Titherington had a room, temporarily set apart for his use as an office,
in the house of the Conservative and Unionist Parliamentary Association.
Here he was at liberty to spread about on a large table all the papers
he carried in his despatch box and many others. The profusion was most
impressive, and would, I am sure, have struck a chill into the soul of
Vittie had he seen it. Here were composed and written the letters which
I afterward signed, wonderful letters, which like the witches in Macbeth
“paltered in a double sense.” Here Titherington entered into agreements
with bill printers and poster artists, for my election was to be
conducted on the best possible system with all the modern improvements,
an object lesson to the rest of Ireland. Here also the interview with
Lalage took place. The room was a great convenience to us. Our proper
headquarters were, of course, in Ballygore, the principal town in the
East Connor division of Down. But a great deal of business had to be
done in Dublin and we could hardly have got on without an office.
I walked into this room a few minutes before eleven on the morning after
I had entertained Titherington in my hotel.
“The lady hasn’t arrived yet,” I said.
“She’s gone,” said Titherington. “She was here at half-past eight
o’clock.”
I noticed that Titherington spoke in a subdued way and that his eyes had
a furtive expression I had never seen in them before. I felt encouraged
to give expression to the annoyance which I felt. I told Titherington
plainly that I thought he ought not to have changed the hour of the
interview without telling me. It seemed to me that he had played me
a mean trick and I resented it. Greatly to my surprise Titherington
apologized meekly.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he said, “and I hadn’t time to communicate with
you. I only got this at twenty minutes past eight and had no more than
time to get here myself.”
He handed me a telegram.
“Eleven quite impossible. Say 8.30. Jun. Soph. Ord. begins at 9.30.
Lalage Beresford.”
“I was just sitting down to breakfast,” said Titherington, “and I had to
get up without swallowing so much as a cup of tea and hop on to a car.
She’s a tremendously prompt young woman.”
“She is,” I said, “and always was.”
“You know her then?”
“I’ve known her slightly since she was quite a little girl.”
“Why didn’t you tell me so last night?”
“I tried to,” I said, “but you kept on interrupting me, so I gave up.”
Titherington’s conscience may have pricked him. He was certainly in a
chastened mood, but he showed no sign of wishing to make any further
apologies. On the contrary he began to recover something of his habitual
self-assertiveness.
“If you know her,” he said, “perhaps you can tell me what a Jun. Soph.
Ord. is?”
“No, I can’t. She was always, even as a child, fond of using
contractions. I remember her writing to me about a ‘comp.’ and she
habitually used ‘hols’ and ‘rec.’ for holidays and recreation.”
“It sounds to me,” said Titherington, “like a police court.”
“You don’t mean to say that you think she’s been arrested for anything?”
“I hope so.”
“Why?” I asked. “Was she too much for you this morning?”
Titherington ignored the second question.
“I hope so,” he said, “because if she’s the sort of girl who gets
arrested, she’ll be most useful to us. She was quite on for annoying
Vittie. She says she’s been looking up his speeches and that he’s one of
the worst liars she ever came across. She’s quite right there.”
“I wish,” I said, “that you’d go and bail her out. Her father’s
a clergyman and it will be a horrible thing if there’s any public
scandal.”
“I hinted at that as delicately as I could. I didn’t actually mention
bail, because I wasn’t quite sure that a Jun. Soph. Ord. mightn’t be
something in the Probate and Divorce Court. She simply laughed at me and
said she didn’t want any help. She told me that she and Hilda, whoever
Hilda is, are sure to be all right, because the Puffin is always
a lamb--I suppose the Puffin is some name they have for the
magistrate--but that a Miss Harrison would probably be stuck.”
“She can’t have said Miss Harrison.”
“No. She said Selly, or Selby-Harrison, short for Selina I thought.”
“As a matter of fact, Selby-Harrison--it’s a hyphenated surname--is a
man.”
“Oh, is it?” said Titherington, using the neuter pronoun because, I
suppose, he was still uncertain about Selby-Harrison’s sex.
“I wish,” I said, “that I knew exactly what they’ve done.”
“It doesn’t in the least matter to us. So long as she’s the kind of
young woman who does something we shall be satisfied.”
“Oh, she’s that.”
“So I saw. And she’s an uncommonly good-looking girl. The crowd will be
all on her side when she starts breaking up Vittie’s meetings.”
“You accepted her offer of help then?”
“Certainly,” said Titherington. “She’s to speak at a meeting of yours on
the twenty-first.”
Titherington was by this time talking with all his usual buoyant
confidence, but I still caught the furtive look in his eyes which I had
noticed at first. He seemed to me to have something to conceal, to be
challenging criticism and to be preparing to defend himself. Now a man
who is on the defensive and who wants to conceal something has generally
acted in a way of which he is ashamed. I felt encouraged.
“You didn’t commit me in any way, I hope,” I said.
“Certainly not. I didn’t have to. She was as keen as nuts on helping
us and didn’t ask a single question about your views on the suffrage
question. I needn’t say I didn’t introduce the subject.”
“You didn’t sign anything, I suppose?”
Titherington became visibly embarrassed. He hesitated.
“I rather expected you’d have to,” I said.
“It wasn’t anything of the slightest importance.”
“Selby-Harrison drew it up, I expect.”
“So she said. But it didn’t matter in the least. If it had been anything
that tied us down I shouldn’t have signed it.”
“You would,” I said. “Whatever it was you’d have signed it.”
