Part 8

“They are quite extraordinary young women—not by any stretch of language to be called Ladies. They dress in that way—like the pictures in the Grosvenor Gallery.”

“Æsthetic?”

“I could find a harsher word for it. They smoke. Not a nice thing for children to see. I suspect them strongly of vegetarianism. From something one of them said. In which case the children will not be properly nourished. And they speak quite openly of socialism in front of their charges. Neither of the poor little creatures had been bought a scrap of mourning. Not a scrap. I doubt if they have even been made to understand that their parents are dead. But that is only the beginning. I am totally unable to ascertain whether either of the poor mites has been christened. Apparently they have not....”

Mr. Grimes withdrew his thumb for a moment. “You are perfectly within yer rights—insisting—knowing”—thumb replaced—“all thlese things.”

“Exactly. And in having my say in their general upbringing.”

“How far do they prevent that?”

“Oh; they get in my way. They send the children out whenever they feel I am coming. They do not listen to me and accept any suggestions I make. Oh!—sniff at it.”

“And you want to make ’em?”

“I want to do my duty by those two children, Mr. Grimes. It is a charge that has been laid upon me.”

Mr. Grimes reflected, rubbing his thumb thoughtfully along the front of his teeth.

“They are getting no religious instruction whatever,” said Lady Charlotte. “None.”

“Hot was the ’ligion father?” said Mr. Grimes suddenly.

Lady Charlotte was not to be deterred by a silly and inopportune question. She just paused for an instant and reddened. “He was a member of the Church of England,” she said.

“Even if he wasn’t,” said Mr. Grimes understandingly, but with thumb still in place, “Ligion necessary t’welfare. Case of Besant Chil’n zample. Thlis is Klistian country.”

“I sometimes doubt it,” said Lady Charlotte.

“Legally,” said Mr. Grimes.

“If the law did its duty!”

“You don’t wanner goatallaw fewcan ’void it?” asked Mr. Grimes, grasping his job.

Lady Charlotte assumed an expression of pained protest, and lifted one black-gloved hand. Mr. Grimes hastily withdrew his thumbnail from his mouth. “I am saying, Lady Charlotte, that what you want to do is to assert your authority, if possible, without legal proceedings.”

He was trying to get the whole situation clear in his mind before he tendered any exact advice. Most children who are quarrelled over in this way gravitate very rapidly into the care of the Lord Chancellor; to that no doubt these children would come; but Lady Charlotte was a prosperous lady with a lot of fight in her and a knack of illegality, and before these children became Wards in Chancery she might, under suitable provocation, run up a very considerable little bill for expenses and special advice in extracting her from such holes as she got herself into. It is an unjust libel upon solicitors that they tempt their clients into litigation. So far is this unjust that the great majority will spare neither time nor expense in getting a case settled out of court.

Nor did Lady Charlotte want to litigate. Courts are uncertain, irritating places. She just wanted to get hold of her two wards, and to deal with them in such a way as to inflict the maximum of annoyance and humiliation upon those queer Stubland aunts. And to save the children from socialism, secularism, Catholicism, and all the wandering wolves of opinion that lie in wait for the improperly trained.

But also she went in fear of Oswald. Oswald was one of the few human beings of whom she went in awe. He was always rude and overbearing with her. From the very first moment when he had seen her as his uncle’s new wife, he had realized in a flash of boyish intuition that if he did not get in with an insult first, he would be her victim. So his first words to her had been an apparently involuntary “O God!” Then he had pretended to dissemble his contempt with a cold politeness. Those were the days of his good looks; he was as tall and big as he was ever to be, and she had expected a “little midshipmite,” whom she would treat like a child, and possibly even send early to bed. From the first she was at a disadvantage. He had a material hold on her too, now. He was his uncle’s heir and her Trustee; and she had the belief of all Victorian women in the unlimited power of Trustees to abuse their trust unless they are abjectly propitiated. He used to come and stay in her house as if it was already his own; the servants would take their orders from him. She was assuring Grimes as she had assured the Stubland aunts that he was on her side; “The Sydenhams are all sound churchmen.” But even as she said this she saw his grim, one-sided face and its one hard intent eye pinning her. “Acting without authority again, my good aunt,” he would say. “You’ll get yourself into trouble yet.”

