I congratulated my mother that night on her success in dealing with
Lalage.
“Your combination,” I said, “of tact, firmness, sympathy, and
reasonableness was most masterly.”
My mother smiled gently. I somehow gathered from her way of smiling that
she thought my congratulations premature.
“Surely,” I said, “you don’t think she’ll break out again. She made you
a definite promise.”
“She’ll keep her promise to the letter,” said my mother, still smiling
in the same way.
“If she does,” I said, “she can’t do anything very bad.”
It turned out--it always does--that my mother was right and I was wrong.
The next morning at breakfast a note was handed to me by the footman.
He said it had been brought over from Thormanby Park by a groom on
horseback. It was marked “Urgent” in red ink.
Thormanby acts at times in a violent and impulsive manner. If I were
his uncle, and so qualified by relationship to give him the advice
he frequently gives me, I should recommend him to cultivate repose of
manner and leisurely dignity of action. He is a peer of this realm, and
has, besides, been selected by his fellow peers to represent them in
the House of Lords. He ought not to send grooms scouring the country at
breakfast time, carrying letters which look, on the outside, as if they
announced the discovery of dangerous conspiracies. I said this and more
to my mother before opening the envelope, and she seemed to agree with
me that the political and social decay of our aristocracy is to some
extent to be traced to their excitability and lack of self-control. By
way of demonstrating my own calm, I laid the envelope down beside my
plate and refrained from opening it until I had finished the kidney I
was eating at the time. The letter, when I did read it, turned out to be
quite as hysterical as the manner of its arrival. Thormanby summoned me
to his presence--there is no other way of describing the style in which
he wrote--and ordered me to start immediately.
“I can’t imagine what has gone wrong,” I said. “Do you think that Miss
Battersby can have gone suddenly mad and assaulted one of the girls with
a battle axe?”
“It is far more likely that Lalage has done something,” said my mother.
“After her promise to you what could she have done?”
“She might have kept it.”
I thought this over and got a grip on the meaning by degrees.
“You mean,” I said, “that she has appealed to my uncle on some point
about the Archdeacon’s qualifications.”
“Exactly.”
“But that wouldn’t upset him so much.”
“It depends on what the point is.”
“She’s extraordinarily ingenious,” I said. “Perhaps I’d better go over
to Thormanby Park and see.”
“Finish your breakfast,” said my mother. “I’ll order the trap for you.”
I arrived at Thormanby Park shortly after ten o’clock. The door was
opened to me by Miss Battersby. She confessed that she had been watching
for me from the window of the morning room which looks out over the
drive. She squeezed my hand when greeting me and held it so long that
I was sure she was suffering from some acute anxiety. She also spoke
breathlessly, in a sort of gasping whisper, as if she had been running
hard. She had not, of course, run at all. The gasps were due to
excitement and agony.
“I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said. “I knew you would. Lord Thormanby
is waiting for you in the library. I do hope you won’t say anything to
make it worse. You’ll try not to, won’t you?”
I gathered from this that it, whatever it was, must be very bad already.
“Lalage?” I said.
Miss Battersby nodded solemnly.
“My mother told me it must be that, before I started.”
“If you could,” said Miss Battersby persuasively, “and if you would----”
“I can and will,” I said. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. But I can’t bear to think of poor little Lalage bearing
all the blame.”
“I can’t well take the blame,” I said, “although I’m perfectly willing
to do so, unless I can find out what it is she’s done.”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. There was a letter from her this morning to
Lord Thormanby, but he didn’t show it to me.”
“If it’s in her handwriting,” I said, “there’s no use my saying I wrote
it. He wouldn’t believe me. But if it’s typewritten and not signed, I’ll
say it’s mine.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t ask you to do so much as that. Besides, it wouldn’t be
true.”
“It won’t be true in any case,” I said, “if I take even part of the
blame.”
“But you mustn’t say what isn’t true.”
Miss Battersby is unreasonable, though she means well. It is clearly
impossible for me to be strictly truthful and at the same time to claim,
as my own, misdeeds of which I do not even know the nature. I walked
across the hall in the direction of the library door. Miss Battersby
followed me with her hand on my arm.
“Do your best for her,” she whispered pleadingly.
Thormanby was certainly in a very bad temper. He was sitting at the far
side of a large writing table when I entered the room. He did not rise
or shake hands with me. He simply pushed a letter across the table
toward me with the end of a paper knife. His action gave me the
impression that the letter was highly infectious.
