Lalage's Lovers Part 41

They must have talked over La-lage's future together many times. I knew what Miss Pettigrew's views were and I suspect that my mother was in full agreement with them. Owing to the emotional strain to which I had been subjected I may have been in a hypersensitive condition. I seemed to detect in my mother's confident prophecy an allusion to Miss Pettigrew's plans. Women, even women like my mother, are greatly wanting in delicacy. I was so much afraid of her saying something more on the subject that I bade Miss Battersby good-bye, hurriedly, and left the room.

After dinner my mother again took up the subject of my engagement.

"You'll have to go over and see Canon Beresford early to-morrow morning," she said.

"Of course. But I know what he'll say to me."

"I'm sure he'll be as pleased as I am," said iny mother.

"He won't say so."

My mother looked questioningly at me. I answered her.

"He'll quote that line of Horace," I said, "about a _placens uxor_, but it won't be true."

"What does that mean?"

"A placid wife," I said, "a gentle, quiet, peaceable sort of wife, who sits beside the fire and knits, purring gently. When he has finished that quotation he'll blow his nose and give me the piece out of Epictetus about the 'price of tranquillity.' He'll mean by that, that sorry as he is to lose Lalage, the future will hold some compensating joys. He won't be obliged to dart off at a moment's notice to Wick, or Brazil, or Borneo. The Canon is, after all, a thoroughly selfish man.

He won't care a bit about something being made of me by Lalage, and if I try to explain my position to him he'll go out fis.h.i.+ng at once."

CHAPTER XXIII

The fuss which preceded our wedding was very considerable indeed.

Presents abounded. Even in my house, which is a large one, they got greatly in the way. There was, for instance, a large picture sent by t.i.therington. I do not think he had any malicious intention. He probably gave an order to a dealer without any details of the kind of work of art to be supplied. It turned out be a finely coloured photographic reproduction of a picture which had been very popular a few years before, called "The Ministering Angel." It represented a hospital nurse in the act of exulting over her patient. It reminded me so unpleasantly of my time in Ballygore that I gave orders to have it set up with its face to the wall in a pa.s.sage. There I used to trip over it nearly every day. Canon Beresford's position was worse than mine, for his house was smaller and Lalage's presents were both numerous and larger than those sent to me.

I also suffered great inconvenience from the paperers and painters who came down from Dublin in large numbers and pervaded my favourite rooms.

It was my mother who invited them. She said that the house was in a disgraceful condition. Lalage took the keenest interest in these men and their work. She used to come over every morning and harangue them vehemently.

This was some consolation to me for the paperers and painters certainly did not like it. I used to enjoy hearing what they said to each after Lalage had finished with them. Before and after she dealt with the men she used to consult with my mother about clothes. Miss Battersby was admitted to these council meetings. I never was. Patterns of materials arrived from the most distant shops. Some came direct to my mother. I used to see them piled up behind the letters on the breakfast table.

Others came to Miss Battersby, who brought them over in the Thormanby's pony trap. Still more were addressed to Lalage at the rectory. I used to send for these in the morning and it was while she waited for them that Laiage gave the paperers and painters her opinion of their incompetence.

It seemed to me quite impossible that any one, during those frenzied six weeks, could have thought calmly on any serious subject. But Lalage is a very wonderful young woman and my mother is able to retain her self-possession under the most trying circ.u.mstances. They managed somehow to s.n.a.t.c.h an hour or two for that long talk about my future of which my mother had spoken to me. I do not know whether Miss Battersby's advice was asked. Mine certainly was not. Nor was I told at the time the result of the deliberations. That leaked out long afterward, when the wedding was over and we had returned home to settle down, I scarcely hoped, in peace. I suspected, of course, that I should be made to do something, and I was agreeably surprised that no form of labour was directly imposed on me for some time. Lalage, acting no doubt on my mother's advice, decided to shepherd rather than goad me along the way on which it was decided that I should go.

She began by saying in a casual way, one night after dinner, that she did not think I had any real taste for political life. I agreed with her heartily. Then she and my mother smiled at each other in a way which made me certain that they had some other career for me in mind. Shortly afterward they took to talking a great deal about books, especially at meal times, and several literary papers appeared regularly on my study table. I came to the conclusion that they wished me to become a patron of literature, perhaps to collect a library or to invite poets to spend their holidays with us. I was quite willing to fall in with this plan, but I determined, privately, only to become acquainted with poets of a peaceable kind who wrote pastorals or elegies and went out for long, solitary walks to commune with nature. In my eagerness to please Lalage I went so far as to write to Selby-Harrison, asking him to make out for me a list of the leading poets of the meditative and mystical schools. I also gave an order to a bookseller for all the books of original poetry published during that autumn. The number of volumes I received surprised me. I used to exhibit them with great pride to my mother and Lalage. I once offered to read out extracts from them in the evening.

"The bent of your genius," said Lalage, "is evidently literary."

My mother backed her up of course.

"It is," I said, "and always was. It's a great pity that it wasn't found out sooner. Think of the time I wasted in Portugal and of that wretched episode in East Connor. However, there's no use going back on past mistakes."

"They weren't altogether mistakes," said Lalage. "We couldn't have known that you were literary until we found out that you weren't any good at anything else."

