Complete Works of Frances Burney

by Frances Burney

  ‘Loves me?’ cried Edgar, his arms involuntarily encircling him as he repeated the magnetising words: ‘Ah! Dr. Marchmont, could she then thus grieve and defy me? — And yet, so too said Jacob, — that good, faithful, excellent old servant....’

  ‘Yes; I watched her unremittingly; and saw her so much hurt by your abrupt retreat, that her eyes filled with tears the moment you left the room.’

  ‘O, Dr. Marchmont! — and for me were they shed? — my dear — dear friend! withhold from me such a picture — or reconcile me completely to viewing no other!’

  ‘Once more, let me warn you to circumspection. The stake for which you are playing is life in its best part, ’tis peace of mind. That her manners are engaging, that her looks are captivating, and even that her heart is yours, admit no doubt: but the solidity or the lightness of that heart are yet to be proved.’

  ‘Still, Doctor, though nearly in defiance of all my senses, still I can doubt anything rather than the heart of Camilla! Precipitate, I know, she has always been reckoned; but her precipitance is of kin to her noblest virtues; it springs but from the unsuspicious frankness of an unguarded, because innocent nature. And this, in a short time, her understanding will correct.’

  ‘Are you sure it is adequate to the task? There is often, in early youth, a quickness of parts which raises expectations that are never realised. Their origin is but in the animal spirits, which, instead of ripening into judgment and sense by added years, dwindle into nothingness, or harden into flippancy. The character, at this period, is often so unstable, as to be completely new moulded by every new accident, or new associate. How innumerable are the lurking ill qualities that may lie dormant beneath the smiles of youth and beauty, in the season of their untried serenity! The contemporaries of half our fiercest viragos of fifty, may assure you that, at fifteen, they were all softness and sweetness. The present æra, however, my dear young friend, is highly favourable to all you can judiciously wish; namely, the entire re-establishment, or total destruction of all confidence.... To a man of your nice feelings, there is no medium. Your love demands respect, or your tranquillity exacts flight from its object. Set apart your offence at the cultivation of an acquaintance you disapprove; be yourself of the party to Southampton, and there, a very little observation will enable you to dive into the most secret recesses of her character.’

  ‘Steadiness, Doctor, I do not want, nor yet, however I suffer from its exertion, fortitude: but a plan such as this, requires something more; it calls for an equivocal conduct, which, to me, would be impracticable, and to her, might prove delusive. No!... the openness I so much pine to meet with, I must, at least, not forfeit myself.’

  ‘The fervour of your integrity, my dear Mandlebert, mistakes caution for deceit. If, indeed, this plan had any other view than your union, it would not merely be cruel, but infamous: the truth, however, is you must either pursue her upon proof, or abandon her at once, with every chance of repenting such a measure.’

  ‘Alas! how torturing is hesitation! to believe myself the object of her regard ... to think that first of all human felicities mine, yet to find it so pliant ... so precarious ... to see her, with such thoughtless readiness, upon the point of falling into the hands of another!... receiving ... answering ... his letters!... letters too so confident, so daring! made up of insolent demands and imperious reproaches ... to meet him by his own appointment.... O, Dr. Marchmont! all delicious as is the idea of her preference ... all entwined as she is around my soul, how, now, how ever again, can I be happy, either to quit ... or to claim her?...’

  ‘This division of sentiment is what gives rise to my plan. At Southampton, you will see if Sir Sedley pursues her; and, as she will be uncertain of your intentions, you will be enabled to judge the singleness of her mind, and the stability of her affection, by the reception she gives him.’

  ‘But if ... as I think I can gather from her delivering me his letters, the affair, whatever it has been, with Sir Sedley, is over.... What then?’

  ‘You will have leisure to discuss it; and opportunity, also, to see her with other Sir Sedleys. Public places abound with those flutterers after youth and beauty; unmeaning admirers, who sigh at every new face; or black traitors to society, who seek but to try, and try but to publish their own power of conquest.’

  ‘Will you, then, my dear Doctor, be also of the party? for my sake, will you, once more, quit your studies and repose, to give me, upon the spot, your counsel, according to the varying exigence of varying circumstances? to aid me to prepare and compose my mind for whatever may be the event, and to guide even, if possible, my wavering and distracted thoughts?’

