I feared at first that Lalage was not going to write to me. Nearly three weeks passed before I got a letter from her and I was inclined to blame her for neglect of an old friend. When the letter did arrive I understood that I had no right to be angry. Lalage was better than I had dared to hope. She kept a kind of irregular diary in an exercise book and sent it to me. It was, like all diaries, in disconnected paragraphs, evidently written down when the mood for recording experiences was on Lalage. There were no dates attached, but the first entry must, I think, embody the result of a very early series of impressions. One, at least, of the opinions expressed in it was modified later on:

“When I arrived I was hustled into a room by a small fat lady dressed in purple; not the old Pet, which is what we call Miss Pettigrew. I waited for ten minutes. Then I was hustled upstairs by the same purple-clothed lady, and shown a locker, Number 73. There I stayed for about five minutes and then was driven down again by the purple-clothed lady and pushed into the same room as I had been before. Again I was herded off (after about five minutes), needless to say by the purple-robed woman, and shoved into a waiting-room.”

Lalage’s patience must by this time have been wearing thin. It is noticeable that the “lady” had become a mere “woman” in the last sentence.

“There I stayed twenty minutes, a long twenty minutes, and lo! there came the purple-dressed woman unto me and bore me away to be examined. She slung me at the mercy of a mistress who gave me a desk (with a chair clamped to the ground) paper, pen and examination papers. Could you answer the following: Who succeeded (a) Stephen, (b) John, (c) Edward III? I said to the old Pet, ‘This is all rotten.’ (By the way, I had been sent off to her when I had done.) And she replied, ‘Oh, that’s not at all a nice word for a young lady to use. We can’t have that here.’ She’s rather an ass.

“I was made to feel exactly like Lady Macbeth to-day at algebra. When Miss Campbell turned her back, another girl dared me to put my pen in Miss Campbell’s red ink. (This is strictly against the law.) So of course I did. But instead of mopping it straight off like a fool I displayed it with pride. Consequently it fell all over my hands. Miss Campbell was just coming up so I had to hide them murmuring ‘Out, damned spot!’ etc. Luckily she didn’t see, for she’s just the sort that would report you like a shot.”

“The names of suburban houses are awfully funny.”

This entry evidently followed one of Lalage’s first outings. I felt acutely the contrast between the pleasant chestnut tree, the fragrant sty, and the paved footways along which she is now condemned to tramp.

“An awful, staring, backgardenly looking house, with muslin curtains, frilly and a jumpy looking pattern on the side is called ‘Sans Souci!’ One ass calls his stable Cliftonville, although I bet he’s never seen Clifton. Ardenbough and Honeysuckle Arbour are common.

“To-day we heard a frightful row in the corridor, laughing, talking, and trampling. Miss Campbell half rose and said: ‘I must put a stop to this.’ Before she could, the door was flung open and in bounced—the old Pet and three visitors! After a moment’s conversation with Miss Campbell she retired, banging the door in a way she’d expel any one else for.

“This letter is lasting on. Hilda gets sixpence every time she is top, threepence second, and twopence third, but does not get any regular pocket money. She’s very rich at present, as she’s been top three times running. How I’d like to play Rugby football. It looks enticing to be let knock a person down. It is a pity girls can’t, only lucky boys. I wonder why I feel poorer here than at home and yet have more money.”

The Canon had, I am sure, provided Lalage with a suitable amount of pocket money. I myself gave her five shillings the day before she left home. She ought not to feel poor. Compared to Hilda, who has one-and-sixpence, earned in the sweat of her brow, Lalage must seem a millionaire.

“Do you know the kind of person who you hate and yet can’t help loving although you are afraid of her? That is the sort the old Pet is. As I was going into school to-day she was standing at the door. The beast promptly spotted the fact that I had no hair ribbon, and remarked in awe-inspiring tones, ‘Lalage, where is your hair ribbon?’ ‘Forgot it,’ said I, and took a lecture with a polite grin. The old Pet may be a beast, but is not an ass. I hope the weather will improve soon.

“There is no doubt that I am of a persevering nature or I would not continue to write this letter. I fear it is so long that you’ll never get through it, though I did not know it until now. I know a girl who is learning Greek. She’s awful, and so clever. She is in my Latin class and prime favourite with Carpy.

“Your affect.

“Lalage.”

