Joan and Peter — The Christening
§ 1 Lady Charlotte Sydenham was one of those large, ignorant, ruthless, low-church, wealthy, and well-born ladies who did so much to make England what it was in the days before the Great War.
She was educated with the utmost care by totally illiterate governesses who were ladies by birth, chiefly on the importance and privileges of her social position, the Anglican faith and Mrs. Strickland’s “Queens of England”;
she had French from a guaranteed Protestant teacher and German from a North German instructress (Lutheran Protestant), who also taught her to play the piano with the force and precision of a crack regiment of cavalry.
Subsequently she had improved her mind by reading memoirs and biographies of noble and distinguished people and by travel amidst obvious scenery and good foreign hotels.
She had married at two-and-thirty when things were beginning to look rather doubtful for her.
Old Mr. Sydenham, who had made his money and undermined his health in India in the John Company days, had been fifty-four, and from the very outset she had been ever so much too much for him.
At sixty-five he had petered out like an exhausted lode.
She had already got an abject confidential maid into thorough training, and was fully prepared for widowhood.
She hung out big black bonnets and expensive black clothes upon her projections, so as to look larger than ever, and took her place and even more than her place, very resolutely, among the leaders of the county Anglicans.
She had early mastered the simple arts of county family intercourse.
Her style in contradiction was very good, her insults were frequently witty, she could pretend to love horses, there was no need for her to pretend to despise and hate tradesmen and working people, and she kept herself well-informed upon the domestic details of the large and spreading family of the “Dear Queen.
” She was very good at taking down impertinent people, and most people struck her as impertinent; she could make a young man or a plain girl or a social inferior “feel small” quicker (and smaller) than almost any one in that part of Surrey.
She was a woman without vices; her chief pleasure was to feel all right and important and the centre of things, and to that her maid as a sort of grand Vizieress, her well-disciplined little household and her choice of friends ministered.
The early fear of “Romanists” in which she had been trained had been a little dispelled by the wider charities of maturity, but she held secularists and socialists in an ever-deepening abhorrence.
They planned, she knew, to disturb the minds of the lower classes, upset her investments, behead the Dear Queen, and plunge the whole world into vice and rapine and Sabbath-breaking.
She interested herself in such leisure as the care of her own health and comfort left her, in movements designed to circumvent and defeat the aims of these enemies of God and (all that was worth considering in) Man.
She even countenanced quite indulgent charities if they seemed designed to take the wind out of the sails of socialism.
She drove about the district in a one-horse carriage and delivered devastating calls.
Such was the lady whom Arthur had made one of the four guardians of his little son and niece.
He had seen her twice; he had rather liked a short speech of five sentences she made at a Flower Show, and he had heard her being extremely rude to a curate.
He believed her to be wealthy and trustworthy and very well suited to act as a counter influence to any extravagant tendencies there might be in Aunt Phœbe.
Also she was Dolly’s cousin, and appointing her had seemed a sort of compensation for altering his will without Dolly’s knowledge.
Besides, it had been very unlikely that she would ever act.
And he had been in a hurry when he altered his will, and could not think of any one else.
Now Lady Charlotte was not by any means satisfied by her visit to The Ingle-Nook.
The children looked unusually big for their years and disrespectful and out of hand.
It was clear they had not taken to her.
The nurse, too, had a sort of unbroken look in her eye that was unbecoming in a menial position.
The aunts were odd persons; Phyllis was much too disposed to accentuate the father’s wishes, and Lady Charlotte had a most extraordinary and indecent feeling all the time she was talking to her that Aunt Phœbe wasn’t wearing stays.
(Could the woman have forgotten them, or was it deliberate?
It was like pretending to be clothed when you were really naked.
) Their conversation had been queer, most queer.
They did not seem to realize that she was by way of being a leader in the county and accustomed to being listened to with deference.
Nearly everything she said they had quietly contradicted or ignored.
The way in which the children were whisked away from her presence was distinctly disrespectful.
