I looked at my watch as I got into my trap and found that it was eleven o’clock, not more than two hours since my uncle’s letter had been handed to me at the breakfast table. Yet I felt thoroughly tired. No one who has only just recovered from influenza ought to be called upon to face a crisis. At the best of times a crisis of any magnitude is too much for me. When I am weak anything of the sort exhausts me rapidly. It is most unfair that I should be beset with crises as I am. Other men, men who like excitement and unexpected calls for exertion, are condemned to years of unbroken monotony. I, who desire nothing so much as peace, have tumult and turmoil thrust upon me. I drove down the long avenue of Thormanby Park and determined to get home as quickly as possible. There is a greenhouse at the bottom of our garden which at that time was quite unfrequented because something had gone wrong with the heating apparatus and the more delicate plants had been removed from it. I intended to retire to it as soon as I got home with a hammock chair and a novel. I had every hope of being left in peace for an hour or so.
That was my plan. It proved, as all my plans do, unworkable; but, as is always the case, through no fault of my own. At the gate lodge of Thormanby Park I met Lalage. She was riding a bicycle and jumped down as soon as she saw me. I pulled up my pony, of course. Even if Lalage had not jumped down I should have pulled up the pony. Lalage is a sure harbinger of trouble. Crises attend her course through life. Yet I cannot help stopping to talk to her when I get the chance. I suppose I am moved by some obscure instinct which makes me wish to know the worst in store for me as soon as possible.
“I’m darting on,” said Lalage, “to secure Pussy Battersby, but I stopped for a moment to tell you to go straight to the rectory.”
“You can’t get Miss Battersby now. She’s settling flowers.”
“I must. She’s of the utmost importance. I must bring her back with me.”
“Has the Archdeacon arrived unexpectedly?”
“No. What on earth put that into your head? Good-bye.”
“Wait a minute, Lalage. Take my advice and don’t go on. It’s not safe. My uncle is threatening you with all sorts of violence. You can guess the sort of temper he’s in.”
“Gout?”
“No. Your letter.”
“My letter? Oh, yes. I’d forgotten that letter for the moment. You mean the one I wrote to him about the Archdeacon’s marriage.”
“Now you know why you’d better not go near him for a day or two.”
“Silly old ass, isn’t he, to lose his temper about that? But I can’t stop to argue. I must get Pussy Battersby at once. There isn’t a moment to spare.”
“If the Archdeacon hasn’t turned up, what on earth do you want her for?”
“The fact is,” said Lalage, “that Hilda’s mother is at the rectory.”
“I thought she’d arrive some day. You couldn’t expect to keep her at bay forever. The wonder is that she didn’t come long ago.”
“She travelled by the night mail and was rather dishevelled when she arrived, hair a bit tousled, a smut on the end of her nose and a general look of crinklyness about her clothes. Hilda has been in floods of tears and sobbing like a steam engine all morning.”
“I don’t wonder at all. Any nice-minded girl would. It can’t be pleasant for her to see her mother in such a state.”
“Don’t drivel,” said Lalage. “Hilda isn’t crying for that. She’s not a perfect idiot, whatever you may say.”
“I didn’t say anything of the sort. I said she was a nice-minded girl.”
“Same thing,” said Lalage, “and she’s not either the one or the other.”
“Then why is she crying?”
“Because her mother is taking her home. That’s the reason I’m going for Pussy Battersby.”
“She’ll be a poor substitute for Hilda,” I said. “She’ll boggle at simony every time.”
“What are you talking about now?”
“Miss Battersby. I’m trying to explain that she’ll hardly be able to take Hilda’s place as the companion of your revels.”
“What I’m getting her for,” said Lalage severely, “is to restore the confidence of Hilda’s mother. She doesn’t trust me one bit, silly of her, isn’t it? And she’s ragged poor father into a condition of incoherence.”
“Will Miss Battersby be any use? I should hardly have thought her the sort of person who would deal successfully with a frantic mother.”
“She’s tremendously respectable,” said Lalage, “and Hilda’s mother will have absolute confidence in her the moment she sees her. Remember how she agreed to that Portugal trip once she knew Pussy was to be with us, and she hadn’t even seen her then. When I trot her out there’ll be absolutely no further trouble. Good-bye, I must be darting on.”
Lalage put her foot on the pedal and balanced the bicycle.
I stopped her again.
“You said something about my going to the rectory,” I said. “What am I to do when I get there?”
“Attend to Hilda’s mother of course.”
