There was a great deal of angry feeling in Ballygore and indeed all
through the constituency when Lalage went home. It was generally
believed that O’Donoghue, Vittie, and I had somehow driven her away,
but this was quite unjust to us and we all three felt it. We felt it
particularly when, one night at about twelve o’clock, a large crowd
visited us in turn and groaned under our windows. O’Donoghue and Vittie,
with a view to ingratiating themselves with the electors, wrote letters
to the papers solemnly declaring that they sincerely wished Lalage to
return. Nobody believed them. Lalage’s teaching had sunk so deep into
the popular mind that nobody would have believed anything O’Donoghue and
Vittie said even if they had sworn its truth. Titherington, who was
beginning to recover, published a counter blast to their letters. He was
always quick to seize opportunities and he hoped to increase my
popularity by associating me closely with Lalage. He said that I had
originally brought her to Ballygore and he left it to be understood that
I was an ardent member of the Association for the Suppression of Public
Lying. Unfortunately nobody believed him. Lalage’s crusade had produced
an extraordinary effect. Nobody any longer believed anything, not even
the advertisements. My nurse, among others, became affected with the
prevailing feeling of scepticism and refused to accept my word for it
that I was still seriously ill. Even when I succeeded, by placing it
against the hot water bottle in the bottom of my bed, in running up her
thermometer to 103 degrees, she merely smiled. And yet a temperature of
that kind ought to have convinced her that I really had violent pains
somewhere.
The election itself showed unmistakably the popular hatred of public
lying. There were just over four thousand electors in the division,
but only 530 of them recorded their votes. A good many more, nearly a
thousand more, went to the polling booths and deliberately spoiled their
voting papers. The returning officer, who kindly came round to my hotel
to announce the result, told me that he had never seen so many spoiled
votes at any election. The usual way of invalidating the voting paper
was to bracket the three names and write “All of them liars” across the
paper. Sometimes the word “liars” was qualified by a profane adjective.
Sometimes distinctions were made between the candidates and one of us
was declared to be a more skilful or determined liar than the other
two. O’Donoghue was sometimes placed in the position of the superlative
degree of comparison. So was I. But Vittie suffered most frequently in
this way. Lalage had always displayed a special virulence in dealing
with Vittie’s public utterances. The remaining voters, 2470 of them or
thereabouts, made a silent protest against our deceitfulness by staying
away from the polling booths altogether.
O’Donoghue was elected. He secured 262 of the votes which were not
spoiled. I ran him very close, having 260 votes to my credit. Vittie
came a bad third, with only eight votes. Vittie, as Titherington told me
from the first, never had a chance of success. He was only nominated in
the hope that he might take some votes away from me. I hope his friends
were satisfied with the result. Three of his eight votes would have
given me a majority. Titherington wrote me a long letter some time
afterward, as soon, in fact, as he was well enough to do sums. He said
that originally, before Lalage came on the scene, I had 1800 firm and
reliable supporters, men who would have walked miles through snowstorms
to cast their votes for me. O’Donoghue had about the same number who
would have acted with equal self-denial on his behalf. Vittie was
tolerably sure of two hundred voters and there were about two hundred
others who hesitated between Vittie and me, but would rather cut off
their right hands than vote for O’Donoghue. I ought, therefore, to have
been elected, and I would have been elected, if Lalage had not turned
the minds of the voters away from serious political thought. “I do not
know,” Titherington wrote in a sort of parenthesis, “whether these women
hope to advance their cause by tactics of this kind. If they do they
are making a bad mistake. No right-thinking man will ever consent to
the enfranchisement of a sex capable of treating political life with the
levity displayed here by Miss Beresford.” It is very curious how hard
Titherington finds it to believe that he has made a mistake. He will
probably go down to his grave maintaining that the letters A.S.P.L.
stand for woman’s suffrage, although I pointed out to him more than once
that they do not.
The latter part of Titherington’s letter was devoted to a carefully
reasoned explanation of the actual victory of O’Donoghue. He accounted
for it in two ways. O’Donoghue’s supporters, being inferior in
education and general intelligence to mine, were less likely to be
affected by new and heretical doctrines such as Lalage’s. A certain
amount of mental activity is required in order to go wrong. Also,
Lalage’s professed admiration for truth made its strongest appeal to
my supporters, because O’Donoghue’s friends were naturally addicted
to lying and loved falsehood for its own sake. My side was, in fact,
beaten--I have noticed that this is the case in many elections--because
it was intellectually and morally the better side. This theory would
have been very consoling to me if I had wanted consolation. I did not. I
was far from grudging O’Donoghue his victory. He, so far as I can learn,
is just the man to enjoy hearing other people make long speeches. I have
never developed a taste for that form of amusement.
