|
|
|
Prev
| Next
| Contents
THROUGH HER PLAINNESS SHE IS YET LOVELY IN HIS EYES; for the
loveliness is herself, victorious over the plainness, and her face,
so far from complete and yet serving her loveliness, has in it room
for completion on a grander scale than possibly most handsome faces.
In a handsome face one sees the lines of its coming perfection, and
has a glimpse of what it must be when finished: few are prophets
enough for a plain face. A keen surprise of beauty waits many a man,
if he be pure enough to come near the transfiguration of the homely
face he loved.
This plain face was a solemn one, and the solemnity suited the
plainness. It was not specially expressive--did not look specially
intelligent; there was more of latent than operative power in
it--while her sister's had more expression than power. Both were
lady-like; whether they were ladies, my reader may determine. There
are common ladies and there are rare ladies; the former MAY be
countesses; the latter MAY be peasants.
There were two younger girls at the table, of whom I will say
nothing more than that one of them looked awkward, promised to be
handsome, and was apparently a good soul; the other was pretty, and
looked pert.
The family possessed two young men, but they were not here; one was
a partner in the business from which his father had practically
retired; the other was that day expected from Oxford.
The mother, a woman with many autumnal reminders of spring about
her, sat at the head of the table, and regarded her queendom with a
smile a little set, perhaps, but bright. She had the look of a woman
on good terms with her motherhood, with society, with the
universe--yet had scarce a shadow of assumption on her countenance.
For if she felt as one who had a claim upon things to go pleasantly
with her, had she not put in her claim, and had it acknowledged? Her
smile was a sweet white-toothed smile, true if shallow, and a more
than tolerably happy one--often irradiating THE GOVERNOR
opposite--for so was the head styled by the whole family from mother
to chit.
He was the only one at the table on whose countenance a shadow--as
of some end unattained--was visible. He had tried to get into
parliament, and had not succeeded; but I will not presume to say
that was the source of the shadow. He did not look discontented, or
even peevish; there was indeed a certain radiance of success about
him-only above the cloudy horizon of his thick, dark eyebrows,
seemed to hang a thundery atmosphere. His forehead was large, but
his features rather small; he had, however, grown a trifle fat,
which tended to make up. In his youth he must have been very
nice-looking, probably too pretty to be handsome. In good health and
when things went well, as they had mostly done with him, he was
sweet-tempered; what he might be in other conditions was seldom
conjectured. But was that a sleeping thunder-cloud, or only the
shadow of his eyebrows?
He had a good opinion of himself-on what grounds I do not know; but
he was rich, and I know no better ground; I doubt if there is any
more certain soil for growing a good opinion of oneself. Certainly,
the more you try to raise one by doing what is right and worth
doing, the less you succeed.
Mr. Peregrine Palmer had finished his breakfast, and sat for a while
looking at nothing in particular, plunged in deep thought about
nothing at all, while the girls went on with theirs. He was a little
above the middle height, and looked not much older than his wife;
his black hair had but begun to be touched with silver; he seemed a
man without an atom of care more than humanity counts reasonable;
his speech was not unlike that of an Englishman, for, although born
in Glasgow, he had been to Oxford. He spoke respectfully to his
wife, and with a pleasant playfulness to his daughters; his manner
was nowise made to order, but natural enough; his grammar was as
good as conversation requires; everything was respectable about
him-and yet-he was one remove at least from a gentleman. Something
hard to define was lacking to that idea of perfection.
Mr. Peregrine Palmer's grandfather had begun to make the family
fortune by developing a little secret still in a remote highland
glen, which had acquired a reputation for its whisky, into a great
superterrene distillery. Both he and his son made money by it, and
it had "done well" for Mr. Peregrine also. With all three of them
the making of money had been the great calling of life. They were
diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving Mammon, and
founding claim to consideration on the fact. Neither Jacob nor John
Palmer's worst enemy had ever called him a hypocrite: neither had
been suspected of thinking to serve Mammon and God. Both had gone
regularly to church, but neither had taught in a Sunday school, or
once gone to a week-day sermon. Peregrine had built a church and a
school. He did not now take any active part in the distillery, but
worked mainly in money itself.
Jacob, the son of a ship-chandler in Greenock, had never thought
about gentleman or no gentleman; but his son John had entertained
the difference, and done his best to make a gentleman of Peregrine;
and neither Peregrine nor any of his family ever doubted his
father's success; and if he had not quite succeeded, I would have
the blame laid on Peregrine and not on either father or grandfather.
For a man to GROW a gentleman, it is of great consequence that his
grandfather should have been an honest man; but if a man BE a
gentleman, it matters little what his grandfather or grandmother
either was. Nay--if a man be a gentleman, it is of the smallest
consequence, except for its own sake, whether the world counts him
one or not.
Mr. Peregrine Palmer rose from the table with a merry remark on the
prolongation of the meal by his girls, and went towards the door.
"Are you going to shoot?" asked his wife.
"Not to-day. But I am going to look after my guns. I daresay they've
got them all right, but there's nothing like seeing to a thing
yourself!"
Mr. Palmer had this virtue, and this very gentlemanlike way--that he
always gave his wife as full an answer as he would another lady. He
was not given to marital brevity.
He was there for the grouse-shooting--not exactly, only "as it
were." He did not care VERY much about the sport, and had he cared
nothing, would have been there all the same. Other people, in what
he counted his social position, shot grouse, and he liked to do what
other people did, for then he felt all right: if ever he tried the
gate of heaven, it would be because other people did. But the
primary cause of his being so far in the north was the simple fact
that he had had the chance of buying a property very cheap--a fine
property of mist and cloud, heather and rock, mountain and moor, and
with no such reputation for grouse as to enhance its price. "My
estate" sounded well, and after a time of good preserving he would
be able to let it well, he trusted. No sooner was it bought than his
wife and daughters were eager to visit it; and the man of business,
perceiving it would cost him much less if they passed their autumns
there instead of on the continent, proceeded at once to enlarge the
house and make it comfortable. If they should never go a second
time, it would, with its perfect appointments, make the shooting
there more attractive!
They had arrived the day before. The journey had been fatiguing, for
a great part of it was by road; but they were all in splendid
health, and not too tired to get up at a reasonable hour the next
day.
Prev
| Next
| Contents
|
|
|