'Sir Sedley Clarendel a.s.serts, that if you are not as inexorable as you are fair, you will not refuse to join our little party tonight at the theatre.'

Camilla, after a severe conflict from this note, which she concluded to be the mere work of Mrs. Arlbery to draw her from retirement, sent word she would wait upon her.

Sir Sedley heard the answer with exultation, and Mrs. Arlbery with surprise. She declared, however, that since he possessed this power, she should not suffer it to lie dormant, but make it work upon her fair friend, till it either excited jealousy in Mandlebert, or brought indifference to herself. 'My resolution,' cried she, 'is fixt; either to see him at her feet, or drive him from her heart.'

Camilla, presently descending, looked away from Mrs. Arlbery; but, unsuspicious as she was undesigning, thanked the Baronet for his message, and told him she had already repented her solitary plan. The Baronet felt but the more flattered, from supposing this was said from the fear of flattering him.

In the way to the theatre, Camilla, with much confusion, recollected her empty purse; but could not, before Mr. and Miss Dennel and Sir Sedley, prevail with herself to make it known; she could only determine to ask Mrs. Arlbery to pay for her at present, and defer the explanation till night.

But, just as she alighted from the coach, Mrs. Arlbery, in her usual manner, said: 'Do pay for me, good Dennel; you know how I hate money.'

Camilla, hurrying after her, whispered, 'May I beg you to lend me some silver?'

'Silver! I have not carried any about with me since I lost my dear ponies and my pet phaeton. I am as poor as Job; and therefore bent upon avoiding all temptation. Somebody or other always trusts me. If they get paid, they bless their stars. If not,--do you hear me, Mr.

Dennel?--'twill be all the same an hundred years hence; so what man of any spirit will think of it? hey, Mr. Dennel?'

'But--dear madam!--pray--'

'O, they'll change for you, here, my dear, without difficulty.'

'But ... but ... pray stop!... I ... I have no gold neither!'

'Have you done like me, then, come out without your purse?'

'No!...'

This single negative, and the fluttered manner, and low voice in which it was p.r.o.nounced, gave Mrs. Arlbery the utmost astonishment. She said nothing, however, but called aloud to Mr. Dennel to settle for the whole party.

Mr. Dennel, during the dialogue, had paid for himself and his daughter, and walked on into the box.

'What a Hottentot!' exclaimed Mrs. Arlbery. 'Come, then, Clarendel, take pity on two poor distressed objects, and let us pa.s.s.'

Sir Sedley, little suspicious of the truth, yet flattered to be always called upon to be the banker of Camilla, obeyed with alacrity.

Mrs. Arlbery placed Camilla upon a seat before her, and motioned to the Baronet to remain in a row above; and then, in a low voice, said: 'My dear Clarendel, do you know they have let that poor girl come to Tunbridge without a sixpence in her pocket!'

'Is it possible?'

''Tis a fact. I never suspected it till suspicion was followed by confirmation. She had a guinea or two, I fancy, at first, just to equip her with one set of things to appear in; which, probably, the good Parson imagined would last as clean and as long at a public place as at his parsonage-house, where my best suit is worn about twice in a summer.

But how that rich old uncle of hers could suffer her to come without a penny, I can neither account for nor forgive. I have seen her shyness about money-matters for some days past; but I so little conjectured the possibility of her distress, that I have always rather increased than spared it.'

'Sweet little angel!' exclaimed the Baronet, in a tone of tenderness; 'I had indeed no idea of her situation. Heavens! I could lay half my fortune at her feet to set her at ease!'

'Half, my dear Clarendel!' cried Mrs. Arlbery, laughing; 'nay, why not the whole? where will you find a more lovely companion?'

'Pho, pho!--but why should it be so vastly horrid an incongruity that a man who, by chance, is rich, should do something for a woman who, by chance, is poor? How immensely impertinent is the prejudice that forbids so natural a use of money! why should the better half of a man's actions be always under the dominion of some prescriptive slavery? 'Tis hideous to think of. And how could he more delectably spend, or more ecstatically enjoy his fortune, than by so equitable a partic.i.p.ation?'

'True, Sir Sedley. And you men are all so disinterested, so pure in your benevolence, so free from any spirit of encroachment, that no possible ill consequence could ensue from such an arrangement. When once a fair lady had made you a civil courtesy, you would wholly forget you had ever obliged her. And you would let her walk her ways, and forget it also: especially if, by chance, she happened to be young and pretty.'

This raillery was interrupted by the appearance of Edgar in an opposite box. 'Ah!' cried Mrs. Arlbery, 'look but at that piece of congelation that nothing seems to thaw! Enter the lists against him, dear Clarendel!

