coughed, put his arm down, and sat up in his chair. “_They_ have
possession of the children?” he said.
“Should I be here?” she appealed.
“_Ah!_ That gives the key of the situation.... Would _they_ litigate?”
“Why should they?”
“If by chance you got possession?”
“That would be difficult.”
“But not impossible? Perhaps something could be managed. With my
assistance. Once or twice before I have had cases that turned on the
custody of minors. Custody, like possession, is nine points of the law.
Then _they_ would have to come into court.”
“We want nobody to come into court.”
“Exactly, m’lady. I am pointing out to you how improbable it is that
they will do so. I am gauging their disinclination.”
The attitude of Mr. Grimes relaxed unconsciously until once more the
teeth and thumbnail were at their little play again.
He continued with thoughtful eyes upon his client’s expression.
“Possibly _they_ wouldn’t li’e ’nquiry into character.”
“Oh, _do_ take that thumb away!” cried Lady Charlotte. “And _don’t_
lounge.”
“I’m sorry, m’lady,” said Mr. Grimes, sitting up. “I was saying,
practically, do we know of any little irregularities, anything—I won’t
say actually immoral, but _indiscreet_, in these two ladies’ lives?
Anything they wouldn’t like to have publicly discussed. In the case of
most people there’s a Something. Few people will readily and cheerfully
face a discussion of Character. Even quite innocent people.”
“They’re certainly very lax—very. They smoke. Inordinately. I saw the
cigarette stains on their fingers. And unless I am very much mistaken,
one of them—well”—Lady Charlotte leant forward towards him with an air
of scandalous condescension—“she wears no stays at all, Mr. Grimes—none
at all! No! She’s a very queer young woman indeed in my opinion.”
“M’m!... No visitors to the house—no _gentlemen_, for example—who might
seem a little dubious?”
Lady Charlotte did not know. “I will get my maid to make
enquiries—discreetly. We certainly ought to know that.”
“The elder one writes poetry,” she threw out.
“We must see to that, too. If we can procure some of that. Nowadays
there is quite a quantity—of _very_ indiscreet poetry. Many people do
not realize the use that might be made of it against them. And even if
the poetry is not indiscreet, it creates a prejudice....”
He proceeded to unfold his suggestions. Lady Charlotte must subdue
herself for a while to a reassuring demeanour towards the aunts at The
Ingle-Nook. She must gain the confidence of the children. “And of the
children’s maid!” he said acutely. “She’s rather an important factor.”
“She’s a very impertinent young woman,” said Lady Charlotte.
“But you must reassure her for a time, Lady Charlotte, if the children
are to come to you—ultimately.”
“I can make the sacrifice,” the lady said; “if you think it is my duty.”
Meanwhile Mr. Grimes would write a letter, a temperate letter, yet “just
a little stiff in tone,” pointing out the legal and enforceable right of
his client to see and have free communication with the children, and to
be consulted about their affairs, and trusting that the Misses Stubland
would see their way to accord these privileges without further evasion.
§ 4
The Stubland aunts were not the ladies to receive a solicitor’s letter
calmly. They were thrown into a state of extreme trepidation. A
solicitor’s letter had for them the powers of an injunction. It was
clear that Lady Charlotte must be afforded that reasonable access, that
consultative importance to which she was entitled. Phyllis became
extremely reasonable. Perhaps they had been a little disposed to
monopolize the children. They were not the only Madonnas upon the tree.
That was Phyllis’s response to this threat. Phœbe was less disposed to
make concessions. “Those children are a sacred charge to us,” she said.
“What can a woman of that sort know or care for children? Lapdogs are
_her_ children. Let us make such concessions as we must, but let us
_guard essentials_, Phyllis.... As the apples of our eyes....”
In the wake of this letter came Lady Charlotte herself, closely
supported by the faithful Unwin, no longer combative, no longer actively
self-assertive, but terribly suave. Her movements were accompanied by
unaccustomed gestures of urbanity, done chiefly by throwing out the open
hand sideways, and she made large, kind tenor noises as reassuring as
anything Mr. Grimes could have wished. She astonished Aunt Phyllis with
“Ha’ow are the dear little things today?”
Mary was very mistrustful, and Aunt Phyllis had to expostulate with her.
“You see, Mary, it seems she’s the children’s guardian just as we are.
They _must_ see a little of her....”
“And _ha-ow’s_ Peter?” said Lady Charlotte.
“Very well, thank you, Lady Charlotte,” said Mary.
