There is a short cut which leads from my house to the church, and
therefore, of course, to the rectory, which stands, as rectories often
do, close to the church. The path--it can only be used by those who
walk--leads past the garden and through a wood to the high road. It was
on this path, a quarter of a mile or so from the road, that I met Canon
Beresford, about ten days after my interview with Lalage in the pigsty.
Certain wood pigeons of low morality had been attacking our gooseberry
bushes. My mother, instigated by the gardener, demanded their
destruction, and so I went out with a gun. I shot two of the worst
offenders. The gardener discovered half digested fruit in the dead
bodies, so I am sure that I got the right birds and did not unjustly
execute the innocent. Then I met the Canon. He displayed no interest
whatever in the destruction of the wood pigeons, although his garden
must have suffered quite as much as ours. I remarked that it was nearly
luncheon time and asked him to return with me and share the meal. He was
distraught and nervous, but he managed to quote Horace by way of reply:
“Destrictus ensis cui super impia
Cervice pendet, non Siculae dapes. . . .”
The Canon’s fondness for Horace accounts, I suppose, for the name he
gave his daughter. His habit of quoting is troublesome to me; because
I cannot always translate what he says. But he has a feeling for my
infirmity and a tactful way of saving my self-respect.
“If you had a heavy, two-handed sword hanging over your head by a
hair,” he explained, “you would be thinking about something else besides
luncheon.”
“What has the Archdeacon been doing?” I asked.
The Archdeacon is a man with a thirst for information about church
affairs, and he collects what he wants by means of questions printed
on sheets of paper which he expects other people to answer. Canon
Beresford, who never has statistics at hand, and consequently has
to invent his answers to the questions, suffers a good deal from the
Archdeacon.
“It’s not the Archdeacon this time,” he said. “I wish it was. The fact
is I am in trouble again about Lalage. I am on my way up to consult your
mother.”
“Has Miss Battersby been complaining?”
“She’s leaving,” said the Canon, at once. “Leaving, so to speak,
vigorously.”
“I was afraid it would come to that. She wasn’t the sort of woman who’d
readily take to swearing.”
“I very nearly did,” said the Canon. “She cried. It’s curious, but she
really seems fond of Lalage.”
“Did she by any chance force her way into the pigsty and find the
_Anti-Cat?_”
Canon Beresford looked at me and a smile hovered about his mouth. “So
you’ve seen that production?” he said. “I call it rather good.”
“But you can hardly blame Miss Battersby for leaving, can you?”
“She didn’t see it,” said the Canon, “thank goodness.”
“Then why on earth is she leaving? What else can she have to complain
of?”
“There was trouble. The sort of trouble nobody could possibly foresee or
guard against. You know Tom Kitterick, don’t you?”
“The boy who cleans your boots? Yes, I do. A freckly faced brat.”
“Exactly. Well, it appears that Miss Battersby is rather particular
about her complexion, and----”
“Lalage tried the stuff on Tom Kitterick, I suppose.”
“Yes. She used the whole bottle, and Miss Battersby found out what had
happened and complained to me. She was extremely nice about it, but she
said that the incident had made her position as Lalage’s governess quite
impossible.”
“Lalage, of course, smiled balmily.”
“Calmly,” said the Canon. “She told me herself that the word was calm,
though it looked rather like ‘balm.’ Anyhow, that was the last straw.
Miss Battersby goes next week. The Archdeacon----”
“I thought he’d come in before we’d done.”
“He did his best to be sympathetic and helpful. He said yesterday, just
before he went to Dublin, that what Lalage requires is a firm hand over
her. That’s the sort of thing a bachelor with no children of his own
does say, and means of course. Any man who had ever tried to bring up
a girl would know that firm hands are totally useless, and, besides, I
haven’t got any. ‘_Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno...._’ Don’t try to
translate that if you’d rather not. It simply means that I’m not the man
I used to be. I hate trying to cope with these domestic broils. That’s
why I’m going up to see your mother.”
The drawn sword did not really interfere with the Canon’s appetite, but
he refused to smoke a cigar after luncheon. I went off by myself to the
library. He followed my mother into the drawing-room. I waited, although
I had a good many things to do, until he joined me. He sighed heavily as
he sat down.
“Lalage is to go to school after summer,” he said.
“My mother,” I replied with conviction, “is sure to be right about a
matter like that.”
“I suppose she is; but Lalage won’t like it.”
The Canon sighed again, heavily. I tried to cheer him up.
“She’ll enjoy the companionship of the other girls,” I said. “I daresay
she won’t have a bad time. After all, a girl of fourteen ought to have
friends of her own age. It will be far better for her to be running
about with a skipping rope in a crowd of other damsels than to be
climbing chestnut trees and writing parodies in lonely pigstys.”
