Lalage's Lovers Part 7

"You know, Archdeacon," I said, "that all little girls are horrid liars."

The insinuation that Lalage ever spoke anything but the truth was treacherous and abominable. She has her faults; but I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that her description of Miss Pettigrew's scripture lesson was a perfectly honest account of the impression it produced on her mind. The Archdeacon hesitated, and, hoping for the best, I plunged deeper.

"Lalage in particular," I said, "is absolutely reckless about the truth."

The Archdeacon shook his head mournfully.

"I wish I could think so," he said. "I should be glad, indeed, if I could take your view of the matter; but in these days when the Higher Criticism is invading our pulpits and our school rooms----"

His voice faded away into the melancholy silence and he continued shaking his head.

This shows how much more important dogmatic truth is than the ordinary everyday correspondence between statement and fact. To the Archdeacon a lie of Lalage's would have been a minor evil in every way preferable, if it came to a choice between the two, to Miss Pettigrew's unorthodox interpretation of the Mosaic narrative. I could argue the matter no more and fell back upon a last plan.

"Archdeacon," I said, "come out and dine with us to-night. Talk the whole business over with my mother before you take any definite action."

The Archdeacon agreed to do this. I went home at once and prepared my mother for the conflict.

"You must use all your influence," I said. "It is a most serious business."

"My dear boy," said my mother, "it's quite the most ridiculous storm in a tea cup of which I've ever heard."

"No," I said solemnly, "it's not. 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."

I do not know what line my mother actually took with the Archdeacon.

I left them together after dinner and when the time came for saying good-night I found that the Archdeacon had been persuaded not to attempt a formal protest against Miss Pettigrew's teaching. He has never, however, trusted her since then and he still shakes his head doubtfully at the mention of her name.

I wrote to Lalage next day and told her not to send home any more accounts of scripture lessons. English compositions, I said, we should be glad to receive. Latin exercises would always be welcome, and algebra sums, especially if worked in Miss Campbell's red ink, would be regarded as treasured possessions.

"All letters," I added, "suspected of containing ecclesiastical news of any kind will be returned to you unopened."

I also called on the Canon and spoke plainly to him about the danger and folly of showing letters to the Archdeacon.

"I was wrong," said the Canon apologetically. "I can see now that I was wrong, but I thought at the time that he'd enjoy the joke."

"You ought," said I severely, "to have had more sense. The Archdeacon expects to be a bishop some day. He can't afford to enjoy jokes of that kind. By the way, did he tell you who wrote the Litany?"

CHAPTER V

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.

She saw more of Lalage in those days than any one else did, and I think she must have some very interesting, perhaps exciting, things to tell.

To a sympathetic listener Miss Pettigrew would talk freely. She has a sense of humour, and like all people who are capable of laughing themselves, takes a pleasure in telling good stories.

It was my uncle, Lord Thormanby, who was mainly responsible for my private crisis. My mother, I daresay, goaded him on; but he has always taken the credit for arranging that I should join the British emba.s.sy in Lisbon as a kind of unpaid attache. My uncle used his private and political influence to secure this desirable post for me. I do not know exactly whom he worried. Perhaps it was a sympathetic Prime Minister, perhaps the Amba.s.sador himself, a n.o.bleman distantly connected with Lady Thonnanby. At all events, the thing was done and Thonnanby was enormously proud of the achievement. He gave me a short lecture by way of a send-off, in which he dwelt a good deal on his own interest in my future and told me that my appointment might lead on to something big.

It has not done so, up to the present, but that I daresay is my own fault.

The Canon, who seemed sorry to say good-bye to me, gave me a present of an English translation of the works of the philosopher Epictetus, with several pa.s.sages, favourites of his own, marked in red ink. One of these I used frequently to read and still think about occasionally, not because I have the slightest intention of trying to live in the spirit of it, but because it always reminds me of the Canon himself, and so makes me smile. "Is a little of your oil spilt, or a little wine stolen?" said this philosopher. "Then say to yourself: 'For so much peace is bought. This is the price of tranquillity.' For nothing can be gained without paying for it." It is by this wisdom that the man who happened to be Lalage's father was able to live without worrying himself into frequent fevers.

The Archdeacon dined with us a short time before I left home and gave me a very fine valedictory address. He said that I was about to follow the example of my ancestors and devote myself to the service of my country.

