Canon Alington had just returned from a ten days’ holiday, which he had
spent in yachting in the calm and pleasant waters of the Solent. He had
been in extreme health and vigour before he started, but when he came
back a week after Hugh and Edith had come down to Mannington again, he
felt it had quite set him up. His wife had written to him every day
during his absence, giving news of Ambrose and Perpetua, and the sweet
peas and had mentioned the arrival of the Graingers. This was _à propos_
of the Literific, as it was now quite generally called by the members of
the Society, and Mrs. Grainger, who with her husband had been
unanimously elected in the course of the last winter, had promised to
read them a paper at their June meeting, to which the members looked
forward very much, since it was, of course, widely known that she was
the author of “Gambits,” and something very advanced might be expected.
The Canon had arrived late on Saturday evening, and he and his wife had
had a great deal to talk about. His life on the sea had made quite a
sailor of him, and when they sat in his study after dinner, he had been
distinctly nautical. The double herbaceous bed, lying on each side of
the path, for instance, had been under discussion, and when Canon
Alington asked whether the delphiniums on the left of the path were
getting on well, he alluded to the left as the port side. He corrected
her, too, about the position of a purple clematis whose health had been
indifferent when he went away. There were several climbing up the
trellis work behind the bower, but the starboard clematis was the one he
was anxious about. “Just close to the gate,” he said--“forward on the
starboard. I shall have a lot of leeway to make up next week. And is
everything a-low and aloft drawing well?”
Agnes moved from the sofa where she sat to a chair close at his elbow.
“Ah! that’s more ship-shape, dear,” said Canon Alington. “Now, do you
know, though it all looks so smooth, hasn’t the glass fallen with you,
somehow, Agnes, since I went away? But your skipper is ready, dear; give
him his orders.”
“I am rather troubled,” said she.
“I knew it. Now, what about?”
“About Edith. She was going to read a paper, you know, next week at the
Literific.”
“And can’t she?” asked Dick, searching in his mind for a subject on
which he might be able to “knock them up something” to take the place of
Edith’s paper. He found, even before Agnes answered, that the Literific
need have no anxiety as to a postponed meeting, for he had enjoyed many
hours of fruitful meditation on the yacht.
“Yes, she can. That is just it,” said Agnes. “She has told me what the
subject of the paper is to be. Oh, Dick----”
Canon Alington held up his hand to stop her. It was a rule of the
Literific that the subject of the paper should not be public property
until the notice of the meeting was sent out by the secretary, who was
Mrs. Alington. Consequently until the Canon received his card (headed by
a facsimile of an Athenian coin with the owl of Pallas lithographed on
it), bearing in his wife’s neat handwriting the date of the meeting,
the name of the lecturer, and the subject of the lecture, he had no
business to know what it was to be. So he held up his hand.
“You have not sent out the cards yet?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then I don’t think you must tell me what the subject is.”
Mrs. Alington looked more troubled, and more like Ambrose. “But I do not
think I agree,” she said. “What was your phrase two Sundays ago about
the final test of what we should do in difficulties, how we should put
it to the lodestone of conscience.”
“No, dear, touchstone.”
“Touchstone, yes. Well, I have put it to the touchstone of conscience,
and my conscience tells me that I ought to consult you about it. I don’t
think it is possible for the Literific to assemble and hear Mrs.
Grainger’s paper.”
Canon Alington looked up in surprise, and his wife instantly, and
correctly, interpreted the look.
“Yes, I can’t call her Edith on this point,” she said. “Personally, I
should not think of going to hear it, nor, I am sure, would you. Now,
the notices must go out on Monday, and if once they go out I don’t see
where it will all end. They mustn’t go out--all Mannington mustn’t know
the subject on which Mrs. Grainger proposes to read to us. Besides, no
discussion could be possible on the subject, and discussion is one of
the main objects of our meetings, is it not?”
Canon Alington rose, and in silence lit a pipe of half-awakened
bird’s-eye.
“This is very serious,” he said. “I take it for granted you are not
overestimating the unseaworthiness of this paper. For such a thing has
never happened before, that we should find a member of our Literific
proposing to read on a subject of which we should not like our wives and
daughters to listen to.”
“Nor would your wife like her husband to listen to it,” said Agnes with
sudden energy.