The day after the declaration of the result of the election a really
serious misfortune befell me. McMeekin himself took influenza. There was
a time when I wished very much to hear that he was writhing in the grip
of the disease. But those feelings had long passed away from my mind. I
no longer wished any ill to McMeekin. I valued him highly as a medical
attendant, and I particularly needed his skill just when he was snatched
away from me, because my nurse was becoming restive. She hinted at
first, and then roundly asserted that I was perfectly well. Nothing
but McMeekin’s determined diagnosis of obscure affections of my heart,
lungs, and viscera kept her to her duties. She made more than one
attempt to take me out for a drive. I resisted her, knowing that a drive
would, in the end, take me to the railway station and from that home to
be embroiled in the contest between Lalage and the Diocesan Synod. I had
a letter from my mother urging me to return home at once and hinting at
the possibility of unpleasantness over the election of the new bishop.
This made me the more determined to stay where I was, and so McMeekin’s
illness was a very serious blow to me.
I satisfied myself by inquiry that he was not likely to get well
immediately and then I sent for another doctor. This man turned out to
be one of my original supporters and I think his feelings must have been
hurt by my calling in McMeekin. He had also, I could see, been greatly
influenced by Lalage. He told me, with insulting directness of speech,
that there was nothing the matter with me. I could not remember the
names of the diseases which McMeekin said I had or might develop. The
nurse, who could have remembered them if she liked, would not. The new
doctor, an aggressive, red-faced young man, repeated his statement that
I was perfectly well. He emphasized it by refusing to take a fee. My
nurse, with evident delight, packed her box and left by the next train.
After that there was nothing for me but to go home.
My mother must have been disappointed at the result of the East Connor
election. She believed, I fear she still believes, that I am fitted to
make laws and would be happy in the work. But she has great tact. She
did not, by either word or glance, condole with me over my defeat.
I also possess a little tact, so I did not exult or express any
gratification in her presence. We neither of us mentioned the subject of
the election. My uncle Thormanby, on the other hand, has no tact at all.
He came over to luncheon the day after I arrived home. We had scarcely
sat down at table when he began to jeer.
“Well,” he said, speaking in his usual hearty full-throated way, “better
luck next time.”
“I am not sure,” I said, with dignified coolness, “that there will be a
next time.”
“Oh, yes, there will. ‘He who fights and runs away will live to fight
another day.’”
I did not see how the proverb applied to me.
“Do you mean the influenza?” I said. “That was scarcely my fault. My
temperature was 104.”
“All the same,” said Thormanby, “you didn’t exactly stand up to her, did
you?”
I understood then that he was thinking about Lalage.
“Nor did O’Donoghue,” I said. “And Vittie really was shamming.
Titherington told me so.”
“Influenza or no influenza, I shouldn’t have sat down under the things
that girl was saying about you.”
“What would you have done?”
“I should have put her in her place pretty quick. I’m sorry I wasn’t
there.”
As a matter of fact Thormanby had taken very good care not to be
there. He had washed his hands and put the whole responsibility on the
shoulders of Miss Battersby and Miss Pettigrew. I felt it my duty to
bring this home to his conscience.
“Why didn’t you come?” I asked. “We’d have been very pleased to see
you.”
“Peers,” he replied, “are not allowed to interfere in elections.”
This, of course, was a mere subterfuge. I was not inclined to let
Thormanby escape.
“You’ll have every opportunity,” I said, “of putting her in her place
without running your head against the British constitution. She means to
take an active part in electing the new bishop.”
“Nonsense. There’s no part for her to take. That’s a matter for the
synod of the diocese and she won’t be allowed into its meetings.”
“All the same she’ll manage to get in. But of course that won’t matter.
You’ll put her in her place pretty quick.”
Thormanby’s tone was distinctly less confident when he next spoke.
“Do you happen to know,” he asked, “what she means to do?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Could you possibly find out? She might tell you if you asked her.”
“I don’t intend to ask her. I have washed my hands of the whole affair.”
My mother came into the conversation at this point.
“Lalage hasn’t confided in me,” she said, “but she has told Miss
Battersby----”
“Ah!” I said, “Miss Battersby is so wonderfully sympathetic. Anybody
would confide in her.”