“Do you mean that I’m to take a basin of hot water and a sponge and wash her nose? I couldn’t possibly. I don’t know her nearly well enough. I’d hardly venture to do such a thing to Hilda herself.”
“I wasn’t thinking of the smut on her nose,” said Lalage. “What I want you to do is to keep her in play till I get back. I sha’n’t be long, but it’s not possible to start Pussy Battersby off on the first hop. She’ll want to titivate a little.”
“If you think I’ll be any use——”
“Of course you will. You’re very nearly as respectable to look at as Pussy Battersby.”
“I shall hate to see Hilda crying.”
“Then cheer her up. Good-bye for the present.”
This time Lalage really did mount the bicycle. I drove on in the direction of the rectory, turning over in my mind various plans for keeping Hilda’s mother in play. Some of them were very good plans which I think would have been successful, but I shall never be certain about that because I did not have the chance of putting them to the test.
A mile from the rectory gate I met a car. There was a good deal of luggage piled on the well, and two ladies sat together on one side. I recognized Hilda at once. The other lady I supposed, quite rightly, to be her mother. I ought, I saw afterward, to have made some effort, even at that eleventh hour, to keep her in play. I do not think I could have succeeded, but it was certainly my duty to try. My nerve unfortunately failed and I simply drove past, raising my hat and bowing sorrowfully to Hilda.
When the car was out of sight I stopped to consider my position. There was nothing to prevent my returning home at once and settling down, as I had originally planned, in the corner of the deserted greenhouse. My inclination was, of course, to do this, but it occurred to me that it would be a charitable and kindly action to comfort Canon Beresford. He had, so Lalage told me, been reduced to a condition of incoherence by the ragging of Hilda’s mother. He was also likely to have been a good deal distressed by the sight of Hilda’s tears and the sound of her sobs. He would probably be sorry to lose Hilda. In spite of anything Lalage might say I still believed Hilda to be a nice-minded girl, the sort of girl that any man would like to have staying in his house. For all three reasons the Canon would require sympathy and comfort. I drove on to the rectory.
There I had, once more, to reconsider my position. The Canon was comforting himself. He had, so the maid informed me, gone out fishing. My first impulse was to start for home with a sigh of relief. Then I remembered that some one would have to explain to Lalage and Miss Battersby that Hilda and her mother had really gone. The Canon would not be able to do this because he had gone out fishing before they left. The maid was obviously a stupid girl. It seemed to be my duty to wait for Lalage and tell her, soothingly, what had happened. I went into the Canon’s study and made myself comfortable with a pipe.
At about one o’clock Lalage arrived without Miss Battersby. She made no comment at first on the absence of Hilda’s mother. Her mind had evidently been turned away from that subject. She flung herself into a chair, and dragged furiously at the pins which fastened on her hat. When she had worked them loose she threw the hat itself on the floor.
“Great Scott!” she said. “I’ve had a time of it!”
“I rather thought you would.”
“Curious, isn’t it? For he can be a perfect pet when he likes. Glad I don’t get gout.”
“You know perfectly well that it wasn’t gout which was the matter with him this time.”
“It can’t have been all my letter, can it?”
“It was,” I said.
“Of course I wasn’t going to stand that sort of thing,” said Lalage.
“What sort of thing?”
“The way he talked, or, rather, tried to talk. I soon stopped him. That’s what makes me so hot. I wish you’d seen poor Pussy’s face. I was afraid every minute he’d mention her name and then she would have died of shame. That’s just the kind of thing which would make Pussy really ill.”
“What did you say to him?”
“I told him that it was his plain duty to put the matter before the Archdeacon and that if he didn’t do it I should simply get some one else and then he’d jolly well feel ashamed of himself and be afraid to look any one in the face for weeks and weeks. I didn’t mention that Pussy was the future wife, of course. I’m much too fond of her to hurt her feelings.”
I should have liked to hear a description of the expression on Miss Battersby’s face. I should also have liked to hear what my uncle said in reply to Lalage’s remarks, but I felt an anxiety so acute as greatly to dull my curiosity.
“Had you any one particular in your mind,” I asked, “when you said that you’d get somebody else to go to the Archdeacon?”
“Of course I had,” said Lalage. “You.”
“I was just afraid you might be thinking of that.”
“You’ll do it of course.”
“No,” I said, “I won’t. There are reasons which I gave to my uncle this morning which made it quite impossible for me——”
“You’re not thinking of marrying her yourself, are you?”
“Certainly not.”