Canon Alington did not reply for a moment, for he was putting the case
to the touchstone of conscience. The secretary’s position in the
society, he knew, was a confidential one; yet if Agnes, with her
scrupulous sense of honour, still wished to tell him, might he not be
choosing the greater of two evils if he refused to hear? He knew also
that she was as broad-minded as himself--it was not in the least likely
that she should feel like this if there was no adequate cause.
He came and sat down by her again.
“I have made up my mind,” he said. “I think it is my duty, both as your
husband and as the guardian of the spiritual--Yet I don’t know. It is
very difficult.”
“It comes to this, then,” said his wife, “that I must resign the
secretaryship. Because I will not send these notices out. I will not
sign them--that would imply my approval.”
Canon Alington again paused.
“Tell me, then,” he said at length. “I take all responsibility.”
Mrs. Alington looked straight in front of her, and spoke calmly.
“The lately discovered letters of Lord Nelson,” she said. “They are
addressed chiefly to Lady Hamilton.”
Though he heard quite clearly, Canon Alington said “What?” sharply. It
was the incredulousness of the mind that spoke.
“You did right to tell me,” he said, after a moment; “you had to. Now
what are we to do? We must be very careful, very tactful, very
broad-minded, but we must be firm. Of course the paper cannot be read.”
“Oh, Laddie, you must manage it!” said Agnes. “That is just all that you
can be. You are a priest too--she will recognise your authority.”
Canon Alington leaned his head on his hand thinking heavily. He did not
feel quite certain in his own mind that Edith would recognise his
authority, but he felt even in the first moments of thought, that there
would not be any need that she should. Agnes seemed to imagine that she
would insist on reading her paper to the horrified Literific unless he
absolutely forbade her.
“There will be no need for that,” he said; “a little tact, above all,
perfect simplicity and directness will, I feel sure, be all that is
needed. But I was wondering, dear, whether my speaking to her direct
would be the best plan. I can’t tell you how grieved and disappointed I
am. I feel almost as if my first impression about ‘Gambits,’ before I
had seen it, was right after all. It seems to be more of a piece with
this. In Mannington, too! That this should happen in Mannington!”
This was a little obscure; it seemed to imply that it did not matter
what was read to Literifics in other places. But no such thought really
entered his head, nor did his wife put such an interpretation on it.
“Or would you speak to Hugh about it?” she asked, “or should I? I think
he will see.”
Canon Alington shook his head.
“I don’t wish to say, or, indeed, to think, anything unkind or hard,” he
said, “and so neither in thought nor word do I go further than confess
that I don’t understand Hugh. And I have, therefore, no confidence that
he will see our point of view. You remember Tristan?”
Mrs. Alington sighed: she did remember Tristan.
“I was filled with forebodings ever since I read the libretto,” he said,
“and I did not see how the impression which the opera itself would
produce could be other than painful and shocking. Still, since my
impression on reading ‘Gambits,’ at least the review of ‘Gambits,’ was
reversed when I saw it on the stage, I felt bound to see the other also.
We left Covent Garden, you remember, before the end of the second act,
in spite of the inconvenience of finding our way out in the dark. No, I
do not think it certain that Hugh will take our view. Still, one might
try. I think--I am not sure--but I think that Hugh felt something of
what I said then.”
Canon Alington had sat down again by his wife’s chair, and she took his
hand.
“What do women do who have no Galahad?” she said. “I felt so puzzled, so
distressed about it all, and you have comforted me. You see so clearly,
dear. But people are so strange and unexpected. To think that my brother
should have acted Tristan before all London. And to think that Mrs.
Owen, who is so nice, and who is so musical, and has such deep feeling,
should have stopped to the end, and said she enjoyed it so. Apart from
all else, there did not seem to me to be a single tune in the whole
opera.”
“Ah! Mrs. Owen,” said Canon Alington suddenly. “She lunches with us
to-morrow, does she not?”
“Yes, dear. What then?”
Canon Alington attacked the subject again with renewed briskness.
“We might do worse than consult her,” he said, “before we take any step
at all. We cannot expect that everyone should take exactly the same line
as we do, and it is possible--I say it is possible--that she may think
that a certain historical interest that attaches to operas like
‘Tristan,’ or even these letters of Nelson, may over-ride everything
else. We do not, of course, agree with that view, but if she holds it,
it will perhaps enable us to understand that for others it is tenable.
On the other hand, if she agrees with us, that will much strengthen our
hands in dealing with the situation. Edith can hardly fail to have a
great respect for her opinion. And then we might sound Hugh and if he
takes our view also, I fancy we shall find our way smooth, without
having seemed to apply any pressure, or having aroused any sense of
antagonism.”