“That’s very much what your mother said. I wish I could think so. I’m
dreadfully afraid that, brought up as she has been, she’ll have a bad
time of it.”
“Anyhow, she won’t have half, as bad a time as the schoolmistress.”
I had hit upon the true line of consolation. The Canon smiled feebly,
and I pursued my subject.
“There won’t, of course, be pigstys in the school, but----”
“I don’t think a pigsty is absolutely essential to Lalage’s comfort.”
“Probably not. Lalage isn’t the sort of girl who is dependent for her
happiness on the accident of outward circumstance. You know, Canon,
that our surroundings are not the things which really matter most. The
philosophic mind----”
I had unthinkingly given the Canon his opportunity. I could see a
well-known quotation actually trembling on his lips. I stopped him
ruthlessly.
“I know that ode,” I said. “It’s one I learned at school, but it doesn’t
apply to Lalage. She isn’t in the least content with things as she finds
them. That’s her great charm. She’s more like Milton’s Satan.”
I can quote too, though only English poets, unless after special
preparation beforehand. I intended to shoot off some lines out of
“Paradise Lost” at the Canon, but he would not listen. He may not have
liked the comparison suggested.
“I have to be off,” he said. “Lalage is waiting to hear what your mother
has settled. I mustn’t keep her too long.”
“Did you tell her you were coming up here for advice?”
“Of course I did. She quite agreed with me that it was the best thing
to do. She always says that your mother is the only person she knows who
has any sense. Miss Battersby’s sudden resignation was rather a shock to
her. She was in a curiously chastened mood this morning.”
“She’ll get over that all right,” I said. “She’ll be bringing out
another number of the _Anti-Cat_ in a couple of days.”
I spent two hours after the Canon left me watching the building of a new
lodge at my back gate. My mother professes to believe that work of this
kind, indeed of any kind, is better done if I go and look at it.
In reality I think she is anxious to provide me with some sort of
occupation and to interest me in the management of such property as
recent legislation has left to an Irish landlord. But she may be right
in supposing that the builders build better when I am watching them.
They certainly build less rapidly. The foreman is a pleasant fellow,
with a store of interesting anecdotes. I give him tobacco in some form
and he narrates his experiences. The other workmen listen and grin
appreciatively. Thus a certain sedateness of progress is ensured and all
danger of hasty building, which is, I understand, called jerry building,
is avoided.
At five o’clock, after I had heard some twenty or thirty stories and the
builders had placed in position about the same number of stones, I went
home in search of afternoon tea. My mother was in the drawing-room, and
Miss Battersby was with her. She too, had come to ask advice. I am sure
she needed it, poor woman. What she said about Lalage I do not know, for
the subject was dropped when I entered the room, but Miss Battersby’s
position evidently commanded my mother’s sympathy. Shortly after leaving
the rectory she was established, on my mother’s recommendation, in
Thormanby Park. Lord Thormanby, who is my uncle, has three daughters,
all of them nice, well-disposed girls, not the least like Lalage.
Miss Battersby got on well with them, taught them everything which
well-educated girls in their position ought to know. She finally settled
down as a sort of private secretary to Lord Thormanby. He needed some
one of the sort, for as he grew older he became more and more addicted
to public business. He is at present about sixty-five. If he lives to be
seventy and goes on as he is going, Miss Battersby will have to
retire in favour of some one who can write shorthand and manipulate a
typewriter. She will then, I have no doubt, play a blameless part in
life by settling flowers for Lady Thormanby. But all this is still a
long way off.
I was naturally anxious to hear Miss Battersby’s version of the
experimental treatment of Tom Kitterick’s complexion. I hoped that
my mother would have told me the story voluntarily. She did not, so I
approached the subject obliquely after dinner.
“The Archdeacon,” I said, “was lamenting to me this morning that Mrs.
Beresford died while Lalage was still a baby.”
My mother seemed a little surprised to hear this.
“He takes the greatest interest in Lalage,” I added. “She’s a very
attractive little girl.”
“Very,” said my mother. “But I thought the Archdeacon went to Dublin
yesterday. He certainly told me he was going. Did he come back at once?”
“So far as I know he hasn’t come back.”
“Then when did he say----”
“He didn’t actually say it at all. He hardly ever says anything to me. I
so seldom see him, you know.”
This at least was true. Although the seat of the archdeaconry is in
Drumbo, a town which contains our nearest railway station and which is
our chief centre for local shopping, I had not spoken to the Archdeacon
for more than three months. My mother seemed to be waiting for an
explanation of my original remark. I gave her one at once.
“But it’s exactly the kind of thing the Archdeacon would have said if he
hadn’t been in Dublin and if I had met him and if our conversation had
happened to turn on Lalage Beresford.”