“Then there can’t be any real reason——”
“Lalage,” I said, “there is. I don’t like to mention the subject to you; but the fact is——”
“If it’s anything disagreeable I’d much rather not hear it.”
“It is, very; though it’s not true.”
“You appear to me to be getting into a tangle,” said Lalage, “so you’d better not go on. If you’re afraid of the Archdeacon—and I suppose that is what your excuses will come to in the end—I’ll do it myself. After all, you’d most likely have made a mess of it.”
I bore the insult meekly. I was anxious, if possible, to persuade Lalage to drop the idea of marrying the Archdeacon to Miss Battersby.
“Remember your promise to my mother,” I said.
“I’ve kept it. I submitted the matter to Lord Thormanby just as I said I would. If he won’t act I can’t help it.”
“The Archdeacon will be frightfully angry.”
Lalage sniffed slightly. I could see that the thought of the Archdeacon’s wrath did not frighten her. I should have been surprised if it had. After facing Thormanby in the morning the Archdeacon would seem nothing. I adopted another line.
“Are you perfectly certain,” I said, “about that text? Don’t you think that if it’s really in the Bible the Archdeacon would have seen it?”
“He might have overlooked it,” said Lalage; “in fact, he must have overlooked it. If he’d come across it he’d have got married at once. Anybody can see that he wants to be a bishop.”
This seemed unanswerable. Yet I could not believe that the Archdeacon, who has been a clergyman for many years, could have failed to read the epistle in which the verse occurs. I made another effort.
“Most likely,” I said, “that text means something quite different.”
“It can’t. The words are as plain as possible.”
“Have you looked at the original Greek?”
“No, I haven’t. What would be the good of doing that? And, besides, I don’t know Greek.”
“Then you may be sure,” I said, “that the original Greek alters the whole thing. I’ve noticed hundreds of times that when a text seems to be saying anything which doesn’t work out in practice the original Greek sets it right.”
“I know that,” said Lalage. “At least I’ve often heard it. But it doesn’t apply to cases like this. What on earth else could this mean in the original Greek or any other language you like to translate it into? ‘A bishop is to be the husband of one wife.’ I looked it out myself to make sure that Selby-Harrison had made no mistake.”
The text certainly seemed uncompromising. I had talked bravely about the original Greek, but I doubted in my own mind whether even it would offer a loophole of escape for the Archdeacon.
“It may,” I said, desperately, “merely mean that a bishop mayn’t have two wives.”
“Do talk sense,” said Lalage. “What would be the point of saying that a bishop mayn’t have two? It’s hard enough to get a man like the Archdeacon to have one. Besides, if that’s what it means, then other people, not bishops, are allowed to have two wives, which is perfectly absurd. It would be bigamy and that’s far worse than what the Archdeacon said I’d done. Where’s Hilda?”
Lalage’s way of dismissing a subject of which she is tired is abrupt but unmistakable. I told her that Hilda and her mother had gone.
“That’s a pity,” said Lalage. “I should have liked to take Hilda with me this afternoon.”
“Are you going to do it so soon?”
“The election is next week,” said Lalage, “so we haven’t a moment to lose.”
“Well,” I said, “if you’re really going to do it, I shall be greatly obliged if you’ll let me know afterward exactly what the Archdeacon says.”
“I will if you like,” said Lalage, “but there won’t be anything to tell you. He’ll simply thank me for bringing the point under his notice.”
“I’m not a betting man, but if I were I’d wager a pretty large sum that whatever the Archdeacon does he won’t thank you.”
“Have you any reason to suppose that he has a special objection to Pussy Battersby?”
“None in the world. I’m sure he respects her. We all do.”
“Then I don’t see what you mean by saying that he won’t thank me. He’s a tiresome old thing, especially when he tries to be polite, which he’s always doing, but he’s not by any means a fool where his own interests are concerned. He’ll see at once that I’m doing him a kindness.”
I found nothing more to say, so I left Lalage. I had at all events, done my best. I drove home.
I was late for luncheon, very late. My mother had left the dining-room when I got home, but I found her and she readily agreed to leave the letters she was writing and to sit beside me while I ate. It was not, as I discovered, sympathy for my exhaustion and hunger which induced her to do this. She was full of curiosity.
“Well,” she said, as I helped myself to some cold pie, “what was it?”
“It was Lalage,” I said. “You guessed that before I started.”
There was a short pause during which I ate some of the cold pie and found out that it was made, partly at least, of veal. Then my mother asked another question:
“Has she hit on anything unexpected?”