“Look at that,” he said.
I looked and saw at once that it was in Lalage’s handwriting. I was
obliged to give up the idea of claiming it as mine.
“Why don’t you read it?” said Thormanby.
“I didn’t know you wanted me to. Do you?”
“How the deuce are you to know what’s in it if you don’t read it?”
“It’s quite safe, I suppose?”
“Safe? Safe? What do you mean?”
“When I saw you poking at it with that paper knife I thought it might be
poisoned.”
Thormanby growled and I took up the letter. Lalage has a courteous but
perfectly lucid style. I read:
“Dear Lord Thormanby, as a member of the Diocesan Synod you are, I feel
sure, quite as anxious as I am that only a really suitable man should
be elected bishop. I therefore enclose a carefully drawn list of the
necessary and desirable qualifications for that office.”
“You have the list?” I said.
“Yes. She sent the thing. She has cheek enough for anything.”
“Selby-Harrison drew it up, so if there’s anything objectionable in it
he’s the person you ought to blame, not Lalage.”
I felt that I was keeping my promise to Miss Battersby. I had succeeded
in implicating another culprit. Not more than half the blame was now
Lalage’s.
“The _sine qua nons_,” the letter went on, “are marked with red crosses,
the _desiderata_ in black.”
“I’m glad,” I said, “that she got one plural right. By the way, I wonder
what the plural of that phrase really is. It can’t be _sines qua non_,
and yet _sine quibus_ sounds pedantic.”
I said this in the hope of mitigating Thormanby’s wrath by turning his
thoughts into another channel.
I failed. He merely growled again. I went on reading the letter:
“You will observe at once that the Archdeacon, whom we should all like
to have as our new bishop, possesses every requirement for the office
except one, number fifteen on the enclosed list, marked for convenience
of reference, with a violet asterisk.”
“What is the missing _sine qua?_” I asked. “Don’t tell me if it’s
private.”
“It’s--it’s--damn it all, look for yourself.” He flung a typewritten
sheet of foolscap at me. I picked my way carefully among the red and
black crosses until I came to the violet asterisk.
“No. 15. ‘A bishop must be the husband of one wife’--I Tim: III.”
“That’s rather a poser,” I said, “if true. It seems to me to put the
Archdeacon out of the running straight off.”
“No. It doesn’t,” said Thormanby. “That’s where the girl’s infernal
insolence comes in.”
I read:
“This obstacle, though under the present circumstances an absolute bar,
is fortunately remedial.”
“I wish Lalage would be more careful,” I said, “she ought to have
written ‘remediable.’ However her meaning is quite plain.”
“It gets plainer further on,” said Thormanby grinning.
This was the first time I had seen him grin since I came into the room.
I took it for an encouraging sign.
Lalage’s letter went on:
“The suggestion of the obvious remedy, must be made by some one, for
the Archdeacon has evidently not thought of it himself. It would come
particularly well from you, occupying as you do a leading position in
the diocese. Unfortunately the time at our disposal is very short,
and it will hardly do to leave the Archdeacon without some practical
suggestion for the immediate remedying of the sad defect. What you will
have to offer him is a scheme thoroughly worked out and perfect in every
detail. The name of Miss Battersby will probably occur to you at once. I
need not remind you of her sweet and lovable disposition. You have been
long acquainted with her, and will recognize in her a lady peculiarly
well suited to share an episcopal throne.”
Thormanby became almost purple in the face as I read out the final
sentences of the letter. I saw that he was struggling with some strong
emotion and suspected that he wanted very much to laugh. If he did he
suppressed the desire manfully. His forehead was actually furrowed with
a frown when I had finished. I laid the letter down on the table and
tapped it impressively with my forefinger.
“That,” I said, “strikes me as a remarkably good suggestion.”
Thormanby exploded.
“Of all the damned idiots I’ve ever met,” he said, “you’re the worst.
Do you mean to say that you expect me to drag Miss Battersby over to the
Archdeacon’s house and dump her down there in a white satin dress with
a wedding ring tied round her neck by a ribbon and a stodgy cake tucked
under her arm?”
