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 embassy 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 Ambassador
himself, a nobleman 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
passages, 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 nobly 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, nobody, 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, snatched 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 spacious 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 ambassador
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 Assembly, 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 passing 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 embassy 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 attitude 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 attitudes 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 bumped 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.
“Begging a person’s pardon,”
I said, “when we tread on their toes is a polite
and reasonable thing to do.”
Lalage may have recognized the quotation,
although I do not think I had it quite right.
She certainly smiled agreeably. But she had no
time to waste on exchanging reminiscences.
“Just make that idiot stand
where he is for a moment,” she said, “till
I get him photographed. I wouldn’t miss
him for pounds. He’s quite unique.”
The interpreter protested volubly
in Portuguese mixed with Spanish and French.
He was, so he told me, placed in charge of the tourists
by the steamboat company which had brought them to
Lisbon. If one of them got lost he would have
to answer for it, answer for it with his head, and
the senora, the two exceedingly headstrong senoras,
would get lost unless they could be penned in with
the rest of his flock.
I glanced at Lalage several times
while the interpreter harangued us, and noticed that
she had grown into an extremely pretty girl. She,
it seemed, was also taking stock of me.
“You’ve improved,”
she said. “Your moustache has broadened
out. If that monkey on a stick won’t be
photographed I wish you’d hunt him away out
of this. I don’t know any Portuguese swears
or I’d do it myself.”
I explained to the interpreter that
he need be under no anxiety about the headstrong senoras.
I myself would be responsible for them, and would,
if necessary, answer for their safety with my head.
He departed, doubtful and ill content. He was
probably satisfied that I was capable of looking after
Laiage, but he dreaded the effect of her example on
the rest of his flock. They too might escape.
“This,” said Lalage, leading
me up to the other girl, who wore a pink dress, “is
Hilda. You’ve heard of Hilda.”
Hilda’s name was printed on
my memory. She is one of the three members of
the committee of the A.T.R.S. I shook hands with
her and asked for Selby-Harrison.
“You haven’t surely,”
I said, “come without Selby-Harrison, who won
the junior ex.? The committee ought to hold together.”
“We intended to bring him,”
said Lalage, “but there were difficulties.
The Archdeacon heard about it ”
“That Archdeacon again!” I said.
“And told father that it wouldn’t
do at all. Did you ever hear such nonsense?
I shouldn’t have minded that, but Hilda’s
mother struck too. It ended in our having to
bring poor old Pussy with us as chaperon.”
“Pussy?”
“Yes, The original Cat, Miss
Battersby. You can’t have forgotten her,
surely? It happened that she was getting her holidays
just as we had arranged to start, so we took her instead
of Selby-Harrison, which satisfied the Archdeacon
and Hilda’s mother.”
“I am so glad to hear you call
her ‘Pussy’ now,” I said-"I always
hoped you would.”
“She’s really not a bad
sort,” said Lalage, “when you get to know
her. She did us very little harm on the steamer.
She was sick the whole way out, so we just put her
in the top berth of our cabin and left her there.”
“Is she there still?”
Hilda giggled. Lalage looked slightly annoyed.
“Of course not,” she said.
“We aren’t cruel. We hauled her out
this morning and dressed her. It was rather a
job but we did it. We took her ashore with us each
holding one arm, for she was frightfully staggery
at first and made her smuggle our cigarettes
for us through the custom-house. No one would
suspect her of having cigarettes. By the way,
she has them still. They’re in a large pocket
which I sewed on the inside of her petticoat.
She’s over there in the crowd. Would you
very much mind getting ?”
“I couldn’t possibly,”
I said hastily. “She’d be almost certain
to object, especially with all those people standing
round. You must wait till you get to an hotel
and then undress her again yourselves.”
“Don’t be an ass,”
said Lalage. “I don’t want you to
get the cigarettes. I want you to rescue Pussy
herself. It wouldn’t be at all fair to allow
her to be swept away in that crowd. We’d
never see her again.”
