During the time that Titherington and I were thrown together I learned to respect and admire him, but I never cared for him as a companion. Only once, so far as I recollect, did I actually wish to see him. The day after I gave him the hint about Hilda’s mother I waited for him anxiously. I was full of curiosity. I wanted to know what Hilda’s surname was, a matter long obscure to me, which Titherington, if any man living, would find out. I also wanted to know how Hilda’s mother took the news of her daughter’s political activity. I waited for him all day but he did not visit me. Toward evening I came to the conclusion that he must have found himself obliged to go up to Dublin in pursuit of Selby-Harrison, junior. I spent a pleasant hour or two in picturing to myself the interview between them. Titherington had spoken of using violent means of persuasion, of dragging the surname of Hilda out of the young man. He might, so I liked to think, chase Selby-Harrison round the College Park with a drawn sword in his hand. Then there would be complications. The Provost and senior fellows, not understanding Titherington’s desperate plight, would resent his show of violence, which would strike them as unseemly in their academic groves. Swift, muscular porters would be sent in pursuit of Titherington, who would, himself, still pursue Selby-Harrison. The great bell of the Campanile would ring furious alarm peals. The Dublin metropolitan police would at last be called in, for Titherington, when in a determined mood, would be very difficult to overpower.
All this was pleasant to think about at first; but there came a time when my mind was chiefly occupied in resenting Titherington’s thoughtlessness. He had no right to go off on a long expedition without leaving me the key of the bag in which we kept the champagne. I felt the need of a stimulant so badly that I ventured to ask McMeekin, who called just before I went to bed, to allow me half a glass of Burgundy. Burgundy would not have been nearly as good for me as champagne, but it would have been better than nothing. McMeekin sternly forbade anything of the sort, and I heard him tell the nurse to give me barley water when I asked for a drink. This is another proof that McMeekin ought to be in an asylum for idiots. Barley water would depress me and make me miserable even if I were in perfect health.
As a set-off against Titherington’s thoughtlessness and McMeekin’s imbecility, I noticed that during the day the nurse became gradually less obnoxious. I began to see that she had some good points and that she meant well by me, though she still did things of which I could not possibly approve. She insisted, for instance, that I should wash my face, a wholly unnecessary exertion which exhausted me greatly and might easily have given me cold. Still I disliked her less than I did before, and felt, toward evening that she was becoming quite tolerable. I always like to give praise to any one who deserves it, especially if I have been obliged previously to speak in a different way. After I got into bed I congratulated her on the improvement I had noticed in her character and disposition. She replied that she was delighted to see that I was beginning to pick up a little. The idea in her mind evidently was that no change had taken place in her but that I was shaking off a mood of irritable pessimism, one of the symptoms of my disease. I did not argue with her though I knew that she was quite wrong. There really was a change in her and I had all along kept a careful watch over my temper.
The day after that, being, I believe, the eighth of my illness, I got up at eleven o’clock and put on a pair of trousers under my dressing-gown. McMeekin, backed by the nurse, insisted on my sending for a barber to shave me. I did not like the barber, for, like all his tribe, he was garrulous and I had to appeal to the nurse to stop him talking. Afterward I was very glad I had endured him. Lalage and Hilda called on me at two o’clock, and I should not have liked them to see me in the state I was in before the barber came. They both looked fresh and vigorous. Electioneering evidently agreed with them.
“We looked in,” said Lalage, “because we thought you might want to be cheered up a bit. You can’t have many visitors now that poor Tithers is gone.”
“Dead?”
“Oh, no, not yet at least, and we hope he won’t. Tithers means well and I daresay it’s not his fault if he don’t speak the truth.”
“They’ve put him in prison, I suppose. I hardly thought they’d allow him to chop up Selby-Harrison in the College Park.”
Hilda gaped at me. Lalage went over to the nurse and whispered something in her ear. The nurse shook her head and said that my temperature was normal.
“If you’re not raving,” said Lalage, “you’re deliberately talking nonsense. I don’t know what you mean, nor does Hilda.”
“It ought to be fairly obvious,” I said, “that I’m alluding to Mr. Titherington’s attempt to find out Hilda’s surname from young Selby-Harrison.”
Hilda giggled convulsively. Then she got out her pocket handkerchief and choked.
“Tithers,” said Lalage, “is past caring about anybody’s name. He’s got influenza. It came on him the night before last at twelve o’clock. He’s pretty bad.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I was afraid he might have been arrested in Dublin. If it’s only influenza there’s no reason why he shouldn’t send me the key of the bag. I suppose you’ll be going round to see him in the course of the afternoon, Lalage.”
“We hadn’t thought of doing that,” said Lalage, “but of course we can if you particularly want us to.”
“I wish you would, and tell him to send me the key of the bag at once. You could bring it back with you.”
“Certainly,” said Lalage. “Is that all?”
“That’s all I want; but it would be civil to ask how he is.”
“There’s no use making a special, formal visit for a trifle like that. Hilda will run round at once. It won’t take her ten minutes.”
