"The wife!" said Miss Dunstable. "What a man!"
"Widow, I mean; but it"s all one to him."
"The gentleman was clearly born when Venus was in the ascendant,"
said Mrs. Smith. "You clergymen usually are, I believe, Mr. Robarts."
So that Mrs. Proudie"s carriage was by no means the dullest as they drove into Barchester that day; and by degrees our friend Mark became accustomed to his companions, and before they reached the palace he acknowledged to himself that Miss Dunstable was very good fun.
We cannot linger over the bishop"s dinner, though it was very good of its kind; and as Mr. Sowerby contrived to sit next to Miss Dunstable, thereby overturning a little scheme made by Mr. Supplehouse, he again shone forth in unclouded good humour. But Mr. Harold Smith became impatient immediately on the withdrawal of the cloth. The lecture was to begin at seven, and according to his watch that hour had already come. He declared that Sowerby and Supplehouse were endeavouring to delay matters in order that the Barchesterians might become vexed and impatient; and so the bishop was not allowed to exercise his hospitality in true episcopal fashion.
"You forget, Sowerby," said Supplehouse, "that the world here for the last fortnight has been looking forward to nothing else."
"The world shall be gratified at once," said Mrs. Harold, obeying a little nod from Mrs. Proudie. "Come, my dear," and she took hold of Miss Dunstable"s arm, "don"t let us keep Barchester waiting. We shall be ready in a quarter-of-an-hour, shall we not, Mrs. Proudie?" and so they sailed off.
"And we shall have time for one gla.s.s of claret," said the bishop.
"There; that"s seven by the cathedral," said Harold Smith, jumping up from his chair as he heard the clock. "If the people have come it would not be right in me to keep them waiting, and I shall go."
"Just one gla.s.s of claret, Mr. Smith, and we"ll be off," said the bishop.
"Those women will keep me an hour," said Harold, filling his gla.s.s, and drinking it standing. "They do it on purpose." He was thinking of his wife, but it seemed to the bishop as though his guest were actually speaking of Mrs. Proudie.
It was rather late when they all found themselves in the big room of the Mechanics" Inst.i.tute; but I do not know whether this on the whole did them any harm. Most of Mr. Smith"s hearers, excepting the party from the palace, were Barchester tradesmen with their wives and families; and they waited, not impatiently, for the big people. And then the lecture was gratis, a fact which is always borne in mind by an Englishman when he comes to reckon up and calculate the way in which he is treated. When he pays his money, then he takes his choice; he may be impatient or not as he likes. His sense of justice teaches him so much, and in accordance with that sense he usually acts.
So the people on the benches rose graciously when the palace party entered the room. Seats for them had been kept in the front.
There were three arm-chairs, which were filled, after some little hesitation, by the bishop, Mrs. Proudie, and Miss Dunstable--Mrs.
Smith positively declining to take one of them; though, as she admitted, her rank as Lady Papua of the islands did give her some claim. And this remark, as it was made quite out loud, reached Mr.
Smith"s ears as he stood behind a little table on a small raised dais, holding his white kid gloves; and it annoyed him and rather put him out. He did not like that joke about Lady Papua.
And then the others of the party sat upon a front bench covered with red cloth. "We shall find this very hard and very narrow about the second hour," said Mr. Sowerby, and Mr. Smith on his dais again overheard the words, and dashed his gloves down to the table. He felt that all the room would hear it.
And there were one or two gentlemen on the second seat who shook hands with some of our party. There was Mr. Thorne of Ullathorne, a good-natured old bachelor, whose residence was near enough to Barchester to allow of his coming in without much personal inconvenience; and next to him was Mr. Harding, an old clergyman of the chapter, with whom Mrs. Proudie shook hands very graciously, making way for him to seat himself close behind her if he would so please. But Mr. Harding did not so please. Having paid his respects to the bishop he returned quietly to the side of his old friend Mr.
