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

“Fiddlestick!” said Mrs. Harold Smith. “You millionnaires always talk of Christian resignation, because you never are called on to resign anything. If I had any Christian resignation, I shouldn’t have cared for such pomps and vanities. Think of it, my dear; a cabinet minister’s wife for only three weeks!”

“How does poor Mr. Smith endure it?”

“What? Harold? He only lives on the hope of vengeance. When he has put an end to Mr. Supplehouse, he will be content to die.”

And then there were further explanations in both Houses of Parliament, which were altogether satisfactory. The high-bred, courteous giants assured the gods that they had piled Pelion on Ossa and thus climbed up into power, very much in opposition to their own good-wills; for they, the giants themselves, preferred the sweets of dignified retirement. But the voice of the people had been too strong for them; the effort had been made, not by themselves, but by others, who were determined that the giants should be at the head of affairs. Indeed, the spirit of the times was so clearly in favour of giants that there had been no alternative. So said Briareus to the Lords, and Orion to the Commons. And then the gods were absolutely happy in ceding their places; and so far were they from any uncelestial envy or malice which might not be divine, that they promised to give the giants all the assistance in their power in carrying on the work of government; upon which the giants declared how deeply indebted they would be for such valuable counsel and friendly assistance. All this was delightful in the extreme; but not the less did ordinary men seem to expect that the usual battle would go on in the old customary way. It is easy to love one’s enemy when one is making fine speeches; but so difficult to do so in the actual everyday work of life.

But there was and always has been this peculiar good point about the giants, that they are never too proud to follow in the footsteps of the gods. If the gods, deliberating painfully together, have elaborated any skilful project, the giants are always willing to adopt it as their own, not treating the bantling as a foster-child, but praising it and pushing it so that men should regard it as the undoubted offspring of their own brains. Now just at this time there had been a plan much thought of for increasing the number of the bishops. Good active bishops were very desirable, and there was a strong feeling among certain excellent churchmen that there could hardly be too many of them. Lord Brock had his measure cut and dry. There should be a Bishop of Westminster to share the Herculean toils of the metropolitan prelate, and another up in the North to Christianize the mining interests and wash white the blackamoors of Newcastle: Bishop of Beverley he should be called. But, in opposition to this, the giants, it was known, had intended to put forth the whole measure of their brute force. More curates, they said, were wanting, and district incumbents; not more bishops rolling in carriages. That bishops should roll in carriages was very good; but of such blessings the English world for the present had enough. And therefore Lord Brock and the gods had had much fear as to their little project.

But now, immediately on the accession of the giants, it was known that the bishop bill was to be gone on with immediately. Some small changes would be effected so that the bill should be gigantic rather than divine; but the result would be altogether the same. It must, however, be admitted that bishops appointed by ourselves may be very good things, whereas those appointed by our adversaries will be anything but good. And, no doubt, this feeling went a long way with the giants. Be that as it may, the new bishop bill was to be their first work of government, and it was to be brought forward and carried, and the new prelates selected and put into their chairs all at once⁠—before the grouse should begin to crow and put an end to the doings of gods as well as giants.

Among other minor effects arising from this decision was the following, that Archdeacon and Mrs. Grantly returned to London, and again took the lodgings in which they had before been staying. On various occasions also during the first week of this second sojourn, Dr. Grantly might be seen entering the official chambers of the First Lord of the Treasury. Much counsel was necessary among high churchmen of great repute before any fixed resolution could wisely be made in such a matter as this; and few churchmen stood in higher repute than the Archdeacon of Barchester. And then it began to be rumoured in the world that the minister had disposed at any rate of the see of Westminster.

This present time was a very nervous one for Mrs. Grantly. What might be the aspirations of the archdeacon himself, we will not stop to inquire. It may be that time and experience had taught him the futility of earthly honours, and made him content with the comfortable opulence of his Barsetshire rectory. But there is no theory of church discipline which makes it necessary that a clergyman’s wife should have an objection to a bishopric. The archdeacon probably was only anxious to give a disinterested aid to the minister, but Mrs. Grantly did long to sit in high places, and be at any rate equal to Mrs. Proudie. It was for her children, she said to herself, that she was thus anxious⁠—that they should have a good position before the world, and the means of making the best of themselves. “One is able to do nothing, you know, shut up there, down at Plumstead,” she had remarked to Lady Lufton on the occasion of her first visit to London, and yet the time was not long past when she had thought that rectory house at Plumstead to