HOW LIZARANN AND JOAN PLAYED TRUANT. OF A RIDE IN A MOTOR, AND ITS
BAD EFFECTS. HOW LIZARANN CONVALESCED, AND JUDITH WALKED HOME FROM
CHURCH WITH THE RECTOR. HOW MARIANNE HAD BOLTED WITH THE TWO CHILDREN
Lizarann was, of course, the patient Mr. Taylor spoke of. But it
was all her own fault, said Public Opinion, that she had such a bad
inflammatory cold. If she and Joan had been good, obedient children,
and done as they were told when they came home from the tea-party at
Royd, instead of giving Aunt Bessy the slip and running away to Daddy
at Mrs. Forks's cottage, all would have been well. But be lenient to
Lizarann! It was all through her anxiety that old Christopher should
have his bicarbonate of soda. Her anxiety on his behalf was great,
although she did not know him personally.
"Maten't Phoebe and Jones go round to old Mrs. Forks, where Daddy is,
and bring it screwed up in piper like acrost the road to Mr. Curtis's?"
So Lizarann had said--for she really believed that Joan's name was
one and the same with that of the Wash, in Cazenove Street--and Aunt
Bessy's negative had been emphatic.
"Certainly _not_, my dear! At this time of the evening! Why, it's past
six o'clock.... Yes, you and Joan may run on in front, only don't get
over the gate till I come. The gate of the next field, you know." But
when Aunt Bessy and Phoebe reached that gate--where were Lizarann and
Joan? The wicked imps had gone to Mrs. Forks's.
The worst of it was that when the Rector had personally recaptured
the truants, and was taking them home, a motor-car, with a lady and
gentleman in it, passed them, going at speed. That, as they escaped
alive, was no harm. But, having passed, it stopped, and something
disagreed with it all through the colloquy that followed.
"Isn't that Mr. Taylor? Can't we give you a lift?"
"You're going the wrong way. And we're too numerous."
"Nonsense! Any amount of room! And it won't take us three minutes to
run you back to the Rectory. Jump in."
The Rector hesitated a moment. It was just on to dinner-time at the
Hall, and it seemed a shame to make this lady and gentleman late.
But Lizarann was coughing again. It may have been the petrol, but
still----! Then, too, Aunt Bessy's anxiety would be over all the
sooner. And there were those children almost frantic with delight at
the idea of a ride in a motor!
So he agreed. And it _was_ fun! Only there were two drawbacks--one,
that it was over so soon; the other, that no sooner were they deposited
at the Rectory gate, and the lady and gentleman in the motor off at
great speed to be in time for dinner, than Lizarann had such a terrible
attack of coughing that Miss Caldecott and her brother-in-law were
quite alarmed.
The report the Rector gave to Lady Arkroyd was too sanguine. Bad
inflammatory colds don't yield to treatment in a couple of hours, which
was about how long it had been at work by the time he and Aunt Bessy
drove away to the Hall, to come in after dinner, having been forced to
cry off, with apology and explanation, owing to the escapade of the
children.
Lizarann's didn't yield to treatment for many days, and during that
period was a serious source of alarm to all her circle of friends at
the Rectory, and a frequent subject of inquiry by interested outsiders.
For the little maid had a happy faculty of remaining in the memory
of chance acquaintances. Also, it was generally understood in the
neighbourhood that she was a delicate _protégée_ of the Rector's
friend's sister, Adeline Fossett, and had been sent away from town to
get the benefit of the air at Royd. So Lizarann got quite her fair
share of public interest.
But her attack must have been a sharp one, or we may rely upon it she
wouldn't have been kept in bed next day, and more days after next day.