“She told Miss Battersby,” my mother went on, “that she was studying the
situation and looking into the law of the matter.”
“Let her stick to that,” said Thormanby.
“Are Hilda and Selby-Harrison down here?” I asked.
“Hilda is,” said my mother. “I don’t know about the other. Who is he or
she?”
“He,” I said, “is the third member of the committee of the Episcopal
Election Guild. He’s particularly good at drawing up agreements. I
expect the Archdeacon will have to sign one. By the way, I suppose he’s
the proper man to vote for?”
“I’m supporting him,” said Thormanby, “so I suppose you will.” I do not
like being hustled in this way. “I shall study the situation,” I said,
“before I make up my mind. I am a life member of the Episcopal Election
Guild and I must allow myself to be guided to some extent by the
decision of the committee.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” said Thormanby, “that you’ve given that girl
money again?”
“Not again. My original subscription carries me on from one society to
another. Selby-Harrison arranged about that.”
“I should have thought,” said Thormanby sulkily, “that you’d had
warnings enough. You will never learn sense even if you live to be a
hundred.”
I saw the Archdeacon next day. He tackled the subject of my defeat in
East Connor without hesitation. He has even less tact than Thormanby.
“I’m sorry for you, my dear boy,” he said, wringing my hand, “more sorry
than I can tell you. These disappointments are very hard to bear at your
age. When you are as old as I am and know how many of them life has in
store for all of us, you will not feel them nearly so acutely.”
“I’m trying to bear up,” I said.
“Your defeat is a public loss. I feel that very strongly. After your
diplomatic experience and with your knowledge of foreign affairs your
advice would have been invaluable in all questions of imperial policy.”
“I’m greatly gratified to hear you say that. I was afraid you thought I
had taken to drink.”
“My dear boy,” said the Archdeacon with pained surprise, “what can have
put such an idea into your head?”
“I couldn’t help knowing what was in your mind that day in Dublin when I
spoke to you about Lalage’s Jun. Soph. Ord.”
I could see that the Archdeacon was uncomfortable. He had certainly
entertained suspicions when we parted in St. Stephen’s Green, though he
might now pretend to have forgotten them.
“You thought so then,” I went on, “though it was quite early in the
day.”
“Not at all. I happened to be in a hurry. That is all. I knew perfectly
well it was only your manner.”
“I don’t blame you in the least. Anybody might have thought just as you
did.”
“But I didn’t. I knew you were upset at the time. You were anxious
about Lalage Beresford. She’s a charming girl, with a very good heart,
but----”
The Archdeacon hesitated.
“But----” I said, encouraging him to go on.
“Did you hear,” he said, anxiously, “that she intends to take part in
the episcopal election? A rumour to that effect has reached me.”
“I have it on the best authority that she does.”
“Tut, tut,” said the Archdeacon. “Do you tell me so? Tut, tut. But
that is quite impossible and most undesirable, for her own sake most
undesirable.”
“We’re all relying on you to prevent scandal.”
“Your uncle, Lord Thormanby----”
“He’ll put her in her place. He’s promised to do so. And that will be
all right as far as it goes. But the question is will she stay there.
That’s where you come in, Archdeacon. Once she’s in her place it will be
your business, as Archdeacon, to keep her there.”
“I’ll speak to her father about it,” said the Archdeacon. “Beresford
must put his foot down.”
“He’s going to Brazil. He told me so.”
“We can’t have that. He must stay here. It’s perfectly impossible for
him to leave the country at present. I’ll see him this evening.”
I told my mother that night that I had studied the situation long enough
and was fully determined to cast my vote for the Archdeacon.
“He is thoroughly well fitted to be a bishop,” I said. “He told me
to-day that my knowledge of foreign affairs would be most valuable to
the government whenever questions of imperial policy turned up.”
My mother seemed a little puzzled.
“What has that got to do with the bishopric?” she asked.
“The remark,” I said, “shows me the kind of man the Archdeacon is. No
one who was not full of suave dignity and sympathetic diplomacy could
have said a thing like that. What more do you want in a bishop?”
“A great deal more,” said my mother, who takes these church questions
seriously.
“He also undertook,” I said, “to keep Lalage in her place once she is
put there.”
“If he does that----”
“I quite agree with you. If he does that he ought to be a bishop, or a
Metropolitan, if not a Patriarch. That’s why I’m going to vote for him.”