  To the importance of the period, and to a plea so serious, every obstacle yielded, and Dr. Marchmont agreed to accompany him to Southampton.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Live and Learn

  Before the Cleves party assembled to breakfast, after the various arrangements made for Southampton, Mr. Dubster arrived, and demanded an interview with Sir Hugh, who, attending him to the drawing-room, asked his pleasure.

  ‘Why, have not you read the young gentleman’s letter, sir?’ cried he, surprised, ‘because, he said, he’d put it all down, clear as a pike staff, to save time.’

  Sir Hugh had not heard of it.

  ‘Why, then, if you please, sir, we’ll go and ask that elderly gentlewoman, what she’s done with it. She might as well have shewed it, after the young gentleman’s taking the trouble to write it to her. But she is none of the good naturedest, I take it.’

  Repairing, then, to Miss Margland, after his usual bows to all the company, ‘I ask pardon, ma’am,’ he cried; ‘but pray, what’s the reason of your keeping the young gentleman’s letter to yourself, which was writ o’purpose to let the old gentleman know what I come for?’

  ‘Because I never trouble myself with any thing that’s impertinent,’ she haughtily answered: though, in fact, when the family had retired, she had stolen downstairs, and read the letter; which contained a warm recommendation of Mr. Dubster to her favour, with abundant flippant offers to promote her own interest for so desirable a match, should Camilla prove blind to its advantages. This she had then burnt, with a determination never to acknowledge her condescension in opening it.

  The repeated calls of Mr. Dubster procuring no further satisfaction; ‘Why, then, I don’t see,’ he said, ‘but what I’m as bad off, as if the young gentleman had not writ the letter, for I’ve got to speak for myself at last.’

  Taking Sir Hugh, then, by a button of his coat, he desired he would go back with him to the other parlour: and there, with much circumlocution, and unqualified declarations of his having given over all thoughts of further marrying, till the young gentleman over persuaded him of his being particular agreeable to the young lady, he solemnly proposed himself for Miss Camilla Tyrold.

  Sir Hugh, who perceived in this address nothing that was ridiculous, was somewhat drawn from reflecting on his own disappointment, by the pity he conceived for this hopeless suitor, to whom, with equal circumlocution of concern, he communicated, that his niece was on the point of marriage with a neighbour.

  ‘I know that,’ replied Mr. Dubster, nodding sagaciously, ‘the young gentleman having told me of the young baronight; but he said, it was all against her will, being only your over teasing, and the like.’

  ‘The Lord be good unto me!’ exclaimed the baronet, holding up his hands; ‘if I don’t think all the young boys have a mind to drive me out of my wits, one after t’other!’

  Hurrying, then, back to the breakfast parlour, and to Camilla, ‘Come hither, my dear,’ he cried, ‘for here’s a gentleman come to make his addresses to you, that won’t take an answer.’

  Every serious thought, and every melancholy apprehension in Camilla gave place, at this speech, to the ludicrous image of such an admirer as Mr. Dubster, foisted upon her by the ridiculous machinations of Lionel. She took Sir Hugh by the hand, and, drawing him away to the most distant window, said, in a low voice, ‘My de
ar uncle, this is a mere trick of Lionel; the person you see here is, I believe, a tinker.’

  ‘A tinker!’ repeated Sir Hugh, quite loud, in defiance of the signs and hists! hists! of Camilla, ‘good lack! that’s a person I should never have thought of!’ Then, walking up to Mr. Dubster, who was taking into his hands all the ornaments from the chimney-piece, one by one, to examine, ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘you may be a very good sort of man, and I don’t doubt but you are, for I’ve a proper respect for every trade in its way; but in point of marrying my niece, it’s a thing I must beg you to put out of your head; it not being a proper subject to talk of to a young lady, from a person in that line.’

  ‘Very well, sir,’ answered Mr. Dubster, stiffly, and pouting, ‘it’s not of much consequence; don’t make yourself uneasy. There’s nothing in what I was going to propose but what was quite genteel. I’d scorn to address a lady else. She’d have a good five hundred a-year, in case of outliving me.’

  ‘Good lack! five hundred a-year! who’d have thought of such a thing by the tinkering business?’