“She rather rushed me. She’s a most remarkable young woman. However
that’s all the better for us. If she’s capable of rushing me,”
Titherington’s chest swelled again as he spoke, “she’ll simply make hay
of Vittie. It would be worth going to hear her heckling that beast on
votes for women. Believe me, he won’t like it.”
“She had you at a disadvantage,” I said. “You hadn’t breakfasted.”
Titherington became suddenly thoughtful.
“I wish I knew more about ordinary law,” he said. “I’m all right
on Corrupt Practices and that kind of thing, but I don’t know the
phraseology outside of electioneering. Do you think a Jun. Soph. Ord.
can be any process in a libel action?”
“It might be. Why do you ask?”
“Well, the paper I signed was a sort of agreement to indemnify them in
case of proceedings for libel. I signed because I didn’t think a girl
like that would be likely to say anything which Vittie would regard as a
libel. He’s a thick-skinned hound.”
“She once libelled twenty-three bishops, she and Hilda and
Selby-Harrison between them.”
“After all,” said Titherington, “you can say pretty near anything you
like at an election. Nobody minds. I think we’re pretty safe. I’ll see
that anything she says at our meetings is kept out of the papers, and
she won’t get the chance of making regular speeches at Vittie’s.”
I felt quite sorry for Titherington. The interview with Lalage had
evidently been even more drastic than I expected.
“Perhaps,” I said soothingly, “they’ll give her six weeks for the Jun.
Soph. Ord., whatever it is, and then the whole election will be over
before she gets out.”
“We can’t allow that,” said Titherington. “It would be a downright
scandal to subject a girl like that--why, she’s quite young and--and
actually beautiful.”
“We must hope that the Puffin may prove, as she expects, to be a
disguised lamb.”
“I wish I knew who he is. I might get at him.”
“It’s too late to do anything now,” I said, “but I’ll try and find
out in the course of the morning. If I can’t, we’ll get it all in the
evening papers. They’re sure to report a case of the sort pretty fully.”
I left Titherington and walked across toward the club. I met the
Archdeacon in St. Stephen’s Green. I might, and under ordinary
circumstances I should, have slipped past him without stopping, for I
do not think he saw me. But I was anxious about Lalage and I thought it
likely that he would have some news of her. I hailed him and shook hands
warmly.
“Up for a holiday?” I asked.
“No,” said the Archdeacon. “I have eight meetings to attend to-day.”
“I mustn’t keep you then. How is everybody at home? Canon Beresford and
Lalage quite well?”
“I saw Lalage Beresford this morning. I was passing through college
on my way to one of my meetings and I saw her standing outside the big
hall. She’s in her first junior sophister examination to-day.”
“Ord?” I said.
“What?”
“Ord?” I repeated. “You said Jun. Soph., didn’t you?”
“I said junior sophister.”
“Quite so, and it would be Ord., wouldn’t it?”
“It’s an ordinary, if that’s what you mean.”
“An ordinary,” I said, “is, I suppose, an examination of a commonplace
kind.”
“It’s one that you must get through, not an honour examination.”
“I’m so glad I met you. You’ve relieved my mind immensely. I was afraid
it might be an indictable offence. Without your help I should never have
guessed!”
The Archdeacon looked at me suspiciously.
“I hope she’ll pass,” he said, “but I’m rather doubtful.”
“Oh, she’ll pass all right, she and Hilda. Selby-Harrison may possibly
be stuck.”
“She’s very weak in astronomy.”
“Still,” I said, “the Puffin is a perfect lamb. I think we may count on
that.”
The Archdeacon eyed me even more suspiciously than before. I could see
that he thought I had been drinking heavily.
“Titherington told me that about the Puffin,” I said. “He wanted to bail
her out. He’ll be just as glad as I am when he hears the truth.”
The Archdeacon held out his hand stiffly. I do not blame him in the
least for wanting to get away from me. A church dignitary has to
consider appearances, and it does not do to stand talking to an
intoxicated man in a public street, especially early in the day.
“I think we may take it for granted,” I said, “that the Puffin is the
man who sets the paper in astronomy.”
The Archdeacon left me abruptly, without shaking hands. I lit a
cigarette and thought with pleasure of the careful and sympathetic way
in which he would break the sad news of my failing to Lord Thormanby.
When I reached the club I despatched four telegrams. The first was to
Titherington.
“No further cause for anxiety. Jun. Soph. Ord. not a crime but a
college examination. The Puffin probably the Astronomer Royal, but some
uncertainty prevails on this point. Shall see lady this afternoon and
complete arrangements.”
I knew that the last sentence would annoy Titherington. I put it in for
that purpose. Titherington had wantonly annoyed me.
My other three telegrams were all to Lalage. I addressed one to the
rooms of the Elizabethan Society, one to 175 Trinity College, which was,
I recollected, the alternative address of the _Anti-Tommy Rot Gazette_,
and one to Trinity Hall, where Lalage resided. In this way I hoped to
make sure of catching her. I invited her, Hilda, and Selby-Harrison to
take tea with me at five o’clock in my hotel. I supposed that by
that time the Jun. Soph. Ord. would have run its course. I wished to
emphasize the fact that I wanted Lalage to bring Selby-Harrison, whom
I had never seen. I underlined his name; but the hall porter to whom I
gave the telegram told me that the post-office regulations do not allow
the underlining of words. If Titherington succeeds in making me a Member
of Parliament, I shall ask the Postmaster-General some nasty questions
on this point. It seems to me a vexatious limitation of the rights of
the public.