They had talked long over this one subject, and what with all the leeway
that had to be made up on other topics owing to the Canon’s absence,
time went so fast that it seemed almost incredible to them both that
eight bells should break in on their talk. Further discussion,
therefore, on secular subjects was adjourned, since it was the habit of
the house to spend Sunday, of which the first hour had just chimed, with
the mind as well as the deeds dissociated from the affairs of the week.
Mrs. Alington, therefore, hastily gathered up the Patience cards which
had been set out earlier in the evening, and her husband knocked the
remains of his latest pipe of half-awakened bird’s-eye into the grate.
But with his scrupulous sense of honesty, he had just one more question
to ask.
“You think Edith understands about--about Lord Nelson and her,” he
asked.
Mrs. Alington shook her head and pursed her lips.
“I think we may take it for granted,” she said.
Canon Alington lit two bedroom candles, drank a glass of water, and put
out the lamp.
“Habeo!” he said. “The Bishop is holding a confirmation to-morrow, and
I could see him in the afternoon if Mrs. Owen disagrees with us, and
refer the whole matter to him.”
But his wife, though usually they were so much of a mind, did not
welcome the suggestion.
“One does not want to tell more people about it than is absolutely
necessary,” she said, “because one of our chief objects is to let nobody
know. Let us see, anyhow, what Mrs. Owen thinks first.”
* * * * *
Mrs. Owen accordingly came to lunch after service next day, for though
Canon Alington and his wife made it a rule not to go out to any meal on
Sunday, it did not cause a breach of Sunday observance that other people
should take a meal with them. For this entailed no extra work for the
household, since on Sunday Ambrose and Perpetua did the work of the
parlour-maid at table, and handed everybody their rations and took away
their plates when they had consumed them. The possible view, too, that
this was only a shifting of extra work on to the shoulders of the
children had no more than a superficial semblance of truth about it,
with no foundation in real fact, since to perform those little services
for their parents and Mrs. Owen was not love’s labour lost, but love’s
pleasure found.
It was the custom for Ambrose and Perpetua to sing hymns after lunch on
Sunday, each choosing one in turn, to their mother’s accompaniment,
until they were so hoarse that they could sing no more or it was
tea-time. But to-day they had been privately instructed that they ask
Mrs. Owen to sing once to them, and that they must then take themselves
off to sing in the nursery if they chose or to go for a walk, since
their parents desired some private talk with her. She, no more than
anybody else in busy Mannington, had not been idle this last year, and
in addition to nearly six weeks spent in town since Easter, as well as a
memorable visit to Venice in April had written two more Galahad songs,
and contemplated a whole Galahad cycle. Indeed it was “Galahad’s
Good-morning” that she sang this afternoon, which was to be the first of
the Galahad cycle, which would when finished be a whole day in Galahad’s
life, from the time he said good-morning to the time he said good-night.
In these Galahad songs there was, of course, no meeting in orchards,
although the middle verse was full of temptation and foes, which he
routed without the slightest difficulty, and instantly returned to the
three-two as good as new. And to-day as Mrs. Owen sang Agnes could not
help her eyes growing a little moist as she looked across to her Galahad
who was gently beating time (while Ambrose and Perpetua vied with each
other in turning over), and thought how pleasant a little coincidence it
was that on the very day when he had to charge and rout the fell Lady
Hamilton, Mrs. Owen, with her sweet face and voice so full of
expression, should be singing “Galahad’s Good-morning” to them. Once her
eyes met those of her husband, and she felt sure he understood what was
in her mind. She was quite right; he did. At the end Ambrose and
Perpetua both gave a great gasp.
“I think it’s the loveliest song I ever heard,” said Perpetua. “Do you
know, Mrs. Owen, mamma calls papa Galahad? I can see why now.”
Perpetua was a great happiness to both her parents, but at moments the
happiness was almost embarrassing.
“Now, children,” said her father. “Ordered aloft, weren’t you?”
They kissed Mrs. Owen loudly and went out hand-in-hand.
Mrs. Owen, it was universally agreed, had great tact and perception. She
closed the piano and left the music-stool.
“Dear Agnes,” she said, “and dear Canon, I see you have got something to
say to me. Oh, those darling children!”
But their parents’ tribute had to be added to hers.
“That is a sweet song,” said Agnes. “So full of morning, is it not, and
of feeling? I thought the place where the church-bells came in was
quite, quite perfect. An early service, I suppose.”
