Camelia

“ Camelia was hardly conscious of ruling, nor the mother of being ruled. As the stronger egoism, Camelia domineered inevitably. She was a gay, kind child, happy in the unfettered expansion of her individuality; she delighted in its exercise, and in all sorts of unconventional acquirements. She read voraciously and loved travel. Lady Paton had by no means reached the end of packing and paying days. Camelia hated beaten tracks; the travelling must be different from other people’s; she managed in a tourist-ridden Europe to find the element of adventurous experience. Camelia was keen on experiences. ”

“ More than Camelia’s lie, Camelia’s cruelty in dealing her that humiliation, burned. When she thought of it the blackness of her own heart terrified her. She felt that she hated Camelia, and when she reached her room, she bolted the door and fell on her bed in an agony of weeping.
Camelia perhaps counted a little too confidently upon Mary’s “adoration” for her. To Mary, Camelia had always seemed the bright personification of beauty, cleverness, joy. She had wondered at her, rather than admired her. ”

“ It was in Camelia’s early girlhood that ill-health, overwork, and a violent row with the powers of political darkness, made this home-coming definite. The battered idealist sought rather sulkily a retreat from the intolerable contemplation of a wider world’s misdeeds. Young Camelia, so different from her dully worthy ancestors, so different even from her dashing but not intellectual papa, charmed him as the woods and flowers of spring charm eyes weary with city winter. ”

“ But if you do love me—choose me, as you say; if I do love you—which I have not said—and will not say, will not say even to exculpate my folly of last night—even then, Camelia! I would not marry a woman whom I despise.”
“Despise?” she repeated. Her voice was a toneless echo of his. She weighed the word, and found it heavy, as he saw. Her eyes dwelt on his mutely, and there dawned slowly in them the terror of the eternal negative that rose between her and him.
“You are not good enough for me, Camelia,” said Perior. ”

“ Perior, too, had learned to smile, and Camelia was baffled. He would not scold her. After all, he counted for very little, so Camelia assured herself as she entered upon her London life, and he should see that she could be indifferent with far more effectiveness. Perior saw little of her during those years. The little he saw on his rare visits to London confirmed his grim conviction. She was a pretty, clever, foolish, worthless creature; her frankness threw no dust into his eyes. She might own herself a self-seeking worldling, and she did not overshoot the mark. ”

“ There is in Florence a plaque by one of the della Robbia; a long throated girl’s head leans from it, serenely looking down upon the world; a delicate head, with a clear brow, a pure cheek, a mouth of sad enchanting loveliness; Camelia’s head was like it; saint-like in contour, but with an added air, an air of merry irresponsibility. ”

“ Lady Paton sobbed out the sad facts. Her own blindness; poor Mary’s long concealment—too successful; the doctor’s fatal verdict.
“I was blind, too,” said Perior, “though I always feared it.”
“Ah! that is the cruellest part of it! And her indifference—she does not seem to care; she does not speak to any of us.”
“Not to Camelia? Is Camelia with her?”
Perior’s heart must spare some of its aching to his unhappy Camelia.
“She has not once left her. She is so brave; I can only cry; but it has made Camelia already different; a strength, a gentleness, yet a despair. ”

“ In her long coat, Siegfried trotting in front of her, Camelia breasted the tonic January wind. There was just a crispness of snow on the ground; in the lanes thin patches of ice made walking wary. She emerged from the shelter of the hedges on to the fine billowy stretch of common, where the wind sang, and the sunset in the west made a wide red bar. Siegfried’s adventurous spirit soon warmed him to an energetic gallop through the dead fern and heather, and Camelia followed his lead, intending to cut across to the highroad, and by its long curve return home. ”

“ She herself bad, and the world at her feet. Camelia felt herself capable of taking the immoral universe by the throat and shaking it to death—herself along with it.
She was galloping for help, yes, to Perior. He must help her, he alone could help her, to clutch the malignant cruelty, tear it off Mary, and then give her some gleam of happiness before she died. Camelia straightened herself in the saddle at the thought. “She shall not die,” clenched her teeth on the determination. She might be saved. ”