That was one of his invariable stabs whenever he came to see her. Always he would ask, sooner or later, in that first meeting:

“Any one bagged you for libel yet? _No!_ Or insulting behaviour? Some one will get you sooner or later.”

“Anything that _I_ say about people,” she would reply with dignity, “is True, Oswald.”

“They’ll double the damages if you stick _that_ out.”...

And she saw him now standing beside the irritating, necessary Grimes, sardonically ready to take part against her, prepared even to give those abominable aunts an unendurable triumph over her....

“I want no vulgar litigation,” she said. “Everything ought to be done as quietly as possible. There is no need to ventilate the family affairs of the Sydenhams, and particularly when I tell you that one of the children is——” She hesitated. “Irregular.”

The thumb went back, and Mr. Grimes’ face assumed a diplomatic innocence. “Whascalled a love-shild?”

“Exactly,” said Lady Charlotte, with a nod that forbade all research for paternity. If Joan were assumed to be of Stubland origin, so much the better for Lady Charlotte’s case. “Everything must be done quietly and privately,” she said.

“Sactly,” said Mr. Grimes, and was reminded of his thumb by her eye. He coughed, put his arm down, and sat up in his chair. “_They_ have possession of the children?” he said.

“Should I be here?” she appealed.

“_Ah!_ That gives the key of the situation.... Would _they_ litigate?”

“Why should they?”

“If by chance you got possession?”

“That would be difficult.”

“But not impossible? Perhaps something could be managed. With my assistance. Once or twice before I have had cases that turned on the custody of minors. Custody, like possession, is nine points of the law. Then _they_ would have to come into court.”

“We want nobody to come into court.”

“Exactly, m’lady. I am pointing out to you how improbable it is that they will do so. I am gauging their disinclination.”

The attitude of Mr. Grimes relaxed unconsciously until once more the teeth and thumbnail were at their little play again.

He continued with thoughtful eyes upon his client’s expression. “Possibly _they_ wouldn’t li’e ’nquiry into character.”

“Oh, _do_ take that thumb away!” cried Lady Charlotte. “And _don’t_ lounge.”

“I’m sorry, m’lady,” said Mr. Grimes, sitting up. “I was saying, practically, do we know of any little irregularities, anything—I won’t say actually immoral, but _indiscreet_, in these two ladies’ lives? Anything they wouldn’t like to have publicly discussed. In the case of most people there’s a Something. Few people will readily and cheerfully face a discussion of Character. Even quite innocent people.”

“They’re certainly very lax—very. They smoke. Inordinately. I saw the cigarette stains on their fingers. And unless I am very much mistaken, one of them—well”—Lady Charlotte leant forward towards him with an air of scandalous condescension—“she wears no stays at all, Mr. Grimes—none at all! No! She’s a very queer young woman indeed in my opinion.”

“M’m!... No visitors to the house—no _gentlemen_, for example—who might seem a little dubious?”

Lady Charlotte did not know. “I will get my maid to make enquiries—discreetly. We certainly ought to know that.”

“The elder one writes poetry,” she threw out.

“We must see to that, too. If we can procure some of that. Nowadays there is quite a quantity—of _very_ indiscreet poetry. Many people do not realize the use that might be made of it against them. And even if the poetry is not indiscreet, it creates a prejudice....”

He proceeded to unfold his suggestions. Lady Charlotte must subdue herself for a while to a reassuring demeanour towards the aunts at The Ingle-Nook. She must gain the confidence of the children. “And of the children’s maid!” he said acutely. “She’s rather an important factor.”

“She’s a very impertinent young woman,” said Lady Charlotte.

“But you must reassure her for a time, Lady Charlotte, if the children are to come to you—ultimately.”

“I can make the sacrifice,” the lady said; “if you think it is my duty.”

Meanwhile Mr. Grimes would write a letter, a temperate letter, yet “just a little stiff in tone,” pointing out the legal and enforceable right of his client to see and have free communication with the children, and to be consulted about their affairs, and trusting that the Misses Stubland would see their way to accord these privileges without further evasion.