Mrs. Owen looked rather timid for a moment, but was brave again.
“Yes, that is the _motif_ for the next song,” she said. “I am planning
(is it not audacious?) a whole cycle. The next will be ‘Galahad’s Mass.’
Oh, Canon Alington, that is not Romish of me, is it? They were called
masses in England, were they not, until the Reformation?”
“Undoubtedly,” said Canon Alington. “You can give no offence except to
the narrow-minded by using the word. And then?”
Mrs. Owen gave a long-gasping sigh.
“Ah! what a relief,” she said. “I felt bound to consult you, and I was
afraid you might think it rather risky to call it by that name. Well,
after that, there is going to be ‘Galahad’s Adventure,’ which was
foreshadowed in the second verse of the ‘Good-morning’! Then there will
be ‘Galahad’s Matins,’ and another adventure, and then his dreams. I
thought,” and the composer (words and music) laughed gently, “I thought
after two adventures he might sleep a little in the afternoon.”
“Very beautiful, very poetical!” said Canon Alington.
“And then--oh, I wonder if you will say it is borrowed from
‘Siegfried?’--there will be a little intermezzo for the piano and
perhaps a violin, describing his thoughts when he wakes and muses all by
himself in the forest. Really, really it is quite different from the
‘Waldweben.’ And then comes his even-song, which is just a little hymn I
composed, and then at the end ‘Galahad’s Good-night,’ which I think I
sang to you a year ago. And--oh, Agnes and Canon Alington, I have a bone
to pick with you; Mr. Hugh was there that night, and you--yes, you
did--you encouraged me to sing before him. How could you? How cruel! I
never knew that he sang at all then. I should never have dared.”
“Agnes and I do not think you need fear his rivalry,” said Canon
Alington.
This was quite completely true. Hugh had not the faintest idea of
rivalling her.
“Ah, but what an artist!” she said. “Yes, I remember about Tristan; but
then let us agree to differ. Wagner, after all, you know! One has to
make allowances for a great man. Think of Napoleon, of Nelson.”
There could not have been anything more apt. It seemed almost like an
omen. Yet the idea of making allowances for great men was not promising.
But as the plunge had to be made, Canon Alington felt that from here the
header-board, so to speak, was not very high. He could slide, with tact,
into the subject, without danger from abrupt transition.
“We have been thinking, both Agnes and I, a good deal about Nelson,” he
said.
Mrs. Owen sank down with an air of indescribable interest, into the
chair next him, touching her lower lip with the little finger of her
left hand.
“Yes?” she said.
“It is best told in fewest words,” he said. “Mrs. Grainger, you may
know, has promised--very kindly--to read us a paper at the June meeting
of our Literific at the end of this week.”
Mrs. Owen took her little finger away from her mouth, and clasped with
it the other fingers in her right hand. She put them all between her
knees.
“And I am so looking forward to it,” she said.
Canon Alington’s face was adamant.
“So were we all,” he said. “But she told Agnes the subject she proposed
to read us, and Agnes, of course, felt it her duty to tell me. The
subject is the lately-discovered letters of Lord Nelson. They are
written--I needn’t say to whom they are written.”
There was a dead silence while the portentous news soaked into Mrs.
Owen’s mind. She absorbed it; she survived it. Then she sat upright in
her chair again--she had sunk down in it before--and spoke.
“Dear Canon Alington and Agnes,” she said, “perhaps I am going to shock
you very much. But if this paper is read----”
“It shall not be read while I am secretary,” said Agnes.
“No, I understand that. But if it is read, I shall go to hear it. There!
I have said it.”
Like Galahad, Canon Alington heard the sound of hymns from the nursery.
“I do not follow you,” he said, feeling that he would have to go to the
Bishop.
“Ah, please be patient with me!” said Mrs. Owen. “As I said, I should go
to hear it; but I know the lecture will never be heard. Nor should it.
But--well, I think that one cannot expect that everybody should agree
with everybody else. I feel sure that dear Mrs. Grainger sees no
impropriety in her subject. She, no doubt, thinks of--of these dreadful
letters--I make no doubt they are dreadful--as being only of historical
interest. And one must judge of people’s actions by their motives.”
She paused, and put her hands up toward Canon Alington as if she was
praying.
“And in the first lessons in church do we not read and hear of things
which we should not allude to in private life?” she asked.
The formidable upper lip grew immense.
