It has been said in the preceding chapter, that Dr Greendale resumed
his studies as soon as Mrs Greendale left his apartment, and that
he soon forgot the interruption and the discussion which it had
occasioned. After a little while however he found that the train of
his thoughts had been seriously broken, and that he could not very
easily or conveniently resume and connect it. He therefore determined
that he would for a few hours lay aside his pen, and indulge himself
with a little relaxation from study. These occasional relaxations are
very essential to authors, especially to those whose writings are the
result of deep and continuous argumentative thought. The doctor indeed
had found this to be the case to a much greater extent than he had
anticipated: for, when he first busied himself upon his great work, he
thought that three years would be the very utmost of the time which
he should occupy in the labours of the pen. But it so happened that
he spent so very large a portion of those three years in the pleasing
employment of looking to the honor and glory which lay beyond them,
that they were absolutely gone before he was well aware of it, and his
important and momentous labours were only begun; he had scarcely laid
the foundation of that magnificent superstructure, which was destined
to be an immortal and unfading monument of his theological and polemic
glory. And even long after the expiration of the first three years,
he found it necessary to rouse himself to extraordinary, and almost
convulsive diligence by preaching some very eloquent discourses on
procrastination. In these discourses he quoted Young’s Night Thoughts;
and most of his parishioners thought the quotations exceedingly fine;
but Mr Kipperson, of whom more hereafter, quite sneered at them, and
afterwards told the Earl of Smatterton’s gamekeeper, that Young was
nothing of a poet compared to Lord Byron. But, notwithstanding all
that the worthy rector of Smatterton had said, thought, or preached,
concerning procrastination, he could not help now and then indulging
himself and laying aside his pen, just for an hour or two; it could not
make much difference; and besides it would not do to be always writing;
there must be some interval allowed for thought. In one of these
intervals, now accounted for by the interruption of Mrs Greendale, he
sent for his niece Penelope; for he thought that in Mrs Greendale’s
present humour the young lady would feel herself more at ease in any
other company than that of her diligent and managing aunt.
Well it was indeed, for the dependent one, that this humour of
relaxation seized the doctor at this moment: for Penelope had met
Mrs Greendale on her return from the doctor’s study, and had, in as
considerately gentle, and humble terms as possible, proffered her
assistance in making preparation for the morrow’s party; and Mrs
Greendale, instead of receiving the offered aid courteously, as it was
proposed, only replied:
“I beg, Miss Primrose, that I may not take you away from your studies.
Besides, it is not quite correct that guests should provide for their
own entertainment.”
Much more to this purpose said the angry wife of the rector of
Smatterton, and Penelope bore it as patiently as she could. From
this discussion however she was soon and most agreeably relieved by
a message from the doctor, commanding, or more properly speaking,
requesting her attendance in the study.
Hastily but not rudely she quitted the paragon of domestic managers to
attend to the best of uncles, and the keenest of polemics. When she
entered the doctor’s room, she found the books closed, and the pen laid
down, and the chair moved, and the fire stirred, and a chair cleared
of its literary lumber and put on the opposite side of the fire-place
for her to sit down upon. These were pleasant symptoms, and pleasanter
than all were the kind and amiable looks of her uncle.
“Penelope, my dear, if you are not very much engaged I should like to
have a little conversation with you. But, perhaps, you are helping your
aunt to prepare for tomorrow?”
“No, sir, I am not, for my aunt does not want any help. I was offering
my assistance when you sent for me, but my aunt declines it.”
“Indeed!--Well then sit down, my dear, sit down. Have you been
practising this morning? I have not heard you. You must learn that new
song before you go to the castle, for it is a great favourite with Lady
Smatterton.”
“I have practised this morning, and I sang it over two or three times
after breakfast. I think I know it now quite perfectly.”
“That’s a good girl. But I cannot say I wish you to make a business
of singing. It is always very well for an amusement but no farther.
The Countess is very kind to you, and you ought to oblige her as much
as possible; yet I would not wish that you should give your exclusive
attention to that science.”
“I have no such wish myself, sir; I feel very much embarrassed and
confused even when I sing at the castle, when no one is present but
Lord and Lady Smatterton. I am sure I could never bring myself to
perform in public.”