He has stationed himself there merely to watch and discountenance her. I hate him heartily; yet he rolls in wealth, and she has nothing. I must bring them, therefore, together, positively: for though a husband ...

such a fastidious one especially ... is not what I would recommend to her for happiness, 'tis better than poverty. And, after his cold and selfish manner, I am convinced he loves her. He is evidently in pursuit of her, though he wants generosity to act openly. Work him but with a little jealousy, and you will find me right.'

'Me, my dear madam? me, my divine Mrs. Arlbery? Alas! with what chance?

No! see where enters the gallant Major. Thence must issue those poignant darts that newly vivify the expiring embers of languishing love.'

'Now don't talk such nonsense when I am really serious. You are the very man for the purpose: because, though you have no feeling, Mandlebert does not know you are without it. But those Officers are too notoriously unmeaning to excite a moment's real apprehension. They have a new dulcinea wherever they newly quarter, and carry about the few ideas they possess from damsel to damsel, as regularly as from town to town.'

The Major was now in the box, and the conversation ended.

He endeavoured, as usual, to monopolize Camilla; but while her thoughts were all upon Edgar, the whole she could command of her attention was bestowed upon Sir Sedley.

This was not un.o.bserved by Edgar, who now again wavered in believing she loved the Major: but the doubt brought with it no pleasure; it led him only the more to contemn her. Does she turn, thought he, thus, from one to the other, with no preference but of accident or caprice? Is her favour thus light of circulation? Is it now the mawkish Major, and now the c.o.xcomb Clarendel? Already is she thus versed in the common dissipation of coquetry?... O, if so, how blest has been my escape! A coquette wife!...

His heart swelled, and his eye no longer sought her.

At night, as soon as she went to her own room, Mrs. Arlbery followed her, and said: 'My dear Miss Tyrold, I know much better than you how many six-pences and three-pences are perpetually wanted at places such as these. Do suffer me to be your banker. What shall we begin our account with?'

Camilla felt really thankful for being spared an opening upon this subject. She consented to borrow two guineas; but Mrs. Arlbery would not leave her with less than five, adding, 'I insist upon doubling it in a day or two. Never mind what I say about my distress, and my phaeton, and my ponies; 'tis only to torment Dennel, who trembles at parting with half-a-crown for half an hour; or else, now and then, to set other people a staring; which is not unamusing, when nothing else is going forward. But believe me, my dear young friend, were I really in distress, or were I really not to discharge these petty debts I incur, you would soon discover it by the thinness of our parties! These men that now so flock around us; would find some other loadstone. I know them pretty well, dear creatures!...'

Though shocked to appear thus dest.i.tute, Camilla was somewhat relieved to have no debt but with Mrs. Arlbery; for she resolved to pay Sir Sedley and the milliner the next day, and to settle with Mrs. Arlbery upon her return to Etherington.

CHAPTER X

_Strictures upon the Ton_

The next day was appointed for the master of the ceremonies' ball; which proved a general rendezvous of all parties, and almost all cla.s.ses of company.

Mrs. Mittin, in a morning visit to Camilla, found out that she had only the same cap for this occasion that she had worn upon every other; and, a.s.suring her it was grown so old-fashioned, that not a lady's maid in Tunbridge would now be seen in it, she offered to pin her up a turban, which should come to next to nothing, yet should be the prettiest, and simplest, and cheapest thing that ever was seen.

Camilla, though a stranger to vanity, and without any natural turn to extravagance, was neither of an age, nor a philosophy, to be unmoved by the apprehension of being exposed to ridicule from her dress: she thankfully, therefore, accepted the proposal; and Mrs. Mittin, taking a guinea, said, she would pay Mrs. Tillden for the hat, at the same time that she bought a new handkerchief for the turban.

When she came back, however, she had only laid out a few shillings at another shop, for some articles, so cheap, she said it would have been a shame not to buy them; but without paying the bill, Mrs. Tillden having desired it might not be discharged till the young lady was leaving the Wells.

As the turban was made up from a pattern of one prepared for Mrs.

Berlinton, Camilla had every reason to be satisfied of its elegance. Nor did Mrs. Mittin involve her in much distress how her own trouble might be recompensed; the cap she found unfit for Camilla, she could contrive, she said, to alter for herself; and as a friend had given her a ticket for the ball, it would be mighty convenient to her, as she had nothing of the kind ready.

Far different were the sensations with which Edgar and Camilla saw each other this night, from those with which, so lately they had met in the same apartment. Edgar thought her degenerating into the character of a coquette, and Camilla, in his intended tour, antic.i.p.ated a period to all their intercourse.

She was received, meanwhile, in general, with peculiar and flattering attention. Sir Sedley Clarendel made up to her, with public smiles and courtesy; even Lord Newford and Sir Theophilus Jarard, though they pa.s.sed by Mrs. Arlbery without speaking to her, singled out Camilla for their devoirs. The distinction paid her by the admired Mrs. Berlinton had now not only marked her as an object whom it would not be derogatory to treat with civility, but as one who might, hence-forward, be regarded herself as admitted into _certain circles_.