Chapter II: A Pro and a Con

With a pen flowing quick from feelings of the most generous warmth, Edgar wrote the following letter:

_To Dr._ Marchmont.

Accuse me not of precipitance, my dear Doctor, nor believe me
capable of forgetting the wisdom of your suggestions, nor of
lightly weighing those evils with which your zeal has encompassed
me, though I write at this instant to confess a total contrariety
of sentiment, to call back every promise of delay, and to make an
unqualified avowal, that the period of caution is past! Camilla is
not happy--something, I know not what, has disturbed the gay
serenity of her bosom: she has forbid me to enquire the cause;--one
way only remains to give me a claim to her confidence.--O Doctor!
wonder not if cold, tardy, suspicious--I had nearly said unfeeling,
caution, shrinks at such a moment, from the rising influence of
warmer sympathy, which bids me sooth her in distress, shield her
from danger, strengthen all her virtues, and participate in their
emanations!

You will not do me the injustice to think me either impelled or
blinded by external enchantments; you know me to have withstood
their yet fuller blaze in her cousin: O no! were she despoiled of
all personal attraction by the same ravaging distemper that has
been so fierce with her poor sister; were a similar cruel accident
to rob her form of all symmetry, she would yet be more fascinating
to my soul, by one single look, one single word, one sweet beaming
smile, diffusing all the gaiety it displays, than all of beauty,
all of elegance, all of rank, all of wealth, the whole kingdom, in
some wonderful aggregate, could oppose to her.

Her face, her form, however penetrating in loveliness, aid, but do
not constitute, her charms; no, 'tis the quick intelligence of soul
that mounts to her eyes, 'tis the spirit checked by sweetness, the
sweetness animated by spirit, the nature so nobly above all
artifice, all study--O Doctor! restore to me immediately every
vestige, every trait of any promise, any acquiescence, any idea the
most distant, that can be construed into a compliance with one
moment's requisition of delay!

EDGAR MANDLEBERT.

_Cleves Park, Friday Evening._

* * * * *

Camilla, meanwhile, shut up in her room, wept almost without cessation, from a sense of general unhappiness, though fixed to no point, and from a disturbance of mind, a confusion of ideas and of feelings, that rendered her incapable of reflection. She was again followed by Eugenia, and could no longer refuse, to her tender anxiety, a short detail of the attack which occasioned her disorder; happy, at least, in reciting it, that by unfolding the cause, there no longer remained any necessity to repress the effects of her affliction.

To her great surprise, however, Eugenia only said: 'And is this all, my dear Camilla?'

'All!' exclaimed Camilla.

'Yes, is it all?--I was afraid some great misfortune had happened.'

'And what could happen more painful, more shocking, more cruel?'

'A thousand things! for this is nothing but a mere mistake; and you should not make yourself unhappy about it, because you are not to blame.'

'Is it then nothing to be accused of designs and intentions so criminal?'

'If the accusation were just, it might indeed make you wretched: but it is Miss Margland only who has any reason to be afflicted; for it is she alone who has been in the wrong.'

Struck with this plain but uncontrovertible truth, Camilla wiped her eyes, and strove to recover some composure; but finding her tears still force their way, 'It is not,' she cried, with some hesitation, 'it is not the aspersions of Miss Margland alone that give me so much vexation--the unkindness of Indiana--'

'Indeed she is highly reprehensible; and so I will tell her;--but still, if she has any fears, however ill-founded, of losing Edgar, you cannot but pardon--you must even pity her.'

Struck again, and still more forcibly, by this second truth, Camilla, ashamed of her grief, made a stronger and more serious effort to repress it; and receiving soon afterwards a summons from her uncle, her spirit rose once more to the relief of her dejection, upon seeing him seated between Miss Margland and Indiana, and discerning that they had been making some successful complaint, by the air of triumph with which they waited her approach.

'My dear Camilla,' he cried, with a look of much disturbance, 'here's a sad ado, I find; though I don't mean to blame you, nor young Mr. Mandlebert neither, taste being a fault one can't avoid; not but what a person's changing their mind is what I can't commend in any one, which I shall certainly let him know, not doubting to bring him round by means of his own sense: only, my dear, in the meanwhile, I must beg you not to stand in your cousin's way.'

'Indeed, my dear uncle, I do not merit this imputation; I am not capable of such treachery!' indignantly answered Camilla.

'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
assiduity 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.