CHAPTER IX
A Spectacle
The messenger returned not till midnight; what, then, was the consternation of Camilla that he brought no answer! She suspected he had not found the house; she doubted if the letter had been delivered; but he affirmed he had put it into the hands of a maid-servant, though, as it was late, he had come away directly, and not thought of waiting for any answer.
It is not very early in life we learn how little is performed, for which no precaution is taken. Care is the offspring of disappointment; and sorrow and repentance commonly hang upon its first lessons. Unused to transact any sort of business for herself, she had expected, in sending a letter, an answer as a thing of course, and had now only herself to blame for not having ordered him to stay. She consoled herself, however, that she was known to be but nine miles distant from the rectory, and that any commands could be conveyed to her nearly in an hour.
What they might be, became now, therefore, her sole anxiety. Would not her Mother write? After an avowal such as she had made of her desolate, if not dying condition, would she not pardon and embrace her? Was it not even possible she might come herself?
This idea mingled emotions of a contrariety scarcely supportable. 'O how,' she cried, 'shall I see her? Can joy blend with such terrour? Can I wish her approach, yet not dare to meet her eye?—that eye which never yet has looked at me, but to beam with bright kindness!—though a kindness that, even from my childhood, seemed to say, Camilla, be blameless—or you break your Mother's heart!... my poor unhappy Mother! she has always seemed to have a presentiment, I was born to bring her to sorrow!'
Expectation being now, for this night, wholly dead, the excess of her bodily fatigue urged her to take some repose: but her ever eager imagination made her apprehensive her friends might find her too well, and suspect her representation was but to alarm them into returning kindness. A fourth night, therefore, passed without sleep, or the refreshment of taking off her cloaths; and by the time the morning sun shone in upon her apartment, she was too seriously disordered to make her illness require the aid of fancy. She was full of fever, faint, pallid, weak, and shaken by nervous tremors. 'I think,' she cried, 'I am now certainly going; and never was death so welcomed by one so young. It will end in soft peace my brief, but stormy passage, and I shall owe to its solemn call the sacred blessing of my offended Mother!'
Tranquillised by this hope, and this idea, she now lost all sufferings but those of disease: her mind grew calm, her spirits serene: all fears gave way to the certainty of soothing kindness, all grief was buried in the solemnity of expected dissolution.
But this composure outlived not the first hours of the morning; as they vainly advanced, producing no loved presence, no letter, no summons; solicitude revived, disappointment sunk her heart, and dread preyed again upon her nerves. She started at every sound; every breath of wind seemed portentous; she listened upon the stairs; she dragged her feeble limbs to the parlour, to be nearer at hand; she forced them back again to her bed-room, to strain her aching eyes out of the window; but still no voice demanded her, and no person approached.