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Updated: May 4, 2025
In mere loyalty to my mother, apart altogether from the respect which, as a landed proprietor, I naturally entertain for all forms of law and order, I was absolutely bound to say something. "You should speak of her as Miss Battersby," I said firmly. "I call her Cattersby," said Lalage, "because that is her nature."
"There was a difficulty about the last three lines, I suppose," I said. "Yes," said Lalage. "I couldn't remember how they went, and Cattersby had the book. She pretends she likes reading poetry, though she doesn't really, and she makes me learn off whole chunks of it." "You can't deny that it comes in useful occasionally.
A sort of banner depended from its shaft, with these words on it: "For Use on Cattersby. Revenge is sweet!" I looked round at Lalage, who was on her hands and knees behind me. I intended asking for some explanation of the extraordinarily vindictive spirit displayed by the spear and the banner. Lalage forestalled my question and explained something else.
"It's a jolly sight better to have freckles, even if you come out all over like a turkey egg, than to go rubbing stinking stuff on your face at night. That's what Cattersby does. I caught her at it." Miss Battersby has a nice, smooth complexion and is, 'no doubt, quite justified in doing her best to preserve it. But I did not argue the point with Lalage.
"It was put there," said Lalage, who seemed to know that I was thinking of the trough, "after they had done cleaning out the sty, so that it wouldn't go rotten in the wet before we got some more young pigs." "Was that Miss Battersby's idea?" "No, it wasn't. Cattersby wouldn't think of anything half so useful. All she cares about is sums and history and lessony things.
"Here you are," said Lalage, when I had finished tugging at the straps. "'Sneaking, Second Example. The Latest Move of Cattersby. Such a move! A disgrace to any properly run society, a further disgrace to the already disgraceful tactics of the Cat! How even that base enemy could do such a thing is more than we honourable citizens can understand."
She likes them." The lady's name is Battersby, not Cattersby. She held the position of governess to Lalage for more than a year and is therefore entitled to respect. Her predecessor, a Miss Thomas, resigned after six weeks. It was my mother who recommended Miss Battersby to Canon Beresford. I felt that I ought to protest against Lalage's irreverent way of speaking.
"I have the office here," she said, "because it's the only place where I can be quite sure she won't follow me." This time I understood thoroughly what was said to me. Cattersby that is to say, Miss Battersby if she were the sort of person who mourned over torn frocks, and if, as Lalage suggested, she liked clothes, would be very unwilling to follow any one into the recesses of the pigsty.
I'm not going to sit here all day listening to you. Either read the magazine or don't, whichever you like. I don't care whether you do or not, but I won't be jawed." This subdued me at once. I began with the poem: "Fair Cattersby I weep to see You haste away by train, As yet that Latin exercise Has not been done again. Stay, stay, Until amo, I say.
It's a jolly sight better than rotting about here with a beastly governess." "You can't expect any governess to enjoy being robbed of her glycerine and cucumber," I said. "You wouldn't like it yourself." "That wasn't the real reason," said Lalage. "Even Cattersby had more sense than that." "She means," said the Canon, "that it didn't begin there."
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