Lalage's Lovers Part 34

Thormanby was certainly in a very bad temper. He was sitting at the far side of a large writing table when I entered the room. He did not rise or shake hands with me. He simply pushed a letter across the table toward me with the end of a paper knife. His action gave me the impression that the letter was highly infectious.

"Look at that," he said.

I looked and saw at once that it was in Lalage's handwriting. I was obliged to give up the idea of claiming it as mine.

"Why don't you read it?" said Thormanby.

"I didn't know you wanted me to. Do you?"

"How the deuce are you to know what's in it if you don't read it?"

"It's quite safe, I suppose?"

"Safe? Safe? What do you mean?"

"When I saw you poking at it with that paper knife I thought it might be poisoned."

Thormanby growled and I took up the letter. Lalage has a courteous but perfectly lucid style. I read:

"Dear Lord Thormanby, as a member of the Diocesan Synod you are, I feel sure, quite as anxious as I am that only a really suitable man should be elected bishop. I therefore enclose a carefully drawn list of the necessary and desirable qualifications for that office."

"You have the list?" I said.

"Yes. She sent the thing. She has cheek enough for anything."

"Selby-Harrison drew it up, so if there's anything objectionable in it he's the person you ought to blame, not Lalage."

I felt that I was keeping my promise to Miss Battersby. I had succeeded in implicating another culprit. Not more than half the blame was now Lalage's.

"The _sine qua nons_," the letter went on, "are marked with red crosses, the _desiderata_ in black."

"I'm glad," I said, "that she got one plural right. By the way, I wonder what the plural of that phrase really is. It can't be _sines qua non_, and yet _sine quibus_ sounds pedantic."

I said this in the hope of mitigating Thormanby's wrath by turning his thoughts into another channel.

I failed. He merely growled again. I went on reading the letter:

"You will observe at once that the Archdeacon, whom we should all like to have as our new bishop, possesses every requirement for the office except one, number fifteen on the enclosed list, marked for convenience of reference, with a violet asterisk."

"What is the missing _sine qua?_" I asked. "Don't tell me if it's private."

"It's--it's--d.a.m.n it all, look for yourself." He flung a typewritten sheet of foolscap at me. I picked my way carefully among the red and black crosses until I came to the violet asterisk.

"No. 15. 'A bishop must be the husband of one wife'--I Tim: III."

"That's rather a poser," I said, "if true. It seems to me to put the Archdeacon out of the running straight off."

"No. It doesn't," said Thormanby. "That's where the girl's infernal insolence comes in."

I read:

"This obstacle, though under the present circ.u.mstances an absolute bar, is fortunately remedial."

"I wish Lalage would be more careful," I said, "she ought to have written 'remediable.' However her meaning is quite plain."

"It gets plainer further on," said Thormanby grinning.

This was the first time I had seen him grin since I came into the room.

I took it for an encouraging sign.

Lalage's letter went on:

"The suggestion of the obvious remedy, must be made by some one, for the Archdeacon has evidently not thought of it himself. It would come particularly well from you, occupying as you do a leading position in the diocese. Unfortunately the time at our disposal is very short, and it will hardly do to leave the Archdeacon without some practical suggestion for the immediate-remedying of the sad defect. What you will have to offer him is a scheme thoroughly worked out and perfect in every detail. The name of Miss Battersby will probably occur to you at once. I need not remind you of her sweet and lovable disposition. You have been long acquainted with her, and will recognize in her a lady peculiarly well suited to share an episcopal throne."

Thormanby became almost purple in the face as I read out the final sentences of the letter. I saw that he was struggling with some strong emotion and suspected that he wanted very much to laugh. If he did he suppressed the desire manfully. His forehead was actually furrowed with a frown when I had finished. I laid the letter down on the table and tapped it impressively with my forefinger.

"That," I said, "strikes me as a remarkably good suggestion."

Thormanby exploded.

"Of all the d.a.m.ned idiots I've ever met," he said, "you're the worst.

Do you mean to say that you expect me to drag Miss Battersby over to the Archdeacon's house and dump her down there in a white satin dress with a wedding ring tied round her neck by a ribbon and a stodgy cake tucked under her arm?"

"I haven't actually worked out all the details," I said. "I am thinking more of the plan in its broad outlines. After all, the Archdeacon isn't married. We can't get over that. If that text of First Timothy is really binding--I don't myself know whether it is or not, but I'm inclined to take Selby-Harrison's word for it that it is. He's in the Divinity School and has been making a special study of the subject. If he's right, there's no use our electing the Archdeacon and then having the Local Government Board coming down on us afterward for appointing an unqualified man. You remember the fuss they made when the Urban District Council took on a cookery instructress who hadn't got her diploma."

"That wasn't the Local Government Board. It was the Department of Agriculture. But in any case neither the one nor the other of them has anything in the world to do with bishops."

"Don't you be too sure of that. I expect you'll find they have if you appoint a man who isn't properly qualified, and the law on the subject is perfectly plain."

"Rot! Lots of bishops aren't married. Texts of that sort never mean what they seem to mean."

"What's the good of running risks," I said, "when the remedy is in our own hands? I don't see that the Archdeacon could do better than Miss Battersby. She's wonderfully sympathetic."

"You'd better go and tell him so yourself."

"I would, I'd go like a shot, only most unluckily he's got it into his head that I've taken to drink. He might think, just at first, that I wasn't quite myself if I went to him with a suggestion of that sort."

"There'd be some excuse for him if he did," said Thormanby.

"Whereas, if you, who have always been strictly temperate----"

"I didn't send for you," said Thormanby, "to stand there talking like a born fool. What I want you to do----"

He paused and blew his nose with some violence.

"Yes?" I said.

"Is to go and put a muzzle on that girl of Beresford's."