Framley Parsonage (8 page)

He was shown into the drawing-room at once, and there he found Mrs Harold Smith, with Mrs and Miss Proudie, and a lady whom he had never before seen, and whose name he did not at first hear mentioned.

‘Is that Mr Robarts?’ said Mrs Harold Smith, getting up to greet him, and screening her pretended ignorance under the veil of the darkness. ‘And have you really driven over four-and-twenty miles of Barsetshire roads on such a day as this to assist us in our little difficulties? Well, we can promise you gratitude at any rate.’

And then the vicar shook hands with Mrs Proudie, in that deferential
manner which is due from a vicar to his bishop’s wife; and Mrs Proudie returned the greeting with all that smiling condescension which a bishop’s wife should show to a vicar. Miss Proudie was not quite so civil. Had Mr Robarts been still unmarried, she also could have smiled sweetly; but she had been exercising smiles on clergymen too long to waste them now on a married parish parson.

‘And what
are the difficulties, Mrs Smith, in which I am to assist you?’

‘We have six or seven gentlemen here, Mr Robarts, and they always go out hunting before breakfast, and they never come back – I was going to say – till after dinner. I wish it were so, for then we should not have to wait for them.’

‘Excepting Mr Supplehouse, you know,’ said the unknown lady, in a loud voice.

‘And he is generally
shut up in the library, writing articles.’

‘He’d be better employed if he were trying to break his neck like the others,’ said the unknown lady.

‘Only he would never succeed,’ said Mrs Harold Smith. ‘But perhaps, Mr Robarts, you are as bad as the rest; perhaps you, too, will be hunting to-morrow.’

‘My dear Mrs Smith!’ said Mrs Proudie, in a tone denoting slight reproach, and modified horror.

‘Oh! I forgot. No, of course, you won’t be hunting, Mr Robarts; you’ll only be wishing that you could.’

‘Why can’t he?’ said the lady with the loud voice.

‘My dear Miss Dunstable! a clergyman hunt, while he is staying in the same house with the bishop? Think of the proprieties!’

‘Oh – ah! The bishop wouldn’t like it – wouldn’t he? Now, do tell me, sir, what would the bishop do to you if you
did hunt?’

‘It would depend upon his mood at the time, madam,’ said Mr Robarts. ‘If that were very stern, he might perhaps have me beheaded before the palace gates.’

Mrs Proudie drew herself up in her chair, showing that she did not like the tone of the conversation; and Miss Proudie fixed her eyes vehemently on her book, showing that Miss Dunstable and her conversation were both beneath her
notice.

‘If these gentlemen do not mean to break their necks to-night,’ said Mrs Harold Smith, ‘I wish they’d let us know it. It’s half-past six already.’

And then Mr Robarts gave them to understand that no such catastrophe could be looked for that day, as Mr Sowerby and the other sportsmen were within the stable-yard when he entered the door.

‘Then, ladies, we may as well dress,’ said Mrs
Harold Smith. But as she moved towards the door, it opened, and a short gentleman, with a slow, quiet step, entered the room; but was not yet to be distinguished through the dusk by the eyes of Mr Robarts. ‘Oh! bishop, is that you?’ said Mrs Smith. ‘Here is one of the luminaries of your diocese.’ And then the bishop, feeling through the dark, made his way up to the vicar and shook him cordially
by the hand. ‘He was delighted to meet Mr Robarts at Chaldicotes,’ he said – ‘quite delighted. Was he not going to preach on behalf of the Papuan Mission next Sunday? Ah! so he, the bishop, had heard. It was a good work, an excellent work.’ And then Dr Proudie expressed himself as much grieved that he could not remain at Chaldicotes, and hear the sermon. It was plain that his bishop thought no ill
of him on account of his intimacy with Mr Sowerby. But then he felt in his own heart that he did not much regard his bishop’s opinion.

‘Ah, Robarts, I’m delighted to see you,’ said Mr Sowerby, when they met on the drawing-room rug before dinner. ‘You know Harold Smith? Yes, of course you do. Well, who else is there? Oh! Supplehouse. Mr Supplehouse, allow me to introduce to you my friend Mr Robarts.
It is he who will extract the five-pound note out of your pocket next Sunday for these poor Papuans whom we are going to Christianize. That is, if Harold Smith does not finish the work out of hand at his Saturday lecture. And, Robarts, you have seen the bishop, of course:’ this he said in a whisper. ‘A fine thing to be a bishop, isn’t it? I wish I had half your chance. But, my dear fellow,
I’ve made such a mistake; I haven’t got a bachelor parson for Miss Proudie. You must help me out, and take her in to dinner.’ And then the great gong sounded, and off they went in pairs.

