Framley Parsonage (Unabridged). Anthony Trollope
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course, you won’t be hunting, Mr. Robarts; you’ll only be wishing that you could.”
“Why can’t he?” said the lady, with a 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 tonight,” 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 stableyard 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 begun 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