And Dr. Sidrophel--it wasn't his real name, mind you!--wouldn't have
said, as he did till Lizarann really felt quite sick of hearing it,
that it would be as well to continue the poultices, for the present, as
a precaution. Her own view, to be sure, was that inflammation was the
result of mustard poultices and stethoscopes primarily, and that it was
bound to get worse if you had to put a glass tube in your mouth at the
bidding of well-meaning friends. But she concealed these convictions
in deference to public opinion, and did everything she was told to do,
however gross the infatuation might be that instituted the obnoxious
treatment. Her conviction that she had, intrinsically, nothing the
matter with her was, however, not one to be shaken lightly. She went so
far once as to say so to Dr. Pordage--that _was_ his real name!--who
replied, "Oh ah, that's it, is it? Nothing the matter! But you _will_
have, if you don't look alive, as safe as a button! So there we are,
little miss!"--but absently, as though she was a child and wouldn't
understand him--and blotted the prescription he had been writing. But
Lizarann heard every word, and resolved to look alive, so far as in her
lay, whenever an opportunity came. Meanwhile, none being manifest, she
reflected a good deal on buttons, wondering what was the nature of the
security they tendered, and why she had never heard it before.
When Mr. Yorick--the name she preferred for the Rector, because, you
see, Miss Fossett must know best--came to pay her a visit shortly
after, she inquired on this point, giving the whole of the doctor's
speech, and making herself cough. Now, Mr. Yorick always talked
to Lizarann as if she was a sensible person; and if there was one
attribute for which the child loved him more dearly than another, it
was that. But her devotion to him was so complete--second only to her
love for her Daddy--that analysis of it was absurd.
"Was he talking to you, or talking to himself, Lizarann?" said he,
sitting by the bed with the patient's hand in his. It was small and
feverish.
The reply called for reflection. Having thought well over it, Lizarann
said decisively: "Bofe!"
"Was he writing all the while?"
"Yass!" Nods helped the emphasis. "All the while! Scritch-scratch!"
"That was it, Lizarann! Dr. Sidrophel can't write and hear what he says
to himself at the same time. So nobody knows what he means." But the
little woman's great eyes were full of doubtful inquiry, and more must
be said. "I expect he only meant that if you went out in the air you
would get your cough back. So you must just look alive and lie in bed."
It was plausible, and would have to do for the present. The button
question might stand over.
"Mustn't I go and see Daddy where Mrs. Forks is?"
"Yes, in a little while. Daddy will come and see you every day."
"And bring his crutches to come upstairs with?"
"Daddy left his crutches here yesterday. To be ready for him whenever
he comes."
"And not tear a hole in the drugget?"
"Not if he goes gently and I put my hand on his back!"
"Which hand?"
"This one I've got hold of you with, Miss Coupland! Any more
questions?"
Lizarann pursed up her lips and shook her head. But she reconsidered
her decision. "Yass! About Dr. Side--Dr. Side...."
"Dr. Sidrophel? What about him?"
"Why's his real nime Pordage?" She had the name very pat, showing close
observation and reflection.
Mr. Yorick had to consider the point. "Well!" said he presently, "I
admit it's rather a bad job. But there's no way out of it now. It
_is_ his real name, and that's all about it!" But Lizarann looked
dissatisfied. "_We_ may call him Dr. Sidrophel behind his back,
Lizarann," added he.
"Supposing he was to hear us talking behind his back, and was to listen
behind his back...!" Hypothetical knavery being admitted between these
two, as a necessity in ingenious fictions, Mr. Yorick did not think a
homily on truth-telling necessary at this point. In fact, he counselled
bold duplicity, to Lizarann's great relief. "We should have to go far
enough off, Lizarann," said he. And the stage direction indicated was
so pleasant to her unfledged mind that she utilized it to develope the
subject further--kept the curtain up, as it were!
"Then if we wentited far enough off, you could tell me why his nime was
Dr. Spiderophel, too." She dashed intrepidly at the name, and nearly
captured it.
"Of course I could, and he wouldn't hear one word."
"And what should you sye?" Lizarann gave a slight leap in bed, from
pleasant anticipation. She was told to lie quiet, and she should hear.