“ Some one—to love—a great deal——” And with an intentness, like the last leap of a dying flame, she added, looking at him, “You will marry Camelia.”
“If Camelia will have me,” said Perior, bending over her hand and kissing it.
A gleam of gaiety, of pure joyousness, shone on Mary’s face. Humorously, without a shadow of bitterness, she said, “I win—where Camelia failed!”
The tears rushed to Perior’s eyes. He could not speak. He rose, and stooping over her, he took her in his arms and kissed her.
“Ah!” she said quickly, “it is much better to die. I love you.” ”

“ Perior, grimly conscious of its illusory foothold over chasms, could afford a certain chivalry, could at least restrain the brutality of a push into the void. He didn’t like the idea of Camelia, his smiling Camelia, really scared, tumbling from her pinnacles into the abyss where rocky facts awaited her.
“I am sensible to the compliment”—the mild irony of his tone was a warning of insecurity—“though you will own that it is, in some senses, a dubious one; but it’s very kind in you, who could have anybody, to stoop to a nobody. ”

“ Camelia had gone too far—it didn’t look well; a girl must not overstep certain limits; one could make too much of a reputation for audacity; Camelia’s charm had been to be audacious, without seeming so. And the sad affair of Mr. Rodrigg—Camelia should not have stooped, and to no purpose; people turned on one so horridly. Poor Sir Arthur would lose his bill as well as his sweetheart, now that Camelia had meddled so disastrously. Oh! she was most unkind.” Lady Paton evidently remembered the unkindness—her voice was a curious echo. ”

“ Camelia’s helpless sobs burst out again.
“Yes; why can I speak to you like this? because I am dying, you see that I am dying—that gives me my only advantage; I can tell you what I think of you, and you don’t dare reply. You would not dare say to me now that I am a spy—that I have sneaking eyes. I hate you, Camelia! I hate you! Oh! oh!” She rose to her feet suddenly, and at the change of tone—the wail—Camelia uncovered her eyes.
“I am going to die! I am going to die! And I love him, and he does not care.” Mary groped blindly to a sofa, fell upon it, buried her head in the cushions. ”

“ Mary only shrank more coweringly from the circling advance of pain. In her solitude Camelia’s whip-like words and Camelia’s smile blended to the same scorching; words, Mary thought, so true, that no apology, no smile, could efface them. That Camelia had felt them true was a nightmare suspicion; the instinct for the truth had at least been there, and, like the wounded animal, Mary quaked in her warren, conscious of insecurity. Camelia soon forgot both cruelty and apology. ”

“ One heard of wonderful cures. And at least, at least, she should not die unhappy. Camelia would wrench happiness for her out of despair itself. She would fight the injustice of the gods until her last breath left her.
All the pitiful humanity in Camelia clung to the human hope of retribution and reward. Her mind fixed in this desperate hope, she could take no thought of the coming interview; that would have implied a retrospective glance at her last visit to the Grange, and Camelia could not think of herself, nor even of Perior. ”

“ The gods always helped a young lady who helped herself. Such had been Camelia’s experience in life, even when she helped herself to other people’s belongings.
At all events, with hardly a qualm of conscience, Camelia enjoyed the afternoon she had wrested from poor Mary.
The tea-table was duly installed under the wide shade of the copper-beech. Perior carried out an armful of books and reviews from which to choose. They drank their tea and ate their bread and butter, and Camelia read aloud from the Revue des Deux Mondes. ”

“ Hardly a thread bound her to life; even her passionate hatred of Camelia was dimmed by the creeping mists; even her love for Perior wailed, it seemed, at a long distance from her; she listened to it as she lay there; only at moments came a throb of pain for all the happiness she had never had. Camelia meeting the calm eyes would smile tremulously, but Mary gave no answering smile, and her eyes kept all their calm.
Camelia had to hold firmly to the self-abnegation of perfect self-control to keep down the cry of confession that would give her relief, that would perhaps admit her to Mary’s heart ”

