Camilla | Page 6

Fanny Burney
her sportive
sounds; catching, as it listened, in successive rotation, the spontaneous
laugh, the unconscious bound, the genuine glee of childhood's fearless
happiness, uncurbed by severity, untamed by misfortune.
This ascendance was soon pointed out by the servants to Indiana, who
sometimes shewed her resentment in unexplained and pouting
sullenness, and at others, let all pass unnoticed, with unreflecting
forgetfulness. But her mind was soon empoisoned with a jealousy of
more permanent seriousness; in less than a month after the residence of
Camilla at Cleves, Sir Hugh took the resolution of making her his
heiress.
Even Mr. Tyrold, notwithstanding his fondness for Camilla,
remonstrated against a partiality so injurious to his nephew and niece,
as well as to the rest of his family. And Mrs. Tyrold, though her secret
heart subscribed, without wonder, to a predilection in favour of Camilla,
was maternally disturbed for her other children, and felt her justice
sensibly shocked at a blight so unmerited to the hopes cherished by
Indiana and Clermont Lynmere: for though the fruits of this change of
plan would be reaped by her little darling, they were robbed of all their
sweetness to a mind so correct, by their undeserved bitterness towards
the first expectants.
Sir Hugh, however, was immoveable; he would provide handsomely,

he said, for Indiana and Clermont, by settling a thousand pounds a year
between them; and he would bequeath capital legacies amongst the rest
of his nephews and nieces: but as to the bulk of his fortune, it should all
go to Camilla; for how else could he make her amends for having
amused him? or how, when he was gone, should he prove to her he
loved her the best?
Sir Hugh could keep nothing secret; Camilla was soon informed of the
riches she was destined to inherit; and servants, who now with added
respect attended her, took frequent opportunities of impressing her with
the expectation, by the favours they begged from her in reversion.
The happy young heiress heard them with little concern: interest and
ambition could find no room in a mind, which to dance, sing, and play
could enliven to rapture. Yet the continued repetition of requests soon
made the idea of patronage familiar to her, and though wholly
uninfected with one thought of power or consequence, she sometimes
regaled her fancy with the presents she should make amongst her
friends; designing a coach for her mamma, that she might oftener go
abroad; an horse for her brother Lionel, which she knew to be his most
passionate wish; a new bureau, with a lock and key, for her eldest sister
Lavinia; innumerable trinkets for her cousin Indiana; dolls and toys
without end for her little sister Eugenia; and a new library of new
books, finely bound and gilt, for her papa. But these munificent
donations looked forward to no other date than the anticipation of
womanhood. If an hint were surmised of her surviving her uncle, an
impetuous shower of tears dampt all her gay schemes, deluged every
airy castle, and shewed the instinctive gratitude which kindness can
awaken, even in the unthinking period of earliest youth, in those
bosoms it has ever the power to animate.
Her ensuing birth-day, upon which she would enter her tenth year, was
to announce to the adjoining country her uncle's splendid plan in her
favour. Her brother and sisters were invited to keep it with her at
Cleves; but Sir Hugh declined asking either her father or mother, that
his own time, without restraint, might be dedicated to the promotion of
her festivity; he even requested of Miss Margland, that she would not

appear that day, lest her presence should curb the children's spirits.
The gay little party, consisting of Lavinia, who was two years older,
and Eugenia, who was two years younger than Camilla, with her
beautiful cousin, who was exactly of her own age, her brother Lionel,
who counted three years more, and Edgar Mandlebert, a ward of Mr.
Tyrold's, all assembled at Cleves upon this important occasion, at eight
o'clock in the morning, to breakfast.
Edgar Mandlebert, an uncommonly spirited and manly boy, now
thirteen years of age, was heir to one of the finest estates in the county.
He was the only son of a bosom friend of Mr. Tyrold, to whose
guardianship he had been consigned almost from his infancy, and who
superintended the care of his education with as much zeal, though not
as much oeconomy, as that of his own son. He placed him under the
tuition of Dr. Marchmont, a man of consummate learning, and he sent
for him to Etherington twice in every year, where he assiduously kept
up his studies by his own personal instructions. 'I leave him rich, my
dear friend,' said his father, when on his death-bed
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