§ 4

The Stubland aunts were not the ladies to receive a solicitor’s letter calmly. They were thrown into a state of extreme trepidation. A solicitor’s letter had for them the powers of an injunction. It was clear that Lady Charlotte must be afforded that reasonable access, that consultative importance to which she was entitled. Phyllis became extremely reasonable. Perhaps they had been a little disposed to monopolize the children. They were not the only Madonnas upon the tree. That was Phyllis’s response to this threat. Phœbe was less disposed to make concessions. “Those children are a sacred charge to us,” she said. “What can a woman of that sort know or care for children? Lapdogs are _her_ children. Let us make such concessions as we must, but let us _guard essentials_, Phyllis.... As the apples of our eyes....”

In the wake of this letter came Lady Charlotte herself, closely supported by the faithful Unwin, no longer combative, no longer actively self-assertive, but terribly suave. Her movements were accompanied by unaccustomed gestures of urbanity, done chiefly by throwing out the open hand sideways, and she made large, kind tenor noises as reassuring as anything Mr. Grimes could have wished. She astonished Aunt Phyllis with “Ha’ow are the dear little things today?”

Mary was very mistrustful, and Aunt Phyllis had to expostulate with her. “You see, Mary, it seems she’s the children’s guardian just as we are. They _must_ see a little of her....”

“And _ha-ow’s_ Peter?” said Lady Charlotte.

“Very well, thank you, Lady Charlotte,” said Mary.

“Very well, thank you lazy Cha’lot,” said Peter.

“That’s right. We shall soon get along Famously. And how’s my little Joan?”

Joan took refuge behind Mary.

“Pee-Bo!” said Lady Charlotte tremendously, and craned her head.

Peter regarded the lady incredulously. He wanted to ask a question about the whisker. But something in Mary’s grip upon his wrist warned him not to do that. In this world, he remembered suddenly, there are Unspeakable Things. Perhaps this was one of them.... That made it all the more fascinating, of course.

Lady Charlotte was shown the nursery; she stayed to nursery tea. She admired everything loudly.

“And so these are your Toys, lucky Peter. Do you play with them all?”

“Joan’s toys too,” said Joan.

“Such a Pretty Room!” said Lady Charlotte with gestures of approval. “Such a Pretty Outlook. I wonder you didn’t make it the Drawing-Room. Isn’t it a pretty room, Unwin?”

“Very pritty, m’lady.”

Very skilfully she made her first tentative towards the coup she had in mind.

“One day, Mary, you must bring them over to Tea with _me_,” she said....

“I do so want the dear children to come over to me,” she said presently in the garden to aunts Phyllis and Phœbe. “If they would come over quite informally—with their Mary. Just to Tea and scamper about the shrubbery....”

Mary and Unwin surveyed the garden conversation from the nursery window, and talked sourly and distrustfully.

“Been with ’er long?” asked Mary.

“Seven years,” said Unwin.

“Purgat’ry?” said Mary.

“She ’as to be managed,” said Unwin.

§ 5

The day of the great coup of Lady Charlotte was tragic and painful from the beginning. Peter got up wicked. It was his custom, and a very bad one, to bang with his spoon upon the bottom of his little porringer as he ate his porridge. It had grown out of his appreciation of the noise the spoon made as he dug up his food. Now, as Mary said, he “_d’librately ’ammered_.” How frequently had not Mary told him he would do it “once too often!” This was the once too often. The porridge plate cracked and broke, and the porridge and the milk and sugar escaped in horrid hot gouts and lumps over tablecloth and floor and Peter’s knees. It was a fearful mess. It was enough to cow the stoutest heart. Peter, a great boy of five, lifted up his voice and wept.

So this dire day began.

Then there was a new thin summer blouse, a glaring white silk thing, for Peter, and in those days all new things meant trouble with him. It was put on after a hot fight with Mary; his head came through flushed and crumpled. But Joan accepted her new blouse as good as gold. Then for some reason the higher powers would not let us go and look at the kittens, the dear little blind kittens in the outhouse. There were six of them, all different, for the Ingle-Nook cat was a generous, large-minded creature. Only after a dispute in which Joan threatened to go the way of Peter was “just a glimpse” conceded. And they were softer and squealier and warmer than anything one had ever imagined. We wanted to linger. Mary talked of a miracle. “Any time,” she said, “one of them kitties may eat up all the others. Any time. Kitties often do that. But it’s always the best one does it.”

