Laager

“ 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. ”

“ I said, “that I’m to——?”
“Certainly,” said Lalage.
“To write a book?” I said desperately.
“That’s the reason,” said Lalage, “why I refurnished your study and bought that perfectly sweet Dutch marquetry bureau and hung up the picture of Milton dictating ‘Paradise Lost’ to his two daughters.”
I have hated that picture since the day it first appeared in in my study. I only agreed to letting it in because I knew the alternative was Titherington’s hospital nurse. The Dutch bureau, if it is Dutch, is most uncomfortable to write at. There was no use, however, wrangling about details. ”

“ 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. ”

“ My mother told me so this afternoon. I suppose the Archdeacon trotted them all out one by one?”
“No. I told you he took it like a lamb. Why won’t you try to understand?”
“Anyhow,” I said, “his demeanour was most encouraging to you. I suppose you suggested Miss Battersby to him at once?”
“No, I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
Lalage hesitated again. She was not speaking with her usual fluency. I tried to help her out.
“Something in the glare of his eyes stopped you,” I said. “I have always heard that the human eye possesses remarkable power.” ”

“ He probably knows, having once been six years old himself, that all boys of that age are horrid little beasts. He also knows—he distinctly says so in the pastoral quoted by Lalage—that the charm of maidenhood is a delicate thing, comparable to the bloom on a peach or the gloss on a butterfly’s wings. Even Miss Battersby, who must know more about girls than any bishop, felt that Lalage had lost something not to be regained when she became intimate enough with Tom Kitterick to rub glycerine and cucumber into his cheeks. ”

“ Compared to Hilda, who has one-and-sixpence, earned in the sweat of her brow, Lalage must seem a millionaire.
“Do you know the kind of person who you hate and yet can’t help loving although you are afraid of her? That is the sort the old Pet is. As I was going into school to-day she was standing at the door. The beast promptly spotted the fact that I had no hair ribbon, and remarked in awe-inspiring tones, ‘Lalage, where is your hair ribbon?’ ‘Forgot it,’ said I, and took a lecture with a polite grin. The old Pet may be a beast, but is not an ass. ”

“ She was riding a bicycle and jumped down as soon as she saw me. I pulled up my pony, of course. Even if Lalage had not jumped down I should have pulled up the pony. Lalage is a sure harbinger of trouble. Crises attend her course through life. Yet I cannot help stopping to talk to her when I get the chance. I suppose I am moved by some obscure instinct which makes me wish to know the worst in store for me as soon as possible.
“I’m darting on,” said Lalage, “to secure Pussy Battersby, but I stopped for a moment to tell you to go straight to the rectory.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our Tactics, by the Editor.
“She won’t insult you,” said Lalage. “She simply crawls to any grown-up. You should hear her talking to father and pretending that she thinks fishing nice.”
“She’s perfectly right to do that. After all, Lalage, your father is a canon and a certain measure of respect is due to his recreations as well as to his serious work. Besides——”
“It’s never right to crawl to any one.”
“Besides,” I said, “what you call crawling may in reality be sympathy. I’m sure Miss Battersby has a sympathetic disposition. ”

“ I said, “a gentle, quiet, peaceable sort of wife, who sits beside the fire and knits, purring gently. When he has finished that quotation he’ll blow his nose and give me the piece out of Epictetus about the ‘price of tranquillity.’ He’ll mean by that, that sorry as he is to lose Lalage, the future will hold some compensating joys. He won’t be obliged to dart off at a moment’s notice to Wick, or Brazil, or Borneo. The Canon is, after all, a thoroughly selfish man. ”

“ I said, “that the Archdeacon isn’t the only man in the world who would like—any man would—in fact every man must, unless he’s married already, and in that case he’s extremely sorry he can’t. I certainly do.”
Lalage grew gradually more and more crimson in the face while I spoke. At my last words she started violently, and for an instant I thought she was going to fall into the tank. ”

