Mrs. Pope, who had an instinctive disposition to pad when Aunt
Plessington was about, had secured the presence at lunch of Mr. Magnet
(who was after all staying on in Buryhamstreet) and the Rev. Jopling
Baynes. Aunt Plessington liked to meet the clergy, and would always if
she could win them over to an interest in the Movement. She opened the
meal with a brisk attack upon him. "Come, Mr. Baynes," she said, "what
do your people eat here? Hubert and I are making a study of the
gluttonous side of village life, and we find that no one knows so much
of that as the vicar--not even the doctor."
The Reverend Jopling Baynes was a clergyman of the evasive type with a
quite distinguished voice. He pursed his lips and made his eyes round.
"Well, Mrs. Plessington," he said and fingered his glass, "it's the
usual dietary. The usual dietary."
"Too much and too rich, badly cooked and eaten too fast," said Aunt
Plessington. "And what do you think is the remedy?"
"We make an Effort," said the Rev. Jopling Baynes, "we make an Effort. A
Hint here, a Word there."
"Nothing organized?"
"No," said the Rev. Jopling Baynes, and shook his head with a kind of
resignation.
"We are going to alter all that," said Aunt Plessington briskly, and
went on to expound the Movement and the diverse way in which it might be
possible to control and improve the domestic expenditure of the working
classes.
The Rev. Jopling Baynes listened sympathetically across the table and
tried to satisfy a healthy appetite with as abstemious an air as
possible while he did so. Aunt Plessington passed rapidly from general
principles, to a sketch of the success of the movement, and Hubert, who
had hitherto been busy with his lunch, became audible from behind the
exceptionally large floral trophy that concealed him from his wife,
bubbling confirmatory details. She was very bright and convincing as she
told of this prominent man met and subdued, that leading antagonist
confuted, and how the Bishops were coming in. She made it clear in her
swift way that an intelligent cleric resolved to get on in this world
_en route_ for a better one hereafter, might do worse than take up her
Movement. And this touched in, she turned her mind to Mr. Magnet.
(That floral trophy, I should explain, by the by, was exceptionally
large because of Mrs. Pope's firm conviction that Aunt Plessington
starved her husband. Accordingly, she masked him, and so was able to
heap second and third helpings upon his plate without Aunt Plessington
discovering his lapse. The avidity with which Hubert ate confirmed her
worst suspicions and evinced, so far as anything ever did evince, his
gratitude.)
"Well, Mr. Magnet," she said, "I wish I had your sense of humour."
"I wish you had," said Mr. Magnet.
"I should write tracts," said Aunt Plessington.
"I knew it was good for something," said Mr. Magnet, and Daffy laughed
in a tentative way.
"I mean it," said Aunt Plessington brightly. "Think if we had a
Dickens--and you are the nearest man alive to Dickens--on the side of
social reform to-day!"
Mr. Magnet's light manner deserted him. "We do what we can, Mrs.
Plessington," he said.
"How much more might be done," said Aunt Plessington, "if humour could
be organized."
"Hear, hear!" said Mr. Pope.
"If all the humorists of England could be induced to laugh at something
together."
"They do--at times," said Mr. Magnet, but the atmosphere was too serious
for his light touch.
"They could laugh it out of existence," said Aunt Plessington.
It was evident Mr. Magnet was struck by the idea.
"Of course," he said, "in _Punch_, to which I happen to be an obscure
occasional contributor----"
Mrs. Pope was understood to protest that he should not say such things.
"We _do_ remember just what we can do either in the way of advertising
or injury. I don't think you'll find us up against any really _solid_
institutions."
"But do you think, Mr. Magnet, you are sufficiently kind to the New?"
Aunt Plessington persisted.
"I think we are all grateful to _Punch_," said the Rev. Jopling Baynes
suddenly and sonorously, "for its steady determination to direct our
mirth into the proper channels. I do not think that any one can accuse
its editor of being unmindful of his great responsibilities----"
Marjorie found it a very interesting conversation.
She always met her aunt again with a renewal of a kind of admiration.
That loud authoritative rudeness, that bold thrusting forward of the
Movement until it became the sole criterion of worth or success, this
annihilation by disregard of all that Aunt Plessington wasn't and didn't
and couldn't, always in the intervals seemed too good to be true. Of
course this really was the way people got on and made a mark, but she
felt it must be almost as trying to the nerves as aeronautics. Suppose,
somewhere up there your engine stopped! How Aunt Plessington dominated
the table! Marjorie tried not to catch Daffy's eye. Daffy was
unostentatiously keeping things going, watching the mustard, rescuing
the butter, restraining Theodore, and I am afraid not listening very
carefully to Aunt Plessington. The children were marvellously silent and
jumpily well-behaved, and Mr. Pope, in a very unusual state of subdued
amiability, sat at the end of the table with the East Purblow experiment
on the tip of his tongue. He liked Aunt Plessington, and she was good
for him. They had the same inherent distrust of the intelligence and
good intentions of their fellow creatures, and she had the knack of
making him feel that he too was getting on, that she was saying things
on his behalf in influential quarters, and in spite of the almost
universal conspiracy (based on jealousy) to ignore his stern old-world
virtues, he might still be able to battle his way to the floor of the
House of Commons and there deliver himself before he died of a few
sorely needed home-truths about motor cars, decadence and frivolity
generally....