And that is how it was that when Miss Caldecott came in, dressed
_cap-à-pie_ for public worship, a prayer-book in a gloved hand--for it
was Sunday morning--to remind her brother-in-law that the bells were
going to begin, and arouse him to his duties, she found him telling
how Sidrophel was an astronomer who took a fly in his telescope for
an elephant on the moon; and that this legend was only partly cleared
up by its narrator. Telescopes and stethoscopes remained imperfectly
differentiated in Lizarann's mind. And Mr. Yorick's temporary
acceptance of her pronunciation led to a misapprehension about spiders
and flies. Did this astronomer catch that fly, or did the fly get away?
Lizarann treasured hopes on its behalf, for the next chapter in the
story.
But she felt it her duty to look alive, and lie quite quiet in bed,
although--law bless you!--_she_ had nothing the matter with her. So
she lay and watched a greedy bee, who seemed bent on leaving no honey
in that jessamine, at any rate, that came across the open lattice,
and had its say in the mixed scents of hay and roses that came in out
of the sunshine for Lizarann to get her share of them. She lay and
listened to the bells, and wondered why the sound rose and fell, and
decided at first that it was done for the purpose, and was the right
way. But then, how did Nonconformity afar manage to do it so exactly
like? For the Chapel tinkle rose and fell, too. Then came the footsteps
on the garden-gravel; one big one, the Rector's, and many small ones.
And Lizarann was so sorry she wasn't to go to Church, where it was her
Sunday-wont, in these days, to drive a coach-and-six through the first
Commandment, and worship Athelstan Taylor on his pulpit-altar in a
heart-felt way, while admitting official obligations elsewhere.
But she couldn't go this time, and, what was more, she had to go on
looking alive and lying quiet while Phoebe and Joan shouted good-byes
up at the window, as though they were off to New Zealand; because, you
see, Lizarann had solemnly promised, if they did so, not to shout back
and make herself cough.
"She hardly coughed at all when I was with her," said the Rector, on
his way to his weekly _pièce de résistance_--his Sunday sermon. "I
can't help thinking Dr. Sidrophel may be making his fly out an elephant
this time."
"Perhaps, dear! But the fly may become an elephant. He's really very
clever, although you do make such game of him. You see, he was quite
right about poor Gus."
"Ah, dear, dear!--yes. But then he says, if Gus got into a better
climate, he might make old bones yet."
"So Gus will, by God's mercy, dear! But I mean, Dr. Pordage said--and I
do not see that I am bound to call him out of his name--that in the end
Gus would have to give in, and go. You see, he was right! Joan!"
"Yes, aunty darling!"
"Don't turn your toes in and out, and whistle. It's not at all
lady-like, and there's Mrs. Theophilus Silverton just behind in the
pony-carriage." Joan toned her behaviour down to meet the prejudices of
local society. "You _do_ see, don't you, that Dr. Pordage _was_ right?"
For this good lady wouldn't _glisser_, and always _appuyait_ until her
accuracy had been entered on the minutes. Her brother-in-law said,
"Quite right, aunty!" And she said, "Very well, then!" and seemed to
find the fact that she was right almost a set-off against the painful
fact she was right about.
For Dr. Sidrophel's shrewd forecast about the Rev. Augustus Fossett
meant exile for that invalid; and this exile had already taken form in
the proposal that Gus should accept a chaplaincy of an English church
in Tunis, which had been offered to him. Athelstan Taylor was keen on
his acceptance of the post; as he would have been on the amputation of
his own right hand, if he had seen therein any benefit for his friend.
But his face went very sad over it as he walked on in silence.
His mind was back in old Eton and Oxford days, when they were all
young together--Gus and his sister Adeline, and he, and the mother of
those two youngsters in front, who were being so decorous, pending
the approach of the pony-chariot behind. And this semi-sister of his
own, beside him now, who was always a sort of thorn in the Rector's
innermost conscience. For hadn't she--or had she--foregone wedlock
and babes of her own for the sake of her sister's and his? The sort
of thing no one could ever really know! And what would happen if this
confounded Deceased Wife's Sister bill were to become law? That was the
_cul-de-sac_ these explorations often led him to, more and more as the
chances increased of a majority for the Bill in the House of Peers. But
it _was_ a _cul-de-sac_. Why think about it? Was not each day's evil
sufficient for it, and something over?
