George A. Birmingham

“ I had luncheon in the club and then, without waiting even for a cup of coffee and a cigarette, went back to my hotel. I felt that I must make the most perfect possible arrangements for my tea party. The violence of my invitations would naturally raise Lalage’s expectations to the highest pitch. I sent for the head waiter, who had struck me as an able and intelligent man.
“I am expecting some ladies this afternoon,” I said, “and I shall have tea in my sitting room at five o’clock. I want everything to be as nice as possible, fresh flowers and that kind of thing.” ”

“ My mind kept wandering from the lunging figures on the edge of the cliff to a vision of Lalage in a dark green dress speeding along the road on her bicycle.
I laid down the novel and set myself the pleasant task of constructing imaginary interviews between Lalage and the Archdeacon. As a rule I enjoy the meanderings of my own imagination, and in this particular case I had provided it with material to work on much more likely to be entertaining than the gambols of the expert swordsman or the scorn of the lady above him. But my imagination failed me. It pictured Lalage well enough. ”

“ It seems to me, looking back on it now, that we sat there, Lalage on the edge of the water tank, I in my hammock chair, and flung illusive phrases and half finished sentences at each other, getting hot by turns, and sometimes both together. At last Lalage left me, quite as abruptly as she had come. I did not know what to make of the situation. There had been nothing but conversation between us. I always understood that under certain circumstances there is more than conversation, sometimes a great deal more. I picked up “Sword Play,” which lay on the ground beside me. ”

“ We needn’t worry ourselves so long as he pays us.”
“Lalage,” I said, “and Hilda, I am so thoroughly convinced of your energy and enterprise, I feel so sure of Selby-Harrison’s financial ability and I am so deeply in sympathy with the objects of your, may I say our, society, that if I possessed £300,000 you should have it to-morrow; but, owing to, recent legislation affecting Irish land, the ever-increasing burden of income tax and the death duties——”
“Don’t start rambling again,” said Lalage. “It isn’t in the least funny, and we’re both beginning to get sleepy. Nobody wants £300,000.” ”

“ The Canon nodded sadly. I did not care to make more inquiries about the Archdeacon.
“Well,” I said, “if neither he nor Thormanby is with you, who is?”
“Miss Battersby for one. She volunteered.”
I felt relieved. Miss Battersby is never formidable.
“She won’t matter,” I said. “Lalage and Hilda will put her to bed and keep her there. That’s what they did with her on the way to Lisbon.”
“And Miss Pettigrew,” said the Canon. ”

“ I found myself still more puzzled by Lalage’s attitude toward another man who was not even, strictly speaking, a bishop. He was a moderator, or an ex-moderator, of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. He had made a speech in which he set forth reasons why he and others like him should have a recognized place in the vice-regal court. I am not myself passionately fond of vice-regal courts, but I know that many people regard them with great reverence, and I do not see why a man should be laughed at for wanting to walk through the state rooms in Dublin Castle in front of somebody else. ”

“ So, I think, did the Canon. Lalage smiled at us, but more in pity than in balm.
“I call this rather a scoop for me,” said Lalage.
“I’m glad of that,” I said, “for I’ve brought a bottle of French plums from my mother and a box of Turkish Delight which I bought out of my own money.”
“Thanks,” said Lalage. “But it wasn’t the chocolates I was thinking of. The scoop I mean is going to school. It’s a jolly sight better than rotting about here with a beastly governess.”
“You can’t expect any governess to enjoy being robbed of her glycerine and cucumber,” I said. ”

“ Burgundy would not have been nearly as good for me as champagne, but it would have been better than nothing. McMeekin sternly forbade anything of the sort, and I heard him tell the nurse to give me barley water when I asked for a drink. This is another proof that McMeekin ought to be in an asylum for idiots. Barley water would depress me and make me miserable even if I were in perfect health.
As a set-off against Titherington’s thoughtlessness and McMeekin’s imbecility, I noticed that during the day the nurse became gradually less obnoxious. ”

“ I prepared for the final struggle by gripping the bedclothes tightly with both hands and poking my feet between the bars at the bottom of the bed.
At three o’clock she had me seated in the armchair, clothed in my dressing gown, with a rug wrapped round my legs. I was tingling with suppressed rage and flushed with a feeling of degradation. I intended, as soon as I regained my self control, to say some really nasty things to her. Before I had made up my mind which of several possible remarks she would dislike most, Titherington came into the room. ”

“ I said, desperately, “merely mean that a bishop mayn’t have two wives.”
“Do talk sense,” said Lalage. “What would be the point of saying that a bishop mayn’t have two? It’s hard enough to get a man like the Archdeacon to have one. Besides, if that’s what it means, then other people, not bishops, are allowed to have two wives, which is perfectly absurd. It would be bigamy and that’s far worse than what the Archdeacon said I’d done. Where’s Hilda?” ”

“ Titherington shuffled his papers about.
“Most of the rest of them,” he said, “are just the ordinary things. We needn’t worry about them. There’s only one other letter—ah! here it is. By the way, have you any opinions about woman’s suffrage?”
“Not one,” I said, “but I don’t, of course, want to be ragged if it can be avoided. Shall I pledge myself to get votes for all the unmarried women in the constituency, or ought I to go further?”
Titherington looked at me severely. Then he said:
“It won’t do us any harm if Vittie is made to smell hell by a few militant Suffragettes.” ”

