During the night which followed the grand dinner given by Sir George
Aimwell, Robert Darnley scarcely slept a single hour. He retired to
his apartment full of bitter and distracting thoughts, almost tempted
to believe that there was truth in the foul libels that thoughtless
blockheads have uttered and written concerning the gentler sex. He said
to himself, "Frailty! thy name is woman." He was so grieved, so pierced
to the heart's core, that he forgot for a while all that he had heard,
read, or witnessed of woman's devout affection, unwearied kindness,
heroic attachment, and moral sublimity. And he thought not of the
patience with which woman bears the peevishness of our infancy, the
selfishness of our riper years, and the capricious fretfulness of our
declining age. He was for a while angry and contemptuous, professing
to himself an indifference which he did not feel, and fancying
himself superior to that weakness under which he was writhing and
labouring in bitter agony. Then there was a change in the complexion
of his thoughts, and as the angry passions yielded to the approaching
drowsiness which health must periodically experience, more tender and
more gentle thoughts subdued him. The eyelids were scarcely closed,
when imagination threw her rainbow light on past days, and there stood
before him, not quite in a dream, the image of Penelope--lovely,
bright, and living. The momentary vision melted him, and the effort
to retain it banished it. Slowly his slumbers crept again upon him,
and the vision was more distinct, and he could hear again that sweet
voice with which he had been enraptured, and there was in his heart a
repetition of that swell of feeling with which he had years ago taken
his leave of her. So passed the night.
When morning came again, it found the young man unrefreshed and
unrested. But in the family of the rector of Neverden there was
great regularity and punctuality. Robert Darnley therefore made his
appearance at breakfast at the usual hour. It was impossible not to
see that his mind was painfully disturbed, and it was also equally
impossible not to conjecture the cause of its agitation.
A very unpleasant restraint sat upon the whole party. Mr Darnley the
elder would not speak on the subject of his son's altered appearance,
and Mrs Darnley and her daughters were reluctant to introduce any
mention of the matter, unsanctioned by Mr Darnley. The hour of
breakfast was usually to that family a season of social and cheerful
talk, but on the present occasion there was silence and restraint; and
as they abstained from addressing themselves to Robert, they also
abstained from talking to one another. When breakfast was over Mr
Darnley desired his son's presence in the study.
Robert Darnley knew he was destined to undergo a lecture, and he braced
himself up to bear it with filial resignation. The young man's father
prided himself on the fluency with which he could talk in the way of
admonition, and we believe that he derived almost as much pleasure from
these exhibitions as his auditors did profit. Sir George Aimwell used
to say, that instead of sending poachers to gaol, it would be a better
plan to send them to Mr Darnley to be talked to; for the worthy baronet
thought that they would not readily expose themselves to the risk of
a second infliction. Those of our readers who have never been talked
to will not be able to sympathize with Robert Darnley; those who have,
will pity him from the bottom of their hearts.
The young man promptly obeyed his father's commands and delayed not to
attend him in the study; for he naturally supposed that the sooner the
lecture began the sooner it would be over. The father seated himself
and desired his son to shut the door and seat himself too. These
preliminary steps having been taken, and Mr Darnley having stirred and
arranged the fire so amply as to preclude the necessity of any more
attention to it for some time, thus began:
"Robert, my dear boy, I wish to have some little talk with you. I have
not had much opportunity of speaking to you since you came home. Now,
you know, I can have no other object in view than your welfare. I do
not desire you to follow the advice I may give you, unless you are
convinced of its propriety. You know of course what I am now alluding
to--your unhappy attachment to that unfortunate young woman, Miss
Primrose. For my part, I cannot say that I altogether approved of it
in the first instance; but I said nothing. I knew the impetuosity of
your character and the obstinacy of your disposition, and therefore
I concluded that opposition might do more harm than good. I hoped
that, in time, your own good sense would let you see that it was not
a suitable connexion for you. I do not say indeed that I have ever
observed anything absolutely improper in the conduct of Miss Primrose;
but I must be permitted to say, that there was too much pride in her
manner, considering her station and expectations. Of the young woman's
father I knew comparatively nothing, except that he had gambled away
his property and broken his wife's heart. Mr Primrose did call here,
as you know; but I must confess to you I was not much pleased with his
manners. I was under the disagreeable necessity of rebuking him for
taking the name of the Lord in vain. As for the young woman herself,
of course you must relinquish all thoughts of her after what you have
heard from Mr Pringle. Now let me advise you to banish her from your
mind at once. I am sorry to see that your thoughts are still too much
dwelling upon her. You make your mother and your sisters and me very
uncomfortable by these gloomy looks. Why can you not be cheerful as you
used to be? What have you to regret? You ought rather to be grateful
that you have been rescued from such a marriage, and that it cannot
be said that the dissolution of the acquaintance arose from your own
caprice. I think that the young woman did not manifest a very great
sense of propriety when she so readily adopted the profession of a
public singer. And what would the world say, should the report ever get
abroad, that my son was desirous of marrying a public singer? I gave
the young woman all the good advice I possibly could; but I fear it
will be of no use to her. There were such very strong manifestations of
her partiality for that profligate young man, Lord Spoonbill, that I am
not at all surprised at what I hear from Mr Pringle. Now all that I can
say is, that if after this you can retain any regard for Miss Primrose,
you do not shew yourself a man of sense and prudence."