“That is sacred history,” he said. “Also we do not discuss them. One of
the great objects of the Literific is discussion.”
Mrs. Owen sank back again in her chair.
“Discussion?” she said. “I never thought of that. Oh, impossible!”
The thought of the Bishop retreated toward the horizon again.
“Then you agree with us?” said Agnes.
“On the question of the expediency of having the paper read and
discussed here in Mannington,” she said, “I do agree. I should not know
which way to look, far less what to say.”
“A discussion without Mrs. Owen!” said Canon Alington, as if flinging a
challenge to the universe to imagine such a thing possible. “‘Hamlet’
without the Prince of Denmark?”
Mrs. Owen cast her eyes down at this very handsome estimate of her value
as a debater, as she did when the chorus of thanks rose at the end of
one of her songs.
“I gather then--am I wrong?--that you are trying to think of the best
way out of the difficulty. Of course, if I--poor little me--could be of
any assistance, however slight, I need hardly say----”
This was exactly what Canon Alington wanted. For in spite of the immense
tact that Agnes often assured him that he possessed, he felt that Mrs.
Owen had more. Besides, she saw and felt Mrs. Grainger’s point of view,
which he did not. Indeed, he was rather afraid that if he conducted the
interview there might be considerable danger of his moral indignation
“carrying him away.”
“You can do everything, my dear lady,” he said. “You are the very person
to talk to Mrs. Grainger about it, if you will be so kind, and tell her
what you feel about it, what we all feel about it. You have tact; you
are a woman of the world, broadminded, cosmopolitan----”
Mrs. Owen laughingly stopped her ears with her tapering finger-tips and
gave a little melodious laugh. Her laugh was supposed to be like a peal
of bells--fairy-bells, some said.
“Please, please!” she cried. “I am ready to sink into the earth!”
“And tell her, too,” continued Canon Alington, unable, now that the
burden of diplomacy had been removed from him, to refrain from dictating
the diplomacy of others, “tell her that you would eagerly go to hear the
paper read, that you would be historically interested in it. How true! I
myself am historically interested in it; so is Agnes, I am sure.
Perhaps, however, you need not dwell on that. But to discuss it--poor
Nelson!” he added, in a sudden flood of broadmindedness.
After this the mere adjustment of the movements of what Canon Alington
called “our squadron” was easy, and it was soon settled that he and Mrs.
Owen should call at Chalkpits this very afternoon, and that while Mrs.
Owen was tactful to Edith, Canon Alington should put his view of the
matter rather more forcibly before Hugh, in order to range him also on
the side of the squadron. And though he was almost passionately fond of
directing the affairs of others, it is but just to him to say that he
had no great relish for this mission. However, as both the ladies agreed
that he was clearly the right person to do it, he could not refuse; but
he felt a little doubtful to what extent Hugh would recognise his
authority.
Mrs. Owen, on the other hand, was thoroughly pleased with the task she
had so readily undertaken, for though Edith’s relations with her had
always been quite cordial, they had also been quite slight, and she felt
that she had not made at Chalkpits the impression that she was
accustomed to make in Mannington. Two women of the world--these were her
most secret thoughts, and she hardly admitted them to herself, even when
she was alone--ought to gravitate to each other in Mannington, where
everybody almost was so very provincial. Even the dear Alingtons, though
they appreciated her songs so much, she felt, especially when she had
just returned from her month in London, were not quite of the calibre
that was on an equality with the “set” she had lately been with--among
whom was a viscount. She could not help feeling when she came back to
Mannington that she was being a little thrown away here. But now a fresh
prospect opened; this delicate mission, which she was confident she
could manage tactfully and successfully, could hardly fail to bring her
at once into closer relations with Edith and her husband, and it should
indeed not be her fault (from omission or remissness, that is to say) if
it did not ripen into intimacy. Then, indeed, life at Mannington would
be a thing that even the “set” might envy; for none could be blind to
the advantages of being hand-and-glove with the author of “Gambits” or
of the dropping in to hear Hugh Grainger, who was already on the
gramophone, sing some scene out of “Tristan” or “Lohengrin.” The
wonderful Lady Rye, too, who swam in a firmament high above even the
set, and was known to them only through fashionable intelligence in the
daily papers or charity bazaars, was Edith’s sister. It was only natural
that a further friendship would follow.
Both the Canon and she were somewhat occupied in their own thoughts as
they walked across the meadows from St. Olaf to the Chalkpits, and Mrs.
