Upon entering the room, Camilla saw again the Officers who had been there in the morning, and who were now joined by Sir Sedley Clarendel.
She was met at the door by Major Cerwood, who seemed waiting for her appearance, and who made her his compliments with an air that studiously proclaimed his devotion. She seated herself by the side of Mrs. Arlbery, to look on at a game of chess, played by Sir Sedley and General Kinsale.
"Clarendel," said Mrs. Arlbery, "you have not the least in the world the air of knowing what you are about."
"Pardon me, ma"am," said the General, "he has been at least half an hour contemplating this very move,--for which, as you see, I now check-mate him. Pray, Sir Sedley, how came you, at last, to do no better?"
"Thinking of other things, my dear General. "Tis impossible in the extreme to keep one"s faculties pinioned down to the abstruse vagaries of this brain-besieging game. My head would be deranged past redress, if I did not allow it to visit the four quarters of the globe once, at least, between every move."
"You do not play so slow, then, from deliberating upon your chances, but from forgetting them?"
"Defined, my dear General, to scrupulosity! Those exquisite little moments we steal from any given occupation, for the pleasure of speculating in secret upon something wholly foreign to it, are resistless to deliciousness."
"I entreat, and command you then," cried Mrs. Arlbery, "to make your speculations public. Nothing will more amuse me, than to have the least intimation of the subjects of your reveries."
"My dear Mrs. Arlbery! your demand is the very quintessence of impossibility! Tell the subject of a reverie! know you not it wafts one at once out of the world, and the world"s powers of expression? while all it subst.i.tutes is as evanescent as it is delectable. To attempt the least description would be a presumption of the first monstrousness."
"O never heed that! presumption will not precisely be a novelty to you; answer me, therefore, my dear Clarendel, without all this conceit. You know I hate procrastination; and procrastinators still worse."
"Softly, dearest madam, softly! There is nothing in nature so horribly shocking to me as the least hurry. My poor nerves seek repose after any turbulent words, or jarring sounds, with the same craving for rest that my body experiences after the jolts, and concussions of a long winded chase. By the way, does anybody want a good hunter? I have the first, perhaps, in Europe; but I would sell it a surprising bargain, for I am excruciatingly tired of it."
All the gentlemen grouped round him to hear further particulars, except Mr. Macdersey, the young Ensign, who had so unguardedly exposed himself at the Northwick ball, and who now, approaching Camilla, fervently exclaimed; "How happy I should have been, madam, if I had had the good fortune to see you meet with that accident this morning, instead of being looking another way! I might then have had the pleasure to a.s.sist you. And O! how much more if it had been your divine cousin! I hope that fair angel is in perfect health! O what a beautiful creature she is! her outside is the completest diamond I ever saw! and if her inside is the same, which I dare say it is, by her smiles and delicate dimples, she must be a paragon upon earth!"
"There is at least something very inartificial in your praise," said General Kinsale, "when you make your panegyric of an absent lady to a present one."
"O General, there is not a lady living can bear any comparison with her.
I have never had her out of my thoughts from the first darling moment that ever I saw her, which has made me the most miserable of men ever since. Her eyes so beautiful, her mouth so divine, her nose so heavenly!--"
"And how," cried Sir Sedley, "is the tip of her chin?"
"No joking, sir!" said the Ensign, reddening; "she is a piece of perfection not to be laughed at; she has never had her fellow upon the face of the earth; and she never will have it while the earth holds, upon account of there being no such person above ground."
"And pray," cried Sir Sedley, carelessly, "how can you be sure of that?"
"How! why by being certain," answered the inflamed admirer; "for though I have been looking out for pretty women from morning to night, ever since I was conscious of the right use of my eyes, I never yet saw her parallel."
A servant was now bringing in the tea; but his lady ordered him to set it down in the next room, whence the gentlemen should fetch it as it was wanted.
Major Cerwood took in charge all attendance upon Camilla; but he was not, therefore, exempt from the a.s.siduities required by Mrs. Arlbery, for whom the homage of the General, the Colonel, and the Ensign, were insufficient; and who, had a score more been present, would have found occupation for them all. Sir Sedley alone was excepted from her commands; for knowing they would be issued to him in vain, she contented herself with only interchanging glances of triumph with him, at the submission of every va.s.sal but himself.
"Heavens!" cried she, to Colonel Andover, who had hastened to present her the first cup, "you surely think I have nerves for a public orator!
If I should taste but one drop of this tea, I might envy the repose of the next man who robs on the highway. Major Cerwood, will you try if you can do any better for me?"