Hilda hesitated.
“Run along, Hilda,” said Lalage.
Hilda still hesitated. It occurred to me that she might not know where Titherington’s house was.
“Turn to the right,” I said, “as soon as you get out of the hotel. Then go on to the end of the street. Mr. Titherington’s house is at the corner and stands a little way back. It has ‘Sandringham’ in gilt letters on the gate. You can’t miss it. In fact, you can see it from the door of the hotel. Nurse will show it to you.”
Even then Hilda did not start.
“The key of what bag?” she asked.
“Is it any particular bag?” said Lalage.
“Of course it is,” I said. “What on earth would be the use——?”
“Will Tithers knows what bag you mean?” said Lalage.
“He will. Now that he has influenza himself he can’t help knowing.”
“Off with you, Hilda.”
This time Hilda started, slowly. The nurse, who evidently thought that Hilda was being badly treated, went with her. She certainly took her as far as the hotel door. She may have gone all the way to Titherington’s house. Lalage sat down opposite me and lit a cigarette.
“We are having a high old time,” she said. “Now that Tithers is gone and O’Donoghue, who appears to be rather an ass, professes to have a sore throat——”
She winked at me.
“Do you suspect him of having influenza?” I asked.
“Of course, but he won’t own up if he can help it.”
“Vittie is only shamming,” I said. “Titherington told me so, he may emerge at any moment.”
“It’s just like Tithers to say that. The one thing he cannot do is speak the truth. As a matter of fact Vittie is in a dangerous condition. His aunt told me so.”
“Have you been to see him.”
“No. The aunt came round to us this morning with tears in her eyes, and begged us to spare Vittie.”
“I suppose the things you have been saying about him have made him worse.”
“According to his aunt they keep him in such an excitable state that he can’t sleep. I told her I was jolly glad to hear it. That just shows the amount of good the A.S.P.L. is doing in the district. It’s making its power felt in every direction.”
“If Vittie dies———”
“He won’t. That sort of man never does. I’m sorry for the aunt of course. She seemed a quiet, respectable sort of woman and, curiously enough, very fond of Vittie. I told her that I’d do anything I conscientiously could to lull off Vittie, but that I had my duty to perform. And I have, you know. I’m clearing the air.”
“It wants it badly. McMeekin told me two days ago he had forty cases and there are evidently a lot more now.”
“I’m not talking about microbes,” said Lalage. “What I’m talking about is the moral ‘at’.”
I thought for a moment.
—“titude?” I ventured to suggest.
“No,” said Lalage, “—mosphere. It wants it far worse than the other air. I had no idea till I took on this job that politics are such utter sinks as they are. What you tell me now about Vittie is just another example of what I mean. I dare say now it will turn out that he went to bed in the hope of escaping my exposure of the way he’s been telling lies.”
“Titherington hinted,” I said, “that he did it in the hope of influencing McMeekin’s vote. Fees, you know.”
“That’s worse.”
“A great deal worse.”
“Funk,” said Lalage, “which is what I did suspect him of, is comparatively honest, but a stratagem of the kind you suggest, is as bad as felony. I shall certainly have at him for that.”
“Titherington will be tremendously pleased if you do.”
“I’m not trying to please Tithers. I’m acting in the interests of public morality.”
“Still,” I said, “there’s no harm in pleasing Tithers incidentally.”
“I have a big meeting on to-night. Hilda takes the chair, and I’ll rub it in about Vittie shamming sick. I never heard anything more disgraceful. Can Tithers be playing the same game, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Hilda will be able to tell us that when she comes back.”
Hilda came back so soon that I think she must have run part of the way at least. Probably she ran back, when the nurse was not with her.
“He won’t send you the key,” she said, “but he wants you to send him the bag.”
“Is he shamming?” said Lalage, “or has he really got it?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see him.”
“If you didn’t see him,” I said hopefully, “you may be wrong after all about his wanting the bag. He can’t be so selfish.”
“Who did you see?” said Lalage.
“Mrs. Titherington,” said Hilda. “She——”
“Fancy there being a Mrs. Tithers,” said Lalage. “How frightfully funny! What was she like to look at?”
“Never mind that for the present, Hilda,” I said. “Just tell me about the key.”
“She took your message up to him,” said Hilda, “and came down again in a minute looking very red in the face.”
“Titherington must have sworn at her,” I said. “What a brute that man is!”
“You’d better take him round the bag at once,” said Lalage. “Where is it?”
“He shan’t have the bag,” I said. “There are only eight bottles left and I want them myself.”
“Bottles of what?”
“Champagne, of course.”
“His or yours?” asked Lalage.
“They were his at first. They’re mine now, for he gave them to me, and I’m going to keep them.”
“I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” said Lalage. “Do you, Hilda? I suppose you and Tithers can both afford to buy a few more bottles if you want them.”