“Quite. She wants Thormanby to insist on the Archdeacon marrying Miss Battersby.”
Even my mother was startled. She gave utterance to an exclamation. If she had been a man she would have sworn. I soothed her.
“It’s not really a bad scheme,” I said, “when you get over the first shock. The Archdeacon, it appears, is bound to marry.”
“Why?”
“Timothy says so or seems to say so. Perhaps he didn’t really. What is the proper, regularly received interpretation of that text which says that a bishop is to be the husband of one wife?”
“There are several.”
“The Archdeacon is sure to know them, I suppose.”
“Oh, yes. He’s certain to know them.”
“He’ll want them all this afternoon. Lalage is going to him with that text drawn in her hand. She’s also taking Miss Battersby, a wedding ring, a cake, and a white satin dress. I’m speaking figuratively of course.”
“I hope so. But however figurative your way of putting it may be, I’m afraid that the Archdeacon won’t be pleased.”
“So I told Lalage. But she’s quite certain that he will. I should say myself that he’d dislike it several degrees more than he did the simony. I often think it’s a pity the Archdeacon hasn’t any sense of humour.”
“No sense of humour would enable him to see that joke.”
“Thormanby,” I said, “has been employed all morning in writing letters and appealing telegrams to Miss Pettigrew; but even if she comes it will be too late.”
“I hope Miss Battersby hasn’t been told.”
“Not by Lalage. She felt that there would be a certain want of delicacy about mentioning the subject to her before the Archdeacon had spoken.”
My mother sighed.
“I’m very fond of Lalage,” she said, “but I sometimes wish she was——”
“That’s just what Miss Battersby was saying this morning. I quite agree with you both that life would be simpler if she was, but of course she isn’t.”
“What Lalage wants is some steadying influence.”
“Miss Pettigrew,” I said, “suggested marriage and babies. I don’t think she mentioned the number of babies, but several would be required.”
My mother looked at me in much the same curious way that Miss Pettigrew did on the afternoon when she and Canon Beresford visited me in Ballygore. I felt the same unpleasant sense of embarrassment. I finished my glass of claret hurriedly, and without waiting for coffee, which would probably have been cold, left the room.
I went about the house and made a collection of the articles I was likely to want during the afternoon. I got a hammock chair with a leg rest, four cushions, a pipe, a tin of tobacco, three boxes of matches, and a novel called “Sword Play.” With these in my arms I staggered across the garden and made for the nook to which I had been looking forward all day. A greenhouse which is not sacrificed to flowers is a very pleasant place at certain seasons of the year. In Spring, for instance, when the sun is shining, I am tempted to go out of doors. But in Spring there are cold winds which drive me in again. In a greenhouse the sun is available and the winds are excluded. If the heating apparatus is out of order, as it fortunately was in the case of my greenhouse, the temperature is warm without stuffiness. I shut the door, pulled a tree fern in a heavy pot out of my way, and then found out by experiment which of the angles of all at which a hammock chair can be set is the most comfortable. Then I placed my four cushions just where I like them, one under my head, one to give support to the small of my back, one under my knees, and one beside my left elbow. I lit my pipe and put the three boxes of matches in different places, so that when I lost one I should, while searching for it, be pretty sure of coming on another.
I opened my novel. It was about a gentleman of title who in his day was the best swordsman in Europe. He loved a scornful lady with great devotion. I read a hundred pages with dwindling attention and at last found that I had failed to be excited by the story of a prolonged duel fought on the brink of a precipice under the shadow of an ancient castle from the battlements of which the scornful lady was looking down. I was vexed with myself, for I ought to have enjoyed the scene. I turned back and read the whole chapter through a second time. Again I somehow missed the emotion of it. My mind kept wandering from the lunging figures on the edge of the cliff to a vision of Lalage in a dark green dress speeding along the road on her bicycle.
I laid down the novel and set myself the pleasant task of constructing imaginary interviews between Lalage and the Archdeacon. As a rule I enjoy the meanderings of my own imagination, and in this particular case I had provided it with material to work on much more likely to be entertaining than the gambols of the expert swordsman or the scorn of the lady above him. But my imagination failed me. It pictured Lalage well enough. But the Archdeacon, for some reason, would not take shape. I tried again and again with no better success. The image of the Archdeacon got fainter and fainter, until I could no longer visualize even his apron.
