MISS THORNE'S FETE CHAMPETRE
The day of the Ullathorne party arrived, and all the world was
there; or at least so much of the world as had been included in
Miss Thorne's invitation. As we have said, the bishop returned home
on the previous evening, and on the same evening, and by the same
train, came Dr Gwynne and Mr Arabin from Oxford. The archdeacon
with his brougham was in waiting for the Master of Lazarus, so that
there was a goodly show of church dignitaries on the platform of
the railway.
The Stanhope party was finally arranged in the odious manner
already described, and Eleanor got into the doctor's waiting
carriage full of apprehension and presentiment of further
misfortunes, whereas Mr Slope entered the vehicle elate with
triumph.
He had received that morning a civil note from Sir Nicholas
Fitzwiggin; not promising much indeed; but then Mr Slope knew, or
fancied that he knew, that it was not etiquette for government
officers to make promises. Though Sir Nicholas promised nothing he
implied a good deal; declared his conviction that Mr Slope would
make an excellent dean, and wished him every kind of success. To be
sure he added that, not being in the cabinet, he was never
consulted on such matters, and that even if he spoke on the subject
his voice would go for nothing. But all this Mr Slope took for the
prudent reserve of official life. To complete his anticipated
triumph, another letter was brought to him just as he was about to
start to Ullathorne.
Mr Slope also enjoyed the idea of handing Mrs Bold out of Dr
Stanhope's carriage before the multitude at Ullathorne gate, as
much as Eleanor dreaded the same ceremony. He had fully made up his
mind to throw himself and his fortune at the widow's feet, and had
almost determined to select the present propitious morning for
doing so. The signora had of late been less than civil to him. She
had indeed admitted his visits, and listened, at any rate without
anger, to his love; but she had tortured him, and reviled him,
jeered at him and ridiculed him, while she allowed him to call her
the most beautiful of living women, to kiss her hand, and to
proclaim himself with reiterated oaths her adorer, her slave, and
worshipper.
Miss Thorne was in great perturbation, yet in great glory, on the
morning of this day. Mr Thorne also, though the party was none of
his giving, had much heavy work on his hands. But perhaps the most
overtasked, the most anxious and the most effective of all the
Ullathorne household was Mr Plomacy the steward. This last
personage had, in the time of Mr Thorne's father, when the
Directory held dominion in France, gone over to Paris with letters
in his boot heel for some of the royal party; and such had been his
good luck that he had returned safe. He had then been very young
and was now very old, but the exploit gave him a character for
political enterprise and secret discretion which still availed him
as thoroughly as it had done in its freshest gloss. Mr Plomacy had
been steward of Ullathorne for more than fifty years, and a very
easy life he had had of it. Who could require much absolute work
from a man who had carried safely at his heel that which if
discovered would have cost him his head? Consequently Mr Plomacy
had never worked hard, and of latter years had never worked at all.
He had a taste for timber, and therefore he marked the trees that
were to be cut down; he had a taste for gardening, and would
therefore allow no shrub to be planted or bed to be made without
his express sanction.
In these matters he was sometimes driven to run counter to his
mistress, but he rarely allowed his mistress to carry the point
against him.
But on occasions such as the present, Mr Pomney came out strong. He
had the honour of the family at heart; he thoroughly appreciated
the duties of hospitality; and therefore, when gala doings were
going on, always took the management into his own hands and reigned
supreme over master and mistress.
To give Mr Pomney his due, old as he was, he thoroughly understood
such work as he had in hand, and did it well.
The order of the day was to be as follows. The quality, as the
upper classes in rural districts are designated by the lower with
so much true discrimination, were to eat a breakfast, and the
non-quality were to eat a dinner. Two marquees had been erected for
these two banquets, that for the quality on the esoteric or garden
side of a certain deep ha-ha; and that for the non-quality on the
exoteric or paddock side of the same. Both were of huge dimensions;
that on the outer side, one may say, on an egregious scale; but Mr
Pomney declared that neither would be sufficient. To remedy this,
an auxiliary banquet was prepared in the dining-room, and a
subsidiary board was to be spread sub dio for the accommodation of
the lower class of yokels on the Ullathorne property.
No one who has not had a hand in the preparation of such an affair
can understand the manifold difficulties which Miss Thorne
encountered in her project. Had she not been made throughout of the
very finest whalebone, rivetted with the best Yorkshire steel, she
must have sunk under them. Had not Mr Pomney felt how much was
justly expected from a man who at one time carried the destinies of
Europe in his boot, he would have given way; and his mistress, so
deserted, must have perished among her poles and canvass.