“You don’t understand,” I said. “I’m quite ready to give a sovereign a bottle if necessary, and I’m sure that Titherington would, too. The point is that my nurse won’t let me have any, and I don’t suppose Titherington’s wife will let him. That ass McMeekin insists on poisoning me with barley water, and Titherington’s doctor, whoever he is, is most likely doing the same.”
“I see,” said Lalage. “This just bears out what I’ve been saying all along about the utter want of common honesty in political life. Here are you and Tithers actually quarrelling about which of you is to be allowed to lie continuously. You are deliberately deceiving your doctor and nurse. Tithers wants to deceive his wife, which is, if anything, a shade worse. Hilda, find that bag.”
“Lalage,” I said, “you’re not going to give it to Titherington, are you? It wouldn’t be good for him, it wouldn’t really.”
“Make your mind quite easy about that,” said Lalage. “I’m not going to give it to either of you. Hilda, look under the bed. That’s just the idiotic sort of place Tithers would hide a thing.”
I heard Hilda grovelling about on the floor. A minute later she was dragging the bag out.
“What are you going to do with it, Lalage?”
“Take it away and keep it myself till you’re both well.”
“We never shall be,” I said. “We shall die. Please, Lalage, please don’t.”
“It’s the only honest course,” said Lalage.
I made an effort to assert myself, though I knew it was useless.
“There is such a thing,” I said, “as carrying honesty too far. All extremes are wrong. There are lots of occasions on which it isn’t at all right to tell the literal truth.”
“None,” said Lalage.
“Suppose a robber was robbing you, and you had a five-pound note inside your sock and suppose he said to you, ‘Have you any more money?’”
“That has nothing to do with the way you and Tithers have conspired together to deceive the very people who are trying to do you good.”
“Lalage,” I said, “I’ve subscribed liberally to the funds of the society. I’ll subscribe again. I did my best for you at the time of the bishop row. I don’t think you ought to turn on me now because I’m adopting the only means in my power of resisting a frightful tyranny. You might just as well call it dishonest of a prisoner to try to escape because he doesn’t tell the gaoler beforehand how he’s going to do it.”
“Hilda,” said Lalage, “collar that bag and come on.”
“Lalage,” I said sternly, “if you take that bag I’ll write straight to the Archdeacon.”
Hilda was already outside the door. Lalage turned.
“It will be much more unpleasant for you than for me,” she said, “if you bring the Archdeacon down here. I’m not afraid of him. You are.”
“I’ll write to Miss Battersby. I’ll write to the Provost, and to Miss Pettigrew. I’ll write to Hilda’s mother. I’ll get Selby-Harrison to write, too. I’ll——”
Lalage was gone. I rang the bell savagely and told the nurse to get my pens, ink, and paper. I thoroughly agreed with Titherington. Lalage’s proceedings must be stopped at once.
I wrote the first page of a letter to the Archdeacon and expressed myself, so far as I could in that limited space, strongly. I gave him to understand that Lalage must be either enticed or forced to leave Ballygore. I intended to go onto a description of the sort of things Lalage had been doing, of Titherington’s helplessness and Vittie’s peril. But I was brought up short at the end of the first page by the want of blotting paper. The nurse brought me two pens, a good sized bottle of ink, several quires of paper and about fifty envelopes. Then she went out for her afternoon walk, and I did not discover until after she had gone that I had no blotting paper. The only course open to me was to wait, as patiently as I could, until the first page of the letter dried. It took a long time to dry, because I was very angry when I began to write and had pressed heavily on the pen. The crosses of my t’s were like short broad canals. The loops of the e’s, Fs and such letters were deep pools, and I had underlined one word with some vigour. I waved the sheet to and fro in the air. When I got tired of waving it I propped it up against the fender and let the heat of the fire play on it.
While I was waiting my anger gradually cooled and I began to see that Lalage was perfectly right in saying that I should suffer most if the Archdeacon came to our rescue. The story of the champagne in the bag would leak out at once. The Archdeacon, as I recollected, already suspected me of intemperance. When he heard that I was drinking secretly and keeping a private supply of wine he would be greatly shocked and would probably feel that it was his duty to act firmly. He would, almost certainly, hold a consultation with McMeekin. McMeekin is just the sort of man to resent anything in the way of a professional slight from one of his patients. Goaded on by the Archdeacon he would invent some horrible punishment for me. In mediaeval times, so I am given to understand, the clergy tortured people, in cells, for the good of their souls, and any one who had a private enemy denounced him to the Grand Inquisitor. Faith has nowadays given way before the assaults of science and it is the doctors who possess the powers of the rack. Instead of being suspected of heresy a man is now accused of having an abscess on his appendix. His doom is much the same, to have his stomach cut open with knives, though the name given to it is different. It is now called an operation. The older term, rather more expressive, was disembowelling. Four hundred years ago McMeekin, if he had a grievance against me, would have denounced me to the Archdeacon. Now, things have changed so far that it is the Archdeacon who denounces me to McMeekin. The result for me is much the same. I do not suppose that my case would either then or now be one for extreme penalties. I am not the stuff of which obstinate heretics are made, nor have I any heroic tumour which would render me liable to the knife. Slow starvation, a diet of barley water, beef tea, and milk puddings, would meet the requirements of my case. But I did not want any more barley water and beef tea. I have always, from my childhood up, hated milk puddings. I thought over my position carefully and by the time the first sheet of my letter to the Archdeacon was dry, I had arrived at the conclusion that I had better not go on with it. I burned it.
