Mrs. Tyrold determined to carry her this afternoon to Etherington. The remains of the wretched Bellamy, in a coffin and hearse brought from Winchester, had been sent to Belfont in the morning: and Mr. Tyrold had followed, to give every direction that he should be buried as the master of the house; without reference to the conduct which had forfeited all such respect.
Though the evil committed by the non-deliverance of Camilla's letter was now past all remedy, Mrs. Tyrold thought it every way right to endeavour to discover where [lay] the blame: and by the two usual modes of menace and promises, she learnt that the countryman, when he stopt to drink by the way, had, in lighting his pipe, let the letter take fire; and fearing to lose the recompense he had expected, had set his conscience apart for a crown, and returned with the eventful falsehood, which had made Camilla think herself abandoned, and her friends deplore her as lost.
For the benefit of those with whom, in future, he might have to deal, Mrs. Tyrold took some pains to represent to him the cruel evils his dishonesty had produced; but, stupid rather than wicked, what he had done had been without weighing right from wrong, and what he heard was without understanding it.
Camilla found, with extreme satisfaction, that Mrs. Tyrold, notwithstanding the strictness of the present family œconomy, meant liberally to recompense Mrs. Marl, for the trouble and patience with which she had attended to a guest so little profitable: while Peggy, to whose grateful remembrance she owed the consideration she had met with in her deserted condition, was rewarded by a much larger sum than she had ever before possessed. Camilla was obliged to confess she had parted with two pledges for future payment: the watch was reclaimed without difficulty; but she shewed so much distress in naming the locket, that Mrs. Tyrold, though she looked anxiously surprised, demanded it without enquiring into its history.
The excess of delight to Camilla in preparing to return to Etherington, rendered her insensible to all fatigue, till she was descending the stairs; when the recollection of the shock she had received from the corpse of Bellamy, made her tremble so exceedingly, that she could scarce walk past the door of the room in which it had been laid. 'Ah, my dearest Mother,' she cried, 'this house must give me always the most penetrating sensations: I have experienced in it the deepest grief, and the most heart-soothing enjoyment that ever, perhaps, gave place one to the other in so short a time!'
Ambrose had announced their intended arrival, and at the door of the house, the timid, but affectionate Lavinia was waiting to receive them; and as Camilla, in alighting, met her tender embraces, a well-known voice reached her ears, calling out in hurried accents, 'Where is she? Is she come indeed? Are you quite sure?' And Sir Hugh, hobbling rather than walking into the hall, folded her in his feeble arms, sobbing over her: 'I can't believe it for joy! Poor sinner that I am, and the cause of all our bad doings! how can I have deserved such a thing as this, to have my own little Girl come back to me? which could not have made my heart gladder, if I had had no share in all this bad mischief! which, God knows I've had enough, owing to my poor head doing always for the worst, for all my being the oldest of us all; which is a thing I've often thought remarkable enough, in the point of my knowing no better; which however, I hope my dear little Darling will excuse for the sake of my love, which is never happy but in seeing her.'
The heart of Camilla bounded with grateful joy at sight of this dear Uncle, and at so tender a reception: and while with equal emotion, and equal weakness, they were unable to support either each other or themselves, the worthy old Jacob, his eyes running over, came to help his Master back to the parlour, and Mrs. Tyrold and Lavinia conveyed thither Camilla: who was but just placed upon a sofa, by the side of her fond Uncle, when the door of an inner apartment was softly opened, and pale, wan, and meagre, Eugenia appeared at it, saying, as faintly, yet with open arms, she advanced to Camilla: 'Let me too—your poor harassed, and but half-alive Eugenia, make one in this precious scene! Let me see the joy of my kind Uncle—the revival of my honoured Mother, the happiness of my dear Lavinia—and feel even my own heart beat once more with delight in the bosom of its darling Sister!... my so mourned—but now for ever, I trust, restored to me, most dear Camilla!'
Camilla, thus encircled in her Mother's, Uncle's, Sister's, arms at once, gasped, sighed, smiled, and shed tears in the same grateful minute, while fondly she strove to articulate, 'Am I again at Etherington and at Cleves in one? And thus indulgently received? thus more than forgiven? My heart wants room for its joy! my Mother! my Sisters! if you knew what despair has been my portion! I feared even the sight of my dear Uncle himself, lest the sorrows and the errours of a creature he so kindly loved, should have demolished his generous heart!'
'Mine, my dearest little Girl?' cried the Baronet, 'why what would that have signified, in comparison to such a young one as yours, that ought to know no sorrow yet a while? God knows, it being time enough to begin: for it is but melancholy at best, the cares of the world; which if you can't keep off now, will be overtaking you at every turn.'