She had a right, it was her duty, to look at them well and question them clearly about their treatment, to see that they had proper treatment, and it was necessary that they should fully understand her importance in their lives.
But those two oddly-dressed young women—youngish women, rather, for probably they were both over thirty—did not themselves seem to understand that she was naturally the Principal Guardian.
Phyllis had been constantly referring to the wishes of this Stubland person who had married George Sydenham’s Dolly.
Apparently the woman supposed that those wishes were to override every rational consideration for the children’s welfare.
After all, the boy was as much Dolly’s child as a Stubland, and as for the girl, except that the Stublands had been allowed to keep her, she wasn’t a Stubland at all.
She wasn’t anything at all.
She was pure Charity.
There was not the slightest obligation upon Any one to do Anything for her.
Making her out to be an equal with a legitimate child was just the subversive, wrong-headed sort of thing these glorified shoddy-makers, the Stublands, would do.
But like to like.
Their own genealogy probably wouldn’t bear scrutiny for six generations.
She ought to be trained as a Maid.
There were none too many trained Maids nowadays.
But Arthur Stubland had actually settled money on her.
There was much to put right in this situation, a great occasion for a large, important lady to impress herself tremendously on a little group of people insultingly disposed to be unaware of her.
The more she thought the matter over the more plainly she saw her duty before her.
She did not talk to servants; no lady talks to servants; but it was her habit to think aloud during the ministrations of Unwin, her maid, and often Unwin would overhear and reply quite helpfully.
“It’s an odd job I’ve got with these two new Wards of mine,” she said.
“They put too much on you, m’lady,” said Unwin, pinning.
“I shall do what is Right.
I shall see that what is Right is done.
” “You don’t spare yourself enough, m’lady.
” “I must go over again and again.
Those women don’t like me.
I disturb them.
They’re up to no good.
” “It won’t be the first Dark Place, m’lady, you’ve thrown light into.
” The lady surveyed her reflection in the glass with a knowing expression.
She knitted her brows, partly closed one eye, and nodded slowly as she spoke.
“There’s something queer about the boy’s religious instruction.
It’s being kept back.
Now why did they get embarrassed when I asked _who_ were the godparents?
I ought to have followed that up.
” “My godfathers and godmothers wherein I was made,” murmured Unwin, with the quiet satisfaction of the well-instructed.
“Properly it’s the business of the godparents.
I have a right to know.
” “I suppose the poor boy _has_ godparents, m’lady,” said Unwin, coming up from obscure duties with the skirt.
“But of _course_ he has godparents!
” “Pardon me, m’lady, but not _of course_.
” “But what do you mean, Unwin?
” “I hardly like to say it, m’lady, of relations, ’owever distant, of ours.
Still, m’lady——” “Don’t Chew it about, Unwin.
” “Then I out with it, m’lady.
’Ave they been baptized, m’lady, either of them?
’Ave they been baptized?
” § 2 Before a fortnight was out Lady Charlotte had made two more visits to The Ingle-Nook, she had had an acrimonious dispute upon religious questions with Phœbe, and she was well on her way to the terrible realization that these two apparently imbecile ladies in the shapeless “arty” dresses were really socialists and secularists—of course, like all other socialists and secularists, “of the worst type.
” It was impossible that those two unfortunate children should be left in their aunts’ “clutches,” and she prepared herself with a steadily increasing determination and grandeur to seize upon and take over and rescue these two innocent souls from the moral and spiritual destruction that threatened them.
Once in her hands, Lady Charlotte was convinced it would not be too late to teach the little fellow a proper respect for those in authority over him and to bring home to the girl an adequate sense of that taint upon her life of which she was still so shockingly unaware.
The boy must be taught not to call attention to people’s physical peculiarities, and to answer properly when spoken to; a certain sharpness would not be lost upon him; and it was but false kindness to the girl to let her grow up in ignorance of her disadvantage.
Sooner or later it would have to be brought home to her, and the later it was the more difficult would it be for her to accept her proper position with a becoming humility.
And a thing of immediate urgency was, of course, the baptism of both these little lost souls.
