Jacob was, at first, incapable of all answer, through surprise at her strange appearance; but then said, 'O Miss Camilla! you'll go nigh to break your good heart when you knows it all! But how, you've got into the house is what I can't guess; but I wish, for my poor master's sake, it had been before now!'
Horrour crept through every vein of Camilla, in the explanation she awaited of this fearful mystery. She motioned to the driver to stay, returned back to the parlour, and beckoned, for she could not speak, to Jacob to follow her.
When he came, and, shutting the door, was beginning a diffuse lamentation, eagerness to avert lengthened suspense recovered her voice, and she passionately exclaimed: 'Jacob! in two words, where is my uncle?—Is he well?'
'Why, yes, Miss Camilla, considering—' he began; but Camilla, whose fears had been fatal, interrupted him with fervent thanksgiving, till she was called back from joy by the following words:
'He's gone away Miss Camilla! gone Lord knows where! given up all his grand house-keeping, turned off almost all his poor servants, left this fine place, to have it let to whoever will hire it, and is going to live, he says, in some poor little lodging, till he can scrape together wherewithal to pay off every thing for your papa.'
A thunder-bolt that had instantly destroyed her, would gratefully have been received, in preference to this speech, by Camilla, who, casting up her hands and eyes, exclaimed: 'Then am I the most detestable, as well as the most wretched of human beings! My Father I have imprisoned!—my Uncle I have turned from his house and home! and for thee, O my Mother!—this is the reception I have prepared!'
Jacob tried to console her; but his account was only added torture.
The very instant he told her, that his master had received the news of the arrest of Mr. Tyrold, he determined upon this violent plan; and though the so speedy release, through the generosity of Mr. Westwyn, had exceedingly calmed his first emotions, he would not change his purpose, and protested he would never indulge himself in peace nor comfort more, till he had cleared off their joint debts; of which he attributed the whole fault to himself, from having lived up to the very verge of his yearly income, when he ought, he said, considering there were so many young people, to have always kept a few odd sums at hand for accidents. 'We all did what we could,' continued Jacob, 'to put him off from such a thing, but all to no purpose; but if you'd been here, Miss Camilla, you'd have done more with him than all of us put together: but he called Miss Lavinia and all of us up to him, and said to us, I won't have nobody tell this to my poor little girl, meaning you, Miss Camilla, till I've got somewhere settled and comfortable; because of her kind heart, says he.'
Tenderness so partial, at so suffering an instant, almost killed Camilla. 'O Jacob,' she cried, 'where is now my dear generous uncle? I will follow him in this chaise (rushing out as she spoke) I will be his servant, his nurse, and attend him from morning to night!'
She hurried into the carriage as she spoke, and bade him give directions to the postillion. But when she heard he was, at present, only at Etherington, whence he was seeking a new abode, her head drooped, and she burst into tears.