  ‘The what business, did you say, sir?’ cried Mr. Dubster, strutting up to the baronet, with a solemn frown.

  ‘The tinkering business, my good friend. An’t you a tinker?’

  ‘Sir!’ cried Mr. Dubster, swelling, ‘I did not think, when I was coming to make such a handsome offer, of being affronted at such a rate as this. Not that I mind it. It’s not worth fretting about. However, as to a tinker, I’m no more a tinker than yourself, whatever put it in your head.’

  ‘Good lack, my dear,’ cried the baronet, to Camilla, ‘the gentleman quite denies it.’

  Camilla, though unable to refrain from laughing, confessed she had received the information from Mrs. Arlbery at the Northwick breakfast, who, she now supposed, had said it in random sport.

  Sir Hugh cordially begged his pardon, and asked him to take a seat at the breakfast table, to soften the undesigned offence.

  A note now arrived from Mr. Tyrold to the baronet. It contained his consent to return, with Lavinia, to Cleves, and his ready acquiescence in the little excursion to Southampton, since Miss Margland would be superintendant of the party; ‘and since,’ he added, ‘they will have another guardian, to whom already I consign my Camilla, and, upon her account, my dear Eugenia also, with the same fearless confidence I should feel in seeing them again under the maternal wing.’

  Sir Hugh, who always read his letters aloud, said, when he had done: ‘See what it is to be a good boy! my brother looks upon young Mr. Edgar as these young girls’ husband already; that is, of one of them; by which means the other becomes his sister; which, I’m sure, is a trouble he won’t mind, except as a pleasure.’

  Camilla’s distress at this speech past unnoticed, from the abrupt entrance of Lynmere, giving orders aloud to his servant to get ready for Southampton.

  Inflamed with triumph in his recent success in baffling his uncle, that youth was in the most turbulent spirits, and fixed a resolution either to lord it over the whole house, or regain at once his liberty for returning to the Continent.

  Forcing a chair between Sir Hugh and Camilla, he seized rapidly whatever looked most inviting from every plate on the table, to place upon his own, murmuring the whole time against the horses, declaring the stud the most wretched he had ever seen, and protesting the old groom must be turned away without loss of time.

  ‘What, Jacob?’ cried the baronet; ‘why, nephew, he has lived with me from a boy; and now he’s grown old, I’d sooner rub down every horse with my own hand, than part with him.’

  ‘He must certainly go, sir. There’s no keeping him. I may be tempted else to knock his brains out some day. Besides, I have a very good fellow I can recommend to you of my own.’

  ‘Clermont, I’ve no doubt of his being a good fellow, which I’m very glad of; but as to your always knocking out the brains of my servants, it’s a thing I must beg you not to talk of any more, being against the law. Besides which, it don’t sound very kind of you, considering their having done you no harm; never having seen your face, as one may say, except just to wait upon you; which can hardly be reckoned a bad office; besides a servant’s being a man, as well as you; whether Homer and Horace tell you so or no.’

  To see Sir Hugh displeased, was a sight new to the whole house. Camilla and Eugenia, mutually pained for him, endeavoured, by various little kind offices, to divert his attention; but Indiana thought his displeasure proved her brother to be a wit; and Clermont rose in spirits and in insolence upon the same idea: too shallow to know, that of all the qualities with which the perversity of human nature is gifted, and power which is the most common to attain, and the most easy to practise, is the art of provoking.

  Jacob now appearing, Lynmere ordered some shrimps.

  There were none.

  ‘No shrimps? There’s nothing to be had! ’Tis a wretched county this!’

  ‘You’ll get nice shrimps at Southampton, sir, by what I can hear,’ said Mr. Dubster. ‘Tom Hicks says he has been sick with ’em many a day, he’s eat such a heap. They gets ’em by hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds at a time.’

  ‘Pray, nephew, how long shall you stay? because of my nieces coming back at the same time.’

  ‘A fortnight’s enough to tire me anywhere, sir. Pray what do you all do with yourselves here after breakfast? What’s your mode?’

  ‘Mode, nephew? we’ve got no particular mode that ever I heard of. However, among so many of us, I think it’s a little hard, if you can find nothing to say to us; all, in a manner, your relations too.’

