CHAPTER III

_The Progress of Dissipation_

Mr. Clykes, by the promised payment and reward, being for the present appeased, Camilla still admitted some hope of waiting a more favourable moment for her cruel confession. She received, also, a little, though mournful, reprieve from terror, by a letter from Lisbon, written to again postpone the return of Mrs. Tyrold, at the earnest request of Mr. Relvil; and she flattered herself that, before her arrival, she should be enabled to resume those only duties which could draw her from despondence. She lived, meanwhile, wholly shut up from all company, consigned to penitence for her indiscretions, to grief for the fate of her sister, and to wasting regret of her own causelessly lost felicity.

Indiana smiled not more sweetly upon Melmond, for Miss Margland's advising her to consider in time, whether the promises made by Miss Eugenia Tyrold would be binding to Mrs. Bellamy. She saw, nevertheless, no good, she said, it could do her cousin, that she should neglect such an opportunity of seeing London: and Miss Margland, in aid of this desire, spared so much trouble to Mrs. Berlinton, who soon wearied of Indiana, that she had the satisfaction of being invited to remain in Grosvenor-square till the two young ladies returned into the country.

Mrs. Berlinton, who indulged, in full extent, every feeling, but investigated none, had been piqued and hurt to extreme unhappiness at the late conduct of Bellamy. Attracted by his fine person, and caught by the first flattery which had talked to her of her own, she had easily been captivated by his description of the sympathy which united, and penetrated by his lamentations at the destiny which parted them. His request for her friendship had been the first circumstance, after her marriage, which had given her any interest in life; and soon, with the common effect of such dangerous expedients to while away chagrin, had occupied all her thoughts, and made the rest of the universe seem to her as a blank. But their continued separation from each other, made the day soon too long for mere regret; and her pliant mind, in this state of vacancy, had readily been bent to the new pursuit pressed upon her by Mrs. Norfield; which, however, upon the re-appearance of Bellamy, would speedily have given way to the resumption of his influence, had not his elopement with Eugenia left her again all at large. It destroyed an illusion strong though not definable; demolished a friendship ill conceived, and worse understood; and brought with it a disappointment which confused all her ideas. To be inactive was, however, impossible; simplicity, once given up, returned to the dissipated no more; or returns but when experience brings conviction. That all is hollow where the heart bears no part; all is peril where principle is not the guide.

The Faro Table was now re-opened, and again but too powerfully sharpened the faculties which mortification had blunted. A company the most miscellaneous composed her evening assemblies, which were soon, nevertheless, amongst the most fashionable, as well as crowded of the metropolis. Whatever there, is new and splendid, is sure of a run for at least a season. Enquiries into what is right, or strictures upon what is wrong, rarely molest popularity, till the rise of some fresher luminary gives fashion another abode.

Calamity requires not more fortitude than pleasure. What she began but to divert disappointment and lassitude, she continued to attain celebrity; and the company which Faro and Fashion brought together, she soon grew ambitious to collect by motives of more appropriate flattery. All her aim, now, was to be universally alluring; and she looked from object to object, in smiling discourse, till one by one, every object could look only at her: and grace and softness which had been secretly bewitching while she had the dignity to keep admiration aloof, were boldly declared to be invincible, since she permitted such professions to reach her ear.

Long surrounded by gazing admirers, she became now encircled by avowed adorers; and what for victory she had essayed, she pursued ardently for pleasure. Coquetry is as fascinating to those who practise it, as to those whom it seduces; and she found herself, shortly, more happy by a conquest effected by wiles and by art, than by any devotion paid straight forward, and uncourted. The generality of her new ambition protected it from permanent ill consequences; aiming at everyone, she cared for no one; mortified by Bellamy, she resolved to mortify others, and in proportion as her smiles grew softer her heart became harder.