Lalage’s meeting, held that night, was an immense success. The town hall was packed to its utmost capacity and I am told that Lalage spoke very well indeed. She certainly had a good subject and a fine opportunity. Vittie, O’Donoghue, and I were all in bed. Our chief supporters, Titherington and the others, were helpless, with temperatures ranging from 102 to 105 degrees. But even if we had all been quite well and in full possession of our fighting powers we could not have made any effective defence against Lalage. She had an astonishingly good case. Titherington, for instance, might have talked his best, but he could not have produced even a plausible explanation of those two letters of ours on the temperance question. O’Donoghue was in a worse case. He had made statements about budgets and things of that kind which Lalage’s favourite word only feebly describes. Vittie, apart altogether from any question of the genuineness of his influenza, was in the narrowest straits of us all. He appears to have lied with an abandon and a recklessness far superior to O’Donoghue’s or mine. Lalage, so I heard afterward, spent an hour and a half denouncing us and devoted about two-thirds of the time to Vittie. His aunts must have had a trying time with him that night unless McMeekin came to their rescue with an unusually powerful sleeping draught.
What Lalage said did not keep me awake; but the immediate results of her meeting broke in upon a sleep which I needed very badly. My nurse left me for the night and I dropped off into a pleasant doze. I dreamed, I recollect, that the Archdeacon was bringing me bottles of whiskey in Titherington’s bag and that Hilda was standing beside me with the key. I was roused, just as I was about to open the bag, by a terrific noise of bands in the streets. It was nearly eleven o’clock, and even during elections, bands at that hour are unusual. Besides, the bands which I heard were playing more confusedly than even the most excited bands do. It occurred to me that there might possibly be a riot going on and that the musicians were urging forward the combatants. I crawled out of bed and stumbled across the room. I was just in time to see a torchlight procession passing my hotel. The night was windy and the torches flared most successfully, giving quite enough light to make everything plainly visible.
At the head of the procession were two bands a good deal mixed up together. I at once recognized the uniform of the Loyal True Blue Fife and Drums, whose members were my supporters to a man, and who possess many more drums than fifes. The bright-green peaked caps of the other players told me that they were the Wolfe Tone Invincible Brass Band. It usually played tunes favourable to O’Donoghue. Vittie did not own a band. If his supporters had been musical, and if there had been any tunes in the world which expressed their political convictions, there would, no doubt, have been three bands in the procession. The True Blues and the Wolfe Tones were, when they passed me, playing different tunes. In every other respect the utmost harmony prevailed between them. The chief drummer of the True Blues and the cornet player of the Wolfe Tones stopped just under my windows to exchange instruments, an act of courtesy which must be unparalleled in Irish history. I was not able to hear distinctly what sort of attempt my supporter made at the cornet part of “God Save Ireland.” But O’Donoghue’s friend beat time to “The Protestant Boys” on the drum with an accuracy quite surprising considering that he cannot often have practised the tune. Behind the bands closely surrounded by torch bearers came a confused crowd of men dragging and pushing a wagonette, from which the horses had been taken. In the wagonette were Lalage and Hilda. Lalage was standing up in the driver’s seat, a most perilous position. She had in one hand a large roll of white ribbon, the now well-known symbol of the Association for the Suppression of Public Lying, and in her other hand a pair of scissors. She snipped off bits of the ribbon and allowed them to go fluttering away from her in the wind. The crowd scrambled eagerly for them, and it was plain that the association was enrolling members in hundreds. Hilda seemed less happy. She was crouching in the body of the wagonette and looked frightened. Perhaps she was thinking of her mother. I crept back to bed when the procession had passed and felt deeply thankful that I was laid up with influenza. Lalage’s meeting was, without doubt, an unqualified success.
Newspapers are, as a rule, busy enough about what happens even in quite obscure constituencies during by-elections. If ours had been one of those occasional contests the subject of public lying, Lalage’s portrait and the story of the two bands men would have been quite familiar to all readers. During a general election very few details of particular campaigns can be printed. Editors are kept busy enough chronicling the results and keeping up to date the various clocks, ladders, kites and other devices with which they inform their readers of the state of parties. I was therefore quite hopeful that our performances in Ballygore would escape notice. They did not. Some miserably efficient and enterprising reporter strayed into the town on the very evening of Lalage’s meeting and wrote an account of her torchlight procession. The whole thing appeared next morning in the paper which he represented. Other papers copied his paragraphs, and very soon hundreds of them in all parts of the three kingdoms were making merry over the plight of the candidates who lay in bed groaning while a piratical young woman took away their characters. I did not in the least mind being laughed at. I have always laughed at myself and am quite pleased that other people should share my amusement. But I greatly feared that complications of various kinds would follow the publicity which was given to our affairs. Vittie almost certainly, O’Donoghue probably, would resent being made to look ridiculous. Hilda’s mother and the Archdeacon might not care for the way in which Lalage emphasized the joke.