Thorne, thereby angering Mrs. Proudie, as might easily be seen by her face. And Mr. Chadwick also was there, the episcopal man of business for the diocese; but he also adhered to the two gentlemen above named.
And now that the bishop and the ladies had taken their places, Mr.
Harold Smith relifted his gloves and again laid them down, hummed three times distinctly, and then began.
"It was," he said, "the most peculiar characteristic of the present era in the British islands that those who were high placed before the world in rank, wealth, and education were willing to come forward and give their time and knowledge without fee or reward, for the advantage and amelioration of those who did not stand so high in the social scale." And then he paused for a moment, during which Mrs.
Smith remarked to Miss Dunstable that that was pretty well for a beginning; and Miss Dunstable replied, "that as for herself she felt very grateful to rank, wealth, and education." Mr. Sowerby winked to Mr. Supplehouse, who opened his eyes very wide and shrugged his shoulders. But the Barchesterians took it all in good part and gave the lecturer the applause of their hands and feet.
And then, well pleased, he recommenced--"I do not make these remarks with reference to myself--"
"I hope he"s not going to be modest," said Miss Dunstable.
"It will be quite new if he is," replied Mrs. Smith.
"--so much as to many n.o.ble and talented lords and members of the Lower House who have lately from time to time devoted themselves to this good work." And then he went through a long list of peers and members of Parliament, beginning, of course, with Lord Boanerges, and ending with Mr. Green Walker, a young gentleman who had lately been returned by his uncle"s interest for the borough of Crewe Junction, and had immediately made his entrance into public life by giving a lecture on the grammarians of the Latin language as exemplified at Eton school.
"On the present occasion," Mr. Smith continued, "our object is to learn something as to those grand and magnificent islands which lie far away, beyond the Indies, in the Southern Ocean; the lands of which produce rich spices and glorious fruits, and whose seas are imbedded with pearls and corals,--Papua and the Philippines, Borneo and the Moluccas. My friends, you are familiar with your maps, and you know the track which the equator makes for itself through those distant oceans." And then many heads were turned down, and there was a rustle of leaves; for not a few of those "who stood not so high in the social scale" had brought their maps with them, and refreshed their memories as to the whereabouts of these wondrous islands.
And then Mr. Smith also, with a map in his hand, and pointing occasionally to another large map which hung against the wall, went into the geography of the matter. "We might have found that out from our atlases, I think, without coming all the way to Barchester,"
said that unsympathizing helpmate, Mrs. Harold, very cruelly--most illogically too, for there be so many things which we could find out ourselves by search, but which we never do find out unless they be specially told us; and why should not the lat.i.tude and longitude of Labuan be one--or rather two of these things?
And then, when he had duly marked the path of the line through Borneo, Celebes, and Gilolo, through the Maca.s.sar strait and the Molucca pa.s.sage, Mr. Harold Smith rose to a higher flight. "But what," said he, "avails all that G.o.d can give to man, unless man will open his hand to receive the gift? And what is this opening of the hand but the process of civilization--yes, my friends, the process of civilization? These South Sea islanders have all that a kind Providence can bestow on them; but that all is as nothing without education. That education and that civilization it is for you to bestow upon them--yes, my friends, for you; for you, citizens of Barchester as you are." And then he paused again, in order that the feet and hands might go to work. The feet and hands did go to work, during which Mr. Smith took a slight drink of water.
He was now quite in his element and had got into the proper way of punching the table with his fists. A few words dropping from Mr.
Sowerby did now and again find their way to his ears, but the sound of his own voice had brought with it the accustomed charm, and he ran on from plat.i.tude to truism, and from truism back to plat.i.tude, with an eloquence that was charming to himself.
"Civilization," he exclaimed, lifting up his eyes and hands to the ceiling. "Oh, civilization--"
"There will not be a chance for us now for the next hour and a half,"
said Mr. Supplehouse, groaning.
Harold Smith cast one eye down at him, but it immediately flew back to the ceiling.