“Very good; you have a very proper feeling on the subject. I know the
Countess would be very happy to bring you out under her patronage,
and very respectable patronage it would be; but I have very great
objections to such publicity for a young person like you.”
“But, my dear uncle, I have been thinking--I have been thinking--”
Penelope, in thus speaking, hesitated and blushed, and trembled, and
a tear would have been seen starting into her eye, but the doctor
observing that she was confused, did not look at her to increase her
confusion. Suspecting what was the cause of this embarrassment, he said:
“Yes, yes, my dear, I know what you have been thinking about, and I
have been thinking of the same subject. You think it very strange that
you have not heard from Robert Darnley.”
The doctor was right, and the doctor was wrong. Penelope had indeed
been so thinking, but it was not of these thoughts that she was then
about to speak. The suspicion however increased her confusion and she
wept. Sobbing, she exclaimed with great earnestness:
“Oh no, my dear uncle! I had no such meaning, but I was going--”
The doctor heeded not these words, but proceeded to say, with much
tenderness of manner:
“But, my dear Penelope, you should not make yourself uneasy. Foreign
letters are frequently delayed and detained from a variety of causes. I
dare say you will soon have a sufficient explanation of this silence. I
have often had your father’s letters two or even three together, after
waiting a long while, and fearing that the correspondence had ceased.”
Penelope recovered her voice and more composedly replied; “Indeed, sir,
it was not of Robert Darnley that I was going to speak; I was about to
say that it was now time for me to go out into the world and no longer
to be burdensome to you.”
“Burdensome to me, my dear child, how can you think of such a thing?”
“But, sir, it is painful to be in a state of dependence when one has
the means of doing something for a maintenance. I am sure, my dear
uncle, you would not mention the subject to me, and so I am compelled
to speak first.”
“A state of dependence is a state in which we all are. We must be
dependent on one another, it is the ordering of a wise Providence; it
is the means by which we have the development and exercise of some of
our best and purest feelings. Beside, you are yet too young to teach
others, you have not finished your own education, you want experience.
Pray do not talk of leaving me. If you say any more on this subject I
shall be afraid your home is irksome.”
This was the most effectual appeal that could be made to Penelope; it
silenced, but convinced her not. It is true that her home was irksome.
It was annoying to her in spite of all her constitutional vivacity and
acquired philosophy to be continually exposed to the open or covert
reproaches of Mrs Greendale. For this very clever lady had exercised
management in everything but in the government of her own temper. And
true it is, though strange it may appear, that her own opinion of her
own temper and habit of mind was exactly the converse of reality; so
when we see our image reflected by a looking-glass, that which is our
right hand appears as our left, and that which is our left appears as
our right. Mrs Greendale thought herself a model of candour and good
humour; and whenever she uttered reproaches against Penelope, which was
not very seldom, she actually thought and believed that all the fault
was in the young woman’s perverseness, vanity, or affectation, whereas
the only fault was in her own distempered vision, which could see
nothing good in her, against whom, for some unaccountable cause, she
possessed a decided prejudice. For a mind thus constituted, there was
obviously no remedy; Mrs Greendale could not profit by indirect hints,
nor could she see in others of the same temperament a portraiture of
herself. It was also in vain that Penelope attempted to please her;
that was an absolute impossibility, and the dependent one had found
it so by long and bitter experience. The poor girl therefore was not
of opinion that she was burdensome to Dr Greendale, but she felt that
Mrs Greendale was burdensome to her; she found that her elasticity of
spirit was diminishing; she began to assume the air and aspect of one
tried with far deeper troubles than the continual wearisomeness of
undeserved reproaches. Though occasionally Dr Greendale had perceived
something of this, and though he had given some gentle hints to that
purpose to his better half, yet he had no idea of the extent to which
the annoyance reached, and of the bitter pains of heart and spirit
which it occasioned to his niece. The art of ingeniously tormenting
was once made the subject of a lively little book, but the art is not
to be learned; it comes as the spontaneous growth of the mind, and
Mrs Greendale knew the art much better than the witty author of that
treatise.
