"Arthur wrote them."
"Yes…. I recognised his writing."
"He is in love with some woman."
"Presumably … yes. But I'm not so sure of that."
"What do you mean?" She gasped at the prospect of relief.
He explained to her at length. It was a very common thing for boys of
Arthur's age, he said, to write verse.
"Verses of that kind?"
Yes… even verses of that kind. To be perfectly candid he himself, when a boy in his teens, had done very much the same sort of thing. It was true perhaps that the verses which he had written had not been quite so … perhaps frank was the best word. On the other hand his own development had followed more normal lines. He hadn't, in the manner of Arthur, burst suddenly into blossom. All boys wrote verses. Often they wrote verses of an amatory character, not particularly because they happened to be in love, but because the bulk of English lyrical poetry, to which they went for their models, was, regrettably, of an amatory character. At this stage in a boy's development, even in the development of the greatest poets (and Arthur, he noticed in passing, did not show any signs of amazing genius) the verses were usually imitative. It rather looked as if he had been reading Herrick, or possibly the Shakespeare sonnets … the dark lady, you know. Seriously, he didn't think there was anything to worry about. He folded the papers and handed them back to her.
For once in a way Considine didn't satisfy her. There were other things, she said. Things that she hadn't attached any value to at the time when they happened, but which now seemed significant. When she came to think of it Arthur's whole behaviour during the holidays had been that of a youth who was in love. With all deference to Dr. Considine she felt that she couldn't pass the matter over. It was her plain duty to enquire into it, and find, if possible, a more obvious reason for this strange and sudden outburst.
Considine agreed that no harm could be done by a little quiet investigation. At the same time he couldn't possibly see what opportunities Arthur could have had for falling in love at Lapton.