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.”