At dinner Mark found himself seated between Miss Proudie and the lady whom he had heard named as Miss Dunstable. Of the former he was not very fond, and, in spite of his host’s petition, was not inclined to play
bachelor parson for her benefit. With the other lady he would willingly have chatted during the dinner, only that everybody else at table seemed to be intent on doing the same thing. She was neither young, nor beautiful, nor peculiarly ladylike; yet she seemed to enjoy a popularity which must have excited the envy of Mr Supplehouse, and which certainly was not altogether to the taste of Mrs Proudie
– who, however, fêted her as much as did the others. So that our clergyman found himself unable to obtain more than an inconsiderable share of the lady’s attention.

‘Bishop,’ said she, speaking across the table, ‘we have missed you so all day! we have had no one on earth to say a word to us.’

‘My dear Miss Dunstable, had I known that – But I really was engaged on business of some importance.’

‘I don’t believe in business of importance; do you, Mrs Smith?’

‘Do I not?’ said Mrs Smith. ‘If you were married to Mr Harold Smith for one week, you’d believe in it.’

‘Should I, now? What a pity that I can’t have that chance of improving my faith. But you are a man of business, also, Mr Supplehouse; so they tell me.’ And she turned to her neighbour on her right hand.

‘I cannot compare myself
to Harold Smith,’ said he. ‘But perhaps I may equal the bishop.’

‘What does a man do, now, when he sits himself down to business? How does he set about it? What are his tools? A quire of blotting-paper, I suppose, to begin with?’

‘That depends, I should say, on his trade. A shoemaker begins by waxing his thread.’

‘And Mr Harold Smith –?’

‘By counting up his yesterday’s figures, generally,
I should say; or else by unrolling a ball of red tape. Well-docketed papers and statistical facts are his forte.’

‘And what does a bishop do? Can you tell me that?’

‘He sends forth to his clergy either blessings or blowings-up, according to the state of his digestive organs. But Mrs Proudie can explain all that to you with the greatest accuracy.’

‘Can she, now? I understand what you mean, but
I don’t believe a word of it. The bishop manages his own affairs himself, quite as much as you do, or Mr Harold Smith.’

‘I, Miss Dunstable?’

‘Yes, you.’

‘But I, unluckily, have not a wife to manage them for me.’

‘Then you should not laugh at those who have, for you don’t know what you may come to yourself, when you’re married.’

Mr Supplehouse began to make a pretty speech, saying that he
would be delighted to incur any danger in that respect to which he might be subjected by the companionship of Miss Dunstable. But before he was half through it, she had turned her back upon him, and began a conversation with Mark Robarts.

‘Have you much work in your parish, Mr Robarts?’ she asked.
Now, Mark was not aware that she knew his name, or the fact of his having a parish, and was rather
surprised by the question. And he had not quite liked the tone in which she had seemed to speak of the bishop and his work. His desire for her further acquaintance was therefore somewhat moderated, and he was not prepared to answer her question with much zeal.

‘All parish clergymen have plenty of work, if they choose to do it.’

‘Ah, that is it; is it not, Mr Robarts? If they choose to do it?
A great many do – many that I know, do; and see what a result they have. But many neglect it – and see what a result
they
have. I think it ought to be the happiest life that a man can lead, that of a parish clergyman, with a wife and family, and a sufficient income.’

‘I think it is,’ said Mark Robarts, asking himself whether the contentment accruing to him from such blessings had made him satisfied
at all points. He had all these things of which Miss Dunstable spoke, and yet he had told his wife, the other day, that he could not afford to neglect the acquaintance of a rising politician like Harold Smith.

‘What I find fault with is this,’ continued Miss Dunstable, ‘that we expect clergymen to do their duty, and don’t give them a sufficient income – give them hardly any income at all. Is
it not a scandal, that an educated gentleman with a family should be made to work half his life, and perhaps the whole, for a pittance of seventy pounds a year?’

Mark said that it was a scandal, and thought of Mr Evan Jones and his daughter; – and thought also of his own worth, and his own house, and his own nine hundred a year.

