Volume Iii Part 4 (1/2)
It was the second of September. Reginald Haggard's usual invitations had been accepted by a select party of his intimates. They had had a great slaughter in the well-stocked Walls End preserves on the day before.
General Pepper, Lord Spunyarn, Colonel Spurbox, the host and the two young men sat down to breakfast, and Georgie Haggard presided at the meal, looking to Spunyarn's mind handsomer than ever in the deep mourning which she still wore for her cousin Lucy. But Mrs. Haggard was not the only lady who graced the breakfast-table at the Castle, for Mrs.
Dodd had arrived to pay a long-promised visit the day before, of course accompanied by her husband. As some men never travel without a hat box, so Mrs. Dodd never left King's Warren without the Rev. John.
”I am so glad to have met you once more, Lord Spunyarn,” said the vicar's wife; ”isolated as I am at King's Warren, it is so seldom my privilege to meet any man having a purpose in life, and the men with a purpose, you know, are after all the only men worth knowing.” Here she gave a benignant and comprehensive glance round the table, and every one felt that he at least was not worth Mrs. Dodd's notice, which was exactly the sensation the vicar's wife intended to produce.
”Awfully good of you, dear Mrs. Dodd, I'm sure, but I'm afraid I can hardly claim the credit of being a man with a purpose. I went to the East End first, you know, merely from curiosity and because the people were excessively amusing, but nowadays 'slumming' is the fas.h.i.+on and a great many smart people I know do as I do, merely for a new sensation.”
”Ah, you do good by stealth and blush to find it fame,” said the lady.
”I don't know if you can call it doing good. I give very little of my money away, though I certainly do spend a good deal of my time among the abjectly poor. I became a sort of confidential adviser to a good many of them, a kind of honorary amateur solicitor. I drifted into it somehow or other. I acted as a sort of buffer between the East End Lazarus and his landlord. I was instrumental in obtaining for Lazarus certain rights which had been long in abeyance in the East End; either my client didn't know his rights, or he found them difficult to enforce; the landlords would screw the uttermost farthing out of the poor wretches in the shape of rent, and if they didn't pay they were sold up. The _quid pro quo_ they got for their rent was simply a place to rot and die in--no water, no drains, no ventilation, no anything. Then there was the sweating system; women working fifteen or sixteen hours a day for a pittance of ninepence: women doing men's work and getting next to nothing for it; and the attempted redress of a thousand and one nameless grievances and horrors.”
”Oh, Lord Spunyarn,” cried Mrs. Dodd, ”would that I could walk hand in hand with you through those dreadful places, sharing in such work.”
”I have no doubt Dodd could exchange and become one of the wise men of the East, if he tried,” said Haggard maliciously.
”Ah, dear Mr. Haggard, my husband was never formed for missionary work.
Ever since my girlhood I have tried to rouse his enthusiasm, but in vain. I don't believe he has any enthusiasm,” and here the voice of the Reverend John Dodd was heard in an unctuous whisper addressing Colonel Spurbox in commendation of the dish in front of him, to which he helped himself copiously for the second time.
”I'm quite certain, my dear sir, that there is no more successful way of accommodating the freshly-killed partridge than in a _salmi_. I say this advisedly, and after many years' experience. I speak feelingly, colonel. Till the fourth you can't do better than stick to _salmi_; I always do.”
”There's no want of enthusiasm in that, anyhow, Dodd,” said Spunyarn with a smile, while the two young men laughed aloud.
”Ah,” sighed the vicaress in a stage whisper, ”forgive his little weakness; he _will_ hanker after the flesh-pots--the flesh-pots of Egypt.”
”Be exact, my dear, be exact,” cried the vicar; ”it was quail, probably roast quail, though that is a succulent dish, that is referred to; certainly not _salmi_ of partridges.”
”Don't trifle, John,” cried Mrs. Dodd.
”I don't, my dear; I a.s.sure you that I am seriously, profitably and pleasantly employed. Good gracious me, is there anything one need be ashamed of in the admiration of art? And what art can be higher than the culinary art, which must have been necessarily one of the earliest, if not the very earliest of all? Some people are born without an ear for music; I am one of those unfortunates myself, but to make up for it I have been blessed by heaven with an appreciative palate. Would you have me neglect my advantage, would you wish me to bury my one talent in a napkin? Certainly not, Mrs. Dodd. Art I appreciate, especially high art, and I'll trouble you for a little more of the _salmi_, Dr. Wolff.”
”And how are things going on in the parish, Mr. Dodd?” said Georgie.
”Are the Dissenters as active as ever?”
”No, my dear madam; just now the Church is far more popular.”
”Thanks to organization, thanks to organization,” burst in the vicar's wife impetuously. ”Our curates' wives are admirable organizers. You remember the Misses Sleek, Mr. Haggard?”
”That I do; uncommonly good-looking girls they were too.”
”Well, Mr. Haggard, it was the last thing that I should have expected, but they both went into the Church.”
”You mean that they married my curates, my dear,” interrupted the vicar.
”No, Mr. Dodd, I said it advisedly, they went into the Church. I suppose that in the old days when high-born ladies became nuns that they went into the Church, and in doing so vowed themselves to a life of self-denial. And in this present time any lady who marries a clergyman, Mr. Dodd, vows herself to a life of self-denial and penance, and certainly enters the Church. I did,” she added with a sigh, ”and I glory in it. The humble curate may rise to rank and t.i.tle, but in the highly unlikely event of your becoming a bishop, John, I should remain plain Mrs. Dodd still.”
”Not plain, my dear--not plain.”
But Mrs. Dodd did not condescend to reprove him; she forgave the flippancy of the remark for the sake of the compliment.
”The fact is,” said the vicar, ”that since that fellow Smiter left King's Warren a great many of the better-disposed of his people have come over to us. The services are more ornate than they were, and consequently more attractive. So are the sermons, I suppose. At all events, they are shorter. Then we've got a Sisterhood and a Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, who play cricket in summer and football in winter. Then again we use collecting bags, while at Gilgal they still stick to the plates. Of course the collections have dropped off to a mere nothing, but the congregations have increased wonderfully.