D. Broster - The Vision Splendid (D. K. Broster) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

"I wonder; I am not so sure. By taking Orders you will be throwing in your lot for ever with all those Oriel people. That is what it means."

"I cannot think," said the culprit, "why you dislike them so."

"It isn't that I dislike them exactly," said Horatia, considering; "but that there is something about them that I don't like. Even Mr. Keble, although he lives in the country and writes poetry, can't be as harmless as he seems, or they would not all pay him such deference. I have nothing against Mr. Newman and Mr. Froude; in fact I liked Mr. Froude when you brought him out here, which is more than I could ever say about Mr. Dormer. He can make himself very charming, but he's steel underneath, I'm quite certain.... Yes, they are all different, and yet they are alike. They are only clergymen, as Papa is, but at his age they won't be in the least like him. For one thing they won't be half as nice. There is something about them that makes me shiver. They are too absolute. I have the feeling that they will change you, that they are changing you. O, I can't explain it; but I know what I mean – and, Tristram, I could not bear that you should be different from what you are?"

She looked at him directly, earnestly, like a child pleading that something it likes may not be taken away from it, and never noticed her companion turn suddenly rather white.

"Horatia, if you – – " he began, and suddenly the Rector's voice cut through his own – "What are you two discussing so warmly that you haven't heard the dinner-bell?" it said, coming before its owner as he emerged through the drawing-room window. "It's long after half-past five. Tristram, my dear fellow, I am very glad to see you. You are staying, of course?"

And after a barely perceptible pause the young man got up and said that he was.

(1)

"Papa has really no right to be hungry," observed Miss Grenville as they sat down to table. "Saturday, you know, was our annual village feast, and he acknowledges that he is obliged to eat a great deal on that occasion."

"How did it go off, Rector?" asked the guest.

"Oh, quite successfully," replied Mr. Grenville, carving a leg of mutton. "There was a good deal to eat, I must admit. I left, as I always do, before the dancing; but not before I heard a swain (I think it was one of Farmer Wilson's men) assuring his inamorata that he would kiss her if she wished it."

"The lady seems to have been forward," observed Horatia. "Papa, you are not forgetting the plate of meat for old Mrs. Jenkins? You know you promised to send in her dinner while she is ill."

"No, my dear," returned her father, looking round. "I have not forgotten the meat, but Sarah appears to have forgotten the plates."

The handmaid fled and remedied her error. It was no unusual thing for the Rectory crockery to go voyaging in the cause of charity.

Horatia seemed in high though rather fitful spirits. She amused her hearers with an account of her visits. At one house, she affirmed, she was entertained to death; at the other her host and hostess only seemed to want to be alone together, though they had pestered her to go there.

"You will find us, as usual, very quiet," said Tristram, looking across the table at her animated face. "I don't think anything has happened since you went away. – Stay, though, something has taken place in Oxfordshire. Rector, I suppose you have heard about the affair at Otmoor on Saturday night?"

Mr. Grenville had not.

"Well, Otmoor, as you know, was drained under Act of Parliament in 1815, and this proceeding has been a cause of discontent ever since, because the embankments were thought to prevent the water draining away from the land above. You remember the disturbances last June, and how the farmers cut the banks, and were indicted for felony, but acquitted on the ground that the embankments did do damage and were a nuisance?"

"Yes, I recall the circumstance," said the Rector.

"Well, the Otmoor people appear to have jumped to the conclusion that the Act of Parliament was void, the enclosure of Otmoor consequently illegal, and that they had a right to pull down the embankment. On Saturday night, therefore, they started to do so, and I believe they proceeded with the work last night also. They are said to have been riotous. I wonder you had not heard of it."

"Dear, dear," commented the Rector, "that is excessively serious! I am afraid that there is indeed a spirit of unrest abroad at present. There have been one or two rick fires lately that looked to me very suspicious, very. And then there was that barn near Henley about a fortnight ago."

"Do you think, then, that we shall have a revolution in England like the Days of July?" asked Horatia a little mischievously.

"No, of course not, my dear! The Revolution in France the other day was above all things dynastic – at least, so I read it – and no one wants to turn out our new King, whom God preserve. But there is social unrest..."

"Good Heavens!" suddenly exclaimed Tristram Hungerford. "I had quite forgotten, and your mentioning the Days of July has reminded me. I've got a Frenchman, a Legitimist, coming to stay with me the day after to-morrow. You remember how, when I was in Paris a few years ago, I made the acquaintance of the sons of the Duc de la Roche-Guyon, the First Gentleman of the Bedchamber? I stayed with the eldest at their place in the country for a few days, and I asked them to come and see me if ever they were in England."

"But the Duc de la Roche-Guyon accompanied Charles the Tenth on his flight over here, and is now with him at Lulworth, is he not?" asked Horatia. "I remember seeing his name in the papers."

"Yes," said Tristram, "the Duc is at Lulworth with the King, and Armand, his younger and favourite son, has come over to pay him a visit. But I fancy that the young gentleman has no intention of remaining buried in Dorset; Lulworth is too dull for a person of his tastes, and he is returning to more congenial scenes in Paris – even though it be an Orleanist Paris. However, he has written from Dorset and suggested paying me a short visit. I own that I am rather surprised, for I am afraid that my chances of amusing him are not greater than those of his exiled sovereign. Moreover, I really hardly know him. It was his elder brother, the Marquis Emmanuel, of whom I saw more.... May I bring the youth here to call?"

"Do," said Miss Grenville. "Papa, did you know that Tristram considered us a centre of gaiety? It is a flattering but a burdensome reputation. If anyone expects me to sparkle I am tongue-tied on the instant. I had better ask the Miss Baileys to come in."

"My dear," said the Rector impressively, "I beg you will do nothing of the sort. I cannot endure those young persons."

"I know it," replied his daughter. – "But, Tristram, it is a good thing that Mr. Dormer has left you. It is well known, is it not, that you may not have other guests when he is with you?"

A very slight colour came into Mr. Hungerford's face, and the Rector said rather quickly, "Is Mr. Dormer going to be in college till term begins?"

"Yes," answered the young man. "It is quieter for him, and he is very anxious to finish his book on the Non-Jurors. All the worry last term with the Provost – though, not being a tutor, he was not actually implicated – put him back in his work."

"I have no sympathy with Mr. Dormer's sufferings," declared Horatia. "You have told me before now, Tristram, that he has very high views about the authority of the Church. Why doesn't he have high views about the authority of the Provost?"

"But, Horatia," said Tristram earnestly, "don't you see that it was a matter of conscience? Newman and Wilberforce and Froude could not without a protest see their chances of influencing their pupils vanish, and themselves reduced to mere tutoring machines. If Keble had been elected Provost instead of Hawkins, the situation would never have arisen. Now they will have no more pupils after next year; and, as an Oriel man, I can't help thinking that it will be Oriel's loss."