At some time, perhaps an hour after I had settled down, I went to sleep. I cannot fix, or make any attempt at fixing, the exact moment at which the conscious effort of my imagination passed into the unconscious romance building of dream. But I know that the Archdeacon totally disappeared, while Lalage, a pleasantly stimulating personality, haunted me. I may have slept for an hour, perhaps for an hour and a half. Looking back on the afternoon, and arranging its chronology to fit between two fixed points of time, I am certain that I did not sleep for more than an hour and a half. It was a few minutes after two o’clock when I sat down to luncheon. I am sure of this, because my mother’s eyes sought the clock on the chimney piece when we entered the dining-room together and mine followed them. It was half-past five when I saw her again in the drawing-room. I am equally sure of this because she kissed me three times rather effusively and I was obliged to look at my watch to hide my embarrassment. Between two o’clock and half-past five I lunched, smoked, read, slept, and played a part in certain other events. This makes it tolerably certain that I did not sleep for more than an hour and a half.
I was wakened by a most violent opening of the greenhouse door and a tempestuous rustling of the fronds of the tree fern which I had moved. Then Lalage burst upon me. My first impulse was to struggle out of my chair and offer it to her. She made a motion of excited refusal and I sank back again. I noticed, while she stood before me, that her face was unusually flushed. It seemed to me that she was passing through what McMeekin used to describe as a nerve storm. I leaped to the conclusion that the Archdeacon had not taken kindly to the idea of a marriage with Miss Battersby.
“How did it go off?” I asked.
“Where’s your mother?” said Lalage.
“She’s not here. You ought to know better than to expect her to be here. Is she the sort of person who’d waste an afternoon in a disused greenhouse? She’s probably doing something useful. Did you ask if she was covering pots of marmalade?”
“I’ve searched everywhere.”
“Never mind. She’s certain to turn up for tea.”
Lalage stamped her foot.
“I want her at once,” she said. “I want to talk to her.”
“I’m a very poor substitute for my mother, of course; but if you can’t find her——”
“I’ve something to tell her,” said Lalage; “something that I simply must tell to somebody.”
“I shall be delighted to listen.”
Lalage hesitated. She was drumming with her fingers on the edge of an empty flower pot as if she were playing a very rapid fantasia on the piano. This seemed to me a further symptom of nerve storm. I encouraged her to speak, as tactfully as I could.
“Has Miss Battersby,” I asked, “rebelled against her destiny?”
Lalage’s face suddenly puckered up in a very curious way. I should have supposed that she was on the verge of tears if there existed any record of her ever having shed tears. But no one, not even her most intimate friend ever heard of her crying; so I came to the conclusion that she wanted to laugh. I felt uneasy, for Lalage usually laughs without any preliminary puckerings of her face.
“Perhaps,” I said, “you’re thinking of the Archdeacon.”
“I am,” said Lalage.
She spoke with a kind of gulp which in the case of Hilda would certainly have been a premonitory symptom of tears.
“Did he make himself particularly disagreeable?”
Greatly to my relief Lalage laughed. It was an excited, unnatural laugh; and it was not very far from crying. Still it was a laugh.
“No,” she said. “He made himself particularly agreeable, too agreeable; at least he tried to.”
Then she laughed again and this time the laughing did her good. She became calmer and sat down on the edge of an iron water tank which stood in the corner of the greenhouse. I warned her of the danger of falling in backward. I also offered her one of my cushions to put on the edge of the tank, which looked to me hard. She laughed in reply. My cigarette case was, very fortunately, in my pocket. I fished it out and asked her if she would like to smoke. She took a cigarette and lit it. I could see that it helped to calm her still further.
“Go on with your story,” I said.
“Where was I?”
She spoke quite naturally. The laughter and the cigarette, between them, had saved her from the attack which for some time was threatening.
“You hadn’t actually begun,” I said. “You had only mentioned that the Archdeacon was, or tried to be, unusually, even excessively, agreeable.”
“He was writing letters in his study,” said Lalage, “when I knocked at the door and walked in on him. I apologized at once for interrupting him.”
“You were quite right to do that.”
“He said he didn’t mind a bit; in fact, liked it. Then he looked like a sheep. You know the sort of way a sheep looks?”
“Woolly?”
“Yes, frightfully, and worse. If I’d had a single grain of sense I should have bolted at once. Anybody might have known what was coming.”
“I shouldn’t. In fact, even now that I know something came, I can’t guess what it was.”
“Instead of bolting I brought out that text of Selby-Harrison’s. He took it like a lamb.”
