Framley Parsonage, Anthony Trollope [popular e readers txt] 📗

am thinking of having morning prayers in the church,” said Mr. Robarts.

“That’s nonsense,” said Mrs. Proudie, “and usually means worse than nonsense. I know what that comes to. If you have three services on Sunday and domestic prayers at home, you do very well.” And so saying she handed him his cup.

“But I have not three services on Sunday, Mrs. Proudie.”

“Then I think you should have. Where can the poor people be so well off on Sundays as in church? The bishop intends to express a very strong opinion on this subject in his next charge; and then I am sure you will attend to his wishes.”

To this Mark made no answer, but devoted himself to his egg.

“I suppose you have not a very large establishment at Framley?” asked Mrs. Proudie.

“What, at the parsonage?”

“Yes; you live at the parsonage, don’t you?”

“Certainly⁠—well; not very large, Mrs. Proudie; just enough to do the work, make things comfortable, and look after the children.”

“It is a very fine living,” said she; “very fine. I don’t remember that we have anything so good ourselves⁠—except it is Plumstead, the archdeacon’s place. He has managed to butter his bread pretty well.”

“His father was Bishop of Barchester.”

“Oh, yes, I know all about him. Only for that he would barely have risen to be an archdeacon, I suspect. Let me see; yours is £800, is it not, Mr. Robarts? And you such a young man! I suppose you have insured your life highly.”

“Pretty well, Mrs. Proudie.”

“And then, too, your wife had some little fortune, had she not? We cannot all fall on our feet like that; can we, Mr. White?” and Mrs. Proudie in her playful way appealed to the chaplain.

Mrs. Proudie was an imperious woman; but then so also was Lady Lufton; and it may therefore be said that Mr. Robarts ought to have been accustomed to feminine domination; but as he sat there munching his toast he could not but make a comparison between the two. Lady Lufton in her little attempts sometimes angered him; but he certainly thought, comparing the lay lady and the clerical together, that the rule of the former was the lighter and the pleasanter. But then Lady Lufton had given him a living and a wife, and Mrs. Proudie had given him nothing.

Immediately after breakfast Mr. Robarts escaped to the Dragon of Wantly, partly because he had had enough of the matutinal Mrs. Proudie, and partly also in order that he might hurry his friends there. He was already becoming fidgety about the time, as Harold Smith had been on the preceding evening, and he did not give Mrs. Smith credit for much punctuality. When he arrived at the inn he asked if they had done breakfast, and was immediately told that not one of them was yet down. It was already half-past eight, and they ought to be now under weigh on the road.

He immediately went to Mr. Sowerby’s room, and found that gentleman shaving himself. “Don’t be a bit uneasy,” said Mr. Sowerby. “You and Smith shall have my phaeton, and those horses will take you there in an hour. Not, however, but what we shall all be in time. We’ll send round to the whole party and ferret them out.” And then Mr. Sowerby, having evoked manifold aid with various peals of the bell, sent messengers, male and female, flying to all the different rooms.

“I think I’ll hire a gig and go over at once,” said Mark. “It would not do for me to be late, you know.”

“It won’t do for any of us to be late; and it’s all nonsense about hiring a gig. It would be just throwing a sovereign away, and we should pass you on the road. Go down and see that the tea is made, and all that; and make them have the bill ready; and, Robarts, you may pay it too, if you like it. But I believe we may as well leave that to Baron Borneo⁠—eh?”

And then Mark did go down and make the tea, and he did order the bill; and then he walked about the room, looking at his watch, and nervously waiting for the footsteps of his friends. And as he was so employed, he bethought himself whether it was fit that he should be so doing on a Sunday morning; whether it was good that he should be waiting there, in painful anxiety, to gallop over a dozen miles in order that he might not be too late with his sermon; whether his own snug room at home, with Fanny opposite to him, and his bairns crawling on the floor, with his own preparations for his own quiet service, and the warm pressure of Lady Lufton’s hand when that service should be over, was not better than all this.

He could not afford not to know Harold Smith, and Mr. Sowerby, and the Duke of Omnium, he had said to himself. He had to look to rise in the world, as other men did. But what pleasure had come to him as yet from these intimacies? How much had he hitherto done towards his rising? To speak the truth he was not over well pleased with himself, as he made Mrs. Harold Smith’s tea and ordered Mr. Sowerby’s mutton-chops on that Sunday morning.

At a little after nine they all assembled; but even then he could not make the ladies understand that there was any cause for hurry; at least Mrs. Smith, who was the leader of the party, would not understand it. When Mark again talked of hiring a gig, Miss Dunstable indeed said that she would join him; and seemed to be so far earnest in the matter that Mr. Sowerby hurried through his second egg in order to prevent such a catastrophe. And then Mark absolutely did order the gig; whereupon Mrs. Smith remarked that in such case she need not hurry herself; but the waiter brought up word that all the horses of the hotel were out, excepting one pair, neither of which could go in single harness. Indeed, half of their stable establishment was already secured by Mr. Sowerby’s own