way down stairs, when the sentence finishing with, ‘you cannot excite, you cannot bestow happiness,’ confusedly recurred to him: ‘If in that,’ thought he, ‘I fail, I am a stranger to it myself, and a stranger for ever;’ and, returning to his room, he re-opened the letter to look for the passage.

  The sentence lost nothing by being read a second time; he paused upon it dejectedly, and presently re-read the whole epistle.

  ‘He is not quite wrong!’ cried he, pensively; ‘there is nothing very unreasonable in what he urges: true, indeed, it is, that I can never be happy myself, if her happiness is not entwined around my own.’

  The first blight thus borne to that ardent glee with which the imagination rewards its own elevated speculations, he yet a third time read the letter.

  ‘He is right!’ he then cried; ‘I will investigate her sentiments, and know what are my chances for her regard; what I owe to real approbation; and what merely to intimacy of situation. I will postpone all explanation till my visit here expires, and devote the probationary interval, to an examination which shall obviate all danger of either deceiving my own reason, or of beguiling her inconsiderate acceptance.’

  This settled, he rejoiced in a mastery over his eagerness, which he considered as complete, since it would defer for no less than a week the declaration of his passion.

  CHAPTER III

  An Author’s Notion of Travelling

  The next morning Camilla, sad and unwilling to appear, was the last who entered the breakfast-parlour. Edgar instantly discerned the continued unhappiness, which an assumed smile concealed from the unsuspicious Sir Hugh, and the week of delay before him seemed an outrage to all his wishes.

  While she was drinking her first cup of tea, a servant came in, and told her the carriage was ready.

  She coloured, but nobody spoke, and the servant retired. Edgar was going to ask the design for the morning, when Miss Margland said— ‘Miss Camilla, as the horses have got to go and return, you had better not keep them waiting.’

  Colouring still more deeply, she was going to disclaim having ordered them, though well aware for what purpose they were come, when Sir Hugh said— ‘I think, my dear, you had best take Eugenia with you, which may serve you as a companion to talk to, in case you want to say anything by the way, which I take for granted; young people not much liking to hold their tongues for a long while together, which is very natural, having so little to think of.’

  ‘Miss Eugenia, then,’ cried Miss Margland, before Camilla could reply, ‘run for your cloak as soon as you have finished your breakfast.’

  Eugenia, hoping to aid her sister in performing a task, which she considered as a peace-offering to Indiana, said, she had already done.

  Camilla now lost all courage for resistance; but feeling her chagrin almost intolerable, quitted the room with her tea undrunk, and without making known if she should return or not.

  Eugenia followed, and Edgar, much amazed, said, he had forgotten to order his horse for his morning’s ride, and hastily made off: determined to be ready to hand the sisters to the carriage, and learn whither it was to drive.

  Camilla, who, in flying to her room, thought of nothing less than preparing for an excursion which she now detested, was again surprised in tears by Eugenia.

  ‘What, my dearest Camilla,’ she cried, ‘can thus continually affect you? you cannot be so unhappy without some cause! — why will you not trust your Eugenia?’

  ‘I cannot talk,’ she answered, ashamed to repeat reasons which she knew Eugenia held to be inadequate to her concern— ‘If there is no resource against this persecution — if I must render myself hateful to give them satisfaction, let us, at least, be gone immediately, and let me be spared seeing the person I so ungratefully offend.’

  She then hurried down stairs; but finding Edgar in waiting, still more quickly hurried back, and in an agony, for which she attempted not to account, cast herself into a chair, and told Eugenia, that if Miss Margland did not contrive to call Edgar away, the universe could not prevail with her to pass him in such defiance.

  ‘My dear Camilla,’ said Eugenia, surprized, yet compassionately, ‘if this visit is become so painful to you, relinquish it at once.’

  ‘Ah, no! for that cruel Miss Margland will then accuse me of staying away only to follow the counsel of Edgar.’

  She stopt; for the countenance of Eugenia said— ‘And is that not your motive?’ A sudden consciousness took place of her distress; she hid her face, in the hope of concealing her emotion, and with as calm a voice as she could attain, said, the moment they could pass unobserved she would set off.

  Eugenia went downstairs.

  ‘Alas! alas!’ she then cried, ‘into what misery has this barbarous Miss Margland thrown me! Eugenia herself seems now to suspect something wrong; and so, I suppose, will my uncle; and I can only convince them of my innocence by acting towards Edgar as a monster. — Ah! I would sooner a thousand times let them all think me guilty!’

  Eugenia had met Miss Margland in the hall, who, impatient for their departure, passed her, and ascended the stairs.

  At the sound of her footsteps, the horror of her reproaches and insinuations conquered every other feeling, and Camilla, starting up, rushed forward, and saying ‘Good morning!’ ran off.

  Edgar was still at the door, and came forward to offer her his hand. ‘Pray take care of Eugenia,’ she cried, abruptly passing him, and darting, unaided, into the chaise. Edgar, astonished, obeyed, and gave his more welcome assistance to Eugenia; but when both were seated, said— ‘Where shall I tell the postillion to drive?’

  Camilla, who was pulling one of the green blinds up, and again letting it down, twenty times in a minute, affected not to hear him; but Eugenia answered, ‘to the Grove, to Mrs. Arlbery’s.’

  The postillion had already received his orders from Miss Margland, and drove off; leaving Edgar mute with surprise, disappointment and mortification.

  Miss Margland was just behind him, and conceived this the fortunate instant for eradicating from his mind every favourable pre-possession for Camilla; assuming, therefore, an air of concern, she said— ‘So, you have found Miss Camilla out, in spite of all her precautions! she would fain not have ha
d you know her frolic.’

  ‘Not know it! has there, then, been any plan? did Miss Camilla intend — —’

  ‘O, she intends nothing in the world for two minutes together! only she did not like you should find out her fickleness. You know, I told you, before, she was all whim; and so you will find. You may always take my opinion, be assured. Miss Lynmere is the only one among them that is always the same, always good, always amiable.’

  ‘And is not Miss — —’ he was going to say Camilla, but checking himself, finished with— ‘Miss Eugenia, at least, always equal, always consistent?’

  ‘Why, she is better than Miss Camilla; but not one among them has any steadiness, or real sweetness, but Miss Lynmere. As to Miss Camilla, if she has not her own way, there’s no enduring her, she frets, and is so cross. When you put her off, in that friendly manner, from gadding after a new acquaintance so improper for her, you set her into such an ill humour, that she has done nothing but cry, as you may have seen by her eyes, and worry herself and all of us round, except you, ever since; but she was afraid of you, for fear you should take her to task, which she hates of all things.’

  Half incredulous, yet half shocked, Edgar turned from this harangue in silent disgust. He knew the splenetic nature of Miss Margland, and trusted she might be wrong; but he knew, too, her opportunities for observation, and dreaded lest she might be right. Camilla had been certainly low spirited, weeping, and restless; was it possible it could be for so slight, so unmeaning a cause? His wish was to follow her on horseback; but this, unauthorized, might betray too much anxiety: he tried not to think of what had been said by Dr. Marchmont, while this cloud hung over her disposition and sincerity; for whatever might be the malignity of Miss Margland, the breach of a promise, of which the voluntary sweetness had so lately proved his final captivation, could not be doubted, and called aloud for explanation.

  He mounted, however, his horse, to make his promised enquiries of Mrs. Needham; for though the time was already past for impeding the acquaintance from taking place, its progress might yet be stopt, should it be found incompatible with propriety.