The pony-carriage gained and gained--overhauled the
pedestrians--underwent a period of rapture that it should absolutely
see them alive in the flesh--and forged ahead unfeelingly. But it had
not expelled from the Rector's mind a something that it had met with in
that _cul-de-sac_--what was it?--oh yes, he knew!
"That's a very sad business, I'm afraid, of poor Challis's."
But Miss Caldecott cannot honour this remark immediately. Deportment
calls for attention. "You're not to begin again, the minute they're out
of sight, Joan.... What business, dear?"
"I thought you knew about it?"
"No, I know nothing. Only what Lady Arkroyd said."
"Exactly! Well--it's a very painful affair."
"No doubt, dear! Phoebe, don't hunch your shoulders."
"Come, Bess, be a little sorry for the poor chap! I don't believe it's
_his_ fault."
"Oh, I dare say not! I know nothing about it. And I don't want to know
anything about people of that sort."
"What sort?"
"You know what I mean, Athel. Literary, freethinking sort of people.
Them and their wives!"
"I know quite well what you mean, Bess." As Athelstan does know, he
says so honestly, instead of allowing his sister-in-law to attempt to
explain her meaning, which he is well aware she cannot. "But tell me
again what Lady Arkroyd said about Challis and his wife."
"Just what I told you."
"Which was...?"
"That they had quarrelled, and she had gone away to her mother. The day
after he went back."
"Was that all?"
"Yes--I think so! Yes, there was nothing else."
"How came Lady Arkroyd to know?"
The lady becomes suddenly explicit. "My dear, it's, no, use, your,
catechizing _me_! For I tell you I know nothing about it! You must ask
Lady Arkroyd yourself. There they are!" Meaning that carriage-wheels
are audible, identifiable as the Hall coming to Church.
And then the Rector had to mind his _p_s and _q_s. For he hadn't so
much as thought of the text he should preach on.
However, he acquitted himself well, as he had done a hundred times
under analogous circumstances. And then, as soon as he felt at liberty
to be secular, his mind went back to the profane author's domestic
affairs.
"My dear Lady Arkroyd, what's this about our friend Challis and his
wife?"
The Baronet, who is close by--for he is a punctual church-goer: it is
feudal--says, informedly, "A row in that quarter!" nods sagaciously,
and contains further information in closed lips. Her ladyship supposes
it's the usual thing; need we know anything about it? She dismisses
nuptial quarrels, presumably resulting from infidelities, with graceful
languor; perhaps reserving such as are within the pale, sanctioned by
titles. Judith, with the most perfect self-command, immovably graceful,
says sweetly: "Is there a _row_ between Mr. and Mrs. Challis?" On which
her mother suddenly becomes petulant and human--comes down from Olympus
as it were--exclaiming: "Why, Ju, you know you told me so yourself,
child!--what nonsense!"
"Perhaps I used the wrong word," says Ju, undisturbed. "Have we any
business with Mr. and Mrs. Challis's private affairs?"
"None at all, my dear! Jump in: you're keeping the horses." Her
ladyship is in the carriage already, and will have no objection to
driving away from Mr. and Mrs. Challis's private affairs. It was just
like dear Mr. Taylor to begin talking about them, with everyone about.
But Judith has another scheme. She is going to walk, thank you! Miss
Caldecott and Phoebe and Joan may do the jumping in, and the carriage
may drop them at the Rectory. Oh, very well!--if Miss Arkroyd really
wants to walk. All settled. Only Joan puts in a demurrer; she means
to walk with papa, and he will carry her on his shoulder. Joan is an
anti-Sabbatarian of an advanced school, and often makes her father as
bad as herself.
