So it was settled and the invitations were sent out. That to the Peppercorns was despatched first, so that Mr. Greenmantle might be informed whom he would have to meet. It was conveyed in a note from Mrs. Freeborn to Polly, and came in the shape of an order rather than of a request. “Dr. Freeborn hopes that your papa and Mr. Hollycombe will bring you to dine with us on Christmas-day at six o’clock. We’ll try and get Emily Greenmantle and her lover to meet you. You must come because the Doctor has set his heart upon it.”
“That’s very civil,” said Mr. Peppercorn. “Shan’t I get any dinner till six o’clock?”
“You can have lunch, father, of course. You must go.”
“A bit of bread and cheese when I come out of church—just when I’m most famished! Of course I’ll go. I never dined with the Doctor before.”
“Nor did I; but I’ve drunk tea there. You’ll find he’ll make himself very pleasant. But what are we to do about Jack.”
“He’ll come, of course.”
“But what are we to do about his clothes?” said Polly. “I don’t think he’s got a dress coat; and I’m sure he hasn’t a white tie. Let him come just as he pleases, they won’t mind on Christmas-day as long as he’s clean. He’d better come over and go to church with us; and then I’ll see as to making him up tidy.” Word was sent to say that Polly and her father and her lover would come, and the necessary order was at once despatched to Barchester.
“I really do not know what to say about it,” said Mr. Greenmantle when the invitation was read to him. “You will meet Polly Peppercorn and her husband as is to be,” Mrs. Freeborn had written in her note; “for we look on you and Polly as the two heroines of Plumplington for this occasion.” Mr. Greenmantle had been struck with dismay as he read the words. Could he bring himself to sit down to dinner with Hickory Peppercorn and Jack Hollycombe; and ought he to do so? Or could he refuse the Doctor’s invitation on such an occasion? He suggested at first that a letter should be prepared declaring that he did not like to take his Christmas dinner away from his own house. But to this Emily would by no means consent. She had plucked up her spirits greatly since the days of the chicken-broth, and was determined at the present moment to rule both her future husband and her father. “You must go, papa. I wouldn’t not go for all the world.”
“I don’t see it, my dear; indeed I don’t.”
“The Doctor has been so kind. What’s your objection, papa?”
“There are differences, my dear.”
“But Dr. Freeborn likes to have them.”
“A clergyman is very peculiar. The rector of a parish can always meet his own flock. But rank is rank you know, and it behoves me to be careful with whom I shall associate. I shall have Mr. Peppercorn slapping my back and poking me in the ribs some of these days. And moreover they have joined your name with that of the young lady in a manner that I do not quite approve. Though you each of you may be a heroine in your own way, you are not the two heroines of Plumplington. I do not choose that you shall appear together in that light.”
“That is only his joke,” said Emily.
“It is a joke to which I do not wish to be a party. The two heroines of Plumplington! It sounds like a vulgar farce.”
Then there was a pause, during which Mr. Greenmantle was thinking how to frame the letter of excuse by which he would avoid the difficulty. But at last Emily said a word which settled him. “Oh, papa, they’ll say that you were too proud, and then they’ll laugh at you.” Mr. Greenmantle looked very angry at this, and was preparing himself to use some severe language to his daughter. But he remembered how recently she had become engaged to be married, and he abstained. “As you wish it, we will go,” he said. “At the present crisis of your life I would not desire to disappoint you in anything.” So it happened that the Doctor’s proposed guests all accepted; for Harry Gresham too expressed himself as quite delighted to meet Emily Greenmantle on the auspicious occasion.
“I shall be delighted also to meet Jack Hollycombe,” Harry had said. “I have known him ever so long and have just given him an order for twenty quarters of oats.”
They were all to be seen at the Parish Church of Plumplington on that Christmas morning;—except Harry Gresham, who, if he did so at all, went to church at Greshamsbury—and the Plumplington world all looked at them with admiring eyes. As it happened the Peppercorns sat just behind the Greenmantles, and on this occasion Jack Hollycombe and Polly were exactly in the rear of Philip Hughes and Emily. Mr. Greenmantle as he took his seat observed that it was so, and his devotions were, we fear, disturbed by the fact. He walked up proudly to the altar among the earliest and most aristocratic recipients, and as he did so could not keep himself from turning round to see whether Hickory Peppercorn was treading on his kibes. But on the present occasion Hickory Peppercorn was very modest and remained with his future son-in-law nearly to the last.
At six o’clock they all met in the Rectory drawing-room. “Our two heroines,” said the Doctor as they walked in, one just after the other, each leaning on her lover’s arm. Mr. Greenmantle looked as though he did not like it. In truth he was displeased, but he could not help himself. Of the two young