I did not much care for undertaking
this task either, though it was certainly easier than
the other. The polyglot guide would, I felt sure,
deeply resent the rape of another of his charges.
“Couldn’t Hilda do that?”
I said. “After all, she’s a member
of the committee. I’m not. And you
told me distinctly that ordinary members were not
expected to do anything except subscribe.”
“Go on, Hilda,” said Lalage.
I suppose Lalage must be president
of the A.T.R.S. and be possessed of autocratic powers.
Hilda crossed the road without a murmur. Selby-Harrison,
I have no doubt, would have acted in the same way if
he had been here.
“And now, Lalage,” I said,
“you must tell me what brings you to Portugal.”
“To see you,” said Lalage promptly.
“It’s very nice of you
to say that,” I said, “and I feel greatly
flattered.”
“Hilda was all for Oberammergau,
and Selby-Harrison wanted Normandy. He said there
were churches and things there but I think churches
are rather rot, don’t you?”
“Besides,” I said, “after
the way the society has been treating bishops it would
hardly be decent to accept their hospitality by wandering
about through their churches. Any bishop, especially
if he’d been driven out of public life by a
series of scathing articles, published anonymously,
would have a genuine grievance if you ”
“It was really that which decided
us on coming here,” said Lalage.
“Quite right. There is
a most superior kind of bishop here, a Patriarch,
and I am sure that anything you publish about him in
the Portuguese papers ”
“You don’t understand
what I mean. You’re getting stupid, I think.
I’m not talking about bishops. I’m
talking about you.”
“Don’t bother about taking
up my case until you’ve quite finished the bishops.
I am a young man still, with years and years before
me in which I shall no doubt talk a lot of tommyrot.
It would be a pity to drive me out of public life
before I’ve said anything which you can really
scathe.”
“We thought,” said Lalage,
“that as it didn’t much matter to us where
we went we might as well come out to see you.
You were the only person who gave a decent ‘sub’
to the society. I’ll explain our new idea
to you later on.”
“I’m very glad I did,”
I said. “If another fiver would bring Selby-Harrison
by the next steamer Hullo! Here’s
Hilda back with Miss Battersby. I hardly thought
she’d have succeeded in getting her. How
do you do, Miss Battersby? I’m delighted
to welcome you to Lisbon, and I must do my best for
you now you’re here. I’m quite at
your disposal for the day.”
Miss Battersby smiled feebly.
She had not yet recovered from the effects of the
sea voyage.
“First,” said Lalage, “we’ll
go to an hotel.”
“Of course,” I said, “to get the
cigarettes.”
“No,” said Lalage; “to
let Miss Battersby get to bed. She wants to get
to bed, doesn’t she, Hilda?”
Hilda, who was supporting Miss Battersby,
and so in a position to judge of her condition, nodded.
“She’s frightfully weak,”
said Lalage to me, “on account of not having
eaten anything except two water biscuits and an apple
for nearly a week.”
“In that case,” I said, “a little
luncheon ”
“Could you eat luncheon?” said Lalage
to Miss Battersby.
Miss Battersby seemed to wish to try.
“Could she, Hilda?” said Lalage.
“It’s a long time since she has.”
“She must make a beginning some day,”
I said.
“I still think she’d be better in bed,”
said Lalage.
“After lunch,” I said
firmly, “You ought not to be vindictive, Lalage.
It’s a long time since that trouble about the
character of Mary.”
“I’m not thinking of that,” said
Lalage.
“And she’s not a bishop. Why should
you starve her?”
“Very well,” said Lalage.
“Do whatever you like, but don’t blame
me afterward if she’s she
was, on the steamer, horribly.”
We fed Miss Battersby on some soup,
a fragment of fried fish and a glass of light wine.
She evidently wanted to eat an omelette as well, but
Lalage forbade this. Whether she was actually
put to bed afterward or merely laid down I do not
know. She must have been at least partially undressed,
for Lalage and Hilda were plentifully supplied with
cigarettes during the afternoon.