“Very well, thank you lazy Cha’lot,” said Peter.
“That’s right. We shall soon get along Famously. And how’s my little
Joan?”
Joan took refuge behind Mary.
“Pee-Bo!” said Lady Charlotte tremendously, and craned her head.
Peter regarded the lady incredulously. He wanted to ask a question about
the whisker. But something in Mary’s grip upon his wrist warned him not
to do that. In this world, he remembered suddenly, there are Unspeakable
Things. Perhaps this was one of them.... That made it all the more
fascinating, of course.
Lady Charlotte was shown the nursery; she stayed to nursery tea. She
admired everything loudly.
“And so these are your Toys, lucky Peter. Do you play with them all?”
“Joan’s toys too,” said Joan.
“Such a Pretty Room!” said Lady Charlotte with gestures of approval.
“Such a Pretty Outlook. I wonder you didn’t make it the Drawing-Room.
Isn’t it a pretty room, Unwin?”
“Very pritty, m’lady.”
Very skilfully she made her first tentative towards the coup she had in
mind.
“One day, Mary, you must bring them over to Tea with _me_,” she said....
“I do so want the dear children to come over to me,” she said presently
in the garden to aunts Phyllis and Phœbe. “If they would come over quite
informally—with their Mary. Just to Tea and scamper about the
shrubbery....”
Mary and Unwin surveyed the garden conversation from the nursery window,
and talked sourly and distrustfully.
“Been with ’er long?” asked Mary.
“Seven years,” said Unwin.
“Purgat’ry?” said Mary.
“She ’as to be managed,” said Unwin.
§ 5
The day of the great coup of Lady Charlotte was tragic and painful from
the beginning. Peter got up wicked. It was his custom, and a very bad
one, to bang with his spoon upon the bottom of his little porringer as
he ate his porridge. It had grown out of his appreciation of the noise
the spoon made as he dug up his food. Now, as Mary said, he
“_d’librately ’ammered_.” How frequently had not Mary told him he would
do it “once too often!” This was the once too often. The porridge plate
cracked and broke, and the porridge and the milk and sugar escaped in
horrid hot gouts and lumps over tablecloth and floor and Peter’s knees.
It was a fearful mess. It was enough to cow the stoutest heart. Peter, a
great boy of five, lifted up his voice and wept.
So this dire day began.
Then there was a new thin summer blouse, a glaring white silk thing, for
Peter, and in those days all new things meant trouble with him. It was
put on after a hot fight with Mary; his head came through flushed and
crumpled. But Joan accepted her new blouse as good as gold. Then for
some reason the higher powers would not let us go and look at the
kittens, the dear little blind kittens in the outhouse. There were six
of them, all different, for the Ingle-Nook cat was a generous,
large-minded creature. Only after a dispute in which Joan threatened to
go the way of Peter was “just a glimpse” conceded. And they were softer
and squealier and warmer than anything one had ever imagined. We wanted
to linger. Mary talked of a miracle. “Any time,” she said, “one of them
kitties may eat up all the others. Any time. Kitties often do that. But
it’s always the best one does it.”
We wanted to stay and see if this would happen. No! We were dragged
reluctantly to our walk.
Was it Peter’s fault that when we got to the edge of the common the
fence of Master’s paddock had been freshly tarred? Must a little boy
test the freshness of the paint on every fence before he wriggles half
under it and stares at Wonderland on the other side? If so, this was a
new law.
But anyhow here we were in trouble once more, this beastly new white
blouse “completely spoilt,” Mary said, and Mary in an awful stew. The
walk was to be given up and we were to go home in dire disgrace and
change....
Even Aunt Phyllis turned against Peter. She looked at him and said, “_O
Peter!_ _What_ a mess!”
Then it was that sorrow and the knowledge of death came upon Joan.
She was left downstairs while Peter was hauled rather than taken
upstairs to change, and in that atmosphere of unrest and disaster it
seemed a sweet and comforting thing to do to go and look at the kittens
again. But beyond the corner of the house she saw old Groombridge, the
Occasional Gardener, digging a hole, and beside him in a pitiful heap
lay five wet little objects and close at hand was a pail. Dark
apprehension came upon Joan’s soul, but she went up to him nevertheless.
“What you been doing to my kittays?” she asked.
“I drownded five,” said old Groombridge in a warm and kindly voice. “But
I kep’ the best un. ’E’s a beauty, ’E is.”
“But why you drownded ’em?” asked Joan.
