Lalage's Lovers Part 30

"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."

CHAPTER XVIII

My mother appeared to think that I had grown lazy since I recovered from my attack of influenza. She continually pressed me to take exercise and invented a hundred different excuses for getting me out of doors. When I saw that her heart was really set on seeing me walk I did what I could to gratify her. I promised to go over to the rectory after luncheon on the very next fine day. There seemed no prospect of a fine day for at least a month, and so I felt tolerably safe in making the promise. But there is nothing so unreliable as weather, especially Irish weather. I had no sooner made my promise than the clouds began to break. At twelve o'clock it stopped raining. At one the sun was shining with provoking brilliancy. I tried to ignore the change and at luncheon complained bitterly of the cold. My mother, by way of reply, remarked on the cheerful brightness of the sunshine. She did not, in so many words, ask me to redeem my promise, but I knew what was in her mind.

"All right," I said, "I'm going. I shall put on a pair of thick boots. I should prefer driving, but of course----"

"Walking will be much better for you." "That's just what I was going to say, I shall run a certain amount of risk, of course. I may drop down exhausted. I am still very weak; weaker than I look. Or I may get overheated. Or I may get too cold."

My mother, curiously enough, for she was very fond of me, did not seem frightened.

"McMeekin told me," I went on, "that a relapse after influenza is nearly always fatal. However, I have made my will and I fully intend to walk."

I did walk as far as the gate lodge and about a hundred yards beyond it. It was not in any way my fault that I got no farther. I was actually beginning to like walking and should certainly have gone on if Lalage had not stopped me. She and Hilda were in the Canon's pony trap, driving furiously. Lalage held the reins. Hilda clung with both hands to the side of the trap. The pony was galloping hard and foaming at the mouth.

I stepped aside when I saw them coming and climbed more than halfway up a large wooden gate which happened to be near me at the time. The road was very muddy and I did not want to be splashed from head to foot.

Besides, there was a risk of being run over. When Lalage caught sight of me she pulled up the pony with a jerk.

"We were just going to see you," she said. "It's great luck catching you like this. What's simony?"

I climbed down from the gate, slowly, so as to get time to think.

The question surprised me and I was not prepared to give, offhand, a definition of simony.

"I don't know," I said at last, "but I think, in fact I'm nearly sure, that it is some kind of ecclesiastical offence, perhaps a heresy. Were you coming to see me in order to find out?"

"Yes, That's the reason we were in such a terrific hurry."

"Quite so," I said. "I was a little surprised at first to see you galloping, but now I understand."

"Would it," said Lalage, "be simony to cheek an Archdeacon?"

"It might. It very well might. Is that what you've done, Hilda?"

"I didn't," said Hilda.

"You did, just as much as me," said Lalage, "and it was to you he said it, so he evidently meant you. Not that either of us did cheek him really."

"Why didn't you ask your father?" I said. "He's a Canon and he'd be almost sure to know."

"I didn't like to speak to him about it until I knew what it was. It might turn out to be something that I wouldn't care to talk to him about, something--you know the kind of thing I mean."

"Improper?"

"Not quite so bad as that, but the same sort."

"Risque? But surely the Archdeacon wouldn't say anything the least----"