Lalage's Lovers Part 4

"She means," said the Canon, "that it didn't begin there."

"No," I said, "it began with the character of Mary."

"It didn't," said Lalage. "She'd forgotten all about that and so had I.

What really began it was my birthday. For three weeks I had suggested a holiday for that day from the tyrant. Her answer had ever been: 'A half will do you nicely.' If pressed: 'You are very ungrateful. I may not give you even that.' So I acted boldly. It was breakfast time and we were eating fish----"

"Trout," said the Canon. "I remember the morning perfectly. Tom Kitterick caught them the day before. I took him out with me. The Archdeacon had been over to see me."

"Laying down my fork," Lalage went on, "I said to no one in particular----"

"Excuse me, Lalage," I said, "but is this a quotation from the last number of the _Anti-Cat?_"

"It is. I had an article about it. How did you guess?"

"There was something in the style of the narrative, a certain quite appreciable literary flavour which suggested the _Anti-Cat_; but please go on and keep to the words of the article as far as possible. You had just got to where you spoke to no one in particular."

"Laying down my fork, I said to no one in particular: 'Of course I get a holiday for my birthday.' 'I think a half----' began she. 'Of course,'

said father loudly, 'a holiday on such a great occasion.' Her face fell.

Her scowl deepened. To hide her rage she blew her nose. There was a revengeful glitter in her eye."

Lalage paused.

"I need scarcely tell you," said the Canon, "that I had no idea when I spoke that there had been any previous discussion of the subject."

"The article ends there, I suppose," I said.

"Yes," said Lalage. "She had it in for me after that worse than ever, knowing that I had jolly well scored off her."

"And in the end she broke out over your effort to improve Tom Kitterick's complexion?"

"She sneaked," said Lalage; "sneaked to father. I wrote an article about that. It's in my box if you'd like to see it."

The Canon's eyes met mine. Then we both looked at our watches. We had still ten minutes before the train started.

"It's about halfway down," said Lalage, "on the left-hand side."

"I think we might----" I said.

"Yes," said the Canon. "In fact we must."

We moved together across the platform toward the porter's barrow, on which Lalage's trunk lay.

"I should like to see the article," I said, fumbling with the strap.

"It isn't so much that," said the Canon. "Somebody is sure to unpack her box for her to-night, and if Miss Pettigrew came on the thing and read it----"

"She would be prejudiced against Lalage."

"I'd like the poor child to start fair, anyhow," said the Canon, "whatever happens later on."

We unpacked a good many of Lalage's clothes and came on the second number of the _Anti-Cat_. Lalage took possession of it and turned over the pages, while the Canon and I refolded a blue serge dress and wedged it into its place with boots.

"Here you are," said Lalage, when I had finished tugging at the straps.

"'Sneaking, Second Example. The Latest Move of Cattersby. Such a move! A disgrace to any properly run society, a further disgrace to the already disgraceful tactics of the Cat! How even that base enemy could do such a thing is more than we honourable citizens can understand.'"

"The other honourable citizen," I said, "is Tom Kitterick, I suppose."

"No," said Lalage. "There was only me, but that's the way editors always talk. Father told me so once.--'Yet she did it. She sneaked. Yes, sneaked to the grown-up society, complained, as the now extinct Tommy used to do."

"The allusion," I said, "escapes me. Who was the now extinct Tommy?"

"The one before the Cat," said Lalage.

"Her name," said the Canon feebly, "was Miss Thomas. She did complain a good deal about Lalage during the six weeks she was with us."

"Is that the whole of the article?" I asked. "It's very short."

"There was nothing more to say," said Lalage; "so what was the good of going on?"

"I thought," I said, "and hoped that there might have been something in it about the effect the stuff had on Tom Kitterick. I have never been able to find out anything about that."

"It didn't do much to Tom Kitterick," said Lalage. "He was just as turkey eggy afterward as he was before. It didn't even smart, though I rubbed it in for nearly half an hour, and Tom Kitterick said I'd have the skin off his face, which just shows the silly sort of stuff it was.

Not that I'd expect the Cat to have anything else except silly stuff.

That's the kind she is. Anybody would know it by simply looking at her.

Father, I don't believe you've got my ticket. Hadn't you better go and see about it?"

The Canon went in search of the station master and found him at last digging potatoes in a plot of ground beyond the signal box. It took some time to persuade him to part with anything so valuable as a ticket to Dublin.

"Lalage," I said, while the Canon was arguing with the station master, "I want you to write to me from school and tell me how you are getting on."

"I have a lot of letters to write," she said. "I'm not sure I can write to you."

"Try. I particularly want to know what Miss Pettigrew thinks of your English composition. I should mark you high for it myself."

"I have to write to father every week, and I've promised to answer Tom Kitterick when he lets me know how the new pigs are getting on."

"Still you might manage a line to me in between. If you do I'll send you a long answer or a picture postcard, whichever you like."

"I can't read your writing," said Lalage, "so I'd rather have the postcard."

The Canon returned just as the train steamed in. We put Lalage into a second-cla.s.s compartment. Then I slipped away and gave the guard half a crown, charging him to look after Lalage and to see that no mischief happened to her on the way to Dublin. To my surprise he was unwilling to receive the tip. He told me that the Canon had already given him two s.h.i.+llings and he seemed to think that he was being overpaid for a simple, not very onerous, duty. I pressed my half crown into his hand and a.s.sured him that before he got to Dublin he would, if he really looked after Lalage, have earned more than four and sixpence.

"In fact," I said, "four and sixpence won't be nearly enough to compensate you for the amount of worry and anxiety you will go through.

You must allow me to add another half crown and make seven s.h.i.+llings of it.'"

The man was a good deal surprised and seemed inclined to protest.

"You needn't hesitate," I said. "I wouldn't take on the job myself for double the money."