Indiana, at this period, immersed at once from the most private retreat into the gayest vortex of pleasure, thought herself in the upper regions, where happiness, composed by her own ideas, consisted of perpetual admiration to unfading beauty: but though the high qualities with which the devotion of Melmond had gifted her had enslaved his reason and understanding from suspecting that so fair a form could enclose aught short of its own perfection, his heart was struck, and all his feelings were offended, when he saw her capable of dissipation upon a season of calamity to Eugenia; Eugenia, whom though he could not love, he venerated; Eugenia, whose nature he thought divine, though her person, unhappily, was but too human; Eugenia, to whom he owed the union upon which hung all his wishes ... to seek pleasure while Eugenia suffered, was astonishing, was incomprehensible. He felt as if every principle of his love were violated; he looked another way, to disguise his shock;--but when he looked at her again, it was forgotten.

* * * * *

Camilla soon after learnt, from Lavinia, that Sir Hugh had been deeply affected by the history of the elopement, though it had been softened to him by all possible means, at the desire of the heroic Eugenia herself; who would now own to no one the force with which she had been carried off. Bellamy continued the most unremitting demonstrations of affection, which she received with gentleness, and appeared entirely to credit as sincere; but he had already absolutely refused a residence offered for them both at Cleves, and made Eugenia herself ask a separate provision of her uncle, though she could not even a moment pretend that the desire was her own. Sir Hugh, nevertheless, had yielded; and notwithstanding his present embarrassments from Clermont, had insisted upon settling a thousand pounds a year upon her immediately; in consequence of which, Bellamy had instantly taken a house at Belfont, to which they were already removing. Eugenia had recovered her gentle fortitude, seemed to submit to her destiny, and repined solely she could not, yet, keep her engagement with respect to the trinkets, which though she had openly told Bellamy were promised to a friend, he had seized to pack up, and said, 'he could not re-deliver till they were arranged in their new dwelling.' But she charged Lavinia to express her hopes that the detention would not last long.

* * * * *

When the given three weeks expired, Indiana, infatuated with London, begged and obtained leave to stretch her residence there to a month.

Eugenia was now settled at Belfont; but still Camilla received no intelligence of the promised boon, and spent her lingering hours in her chamber, no longer even invited thence, except at meals, by Mrs. Berlinton; whose extreme and encreasing dissipation, from first allowing no time, took off, next, all desire for social life. Surprised and hurt, Camilla was called off a little from herself, through concern. She sincerely loved Mrs. Berlinton, whom it was difficult to see and know with indifference, and she softly represented to her how ill she felt at ease in the falling off she experienced in her partiality.

Mrs. Berlinton tenderly embraced her, protesting she was dear to her as ever; and feeling, while she spoke, her first affection return; but not a moment had she to bestow from her new mode of life: some party was always formed which she had not force of mind to break; an internal restlessness, from the want of some right pursuit, joined to a disappointment she could not own, made that party induce another; and though none gave her real pleasure, which her strong, however undisciplined and unguided feelings, shut out from such a species of vague life, all gave employment to expectation, and were preferable to a regret at once consuming and mortifying.

Her gentleness, however, and her returned personal kindness, encouraged Camilla to repeat her admonitions, and engage assistance from Melmond, who, at any other period, would, uncalled, have given his whole attention to a sister dear at once to his honour and his heart; but Indiana more than occupied, she engrossed him. She now expected an adoration so unremitting, that if she surprised his eyes turned any other way even a moment, she reproached him with abated love, and it was the business of a day to obtain a reconciliation.

Gratefully, however, at the instigation of Camilla, he resumed the vigilance with which, upon her first entering London the preceding year, he had attended to all the actions of his sister. But the difference already produced by the effect of flattery, the hardening of example, and the sway of uncontrolled early power, astonished and alarmed him. At her first setting out, she had hearkened to all counsel, frightened by every representation of danger, and humbled by every remonstrance against impropriety. But she now heard him with little or no emotion; and from beginning to listen unmoved, soon proceeded to reply and resist. A search, rather than a love, of pleasure had seized her young mind, which had now gained an ascendant that rendered contest less shocking, than yielding would have been painful.