Carpy cannot be the real name of the lady who teaches Latin to Lalage and Greek to the awful girl. I have tried to reconstruct her name from its corruption, but have hitherto failed to satisfy myself. She may be a Miss Chartres. Perhaps she is the purple-gowned woman who hustled, pushed, herded and slung Lalage on the day of her arrival. She cannot, in any case, be identified with the mathematician who uses red ink. No ingenuity in nicknaming could extract Carpy from Campbell.

There was, in spite of its great length, a postscript to Lalage’s letter. There was also an enclosure.

“P.S. What does ‘flippant’ mean? The old Pet said my comp. was flippant, and I don’t know what that is. It was my first comp.”

I unfolded the “comp.” and read it carefully:

Composition on Politeness by Lalage Beresford

Politeness is a very difficult art to acquire. It is altogether an acquired art, for no one is polite when he is born. Some sorts of politeness are sensible and they are comparatively easy to learn. Begging a person’s pardon when we tread on their toes is polite and is a reasonable thing to do. But there are many silly things to learn before we become really polite. For instance, a boy must learn to open the door for ladies and walk after them always. This does the ladies no good and is sometimes very inconvenient for the boy. He may be in a hurry. It is not polite for a girl to sit with her legs crossed and her head leaning aback on her hands. This is a position which does no one any harm, so it is absurd that it should be considered unpolite. In old days politeness was carried to much greater extremities than it is now. In the days when they used to fight duels, when two gentlemen felt really annoyed, instead of one of them saying to the other, “Go and get your sword and let me kill you,” and the other replying, “All right, I shall be delighted to kill a man whom I detest,” they demanded “satisfaction” of each other in most polite tones and parted with low bows and polite, though sneering, smiles. Politeness is a very good thing in moderation, but not if carried too far.

Skeat traces the word “flippant” back through “flip” and the old Northumbrian present participle ending “an” to the Icelandic “fleipa,” which means to prattle—I found this out in a dictionary and copied it down for Lalage. Miss Pettigrew was not, I think, justified in applying the word, supposing that she used it in its strict etymological sense, to Lalage’s composition. There was more in the essay than mere prattle. But Miss Pettigrew may have had reasons of her own, reasons which I can only guess, for wishing to depreciate this particular essay. It is quite possible that she was herself the person who told Lalage that it is rude for a girl to sit with her lees crossed. My mother, to whom I showed the composition when I consulted her about the probable meaning of flippant, refused to entertain this suggestion. She knows Miss Pettigrew and does not think she is the kind of person who would attach excessive importance to the position of Lalage’s legs. She thinks that the maxim referred to by Lalage—there evidently was a maxim in her mind when she wrote—must have fallen from the lips of Miss Campbell, the mathematician, Carpy, or the purple-gowned woman. If she is right, I can only suppose that Miss Pettigrew in using the word flippant meant to support the authority of her subordinates and to snub Lalage for attempting to rebel against time-honoured tradition.

I walked across to the rectory after luncheon, intending to show my letter and the composition on politeness to the Canon. I found him seriously upset. He had received a letter from Lalage, and he had also enjoyed a visit from the Archdeacon. He was ill-advised in showing the letter to the Archdeacon. I should have had more sense. I suppose he thought that, dealing as it did almost entirely with religious subjects, it was likely to interest the Archdeacon. It did interest him. It interested him excessively, to an extent which occasioned a good deal of trouble.

“Dear Father: I have read nearly the whole of the ‘Earthly Paradise’ since I came here. It is an awfully jolly book. (‘Little Folks’ is Miss Campbell’s idea of literature for the young; but that’s all rot of course.) Who wrote the Litany? If you do not know please ask the Archdeacon when you see him. I’ve come to the conclusion that some of it is very well written.”

“I did ask the Archdeacon,” said the Canon, looking up from the letter, “and he said he’d hunt up the point when he went home.”

“Lalage,” I said, “has quite a remarkable feeling for style. See the way she writes about the ‘Earthly Paradise.’ It must be the way you brought her up on quotations from Horace. Miss Campbell hardly appreciates her, I’m afraid. But of course you can’t expect a mathematician to rise much above ‘Little Folks’ in the way of literature. I suppose the Archdeacon was greatly pleased with that conundrum about the Litany.”

“It was what followed,” said the Canon, “which excited him.”

He began to read again:

“There is a clergyman who comes once a week to give us a scripture lesson. He is only a curate and looks very shy. We had a most exciting time with him yesterday. We all shied paper wads, and he moved nearly every one up and sent one girl out of the room.”

“He can’t,” I said, “have been as shy as he looked. But I’m beginning to understand why the Archdeacon was shocked.”