He had every hope that I would acquit myself as n.o.bly as they did. This was a very affecting thing to say, particularly in our dining-room, with the pictures of my grandfather's battles hanging round the walls.

I looked at them while he spoke, but I did not venture to look at my mother. Her eyes have a way of twinkling when the Archdeacon is at his best which always upsets me. The Archdeacon, his face still raised toward the large battle picture, added that there is nothing finer than the service of one's country, nothing more inspiring for a man and nothing more likely to lead to fame. I felt at the time that this is very likely to be true in the case of any one who has a country to serve. I, unfortunately, have none. The recent developments of Irish life, the revivals of various kinds, the books which people keep on writing, and the general atmosphere of the country have robbed me and others like me of the belief, held comfortably by our fathers, that we are Englishmen. On the other hand, n.o.body, least of all the patriotic politicians who make speeches, will admit that we are Irish. We are thus, without any fault of our own, left poised in a state of quivering uncertainty like the poor Samaritans whom the Jews despised as Gentiles and the Gentiles did not like because they seemed to be Jews. I found it difficult, while I listened to the Archdeacon, to decide what country had a claim on me for service. Perhaps Portugal--I was going to Lisbon--would mark me for her own.

For more than three years I saw nothing of Lalage. My holidays, s.n.a.t.c.hed with difficulty from a press of ridiculously unimportant duties, never corresponded with hers. I heard very little of her. The Canon never wrote to me at all about Lalage or anything else. My mother merely chronicled her scholastic successes, which included several prizes for English composition.

The one really interesting piece of information which I got about her came, curiously enough, from the Archdeacon. He wrote to me for a subscription to a fund for something, rebuilding the bishop's palace I think. At the end of his letter he mentioned an incident in Lalage's career which he described as deplorable. It appeared that a clergyman, a man of some eminence according to the Archdeacon and so, presumably, not the original curate had set an examination paper intended to test the religious knowledge of Lalage and others. In it he quoted some words from one of St Paul's epistles: "I keep my body under and have it in subjection," and asked what they meant. Lalage submitted a novel interpretation. "St. Paul," she wrote, "is here speaking of that mystical body which is the Church. It ought always to be kept under and had in subjection."

As a diplomatist--I suppose I am a diplomatist of a minor kind--whose lot is cast among the Latin peoples, I am inclined to think that Lalage's interpretation may one day be universally accepted as the true one and so honoured with the crown of orthodoxy. It would even to-day strike a Portuguese journalist as a simple statement of an obvious truth. The Archdeacon regarded it as deplorable, and I understood from his letter that the old charge of flippancy had been revived against Lalage. She must, I suppose, have disliked the man who set the examination paper. I cannot otherwise account for the viciously anti-clerical spirit of her answer.

The next important news I got of Lalage reached me in the spring of the fourth year I spent in the service of somebody else's country. It came in a letter from Lalage herself, written on paper headed by the letters A.T.R.S. embossed in red. She wrote:

"You'll be glad to hear that I entered Trinity College last October and since then have been enjoying 'the s.p.a.cious times of great Elizabeth.'

Our society, girls, is called the Elizabethan. That's the point of the quotation."

I glanced at the head of the paper, but failed to see how A.T.R.S. could possibly stand for Elizabethan Society. Lalage's letter continued:

"There is nothing equal to a university life for broadening out the mind and enlarging one's horizon. I have just founded a new society called the A.T.R.S., and the committee (Hilda, myself, and a boy called Selby-Harrison, who got a junior ex: and is _very_ clever) is on the lookout for members, subscription--a year, paid in advance, or life members one pound. Our object is to check by every legitimate means the spread of tommyrot in this country and the world generally. There is a great deal too much of it and something ought to be done to make people jolly well ashamed of themselves before it is too late. If the matter is not taken in hand vigorously the country will be submerged and all sensible people will die."

I began to get at the meaning of the red letters. T.R. S. plainly stood for Tommy Rot Society. The preliminary "A" could indicate nothing else but the particle anti. The prospect before us, if Lalage is anything of a judge, and I suppose she must be, is sufficiently serious to justify the existence of the society.