The Major obeyed, but not with more success. "What in the world have you brought me?" cried she; "Is it tea? It looks prodigiously as if just imported out of the slop bason. For pity sake, Macdersey, arise, and give me your help; you will at least never bring me such maudlin stuff as this. Even your tea will have some character; it will be very good or very bad; very hot or very cold; very strong or very weak; for you are always in flames of fire, or flakes of snow."
"You do me justice, ma"am; there is nothing upon the face of the earth so insipid as a medium. Give me love or hate! a friend that will go to jail for me, or an enemy that will run me through the body! Riches to chuck guineas about like halfpence, or poverty to beg in a ditch!
Liberty wild as the four winds, or an oar to work in a galley! Misery to tear my heart into an hundred thousand millions of atoms, or joy to make my soul dance into my brain! Every thing has some gratification, except a medium. "Tis a poor little soul that is satisfied between happiness and despair."
He then flew to bring her a dish of tea.
"My dear Macdersey," cried she, in receiving it, "this is according to your system indeed; for "tis a compound of strong, and rich, and sweet, to cloy an alderman, making altogether so luscious a syrup, that our spring would be exhausted before I could slake my thirst, if I should taste it only a second time. Do, dear General, see if it is not possible to get me some beverage that I can swallow."
The youngest man present was not more active than the General in this service; but Mrs. Arlbery, casting herself despondingly back the moment she had tasted what he brought her, exclaimed, "Why this is worst of all! If you can do no better for me, General, than this, tell me, at least, for mercy"s sake, when some other regiment will be quartered here?"
"What a cruelty," said the Major, looking with a sigh towards Camilla, "to remind your unhappy prey they are but birds of pa.s.sage!"
"O, all the better, Major. If you understand your own interest you will be as eager to break up your quarters, as I can be to see your successors march into them. I have now heard all your compliments, and you have heard all my repartees; both sides, therefore, want new auditors. A great many things I have said to you will do vastly well again for a new corps; and, to do you justice, some few things you have said yourselves may do again in a new county."
Then, addressing Camilla, she proposed, though without moving, that they should converse with one another, and leave the men to take care of themselves. "And excessively they will be obliged to me," she continued, without lowering her voice, "for giving this little holiday to their poor brains; for, I a.s.sure you, they have not known what to say this half hour. Indeed, since the first fortnight they were quartered here, they have not, upon an average, said above one new thing in three days.
But one"s obliged to take up with Officers in the country, because there"s almost nothing else. Can you recommend me any agreeable new people?"
"O no, ma"am! I have hardly any acquaintance, except immediately round the rectory; but, fortunately, my own family is so large, that I have never been distressed for society."
"O, ay, true! your own family, begin with that; do, pray, give me a little history of your own family?"
"I have no history, ma"am, to give, for my father"s retired life----"
"O, I have seen your father, and I have heard him preach, and I like him very much. There"s something in him there"s no turning into ridicule."
Camilla, though surprised, was delighted by such a testimony to the respectability of her father; and, with more courage, said--"And, I am sure, if you knew my mother, you would allow her the same exemption."
"So I hear; therefore, we won"t talk of them. It"s a delightful thing to think of perfection; but it"s vastly more amusing to talk of errors and absurdities. To begin with your eldest sister, then--but no; she seems in just the same predicament as your father and mother: so we"ll let her rest, too."
"Indeed she is; she is as faultless----"
"O, not a word more then; she won"t do for me at all. But, pray, is there not a single soul in all the round of your large family, that can afford a body a little innocent diversion?"
"Ah, madam," said Camilla, shaking her head; "I fear, on the contrary, if they came under your examination, there is not one in whom you would not discern some foible!"
"I should not like them at all the worse for that; for, between ourselves, my dear Miss Tyrold, I am half afraid they might find a foible or two in return in me; so you must not be angry if I beg the favour of you to indulge me with a few of their defects."
"Indulge you!"
"Yes, for when so many of a family are perfect, if you can"t find me one or two that have a little speck of mortality, you must not wonder if I take flight at your very name. In charity, therefore, if you would not drop my acquaintance, tell me their vulnerable parts."
Camilla laughed at this ridiculous reasoning, but would not enter into its consequences.
"Well, then, if you will not a.s.sist me, don"t take it ill that I a.s.sist myself. In the first place, there"s your brother; I don"t ask you to tell me any thing of him; I have seen him! and I confess to you he does not put me into utter despair! he does not alarm me into flying all his race."
Camilla tried vainly to look grave.
"I have seen another, too, your cousin, I think; Miss Lynmere, that"s engaged to young Mandlebert."
Camilla now tried as vainly to look gay.
"She"s prodigiously pretty. Pray, is not she a great fool?"
"Ma"am?"