“What does that mean?”
“A placid wife,” I said, “a gentle, quiet, peaceable sort of wife, who sits beside the fire and knits, purring gently. When he has finished that quotation he’ll blow his nose and give me the piece out of Epictetus about the ‘price of tranquillity.’ He’ll mean by that, that sorry as he is to lose Lalage, the future will hold some compensating joys. He won’t be obliged to dart off at a moment’s notice to Wick, or Brazil, or Borneo. The Canon is, after all, a thoroughly selfish man. He won’t care a bit about something being made of me by Lalage, and if I try to explain my position to him he’ll go out fishing at once.”
CHAPTER XXIII
The fuss which preceded our wedding was very considerable indeed. Presents abounded. Even in my house, which is a large one, they got greatly in the way. There was, for instance, a large picture sent by Titherington. I do not think he had any malicious intention. He probably gave an order to a dealer without any details of the kind of work of art to be supplied. It turned out be a finely coloured photographic reproduction of a picture which had been very popular a few years before, called “The Ministering Angel.” It represented a hospital nurse in the act of exulting over her patient. It reminded me so unpleasantly of my time in Ballygore that I gave orders to have it set up with its face to the wall in a passage. There I used to trip over it nearly every day. Canon Beresford’s position was worse than mine, for his house was smaller and Lalage’s presents were both numerous and larger than those sent to me.
I also suffered great inconvenience from the paperers and painters who came down from Dublin in large numbers and pervaded my favourite rooms. It was my mother who invited them. She said that the house was in a disgraceful condition. Lalage took the keenest interest in these men and their work. She used to come over every morning and harangue them vehemently.
This was some consolation to me for the paperers and painters certainly did not like it. I used to enjoy hearing what they said to each after Lalage had finished with them. Before and after she dealt with the men she used to consult with my mother about clothes. Miss Battersby was admitted to these council meetings. I never was. Patterns of materials arrived from the most distant shops. Some came direct to my mother. I used to see them piled up behind the letters on the breakfast table. Others came to Miss Battersby, who brought them over in the Thormanby’s pony trap. Still more were addressed to Lalage at the rectory. I used to send for these in the morning and it was while she waited for them that Lalage gave the paperers and painters her opinion of their incompetence.
It seemed to me quite impossible that any one, during those frenzied six weeks, could have thought calmly on any serious subject. But Lalage is a very wonderful young woman and my mother is able to retain her self-possession under the most trying circumstances. They managed somehow to snatch an hour or two for that long talk about my future of which my mother had spoken to me. I do not know whether Miss Battersby’s advice was asked. Mine certainly was not. Nor was I told at the time the result of the deliberations. That leaked out long afterward, when the wedding was over and we had returned home to settle down, I scarcely hoped, in peace. I suspected, of course, that I should be made to do something, and I was agreeably surprised that no form of labour was directly imposed on me for some time. Lalage, acting no doubt on my mother’s advice, decided to shepherd rather than goad me along the way on which it was decided that I should go.
She began by saying in a casual way, one night after dinner, that she did not think I had any real taste for political life. I agreed with her heartily. Then she and my mother smiled at each other in a way which made me certain that they had some other career for me in mind. Shortly afterward they took to talking a great deal about books, especially at meal times, and several literary papers appeared regularly on my study table. I came to the conclusion that they wished me to become a patron of literature, perhaps to collect a library or to invite poets to spend their holidays with us. I was quite willing to fall in with this plan, but I determined, privately, only to become acquainted with poets of a peaceable kind who wrote pastorals or elegies and went out for long, solitary walks to commune with nature. In my eagerness to please Lalage I went so far as to write to Selby-Harrison, asking him to make out for me a list of the leading poets of the meditative and mystical schools. I also gave an order to a bookseller for all the books of original poetry published during that autumn. The number of volumes I received surprised me. I used to exhibit them with great pride to my mother and Lalage. I once offered to read out extracts from them in the evening.
“The bent of your genius,” said Lalage, “is evidently literary.”