The Rectory is not really on the way to the Hall, but Judith's short
cut to the latter is not far out of it for Joan and her man-servant,
or ox, or ass--whichever is nearest--who ought to be doing no labour
on this day. So, as soon as the Rector escapes from the small-talk of
many parishioners on the road, and turns into the field path, Judith
can effect an end she has in view. It was none of _her_ doing, mind
you!--this was the substance of her exordium--it was entirely mamma.
What she referred to, after many minutes in abeyance, had revived the
moment the last parishioner died away. But the Rector disallowed her
line of pleading.
"Come, I say now, Judith!" He Christian-names the daughters of the Hall
when alone with them, having known them as children. "Draw it mild! You
must have told your _madre_ something. Of course you did!"
"Yes. I was obliged to. But Mr. Challis did not mean me to. It was very
difficult not to say something about what was in the letter...."
"From Mr. Challis?"
"Yes. Mamma knows his handwriting, and asked me what was in it. It was
too long for me to say--nothing! So I told her what I knew she must
hear afterwards, but begged her to say nothing about it."
"And then she told Bess?"
"I'm extremely sorry to have to turn and rend my mother--especially
coming from Church--but you see she has her idiosyncrasies, the
_madre_. I assure you, dear Mr. Taylor, she actually went straight to
Miss Caldecott, and said with the most unblushing effrontery that she
had promised not to tell anyone, but that she knew she might do so
safely to anyone so discreet, and then repeated what I had said to her,
with additions. She is a trying mother sometimes!"
"And then Bess comes and tells me! You're a nice lot of
_confidantes_...." Something in Judith's look checks his joking tone as
he glances round at her, and he says, "What?" And then, "Yes--go on!"
Then a hesitation leaves her, and she speaks:
"I will tell you more than I told mamma, Mr. Taylor. I wish to, because
I think your advice would be good. Mr. Challis wrote to me--a long
letter--we are friends, you know; I have seen a good deal of him...."
"Quite right! I like Challis, you know."
"So do I;--though he might smoke less. However, we're none of us
perfect.... Well!--I'm sorry to say the story is true. He fell out
with Marianne--his wife is Marianne--the day after he arrived at home,
although she had received him cordially enough on his arrival. She
was at her mother's when he arrived, but came back to dinner. In the
course of the evening they quarrelled, but I gathered from his letter
that he thought it would blow over. Next morning they were civil to
one another, but short of reconciliation. She went out in the morning,
and in the afternoon he went away to a club-dinner. When he came back,
quite late, he found a note from her, saying that she had gone away
again to her mother's, and had taken her children with her."
"Good God!" The Rector's voice is a shocked undertone. "Was that Bob,
and the two little girls...? Oh yes!--he told me a good deal of his
family."
"Not Bob; he's at school. The others are her own children; he isn't."
"I never was more shocked in my life.... Yes!--Joanikin. You'd better
get down and walk a bit. There we are, all alive and kicking!" Joan is
deposited on the ground, her legs in evidence. "But do tell me!--'took
away her children with her'! She _can't_, legally."
"She has done it illegally, I presume." Judith is very equable over
this point. "She has done it actually, anyhow!"
"_What_ an extraordinary thing!" The Rector cannot get over it.
"Well!--it's true! He came back from his club, poor man, to find his
house empty and his children gone. And no explanation but the note.
He roused up the servants that were left, a cook named Steptoe and
the housemaid, who said their mistress and the nurse and children had
packed a few things and gone away in a cab with a friend, about an hour
after he left."
"It seems almost incredible--at first." He has to walk on a little way,
fanning himself with his bandana handkerchief, before he can settle
down from his amazement, and try for enlightening details. At last he
says: "And then he wrote to you--when? Next day?"
"He left us, you remember, on Tuesday. His letter is dated Tuesday. The
Tuesday after. Just a week."
"Would you object to my seeing it?"
"_I_ should not. Why should I? But I fancy he did not wish anyone else
to see it. I could tell you what there was in it, just as well. And
then, dear Mr. Taylor, you will see why he wrote at such length to me
about it. You must be wondering."
"I was."