"That view of literature," I said, "as the last refuge of the incompetent, is quite unworthy of you, Lalage. Recollect that you once edited a magazine yourself. You should have more respect for the profession of letters."

"Don't argue," said Lalage. "All we say is that if you can't do anything else you must be able to write."

Then the truth began to become clear to me. My dream of a life of cultured ease, spent, with intervals for recreation, in the society of gentle poets, faded.

"Do you mean," I said, "that I'm to----?"

"Certainly," said Lalage.

"To write a book?" I said desperately.

"That's the reason," said Lalage, "why I refurnished your study and bought that perfectly sweet Dutch marquetry bureau and hung up the picture of Milton dictating 'Paradise Lost' to his two daughters."

I have hated that picture since the day it first appeared in in my study. I only agreed to letting it in because I knew the alternative was t.i.therington's hospital nurse. The Dutch bureau, if it is Dutch, is most uncomfortable to write at. There was no use, however, wrangling about details. I brought forward the one strong objection to the plan which occurred to me at the moment.

"Has my uncle been consulted?" I asked. "From what I know of Thormanby I should say he's not at all likely to agree to my spending my life in writing poetry."

"His idea," said my mother, "is that you should bring out a comprehensive work on the economic condition of Ireland in the twentieth century."

"He thinks," Lalage added, "that when you do go into Parliament it will be a great advantage to you to be a recognized authority on something, even if it's only Irish economics."

I knew, of course, that I should have to give in to a certain extent in the end; but I was not prepared to fall in with Thormanby's absurd suggestion.

"Very well," I said, "I shall write a book. I shall write my reminiscences."

"Reminiscences," said Lalage, "are rather rot as a rule."

"The bent of my genius," I said, "is entirely reminiscent."

Rather to my surprise Lalage accepted the reminiscences as a tolerable subst.i.tute for the economic treatise. I suppose she did not really care what I wrote so long as I wrote something.

"Very well," she said. "We'll give you six months."

I had, I am bound to say, a very pleasant and undisturbed life during the six months allowed me by Lalage. I did my writing, for the most part, in the morning, working at the Dutch marquetry bureau from ten o'clock until shortly after noon. I soon came to find a great deal of pleasure in my work. The only thing which ever put me out of temper was the picture of Milton dictating to two plump young women who had taken off their bodices in order to write with more freedom. If there are any peevish or ill-humoured pa.s.sages in my book they are to be attributed entirely to the influence of that picture, chiefly to the tousled look of the younger daughter. The fact that her father was blind was no excuse for her neglecting to do her hair when she got up in the morning.

I have secured, by the help of Selby-Harrison, a publisher for the book.

He insists on bringing it out as a novel and refuses to allow it to be called "Memories of My Early Life," the t.i.tle I chose. "Lalage's Lovers," the name under which it appears in his list of forthcoming fiction, seems to me misleading. It suggests a sentimental narrative and will, I fear, give rise to some disappointment. However, I suppose that the book may sell better if we pretend that it is not true. But in Ireland, at least, this device will be vain. The things with which I deal were not done in a corner. There are many bishops who still smart from Lalage's attack on them, and t.i.therington, at all events, is not likely to forget last year's epidemic of influenza. I shall, indeed, be very glad if the publisher's ruse succeeds and the public generally believes that I have invented the whole story. Now that the moment of publication comes near and I am engaged in adding a few final sentences to the last chapter I am beginning to feel nervous and uncomfortable.

There may be a good deal of trouble and annoyance when the book comes out.

I have set down nothing except the truth and this ought to please Lalage; but I am not at all sure that it will. I have noticed that of late she has shown signs of disliking any mention of the _Anti-Tommy-Rot Gazette_ or the campaign of the a.s.sociation for the Suppression of Public Lying in East Connor. She pulled me up very abruptly yesterday when I asked her what Hilda's surname really is. I wanted it in order to make my book as complete as possible. Lalage seemed to think that I intended to annoy her by talking over past events.

"I wish," she said, "that you wouldn't always try to make yourself out a fool. You've known Hilda intimately since she was quite a girl."

That, of course, was my difficulty all along. I have known Hilda too intimately. If our friends.h.i.+p had been more formal or had begun more formally, I should, at first at all events, have called her "Miss"

something instead of simply "Hilda." Then I should not be in my present awkward position.

I am also doubtful about Thormanby's reception of the book. He ought to be pleased, for he appears in my pages as a bluff, straightforward n.o.bleman, devoted to the public good and full of sound common-sense though slightly choleric. This is exactly what he is; but I have noticed that people are not always pleased with faithful portraits of themselves.

The case of the Archdeacon, now bishop, is more serious. He has not yet married Miss Battersby, although Lalage has done her best to throw them together and the advantages of the match become every day more obvious.

It is just possible that the publication of my reminiscences may create an awkwardness--a constraint of manner on the part of the bishop, a modest shrinking in Miss Battersby, which will tend to put off the final settlement of the affair. I ventured to hint to Lalage that it might be well to bring the business to a head, if possible, before my book is published. Lalage expressed considerable surprise.

"What on earth has your book got to do with their marriage?" she said.