We wanted to stay and see if this would happen. No! We were dragged reluctantly to our walk.

Was it Peter’s fault that when we got to the edge of the common the fence of Master’s paddock had been freshly tarred? Must a little boy test the freshness of the paint on every fence before he wriggles half under it and stares at Wonderland on the other side? If so, this was a new law.

But anyhow here we were in trouble once more, this beastly new white blouse “completely spoilt,” Mary said, and Mary in an awful stew. The walk was to be given up and we were to go home in dire disgrace and change....

Even Aunt Phyllis turned against Peter. She looked at him and said, “_O Peter!_ _What_ a mess!”

Then it was that sorrow and the knowledge of death came upon Joan.

She was left downstairs while Peter was hauled rather than taken upstairs to change, and in that atmosphere of unrest and disaster it seemed a sweet and comforting thing to do to go and look at the kittens again. But beyond the corner of the house she saw old Groombridge, the Occasional Gardener, digging a hole, and beside him in a pitiful heap lay five wet little objects and close at hand was a pail. Dark apprehension came upon Joan’s soul, but she went up to him nevertheless. “What you been doing to my kittays?” she asked.

“I drownded five,” said old Groombridge in a warm and kindly voice. “But I kep’ the best un. ’E’s a beauty, ’E is.”

“But why you drownded ’em?” asked Joan.

“Eh! you got to drown kittens, little Missie,” said old Groombridge. “Else ud be too many of um. But ollays there’s one or so kep’. Callum Jubilee I reckon. ’Tis all the go this year agin.”

Joan had to tell some one. She turned about towards the house, but long before she could find a hearer her sorrowful news burst through her. Aunt Phœbe writing Ruskinian about the marvellous purity of childish intuitions was suddenly disturbed by the bitter cry of Niobe Joan going past beneath the window. Joan had a voluminous voice when she was fully roused.

“They been ’n dwouwnded my kittays, Petah. They been ’n dwouwnded my kittays.”

§ 6

It seemed to Mary that Lady Charlotte’s invitation came as a “perfect godsend.” It was at once used to its utmost value to distract the two little flushed and tearful things from their distresses. Great expectations were aroused. That very afternoon they were to go out to tea to Chastlands, a lovely place; they were to have a real ride in a real carriage, not a cab like the station-cab that smells of straw, but a carriage; and Mary was coming too, she was going to wear her best hat with the red flower and enjoy herself “no end,” and there would be cake and all sorts of things and a big shrubbery to play in and a flower garden—oh! miles bigger than our garden. “Only you mustn’t go picking the flowers,” said Mary. “Lady Charlotte won’t like that.”

Was Auntie Phyllis coming too?

No, Auntie wasn’t coming too; she’d _love_ to come, but she couldn’t....

It all began very much as Mary had promised. The carriage with the white horse was waiting punctually at two o’clock on the high road above the house. There was a real carpet, green with a yellow coat-of-arms, on the floor of the carriage, and the same coat-of-arms on the panel of the door; the brass door-handle was so bright and attractive that Mary had to tell Joan to keep her greedy little hands off it or she would fall out. They drove through pine woods for a time and then across a great common with geese on it, and then up a deep-hedged, winding, uphill road and so to an open road that lay over a great cornfield, and then by a snug downland village of thatched white cottages very gay with flowers. And so to a real lodge with a garden round it and a white-aproned gate-keeper, which impressed Mary very favourably.

“It’s a sort of park she has,” said Mary.

As they drew near the house they were met by a very gay and smiling and obviously pretty lady, in a dress of blue cotton stuff and flowers in her hat. She had round blue eyes and glowing cheeks and a rejoicing sort of voice.

“Here they are!” she cried. “Hullo, old Peter! Hullo, old Joan! Would you like to get out?”

They would.

“Would they like to see the garden?”

They would.

And a little bit of “chockky” each?