In pursuit of these entirely praiseworthy aims Lady Charlotte was subjected to a series of very irritating rebuffs that did but rouse her to a greater firmness.
On her fourth visit she was not even allowed to see the children; the specious excuse was made that they were “out for a walk,” and when she passed that over forgivingly and said: “It does not matter very much.
What I want to arrange today is the business of the Christening,” both aunts began to answer at once and in almost identical words.
Phœbe gave way to her sister.
“If their parents had wanted them Christened,” said Aunt Phyllis, “there was ample time for them to have had it done.
” “_We_ are the parents now,” said Lady Charlotte.
“And two of us are quite of the parents’ mind.
” “You forget that I also speak for my nephew Oswald,” said Lady Charlotte.
“But _do_ you?
” said Aunt Phyllis, with almost obtruded incredulity.
“Certainly,” said Lady Charlotte, with a sweeping, triumphant gesture, a conclusive waving of the head.
“You know he is on his way back from Uganda?
” Aunt Phyllis remarked with an unreal innocence.
Lady Charlotte had not known.
But she stood up gallantly to the blow.
“I know he will support me by insisting upon the proper treatment of these poor children.
” “What can a man know about the little souls of children?
” cried Phœbe.
But Aunt Phyllis restrained her.
“I have no doubt Mr. Sydenham will have his own views in the matter,” said Phyllis.
“I have no doubt he will,” said Lady Charlotte imposingly....
Even Mary showed the same disposition to insolence.
As Lady Charlotte was returning along the little path through the bushes that ran up to the high road where her carriage with the white horse waited, she saw Mary and the children approaching.
Peter saw Lady Charlotte first and flew back.
“Lady wiv de Whisker!
” he said earnestly and breathlessly, and dodged off into the bushes.
Joan hesitated, and fled after him.
By a detour the fluttering little figures outflanked the great lady and escaped homeward.
“Come _here_, children!
” she cried.
“I want you.
” Spurt on the part of the children.
“They are really most distressingly Rude,” she said to Mary.
“It’s inexcusable.
Tell them to come back.
I have something to say to them.
” “They won’t, Mum,” said Mary—though surely aware of the title.
“But I tell you to.
” “It’s no good, Mum.
It’s shyness.
If they won’t come, they won’t. ” “But, my good woman, have you _no_ control?
” “They always race ’ome like that,” said Mary.
“Then you aren’t fit to control them.
As one of the children’s guardians, I—— But we shall see.
” She went her way, a stately figure of passion.
“Orty old Ag,” said Mary, and dismissed the encounter from her mind.
§ 3 “You got your rights like anybody, m’lady,” said Unwin.
It was that phrase put it into Lady Charlotte’s head to consult her solicitor.
He opened new vistas to her imagination.
Lady Charlotte’s solicitor was a lean, long, faded blond of forty-five or so.
He was the descendant of five generations of Lincoln’s Inn solicitors, a Low Churchman, a man of notoriously pure life, and very artful indeed.
He talked in a thin, high tenor voice, and was given to nibbling his thumbnail and wincing with his eyes as he talked.
His thumbnail produced gaps of indistinctness in his speech.
“Powers of a guardian, m’lady.
Defends upon whafower want exercise over thinfant.
” “I do _wish_ you’d keep your thumb out of your mouth,” said Lady Charlotte.
“Sorry,” said Mr. Grimes, wincing and trying painfully to rearrange his arm.
“Still, I’d like to know—position.
” “There are three other guardians.
” “Generous allowance,” said Mr. Grimes.
“Do you all act?
” “One of us is lost in the Wilds of Africa.
The others I want to consult you about.
They do not seem to me to be fit and proper persons to be entrusted with the care of young children, and they do not seem disposed to afford me a proper share in the direction of affairs.
” “Ah!
” said Mr. Grimes, replacing his thumb.
“Sees t’point t’Chacery.
” Lady Charlotte disregarded this comment.
She wished to describe Aunts Phyllis and Phœbe in her own words.