In the first place there was a dreadful line to be drawn. Who was
to dispose themselves within the ha-ha, and who without? To this
the unthinking will give an off-hand answer, as they will to every
ponderous question. Oh, the bishop and such like within the ha-ha;
and Farmer Greenacre and such without. True, my unthinking friend;
but who shall define these such-likes? It is in such definitions
that the whole difficulty of society consists. To seat the bishop
on an arm chair on the lawn and place Farmer Greenacre at the end
of a long table in the paddock is easy enough; but where will you
put Mrs Lookaloft, whose husband, though a tenant on the estate,
hunts in a red coat, whose daughters go to a fashionable seminary
in Barchester, who calls her farm house Rosebank, and who has a
pianoforte in her drawing-room? The Misses Lookaloft, as they call
themselves, won't sit contented among the bumpkins. Mrs Lookaloft
won't squeeze her fine clothes on a bench and talk familiarly about
cream and ducklings to good Mrs Greenacres. And yet Mrs Lookaloft
is not fit companion and never has been the associate of the
Thornes and the Grantlys. And if Mrs Lookaloft be admitted within
the sanctum of fashionable life, if she be allowed with her three
daughters to leap the ha-ha, why not the wives and daughters of
other families also? Mrs Greenacre is at present well contented
with the paddock, but she might cease to be so if she saw Mrs
Lookaloft on the lawn. And thus poor Miss Thorne had a hard time of
it.
And how was she to divide the guests between the marquee and the
parlour? She had a countess coming, and Honourable John and an
Honourable George, and a whole bevy of Ladies Amelia, Rosina,
Margaretta &c; she had a leash of baronets with their baronesses;
and, as we all know, a bishop. If she put them on the lawn, no one
would go into the parlour; if she put them into the parlour, no one
would go into the tent. She thought of keeping the old people in
the house, and leaving the lawn to the lovers. She might as well
have seated herself at once in a hornet's nest. Mr Pomney knew
better than this. 'Bless your soul, Ma'am,' said he, 'there won't
be no old ladies; not one, barring yourself and old Mrs
Chantantrum.'
Personally Miss Thorne accepted this distinction in her favour as a
compliment to her good sense; but nevertheless she had no desire to
be closeted on the coming occasion with Mrs Chantantrum. She gave
up all idea of any arbitrary division of her guests, and determined
if possible to put the bishop on the lawn and the countess in the
house, to sprinkle the baronets, and thus divide the attractions.
What to do with the Lookalofts even Mr Plomacy could not decide.
They must take their chance. They had been specially told in the
invitation that all the tenants had been invited; and they might
probably have the good sense to stay away if they objected to mix
with the rest of the tenantry.
Then Mr Plomacy declared his apprehension that the Honourable Johns
and Honourable Georges would come in a sort of amphibious costume,
half morning half evening, satin neckhandkerchiefs, frock coats,
primrose gloves, and polished boots; and that being so dressed,
they would decline riding at the quintain, or taking part in any of
the athletic games which Miss Thorne had prepared with so much
care. If the Lord Johns and Lord Georges didn't ride at the
quintain, Miss Thorne might be sure that nobody else would.
'But,' said she in dolorous voice, all but overcome by her cares;
'it was specially signified that there were to be sports.'
'And so there will be, of course,' said Mr Pomney. 'They'll all be
sporting with the young ladies in the laurel walks. Them's the
sports they care most about now-a-days. If you gets the young men
at the quintain, you'll have all the young women in the pouts.'
'Can't they look on, as their great grandmothers did before them?'
said Miss Thorne.
'It seems to me that the ladies ain't contented with looking
now-a-days. Whatever the men do they'll do. If you'll have side
saddles on the nags, and let them go at the quintain too, it'll
answer capital, no doubt.'
Miss Thorne made no reply. She felt that she had no good ground on
which to defend her sex of the present generation, from the sarcasm
of Mr Pomney. She had once declared, in one of her warmer moments,
'that now-a-days the gentlemen were all women, and the ladies all
men.' She could not alter the debased character of the age. But
such being the case, why should she take on herself to cater for
the amusement of people of such degraded tastes? This question she
asked herself more than once, and she could only answer herself
with a sigh. There was her own brother Wilfred, on whose shoulders
rested the all the ancient honours of Ullathorne House; it was very
doubtful whether even he would consent to 'go at the quintain', as
Mr Pomney not injudiciously expressed it.
And now the morning arrived. The Ullathorne household was early on
the move. Cooks were cooking in the kitchen long before daylight,
and men were dragging out tables and hammering red baize on to
benches at the earliest dawn. With what dread eagerness did Miss
Thorne look out at the weather as soon as the parting veil of night
permitted her to look at all! In this respect at any rate there was
nothing to grieve her. The glass had been rising for the last three
days, and the morning broke with that dull chill steady grey haze
which in autumn generally presages a clear and dry day. By seven
she was dressed and down. Miss Thorne knew nothing of the modern
luxury of deshabilles. She would as soon have thought of appearing
before her brother without her stockings as without her stays; and
Miss Thorne's stays were no trifle.
