الفصل الفصل 2 · 第2章

. Old Mr Pontifex had married in the year 1750, but for fifteen years his

wife bore no children. At the end of that time Mrs Pontifex astonished

the whole village by showing unmistakable signs of a disposition to

present her husband with an heir or heiress. Hers had long ago been

considered a hopeless case, and when on consulting the doctor

concerning the meaning of certain symptoms she was informed of their

significance, she became very angry and abused the doctor roundly for

talking nonsense. She refused to put so much as a piece of thread into

a needle in anticipation of her confinement and would have been

absolutely unprepared, if her neighbours had not been better judges of

her condition than she was, and got things ready without telling her

anything about it. Perhaps she feared Nemesis, though assuredly she

knew not who or what Nemesis was; perhaps she feared the doctor had

made a mistake and she should be laughed at; from whatever cause,

however, her refusal to recognise the obvious arose, she certainly

refused to recognise it, until one snowy night in January the doctor

was sent for with all urgent speed across the rough country roads. When

he arrived he found two patients, not one, in need of his assistance,

for a boy had been born who was in due time christened George, in

honour of his then reigning majesty.

To the best of my belief George Pontifex got the greater part of his

nature from this obstinate old lady, his mother—a mother who though she

loved no one else in the world except her husband (and him only after a

fashion) was most tenderly attached to the unexpected child of her old

age; nevertheless she showed it little.

The boy grew up into a sturdy bright-eyed little fellow, with plenty of

intelligence, and perhaps a trifle too great readiness at book

learning. Being kindly treated at home, he was as fond of his father

and mother as it was in his nature to be of anyone, but he was fond of

no one else. He had a good healthy sense of _meum_, and as little of

_tuum_ as he could help. Brought up much in the open air in one of the

best situated and healthiest villages in England, his little limbs had

fair play, and in those days children’s brains were not overtasked as

they now are; perhaps it was for this very reason that the boy showed

an avidity to learn. At seven or eight years old he could read, write

and sum better than any other boy of his age in the village. My father

was not yet rector of Paleham, and did not remember George Pontifex’s

childhood, but I have heard neighbours tell him that the boy was looked

upon as unusually quick and forward. His father and mother were

naturally proud of their offspring, and his mother was determined that

he should one day become one of the kings and councillors of the earth.

It is one thing however to resolve that one’s son shall win some of

life’s larger prizes, and another to square matters with fortune in

this respect. George Pontifex might have been brought up as a carpenter

and succeeded in no other way than as succeeding his father as one of

the minor magnates of Paleham, and yet have been a more truly

successful man than he actually was—for I take it there is not much

more solid success in this world than what fell to the lot of old Mr

and Mrs Pontifex; it happened, however, that about the year 1780, when

George was a boy of fifteen, a sister of Mrs Pontifex’s, who had

married a Mr Fairlie, came to pay a few days’ visit at Paleham. Mr

Fairlie was a publisher, chiefly of religious works, and had an

establishment in Paternoster Row; he had risen in life, and his wife

had risen with him. No very close relations had been maintained between

the sisters for some years, and I forget exactly how it came about that

Mr and Mrs Fairlie were guests in the quiet but exceedingly comfortable

house of their sister and brother-in-law; but for some reason or other

the visit was paid, and little George soon succeeded in making his way

into his uncle and aunt’s good graces. A quick, intelligent boy with a

good address, a sound constitution, and coming of respectable parents,

has a potential value which a practised business man who has need of

many subordinates is little likely to overlook. Before his visit was

over Mr Fairlie proposed to the lad’s father and mother that he should

put him into his own business, at the same time promising that if the

boy did well he should not want some one to bring him forward. Mrs

Pontifex had her son’s interest too much at heart to refuse such an

offer, so the matter was soon arranged, and about a fortnight after the

Fairlies had left, George was sent up by coach to London, where he was

met by his uncle and aunt, with whom it was arranged that he should

live.

This was George’s great start in life. He now wore more fashionable

clothes than he had yet been accustomed to, and any little rusticity of

gait or pronunciation which he had brought from Paleham, was so quickly

and completely lost that it was ere long impossible to detect that he

had not been born and bred among people of what is commonly called

education. The boy paid great attention to his work, and more than

justified the favourable opinion which Mr Fairlie had formed concerning

him. Sometimes Mr Fairlie would send him down to Paleham for a few

days’ holiday, and ere long his parents perceived that he had acquired

an air and manner of talking different from any that he had taken with

him from Paleham. They were proud of him, and soon fell into their

proper places, resigning all appearance of a parental control, for

which indeed there was no kind of necessity. In return, George was

always kindly to them, and to the end of his life retained a more

affectionate feeling towards his father and mother than I imagine him

ever to have felt again for man, woman, or child.

George’s visits to Paleham were never long, for the distance from

London was under fifty miles and there was a direct coach, so that the

journey was easy; there was not time, therefore, for the novelty to

wear off either on the part of the young man or of his parents. George

liked the fresh country air and green fields after the darkness to

which he had been so long accustomed in Paternoster Row, which then, as

now, was a narrow gloomy lane rather than a street. Independently of

the pleasure of seeing the familiar faces of the farmers and villagers,

he liked also being seen and being congratulated on growing up such a

fine-looking and fortunate young fellow, for he was not the youth to

hide his light under a bushel. His uncle had had him taught Latin and

Greek of an evening; he had taken kindly to these languages and had

rapidly and easily mastered what many boys take years in acquiring. I

suppose his knowledge gave him a self-confidence which made itself felt

whether he intended it or not; at any rate, he soon began to pose as a

judge of literature, and from this to being a judge of art,

architecture, music and everything else, the path was easy. Like his

father, he knew the value of money, but he was at once more

ostentatious and less liberal than his father; while yet a boy he was a

thorough little man of the world, and did well rather upon principles

which he had tested by personal experiment, and recognised as

principles, than from those profounder convictions which in his father

were so instinctive that he could give no account concerning them.

His father, as I have said, wondered at him and let him alone. His son

had fairly distanced him, and in an inarticulate way the father knew it

perfectly well. After a few years he took to wearing his best clothes

whenever his son came to stay with him, nor would he discard them for

his ordinary ones till the young man had returned to London. I believe

old Mr Pontifex, along with his pride and affection, felt also a

certain fear of his son, as though of something which he could not

thoroughly understand, and whose ways, notwithstanding outward

agreement, were nevertheless not as his ways. Mrs Pontifex felt nothing

of this; to her George was pure and absolute perfection, and she saw,

or thought she saw, with pleasure, that he resembled her and her family

in feature as well as in disposition rather than her husband and his.

When George was about twenty-five years old his uncle took him into

partnership on very liberal terms. He had little cause to regret this

step. The young man infused fresh vigour into a concern that was

already vigorous, and by the time he was thirty found himself in the

receipt of not less than £1500 a year as his share of the profits. Two

years later he married a lady about seven years younger than himself,

who brought him a handsome dowry. She died in 1805, when her youngest

child Alethea was born, and her husband did not marry again.