“They are quite extraordinary young women—not by any stretch of language to be called Ladies.
They dress in that way—like the pictures in the Grosvenor Gallery.
” “Æsthetic?
” “I could find a harsher word for it.
They smoke.
Not a nice thing for children to see.
I suspect them strongly of vegetarianism.
From something one of them said.
In which case the children will not be properly nourished.
And they speak quite openly of socialism in front of their charges.
Neither of the poor little creatures had been bought a scrap of mourning.
Not a scrap.
I doubt if they have even been made to understand that their parents are dead.
But that is only the beginning.
I am totally unable to ascertain whether either of the poor mites has been christened.
Apparently they have not....
” Mr. Grimes withdrew his thumb for a moment.
“You are perfectly within yer rights—insisting—knowing”—thumb replaced—“all thlese things.
” “Exactly.
And in having my say in their general upbringing.
” “How far do they prevent that?
” “Oh; they get in my way.
They send the children out whenever they feel I am coming.
They do not listen to me and accept any suggestions I make.
Oh!
—sniff at it.
” “And you want to make ’em?
” “I want to do my duty by those two children, Mr. Grimes.
It is a charge that has been laid upon me.
” Mr. Grimes reflected, rubbing his thumb thoughtfully along the front of his teeth.
“They are getting no religious instruction whatever,” said Lady Charlotte.
“None.
” “Hot was the ’ligion father?
” said Mr. Grimes suddenly.
Lady Charlotte was not to be deterred by a silly and inopportune question.
She just paused for an instant and reddened.
“He was a member of the Church of England,” she said.
“Even if he wasn’t,” said Mr. Grimes understandingly, but with thumb still in place, “Ligion necessary t’welfare.
Case of Besant Chil’n zample.
Thlis is Klistian country.
” “I sometimes doubt it,” said Lady Charlotte.
“Legally,” said Mr. Grimes.
“If the law did its duty!
” “You don’t wanner goatallaw fewcan ’void it?
” asked Mr. Grimes, grasping his job.
Lady Charlotte assumed an expression of pained protest, and lifted one black-gloved hand.
Mr. Grimes hastily withdrew his thumbnail from his mouth.
“I am saying, Lady Charlotte, that what you want to do is to assert your authority, if possible, without legal proceedings.
” He was trying to get the whole situation clear in his mind before he tendered any exact advice.
Most children who are quarrelled over in this way gravitate very rapidly into the care of the Lord Chancellor; to that no doubt these children would come; but Lady Charlotte was a prosperous lady with a lot of fight in her and a knack of illegality, and before these children became Wards in Chancery she might, under suitable provocation, run up a very considerable little bill for expenses and special advice in extracting her from such holes as she got herself into.
It is an unjust libel upon solicitors that they tempt their clients into litigation.
So far is this unjust that the great majority will spare neither time nor expense in getting a case settled out of court.
Nor did Lady Charlotte want to litigate.
Courts are uncertain, irritating places.
She just wanted to get hold of her two wards, and to deal with them in such a way as to inflict the maximum of annoyance and humiliation upon those queer Stubland aunts.
And to save the children from socialism, secularism, Catholicism, and all the wandering wolves of opinion that lie in wait for the improperly trained.
But also she went in fear of Oswald.
Oswald was one of the few human beings of whom she went in awe.
He was always rude and overbearing with her.
From the very first moment when he had seen her as his uncle’s new wife, he had realized in a flash of boyish intuition that if he did not get in with an insult first, he would be her victim.
So his first words to her had been an apparently involuntary “O God!
” Then he had pretended to dissemble his contempt with a cold politeness.
Those were the days of his good looks; he was as tall and big as he was ever to be, and she had expected a “little midshipmite,” whom she would treat like a child, and possibly even send early to bed.
From the first she was at a disadvantage.
He had a material hold on her too, now.
He was his uncle’s heir and her Trustee; and she had the belief of all Victorian women in the unlimited power of Trustees to abuse their trust unless they are abjectly propitiated.