And yet there was nothing for her to do when down. She fidgeted out
to the lawn, and then back into the kitchen. She put on her
high-heeled clogs, and fidgeted out into the paddock. Then she went
into the small home park where the quintain was erected. The pole
and cross-bar and the swivel, and the target and the bag of flour
were all complete. She got up on a carpenter's bench and touched
the target with her hand; it went round with beautiful ease; the
swivel had been oiled to perfection. She almost wished to take old
Plomacy at his word, to go on a side saddle, and have a tilt at it
herself.
What must a young man be, thought she, who could prefer maundering
among the trees with a wishy-washy school girl to such fun as this?
'Well,' said she aloud to herself, 'one man can take a horse to
water, but a thousand can't make him drink. There it is. If they
haven't the spirit to enjoy it, the fault shan't be mine;' and so
she returned the house.
At a little after eight her brother came down, and they had a sort
of scrap breakfast in his study. The tea was made without the
customary urn, and they dispensed with the usual rolls and toast.
Eggs were also missing, for every egg in the parish had been
whipped into custards, baked into pies, or boiled into lobster
salad. The allowances of fresh butter was short, and Mr Thorne was
obliged to eat the leg of a fowl without having it devilled in the
manner he loved.
'I have been looking at the quintain, Wilfred,' said she, 'and it
appears to be quite right.'
'Oh,--ah; yes;' said he. 'It seemed to be so yesterday when I saw
it.' Mr Thorne was beginning to be rather bored by his sister's
love of sports, and had especially no affection for this quintain
post.
'I wish you'd just try it after breakfast,' said she. 'You could
have the saddle put on Mark Antony, and the pole is there all
handy. You can take the flour bag off, you know, if you think Mark
Antony won't be quick enough,' added Miss Thorne, seeing that her
brother's countenance was not indicative of complete accordance
with her little proposition.
Now Mark Antony was a valuable old hunter, excellently suited to Mr
Thorne's usual requirements, steady indeed at his fences, but
extremely sure, very good in deep ground, and safe on the roads.
But he had never yet been ridden at a quintain, and Mr Thorne was
not inclined to put him to the trial, either with or without the
bag of flour. He hummed and hawed, and finally declared that he was
afraid Mark Antony would shy.
'Then try the cob,' said the indefatigable Miss Thorne.
'He's in physic,' said Wilfred.
'There's the Beelzebub colt,' said his sister; 'I know he's in the
stable, because I saw Peter exercising him just now.'
'My dear Monica, he's so wild that it's as much as I can do to
manage him at all. He'd destroy himself and me too, if I attempted
to ride him at such a rattletrap as that.'
A rattletrap! The quintain that she had put up with so much anxious
care; the game that she had prepared for the amusement of the
stalwart yeomen of the country; the sport that had been honoured by
the affection of so many of their ancestors! It cut her to the
heart to hear it so denominated by her own brother. There were but
the two of them left together in the world; and it had ever been
one of the rules by which Miss Thorne had regulated her conduct
through life, to say nothing that could provoke her brother. She
had often had to suffer from his indifference to time-honoured
British customs; but she had always suffered in silence. It was
part of her creed that the head of the family should never be
upbraided in his own house; and Miss Thorne had lived up to her
creed. Now, however, she was greatly tried. The colour mounted to
her ancient cheek, and the fire blazed in her still bright eye; but
yet she said nothing. She resolved that at any rate, to him nothing
more should be said about the quintain that day.
She sipped her tea in silent sorrow, and thought with painful
regret of the glorious days when her great ancestor Ealfried had
successfully held Ullathorne against a Norman invader. There was no
such spirit now left in her family except that small useless spark
which burnt in her own bosom. And she herself, was not she at this
moment intent on entertaining a descendant of those very Normand, a
vain proud countess with a frenchified name, who would only think
that she graced Ullathorne too highly by entering its portals? Was
it likely that an honourable John, the son of the Earl de Courcy,
should ride at a quintain in company with a Saxon yeoman? And why
should she expect her brother to do that which her brother's guests
would decline to do?
Some dim faint idea of the impracticability of her own views
flitted across her brain. Perhaps it was necessary that races
doomed to live on the same soil should give way to each other, and
adopt each other's pursuits. Perhaps it was impossible that after
more than five centuries of close intercourse, Normans should
remain Normans, and Saxons, Saxons. Perhaps after all her
neighbours were wiser than herself, such ideas did occasionally
present themselves to Miss Thorne's mind, and make her sad enough.