My fellow candidates were the first to object. I received letters from them both, written by secretaries and signed very shakily, asking me to cooperate with them in suppressing Lalage. O’Donoghue, who was apparently not quite so ill as Vittie was, also suggested that we should publish, over our three names, a dignified rejoinder to the mirth of the press. He enclosed a rough draft of the dignified rejoinder and invited criticism and amendment from me. My proper course of action was obvious enough. I made my nurse reply with a bulletin, dictated by me, signed by her and McMeekin, to the effect that I was too ill to read letters and totally incapable of answering them. I gave McMeekin twenty-five pounds for medical attendance up to date, just before I asked him to sign the bulletin. I also presented the nurse with a brooch of gold filagree work, which I had brought home with me from Portugal, intending to give it to my mother. It would have been churlish of them, afterward, to refuse to sign my bulletin.
This disposed of Vittie and O’Donoghue for the time. But I knew that there was more trouble before me. I was scarcely surprised when Canon Beresford walked into my room one evening at about nine o’clock. He looked harassed, shaken, and nervous. I asked him at once if he were an influenza convalescent.
“No,” he said, “I’m not. I wish I were.”
“There are worse things than influenza. I used not to think so at first, but now I know there are. Why don’t you get it? I suppose you’ve come to see me in hope of infection.”
“No. I came to warn you. We’ve just this moment arrived and you may expect us on you to-morrow morning.”
“You and the Archdeacon?”
“No. Thank goodness, nothing so bad as that. The Archdeacon is at home.”
“I wonder at that. I fully expected he’d have been here.”
“He would have been if he could. He wanted to come, but of course it was impossible. You heard I suppose, that the bishop is dead.”
“No, I didn’t hear. Influenza?”
“Pneumonia, and that ties the Archdeacon.”
“What a providential thing! But you said ‘we.’ Is Thormanby here?”
“No, Thormanby told me yesterday that he’d washed his hands of the whole affair.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve done,” I said. “It’s by far the most sensible thing to do. I wonder you didn’t.”
“I tried to,” said the Canon piteously. “I did my best. I have engaged a berth on a steamer going to Brazil, one that hasn’t got a wireless telegraphic installation, and I’ve secured alocum tenensfor the parish. But I shan’t be able to go. You can guess why.”
“The Archdeacon?”
The Canon nodded sadly. I did not care to make more inquiries about the Archdeacon.
“Well,” I said, “if neither he nor Thormanby is with you, who is?”
“Miss Battersby for one. She volunteered.”
I felt relieved. Miss Battersby is never formidable.
“She won’t matter,” I said. “Lalage and Hilda will put her to bed and keep her there. That’s what they did with her on the way to Lisbon.”
“And Miss Pettigrew,” said the Canon.
“How on earth does she come to be mixed up in it?”
“Your mother telegraphed to her and begged her to come down with us to see what she could do. She’s supposed to have some influence with Lalage.”
“What sort of woman is she? I don’t know her personally. Lalage says she’s the kind of person that you hate and yet can’t help rather loving, although you’re afraid of her. Is that your impression of her?”
“She has a strongly developed sense of humour,” said the Canon, “and I’m afraid she’s rather determined.”
“What do you expect to do?”
“I don’t myself expect to do anything,” said the Canon.
“I meant to say what is the ostensible object of the expedition?”
“The Archdeacon spoke of our rescuing Lalage from an equivocal position.”
“You ought to make that man bishop,” I said.
“Miss Battersby kept on assuring us all the way down in the train that Lalage is a most lovable child, very gentle and tractable if taken the right way, but high spirited.”
“That won’t help her much, because she’s no nearer now than she was ten years ago to finding out what is the right way to take Lalage. What are Miss Pettigrew’s views?”
“She varies,” said the Canon, “between chuckling over your position and wishing that Lalage was safely married with some babies to look after. She says there’ll be no peace in Ireland until that happens.”
“That’s an utterly silly scheme. There’s nobody here to marry her except Vittie, and I’m perfectly certain his aunts wouldn’t let him. He has two aunts. If that is all Miss Pettigrew has to suggest she might as well have stopped at home.”
The Canon sighed.
“I’m afraid I must be going,” he said, “I promised Miss Pettigrew that I’d be back in half an hour. We’re going to see Lalage at once.”
“Lalage will be in bed by the time you get there; if she’s not organizing another torchlight procession. You’d far better stop where you are.”
“I’d like to, but——”
“You can get a bed here and send over for your things. Your two ladies are in the other hotel, I suppose.”
“Yes. We knew you were here and Miss Battersby seemed a little afraid of catching influenza, so we went to the other.”
“That’s all right. You’ll be quite safe for the night if you stop here.”
