CHAPTER XI.
It was not very considerate of the Countess of Smatterton to let a young lady like Penelope Primrose take a long and solitary journey of two hundred miles in a stage-coach without any guide, companion, or protector. The Earl had a very ample supply of travelling apparatus, and it would have been quite as easy to have found room for Penelope in one of the carriages when the family travelled up to town. But they who do not suffer inconveniences themselves, can hardly be brought to think that others may. Penelope felt rather mortified at this neglect, and it was well for her that she did, as it was the means of taking away her attention from more serious but remoter evil. It was also productive of another advantage; for it gave Mr Kipperson an opportunity of exhibiting his gallantry and politeness. For, the very morning before Penelope was to leave Smatterton, Mr Kipperson called in person on the young lady, and stated that imperious business would compel him to visit the metropolis, and he should have infinite pleasure in accompanying Miss Primrose on her journey, and perhaps that might be more agreeable to her than travelling alone or with total strangers. Penelope could not but acknowledge herself highly obliged by Mr Kipperson’s politeness, nor did she, with any affectation or foolery, decline what she might perhaps be compelled to accept. On the following morning, therefore, Miss Primrose, escorted by Mr Kipperson, left the sweet village of Smatterton. That place had been a home to Penelope from almost her earliest recollections, and all her associations and thoughts were connected with that place, and with its little neighbour Neverden. Two hundred miles travelling in a stage-coach is a serious business to one who has hardly ever travelled but about as many yards. It is also a very tedious affair even to those who are accustomed to long journies by such conveyance. In the present instance, however, the journey did not appear too long to either of our travellers. For Penelope had looked forward to the commencement of her journey with too much repugnance to have any very great desire for its completion, and Mr Kipperson was too happy in the company of Miss Primrose to wish the wheels of time, or of the coach, to put themselves to the inconvenience of rolling more rapidly than usual on his account. It was also an additional happiness to Mr Kipperson that there were in the coach with him two fellow travellers who had long heard of his fame, but had never before seen his person; and when they discovered that they were in company with the great agriculturist, and the great universal knowledge promoter, Mr Kipperson, they manifested no small symptoms of satisfaction and admiration.
Now the mind of the scientific agriculturist was so constructed as to experience peculiar pleasure and delight at aught which came to his ear in the form of compliment and admiration. And, when Mr Kipperson was pleased, he was in general very eloquent and communicative; and he informed his fellow travellers that he was now hastening up to London on business of the utmost importance. He had received despatches from town, calling him up to attend the House of Commons, and to consult with, or rather to advise, certain committees connected with the agricultural interest. And he, the said Mr Kipperson, certainly could not decline any call which the deeply vital interests of agriculture might make upon him. Thereupon he proceeded to shew that there was no one individual in the kingdom uniting in himself those rare combinations of talent, which were the blessing and distinction of the celebrated Mr Kipperson of Smatterton; and that if he should not pay attention to the bill then before the House, or at least likely to be before the House, by the time he should arrive in London, the agricultural interest must be completely ruined; there could be no remunerating price, and then the farmers would throw up their farms and leave the country, taking with them all their implements, skill, forethought, and penetration; and then all the land would be out of cultivation, and the kingdom would be but one vast common, only maintaining, and that very scantily, donkeys and geese.
When the safety of a nation depends upon one individual, that individual feels himself very naturally of great importance. But perhaps this is a circumstance not happening quite so often as is imagined. Strange indeed must it be that, if out of a population of ten or twelve millions, only one or two can be found on whose wisdom the state can rely, or from whose councils it can receive benefit. But as the pleasure of imagining one’s self to be of importance is very great, that pleasure is very liberally indulged in. And thus the number of those rarities, called “the only men in the world,” is considerably increased. Now Mr Kipperson was the only man in the world who had sagacity and penetration enough to know wherein consisted the true interest of agriculture; and he was most happy in giving his time and talents to the sacred cause of high prices. Enough of this: we do not like to be panegyrical, and it is very probable that our readers will not be much disappointed if we protest that it is not our intention to enter very deeply into the subject of political economy. Indeed were we to enter very deeply into the subject with which Mr Kipperson was intimate, we should be under the necessity of making an encyclopedia, or of plundering those already made, beyond the forbearance of their proprietors.
That must be an exceedingly pleasant mode of travelling which does not once, during a very long journey, provoke the traveller to wish himself at his journey’s end. Pleased as was Mr Kipperson at the opportunity afforded him of behaving politely to Miss Primrose, and gratified as he was by the respectful veneration with which his two other fellow travellers received the enunciations of his oracular wisdom; fearful as was Penelope that her new life would be the death of her, and mourning as she was under the actual loss of one most excellent friend, and contemplating the possible loss of others, still both were pleased to be at their journey’s end.
It would have given Mr Kipperson great pleasure to accompany Miss Primrose to the Earl of Smatterton’s town residence; but it gave him much greater pleasure to be able to apologize for this apparent neglect, by saying that business of a most important nature demanded his immediate attendance in the city, and from thence to the House of Commons; but that he should have great pleasure in calling on the following morning to make enquiries after his fellow traveller, and to pay his respects to his worthy and right honorable neighbour, Lord Smatterton. For although my Lord Smatterton was what the world calls a proud man, yet he did admit of freedom and a species of familiarity from some sort of people; and a little freedom with a great man goes a great way with a little man. Now Mr Kipperson was one of those persons to whom the Earl of Smatterton was most graciously condescending, and with good reason was he condescending; for this said Mr Kipperson, wishing to keep up the respectability of the farming profession, and though being much of a tenant, and a little of a landlord, but hoping in due time to be more of a landlord through an anticipated inheritance, he gave all his mind to impress upon his agricultural neighbours the importance of keeping up prices, and he paid no small sum for the farm which he tenanted under the Earl of Smatterton. It may be indeed said with some degree of truth, that he paid Lord Smatterton exceedingly well for his condescension; and as his lordship was not much exposed to Mr Kipperson’s invasions in London, he bore them with great resignation and address when they did happen. The Countess also was condescending to Mr Kipperson, being very sensible of his value to the Smatterton estate; so that the great and scientific agriculturist appeared to visit this noble family on terms of equality; and it is a fact that he thought himself quite equal, if not rather superior, to the Smatterton nobleman. It was a pleasure to Mr Kipperson to enjoy this conceit; and it did no one any injury, and it is a pity that he should be disturbed in the possession of the fancy.
