Penelope

by William Pitt Scargill

Before Mr Primrose could finish the sentence, Mr Darnley corrected the misapprehension and said: “Not a teacher of music, sir, but a public singer.”

This made the matter worse, and the poor man was just ready to burst out into violent exclamations again, but recollecting that it was in his power now to place his child in a situation of independence, and considering that the time of her departure from Smatterton had been too recent to render it likely that she had yet appeared in public, he contented himself with saying, “I am astonished that the Countess should think of such a profession for a young woman brought up as my child has been. If my poor brother-in-law had lived he would never have suffered it.”

“I was also astonished,” said Mr Darnley, “that Miss Primrose should give her consent to such a proposal; for my friend Dr Greendale used to express himself very strongly on that subject, and endeavour to dissuade Miss Primrose from adopting such a profession. It has long been the wish of the Countess of Smatterton, but her ladyship did not succeed in the proposal during the lifetime of Dr Greendale.”

Much more to the same purpose did Mr Darnley say on the subject, not much to the satisfaction of Mr Primrose. It is not pleasant for a father to hear anything to the discredit of a child, but fortunately parents do not always believe such stories, or they find excuses which nobody else can. So Mr Primrose did not, could not, and would not believe the insinuation that Mr Darnley threw out against Penelope, as if she had waited only for Dr Greendale’s decease to adopt a profession against which he had serious objections; and Mr Primrose thought it most probable that the Countess of Smatterton had used great importunity, or that Penelope had complied, to relieve Mrs Greendale of a burden. There was indeed some difficulty in his mind to reconcile this story of Mr Darnley with the insinuation thrown out in his letter, and corroborated by the poor woman at the turnpike-gate, concerning the son of the Earl of Smatterton having withdrawn the affections of Penelope from Robert Darnley to himself. But Mr Primrose had been out of England many years; and fashions had changed since he left his native land. It was perhaps now quite elegant and fashionable to appear on the stage. He recollected that when he was at school, he had read of Nero, the Roman emperor, appearing on the stage as a public performer, and for aught that could be known to Mr Primrose, the progress of refinement in England might have pointed out dramatic or musical exhibition as a fit introduction to the honor of an alliance with nobility.

At all events, whatever were his notions or apprehensions he was by this time considerably more calm and composed. He had the satisfaction of knowing that his daughter was alive and well, and he had the pleasing prospect of speedily seeing her again. Of her moral and mental qualities, and of her intellectual improvement, he had been in the constant habit of receiving flattering and agreeable accounts, and he was not unwilling to believe them. There was some little mortification, that he had travelled so far and all to no purpose. But he had no other means of ascertaining where his daughter was.

It was a conceit of his own, (though partly aided by his late brother-in-law,) not to keep any direct correspondence with his daughter. His motive was, that as there was a possibility that he might never return to England, and that he might not ever have it in his power to provide for her according to his former means, therefore he thought it best not to excite any expectations which might be frustrated, or to excite in her mind any interest concerning himself, which might ultimately be productive of only pain and uneasiness. He wished his poor child to consider herself an orphan, thinking it better to surprise her with a living parent than to inflict grief on her mind at the thoughts of one deceased.

This scheme did not entirely succeed. The worthy and benevolent rector of Smatterton could not help now and then saying a favourable word or two concerning his poor brother Primrose; and as Dr Greendale’s was the charity that hopeth all things and believeth all things, he was not distrustful of his brother’s promises, but was nearly, if not altogether, as sanguine as Mr Primrose himself. By degrees Penelope came to have an interest in her absent parent; and well it was for her that Dr Greendale had thus accustomed her to think of her father: for when the good rector departed this life he did not leave his niece quite so orphaned as if she had had no knowledge or thought of her absent father. But to proceed with our story.

We have said that it was late in the evening when Mr Primrose arrived at Neverden. It was no great distance indeed to Smatterton; but why should he go there in any hurry, seeing that his daughter was not there? This consideration induced Mr Darnley to offer to the traveller the accommodation of a bed: for Mr Darnley was not a churlish man; he was only very cold, and very formal, and very pompous. The offer was readily accepted, and the rector of Neverden then conducted Mr Primrose from the study to the apartment in which the family was sitting. Great curiosity was excited as soon as Mr Darnley announced the name of his late arrived guest. The young ladies felt particularly interested in looking at the father of Penelope; but they did not make themselves, as they thought, quite so agreeable as they should have done had matters been proceeding in proper order with respect to their brother and Penelope. The absence of that species of agreeableness to which we allude, was no great inconvenience to Mr Primrose; for he was weary with travelling, and exhausted by manifold agitations, and it would not have been very agreeable to him with all this exhaustion to undergo a cheerful volley of everlasting interrogations; and Miss Mary Darnley would to a certainty have extorted from him a civil, ecclesiastical, statistical, botanical, and zoological, history of British India, to say nothing of Persia, China, Japan, and the million isles of the Eastern ocean.

But though the young ladies were not disposed to apply the question to Mr Primrose, their mother, who was as ready to forgive as she was apt to forget, talked to him as cordially and cheerfully as if the day had been fixed for the marriage of Robert Darnley and Penelope Primrose. Her talk, however, was not wearying, because there was no affectation in it, and because there was much good feeling in it. Her talk was concerning her dear boy; and Mr Primrose, who had a parent’s heart, enjoyed such talk.

“And so, Mr Primrose, you have seen my dear Robert? And how did he look? He is dying to return to Neverden. We expect him next week, for the ship is now in the Downs. Did you think, sir, he seemed in good health?”