“I wish I could, but——”
“You’ll not do any good by talking to Lalage. You know that.”
“I know that of course; but——”
“It won’t be at all pleasant for you when Miss Pettigrew comes out with that plan of hers for marrying Lalage to Vittie. There’ll be a horrid row. From what I know of Lalage I feel sure that she’ll resent the suggestion. There’ll be immense scope for language in the argument which follows and they’ll all feel freer to speak out if there isn’t a church dignitary standing there listening.”
“I know all that, but still——”
“You don’t surely mean to say that youwantto go and wrangle with Lalage?”
“Of course not. I hate that kind of thing and always did; but——”
“Out with it, Canon. You stick at that ‘but’ every time.”
“I promised Miss Pettigrew I’d go back.”
“Is that all?”
“Not quite. The fact is—you don’t know Miss Pettigrew, so you won’t understand.”
“You’re afraid of her?” I said.
“Well, yes, I am. Besides, the Archdeacon said some stiff things to me before we started, uncommonly stiff things. Stiff isn’t the word I want, but you’ll probably know what I mean.”
“Prickly,” I suggested.
“Yes, prickly. Prickly things about the responsibility of fatherhood and the authority of parents. I really must go.”
“Very well. If you must, you must, of course. But don’t drag me into it. Remember that I’ve got influenza and if Miss Pettigrew and Miss Battersby come here I’ll infect them. I rely on you to nip in the bud any suggestion that I’ve anything to do with the affair one way or the other. I tell you plainly that I’d rather see Lalage heading a torchlight procession every day in the week than married to Vittie.”
“The Archdeacon says that you are the person chiefly responsible for what he calls Lalage’s compromising position.”
“The Archdeacon may say what he likes. I’m not responsible. Good heavens, Canon, how can you suppose for an instant that anybody could, be responsible for Lalage?”
“I didn’t suppose it. I was only quoting the Archdeacon.”
“I wish to goodness the Archdeacon would mind his own business!”
“That’s what he’s doing,” said the Canon. “If he wasn’t he’d be here now. He wanted to come. If the poor old bishop had held out another week he would have come.”
The Canon left me after that.
I fully expected a visit from Miss Pettigrew in the course of the next day. I was not disappointed. She arrived at three o’clock, bringing the Canon with her. I was greatly impressed by her appearance. She has bright eyes which twinkled, and she holds her head very straight, pushed well back on her shoulders so that a good deal of her neck is visible below her chin. I felt at once that she was the sort of woman who could do what she liked at me. I attempted my only possible line of defence.
“Aren’t you afraid of influenza?” I said. “Is it wise——?”
“I’m not in the least afraid,” said Miss Pettigrew.
“Not for yourself, of course,” I said. “But you might carry it back to Miss Battersby. I’m horribly infectious just now. Even the nurse washes herself in Condy’s Fluid after being near me.”
“Miss Battersby must take her chance like the rest of us. I’ve come to talk about Lalage.”
“I told the Canon last night,” I said, “that I’m not capable of dealing with Lalage. I really am not. I know because I’ve often tried.”
“Listen to me for a minute,” said Miss Pettigrew. “We’ve got to get Lalage out of this. I’m not given to taking conventional views of things and I’m the last woman in Ireland to want to make girls conform to the standard of what’s called ladylikeness. But Lalage has gone too far. The newspapers are full of her and that’s not good for any girl.”
“I’m sure,” I said, “that if you represent that view of the case to Lalage——”
“We have. We spent two hours with her last night and three hours this morning. We didn’t produce the slightest effect.”
“Hilda cried,” said the Canon.
“After all,” I said, “that’s something. I couldn’t have made Hilda cry.”
“Hilda doesn’t count,” said Miss Pettigrew. “She’s a dear girl but anybody could manage her. We didn’t make Lalage cry.”
“No,” I said, “you couldn’t, of course. In fact, I expect, Lalage made you laugh.”
Miss Pettigrew smiled and then checked herself. Amusement struggled with a certain grimness for expression on her face. In the end she smiled again.
“Lalage has always made me laugh,” she said, “ever since she was quite a little girl. That’s what makes it so difficult to manage her.”
“Why try?” I said. “Lord Thormanby has washed his hands of her. So have I. The Canon wants to. Wouldn’t it be simpler if you did too?”
“It would be much simpler,” said Miss Pettigrew. “But I’m not going to do it. I have a very strong affection for Lalage.”
“We all have,” I said. “No one, not even the Canon has a stronger affection than I have; but I don’t see how that helps us much. Something more is required. If sincere affection would have saved Lalage from the equivocal position in which she now is——”
Miss Pettigrew looked at me in a curious way which made me feel hot and very uncomfortable even before I understood what she was thinking about. Her eyes twinkled most brilliantly. The smile which had hovered about her lips before broadened. I recollected what the Canon told me the night before. Miss Pettigrew had suggested marriage for Lalage. I had at once thought of Vittie. Miss Pettigrew was not thinking of Vittie. I felt myself getting red in the face as she looked at me.