We have explained the situation in which Penelope was placed. But
as every condition of humanity is more or less of a mixed nature,
so in her state there were some alleviations. Her kind-hearted and
benevolent uncle, so considerate and so gentle in his manner towards
her, partly counterbalanced the pain which she experienced from the
behaviour of her aunt. He was constantly endeavouring to encourage her
with hopes that her situation was not destined to be for ever a state
of dependence. He was perpetually dwelling upon the brightest view of
her father’s prospects; and though Mr Primrose had now been fourteen
years in India, and during that time had sent to England very little
more than promises and flattering hopes, yet the worthy doctor was
pertinacious in cleaving to the conviction, that his brother-in-law
would eventually, and perhaps very soon, fulfil his promises, and
realize the hopes which he had excited. As for himself, the uncle of
Penelope would willingly have adopted her as his own, but this adoption
would have been serviceable only during his natural life; for he had
scarcely anything to call his own beyond the income of his living.
In the situation of Penelope there was also another circumstance,
which might be said to be an alleviation; but which, in some of its
bearings, was a source of deep anxiety. Robert Darnley, the son of
the rector of Neverden, had very early in life, by means of strong
interest, been appointed to a situation of great promise in India; and
two years before the time of which we are writing had made a visit to
England; during this visit an acquaintance had been formed between him
and Miss Primrose, and this acquaintance was not met by any opposition
on the part of the young gentleman’s parents. Mrs Greendale could not
imagine what Mr and Mrs Darnley could see in Penelope to make them so
partial to her, and she thought that a young man of such talents and
prospects might make a far better match than with a young woman whose
only portion was her pride, and a few useless accomplishments; for in
this point of view did she regard her niece, or, to speak according to
her own most frequent manner of expression, Dr Greendale’s niece. Mrs
Greendale, to be sure, did not oppose the match, but she could not help
giving a few hints as to the unreasonableness of the expectation that
Penelope should consider the rectory as her home till she should be
married. For, as the good lady well observed, there is no accounting
for these young sparks, they may change their minds a thousand times;
and then in such case what would the young woman be fit for, after
living in expectation of becoming a fine lady, and at last being
compelled to earn her own living? It may be imagined, and it might be
described, how unceasingly eloquent was Mrs Greendale on these topics;
and it may also be imagined that no great delicacy would be used as to
the manner in which such precautionary reflections and admonitions were
administered by the prudent and knowing wife of the book-loving rector
of Smatterton. And as the worthy doctor gave himself up so closely to
his studies, his dear wife took it for granted that he must be a mere
ignoramus as to all worldly matters, and therefore she endeavoured to
supply the deficiencies of his knowledge by the redundancy of her own.
Pleasing then as it might be to Penelope Primrose to look forward
to competence and independence with one for whom she entertained a
reverence as well as an affection, yet, in spite of her confidence
in the mental stability and good sense of her destined husband, it
was impossible not to be in some degree affected by the perpetual
and unceasing repetition of hints and insinuations concerning human
fickleness and juvenile inconstancy; more especially when these hints
and insinuations were somewhat corroborated by the fact, that latterly
the epistolary communications had diminished in frequency.
From these circumstances it may be then easily inferred, that Penelope
was not in an enviable situation, and that nothing could have supported
her spirits but that exceedingly strong propensity to bright hopes
which is the characteristic of the youthful mind, and about which
moralists, and essay-writers, and other wiseacres, make such a
prodigious and prosy preachment. Mr Malthus himself could not desire
a more effectual mean of thinning the denseness of population, than
causing every mind, if it were possible, to form such a view of future
days as should be actually realized by the event. But it never will
be so, and it never can be so; Providence is wiser and kinder than
moralists and essay-writers; and Providence has given to the young that
brightness of hope, the pleasures of which are far greater than the
pains of disappointment. The very disappointments of maturer life bring
with them some pleasurable alleviation, in the eloquence and pathos
with which we sigh and lament over the deceitfulness of the world’s
promises; and thus there is a double good derived from a single evil.
For youth is pleased as it looks forward to manhood, and manhood is
soothed and instructed as it looks backward to youth.
We do not like to finish a chapter with a sentimentality clap-trap,
therefore we turn from our digression to inform the reader, that the
interview between Dr Greendale and his niece terminated in reconciling
the latter to a longer residence under her uncle’s roof, and in
convincing her that the non-arrival of letters from India would be very
satisfactorily accounted for; so that Penelope looked forward to the
party engaged for the next day with a degree of pleasure, and a portion
of hope that Mr or Mrs Darnley would explain the long silence of their
son.