Sir Hugh is a very prodigy of indiscretion, and complicates matters by the introduction of more cousins—Indiana Lynmere, an empty-headed but “most exquisite workmanship of nature,” and her wicked brother Clermont; who were his wards. A young orphan of great wealth, Edgar Mandlebert, pupil and ward of the Rev. Tyrold, completes the group; though mischief is made, and all complications really inaugurated, by Indiana’s silly governess, Miss Margland.
Obviously there are two main issues at stake—the property of Sir Hugh, and the hand of Edgar. Miss Margland desires both for her favourite, and evinces much ingenuity in the pursuit. The worthy baronet, however, does not long hesitate about the estate. He designs it originally for Camilla, simply because she charms him most, and, with his customary naïveté, lets all the world into the secret. Then, by his own absurd thoughtlessness, he suffers the “little sister Eugenia” to catch the smallpox; and by ill-timed playfulness, lames her for life. Heart-broken with remorse, and perfectly confident in Camilla’s generous disinterestedness, he promptly compensates the poor child by making her his heiress; and, after again announcing his intentions in public, proves unexpectedly resolute in maintaining them to the end. By outsiders, however, it is occasionally still supposed that all his money will go to Camilla; and, consequently, she has some experience of fortune-hunters.
The character of Eugenia deserves notice. She is quite unlike Camilla, and the differences are no doubt accentuated by the combination of disease and deformity which, shutting her out from the obvious distractions of “youth,” afford much time for solitary reflection. Her uncle, moreover, provided her with a scholarly tutor, and to Lionel she was always “dear little Greek and Latin.” It was, indeed, this highly educated, but very youthful, paragon on whom her own family depended at every crisis, whose advice they followed, whose opinion they sought, whose approval was their standard of conduct and feeling. Younger than Camilla, she was more mature, more thoughtful and clear-headed, always decided and always right. Curiously enough, these young people seldom consulted their parents, they went to Eugenia; and she, in the most important crisis of her life, actually opposed the judgment of her elders, demanding from herself a sacrifice which even their lofty ideal did not expect or commend. They considered her mistaken, but “they knew she must do what she thought right,” and they sadly acquiesced.
Yet there were no Spartan heroics about Eugenia. She had even more “sensibility” than Camilla, far more romance, and was more easily deceived. Among other schemes of repentance for the injuries he had so innocently inflicted on her, Sir Hugh “arranged” for her to marry Clermont Lynmere, before that young gentleman had come home; and, of course, informed the whole household of his project. Such was Eugenia’s extravagant refinement in romance, that, though she could not avoid being attracted by the most obviously insincere raptures of young men in want of her fortune, one of them “kissing her hand she thought a liberty most unpardonable. She regarded it as an injury to Clermont, that would risk his life should he ever know it, and a blot to her own delicacy, as irreparable as it was irremediable.”
It is obvious that such excessive refinement proves ill-fitted to combat the unprincipled ambitions of the other sex, incited by her uncle’s generosity; and when the villain, feigning a passion well calculated to stir her fancy, threatens to blow out his brains if she refuse him, we do not read of her yielding with surprise. To her notion a promise given under any circumstances is absolutely binding; and when, undeceived, she is recommended by her pious parents to repudiate it, the heroic martyr remains steadfast, and suffers much through some volumes. Yet even in that extremity she proves a rock to her more wavering elder sister.
We have wandered too long, however, from our heroine.
“Camilla was, in secret, the fondest hope of her mother, though the rigour of her justice scarce permitted the partiality to beat even in her own breast. Nor did the happy little person need the avowed distinction. The tide of youthful glee flowed jocund from her heart, and the transparency of her fine blue veins almost showed the velocity of its current. Every look was a smile, every step was a spring, every thought was a hope, every feeling was joy! and the early felicity of her mind was without alloy.... The beauty of Camilla, though neither perfect nor regular, had an influence peculiar on the beholder, it was hard to catch its fault; and the cynic connoisseur, who might persevere in seeking it, would involuntarily surrender the strict rules of his art to the predominance of its loveliness. Even judgment itself, the coolest and last betrayed of our faculties, she took by surprise, though it was not till she was absent the seizure was detected. Her disposition was ardent in sincerity, her mind untainted with evil. The reigning and radical defect of her character—an imagination that submitted to no control—proved not any antidote against her attractions: it caught, by its force and fire, the quick-kindling admiration of the lively; it possessed, by magnetic persuasion, the witchery to create sympathy in the most serious.”
It is a picture of an ideal, stammeringly defined by Edgar: “The utmost vivacity of sentiment, all the charm of soul, eternally beaming in the eyes, playing in every feature, glowing in the complexion, and brightening every smile.”
Obviously hero and heroine are born for each other. He admires her above all women, himself has every perfection. And though Mrs. Tyrold may have “gloried in the virtuous delicacy of her daughter, that so properly, till it was called for, concealed her tenderness from the object who so deservingly inspired it,” the reader can feel no doubt, from the beginning, of her decided “partiality.”
There are two obstacles, however, between the lovers. In the first place, Edgar’s tutor had twice been deceived by women; and so acts upon his loyal pupil, by the urgent recommendation of caution and delay, that he becomes “a creature whose whole composition is a pile of accumulated punctilios”; one who “will spend his life in refining away his own happiness.” It is obvious that, left to herself, Camilla’s nature would bear the closest inspection, as even the old misanthrope ultimately admits. But Miss Margland cannot endure any rivalry with Indiana, the “beautiful vacant-looking cousin” who has been taught to consider herself irresistible, though it is not quite clear what Miss Burney would have her readers believe as to the power of beauty. At one point she declares that “a very young man seldom likes a silly wife. It is generally when he is further advanced in life that he takes that depraved taste. He then flatters himself a fool will be easier to govern.” But elsewhere we are told that