Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth

by Fanny Burney

It was now Mrs. Mittin gained the highest point of her ambition; Mrs. Berlinton, tired of remonstrances she could not controvert, and would not observe, was extremely relieved by finding a person who would sit with her aunt, comply with her humours, hear her lamentations, subscribe to her opinions, and beguile her of her rigid fretfulness by the amusement of gossiping anecdotes.

Mrs. Mittin had begun life as the apprentice to a small country milliner; but had rendered herself so useful to a sick elderly gentlewoman, who lodged in the house, that she left her a legacy, which, by sinking into an annuity, enabled her to quit her business, and set up, in her own conception, for a gentlewoman herself; though with so very small an income, that to sustain her new post, she was frequently reduced to far greater dependence and hardships than she experienced in her old one. She was good-humoured, yet laborious; gay, yet subservient; poor, yet dissipated. To be useful, she would submit to any drudgery; to become agreeable, devoted herself to any flattery. To please was her incessant desire, and her rage for popularity included every rank and class of society. The more eminent, of course, were her first objects, but the same aim descended to the lowest. She would work, read, go of errands, or cook a dinner; be a parasite, a spy, an attendant, a drudge; keep a secret, or spread a report; incite a quarrel, or coax contending parties into peace; invent any expedient, and execute any scheme ... all with the pretext to oblige others, but all, in fact, for simple egotism; as prevalent in her mind as in that of the more highly ambitious, though meaner and less dangerous.

Camilla was much relieved when she found this officious person was no longer retained solely upon her account; but still she could neither obtain her bills, no answers ever arriving, nor the money for her twenty pound note, Mrs. Mittin always evading to deliver it, and asserting she was sure somebody would come in the stage the next day for the payment she had promised; and when Camilla wanted cash for any of the very few articles she now allowed herself to think indispensable, instead of restoring it into her hands, she flew out herself to purchase the goods that were required, and always brought them home with assurances they were cheaper than the shopkeepers would let her have them for herself.

Camilla resisted all incitements to new dress and new ornaments, with a fortitude which must not be judged by the aged, nor the retired, who weighing only the frivolity of what she withstood, are not qualified to appreciate the merit of this sort of resignation; the young, the gay, the new in life, who know that, amongst minor calamities, none are more alarming to the juvenile breast than the fear of not appearing initiated in the reigning modes, can alone do justice to the present philosophy of Camilla, in seeing that all she wore, by the quick changes of fashion, seemed already out of date; in refusing to look at the perpetual diversity of apparel daily brought, by various dress modellers, for the approbation of Mrs. Berlinton, and in seeing that lady always newly, brightly, and in a distinguished manner attired, yet appearing by her side in exactly the same array that she had constantly worn at Tunbridge. Nor was Camilla indifferent to this contrast; but she submitted to it as the duty of her present involved situation, which exacted from her every privation, in preference to bestowing upon any new expence the only sum she could command towards clearing what was past.

But, after a very short time, the little wardrobe exhibited a worse quality than that of not keeping pace with the last devices of the ton; it lost not merely its newness, but its delicacy. Alas! thought she, how long, in the careful and rare wear of Etherington and Cleves, all this would have served me; while here, in this daily use, a fortnight is scarce passed, yet all is spoilt and destroyed. Ah! public places are only for the rich!

Now, therefore, Mrs. Mittin was of serious utility; she failed not to observe the declining state of her attire; and though she wondered at the parsimony which so resolutely prohibited all orders for its renewal, in a young lady she considered as so great an heiress, she was yet proud to display her various powers of proving serviceable. She turned, changed, rubbed, cleaned, and new made up all the several articles of which her dress was composed, to so much advantage, and with such striking effect, that for yet a few days more all seemed renewed, and by the arts of some few alterations, her appearance was rather more than less fashionable than upon her first arrival.

But this could not last long; and when all, again, was fading into a state of decay, Mrs. Berlinton received an invitation for herself and her fair guest, to a great ball and supper, given upon the occasion of a young nobleman's coming of age, in which all the dancers, by agreement, were to be habited in uniform.

This uniform was to be clear fine lawn, with lilac plumes and ornaments.

Camilla had now, with consuming regret, passed several days without one sight of Edgar. This invitation, therefore, which was general to all the company at Southampton, was, in its first sound, delicious; but became, upon consideration, the reverse. Clear lawn and lilac plumes and ornaments she had none; how to go she knew not; yet Edgar she was sure would be there; how to stay away she knew less.

This was a severe moment to her courage; she felt it faltering, and putting down the card of invitation, without the force of desiring Mrs. Berlinton to make her excuse, repaired to her own room, terrified by the preponderance of her wishes to a consent which she knew her situation rendered unwarrantable.