Owen’s daydreams grew brighter and more lifelike every moment. The most
extreme possibilities rapidly assumed the guise of the probable. What if
the _Morning Post_ announced before long that Lady Rye was spending the
Saturday till Monday with Mrs. Owen at Mannington! Things more unlikely
had occurred. Or if Mrs. Owen was seen (looking charming) at the opera
in Lady Rye’s box, when her brother-in-law sang Siegfried with such huge
success! Or what if Mr. Hugh Grainger at some autumn concert sang the
Galahad cycle (words and music by Gladys Owen) to an enraptured Queen’s
Hall? But she would never, she was determined, however high was the
ladder she might soon be climbing, drop the dear kind Alingtons. Indeed
it would be through them really that she was brought into this
prospective intimacy with the Graingers. She would always remember that,
and continue singing Galahad to them just as before.
* * * * *
The “squadron” started the campaign itself at a slight disadvantage, for
the day was very hot, and the walk up to Chalkpits had been hot also.
And though high moral purpose was their motive power and should have put
them at once in an unassailable position, it is a fact that people who
are obviously hot are at a disadvantage in dealing with those who sit
under trees or lie in hammocks and are cool. No amount of moral purpose
alone will cancel the handicap of a perspiring forehead.
Tea was just going out to the lawn when they arrived, and the butler
saying that Mrs. Grainger was out there led them through the house and
across the lawn. Edith was sitting with her back to them in a large
basket chair, and did not hear them approach, while by her lay Hugh in a
hammock reading aloud the mad tea party from “Alice in Wonderland.”
Edith heard them first and got up; Hugh’s voice still went on:
“‘But they were in the well,’ said Alice.”
“‘Of course they were,’ said the Dormouse. ‘Well in.’”
Hugh gave a great crack of laughter.
“Oh, dear, how nice! It doesn’t mean anything at all. No idea of any
kind creeps in. Oh! Hullo, Dick! How are you, Mrs. Owen?”
Edith was, as always, perfectly natural and cordial, and delighted to
see them, but Mrs. Owen felt that her entry, which was to have been so
winning, was a little spoiled by the heat. Five minutes, however, were
sufficient to restore her, and she set to work then without delay to
make the impression she should have made on arrival.
“Yes, I always tell everybody that you have a perfect house, and a
perfect garden, Mrs. Grainger,” she said. “I am afraid I always break
the Tenth Commandment whenever I come here.”
It was some consolation to Edith, since she must be held partly
responsible for her house and garden, that Mrs. Owen had only broken the
Tenth Commandment once before, and then only with regard to an
imperfect view of the front hall, for she had been out when Mrs. Owen
called, and her visitor had only left cards. But she replied that she
did think it was a pleasant situation, and Mrs. Owen continued.
“Yes, I tell all my set so,” she said. “Like you, I am just back from
town, and how delicious the country is, is it not, after the whirl and
rush of London. Sometimes I wonder why I ever go to town at all, and yet
I suppose one would get a little rusty and old-fashioned if one didn’t
bring oneself up to date occasionally. Perhaps it is even a duty. They
always tell me I bury myself too much in the country, as it is, and
scold me dreadfully about it.”
Edith looked at her with her pleasant direct gaze.
“I wonder if environment has much to do with one’s getting rusty or
old-fashioned?” she said. “I really think the rust and the
old-fashionedness begin from within.”
Mrs. Owen clasped her hands together.
“Oh, but how responsible you make me feel,” she said. “I know how rusty
and old-fashioned I often get, and you think it is my fault.”
Canon Alington rose at this with a sort of clerical gallantry.
“Well, well, we learn something new every day!” he ejaculated. “I have
learned, from her own lips, too, that Mrs. Owen is rusty!”
Mrs. Owen nearly said “Naughty man!” but rejected this natural impulse,
as not being quite in tune with the impression she wished to make.
“Ah, but it is true!” she said. “One’s own consciousness is the only
judge in these matters. If I accuse myself of being rusty I am rusty.
The intellect is its own tribunal. I forget who said that, but you
know, I am sure, Mrs. Grainger.”
Mrs. Grainger had not the slightest idea; she felt, too, that she had
very little notion what Mrs. Owen was talking about. It was as if she
desired to shine, but could not quite manage to light a match. She
struck, and rubbed, and struck, but it did not flame. The other part of
the squadron, however, tea being over, began manœuvring, and Canon
Alington, with a horrified glance at his watch, saw he must be getting
back for evening service. He was, with a view to manœuvre, going to
suggest to Hugh, that he should accompany him, when Hugh made the
suggestion himself, saying he wanted a walk. Then, of course, it
remained for Mrs. Owen to be unable to tear herself away just yet, and,
behold, they were in fighting line.