The tribulation of Melmond at this ill success, rested not solely upon his sister; he saw yet more danger for Indiana, who now seemed scarce to live but while arraying, or displaying herself. His passion had lost its novelty, and her eyes lost their beaming pleasure in listening to it; and the regard he had fondly expected to take place of first ecstacy, he now found unattainable, from want of all materials for its structure. His discourse, when not of her beauty, but strained her faculties; his reading, when compelled to hear it, but wearied her intellects. She had no genius to catch his meaning, and no attention to supply its place.

Deeply he now thought of Eugenia, with that regret ever attached to frail humanity, for what is removed from possible possession. The purity of her love, the cultivation of her mind, and the nobleness of her sentiments, now bore forth a contrast to the general mental and intellectual littleness of Indiana, which made him blame the fastidious eyes that could dwell upon her face and form; and feel that, even with the matchless Indiana, he must sigh at their mutual perversity of fate.

Nor missed he more in soul, than Indiana in adoration, who turned from what she now resented as coldness, to the violent praises of Macdersey, who became, at this period, a frequenter of Mrs. Berlinton's assemblies. She understood not the inevitable difference of the altered situation; that he who was accepted might be grateful, but could not be anxious; and that Melmond, while in suspense, wore the same impassioned air, and spoke the same impassioned feelings as Macdersey. To her, all seemed the change not from doubt to security, but from love to insensibility.

To live always at her feet, while he thought her all-divine, was his own first joy and greatest pride: but when once he found his goddess had every mortal imperfection, his homage ceased, with amazement that ever it could have been excited. Those eyes, thought he, which I have gazed at whole days with such unreflecting admiration; and whose shape, colour, size, and sweet proportion still hold their pre-eminence, now, while retaining their first lustre, have lost all their illusory charm! I meet them--but to deplore their vacancy of the soul's intelligence--I fondly--vainly seek!

* * * * *

Even when again the time arrived for returning to Cleves, Indiana, hanging languidly upon every minute she could steal from it, petitioned for a few days more from the ever-granting Baronet, which, while by her devoted to coquetry, admiration, and dress, were consumed by Camilla in almost every species of wretchedness. Mrs. Mittin wrote her word that Mr. Clykes was become more uneasy than ever for his money, as she had thought it indispensable to acquaint him of the reports in the neighbourhood, that Mr. Tyrold had met with misfortunes, and was retrenching: if he could not, therefore, be paid quickly, he must put in his claims elsewhere.

The same post brought from Lavinia an account so afflicting of Eugenia, as nearly to annihilate even this deep personal distress. It was known, through Molly Mill, who, by the express insistance of Sir Hugh, continued to live with her young Mistress, that Bellamy had already, at Belfont, cast off the mask of pretended passion, and grossly demanded of her Mistress to beg money for him of Sir Hugh; acknowledging, without scruple, large debts, that demanded speedy payment, and pressing her to ask for the immediate possession of the Yorkshire estate. Her Mistress, though mildly, always steadily refused; which occasioned reproaches so rude and violent as almost to frighten her into fits; and so loud, that they were often heard by every servant in the house.

Camilla, at this dreadful history, grew nearly indifferent to all else, and would have relinquished, almost unrepining, her expectations of personal relief, but that Lavinia, in the name of their unhappy sister, bid her still cherish them; assuring her she hoped yet to perform her engagement, as Mr. Bellamy never disputed her already given promise, though he had mislaid the key of the box in which the trinkets were deposited.

Nor even here rested the misery of Camilla: another alarm stole upon her mind, of a nature the most dreadful.

Upon the first evening of this newly-granted stay, while she was conversing alone with Mrs. Berlinton before the nocturnal _toilette_ of that lady, a servant announced Mr. Bellamy. Mrs. Berlinton blushed high, evidently with as much of anger as surprise; Camilla hastily withdrawing, to avoid an object abhorrent to her, wondered she would admit him: yet, anxious for any intelligence that could relate to her sister, enquired when he was gone, and ran towards the dressing-room to ask what had passed: but before she reached the door, the sound of his voice re-entering the hall, and of his step re-ascending the stairs, made her fly into the adjoining apartment, not to encounter him; where the instant he had shut the door, and before she could move, she heard him exclaim, 'You weep still, my lovely friend? Ah! can one doubt so injurious remain upon your mind as to suppose any thing but the cruel necessity of my misfortunes could have made me tarnish our celestial friendship with any other engagement? Ah! look at her ... and look at yourself!'