“Eh! you got to drown kittens, little Missie,” said old Groombridge.
“Else ud be too many of um. But ollays there’s one or so kep’. Callum
Jubilee I reckon. ’Tis all the go this year agin.”
Joan had to tell some one. She turned about towards the house, but long
before she could find a hearer her sorrowful news burst through her.
Aunt Phœbe writing Ruskinian about the marvellous purity of childish
intuitions was suddenly disturbed by the bitter cry of Niobe Joan going
past beneath the window. Joan had a voluminous voice when she was fully
roused.
“They been ’n dwouwnded my kittays, Petah. They been ’n dwouwnded my
kittays.”
§ 6
It seemed to Mary that Lady Charlotte’s invitation came as a “perfect
godsend.” It was at once used to its utmost value to distract the two
little flushed and tearful things from their distresses. Great
expectations were aroused. That very afternoon they were to go out to
tea to Chastlands, a lovely place; they were to have a real ride in a
real carriage, not a cab like the station-cab that smells of straw, but
a carriage; and Mary was coming too, she was going to wear her best hat
with the red flower and enjoy herself “no end,” and there would be cake
and all sorts of things and a big shrubbery to play in and a flower
garden—oh! miles bigger than our garden. “Only you mustn’t go picking
the flowers,” said Mary. “Lady Charlotte won’t like that.”
Was Auntie Phyllis coming too?
No, Auntie wasn’t coming too; she’d _love_ to come, but she couldn’t....
It all began very much as Mary had promised. The carriage with the white
horse was waiting punctually at two o’clock on the high road above the
house. There was a real carpet, green with a yellow coat-of-arms, on the
floor of the carriage, and the same coat-of-arms on the panel of the
door; the brass door-handle was so bright and attractive that Mary had
to tell Joan to keep her greedy little hands off it or she would fall
out. They drove through pine woods for a time and then across a great
common with geese on it, and then up a deep-hedged, winding, uphill road
and so to an open road that lay over a great cornfield, and then by a
snug downland village of thatched white cottages very gay with flowers.
And so to a real lodge with a garden round it and a white-aproned
gate-keeper, which impressed Mary very favourably.
“It’s a sort of park she has,” said Mary.
As they drew near the house they were met by a very gay and smiling and
obviously pretty lady, in a dress of blue cotton stuff and flowers in
her hat. She had round blue eyes and glowing cheeks and a rejoicing sort
of voice.
“Here they are!” she cried. “Hullo, old Peter! Hullo, old Joan! Would
you like to get out?”
They would.
“Would they like to see the garden?”
They would.
And a little bit of “chockky” each?
Glances for approval at Mary and encouraging nods from Mary. They would.
They got quite big pieces of chocolate and pouched them solemnly, and
went on with grave, unsymmetrical faces. And the bright lady took them
each by a hand and began to talk of flowers and birds and all the things
they were going to see, a summerhouse, a croquet-poky lawn, a little old
pony stable, a churchy-perchy, and all sorts of things. Particularly the
churchy-perchy.
Mary dropped behind amicably.
So accompanied it was not very dreadful to meet the great whisker-woman
herself in a white and mauve patterned dress of innumerable flounces and
a sunshade with a deep valance to it, to match. She didn’t come very
near to the children, but waved her hand to them and crowed in what was
manifestly a friendly spirit. And across the lawn they saw a marvel, a
lawn-mower pushed by a man and drawn by a little piebald pony in boots.
“He puts on his booty-pootys when little boys have to take them off, to
walk over the grassy green carpet,” said the blue cotton lady.
Peter was emboldened to address Lady Charlotte.
“Puts on ’is booty-pootys,” he said impressively.
“_Wise_ little pony,” said Lady Charlotte.
They saw all sorts of things, the stables, the summerhouse, a little
pond with a swan upon it, a lane through dark bushes, and so they came
to the church.
§ 7
Lady Charlotte had decided to christen both the children.
She was not sure whether she wanted to take possession of them
altogether, in spite of Mr. Grimes’ suggestion. Her health was
uncertain, at any time she might have to go abroad; she was liable to
nervous headaches to which the proximity of captive and possibly
insurgent children would be unhelpful, and her two pet dogs were past
that first happy fever of youth which makes the presence of children
acceptable. And also there was Oswald—that woman had said he was coming
home. But christened Lady Charlotte was resolved those children should
be, at whatever cost. It was her duty. It would be an act of the
completest self-vindication, and the completest vindication of sound
Anglican ideas. And once it was done it would be done, let the
Ingle-Nook aunts rage ever so wildly.