“ Hide and seek with Lalage.
People hand me out advice:
“Hod, you’re doing too much drivel.
Write us something sweet and nice.
Stow the satire, chop the frivol.”
But we have the rent to pay,
Lalage; eh, Lalage?
[Pg 61] Ladies shy the saving sense
Write me patronizing letters;
And there are the writing gents,
Always out to knock their betters.
What cares Flaccus if he may
Lallygag with Lalage!
No, old top, the writing lay’s
Not a bed of sweet geranium.
Brickbats mingle with bouquets
Shied at my devoted cranium.
Does it peeve yours truly? Nay.
Nothing can—with Lalage. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And yellow Breg's hill,
I'd give all, no small trial,
To know that land still.
"The quest then is a good one?" said Cuchulain. "It is goodly indeed," said Laeg, "and it is right that thou shouldest go to attain it, and all things in that land are good." And thus further also spoke Laeg, as he told of the loveliness of the fairy dwelling:
I saw a land of noble form and splendid,
Where dwells naught evil; none can speak a lie:
There stands the king, by all his hosts attended,
Brown Labra, swift to sword his hand can fly. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Tithers.”
“Titherington is his name,” I said, “and if I have him I don’t see how I can very well leave out Vittie, O’Donoghue, and McMeekin. I don’t know how you feel about the matter, but I rather object to being made a public show of with five best men.”
“I’m so delighted about it,” said my mother, “that I don’t mind if you go on talking nonsense about it all the evening. Lalage will be exactly the wife you want. She’ll shake you up out of your lazy ways and make something of you in the end.” ”

“ It must have been about three weeks after the pacification of the Archdeacon by my mother that a crisis occurred in my affairs. I am not a person of any importance, although I shall be, I fear, some day; and my affairs up to the present are not particularly interesting even to myself. I record the crisis because it explains the fact that I lost touch with Lalage for nearly four years and know little or nothing about her development during that time. I wish I knew more. Some day, when I have a little leisure, I mean to have a long talk with Miss Pettigrew. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Cattersby—that is to say, Miss Battersby—if she were the sort of person who mourned over torn frocks, and if, as Lalage suggested, she liked clothes, would be very unwilling to follow any one into the recesses of the pigsty. Even a bower in the upper branches of a tree would be less secure from her intrusion. We crawled in. Against the far wall of the chamber stood the trough from which the pigs, now no doubt deceased, used to eat. ”

“ But lest even this should weary, King Lareyn, as if determined there should be no end to the change of pastimes with which he had undertaken to amuse his guests, sent to fetch a certain conjuror who dwelt in the heart of a high mountain, and whose arts surpassed any thing that had been done [61] before. The magician came at his bidding, and exhibited surprising evidences of his craft, till at last the king said,—
“You are a cunning man, no doubt, but there is one exhibition of your power you have never been able to give me, and I shall think nothing of your art till you can satisfy me. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then with delight Lareyn led them through the riches of his possessions. So much heaped-up gold, so many precious stones, such elaborate handiwork none of Theodoric’s band had ever seen before; and the place rang with their exclamations of wonder.
But all this was nothing to the cunning feats of the Norgs, who, at a sign from Lareyn, displayed their various talents before the astonished eyes of the heroes. Some there were who lifted great stones bigger than themselves, and threw them as far as the eye could reach, then by swiftness attained the goal before the stone they threw! ”

“ What you want is some one more of the Young Lochinvar type, or a buccaneer. They’re all dashing men who shrink from nothing. Why not advertise for a buccaneer?”
“I don’t suppose she’d marry you if you did ask her,” said Miss Pettigrew.
“I am sure she wouldn’t, so we needn’t go on talking about that. Won’t you let me ring and get you a cup of tea? They make quite good tea in this hotel!”
“It’s too early for tea, and I want to discuss this business of Lalage’s seriously. The position has become quite impossible.” ”

“ I wonder if stat: 31 Elizabeth C. VII runs in this country. Some don’t; but it sounds to me rather as if it would. If it does, you’re in a nasty fix, Lalage; you and Hilda. Severe penalties can hardly mean less than imprisonment with hard labour.
“But we didn’t do it,” said Lalage.
“The Archdeacon appears to think you did,” I said, “both of you, especially Hilda. You must have done something. You’d better tell me exactly what occurred from the beginning of the interview until the end. I’ll try and pick out what struck the Archdeacon as simonaical. ”