Canon Alington and Hugh set off briskly, and the former opened fire at
once.
“I am glad to have this opportunity of talking to you, Hugh,” he said,
“because I have something to say to you. I want--Agnes and I both want,
and indeed Mrs. Owen also wants--your coöperation and help.”
Insensibly the upper lip lengthened itself a little, and Hugh vaguely
wondered if it was going to be suggested that he should beg the Opera
Syndicate not to present “Tristan” again, or any little trifle of that
sort.
“The key of the situation, a painful one, is in your hands,” continued
Dick. “At least, in your capacity as Edith’s husband, it should be.”
Clearly it was not “Tristan.”
“Pray go on,” said Hugh.
“You perhaps guess?” asked Dick.
“I haven’t the vaguest notion.”
“Ah, perhaps you have not been told! Very proper, quite in accordance
with the rules of the Literific, though perhaps the spirit of that rule
did not seek to ordain that a member should not tell even his wife or
husband--or rather she her husband--the subject of a forthcoming paper.”
“Oh, Edith’s paper about the Lady Hamilton letters?” said Hugh
guilelessly. “I did know that. In fact, she has read me her paper. But
it didn’t occur to me in connection with any possible painful situation.
She was rather behindhand with it, but it is quite finished now, if you
mean that.”
Even Canon Alington found a momentary difficulty in getting on, for he
did not mean that. He quite wished that Mrs. Owen had been left to
manage the business alone. But there was still a charitable solution
possible.
“Ah, then, I am sure it is as I thought!” he said. “Neither Edith nor
you can know the stories that are current, which there is unhappily only
too much reason to suppose are true, about poor Nelson and that lady.”
Hugh had a momentary impulse to shout with laughter, but checked it for
subtle methods. In spite of the desire to laugh, too, he was beginning
to feel, understanding as he now did, the probable though scarcely
credible purpose of this conversation, rather angry.
“Dick, I don’t think it is right, especially for a person in your
position, to rake up old scandals,” he said gravely.
“Then you do know Edith knows?” asked Dick.
“It is taught in the elementary schools,” said Hugh.
The upper lip lengthened further.
“Then to come to the point. Do you think it is right to read, here in
Mannington, a paper dealing with that situation, and to discuss
it--discuss it afterward?”
They had come to the stile leading into the field by the Rectory, and
Hugh sat down on it. His amusement had died away.
“Go on,” he said quietly.
“I have no desire to preach to you,” said Dick, instantly beginning to
do so, “and my last question was one that one scarcely wants answered,
because the answer is foregone. I am willing to believe that both you
and Edith overlooked the real, the moral facts of the case, in your
attention to a certain historical interest which must always attach to
the lives of great men, for, of course, Nelson, considered as a sailor,
and indeed as one of the makers of England, was a great man. But, my
dear fellow, that does not excuse our dwelling, as in these private
letters we must dwell, on the darker side of his character. And now for
a practical suggestion: couldn’t she, without much trouble, extract from
her paper some little essay about Trafalgar, and the disposal of the
fleet, instead of these letters, which, I believe, deal with other
things? We may think with pride of Trafalgar, but for the rest? It is
the rest of which these private letters, I make no doubt, deal.”
“Oh, you haven’t read them then?” asked Hugh. “It’s ‘Gambits’ over
again, is it? You know the subject from some review and can pronounce on
it all right?”
“Ah, it is not my unsupported judgment this time!” said Dick, sublimely
ignoring the point of Hugh’s question. “Agnes agrees with me; Mrs. Owen
agrees with me.”
“Stop a moment,” said Hugh. “I thought the rules of the Literific sought
to ordain, wasn’t it, that the subject of the paper should be secret
till the notices were sent out. How did you and Mrs. Owen know? Did
Agnes tell you, and you tell Mrs. Owen?”
“Agnes felt it her duty to tell me,” said Dick, looking rather white
and stern. “I agreed with her when she told me. I take all
responsibility.”
“That’s all right then,” said Hugh. “I can have it out with you, as you
are responsible. And I suppose you felt it your duty to tell Mrs. Owen,
and Tom and Harry, and the butcher and baker. And am I to understand
that you and Agnes and that woman have been talking over the propriety
of my wife’s writing this paper for your tin-pot Literific, and the
impossibility of having it read, because of its dreadful, improper and
disgusting subject? Have you?”