Within a quarter of a mile of Chastlands stood a little church among
evergreen trees, Otfield Church, so near to Chastlands and so far from
Otfield that Lady Charlotte used to point out, “It’s practically my
Chapel of Ease.” Her outer shrubbery ran to the churchyard wall, and she
had a gate of her own and went to church through a respectful avenue of
her own rhododendrons and in by a convenient door. Wiscott, the curate
in charge, was an agreeable, easily trodden-on young man with a wife of
obscure origins—Lady Charlotte suspected a childhood behind some retail
shop—and abject social ambitions. It was Wiscott whose bullying Arthur
had overheard when he conceived his admiration for Lady Charlotte. Lady
Charlotte had no social prejudices; she liked these neighbours in her
own way and would entertain them to tea and even occasionally to lunch.
The organ in Otfield church was played in those days by a terrified
National schoolmistress, a sound, nice churchwoman of the very lowest
educational qualifications permissible, and the sexton, a most
respectful worthy old fellow, eked out his income as an extra hand in
Lady Charlotte’s garden and was the father of one of her housemaids.
Moreover he was the husband of a richly grateful wife in whose
rheumatism Lady Charlotte took quite a kindly interest. All these things
gave Lady Charlotte a nice homelike feeling in God’s little house in
Otfield; God seemed to come nearer to her there and to be more aware of
her importance in His world than anywhere else; and it was there that
she proposed to hold the simple ceremony that should snatch Peter and
Joan like brands from the burning.
Her plans were made very carefully. Mrs. Wiscott had a wide and winning
way with children, and she was to capture their young hearts from the
outset and lead them to the church. Mary, whom Lady Charlotte regarded
as doubtfully friendly, was to be detached by Unwin and got away for a
talk. At the church would be the curate and the organist and the sexton
and his daughter and Cashel, the butler, a very fine type of the more
serious variety of Anglican butlers, slender and very active and earnest
and a teetotaler. And to the children it would all seem like a little
game.
Mr. Wiscott had been in some doubt about the ceremony. He had baptized
infants, he had baptized “those of riper years,” but he had never yet
had to deal with children of four or five. The rubric provides that for
such the form for the Public Baptism of Infants is available with the
change of the word “infant” to “child” where occasion requires it, but
the rubric says nothing of the handling of the children concerned. He
consulted Lady Charlotte. Should he lift up Peter and Joan in succession
to the font when the moment of the actual sprinkling came, or should he
deal with them as if they were adults? Lady Charlotte decided that he
had better lift. “They are only little mites,” said Lady Charlotte.
Now up to that point the ceremony went marvellously according to plan.
It is true that Mary wasn’t quite got out of the way; she was obliged to
follow at a distance because the children in spite of every hospitality
would every now and then look round for her to nod reassuringly to them;
but when she saw the rest of the party going into the little church she
shied away with the instinctive avoidance of the reluctant church woman,
and remained remotely visible through the open doorway afar off in the
rhododendron walk conversing deeply with Unwin. They were conversing
about the unreasonableness of Unwin’s sister-in-law in not minding what
she ate in spite of her indigestion.
The children, poor little heathens! had never been in church before and
everything was a wonder. They saw a gentleman standing in the midst of
the church and clad in a manner strange to them, in a surplice and
cassock, and under it you saw his trousers and boots—it was as if he
wore night clothes over his day clothes—and immediately he began to read
very fast but yet in a strangely impressive manner out of a book. They
had great confidence now in Mrs. Wiscott, and accompanied her into a pew
and sat up neatly on hassocks beside her. The gentleman in the white
robe kept on reading, and every now and then the others, who had also
got hold of books, answered him. At first Peter wanted to laugh, then he
got very solemn, and then he began to want to answer too: “wow wow wow,”
when the others did. But he knew he had best do it very softly. There
was reverence in the air. Then everybody got up and went and stood, and
Mrs. Wiscott made Joan and Peter stand, round about the font. She stood
close beside Joan and Peter with her hands very reassuringly behind
them. From this point Peter could see the curate’s Adam’s apple moving
in a very fascinating way. So things went on quite successfully until
the fatal moment when Mr. Wiscott took Peter up in his arms.
“Come along,” he said very pleasantly—not realizing that Peter did not
like his Adam’s apple.
“He’s going to show you the pretty water,” said Mrs. Wiscott.
“_Naw!_” said Peter sharply and backed as the curate gripped his arm,
and then everything seemed to go wrong.