“ He did not say to himself that Camelia would never disappoint him, nor own that the handful of primroses meant much in his life, but hopefulness seemed to emanate from her, and insensibly he lived in the sunny impression. Her very defects were charming, the mere superfluity of exuberant vitality, and with this conviction he observed her happy, youthful selfishness as one observes a kitten’s antics, and treated her claims for dominion with gentle ridicule. Camelia laughed with him at herself, and this gave them an irresistible sense of companionship ”

“ An answering pang shot through Camelia’s heart—whether pain, pity, or triumph she could not have told; but she said quickly, her eyes rounded in unfamiliar solemnity, still on his—
“Breaking your heart?”
“I care for you,” said Perior; “I only ask for a mere cranny, where a friendly tenderness might find foothold—one ray of sincerity, of honor—to make me feel that my fondness for you is not a—a contemptible, a weakening folly. It’s as if you dashed me down on the rocks—just as I fancy I’ve found something to hold on by!” ”

“ Every one had gone. The guests to golf at the Havershams; Mary, Lady Paton, and Lady Henge for a long drive. They had all respected the sensitive requirements of her new position. She was to be left alone, and as Camelia walked from room to room, the big house was desolate.
She nourished a sense of resentment, of injury, for it seemed to thrust away the chilly stupor of fear, fear of that new presence walking with her, waiting for her recognition. The loneliness, the melancholy, to which she could only feign blindness, were almost unendurable. ”

“ She felt herself contemplating the sum of lies with an almost impersonal curiosity.
“Camelia!” The odd pitch of his voice, sharp with a sudden, uncontrollable emotion, made her look up.
He rose, paused, looking back at her. “You are breaking my heart,” he said. He had not intended to say it, nor known the truth that now came imperatively to his lips. How she had hurt him, after all! He felt that he was almost appealing to her, that indignation, scorn, hatred of her baseness, were as nothing compared with that appeal—not to hurt him; and he grew very white. ”

“ Her eyes, in all their helpless guilt and terror, met his look of non-absolving pity.
“It means that if one is good one is often trodden upon. We must accept the responsibility for Mary’s unhappiness. My poor Camelia,” Perior added, in tones of saddest comprehension, and he stretched out his hand to her. But Camelia stood still. ”

“ And then, her heart just rising in the false but delicious joy of his kind presence, came a call, a call not dreary like the day, but fatally sweet and clear, the sound of it as if a flower had suddenly flung open rosy petals on the grayness.
“Alceste, come here! I want you.”
“Our imperious Camelia,” said Perior with a slight laugh. “Well, good-bye, Mary. Don’t do any more sums, and don’t look at the rain. Get a nice, cheerful book and sit down at the fire. Amuse yourself, won’t you?” ”

“ Camelia spoke acidly. “I think he succeeds at a great many things.”
“Things he doesn’t care about, then, you may be sure of that. Fortune follows such men like a stray dog they have no use for, while they are looking for their own lost pet.”
Camelia drank her tea in silence, priding herself somewhat on her forbearance, pondering, too, on the pathos of Mrs. Jedsley’s simile in which she could only see a purely personal applicability. ”

“ How tactless, at least; for Camelia at once hated herself for the other word. What did she expect? She seemed nearly as remote as Frances—not quite, for she could see Frances and repulse her with complete indifference, and she could not meet her mother indifferently. There would be the pain, the irritation of feigning.
“Don’t be cruel, dear.” The words reached her dimly through the pillow. Cruel! Camelia smiled bitterly. She did not know. The apparent cause for grief was slight indeed; the real one was locked forever in her heart, so let them think her cruel. ”

“ You will kiss her, love her, and she will die happy—with her hand in yours!” Her eyes sought his wildly. He had never loved her as he loved her now, and though his tears were for Mary, the power, the freedom of his love for Camelia was a joy to him even in the midst of a great sadness. He could not have kissed her or put his arms around her; the dignity of her abasement was part of the new, the sacred loveliness, and it was more in pity than in love that he took the poor, distraught, beautiful face between his hands and looked at her a negation, pitiful and inarticulate. ”