"It was simply this.... By-the-bye, I dare say you heard how he set
me on fire--that night we had the dance?... No?... Well, it was all
connected with that. You know this Marianne of his would keep on
refusing to come and see us, and I asked him to show me her letter with
a message to me in it. We were out in our little Tophet garden, and it
was too dark to read it. I thought one could read by moonlight, or I
wouldn't have asked for it. Mr. Challis lighted a vesta for me to read
by, and set me on fire ... well--yes--I was just a little burned, on
this shoulder. The worst of it was, her letter caught fire, and was
burned to a cinder."
"But what harm did that do? She didn't want it back."
"No, she didn't. But there were two or three words on the back he
hadn't read, and I couldn't tell him what they were. It seems she was
surprised at his making no reference to them; and since he told me in
his letter what he surmises they were, I can't say I wonder. _I_ should
have been."
"What were they? Or what does he suppose them to have been?"
"He might not like me to say, because she can never have meant them to
be seen. It doesn't matter what they were...."
"Certainly, certainly! I quite understand."
"If he had known of them, he would have refused to show me the
letter. As it turned out, it was most unfortunate. Because he said
nothing except that he had given me her message to read...." Judith
faltered--was coming to the difficult part.
"'Message to read,'" said the Rector connectively. "Yes?"
"Had given me her message to read, and had said nothing about when or
where or how. And then the poor man had to account for the burning
of the letter before he saw these words on the back ... oh yes!--of
course, one ought always to tell the whole truth in a fix; I know that.
But she had only his word for it that he had read the letter before
and overlooked the postscript. Of course, what _she_ thought was that
her good gentleman was allowing a strange young lady--who isn't very
popular with her--to open her confidential letters, and let him read
them over her shoulder. _Now_ do you appreciate the position, Rector?"
Probably this young lady was very glad that this way of accounting for
Mrs. Challis's resentment franked her of referring to the possible
effect on a jealous wife's imagination of the loneliness of Tophet and
the moonlight, both of which were _sine qua non_ to a true account
of the conflagration. Surmises about Challis's passionate outburst
were not to be encouraged by reference to any of the surroundings
that provoked them. Let them be ignored, "sequin net"--which is not
expensive, but deadly in the moonlight--and all!
So unsuspicious was Athelstan Taylor of the inner soul of a
thorough-paced flirt that he thought he might indulge in a little
subcutaneous paternal amusement, as of wider experience, at this young
lady's seeming innocence of the constructions Mrs. Challis might
attach to details of the story told in full. He nodded assent to his
own insight. Oh yes!--he appreciated the position thoroughly; Judith
might be sure of that!--and points below the surface as well. But these
belonged to a part of the drama altogether of minor importance, seeing
how foregone a conclusion it was that no such thing as flirtation
between a daughter of the Hall and a stray scribbler was possible. The
fact that Challis had quarrelled with his wife was on another footing
altogether. May there not have been some other cause?
"Challis puts his wife's resentment down _entirely_ to this matter
of the opening of the letter?" The Rector's question comes after
cogitation.
"Ye-es!--entirely, this time."
"H'm!--have there been other times?"
"He does not say so. That is not quite what I meant. I should have said
that she seems to have accused him of untruthfulness before, or at
least hinted at it. I don't gather that there has ever been a rupture
between them. Don't let's walk fast, or we shall be back before I've
told you what _I_ am in it--I mean, what Mr. Challis wants me to do."
"I can come a little way on with you ... why, of course, he wants you
to write to his wife and confirm his version of this picturesque event.
That's it, isn't it?"
"That's it. But what use will it be?"
Now for all Athelstan Taylor's superior insight into the world and its
ways, it had not so far presented itself to him that a letter from
Miss Arkroyd to Mrs. Challis on this subject might be like a red rag
to a bull. It crossed his mind now, and kept him silent until Judith
repeated: "What use will it be?" Then he replied uneasily: "Do you
know?--I don't feel the ground firm under my feet. I shouldn't like to
advise off-hand. What does your mother think?"
