§ 2
Mr. Grimes was very helpful and sympathetic when Lady Charlotte consulted him. He repeated the advice he had given five years ago, that Lady Charlotte should not litigate but act, and so thrust upon the other parties the onus of litigation. She should obtain possession of the two children, put them into suitable schools—“I don’t see how we can put that By-blow into a school,” Lady Charlotte interpolated—and refuse to let the aunts know where they were until they consented to reasonable terms, to the proper religious education of the children, to their proper clothing, and to their separation. “Directly we have the engagement of the Misses Stubland not to disturb the new arrangement,” said Mr. Grimes, “we shall have gained our point. I see no harm in letting the children rejoin their aunts for their holidays.”
“That woman may corrupt them at any time,” said Lady Charlotte.
“On that point we can watch and enquire. Of course, the boy might stay at the school for the holiday times. There is a class of school which caters for that sort of thing. That we can see to later.”...
Mr. Grimes arranged all the details of the abduction of Joan and Peter with much tact and imagination. As a preliminary step he made Lady Charlotte write to Aunt Phœbe expressing her opinion that the time was now ripe to put the education of the children upon a rational footing. They were no longer little children, and it was no longer possible for them to go on as they were going. Peter was born an English gentleman, and he ought to go to a good preparatory school for boys forthwith; Joan’s destinies in life were different, but they were certainly destinies for which play-acting, running about with bare feet, and dressing like a little savage could be no sort of training. Lady Charlotte (Mr. Grimes made her say) had been hoping against hope that some suggestion for a change would come from the Misses Stubland. She could not hope against hope for ever. She must therefore request a conference, at which Mr. Grimes could be present, for a discussion of the new arrangements that were now urgently necessary. To this the Misses Stubland replied evasively and carelessly. In their reply Mr. Grimes, without resentment, detected the hand of Mr. Sycamore. They were willing to take part in a conference as soon as Mr. Oswald Sydenham returned. They had reason to believe he was on his way to England now.
Lady Charlotte, still guided by Mr. Grimes, then assumed a more peremptory tone. She declared that in the interests of both children it was impossible for things to go on any longer as they had been going. Already the boy was ten. The plea that nothing could be done until Mr. Sydenham returned was a mere delaying device. The boy ought to go to school forthwith. Lady Charlotte was extremely sorry that the Misses Stubland would not come to any agreement upon this urgent matter. She could not rest content with things in this state, and she would be obliged to consider what her course of action—for the time had come for her to take action—must be.
With the way thus cleared, Mr. Grimes set his forces in motion. “Leave it to me, Lady Charlotte,” he said. “Leave it to me.” A polite young man appeared one morning seated in a chariot of fire outside the road gate of the School of St. George and the Venerable Bede. He was in one of those strange and novel portents, a “motor-car.” This alone made him interesting and attractive, and it greatly impressed young Winterbaum to discover that the visitor had come about Joan and Peter. Young Winterbaum went out to scrutinize the motor-car and its driver, and see if there was anything wrong about it. But it was difficult to underestimate.
“It’s a petrol car,” he said. “Belsize.... Those are fine lamps.”
Miss Murgatroyd gathered that the guardians of Joan and Peter found it necessary to interview the children, and had sent the car to fetch them.
“Miss Stubland said nothing of this when I saw her the day before yesterday,” said Miss Murgatroyd. “We do not care for interruptions in the children’s work.”
The young man explained that the case was urgent. “Lady Charlotte has been called away. And she must see the children before she goes out of England.”
There was something very reassuring about the motor-car. They departed cheerfully to the ill-concealed envy and admiration of young Winterbaum.
The young man had red hair, a white, freckled face, and a costly and remarkable made-up necktie of green plush. The expression of his pale blue eyes was apprehensive, and ever and again he blew. His efforts at conversation were fragmentary and unilluminating. “I got to take you for a long ride,” he said, seating himself between Peter and Joan. “A lovely long ride.”
“Where?” said Joan.
“You’ll see in a bit,” said the young man.
“We going to Chastlands?” asked Peter.
“No,” said the young man.
“Then where are we going?” said Peter.
“These here cars’ll do forty—fifty miles an hour,” said the young man, changing the subject.
In a little while they had passed beyond the limits of Peter’s knowledge altogether, and were upon an unknown road. It was astonishing how the car devoured the road. You saw a corner a long way off and then immediately you were turning this corner. The car went as swiftly up the hills as down. It said “honk.” The trees and hedges flew by as if one was in a train, and behind we trailed a marvellous cloud of dust. The driver sat before us with his head sunken between his hunched-up shoulders; he never seemed to move; he was quite different from the swaying, noble coachman with the sun-red face, wearing a top hat with a waist and a broad brim, who sat erect and poised his whip and drove Lady Charlotte’s white horse.