“He didn’t mind that,” said the Canon; “at least not much.”

Lalage’s letter went on:

“I was glad, that it wasn’t me, who was just as bad, that he didn’t what he calls ‘make an example of.’ Even that didn’t calm the excited class and he said, ‘Next person who laughs will be reported to Miss Pettigrew.’ It was not me, but the girl next me, Eileen Fraser. I was the innocent cause of the offence. (A mere wink at Hilda when I had my belt round her neck.) She was not, however, reported, even to Carpy.”

“By the way,” I said, “who is Carpy? She comes into my letter too.”

The Canon did not know and seemed uninterested in the point. He went on reading:

“Another day he committed an unforgivable offence. He said to us, ‘You must stand up when quoting the words of the Bible.’”

“Isn’t that always considered essential?” I asked. “The unforgivable offence,” said the Canon, “is in the next sentence.”

“But he sat with his feet on the fender, the pig. I do hate that sort. Even when Hilda said that Ananias told a lie and was turned into a pillar of salt he did not laugh. He said he’d turn one girl out of the room to-day for nothing but dropping her pen.”

“The Archdeacon,” I said, “could of course sympathize with that curate.”

“It wasn’t that which made him really angry,” said the Canon, “although he didn’t like it.”

“There must be something pretty bad coming, if it’s worse than that.”

The Canon sighed heavily and went on reading

“Hilda taught me the two-step at rec. Another girl (also in my class and jolly nice) played them.”

The Canon looked up with a puzzled expression. I explained as well as I could.

“The two-step,” I said, “is a dance. What the jolly, nice girl played is a little obscure, but I think it must have been tunes suitable to the performance of the two-step. ‘Rec.’ is a shortened form of recreation. Lalage is fond of these contractions. She writes to me about her comp.”

The canon read: “On the other days, the old Pet takes us herself at Scrip: We were at Genesis, and she read out, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven, and the earth.’ ‘But of course you all know He didn’t. Modern science teaches us——’ Then she went on with a lot of rot about gases and forces and nebulous things.”

“The Archdeacon,” said the Canon, “is going to write to the Archbishop of Dublin about it. He says that kind of teaching ought not to be allowed.”

“We must head him off somehow,” I said, “if he really means it. But he hardly can. I don’t expect he’ll run into extremes. He certainly won’t without taking advice. The Archdeacon isn’t a man to do anything definite in a hurry. He’s told me over and over again that he deprecates precipitancy of action.”

“He feels very strongly about the Higher Criticism. Very strongly indeed. He says it’s poisoning the wells of religion in the home.”

“Last time he lunched with us he said it was sapping the foundations. Still I scarcely think he’ll want to institute a heresy prosecution against Miss Pettigrew.”

“I’m very much afraid—he seemed most determined——”

“We must switch him off on to some other track,” I said. “If you funk tackling him——”

“I did my best.”

“I suppose that I’d better try him. It’s a nuisance. I hate arguing with archdeacons; but of course we can’t have Lalage put into a witness box and ballyragged by archbishops and people of that kind, and she’d be the only available witness. Hilda can’t be in a position to give a clear account of what happened, considering that she was half strangled by Lalage’s belt at the time.”

“It was at the curate’s class that the belt incident occurred,” said the Canon, “just after they had been throwing paper wads.”

“So it was. All the same I don’t think Hilda would be much use as a witness. The memory of that choking would be constantly with her and would render every scripture lesson a confused nightmare for months afterward. The other girls would probably lose their heads. It’s all well enough to pelt curates with paper wads. Any one could do that. It’s quite a different thing to stand up before an ecclesiastical court and answer a string of questions about nebulous things. That Archbishop will find himself relying entirely on Lalage to prove the Archdeacon’s case, which won’t be a nice position for her. I’ll go home now and drive over at once to see the Archdeacon.”

“Do,” said the Canon. “I’d go with you only I hate this kind of fuss. Some men like it. The Archdeacon, for instance. Curious, isn’t it, how differently we’re made, though we all look very much alike from the outside. ‘Sunt quos cumculo——‘” I did not wait to hear the end of the quotation.