Here Mr Darnley paused, not because he was out of breath, for he spoke
very slowly and deliberately, but because he thought that he had said
enough to induce his son to relinquish the thought of Penelope, and to
make himself mightily happy under his disappointment. But it certainly
is very provoking, after living three years or more in expectation of
receiving the hand and heart of a lovely, amiable, and intelligent
young lady, to find at last that all this bright anticipation is come
to nought. It had been painful to Robert Darnley that several of his
later communications had been unanswered; but he would not suffer that
circumstance alone to weigh with him, considering it possible that the
fault was in the irregular transmission of letters. When he came back
to England and heard that Miss Primrose was in London with the Earl of
Smatterton's family, it appeared obvious enough that she had considered
the correspondence as having ceased. But still it was not clear to the
young man's entire satisfaction that this had been a voluntary act on
the part of Penelope. It was possible that his letters might not have
reached their destination, and that Miss Primrose might be regarding
him as the faithless one. Such was his spirit, that he would not rest
under the imputation of such conduct, and he resolved to take the
earliest opportunity of coming to an explanation. When, however, in
addition to all that he had heard from his own family of the partiality
manifested by Penelope for Lord Spoonbill, he heard also the tale told
by Zephaniah Pringle, he wavered and hesitated. It was not probable, he
thought, that such rumours could be totally unfounded, and it comported
but too well with what Mr Darnley had already said.
The distress of mind which Robert Darnley suffered, and that gloominess
of look which his father reprobated and lectured him upon, did not
arise so much from the mere loss of Penelope, as from the harassing
doubts to which he was exposed by the conflicting of external and
internal evidence. It is a painful thing to doubt, because it is
humiliating, and seems to question our discernment. It is also very
perplexing to the mind when it sees evidence enough to prove that which
it feels to be impossible, or very unlikely. In this dilemma Robert
Darnley had been placed by what he had heard of Penelope Primrose. He
knew, or at least very firmly believed her to be of decided character,
good principle and high spirit. He felt it impossible that she should
love a profligate or a blockhead, and he knew Lord Spoonbill to be
both. But it was very clear that she was with Lord Smatterton's family,
and that she had certainly contemplated the public exercise of her
musical talents.
To his fathers discourse therefore he listened with unresisting
patience, and only replied when it was finished; "I can only say, sir,
that if what Mr Pringle has said concerning Miss Primrose be true, I
have been very much deceived in the estimate which I had formed of the
young lady's mind and character."
"Certainly you were," replied his father; "you are a young man and
have seen but little of human nature. You are hasty, very hasty, in
forming your judgment. You will grow wiser as you grow older. Now I was
not deceived in Miss Primrose. I could see her real character. I always
thought her very proud and vain and conceited. But she laboured under
great disadvantages in her education. Her uncle was a worthy man, but
he was a mere scholar, by no means a man of the world. And as for Mrs
Greendale, she is a very weak woman."