But it never occurred to her that her favourite quintain was but a
modern copy of a Norman knight's amusement, an adaptation of the
noble tourney to the tastes and habits of the Saxon yeomen. Of this
she was ignorant, and it would have been cruelty to instruct her.
When Mr Thorne saw the tear in her eye, he repented himself of his
contemptuous expression. By him also it was recognised as a binding
law that every whim of his sister was to be respected. He was not
perhaps so firm in his observances to her, as she was in hers to
him. But his intentions were equally good, and whenever he found
that he had forgotten them, it was a matter of grief to him.
'My dear Monica,' said he, 'I beg your pardon; I don't in the least
mean to speak ill of the game. When I called it a rattletrap, I
merely meant that it was so for a man of my age. You know you
always forget that I an't a young man.'
'I am quite sure you are not an old man, Wilfred,' said she,
accepting the apology in her heart, and smiling at him with the
tear still on her cheek.
'If I was five-and-twenty, or thirty,' continued he, 'I should like
nothing better than riding at the quintain all day.'
'But you are not too old to hunt or to shoot,' said she. 'If you
can jump over a ditch and hedge, I am sure you could turn the
quintain round.'
'But when I ride over the hedges, my dear--and it isn't very often
I do that--but when I do ride over the hedges there isn't any bag
of flour coming after me. Think how I'd look taking the countess
out to breakfast with the back of my head all covered with meal.'
Miss Thorne said nothing further. She didn't like the allusion to
the countess. She couldn't be satisfied with the reflection that
the sports of Ullathorne should be interfered with by the personal
attentions necessary for a Lady de Courcy. But she saw that it was
useless for her to push the matter further. It was conceded that Mr
Thorne was to spared the quintain; and Miss Thorne determined to
trust wholly to a youthful knight of hers, an immense favourite,
who, as she often declared, was a pattern to the young men of the
age, and an excellent example of an English yeoman.
This was Farmer Greenacre's eldest son; who, to tell the truth, had
from his earliest years taken the exact measure of Miss Thorne's
foot. In his boyhood he had never failed to obtain from her,
apples, pocket money, and forgiveness for his numerous trespasses;
and now in his early manhood he got privileges and immunities which
were equally valuable. He was allowed a day or two's shooting in
September; he schooled the squire's horses; got slips of trees out
of the orchard, and roots of flowers out of the garden; and had the
fishing of the little river altogether in his own hands. He had
undertaken to come mounted on a nag of his father's, and show the
way at the quintain post. Whatever young Greenacre did the others
would do after him. The juvenile Lookalofts might stand sure to
venture if Harry Greenacre showed the way. And so Miss Thorne made
up her mind to dispense with the noble Johns and Georges, and
trust, as her ancestors had done before her, to the thews and
sinews of native Ullathorne growth.
At about nine the lower orders began to congregate in the paddock
and park, under the surveillance of Mr Plomacy and the head
gardener and head groom, who were sworn in as his deputies, and
were to assist him in keeping the peace and promoting the sports.
Many of the younger inhabitants of the neighbourhood, thinking that
they could not have too much of a good thing, had come at a very
early hour, and the road between the house and the church had been
thronged for some time before the gates were thrown open.
And then another difficulty of huge dimensions arose, a difficulty
which Mr Plomacy had indeed foreseen, and for which he was in some
sort provided. Some of those who wished to share Miss Thorne's
hospitality were not so particular that they should have been as to
the preliminary ceremony of an invitation. They doubtless conceived
that they had been overlooked by accident; and instead of taking
this in dudgeon, as their betters would have done, they
good-naturedly put up with the slight, and showed that they did so
by presenting themselves at the gate in their Sunday best.
Mr Plomacy, however, well knew who were welcome and who were not.
To some, even though uninvited, he allowed ingress. 'Don't be too
particular, Plomacy,' his mistress had said; 'especially with the
children. If they live anywhere near, let them in.'
Acting on this hint, Mr Plomacy did let in many an eager urchin,
and a few tidily dressed girls with their swains, who in no way
belonged to the property. But to the denizens of the city he was
inexorable. Many a Barchester apprentice made his appearance there
that day, and urged with piteous supplication that he had been
working all the week in making saddles and boots for the use of
Ullathorne, in compounding doses for the horses, or cutting up
carcasses for the kitchen. No such claim was allowed. Mr Plomacy
knew nothing about the city apprentices; he was to admit the
tenants and labourers on the estate; Miss Thorne wasn't going to
take in the whole city of Barchester; and so on.
Nevertheless, before the day was half over, all this was found to
be useless. Almost anybody who chose to come made his way into the
park, and the care of the guardians was transferred to the tables
on which the banquet was spread. Even here there was many an
unauthorized claimant for a plate, of whom it was impossible to get
quit without some commotion than the place and food were worth.