I approached the Archdeacon hopefully, relying, I confess, less on the intrinsic weight of the arguments I meant to use than on the respect which I knew the Archdeacon entertained for my position in the county. My mother is the sister of the present Lord Thormanby, a fact which by itself predisposes the Archdeacon in my favour. My father was a distinguished soldier. My grandfather was a still more distinguished soldier, and there are pictures of his most successful battle hanging in my dining-room. The Archdeacon has often seen them and I am sure appreciates them. I am also, for an Irish landlord, a well-off man. I might, so I believed, have trusted entirely to these facts to persuade the Archdeacon to give up the idea of communicating Miss Pettigrew’s lapse into heterodoxy to the Archbishop. But I worked out a couple of sound arguments as well, and I was greatly surprised to find that I produced no effect whatever on the Archdeacon. He bluntly refused to modify his plan of action.

I quoted to him the proverb which warns us to let sleeping dogs lie. Under any ordinary circumstances this would have appealed strongly to the Archdeacon. It was just the kind of wisdom by which he guides his life. I was taken aback when he replied that Miss Pettigrew, so far from being a sleeping dog, was a roaring lion. A moment later he called her a ravenous evening wolf; so I gave up my proverb as useless. I then reminded him that Lalage was evidently quite unaffected by the teaching which she received, had in fact described modern science as a lot of rot. The Archdeacon replied that, though Lalage escaped, others might be affected; and that he was not quite sure even about Lalage, because insidious poisons are most to be feared when they lie dormant in the system for a time.

This brought me to the end of my two arguments and I had to invent another on the spot. I am always rather ashamed to think of the one I actually used, but I was driven against the wall and the position seemed almost desperate. I suggested that Lalage’s account of the scripture lesson was in all probability quite unreliable.

“You know, Archdeacon,” I said, “that all little girls are horrid liars.”

The insinuation that Lalage ever spoke anything but the truth was treacherous and abominable. She has her faults; but I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that her description of Miss Pettigrew’s scripture lesson was a perfectly honest account of the impression it produced on her mind. The Archdeacon hesitated, and, hoping for the best, I plunged deeper.

“Lalage in particular,” I said, “is absolutely reckless about the truth.”

The Archdeacon shook his head mournfully.

“I wish I could think so,” he said. “I should be glad, indeed, if I could take your view of the matter; but in these days when the Higher Criticism is invading our pulpits and our school rooms——”

His voice faded away into the melancholy silence and he continued shaking his head.

This shows how much more important dogmatic truth is than the ordinary everyday correspondence between statement and fact. To the Archdeacon a lie of Lalage’s would have been a minor evil in every way preferable, if it came to a choice between the two, to Miss Pettigrew’s unorthodox interpretation of the Mosaic narrative. I could argue the matter no more and fell back upon a last plan.

“Archdeacon,” I said, “come out and dine with us to-night. Talk the whole business over with my mother before you take any definite action.”

The Archdeacon agreed to do this. I went home at once and prepared my mother for the conflict.

“You must use all your influence,” I said. “It is a most serious business.”

“My dear boy,” said my mother, “it’s quite the most ridiculous storm in a tea cup of which I’ve ever heard.”

“No,” I said solemnly, “it’s not. If the Archdeacon makes his charge formally the Archbishop will be obliged to take it up. Miss Pettigrew will be hauled up before him——”

“Miss Pettigrew,” said my mother, “would simply laugh. She’s not in the very least the sort of woman——”

“I know. She’s one of those people that you hate awfully and yet can’t help loving though you are rather afraid of her. It’s for her sake more than Lalage’s that I’m asking you to interfere.”

“If I interfere at all it will be for the Archdeacon’s sake. It’s a pity to allow him to make a fool of himself.”

I do not know what line my mother actually took with the Archdeacon. I left them together after dinner and when the time came for saying good-night I found that the Archdeacon had been persuaded not to attempt a formal protest against Miss Pettigrew’s teaching. He has never, however, trusted her since then and he still shakes his head doubtfully at the mention of her name.

I wrote to Lalage next day and told her not to send home any more accounts of scripture lessons. English compositions, I said, we should be glad to receive. Latin exercises would always be welcome, and algebra sums, especially if worked in Miss Campbell’s red ink, would be regarded as treasured possessions.

“All letters,” I added, “suspected of containing ecclesiastical news of any kind will be returned to you unopened.”

I also called on the Canon and spoke plainly to him about the danger and folly of showing letters to the Archdeacon.

“I was wrong,” said the Canon apologetically. “I can see now that I was wrong, but I thought at the time that he’d enjoy the joke.”

“You ought,” said I severely, “to have had more sense. The Archdeacon expects to be a bishop some day. He can’t afford to enjoy jokes of that kind. By the way, did he tell you who wrote the Litany?”