Camilla, who, at first, had been immoveable from consternation, now recovered sufficiently to get back to her room. But she returned no more to Mrs. Berlinton, though Bellamy soon departed; her eagerness for information subsided in indignant sorrow. That Eugenia, the injured, the inestimable Eugenia, should be spoken of, by the very violator who had torn her from her friends, as a mere burthen attached to the wealth she procured him, struck at her heart as a poniard. And the impropriety to herself, and the wrong to Eugenia, of Mrs. Berlinton, in listening to such a discourse, totally sunk that lady in her esteem; though it determined her, as a duty due to them all around, to represent what she felt upon this subject; and the next day, the instant she was visible, she begged an audience.

Mrs. Berlinton was pensive and dejected, but, as usual, open and unguarded; she began herself to speak of the visit of Bellamy, and to ask why she ran away.

Camilla, without answer or hesitation, related what she had overheard; adding: 'O, Mrs. Berlinton! can you suffer him to talk thus? Can you think of my injured Eugenia--lately your own favourite friend--and bear to hear him?'

'How injured, my ever-dear Camilla? Does she know what he says? Can it hurt her unheard? Can it affect her unimagined? He but solaces his sadness by a confidence he holds sacred; 'tis the type of our friendship, now dearer, he says, than ever, since reciprocated by such sympathy.'

'You affright me, Mrs. Berlinton! what a perversion of reason to talk of sympathy in your situations? Did Eugenia press him to the altar? Did any friends solicit the alliance? Oh, Mrs. Berlinton! think but a moment, and your own feeling mind will paint his conduct in colours I have not the skill to attain!'

'You are right!' cried she, blushing in her unwilling conviction: 'I know not how he could delude me to believe our fates resembled. Certainly nothing can be less similar.'

Camilla was happy in this victory; but the following day, Bellamy, at the same hour was announced, and in the same manner was admitted; Camilla flying, and Mrs. Berlinton protesting she should attack his mistaken comparison with severity.

Severity, however, was a quality with which she was unacquainted; Camilla, anxious in every way, hastened to her when he was gone, but found her dissolved in tender tears, shed, she declared, in regret of the uneasiness she had given him, for he had now made her fully sensible his destiny alone was to blame.

The understanding of Camilla was highly superior to being duped by such flimsy sophistry, which she heard with added detestation of the character of Bellamy; yet perceived that no remonstrance could prevent his admittance, and that every interview regularly destroyed the effect of every exhortation.

In this melancholy period, the sole satisfaction she received was through a letter written by Lionel from Ostend, in which he told her that the dread of imprisonment, or want, in a foreign country, made him lead a life so parsimonious, so totally deprived of all pleasure and all comfort, that he was almost consumed with regret for the wilfulness with which he had thrown away his innumerable advantages; and so much struck with the retrospection of the wanton follies and vices which had involved him in such dishonour and ruin, that he began now to think he had rather been mad than wicked;--so unmeaning, unreflecting, and unprovoked, as well as worthless, had been the course he had pursued.

Camilla sent this letter immediately to her Father, who remitted to Lionel such a sum as must obviate distress, with such intimation for the future as he hoped would best encourage more solid reformation.

Thus passed the time, improperly, or unhappily to all, till the third period fixed for the return to the country elapsed: and Camilla, finding the whole view of her journey abortive, saw the accumulated yet useless suffering involved through her ill-judged procrastination. Yet, as Eugenia still did not despair, even her confession was unwritten; and as Miss Margland and Indiana granted her request of going round by Belfont, which she had previously arranged from an ardent desire to embrace her loved sister, she still dwelt on a last hope from that interview.