He used to come and stay in her house as if it was already his own; the servants would take their orders from him.
She was assuring Grimes as she had assured the Stubland aunts that he was on her side; “The Sydenhams are all sound churchmen.
” But even as she said this she saw his grim, one-sided face and its one hard intent eye pinning her.
“Acting without authority again, my good aunt,” he would say.
“You’ll get yourself into trouble yet.
” That was one of his invariable stabs whenever he came to see her.
Always he would ask, sooner or later, in that first meeting: “Any one bagged you for libel yet?
_No!
_ Or insulting behaviour?
Some one will get you sooner or later.
” “Anything that _I_ say about people,” she would reply with dignity, “is True, Oswald.
” “They’ll double the damages if you stick _that_ out.
”...
And she saw him now standing beside the irritating, necessary Grimes, sardonically ready to take part against her, prepared even to give those abominable aunts an unendurable triumph over her....
“I want no vulgar litigation,” she said.
“Everything ought to be done as quietly as possible.
There is no need to ventilate the family affairs of the Sydenhams, and particularly when I tell you that one of the children is——” She hesitated.
“Irregular.
” The thumb went back, and Mr. Grimes’ face assumed a diplomatic innocence.
“Whascalled a love-shild?
” “Exactly,” said Lady Charlotte, with a nod that forbade all research for paternity.
If Joan were assumed to be of Stubland origin, so much the better for Lady Charlotte’s case.
“Everything must be done quietly and privately,” she said.
“Sactly,” said Mr. Grimes, and was reminded of his thumb by her eye.
He coughed, put his arm down, and sat up in his chair.
“_They_ have possession of the children?
” he said.
“Should I be here?
” she appealed.
“_Ah!
_ That gives the key of the situation....
Would _they_ litigate?
” “Why should they?
” “If by chance you got possession?
” “That would be difficult.
” “But not impossible?
Perhaps something could be managed.
With my assistance.
Once or twice before I have had cases that turned on the custody of minors.
Custody, like possession, is nine points of the law.
Then _they_ would have to come into court.
” “We want nobody to come into court.
” “Exactly, m’lady.
I am pointing out to you how improbable it is that they will do so.
I am gauging their disinclination.
” The attitude of Mr. Grimes relaxed unconsciously until once more the teeth and thumbnail were at their little play again.
He continued with thoughtful eyes upon his client’s expression.
“Possibly _they_ wouldn’t li’e ’nquiry into character.
” “Oh, _do_ take that thumb away!
” cried Lady Charlotte.
“And _don’t_ lounge.
” “I’m sorry, m’lady,” said Mr. Grimes, sitting up.
“I was saying, practically, do we know of any little irregularities, anything—I won’t say actually immoral, but _indiscreet_, in these two ladies’ lives?
Anything they wouldn’t like to have publicly discussed.
In the case of most people there’s a Something.
Few people will readily and cheerfully face a discussion of Character.
Even quite innocent people.
” “They’re certainly very lax—very.
They smoke.
Inordinately.
I saw the cigarette stains on their fingers.
And unless I am very much mistaken, one of them—well”—Lady Charlotte leant forward towards him with an air of scandalous condescension—“she wears no stays at all, Mr. Grimes—none at all!
No!
She’s a very queer young woman indeed in my opinion.
” “M’m!...
No visitors to the house—no _gentlemen_, for example—who might seem a little dubious?
” Lady Charlotte did not know.
“I will get my maid to make enquiries—discreetly.
We certainly ought to know that.
” “The elder one writes poetry,” she threw out.
“We must see to that, too.
If we can procure some of that.
Nowadays there is quite a quantity—of _very_ indiscreet poetry.
Many people do not realize the use that might be made of it against them.
And even if the poetry is not indiscreet, it creates a prejudice....
” He proceeded to unfold his suggestions.
Lady Charlotte must subdue herself for a while to a reassuring demeanour towards the aunts at The Ingle-Nook.
She must gain the confidence of the children.
“And of the children’s maid!
