Camilla

Camilla focuses on the story of the Tyrold family. Augustus ("Mr Tyrold") and
Sir Hugh Tyrold are brothers who, after a period of estrangement lasting an
unspecified number of years, are reunited after Sir Hugh sends Mr Tyrold a
letter expressing his desire to move near his parsonage, requesting him to
purchase an estate called Cleves and prepare it for the arrival of Sir Hugh, his
niece Indiana Lynmere, and her governess Miss Margland (his other ward,
Clermont Lynmere, is to be sent to "the Continent" to be educated). His primary
motivation for the move is that after years of being active, and a confirmed
bachelor, he is injured and becomes too weak to partake of the active physical
and social life he once enjoyed. Forced to pursue entertainment and solace in
more sedentary ways, he finds himself woefully unprepared and further engages
Mr Tyrold to engage a tutor. Mr Tyrold complies and hires Dr Orkborne, a man
better suited to private academic pursuits than pedagogy. This plan proves to be
untenable and Sir Hugh is left scrambling to find a permanent "scholar" to place
under Orkborne's tutelage, not wanting to offend the academic by dismissing
him so soon after dragging him all the way out to Cleves.
In the meantime, Sir Hugh becomes enchanted by his brother's middle
daughter, Camilla, and decides to make her heiress to most of his fortune. He
also requests the privilege of raising her, which makes Mr and Mrs Tyrold
uneasy because as much as they value Sir Hugh's kindness and generosity, they
both find him unsuitable as a guardian as he is too indulgent and desirous to
please. Nevertheless, they allow Camilla to go to Cleves. It is there that
Camilla's brother Lionel, elder sister, Lavinia, and younger sister, Eugenia, and
her father's ward, Edgar Mandelbert, go to celebrate Camilla's tenth birthday.
Mrs Tyrold allowed Eugenia to join the festivities only on the promise that the
party of young people would not leave the grounds of Cleves because the girl
had not yet been inoculated against smallpox. Unfortunately, Lionel's
mischievous and restless nature leads him to convince his uncle to allow the
entire party of children to go to a fair. It is here that Eugenia is exposed to and
contracts smallpox. Eugenia is disfigured but survives, only to suffer a tragic
see-saw accident which leaves her further maimed and crippled. As a result, Sir
Hugh disowns not only Camilla but all of his nieces and nephews in favor of
making Eugenia his sole heiress. He justifies this sweeping action by arranging
an eventual marriage between Eugenia and Clermont Lynmere. In the meantime,
he consigns Eugenia's education to Dr Orkbourne so that if she will not be a
beautiful bride, she will at least be a highly intelligent one able to entertain and
engage her future husband in what he calls hic haec hoc - that is, is to receive the
same sort of intensive, classical education that was at the time more generally
given to boys and rarely to girls. Though at first dismissive of the idea of
educating girls in general and the teaching of Greek and Latin to females in
particular, Dr Orkbourne discovers that Eugenia is not only an enthusiastic
student but one who is also extremely intelligent and capable.


Genre: Literary Fiction