Mr. Wiscott had never handled a sturdy little boy of five before. Peter
would have got away if Mrs. Wiscott, abandoning Joan, had not picked him
up and handed him neatly to her husband. Then came a breathless struggle
on the edge of the font, and upon every one, even upon Lady Charlotte,
came a strange sense as though they were engaged in some deed of
darkness. The water splashed loudly. It splashed on Peter’s face and
Peter’s abundant voice sent out its S. O. S. call: “Mare-_wi_!”
Mr. Wiscott compressed his lips and held Peter firmly, hushing
resolutely, and presently struggled on above a tremendous din towards
the sign of the cross....
But Joan had formed her own rash judgments.
She bolted down the aisle and out through the open door, and her voice
filled the universe. “They dwounding Petah. They dwounding Petah—like
they did the kittays!”
Far away was Mary, but turning towards her amazed.
Joan rushed headlong to her for sanctuary, wild with terror.
“I wanna be _kep_, Marewi,” she bawled. “I wanna be _kep_!”
§ 8
But here Mary was to astonish Lady Charlotte. “Why couldn’t they tell
_me_?” she asked Unwin when she grasped the situation.
“It’s all right, Joan,” she said. “Nobody ain’t killing Peter. You come
alongo me and see.”
And it was Mary who stilled the hideous bawling of Peter, and Mary who
induced Joan to brave the horrors of this great experience and to desist
from her reiterated assertion: “Done _wan_’ nergenelman t’wash me!”
And it was Mary who said in the carriage going back:
“Don’t you say nothing about being naughty to yer Aunt Phyllis and I
won’t neether.”
And so she did her best to avoid any further discussion of the matter.
But in this pacific intention she was thwarted by Lady Charlotte, who
presently drove over to The Ingle-Nook to see her “two little
Christians” and how Aunt Phœbe was taking it. She had the pleasure of
explaining what had happened herself.
“We had them christened,” she said. “It all passed off very well.”
“It is an outrage,” cried Aunt Phœbe, “on my brother’s memory. It must
be undone.”
“That I fear can _never_ be,” said Lady Charlotte serenely, folding her
hands before her and smiling loftily.
“Their Little White Souls!” exclaimed Aunt Phœbe, and then seizing a
weapon from the enemy’s armoury: “_I shall write to our solicitor._”
§ 9
Even Lady Charlotte quailed a little before a strange solicitor; she
knew that even Grimes held the secret of many tremendous powers; and
when Mr. Sycamore introduced himself as having “had the pleasure of
meeting your nephew, Mr. Oswald Sydenham, on one or two occasions,” she
prepared to be civil, wary, and evasive to the best of her ability. Mr.
Sycamore was a very good-looking, rosy little man with silvery hair,
twinkling gold spectacles, a soft voice and a manner of imperturbable
urbanity. “I felt sure your ladyship would be willing to talk about this
little business,” he said. “So often a little explanation between
reasonable people prevents, oh! the most disagreeable experiences.
Nowadays when courts are so very prone to stand upon their dignity and
inflict quite excessive penalties upon infractions—such as this.”
Lady Charlotte said she was quite prepared to defend all that she had
done—anywhere.
Mr. Sycamore hoped she would never be put to that inconvenience. He did
not wish to discuss the legal aspects of the case at all, still—there
was such a thing as Contempt. He thought that Lady Charlotte would
understand that already she had gone rather far.
“Mr. Sycamore,” said Lady Charlotte, heavily and impressively, “at the
present time I am ill, seriously ill. I ought to have been at Bordighera
a month ago. But law or no law I could not think of those poor innocent
children remaining unbaptized. I stayed—to do my duty.”
“I doubt if any court would sustain the plea that it was your duty,
single-handed, without authorization, in defiance it is alleged of the
expressed wishes of the parents.”
“But _you_, Mr. Sycamore, know that it was my duty.”
“That depends, Lady Charlotte, on one’s opinions upon the efficacy of
infant baptism. Opinions, you know, vary widely. I have read very few
books upon the subject, and what I have read confused me rather than
otherwise.”
And Mr. Sycamore put his hands together before him and sat with his head
a little on one side regarding Lady Charlotte attentively through the
gold-rimmed spectacles.
“Well, anyhow you wouldn’t let children grow up socialists and
secularists without _some_ attempt to prevent it!”
“Within the law,” said Mr. Sycamore gently, and coughed behind his hand
and continued to beam through his glasses....