'Why, yes,' said Mr. Westwyn, 'and I can't keep from looking at 'em; I like 'em all mightily. I'm a great friend to taking from a good stock. I chuse to know what I'm about. That girl at Southampton hit my fancy prodigiously. But I'm not for the beauty. A beauty won't make a good wife. It takes her too much time to put her cap on. That little one, there, with the hump, which I don't mind, nor the limp, neither, I like vastly. But I'm afraid Hal won't take to her. A young man don't much fancy an ugly girl. He's always hankering after something pretty. There's that other indeed, Miss Lavinia, is as handsome a girl as I'd wish to see. And she seems as good, too. However, I'm not for judging all by the eye. I'm past that. An old man should not play the fool. Which I wish somebody would whisper to a certain Lord that I know of, that don't behave quite to my mind. I'm not fond of an old fool: nor a young one neither. They make me sick.'
Sir Hugh heard and agreed to all this, with the same simplicity with which it was spoken; and, soon after, Yorkshire becoming their theme, Mr. Tyrold had the pleasure of seeing his brother so much re-animated by the revival of old scenes, ideas, and connexions, that he heartily joined in pressing the Mr. Westwyns to spend a fortnight at Cleves, to which they consented with pleasure.
CHAPTER X
A Bride's Resolves
With every allowance for a grief in which so deeply he shared, Mr. Tyrold felt nearly bowed down with sorrow, when he observed his own tenderness abate of its power to console, and his exhortations of their influence with his miserable daughter, whose complicated afflictions seemed desperate to herself, and to him nearly hopeless.
He now began to fear the rigid œconomy and retirement of their present lives might add secret disgust or fatigue to the disappointment of her heart. He sighed at an idea so little in unison with all that had hitherto appeared of her disposition; yet remembered she was very young and very lively, and thought that, if caught by a love of gayer scenes than Etherington afforded, she was at a season of life which brings its own excuse for such venial ambition.
He mentioned, therefore, with great kindness, their exclusion from all society, and proposed making an application to Mrs. Needham, a lady high in the esteem of Mrs. Tyrold, to have the goodness to take the charge of carrying them a little into the world, during the absence of their mother. 'I can neither exact nor desire,' he said, 'to sequester you from all amusement for a term so utterly indefinite as that of her restoration; since it is now more than ever desirable to regain the favour of your uncle Relvil for Lionel, who has resisted every profession for which I have sought to prepare him; though his idle and licentious courses so little fit him for contentment with the small patrimony he will one day inherit.'
The sisters mutually and sincerely declined this proposition; Lavinia had too much employment to find time ever slow of passage; and Camilla, joined to the want of all spirit for recreation, had a dread of appearing in the county, lest she should meet with Sir Sedley Clarendel, whose two hundred pounds were amongst the evils ever present to her. The money which Eugenia meant to save for this account had all been given to Lionel; and now her marriage was at an end, and no particular sum expected, she must be very long in replacing it; especially as Jacob was first to be considered; though he had kindly protested he was in no haste to be paid.
Mr. Tyrold was not sorry to have his proposition declined; yet saw the sadness of Camilla unabated, and suggested, for a transient diversity, a visit to the Grove; enquiring why an acquaintance begun with so much warmth and pleasure, seemed thus utterly relinquished. Camilla had herself thought with shame of her apparently ungrateful neglect of Mrs. Arlbery; but the five guineas she had borrowed, and forgotten to pay, while she might yet have asked them of Sir Hugh, and which now she had no ability any where to raise, made the idea of meeting with her painful. And thus, overwhelmed with regret and repentance for all around, her spirits gone, and her heart sunk, she desired never more, except for Cleves, to stir from Etherington.