  ‘We take no notice of relations now, sir; that’s out.’

  ‘I’m sorry for it, nephew, for a relation’s a relation, whether you take notice of him or not. And there’s ne’er an ode in Virgil will tell you to the contrary, as I believe.’

  A short silence now ensued, which was broken by a sigh from Sir Hugh, who ejaculated to himself, though aloud, ‘I can’t but think what my poor friend Westwyn will do, if his son’s come home in this manner! caring for nobody, but an oyster, or a shrimp; ... unless it’s a newspaper!’

  ‘And what should a man care for else, my good old friend, in a desart place such as this?’

  ‘Good old friend!’ repeated the baronet; ‘to be sure, I’m not very young.... However, as to that ... but you mean no harm, I know, for which reason I can’t be so ill-natured as to take it ill. However, if poor Westwyn is served in this ... way.... He’s my dearest friend that I’ve got, out of us all here, of my own kin, and he’s got only one son, and he sent him to foreign parts only for cheapness; and if he should happen to like nothing he can get at home, it won’t answer much in saving, to send out for things all day long.’

  ‘O don’t be troubled, sir; Westwyn’s but a poor creature. He’ll take up with anything. He lived within his allowance the whole time. A mighty poor creature.’

  ‘I’m glad of it! glad of it, indeed!’ cried Sir Hugh, with involuntary eagerness; ‘I should have been sorry if my poor good old friend had had such disappointment.’

  ‘Upon my honour,’ cried Lynmere, piqued, ‘the quoz of the present season are beyond what a man could have hoped to see!’

  ‘Quoz! what’s quoz, nephew?’

  ‘Why, it’s a thing there’s no explaining to you sort of gentlemen; and sometimes we say quiz, my good old sir.’

  Sir Hugh, now, for almost the first time in his life, felt seriously affronted. His utmost lenity could not palliate the wilful disrespect of his language; and, with a look of grave displeasure, he answered, ‘Really, nephew, I can’t but say, I think you’ve got rather a particular odd way of speaking to persons. As to talking so much about people’s being old, you’d do well to consider that’s no fault in anybody; except one’s years, which is what we can’t be said to help.’

  ‘You descant too much upon words, sir; we have left off, now, using them with such prodigious precision. It’s quite over, sir.’

  ‘O, my dear Clermont!’ cried Sir Hugh,
losing his short movement of anger in a more tender sensation of concern, ‘how it goes to my heart to see you turn out such a jackanapes!’

  Lynmere, resentfully hanging back, said no more: and Mr. Dubster, having drunk seven dishes of tea, with a long apology between each for the trouble, gladly seized the moment of pause, to ask Camilla when she had heard from their friend Mrs. Mittin, adding, ‘I should have brought you a letter from her, ma’am, myself, but that I was rather out of sorts with her; for happening to meet her, the day as you went, walking on them Pantiles, with some of her quality binding, when I was not dressed out quite in my best becomes, she made as if she did not know me. Not as it signifies. It’s pretty much of a muchness to me. I remember her another sort of person to what she looks now, before I was a gentleman myself.’

  ‘Why, pray, what was you then, sir?’ cried Sir Hugh, with great simplicity.

  ‘As to that, sir, there’s no need to say whether I was one thing or another, as I know of; I’m not in the least ashamed of what I was.’

  Sir Hugh seeing him offended, was beginning an apology; but, interrupting him, ‘No, sir,’ he said, ‘there’s no need to say nothing about it. It’s not a thing to take much to heart. I’ve been defamed often enough, I hope, to be above minding it. Only just this one thing, sir; I beg I may have the favour to be introduced to that lady as had the obligingness to call me a tinker, when I never was no such thing.’

  Breakfast now being done, the ladies retired to prepare for their journey.

  ‘Well,’ cried Mr. Dubster, looking after Eugenia, ‘that little lady will make no great figure at such a place as Southton. I would not have her look out for a husband there.’

  ‘She’d have been just the thing for me!’ cried Lynmere, haughtily rising, and conceitedly parading his fine form up and down the room; his eyes catching it from looking-glass to looking-glass, by every possible contrivance; ‘just the thing! matched to perfection!’