Eugenia soon recovered, and rising, and holding her by the hand, yet seeming to refuse herself the emotion of returning her embraces, said, with a faint effort to smile; 'You have surprised me, indeed, my dear Camilla, and convicted me to myself of my vain philosophy. I had thought I should never more be moved thus again. But I see now, the affections are not so speedily to be all vanquished.'

The melancholy conveyed by this idea of believed apathy, in a young creature so innocent, and but just dawning into life, still beyond speech, and nearly beyond sufferance, affected Camilla, who hanging over her, sighed out: 'My dearest!... dearest Eugenia!'

'And what is it has brought to me this unexpected, but loved sight? Does Mr. Bellamy know you are here?'

'No,' she answered, shuddering at his name.

Eugenia looked pensive, looked distressed; and casting down her eyes and hesitating, with a deep sigh said: 'I, ... I have not the trinkets for my dear Sister ... Mr. Bellamy ...' she stopt.

Called to her sad self by this shock, of which she strove to repress the emotion, Camilla recollected her own 'almost blunted purpose[6],' and fearfully asked if their Mother were yet at Belfont.

[Footnote 6: Hamlet]

'Ah, no!' she answered, clasping her hands, and leaning her head upon her sister's neck: 'She is gone!--The day before yesterday she was with me,--with me only for one hour!--yet to pa.s.s with her such another, I think, my dear Camilla, would soon lead me where I might learn a better philosophy than that I so vainly thought I had already acquired here!'

Camilla, struck with awe, ventured not even at an enquiry; and they both, for some little time, walked on in silence.

'Did she name to you,' at length, in broken accents, she asked, 'did she name to you, my Eugenia, ... the poor, banished ... Camilla?----'

'Banished? No. How banished?'

'She did not mention me?'

'No. She came to me but upon one subject. She failed in her purpose, ...

and left me.'

A sigh that was nearly a groan finished this short little speech.

'Ah, Heaven! my Eugenia,' cried Camilla, now in agony unresisted, 'tell me, then, what pa.s.sed! what new disappointment had my unhappy Mother to sustain? And how, and by what cruel fatality, has it fallen to your lot ... even to yours ... to suffer her wishes to fail?'

'You know nothing, then,' said Eugenia, after a pause, 'of her view--her errand hither?'

'Nothing; but that to see you brought her not only hither, but to England.'

'Blessed may she be!' cried Eugenia, fervently, 'and rewarded where rewards are just, and are permanent!'

Camilla zealously joined in the prayer, yet besought to know if she might not be informed of the view to which she alluded?

'We must go, then,' said Eugenia, 'into the house; my poor frame is yet feebler than my mind, and I cannot support it unaided while I make such a relation.'

Camilla, affrighted, now gave up her request; but the generous Eugenia would not leave her in suspense. They went, therefore, to a parlour, where, shutting the doors and windows, she said, 'I must be concise, for both our sakes; and when you understand me, we must talk instantly of other things.'

Camilla could give only a tacit promise; but her air shewed she would hold it sacred as any bond.

'The idea which brought over this inestimable Parent, and which brought her, at a moment when she knew me to be alone, to this sad house, these sad arms ... Camilla! how shall I speak it? It was to exonerate me from my vows, as forced! to annul all my engagements, as compulsatory! and to restore me again ... O, Camilla! Camilla! to my Parents, my Sisters, my Uncle, my dearly-loved Cleves!'

She gasped almost convulsively; yet though Camilla now even conjured her to say no more, went on: 'A proposal such as this, pressed upon me by one whose probity and honour hold all calamity at nought, if opposed to the most minute deviation from right--a proposal such as this ... ah!

let me not go back to the one terrible half instant of demur! It was heart-rending, it was killing! I thought myself again in the bosom of my loved family!'--

'And is it so utterly impossible? And can it not yet be effected?'--

'No, my dear Sister, no! The horrible scenes I must go through in a public trial for such a purpose--the solemn vows I must set aside, the re-iterated promises I must break,----no, my dear Sister, no!... And now, we will speak of this no more.'

Camilla knew too well her firmness, her enthusiasm to perform whatever she conceived to be her duty, to enter into any contest. Yet to see her thus self devoted, where even her upright Mother, and pious Father, those patterns of resignation to every heaven-inflicted sorrow, thought her ties were repealed by the very villainy which had formed them, seemed more melancholy, and yet harder for submission, than her first seizure by the worthless Bellamy.

'And how bore my poor Mother ... my poor unfortunate Mother! destined thus to woes of every sort, though from children who adore her!--how bore she the deprivation of a hope that had brought her so far?'

'Like herself! n.o.bly! when once it was decided, and she saw that though, upon certain avowals, the law might revoke my plighted faith, it could not abrogate the scruples of my conscience. She thinks them overstrained, but she knows them to be sincere, and permitted them, therefore, to silence her. Unfit to be seen by any others, she hurried then away. And then, Camilla, began my trial! Indeed I thought, when she had left me, ... when my arms no more embraced her honoured knees, and neither her blessings, nor her sorrows soothed or wounded my ears, I thought I might defy all evil to a.s.sault, all woe to afflict me ever again! that my eyes were exhausted of every tear, and my heart was emptied of all power of future feeling. I seemed suddenly quite hardened;--transformed I thought to stone, as senseless, as immovable, and as cold!'