‘And yet you clergymen are so proud – aristocratic would be the
genteel word, I know – that you won’t take the money of common, ordinary poor people. You must be paid from land and endowments, from tithe and Church property. You can’t bring yourself to work for what you earn, as lawyers and doctors do. It is better that curates should starve than undergo such ignominy as that.’

‘It is a long subject, Miss Dunstable.’

‘A very long one; and that means that
I am not to say any more about it.’

‘I did not mean that exactly.’

‘Oh! but you did though, Mr Robarts. And I can take a hint of that kind when I get it. You clergymen like to keep those long subjects for your sermons, when no one can answer you. Now if I have a longing heart’s desire for anything at all in this world, it is to be able to get up into a pulpit, and preach a sermon.’

‘You can’t
conceive how soon that appetite would pall upon you, after its first indulgence.’

‘That would depend upon whether I could get people to listen to me. It does not pall upon Mr Spurgeon,
¹
suppose.’ Then her attention was called away by some question from Mr Sowerby, and Mark Robarts found himself bound to address his conversation to Miss Proudie. Miss Proudie, however, was not thankful, and gave
him little but monosyllables for his pains.

‘Of course you know Harold Smith is going to give us a lecture about these islanders,’ Mr Sowerby said to him, as they sat round the fire over their wine after dinner. Mark said that he had been so informed, and should be delighted to be one of the listeners.

‘You are bound to do that, as he is going to listen to you the day afterwards – or, at any
rate, to pretend to do so, which is as much as you will do for him. It’ll be a terrible bore – the lecture I mean, not the sermon.’ And he spoke very low into his friend’s ear. ‘Fancy having to drive ten miles after dusk, and ten miles back, to hear Harold Smith talk for two hours about Borneo! One must do it, you know.’

‘I daresay it will be very interesting.’

‘My dear fellow, you haven’t undergone
so many of these things as I have. But he’s right to do it. It’s his line of life; and when a man begins a thing he ought to go on with it. Where’s Lufton all this time?’

‘In Scotland, when I last heard from him; but he’s probably at Melton now.’

‘It’s deuced shabby of him, not hunting here in his own county. He escapes all the bore of going to lectures, and giving feeds to the neighbours; that’s
why he treats us so. He has no idea of his duty, has he?’

‘Lady Lufton does all that, you know.’

I wish I’d a Mrs Sowerby
mère
to do it for me. But then Lufton
has no constituents to look after – lucky dog! By-the-by, has he spoken to you about selling that outlying bit of land of his in Oxfordshire? It belongs to the Lufton property, and yet it doesn’t. In my mind it gives more trouble than
it’s worth.’

Lord Lufton had spoken to Mark about this sale, and had explained to him that such a sacrifice was absolutely necessary, in consequence of certain pecuniary transactions between him, Lord Lufton, and Mr Sowerby. But it was found impracticable to complete the business without Lady Lufton’s knowledge, and her son had commissioned Mr Robarts not only to inform her ladyship, but to talk
her over, and to appease her wrath. This commission he had not yet attempted to execute, and it was probable that this visit to Chaldicotes would not do much to facilitate the business.

‘They are the most magnificent islands under the sun,’ said Harold Smith to the bishop.

‘Are they, indeed?’ said the bishop, opening his eyes wide, and assuming a look of intense interest.

‘And the most intelligent
people.’

‘Dear me!’ said the bishop.

‘All they want is guidance, encouragement, instruction –’

‘And Christianity,’ suggested the bishop.

‘And Christianity, of course,’ said Mr Smith, remembering that he was speaking to a dignitary of the Church. It was well to humour such people, Mr Smith thought. But the Christianity was to be done in the Sunday sermon, and was not part of his work.

‘And
how do you intend to begin with them?’ asked Mr Supple-house, the business of whose life it had been to suggest difficulties.

‘Begin with them – oh – why – it’s very easy to begin with them. The difficulty is to go on with them, after the money is all spent. We’ll begin by explaining to them the benefits of civilization.’

‘Capital plan!’ said Mr Supplehouse. ‘But how do you set about it, Smith?’

‘How do we set about it? How did we set about it with Australia and America? It is very easy to criticize; but in such matters the great thing is to put one’s shoulder to the wheel.’

‘We sent our felons to Australia,’ said Supplehouse, ‘and they
began the work for us. And as to America, we exterminated the people instead of civilizing them.’