“I haven’t actually worked out all the details,” I said. “I am thinking
more of the plan in its broad outlines. After all, the Archdeacon isn’t
married. We can’t get over that. If that text of First Timothy is really
binding--I don’t myself know whether it is or not, but I’m inclined
to take Selby-Harrison’s word for it that it is. He’s in the Divinity
School and has been making a special study of the subject. If he’s
right, there’s no use our electing the Archdeacon and then having the
Local Government Board coming down on us afterward for appointing an
unqualified man. You remember the fuss they made when the Urban District
Council took on a cookery instructress who hadn’t got her diploma.”
“That wasn’t the Local Government Board. It was the Department of
Agriculture. But in any case neither the one nor the other of them has
anything in the world to do with bishops.”
“Don’t you be too sure of that. I expect you’ll find they have if you
appoint a man who isn’t properly qualified, and the law on the subject
is perfectly plain.”
“Rot! Lots of bishops aren’t married. Texts of that sort never mean what
they seem to mean.”
“What’s the good of running risks,” I said, “when the remedy is in our
own hands? I don’t see that the Archdeacon could do better than Miss
Battersby. She’s wonderfully sympathetic.”
“You’d better go and tell him so yourself.”
“I would, I’d go like a shot, only most unluckily he’s got it into his
head that I’ve taken to drink. He might think, just at first, that I
wasn’t quite myself if I went to him with a suggestion of that sort.”
“There’d be some excuse for him if he did,” said Thormanby.
“Whereas, if you, who have always been strictly temperate----”
“I didn’t send for you,” said Thormanby, “to stand there talking like a
born fool. What I want you to do----”
He paused and blew his nose with some violence.
“Yes?” I said.
“Is to go and put a muzzle on that girl of Beresford’s.”
“If you’re offering me a choice,” I said, “I’d a great deal rather drag
Miss Battersby over to the Archdeacon’s house and dump her down there in
a wedding ring with a white satin dress tied round her neck by a ribbon.
I might manage that, but I’m constitutionally unfitted to deal with
Lalage. It was you who said you would put her in her place. I told the
Archdeacon he could count on you.”
“I’ll see Beresford to-day, anyhow.”
“Not the least use. He’s going to one of the South American republics
where there’s no extradition.”
“I’ll speak to your mother about it.”
“As a matter of fact,” I said, “Lalage is acting strictly in accordance
with my mother’s instructions in referring this matter to you. Why not
try Miss Pettigrew?”
“I will. Who is she?”
“She used to be Lalage’s schoolmistress.”
“Does she use the cane?”
“This,” I said, “is entirely your affair. I’ve washed my hands of it
so I’m not even offering advice, but if I were you I’d be careful about
anything in the way of physical violence. Remember that Lalage has
Selby-Harrison behind her and he knows the law. You can see for yourself
by the way he ferreted out that text of First Timothy that he has the
brain of a first-rate solicitor.”
I left the room after that. In the hall Miss Battersby waylaid me again.
“Is it all right?” she asked anxiously.
“Not quite. My uncle is writing to Miss Pettigrew.”
“She won’t come. I’m sure she won’t. She told me herself when we were in
Ballygore that for the future she intends to watch Lalage’s performances
from a distance.”
“She may make an exception in this case,” I said. “If my uncle states
it at all fully in his letter it can scarcely fail to make an appeal to
her.”
Miss Battersby sighed. She was evidently not hopeful.
“Lalage is such a dear girl,” she said. “It is a sad pity that she
will----”
“She’s always trying to do right.”
“Always,” said Miss Battersby fervently.
“That’s why it’s generally so difficult for other people.”
“The world,” said Miss Battersby, “is very hard.”
“And desperately wicked. If it were even moderately straightforward and
honest Lalage would have been canonized long ago.”
“She’s a little foolish sometimes.”
“All great reformers,” I said, “appear foolish to the people of their
own generation. It’s only afterward that their worth is recognized.”
Miss Battersby sighed again. Then she shook hands with me.
“I must go to Lord Thormanby,” she said, “He’ll want me to write his
letters for him.”
“He won’t want you to write that one to Miss Pettigrew. He has his
faults of temper, but he’s essentially a gentleman, and he wouldn’t
dream of asking you to write that particular letter for him. I don’t
think you need go to him yet. Stay and talk to me about Lalage and the
hardness of the world.”
“If he doesn’t want me,” she said, “I ought to settle the flowers.”
It really is a pity that Thormanby will not persuade the Archdeacon to
marry Miss Battersby. Besides being sweet and lovable, as Lalage pointed
out, she has a strong sense of duty which would be quite invaluable
in the diocese. Very few people after an agitating morning would go
straight off to settle flowers.