“We have discussed the matter. We had to. Please let me pass, Hugh, I
see it is no use talking it over, as I hoped I could, quietly and in a
friendly manner with you.”
Hugh did not move.
“I’m blessed if I let you pass,” he said. “You’ve been spending your
happy, holy Sunday afternoon--oh, I can imagine the tone so well--about
her, and you have chosen to speak of the subject to me, and so I’m going
to answer you.”
“There is no need. I see I made a mistake in speaking to you at all,”
said Dick.
Hugh had completely lost his usually imperturbable temper, and lost it
in the violent, blazing manner with which good-tempered people do on the
rare occasions when they lose it at all. As if Edith could write, or
wish to write, anything that might not be read or discussed in the
Courts of Heaven! And that his sister and this prig, and that woman
should have talked over the question together! He easily imagined, too,
their mental attitude toward her, the thoughts that prompted and were
prompted by what they said. The thought of it all was perfectly
intolerable.
“Yes, you made a mistake,” he said, “and you make another in thinking I
am not going to answer you. Because I am. You’re too much accustomed to
go jawing away in your pulpit to people who can’t answer you. And from
not being answered you get to think that you are always quite right. You
aren’t, and I’m telling you so. What the deuce do you mean by supposing
that my wife could write, if she tried, anything that wasn’t fit to be
read and discussed? Why, it’s you who aren’t fit to read and discuss it,
any more than you are fit to go and see ‘Tristan.’ That’s by the way; I
don’t care what you think or say about me for singing in it, or what you
say about the opera. I just laugh. But it’s a different matter when you
come to think and say things about Edith. I don’t laugh then--I’m not
laughing now. How dare you do it?”
Canon Alington had never, in all the course of his useful life, been
spoken to like this, and he was astonished into silence. It seemed
incredible that this could happen, and yet it was happening. And Hugh
had not finished yet.
“You asked me just now,” he went on, “whether I thought it right for my
wife to read this paper of hers in Mannington, and you may be surprised
to hear that I agree with you; I think it most undesirable that she
should. But my reason will probably surprise you just as much, and it’s
because if we are to judge of Mannington or the members of the Literific
by you, the people here must have the most disgusting minds. I never
heard of anything so narrow and Puritanical and--and prurient. You were
just the same about ‘Tristan’; you couldn’t see the beauty of it because
you couldn’t keep your mind off the moral question. I tell you that
Edith and I haven’t horrid minds like that; we don’t even need to make
an effort not to think about that. We don’t want to; it doesn’t occur to
us. Another thing, too--I bet you that you and that woman came to call
this afternoon in order that you should talk to me about it, and she
should talk to Edith. That’s not a very nice thing to do. You should
have told me to have told Edith. Instead, you trapped me into walking
with you, in order that that woman should talk to my wife. Besides, I
thought you didn’t approve of going out on Sundays?”
Hugh paused a moment.
“So don’t be under any misapprehension,” he said. “I am entirely on your
side, you see, about the reading of this paper, though for rather
different reasons, and I shall do my best to induce Edith not to read it
or any other ever. I don’t know if I shall succeed, because she has got
the soul and mind of an angel, and is perfectly incapable, I honestly
believe, of doing anything that would be unpleasant for anybody. Good
Lord! how I shall enjoy telling Peggy about it. She will roar, if I can
make her believe it’s true. By-the-way, also, you said up at the house
that you must go because it was church time. You looked at your watch,
too, and must have known it wasn’t, because there are the bells just
beginning. That’s all I’ve got to say, I think.”
Hugh stepped down from the stile and held out his hand.
“There,” he said, “I’ll apologise for anything I have said that isn’t
true. I’ve got more to forgive than you, you know, Dick, because I’ve
said everything straight to you, whereas you talked us over with Mrs.
Owen and Agnes, and you attributed to Edith the nastiness of your own
mind. That’s what it comes to. Now I propose that we ‘make up,’ as boys
say.”
Canon Alington looked at him icily.
“I never bear malice against anyone,” he said; “but as to ‘making up,’
in the sense in which I understand the word, namely, to resume cordial
relations with you, I will do so when you express regret for every word
you have said.”
Hugh stared at him for a moment.
“I will express it when I feel it,” he said, and walked straight back
toward Chalkpits.