Robert Darnley knew his father too well to contradict him directly
in anything which he might be pleased to assert; he therefore only
ventured in a very circuitous way to insinuate the possibility that
Mr Zephaniah Pringle might be erroneously informed, and that there
might be some mistake or misapprehension. But the worthy rector of
Neverden was not able to bear the slightest approach to contradiction
or opposition. He had lived so long in absolute authority in his own
house and parish, that he was perfectly sincere in believing that he
could never be wrong and ought never to be contradicted. He therefore
contributed very considerably to shorten the discussion, by saying:
"You are of age, and of course may do as you please; but, if you will
condescend to take my advice, you will think no more of Miss Primrose.
At all events, it is my particular request that I may hear no more of
her."
To this the young gentleman bowed respectfully. Now it does not appear
to us that Mr Darnley adopted the best plan in the world to set his
son's heart at rest. Nor did Robert Darnley find any great alleviation
in what his father had been pleased to say concerning Penelope's actual
situation and real character. It also occurred to the young gentleman's
mind, that his father had superfluously and unnecessarily quoted the
fact of Mr Primrose having used irreverent and thoughtless language.
It is not indeed, generally speaking, advisable to bring every possible
accusation against an offending one; for by so doing we make known our
own pettishness or malignity quite as much as we display the sins of
the accused. If Miss Primrose had been in other respects a suitable
wife for Robert Darnley, the fact that her father had spoken hastily
and unadvisedly, would not have rendered her unsuitable. And if the
situation of Penelope had been such as it had been represented by Mr
Pringle, then there was quite enough to set Robert Darnley's mind at
rest upon the subject, without quoting Mr Primrose's transgressions.
The disappointed lover had no sooner finished the task of hearing his
father's lecture, than he was destined to undergo a gabblement from
his mother and sisters. Mrs Darnley was a worthy good creature as
ever lived; but she would talk, and that not always consequentially.
She always however meant well, though she might be clumsy in the
manifestation of her well-meaning.
"Well, Robert,"--thus began Mrs Darnley,--"and so your father has
been talking to you about poor Penelope Primrose. What a pity it is that
such a nice young woman should turn out so. I really could hardly
believe my senses when I first heard of it. Dear me, what a favorite
she used to be here; your father used to think so highly of her."
"I can't say that I thought so very highly of her," interrupted Miss
Mary Darnley; "she was a great deal too haughty for my liking. Of
course we were civil to her for Robert's sake."
Miss Mary was rude in thus interrupting her mother, but it was the
general practice with the young ladies, and Mrs Darnley was so much
in the habit of being interrupted, that she always expected it, and
kept talking on till some one else of the party began. Now this remark
of Miss Mary might be founded on truth, or it might be merely the
result of an angry imagination. For there is in the human mind such a
reluctance to acknowledge an error in judgment, that even when we have
been really and palpably deceived in a human character, we generally
find out or persuade ourselves that we "prophesied so," though we never
told any body.
The eldest Miss Darnley, however, had more candour. It was her opinion
that, though Miss Primrose had not behaved exactly as she ought to
do, yet she had too high a sense of propriety and decorum ever to
transgress as was represented by Mr Pringle.
In this annunciation of opinions it was but right and regular that the
youngest should speak in her turn; and notwithstanding the apparent
deference which she had seemed on the previous day to yield to the
oracular language of Zephaniah Pringle the critic, she said:
"I wonder who told Mr Pringle? I dare say Miss Primrose did not, and I
should not think it likely that Lord Spoonbill did."
"Oh dear," replied Mary, "I dare say it is the general talk in
London, and everbody knows it by this time."
"Oh dear," retorted Martha, "I dare say you know a great deal about
London."
"I know a great deal more about it than you do, Martha; I was there
with papa nearly two months when we had lodgings in Wigmore street."
Martha was inclined to be pert, and Mary to be pettish, and the two
sisters would very likely have enjoyed a skirmish of tongues, had they
not been stopped by the good humour of their brother, who was very
happy to divert their tongues and thoughts to other topics. Robert
Darnley therefore made an effort to suppress unpleasant feelings, and
directed the conversation to affairs of a different description; and he
amused his mother and sisters with anecdotes and narratives descriptive
of the country from which he had recently arrived.
In assuming this composure, Robert Darnley was not a little aided
by the suggestion thrown out by Martha. And he began to think it
very possible that Mr Zephaniah Pringle might have been misinformed.
He might have had wit enough to form that conjecture without the
assistance of his youngest sister; but he was too much agitated to
think calmly on the subject.