"Oh, I haven't talked to mamma, beyond what I told you. You see--she's
dear, of course; but she's a sieve. And these are Mr. Challis's
affairs, not mine ... oh no!--I _know_ he wouldn't mind my talking to
you about them."
"How do you know?"
"Oh, I _know_! He would like me to talk to you, I'm certain."
"Would you mind talking to Bess about it? She's very sensible."
"I don't think Mr. Challis would like it. I am sure he would not mind
you."
The Rector admitted this was possible, in his inner conscience. But he
would make another suggestion: "Why not ask Addie what _she_ thinks?
She's coming to-morrow, on a visit to Lizarann."
"How is the little girl?"
"Getting on like a house on fire. But you will ask Addie? You needn't
answer his letter yet, you know. At least, you needn't write to Mrs.
Challis."
"Miss Fossett? Isn't she, though--isn't she somehow some sort of
connection of Mrs. Challis?"
"Is she?"
"Or isn't it?... Oh, I know--it was a cousin of hers I met at the play.
Mr. Challis hates her--the cousin. _I_ didn't dislike her."
"She might know something...."
"I don't think Miss Fossett would see much of this--Mrs. Partridge, I
think the name was. But Mrs. Partridge and Marianne are bosom-friends.
So it might be worth...." She interrupted herself. "Only isn't Miss
Fossett...?"
"Isn't she what?"
"Well, then, doesn't she feel very strongly on the Deceased Wife's
Sister question?"
"What would that have to do with it?"
"You know he married his deceased wife's sister?"
"Eh?" said the Rector. "So he did." And then, thoughtfully: "I see--I
see--I _think_ I see."
"See what?"
"The reason why she took her children away. She thinks they are hers
legally--thinks she has a right to them."
Judith evidently did not see the point involved, and the Rector had to
explain that the children of an unmarried woman belong legally to their
mother, and that probably Marianne, not being Challis's wife according
to the law of the land, had imagined that her right to possession of
them could be maintained in a law-court.
"But surely--it could!" said Judith.
"Ah, my dear young lady!"--was the answer--"little you know the amazing
resources of legislation for deciding that the weaker party is in the
wrong!"
But Judith did not want the conversation to become a review of the
iniquities of Law, a subject on which she knew Athelstan Taylor was
given to being in revolt against constituted authority. So she brought
him back to the real issue before the house.
"You haven't told me what you think I ought to write, Mr. Taylor.
Please don't send me away to ask somebody else!--that's such very cold
comfort. Give me real advice. What can I say?"
It took a little time to decide, but was clear when it came. "The
question, I take it, isn't whether the letter will do any good. I tell
you honestly, I don't think it will. But Challis asks you to write,
and that settles the matter. Well!--say you write at his request, and
that he asks you to write exactly what happened. Do it as literally as
possible."
"Say anything about how grieved I am--painful circumstances--hope to
hear misunderstanding completely removed--anything of that sort?"
"Oh no!--no, on the whole, certainly not! Better keep off that as much
as possible!"
"Won't it be rather like ... snuffing poor Mrs. Challis out, if I don't
end up somehow?"
"Hm--well! Suppose we go so far as to hope this will help to remove ...
to remove ... what seems a perfectly groundless misunderstanding. Stop
it at that. Quite enough! And I say, Judith, look here! In writing to
Mrs. Challis, don't you go and show that you've heard particulars of
the row. Stick to the explanation of the letter-business. Don't on any
account show you know she has left her home, or that he has told about
it."
"Won't that be what Mr. Tomes calls _suppressio veri_?"
"Tut--tut! If it is, not sending the letter at all will be _suppressio_
of still more _veri_. You stick to what Challis asks for, and let him
be responsible. Married couples, when they quarrel, are kittle cattle
to shoe behind. Now we must say good-bye, or one of us will be late for
lunch."
They had overshot the point at which the path diverged to the Rectory,
and it was time to hark back. But before Judith was out of hearing the
Rector called after her.
"Tell poor Challis I'm writing to him. I shall go and see him when I
get up to town--some time next week. Good-bye!"