"Oh, civilization! thou that enn.o.blest mankind and makest him equal to the G.o.ds, what is like unto thee?" Here Mrs. Proudie showed evident signs of disapprobation, which no doubt would have been shared by the bishop, had not that worthy prelate been asleep. But Mr. Smith continued un.o.bservant; or, at any rate, regardless.
"What is like unto thee? Thou art the irrigating stream which makest fertile the barren plain. Till thou comest all is dark and dreary; but at thy advent the noontide sun shines out, the earth gives forth her increase; the deep bowels of the rocks render up their tribute.
Forms which were dull and hideous become endowed with grace and beauty, and vegetable existence rises to the scale of celestial life.
Then, too, Genius appears clad in a panoply of translucent armour, grasping in his hand the whole terrestrial surface, and making every rood of earth subservient to his purposes;--Genius, the child of civilization, the mother of the Arts!"
The last little bit, taken from the Pedigree of Progress, had a great success, and all Barchester went to work with its hands and feet;--all Barchester, except that ill-natured aristocratic front-row together with the three arm-chairs at the corner of it.
The aristocratic front-row felt itself to be too intimate with civilization to care much about it; and the three arm-chairs, or rather that special one which contained Mrs. Proudie, considered that there was a certain heathenness, a pagan sentimentality almost amounting to infidelity, contained in the lecturer"s remarks, with which she, a pillar of the Church, could not put up, seated as she was now in public conclave.
"It is to civilization that we must look," continued Mr. Harold Smith, descending from poetry to prose as a lecturer well knows how, and thereby showing the value of both--"for any material progress in these islands; and--"
"And to Christianity," shouted Mrs. Proudie, to the great amazement of the a.s.sembled people and to the thorough wakening of the bishop, who, jumping up in his chair at the sound of the well-known voice, exclaimed, "Certainly, certainly."
"Hear, hear, hear," said those on the benches who particularly belonged to Mrs. Proudie"s school of divinity in the city, and among the voices was distinctly heard that of a new verger in whose behalf she had greatly interested herself.
"Oh, yes, Christianity of course," said Harold Smith, upon whom the interruption did not seem to operate favourably.
"Christianity and Sabbath-day observance," exclaimed Mrs. Proudie, who, now that she had obtained the ear of the public, seemed well inclined to keep it. "Let us never forget that these islanders can never prosper unless they keep the Sabbath holy."
Poor Mr. Smith, having been so rudely dragged from his high horse, was never able to mount it again, and completed the lecture in a manner not at all comfortable to himself. He had there, on the table before him, a huge bundle of statistics with which he had meant to convince the reason of his hearers after he had taken full possession of their feelings. But they fell very dull and flat. And at the moment when he was interrupted he was about to explain that that material progress to which he had alluded could not be attained without money; and that it behoved them, the people of Barchester before him, to come forward with their purses like men and brothers.
He did also attempt this; but from the moment of that fatal onslaught from the arm-chair, it was clear to him and to every one else, that Mrs. Proudie was now the hero of the hour. His time had gone by, and the people of Barchester did not care a straw for his appeal.
From these causes the lecture was over full twenty minutes earlier than any one had expected, to the great delight of Messrs. Sowerby and Supplehouse, who, on that evening, moved and carried a vote of thanks to Mrs. Proudie. For they had gay doings yet before they went to their beds.
"Robarts, here one moment," Mr. Sowerby said, as they were standing at the door of the Mechanics" Inst.i.tute. "Don"t you go off with Mr.
and Mrs. Bishop. We are going to have a little supper at the Dragon of Wantly, and after what we have gone through upon my word we want it. You can tell one of the palace servants to let you in."
Mark considered the proposal wistfully. He would fain have joined the supper-party had he dared; but he, like many others of his cloth, had the fear of Mrs. Proudie before his eyes.
And a very merry supper they had; but poor Mr. Harold Smith was not the merriest of the party.