Glances for approval at Mary and encouraging nods from Mary. They would. They got quite big pieces of chocolate and pouched them solemnly, and went on with grave, unsymmetrical faces. And the bright lady took them each by a hand and began to talk of flowers and birds and all the things they were going to see, a summerhouse, a croquet-poky lawn, a little old pony stable, a churchy-perchy, and all sorts of things. Particularly the churchy-perchy.

Mary dropped behind amicably.

So accompanied it was not very dreadful to meet the great whisker-woman herself in a white and mauve patterned dress of innumerable flounces and a sunshade with a deep valance to it, to match. She didn’t come very near to the children, but waved her hand to them and crowed in what was manifestly a friendly spirit. And across the lawn they saw a marvel, a lawn-mower pushed by a man and drawn by a little piebald pony in boots.

“He puts on his booty-pootys when little boys have to take them off, to walk over the grassy green carpet,” said the blue cotton lady.

Peter was emboldened to address Lady Charlotte.

“Puts on ’is booty-pootys,” he said impressively.

“_Wise_ little pony,” said Lady Charlotte.

They saw all sorts of things, the stables, the summerhouse, a little pond with a swan upon it, a lane through dark bushes, and so they came to the church.

§ 7

Lady Charlotte had decided to christen both the children.

She was not sure whether she wanted to take possession of them altogether, in spite of Mr. Grimes’ suggestion. Her health was uncertain, at any time she might have to go abroad; she was liable to nervous headaches to which the proximity of captive and possibly insurgent children would be unhelpful, and her two pet dogs were past that first happy fever of youth which makes the presence of children acceptable. And also there was Oswald—that woman had said he was coming home. But christened Lady Charlotte was resolved those children should be, at whatever cost. It was her duty. It would be an act of the completest self-vindication, and the completest vindication of sound Anglican ideas. And once it was done it would be done, let the Ingle-Nook aunts rage ever so wildly.

Within a quarter of a mile of Chastlands stood a little church among evergreen trees, Otfield Church, so near to Chastlands and so far from Otfield that Lady Charlotte used to point out, “It’s practically my Chapel of Ease.” Her outer shrubbery ran to the churchyard wall, and she had a gate of her own and went to church through a respectful avenue of her own rhododendrons and in by a convenient door. Wiscott, the curate in charge, was an agreeable, easily trodden-on young man with a wife of obscure origins—Lady Charlotte suspected a childhood behind some retail shop—and abject social ambitions. It was Wiscott whose bullying Arthur had overheard when he conceived his admiration for Lady Charlotte. Lady Charlotte had no social prejudices; she liked these neighbours in her own way and would entertain them to tea and even occasionally to lunch. The organ in Otfield church was played in those days by a terrified National schoolmistress, a sound, nice churchwoman of the very lowest educational qualifications permissible, and the sexton, a most respectful worthy old fellow, eked out his income as an extra hand in Lady Charlotte’s garden and was the father of one of her housemaids. Moreover he was the husband of a richly grateful wife in whose rheumatism Lady Charlotte took quite a kindly interest. All these things gave Lady Charlotte a nice homelike feeling in God’s little house in Otfield; God seemed to come nearer to her there and to be more aware of her importance in His world than anywhere else; and it was there that she proposed to hold the simple ceremony that should snatch Peter and Joan like brands from the burning.

Her plans were made very carefully. Mrs. Wiscott had a wide and winning way with children, and she was to capture their young hearts from the outset and lead them to the church. Mary, whom Lady Charlotte regarded as doubtfully friendly, was to be detached by Unwin and got away for a talk. At the church would be the curate and the organist and the sexton and his daughter and Cashel, the butler, a very fine type of the more serious variety of Anglican butlers, slender and very active and earnest and a teetotaler. And to the children it would all seem like a little game.

Mr. Wiscott had been in some doubt about the ceremony. He had baptized infants, he had baptized “those of riper years,” but he had never yet had to deal with children of four or five. The rubric provides that for such the form for the Public Baptism of Infants is available with the change of the word “infant” to “child” where occasion requires it, but the rubric says nothing of the handling of the children concerned. He consulted Lady Charlotte. Should he lift up Peter and Joan in succession to the font when the moment of the actual sprinkling came, or should he deal with them as if they were adults? Lady Charlotte decided that he had better lift. “They are only little mites,” said Lady Charlotte.