My Mighty Atom wills.
“I don’t know what the world is coming to,” said Lady Charlotte. “In other times a woman who ventured to write such blasphemy would have been Struck Dead....”
“Thrills again!” said Lady Charlotte, turning over the offending pages. “In a book that any one may read. Exposing her thrills to any Bagman who chooses to put down three and sixpence for the pleasure. Imagine it, Unwin!”
Unwin did her best, assuming an earnest expression....
Other contributory influences upon Lady Charlotte’s state of mind were her secret anxiety for the moral welfare of the realm now that Queen Victoria had given place to the notoriously lax Edward VII., and the renascence of sectarian controversies in connexion with Mr. Balfour’s Education Act. Anglicanism was rousing itself for a new struggle to keep hold of the nation’s children, the Cecils and Lord Halifax were ranging wide and free with the educational dragnet, and Lady Charlotte was a part of the great system of Anglicanism. The gale that blows the ships home, lifts the leaves.... But far more powerful than any of these causes was the death of a certain Mr. Pybus, who was Unwin’s brother-in-law; he died through an operation undertaken by a plucky rather than highly educated general practitioner, to remove a neglected tumour. This left Unwin’s sister in want of subsidies, and while Unwin lay in bed one night puzzling over this family problem, it occurred to her that if her sister could get some little girl to mind——...
§ 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.