“Woolly again, only a softer kind of wool.”
“No,” said Lalage, “just meekly; though of course he went on being woolly.”
“There are several authorized interpretations of that text. My mother told me so this afternoon. I suppose the Archdeacon trotted them all out one by one?”
“No. I told you he took it like a lamb. Why won’t you try to understand?”
“Anyhow,” I said, “his demeanour was most encouraging to you. I suppose you suggested Miss Battersby to him at once?”
“No, I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
Lalage hesitated again. She was not speaking with her usual fluency. I tried to help her out.
“Something in the glare of his eyes stopped you,” I said. “I have always heard that the human eye possesses remarkable power.”
“There was something in his eye,” said Lalage, “but not that.”
“It stopped you though, whatever it was.”
“No, it didn’t. I wish it had. I might have cleared out at once if it had.”
“If it wasn’t a glare, what was it? I can’t imagine a better opportunity for mentioning Miss Battersby.”
“He didn’t give me time.”
“Do you mean to say he pushed you out of the room?”
“No.”
“Did he swear? I once heard of an Archdeacon swearing under great provocation.”
“No.”
“I can’t guess any more, Lalage. I really can’t. You’ll have to tell me what it was.”
“He said he’d get married with pleasure.”
“But not to Miss Battersby. I’m beginning to see now. Who is the fortunate lady?”
“Me,” said Lalage.
“Good heavens, Lalage! You don’t mean to say you’re going to marry the Archdeacon?”
“You’re as bad as he was,” said Lalage angrily. “I won’t have such horrid things said to me. I don’t see why I should be insulted by every one I meet. I wish I hadn’t told you. I ought not to have told you. I ought to have gone on looking for your mother until I found her.”
I was immensely, unreasonably relieved. The idea of Lalage marrying the Archdeacon had been a severe shock to me.
“The Archdeacon’s proposal——” I said. “By the way, you couldn’t possibly have been mistaken about it, could you? He really did?”
Lalage blushed hotly.
“He did,” she said, “really.”
“That just shows,” I said, “what a tremendous impression you made on him with Selby-Harrison’s text.”
“It wasn’t the text at all. He said it had been the dearest wish of his heart for years. Can you imagine anything more silly?”
“I see now,” I said, “why he always took such an interest in everything you did and went out of his way to try to keep you from getting into mischief. I think better of the Archdeacon than I ever did before.”
“He’s a horrid old beast.’”
“You can’t altogether blame him, though.”
“I can.”
“You oughtn’t to, for you don’t know——”
“I do know.”
“No, you don’t. Not what I mean.”
“What do you mean? I don’t believe you mean anything.”
“You don’t know the temptation.”
Lalage stared at me.
“I’ve often felt it myself,” I said.
Lalage still stared. She was usually quick witted, but on this occasion she seemed to me to be positively dull. I suppose that the nerve storm through which she had passed had temporarily paralyzed the gray matter of her brain. I made an effort to explain myself.
“You must surely realize,” I said, “that the Archdeacon isn’t the only man in the world who would like—any man would—in fact every man must, unless he’s married already, and in that case he’s extremely sorry he can’t. I certainly do.”
Lalage grew gradually more and more crimson in the face while I spoke. At my last words she started violently, and for an instant I thought she was going to fall into the tank.
“Do be careful,” I said. “I don’t want to have to dive in after you and drag you, in a state of suspended animation, to the shore.”
Lalage recovered both her balance and her self-possession.
“Don’t you?” she said, with a peculiar smile.
“No, I don’t.”
“I should have thought,” she said, “that any man would. According to you every man must, unless he is married already, and then he’d be extremely sorry that he couldn’t.”
“In that sense of the words,” I said, “of course I do. Please fall in.”
“I daresay that the words don’t really mean what they seem to mean,” said Lalage. “Lots of those words don’t. I must look them out in the original Greek.”