"Each member of the committee is pledged to expose in the press by means of scathing articles, and thus hound out of public life any man, whatever his position, who is caught talking tommyrot. This will be done anonymously, so as to establish a reign of terror under which no man of any eminence will feel safe. The committee intends to begin with bishops of all denominations. I thought this would interest you now that you are an amba.s.sador and engaged in fostering international complications."

I read this with a feeling of discomfort similar to that of the gentleman who set the examination paper on St. Paul's epistles. There, seemed to me to be a veiled threat in the last sentence. The committee intended to begin with bishops, but there cannot be above sixty or seventy bishops in Ireland altogether, even including the ex-moderators of the Presbyterian General a.s.sembly, not more than a hundred. An energetic committee would certainly be able to deal with them in less than three months. Whose turn would come next? Quite possibly the diplomatists. 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 breathed a sigh of great relief. Lalage was not threatening my colleagues with exposure in the press.

She was merely asking for a subscription. I wrote at once, warmly commending the objects and methods of the society. I enclosed a cheque for five pounds with a request that I should be enrolled as five ordinary life members. I underlined the word ordinary, and added a postscript in which I expressly refused to act on the committee even if elected. Lalage did not answer this letter or acknowledge the cheque. I suppose the bishops kept her very busy.

In August that year I met Lalage again for the first time since I had seen her off to school from the station at Drumbo. I did not recognize her at first. Four years make a great difference in a girl when she is pa.s.sing from the age of fourteen onward. Besides, I was not in the least expecting to see her.

Mont 'Estoril is a watering place near the mouth of the Tagus. In spite of the fact that some misguided people advertise its attractions and call it the Riviera of Portugal, it is a pleasant spot to live in when Lisbon is very hot. There are several excellent hotels there and I have found it a good plan to migrate from the capital and settle down in Mont 'Estoril for June, July and August. I have to go into Lisbon every day, but this is no great hardship, for there is a convenient train service.

I usually catch what the Portuguese call a train of "great velocity" and arrive at the Caes da Sodre railway station a few minutes after eleven o'clock. From that I go, partly on foot, partly in a tram, to the emba.s.sy and spend my time there in the usual way.

One morning--I have kept a note of the date; it was the ninth of August--I saw a large crowd of people, plainly tourists, standing together on the footpath, waiting for a tram. The sight was common enough. Every ten days or so an enterprising steamboat company lands a bevy of these worthy people in Lisbon. This crowd was a little larger than usual. It was kept together by three guides who were in charge of the party and who galloped, barking furiously, along the outskirts of the herd whenever a wild or frightened tourist made any attempt to break away. On the opposite side of the road were two young girls. One of them, very prettily dressed in bright blue, was adjusting a hand camera with the intention of photographing the tourists and attendant watchdog guides. She did not succeed, because one of the guides recognized her as a member of his flock and crossed the road to where she stood. I know the man slightly. He is a cosmopolitan, a linguist of great skill, who speaks good English, with Portuguese suavity of manner, in times of calm, but bad English, with French excitability of gesture, when he is annoyed. He reasoned, most politely I'm sure, with the two girls. He wanted them to cross the road and take their places among the other tourists. The girl in blue handed the camera to her companion, took the cosmopolitan guide by the shoulders, pushed him across the road and posed him in a picturesque att.i.tude on the outskirts of the crowd. Then she went back to take her picture. The guide, of course, followed her, and I could see by the vehemence of his shrugs and gesticulations that his temper had given way. I guessed that his English must have been almost unintelligible. The scene interested me and I stood still to see how it would end. The girl in the blue dress changed her intention and tried to photograph the excited interpreter while he gesticulated. I sympathized with her wish. His att.i.tudes were all well worth preserving.

If she had been armed with phonograph as well as a camera she might have secured a really valuable record. The man, to my knowledge, speaks eight languages, all equally badly, and when he mixes them he is well worth listening to. In order to get him into focus the girl in the blue dress kept backing away from him, holding the camera level and gazing into the view finder. The man, gesticulating more wildly than ever, followed her. She moved more and more rapidly away from him until at last she was proceeding backward along the street at a rapid trot. In the end she b.u.mped against me. I staggered and clutched at my hat. She turned, and, without appearing in the least put out, began to apologize. Then her face lit with a sudden smile of recognition.

"Oh," she said, "it's you?"

I recognized the voice and then the face. I also retained my presence of mind.