“I couldn’t,” I said at last. “This influenza has completely unstrung me. I shouldn’t have the nerve. You must admit, Miss Pettigrew, that it would require nerve.”
“I’m not suggesting your doing it to-day,” said Miss Pettigrew.
“Nor any other day,” I said. “I shouldn’t be able to screw myself up to the pitch. I’m not that kind of man at all. What you want is some one more of the Young Lochinvar type, or a buccaneer. They’re all dashing men who shrink from nothing. Why not advertise for a buccaneer?”
“I don’t suppose she’d marry you if you did ask her,” said Miss Pettigrew.
“I am sure she wouldn’t, so we needn’t go on talking about that. Won’t you let me ring and get you a cup of tea? They make quite good tea in this hotel!”
“It’s too early for tea, and I want to discuss this business of Lalage’s seriously. The position has become quite impossible.”
“It’s been that for more than a week—but it still goes on. That’s the worst of impossible positions. Nobody can ever stop them. Titherington said it was impossible the day before he got influenza. You don’t know Titherington, nor does the Canon. But if you did you’d realize that he’s not the kind of man to let an impossible position alone and yet he was baffled. I had letters yesterday morning from Vittie and O’Donoghue asking me to cooperate with them in suppressing Lalage They see that the position is impossible just as plainly as you do. But they can’t do anything. In fact they’ve gone to bed.”
“I’m not going to bed,” said Miss Pettigrew. “I’m going to bring Lalage home with me.”
“How?”
“I rather hoped,” said Miss Pettigrew, “that you might have some suggestion that would help us.”
“I made my only suggestion to Titherington a week ago and it didn’t come off. There’s no use my making it again!”
“What was it? Perhaps I could work it out.”
“It wasn’t much of a suggestion really. It was only Hilda’s mother.”
“I’ve wired to her and she’ll be here to-morrow. I’ve no doubt that she’ll carry off Hilda, but she has no authority over Lalage.”
“Nobody has,” said the Canon despondingly. “I’ve said that all along.”
“What about the Provost of Trinity College?” I said. “He tackled her over the bishops. You might try him.”
“He won’t interfere,” said the Canon. “I asked him.”
“Well,” I said, “I can do no more. You can see for yourself, Miss Pettigrew, that I’m not in a state to make suggestions. I’m completely exhausted already and any further mental exertion will bring on a relapse. Do let me ring for tea. I want it myself.”
The door opened as I spoke. I hoped that my nurse or McMeekin had arrived and would insist on my being left in peace. I was surprised and, in spite of my exhaustion, pleased to see Lalage and Hilda walk in.
“Father,” said Lalage, “why didn’t you tell me last night that the bishop is dead?”
“I didn’t think it would interest you,” said the Canon.
“Of course it interests me. When poor old Pussy mentioned it to me just now I simply hopped out of my shoes with excitement and delight. So did Hilda.”
“Did you hate the bishop that much?” I asked. “Worse than other bishops?”
“Not at all,” said Lalage. “I never saw him except once and then I thought he was quite a lamb.”
“Hilda,” I said, “why did you hop out of your shoes with excitement and delight when you heard of the death of an old gentleman who never did you any harm?”
“We’ll have to elect another, won’t we?” said Lalage.
A horrible dread turned me quite cold. I glanced at Miss Pettigrew. Her eyes had stopped twinkling. I read fear, actual fear, in the expression of her face. We both shrank from saying anything which might lead to the confirming of our worst anticipations. It was the Canon who spoke next. What he said showed that he was nearly desperate.
“Lalage,” he said, “will you come with me for a tour to Brazil? I’ve booked one berth and I can easily get another!”
“I can’t possibly go to Brazil,” said Lalage, “and you certainly ought not to think of it till the bishopric election is over.”
“I’ll take Hilda, too,” said the Canon. “I should like to have Hilda. You and she would have great fun together.”
“I’ll give Selby-Harrison a present of his ticket,” I added, “and pay his hotel expenses. It would be a delightful trip.”
“Brazil,” said Miss Pettigrew, “is one of the most interesting countries in the world. I can lend you a book on the natural history.”
“Hilda’s mother wouldn’t let her go,” said Lalage. “Would she, Hilda?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Hilda. “She thinks I ought to be more at home.”
“Miss Pettigrew will talk her over,” I said. “It’s a great chance for Hilda. She oughtn’t to miss it.”
“And Selby-Harrison has just entered the Divinity School,” said Lalage. “He couldn’t possibly afford the time.”
“The long days on the steamer,” I said, “would be perfectly invaluable to him. He could read theology from morning to night. There’d be nothing, except an occasional albatross, to distract his attention.”
“Those South American republics,” said Miss Pettigrew, “are continually having revolutions.”
Miss Pettigrew is certainly a very clever woman. Her suggestion was the first thing which caused Lalage to waver. A revolution must be very attractive to a girl of her temperament; and revolutions are comparatively rare on this side of the Atlantic. Lalage certainly hesitated.
“What do you think, Hilda?” she asked.
