Lalage's Lovers Part 28

I am afraid I overdid it. Miss Pettigrew certainly frowned at me.

"Mother would never let me," said Hilda.

I had forgotten Hilda's mother for the moment. I saw at once that the idea of gun-running would frighten her and she would not like to think of her daughter ploughing the bottom of the Amazon in a submarine.

"Besides," said Lalage, "it wouldn't be right. It's our duty, our plain duty, to see this bishopric election through. I'm inclined to think that the Archdeacon is the proper man."

"When do you start for the scene of action?" I asked.

"At once," said Lalage. "There's a train at six o'clock this evening.

We left poor p.u.s.s.y packing her bag and ran round to tell Miss Pettigrew about the change in our plans. I'm dead sick of this old election of yours, anyhow. Aren't you?"

"I am," I said fervently. "I'm so sick of it that I don't care if I never stand for Parliament again. By the way, Lalage, now that you're turning your attention to church affairs wouldn't it be as well to change the name of the society again. You might call it the Episcopal Election a.s.sociation. E. E. A. would look well at the head of your notepaper and might be worked up into a monogram."

"I daresay we shall make a change," said Lalage, "but if we do we'll be a guild, not a society or an a.s.sociation. Guild is the proper word for anything connected with the church, or high-cla.s.s furniture, or art needlework. Selby-Harrison will look into the matter for us. But in any case it will be all right about you. You'll still be a life member. Come along, Hilda. We have a lot of people to see before we start. I have to give out badges to about fifty new members."

"Will that be necessary now?" I asked.

"Of course. If anything, more."

"But if you're changing the name of the society?"

"That won't matter in the least. Do come on, Hilda. We shan't have time if you dawdle on here. In any case p.u.s.s.y will have to pack our clothes for us."

They swept out of the room. Miss Pettigrew got up and shut the door after them. The Canon was too much upset to move.

"I congratulate you, Miss Pettigrew," I said. "You've succeeded after all in getting Lalage out of this. I hardly thought you would."

"This," said the Canon, "is worse, infinitely worse."

"I'm not quite sure," said Miss Pettigrew, "about the procedure in these cases. Who elects bishops?"

"The Diocesan Synod," I said. "Isn't that right, Canon?"

"Yes," he said, gloomily.

"And who const.i.tutes the Diocesan Synod?" said Miss Pettigrew.

"A lot of parsons," I said. "All the parsons there are, and some dear old country gentlemen of blameless lives. Just the people really to appreciate Lalage."

"We shall have more trouble," said Miss Pettigrew.

"Plenty," I said. "And Thormanby will be in the thick of it. He won't find it so easy to wash his hands this time."

"Nor will you," said Miss Pettigrew smiling, but I think maliciously.

"I shall simply stay here," I said, "and go on having influenza."

I have so much respect for Miss Pettigrew that I do not like to say she grinned at me but she certainly employed a smile which an enemy might have described as a grin.

"The election here," she said, "your election takes place, as I understand, early next week. Your mother will expect you home after that."

"Mothers are often disappointed," I said. "Look at Hilda's, for instance. And in any case my mother is a reasonable woman. She'll respect a doctor's certificate, and McMeekin will give me that if I ask him."

The Canon had evidently not been attending to what Miss Pettigrew and I were saying to one another. He broke in rather abruptly:

"Is there any other place more attractive than Brazil?"

He was thinking of Lalage, not of himself. I do not think he cared much where he went so long as he got far from Ireland.

"There are, I believe," I said, "still a few cannibal tribes left in the interior of Borneo. There are certainly head hunters there."

"Dyaks," said Miss Pettigrew.

"I might try her with them," said the Canon.

"If Miss Pettigrew," I suggested, "will manage Hilda's mother, the thing might possibly be arranged. Selby-Harrison could practise being a missionary."

"I shouldn't like Hilda to be eaten," said Miss Pettigrew.

"There's no fear of that," I said. "Lalage is well able to protect her from any cannibal."

"I'll make the offer," said the Canon. "Anything would be better than having Lalage attempting to make speeches at the Diocesan Synod."

Miss Pettigrew had her packing to do and left shortly afterward. The Canon, who seemed to be really depressed, sat on with me and made plans for Lalage's immediate future. From time to time, after I exposed the hollow mockery of each plan, he complained of the tyranny of circ.u.mstance.

"If only the bishop hadn't died," he said.

The dregs of the influenza were still hanging about me. I lost my temper with the Canon in the end.

"If only," I said, "you'd brought up Lalage properly."

"I tried governesses," he said, "and I tried school."

"The only thing you did not try," I said, "was what the Archdeacon recommended, a firm hand."

"The Archdeacon never married," said the Canon. "I'm often sorry he didn't. He wouldn't say things like that if he had a child of his own."

CHAPTER XVII

There was a great deal of angry feeling in Ballygore and indeed all through the const.i.tuency when Lalage went home. It was generally believed that O'Donoghue, Vittie, and I had somehow driven her away, but this was quite unjust to us and we all three felt it. We felt it particularly when, one night at about twelve o'clock, a large crowd visited us in turn and groaned under our windows. O'Donoghue and Vittie, with a view to ingratiating themselves with the electors, wrote letters to the papers solemnly declaring that they sincerely wished Lalage to return. n.o.body believed them. Lalage's teaching had sunk so deep into the popular mind that n.o.body would have believed anything O'Donoghue and Vittie said even if they had sworn its truth. t.i.therington, who was beginning to recover, published a counter blast to their letters. He was always quick to seize opportunities and he hoped to increase my popularity by a.s.sociating me closely with Lalage. He said that I had originally brought her to Ballygore and he left it to be understood that I was an ardent member of the a.s.sociation for the Suppression of Public Lying. Unfortunately n.o.body believed him. Lalage's crusade had produced an extraordinary effect. n.o.body any longer believed anything, not even the advertis.e.m.e.nts. My nurse, among others, became affected with the prevailing feeling of scepticism and refused to accept my word for it that I was still seriously ill. Even when I succeeded, by placing it against the hot water bottle in the bottom of my bed, in running up her thermometer to 103 degrees, she merely smiled. And yet a temperature of that kind ought to have convinced her that I really had violent pains somewhere.

The election itself showed unmistakably the popular hatred of public lying. There were just over four thousand electors in the division, but only 530 of them recorded their votes. A good many more, nearly a thousand more, went to the polling booths and deliberately spoiled their voting papers. The returning officer, who kindly came round to my hotel to announce the result, told me that he had never seen so many spoiled votes at any election. The usual way of invalidating the voting paper was to bracket the three names and write "All of them liars" across the paper. Sometimes the word "liars" was qualified by a profane adjective.

Sometimes distinctions were made between the candidates and one of us was declared to be a more skilful or determined liar than the other two. O'Donoghue was sometimes placed in the position of the superlative degree of comparison. So was I. But Vittie suffered most frequently in this way. Lalage had always displayed a special virulence in dealing with Vittie's public utterances. The remaining voters, 2470 of them or thereabouts, made a silent protest against our deceitfulness by staying away from the polling booths altogether.