The nobility do not act judiciously when they admit of any other token of distinction than actual rank. When once they adopt any fanciful distinction from fashion, or ton, or impudence, for they are nearly the same, the benefit of the civil distinction is at once renounced, and there is no established immoveable barrier against innovation. A merchant, or the son of a merchant, may by means of an imperturbable self-conceit, or by force of commanding impudence, push himself up into the highest walks of life, and look down upon nobility. Though the biographer of a deceased statesman may express his lament that nobility does not admit talent ad eundem, yet there is danger lest nobility should hold its hereditary honors with too light a hand. Lord Smatterton indeed was not guilty of neglecting to preserve upon his own mind, or endeavouring to impress on the minds of others, a due and full sense of his own importance. Even to Mr Kipperson his familiarity was obviously condescension, though not so felt or regarded by Mr Kipperson himself. We will leave this gentleman for awhile to go and transact important business in the city, and we will attend upon Miss Primrose.
As soon as the poor girl had found her way to the residence of the Countess of Smatterton, she was received by her ladyship with the greatest kindness.
“Now, my dear Miss Primrose, this is very good of you to come up to town so soon. But how did you come—you did not come all the way by yourself. Surely you did not travel by the stage coach?”
Penelope informed her ladyship concerning her fellow traveller, and expressed herself perfectly well satisfied with the mode of travelling which she had adopted.
“Well, that was fortunate; but really, if I had thought of it in time, you might have come with our family when we travelled up. But I am very glad you are come. You will be quite indispensable to us to-morrow evening. I am happy to see you looking so well, and how did you leave Mrs Greendale? Poor woman! Her loss is very great!”
Fortunately for Penelope, the Countess was not one of those unreasonable persons who ask questions for the sake of answers, but one of those, who are not a small number, who ask questions purely for the sake of asking them, and by way of shewing their own very great condescension in deigning to ask so particularly concerning what interests their inferiors. It is however not good policy that the models of politeness should, in their manifest heedlessness of answers to their questions, so decidedly testify to their own insincerity and heartlessness.
Penelope was glad to be liberated from the interview with her ladyship, and to enjoy for a while the solitude which her apartment afforded. An apartment had been provided for her reception in the town residence of the Earl of Smatterton; and though the ascent to it was rather laborious, yet it had the blessed comfort of affording to the troubled one an opportunity of sitting alone, and shedding a few tears, and communing with her own heart. There are some states of mind in which the sufferer feels most and greatest consolation in being left to the thoughts of solitude. There was however even in solitude nothing pleasing for Penelope to meditate upon: but hope is an artist that draws its finest scenes upon the darkest ground. Amidst all the losses which she had experienced, and the pains which she had suffered, and the dreaded anticipations of evils yet to come, still Penelope could think that her father was yet living, and might perhaps soon make his appearance in England, and fulfil those promises of which she had often indirectly heard. It was painful to her that she could not form any idea of her father. She had always regarded him as an object of compassion; for her uncle in the candour of his heart never uttered words of reproach against Mr Primrose; but, when he spoke of him, called him his poor brother, his unfortunate kinsman, and he always seemed to regard him as a victim to others’ vices and not to his own. Penelope could not form an idea of a being more fatherly than Dr Greendale had always been to her; and whenever her young ears caught the sound of sympathy or sorrow for her lot as a poor fatherless child, she denied in her own heart the applicability of such language to herself. She knew that she had a father living abroad, but she felt that a father had died at home. When, however, upon this absent living father Penelope knew that her only hope and dependence could rest, then did she with more fixedness of mind direct her thoughts and prayers thitherward. It was some consolation to her that some little time must elapse before she could by any possibility make her appearance in public; this would be some alleviation, and might perhaps produce some change. The language however which the Countess had used respecting to-morrow, seemed to indicate that some commencement of publicity was destined for her even at that early date. And this thought was a dark spot in the picture of hope. So all the bright expectations which mortals cherish, have in their foreground something harshly real and coarsely literal. Many hours however the poor deserted one did not meditate upon melancholy, or on brighter scenes. The weariness which had resulted from her long journey, and the agitation of spirits which she had suffered, were too much for her strength, and she soon sank to the silence of repose. Happy was it for her that the outlines of her destiny were but faintly traced; she scarcely knew for what mode of public display her patroness had designed her; but she could and did hope for the best. In all her thoughts the image of Robert Darnley was not in her mind’s eye for any length of time; it frequently made its appearance, and as frequently it was dismissed; not in anger—not, or scarcely, in sorrow, but in resignation and philosophy. She had endeavoured to wean her mind from the thought of a fickle lover, without having recourse to hatred, reproach or resentment. She exercised great diligence to cultivate a degree of indifference, and she so far deceived herself as to fancy that she had succeeded. Youth never so thoroughly deceives itself as when it says, “I don’t care.”