For one moment I dared to hope.
“There’s been a lot of gun-running done out there lately,” I said, “and I heard of a new submarine on the Amazon.”
I am afraid I overdid it. Miss Pettigrew certainly frowned at me.
“Mother would never let me,” said Hilda.
I had forgotten Hilda’s mother for the moment. I saw at once that the idea of gun-running would frighten her and she would not like to think of her daughter ploughing the bottom of the Amazon in a submarine.
“Besides,” said Lalage, “it wouldn’t be right. It’s our duty, our plain duty, to see this bishopric election through. I’m inclined to think that the Archdeacon is the proper man.”
“When do you start for the scene of action?” I asked.
“At once,” said Lalage. “There’s a train at six o’clock this evening. We left poor Pussy packing her bag and ran round to tell Miss Pettigrew about the change in our plans. I’m dead sick of this old election of yours, anyhow. Aren’t you?”
“I am,” I said fervently. “I’m so sick of it that I don’t care if I never stand for Parliament again. By the way, Lalage, now that you’re turning your attention to church affairs wouldn’t it be as well to change the name of the society again. You might call it the Episcopal Election Association. E. E. A. would look well at the head of your notepaper and might be worked up into a monogram.”
“I daresay we shall make a change,” said Lalage, “but if we do we’ll be a guild, not a society or an association. Guild is the proper word for anything connected with the church, or high-class furniture, or art needlework. Selby-Harrison will look into the matter for us. But in any case it will be all right about you. You’ll still be a life member. Come along, Hilda. We have a lot of people to see before we start. I have to give out badges to about fifty new members.”
“Will that be necessary now?” I asked.
“Of course. If anything, more.”
“But if you’re changing the name of the society?”
“That won’t matter in the least. Do come on, Hilda. We shan’t have time if you dawdle on here. In any case Pussy will have to pack our clothes for us.”
They swept out of the room. Miss Pettigrew got up and shut the door after them. The Canon was too much upset to move.
“I congratulate you, Miss Pettigrew,” I said. “You’ve succeeded after all in getting Lalage out of this. I hardly thought you would.”
“This,” said the Canon, “is worse, infinitely worse.”
“I’m not quite sure,” said Miss Pettigrew, “about the procedure in these cases. Who elects bishops?”
“The Diocesan Synod,” I said. “Isn’t that right, Canon?”
“Yes,” he said, gloomily.
“And who constitutes the Diocesan Synod?” said Miss Pettigrew.
“A lot of parsons,” I said. “All the parsons there are, and some dear old country gentlemen of blameless lives. Just the people really to appreciate Lalage.”
“We shall have more trouble,” said Miss Pettigrew.
“Plenty,” I said. “And Thormanby will be in the thick of it. He won’t find it so easy to wash his hands this time.”
“Nor will you,” said Miss Pettigrew smiling, but I think maliciously.
“I shall simply stay here,” I said, “and go on having influenza.”
I have so much respect for Miss Pettigrew that I do not like to say she grinned at me but she certainly employed a smile which an enemy might have described as a grin.
“The election here,” she said, “your election takes place, as I understand, early next week. Your mother will expect you home after that.”
“Mothers are often disappointed,” I said. “Look at Hilda’s, for instance. And in any case my mother is a reasonable woman. She’ll respect a doctor’s certificate, and McMeekin will give me that if I ask him.”
The Canon had evidently not been attending to what Miss Pettigrew and I were saying to one another. He broke in rather abruptly:
“Is there any other place more attractive than Brazil?”
He was thinking of Lalage, not of himself. I do not think he cared much where he went so long as he got far from Ireland.
“There are, I believe,” I said, “still a few cannibal tribes left in the interior of Borneo. There are certainly head hunters there.”
“Dyaks,” said Miss Pettigrew.
“I might try her with them,” said the Canon.
“If Miss Pettigrew,” I suggested, “will manage Hilda’s mother, the thing might possibly be arranged. Selby-Harrison could practise being a missionary.”
“I shouldn’t like Hilda to be eaten,” said Miss Pettigrew.
“There’s no fear of that,” I said. “Lalage is well able to protect her from any cannibal.”
“I’ll make the offer,” said the Canon. “Anything would be better than having Lalage attempting to make speeches at the Diocesan Synod.”
Miss Pettigrew had her packing to do and left shortly afterward. The Canon, who seemed to be really depressed, sat on with me and made plans for Lalage’s immediate future. From time to time, after I exposed the hollow mockery of each plan, he complained of the tyranny of circumstance.
“If only the bishop hadn’t died,” he said.
The dregs of the influenza were still hanging about me. I lost my temper with the Canon in the end.
“If only,” I said, “you’d brought up Lalage properly.”
“I tried governesses,” he said, “and I tried school.”
“The only thing you did not try,” I said, “was what the Archdeacon recommended, a firm hand.”
“The Archdeacon never married,” said the Canon. “I’m often sorry he didn’t. He wouldn’t say things like that if he had a child of his own.”