My mother admitted frankly that this was true; but she seemed to think
my explanation incomplete. I added to it.
“He went on to speak at some length,” I said. “That is to say he would
have gone on to speak at some length about the great importance of a
mother’s influence during the early years of a girl’s life.”
My mother still looked at me and her face still wore a questioning
expression. It was evident to me that I must further justify myself.
“So I’m not doing the Archdeacon any wrong,” I went on, “in putting
into his mouth words and sentiments which he would certainly approve. I
happen to have forestalled him in giving them expression, but he would
readily endorse them. You know yourself that he’s great on subjects like
the sacred home influence of a good woman.”
“I suppose,” said my mother after a pause, “that you want to hear the
whole account of Lalage’s latest escapade?”
“Miss Battersby’s version of it,” I said. “I heard the Canon’s after
luncheon.”
“And that story of yours about the Archdeacon----”
“That,” I said, “was my way of introducing the subject without
displaying what might strike you as vulgar curiosity. I have too much
respect for you to heckle you with aggressive inquiries as if you were a
Chief Secretary for Ireland and I were a Member of Parliament. Besides,
I don’t like the feeling that I’m asking blunt questions about Miss
Battersby’s private affairs. After all, she’s a lady. I’m sure you’ll
appreciate my feelings.”
“Lalage,” said my mother, “is an extremely naughty little girl who will
be a great deal better at school.”
“But have you considered the plan from the point of view of the school
you’re sending her to?”
“Miss Pettigrew is an old friend of mine and----”
“Is she the schoolmistress?”
“The principal,” said my mother, “and she’s quite capable of dealing
with Lalage.”
“I wasn’t thinking of her. As I told the Canon this afternoon, Lalage
will probably be very good for her.”
“She’ll certainly be very good for Lalage.”
“I’m not saying anything the least derogatory to Miss Pettigrew.
Schoolmasters are just the same. So are the heads of colleges. The
position tends to develop certain quite trifling defects of character
for which Lalage will be an almost certain cure.”
“You don’t know Miss Pettigrew.”
“No, I don’t. That’s the reason I’m trying not to talk of her. What I’m
considering and what you ought to be considering is the effect of Lalage
on the other girls. Think of those nice, innocent young creatures, fresh
from their sheltered homes----”
“My dear boy,” said my mother, “what on earth do you know about little
girls?”
“Nothing,” I said, “but I’ve always been led to believe that they are
sweet and innocent.”
“Let me tell you then,” said my mother, “that Lalage has a career of
real usefulness before her in that school. Most girls of her age are
inclined to be sentimental and occasionally priggish. Lalage will do
them all the good in the world.”
I wonder why it is that so many able women have an incurably low
opinion of their own sex? My mother would not say things like that about
schoolboys, though they are at least equally sentimental and most of
them more priggish. She is extremely kind to people like Miss Battersby,
although she regards them as pitiably incompetent when their cosmetics
are used on stable-boys. Yet she would not despise me or regard it as my
fault if some one took my shaving soap and washed a kitchen maid’s face
with it.
“So,” I said, “Lalage is to go forth as a missionary of anarchy, a
ravening wolf into the midst of a sheepfold.”
“The Archdeacon was saying to me this morning,” said my mother, “that if
you----”
“May I interrupt you one moment?” I said. “I understood that the
Archdeacon was in Dublin.”
“This,” said my mother, “is another of the things which the Archdeacon
would have said if he had been at home.”
“Oh,” I said, “in that case I should particularly like to hear it.”
“He said, or would have said, that if you allow your habit of flippant
talking to grow on you you’ll lose all hold on the solemn realities of
life and become a totally useless member of society.”
“I quite admit,” I said, “that the Archdeacon would have put it in
pretty nearly those words if he had said it. I particularly admire that
part about the solemn realities of life. But the Archdeacon’s a just man
and he would not have made a remark of that kind. He knows the facts.
I hold a commission in the militia, which is one of the armed forces of
the Crown; auxiliary is, I think, the word properly applied to it. I am
a justice of the peace and every Wednesday I sit on the judgment seat
in Drumbo and agree with the stipendiary magistrate in administering
justice. I am also a churchwarden and the Archdeacon is well aware of
what that means. He would be the first to admit that these are
solemn realities. I don’t see what more I can do, unless I stand for
Parliament. I suppose a constituency might be found somewhere which
would value a man with a good temper and a little money to spare.”
“Perhaps,” said my mother smiling, “we’ll find that constituency for you
some day.”
This was the first hint I ever got of my unfortunate destiny. It gave
me a feeling of chill. There is nothing I want less than a seat in
Parliament; but nothing seems more certain now than that I shall get
one. Even then, when my mother made her first smiling reference to the
subject, I knew in my heart that there was no escape for me.