The Bishops Secret | Page 5

divers designs, incongruous but picturesque.
Time had mellowed the various parts into one rich coloured whole of
perfect beauty, and elevated on a green rise, surrounded by broad stone
terraces, with towers and oriels and turrets and machicolated
battlements; clothed with ivy, buried amid ancient trees, it looked like
the realisation of a poet's dream. Only long ages and many changing
epochs; only home-loving prelates, ample monies, and architects of
genius, could have created so beautiful and unique a fabric. It was the
admiration of transatlantic tourists with a twang; the desire of
millionaires. Aladdin's industrious genii would have failed to build
such a masterpiece, unless their masters had arranged to inhabit it five
centuries or so after construction. Time had created it, as Time would
destroy it, but at present it was in perfect preservation, and figured in
steel-plate engravings as one of the stately homes of England. No
wonder the mitre of Beorminster was a coveted prize, when its gainer
could dwell in so noble and matchless a mansion.
As the present prelate was an up-to-date bishop, abreast of his time and
fond of his creature comforts, the interior of the palace was modernised
completely in accordance with the luxurious demands of nineteenth
century civilisation. The stately reception-rooms--thrown open on this
night to what the Beorminster Weekly Chronicle, strong in foreign
tongues, tautologically called 'the élite and crême de la crême of the
diocese'--were brilliantly illuminated by electric lamps and furnished
magnificently throughout, in keeping with their palatial appearance.
The ceilings were painted in the Italian style, with decently-clothed
Olympian deities; the floors were of parquetry, polished so highly, and
reflecting so truthfully, that the guests seemed to be walking, in some
magical way, upon still water. Noble windows, extending from floor to
roof, were draped with purple curtains, and stood open to the quiet
moonlit world without; between these, tall mirrors flashed back gems
and colours, moving figures and floods of amber radiance, and

enhanced by reduplicated reflections the size of the rooms. Amid all
this splendour of warmth and tints and light moved the numerous
guests of the bishop. Almost every invitation had been accepted, for the
receptions at the palace were on a large and liberal scale, particularly as
regards eating and drinking. Dr Pendle, in addition to his official salary,
possessed a handsome income, and spent it in the lavish style of a
Cardinal Wolsey. He was wise enough to know how the outward and
visible signs of prosperity and dignity affect the popular imagination,
and frequently invited the clergy and laity to feast at the table of
Mother Church, to show that she could dispense loaves and fishes with
the best, and vie with Court and Society in the splendour and
hospitality of her entertainments. As he approved of an imposing ritual
at the cathedral, so he affected a magnificent way of living at the palace.
Mrs Pansey and many others declared that Dr Pendle's aims in that
direction were Romish. Perhaps they were, but he could scarcely have
followed a better example, since the Church of Peter owes much of its
power to a judicious employment of riches and ritual, and a dexterous
gratification of the lust of the eye. The Anglican Church is more
dignified now than she was in the days of the Georges, and very rightly,
too, since God's ministers should not be the poorest or meanest of men.
Naturally, as the host was clerical and the building ecclesiastical, the
clergy predominated at this entertainment. The bishop and the dean
were the only prelates of their rank present, but there were archdeacons,
and canons and rectors, and a plentiful supply of curates, all, in their
own opinion, bishops in embryo. The shape and expression of the many
faces were various--ascetic, worldly, pale, red, round, thin, fat, oval;
each one revealed the character of its owner. Some lean, bent forms
were those of men filled with the fire of religion for its own sake;
others, stout, jolly gentlemen in comfortable livings, loved the loaves
and fishes of the Church as much as her precepts. The descendants of
Friar Tuck and the Vicar of Bray were here, as well as those who would
have been Wycliffes and Latimers had the fires of Smithfield still been
alight. Obsequious curates bowed down to pompous prebendaries; bluff
rectors chatted on cordial terms with suave archdeacons; and in the fold
of the Church there were no black sheep on this great occasion. The
shepherds and pastors of the Beorminster flock were polite,

entertaining, amusing, and not too masterful, so that the general air was
quite arcadian.
The laity also formed a strong force. There were lords magnificently
condescending to commoners; M.P.s who talked politics, and M.P.s
who had had enough of that sort of thing at St