After this our conversation became greatly confused. It had been slightly confused before. The reference to the original Greek completed the process. It seems to me, looking back on it now, that we sat there, Lalage on the edge of the water tank, I in my hammock chair, and flung illusive phrases and half finished sentences at each other, getting hot by turns, and sometimes both together. At last Lalage left me, quite as abruptly as she had come. I did not know what to make of the situation. There had been nothing but conversation between us. I always understood that under certain circumstances there is more than conversation, sometimes a great deal more. I picked up “Sword Play,” which lay on the ground beside me. It was the only authority to hand at the moment. I turned to the last chapter and found that the fencing professor and the haughty lady had not stopped short at conversation. When the lady finally unbent she did so in a very thorough way and things had passed between her and the gentleman which it made me hotter than ever to read about. I had not stirred from my chair nor Lalage from the edge of the tank while we talked. I was greatly perplexed. It was quite plain the history of the swordsman and his lady was not the only one which made me sure of this—that my love-making had not run the normal course. In every single record of such doings which I had ever read a stage had been reached at which the feelings of the performers had been expressed in action rather than in words. Lalage and I had not got beyond words, therefore I doubted whether I had really been love-making. I had certainly got no definite statement from Lalage. She had not murmured anything in low, sweet tones; nor had she allowed her head to droop forward upon my breast in a manner eloquent of complete surrender. I was far from blaming her for this omission. My hammock chair was adjusted at such an angle that unless she had actually stood on her head I do not see how she could have laid it against my breast, and if she had done that her attitude would have been far from eloquent, besides being most uncomfortable for me. Still the fact remained that I had not got by word or attitude any clear indication from Lalage that my love-making, supposing that I had been love-making, was agreeable to her.
Nor could I flatter myself that Lalage was any better off than I was. I had fully intended to make myself quite clear. The Archdeacon’s example had nerved me. I distinctly remembered the sensation of determining that this one crisis at least should be brought to a definite issue, but I was not at all sure that I had succeeded. The gentleman of title whose exploits filled the three hundred pages of “Sword Play” said: “I love you and have always loved you more than life”; and though he spoke in a voice which was hoarse with passion, his meaning must have been perfectly plain. I had not said, nor could I imagine that I ever should say, anything half so heroic. Had I said anything at all or was Lalage as perplexed as I was? This question troubled me, unnecessarily; for, as it turned out afterward, Lalage was not at all perplexed.
My mind concentrated on one question: Was I to consider myself as engaged to be married to Lalage? The phrase, with its flavour of vulgarity, set my teeth on edge; but no other way of expression occurred to me and I was too deeply anxious to spend time in pursuit of elegancies. It was absurd that I could not answer my question. A man ought to know whether he has or has not committed himself to a proposal of marriage. The Archdeacon, I felt perfectly certain, knew what he had done. And I ought to know whether Lalage had accepted or rejected the proposal. The Archdeacon can have had few if any doubts when Lalage left him. I made up my mind at last to lay the case before my mother. I determined to repeat to her, as nearly as possible, verbatim, the whole conversation which had taken place in the greenhouse. I knew that I should feel foolish while making these confidences. I should, indeed, appear positively ridiculous when I asked my mother to settle the question which troubled me. But my mother is extraordinarily sympathetic and, in any case, it was better to suffer as a fool than to continue to be the prey of perplexity. I sighed a little when I recollected that my mother had a keen sense of the ridiculous and that my dilemma was very likely indeed to appeal to it.
I found my mother in the drawing-room with the remains of afternoon tea still spread on a small table before her. I had just time to notice that two people had been drinking tea and that the second cup, balanced precariously on the arm of a chair, was half full. Then my mother crossed the room rapidly and kissed me three times. She may have done such a thing before. I think it likely that she did when I was a baby. She certainly never kissed me more than once at a time since I was old enough to remember what she did.
“I’m so delighted,” she said, “so very delighted. I can’t tell you how glad I am.”
This remark, taken in connection with the kisses which preceded it, could only have one meaning. I realized at once that I actually was going to marry Lalage. I was not exactly surprised, but the news was so very important that I felt it right to make absolutely certain of its truth.
“You’re quite sure, I suppose?” I said.
“Lalage has been here with me. She has only just gone.”
“Then we may regard it as settled.”
“You silly boy! Haven’t you been settling it for the last hour?”
“That’s exactly what I want to know. Have I? I mean to say, have we?”
“Lalage seems to think you have.”
“That’s all right then. She’d be sure to know.”
“How can you talk like that when you’ve arranged everything down to the minutest details?”
This startled me. I felt it necessary to ask for more information.
“Would you mind recapitulating the details? I’m a little confused about them.”
“You’re to wait till the Archdeacon is actually bishop,” said my mother, “and then he’s to marry you.”
“Is that your plan or Lalage’s?”
“Lalage’s, of course. I suppose it’s yours too.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “to find that Lalage is so vindictive. I hoped that she’d have been more ready to forgive and forget.”
“I know what you’re thinking about, because Lalage told me. She doesn’t mean to be vindictive in the least. She seemed to think——”
“Surely not that the Archdeacon will like it?”