“ I said, “isn’t—he’s purely imaginary, but if he had any real existence he wouldn’t belong to your church. He’d be a bishop.”
“He’d better,” said Dodds grimly.
I felt so much depressed that I declared spades at once. I gathered from the tone in which he spoke that if the clergyman who preached imperialism came within the jurisdiction of Dodds, or for the matter of that of Mrs. Dodds, it would be the worse for him. By far his best chance of a peaceful life was to be a bishop and not to live in Scotland. This was a great deal worse than Lalage’s way of treating him. ”

“ On the 19th of February I developed a sharp attack of influenza. Titherington flew to my side at once, which was the thing, of all possible things, that I most wanted him not to do. He aggravated my sufferings greatly by speaking as if my condition were my own fault. I was too feverish to argue coherently. All I could do was to swear at him occasionally. No man has any right to be as stupid as Titherington is. It is utterly ridiculous to suppose that I should undergo racking pains in my limbs, a violent headache and extreme general discomfort if I could possibly avoid it. ”

“ The Canon was depressed as we drove home together. I felt it my duty to cheer him up as much as I could.
“After all,” I said, “you’ve nothing to reproach yourself with. Miss Battersby has got another situation. She’ll be far happier at Thormanby’s than she ever could have been with you. His girls are thoroughly well brought up.”
“She was very fond of Lalage,” said the Canon.
“Still, they didn’t suit each other. Miss Battersby will get over any feeling of regret she may have at first. She’ll be far more at home with quiet, well-tamed girls like Thormanby’s.” ”

“ A man ought to know whether he has or has not committed himself to a proposal of marriage. The Archdeacon, I felt perfectly certain, knew what he had done. And I ought to know whether Lalage had accepted or rejected the proposal. The Archdeacon can have had few if any doubts when Lalage left him. I made up my mind at last to lay the case before my mother. I determined to repeat to her, as nearly as possible, verbatim, the whole conversation which had taken place in the greenhouse. ”

“ I do not particularly object to the prospect of being hounded out of public life by means of scathing articles; but I feel that I should not be the only victim. Some of the others would certainly resent Lalage’s action and then there would be a fuss. I have always hated fuss of any kind.
“Only members of the committee are expected to take part in the active propaganda of the society. Ordinary members merely subscribe. I am sending this appeal to father, Lord Thormanby, Miss Battersby, who is still there, and the Archdeacon, as well as to you.” ”

“ I judged from this that it was not anxiety about Miss Battersby’s future that was preying on his mind. I tried again.
“If it’s the thought of that bottle of glycerine and cucumber which is worrying you,” I said, “don’t let it. Send her another. Send her two. Make Tom Kitterick carry them over to Thormanby Park and present them on bended knee, clad only in his shirt and with a halter round his neck.”
The Canon’s gloom merely deepened.
“I don’t think,” I said, “that you need fret about Miss Pettigrew. After all, it’s her job. She must meet plenty of high-spirited girls.” ”

“ Hilda, look under the bed. That’s just the idiotic sort of place Tithers would hide a thing.”
I heard Hilda grovelling about on the floor. A minute later she was dragging the bag out.
“What are you going to do with it, Lalage?”
“Take it away and keep it myself till you’re both well.”
“We never shall be,” I said. “We shall die. Please, Lalage, please don’t.”
“It’s the only honest course,” said Lalage.
I made an effort to assert myself, though I knew it was useless.
“There is such a thing,” I said, “as carrying honesty too far. All extremes are wrong. ”

“ We had two temperance secretaries, damned asses, to propose votes of thanks.”
“For my influenza?”
“You’re getting better,” said Titherington, “not a doubt of it. I’ll send you round a dozen of champagne to-morrow, proper stuff, and by the time you’ve swallowed it you’ll be chirrupping like a grasshopper.”
“I’m not getting better, and that brute McMeekin wouldn’t let me look at champagne. He gives me gruel and a vile slop he calls beef tea.”
“If he doesn’t give you something to buck you up,” said Titherington, “I’ll set Miss Beresford on him. She’ll make him hop.” ”

“ I looked at my watch as I got into my trap and found that it was eleven o’clock, not more than two hours since my uncle’s letter had been handed to me at the breakfast table. Yet I felt thoroughly tired. No one who has only just recovered from influenza ought to be called upon to face a crisis. At the best of times a crisis of any magnitude is too much for me. When I am weak anything of the sort exhausts me rapidly. It is most unfair that I should be beset with crises as I am. ”

“ I have always disliked the modern system of co-education and after reading Lalage’s letter I was strongly inclined to agree with the bishop who wants to stamp it out, beginning with the infant schools. I do not agree with his reasoning. My objection—it applies particularly to the admission of grown-up young women to universities—is that even-handed justice is never administered. The girls get off cheap. Some day, perhaps, we shall have a lady presiding as provost over one of our great universities. Then the inequalities of our present arrangements will be balanced by others. ”

“ If the Archdeacon makes his charge formally the Archbishop will be obliged to take it up. Miss Pettigrew will be hauled up before him——”
“Miss Pettigrew,” said my mother, “would simply laugh. She’s not in the very least the sort of woman——”
“I know. She’s one of those people that you hate awfully and yet can’t help loving though you are rather afraid of her. It’s for her sake more than Lalage’s that I’m asking you to interfere.”
“If I interfere at all it will be for the Archdeacon’s sake. It’s a pity to allow him to make a fool of himself.” ”