The sensations of Camilla were all such as she durst not utter; but Eugenia, a.s.suming some composure; added, 'Of this and of me now enough--speak, my dear Sister, of yourself. How have you been enabled to come hither? And what could you mean by saying you were banished?'

'Alas! my dearest Eugenia, if my unhappy situation is unknown to you, why should I agitate you with new pain? my Mother, I find, spared you; and not only you, but me--though I have wrung her heart, tortured it by a sight never to be obliterated from her memory--she would not rob me of my beloved sister's regard; nor even name me, lest the altered tone of her voice should make you say, Of what Camilla does my Mother speak?'

Eugenia, with earnest wonder, begged an explanation; but when Camilla found her wholly uninformed of the history of their Father's confinement, she recoiled from giving her such a shock: yet having gone too far entirely to recede, she rested the displeasure of their Mother upon the debts, and the dealings with a usurer; both sufficiently repugnant to the strictness and n.o.bleness of Mrs. Tyrold, to seem ample justification of her displeasure.

Eugenia entered into the distresses of her sister, as if exempt herself from all suffering: and Camilla, thus commiserating and commiserated, knew now how to tear herself away; for though Eugenia pressed not her stay, she turned pale, when a door opened, a clock struck, or any thing seemed to prognosticate a separation; and looked as if to part with her were death.

At length, however, the lateness of the day forced more of resolution.

But when Camilla then rang to give orders for the carriage, the footman said it had been gone more than two hours. The postillion, being left without any directions, thought it convenient to suppose he was done with; and knowing Camilla had no authority, and his lady no inclination to chide him, had given in her little packet, and driven off, without enquiry.

Far from repining at this mixture of impertinence and carelessness, Camilla would have rejoiced in an accident that seemed to invite her stay, had not her sister seemed more startled than pleased by it. She begged, therefore, that a post chaise might be ordered; and Molly Mill, the only servant to whom the mistress of the house appeared willing to speak, received the commission. At sight of Camilla, Molly had cried bitterly, and beginning 'O Miss!--' seemed entering into some lamentation and detail; but Eugenia, checking her, half whispered: 'Good Molly, remember what you promised!'

When Molly came back, she said that there were no horses at Belfont, and would be none till the next morning.

The sisters involuntarily congratulated one another upon this accident, though they reciprocated a sigh, that to necessity alone they should owe their lengthened intercourse.

'But, my dear mistress,' cried Molly, 'there's a lad that I know very well, for I always see him when I go of an errand, that's going to Salisbury; and he says he must go through Etherington, and if you've any thing you want to send he'll take it for you; and he can bring any thing back, for he shall be here again to morrow, for he goes post.'

Eugenia, sending away Molly, said, 'Why should you not seize such an opportunity to address a few lines to our dear Mother? I may then have the satisfaction to see her answer: and if, ... as I cannot doubt, she tells you to return home with Miss Margland;--for she will not, I am sure, let you travel about alone;--what a relief will it be to me to know the distresses of my beloved sister are terminated! I shall paint your meeting in my "mind's eye," see you again restored to the sunshine of her fondness, and while away my solitary languor with reveries far more soothing than any that I have yet experienced at Belfont.'

Camilla embraced her generous Sister; and always readiest for what was speediest, wrote these lines, directed

_To Miss_ TYROLD.

I cannot continue silent, yet to whom may I address myself? I dare not apply to my Father--I scarce dare even think of my Mother--Encompa.s.sed with all of guilt with which imprudence could ensnare me, my courage is gone with my happiness! which way may I then turn? In pity to a wretched sister, drop, O Lavinia, at the feet of her I durst not name, but whom I revere, if possible, even more than I have offended, this small and humble memorial of my unhappy existence--my penitence, my supplication, my indescribable, though merited anguish!

CAMILLA.

Could the two sisters, even in this melancholy state, have continued together, they felt that yet from tender sympathy, consolation might revisit their bosoms. The day closed in; but they could not bear to part; and though, from hour to hour, they p.r.o.nounced an adieu, they still sat on, talked on, and found a balm in their restored intercourse, so healing and so sweet, that the sun, though they hailed not its beams, rose while they were yet repeating Good Night!

They then thought it too late to retire, mutually agreeing with how much greater facility they might recover their lost rest, than an opportunity such as this for undisturbed conversation.

Every minute of this endearing commerce made separation seem harder; and the answer for which they waited from Etherington, anxiously and fearfully as it was expected, so whiled away the minutes, that it was noon, and no chaise had been ordered, when they heard one driving up to the house.

Alarmed, they listened to know what it portended. 'Mr. Bellamy,' said Eugenia, in a low voice, 'scarce ever comes home at this hour.'

'Can it be my Mother herself?' cried Camilla.