“Hardly that; but that under the circumstances his feelings would be hurt if any one else was asked to perform the ceremony.”
“After all,” I said, “there’s still Miss Battersby. He can’t complain.”
“She’s to be a bridesmaid. So is Hilda, of course.”
“Selby-Harrison shall be best man,” I said.
“Oh!” said my mother, “I gathered from Lalage that you were to ask——”
“I know she doesn’t want me to get into touch with Selby-Harrison. I’ve been trying to make his acquaintance for years and she keeps on concealing him. But this time I’m determined. I’ll have Selby-Harrison or no one.”
“I gathered from Lalage that she’d prefer——”
“Very well,” I said, “I’ll have two best men. I don’t see why I shouldn’t. Who’s the other?”
“Lalage mentioned a Mr. Tithers.”
“Titherington is his name,” I said, “and if I have him I don’t see how I can very well leave out Vittie, O’Donoghue, and McMeekin. I don’t know how you feel about the matter, but I rather object to being made a public show of with five best men.”
“I’m so delighted about it,” said my mother, “that I don’t mind if you go on talking nonsense about it all the evening. Lalage will be exactly the wife you want. She’ll shake you up out of your lazy ways and make something of you in the end.”
“Has she settled that?”
“No. She and I are to have a long talk about that, sometime, soon.”
I was about to protest, when the door opened and Miss Battersby staggered breathlessly into the room. She was highly flushed and evidently greatly excited. She made straight for me. I thought she was going to kiss me, I still think that she meant to. I pushed my mother forward and got into a corner behind the tea table. Miss Battersby worked off the worst of her emotion on my mother. She must have kissed her eighteen or twenty times. After that she did not want to do more than to shake hands with me.
“Lalage has just told me,” she said, “and I’m so glad. I happened to be at the rectory when she came home. She had been looking for me in the morning, and as soon as I could I went over to her.”
“Has she telegraphed to Miss Pettigrew?” I asked.
“Not that I know of,” said Miss Battersby; “in fact, I’m sure she hasn’t.”
“Then I’ll do it myself. I don’t see why Lalage should be the only one to break the news. I’d send a wire to Hilda too if I knew her surname; but I’ve never been able to find that out. I wish she’d marry Selby-Harrison. Then I’d know how to address her when I want to telegraph or write to her.”
“Won’t you stay for dinner?” said my mother to Miss Battersby. “We can send you home afterward.”
“Oh, no. The car is waiting for me at the rectory. I told the man to put up. Lord Thormanby——”
“You might break it to him,” I said.
“He’ll be greatly delighted,” said Miss Battersby.
“No, he won’t,” I said. “At least I shall be very much surprised if he is. He told me this morning that I was to go and muzzle Lalage.”
“He didn’t mean it,” said Miss Battersby.
“Besides,” said my mother, “you will.”
I reflected on this. My mother and Miss Pettigrew are intimate friends. They must have talked over Lalage’s future together many times. I knew what Miss Pettigrew’s views were and I suspect that my mother was in full agreement with them. Owing to the emotional strain to which I had been subjected I may have been in a hypersensitive condition. I seemed to detect in my mother’s confident prophecy an allusion to Miss Pettigrew’s plans. Women, even women like my mother, are greatly wanting in delicacy. I was so much afraid of her saying something more on the subject that I bade Miss Battersby good-bye, hurriedly, and left the room.
After dinner my mother again took up the subject of my engagement.
“You’ll have to go over and see Canon Beresford early to-morrow morning,” she said.
“Of course. But I know what he’ll say to me.”
“I’m sure he’ll be as pleased as I am,” said my mother.
“He won’t say so.”
My mother looked questioningly at me. I answered her.
“He’ll quote that line of Horace,” I said, “about aplacens uxor, but it won’t be true.”
“What does that mean?”
“A placid wife,” I said, “a gentle, quiet, peaceable sort of wife, who sits beside the fire and knits, purring gently. When he has finished that quotation he’ll blow his nose and give me the piece out of Epictetus about the ‘price of tranquillity.’ He’ll mean by that, that sorry as he is to lose Lalage, the future will hold some compensating joys. He won’t be obliged to dart off at a moment’s notice to Wick, or Brazil, or Borneo. The Canon is, after all, a thoroughly selfish man. He won’t care a bit about something being made of me by Lalage, and if I try to explain my position to him he’ll go out fishing at once.”