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.”
CHAPTER XII.
Another day dawned upon the multitudinous interests and emotions of humanity. To the mind which can spare time from the intensity of its own feelings, and the selfishness of its own concerns, to think of others—to think, not merely to talk morality and sentiment about them, but to realise the emotions and agitations of thoughts which harass the human breast, there is in the thought of a day dawning in a great city a deep and serious fulness of interest. The sun’s first blush upon the mountains and woods and streams and spangled meadows, is poetical and pretty enough, but the same light beaming on the condensed and crowded habitations of men, brings to the mind far other thoughts, and excites widely different emotions. It awakens misery from its dreams of bliss, and guilt from its dreams of innocence, poverty from its dreams of wealth, and despair from its dreams of hope. Anxiety begins anew its busy work in the breast of the needy parent, and gnawing hunger oft reminds the sufferer of the opening of another day. Bitter are the feelings which morning ofttimes brings to the sons and daughters of poverty; but not to them alone are confined the agonizing throbs of the heart. There is among the inmates of those proud mansions which seemed built for festivity alone, and tenanted by luxury and repose, many, many a bitter pang. There is the thought of keener anguish than any mere physical privation or suffering can inflict, there are pangs of heart for which language has no words, and fancy no figures, there are fears and dreads of which the humbler sufferers of life’s ills have no conception. Not enviable were the feelings of our heroine on the first morning in which she woke in the great city.