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Then she shook hands with me. "I must go to Lord Thormanby," she said, "He'll want me to write his letters for him." "He won't want you to write that one to Miss Pettigrew. He has his faults of temper, but he's essentially a gentleman, and he wouldn't dream of asking you to write that particular letter for him. I don't think you need go to him yet.
He wanted to come, but of course it was impossible. You heard I suppose, that the bishop is dead." "No, I didn't hear. Influenza?" "Pneumonia, and that ties the Archdeacon." "What a providential thing! But you said 'we. Is Thormanby here?" "No, Thormanby told me yesterday that he'd washed his hands of the whole affair." "That's exactly what I've done," I said.
My uncle Thormanby, on the other hand, has no tact at all. He came over to luncheon the day after I arrived home. We had scarcely sat down at table when he began to jeer. "Well," he said, speaking in his usual hearty full-throated way, "better luck next time." "I am not sure," I said, with dignified coolness, "that there will be a next time." "Oh, yes, there will.
I drove down the long avenue of Thormanby Park and determined to get home as quickly as possible. There is a greenhouse at the bottom of our garden which at that time was quite unfrequented because something had gone wrong with the heating apparatus and the more delicate plants had been removed from it. I intended to retire to it as soon as I got home with a hammock chair and a novel.
Miss Battersby followed me with her hand on my arm. "Do your best for her," she whispered pleadingly. Thormanby was certainly in a very bad temper. He was sitting at the far side of a large writing table when I entered the room. He did not rise or shake hands with me. He simply pushed a letter across the table toward me with the end of a paper knife.
"Hilda is," said my mother. "I don't know about the other. Who is he or she?" "He," I said, "is the third member of the committee of the Episcopal Election Guild. He's particularly good at drawing up agreements. I expect the Archdeacon will have to sign one. By the way, I suppose he's the proper man to vote for?" "I'm supporting him," said Thormanby, "so I suppose you will."
Miss Battersby got on well with them, taught them everything which well-educated girls in their position ought to know. She finally settled down as a sort of private secretary to Lord Thormanby. He needed some one of the sort, for as he grew older he became more and more addicted to public business. He is at present about sixty-five.
I now know that they are towns and villages in the East Connor division of Down, and my uncle has told me that this kind of expenditure is called nursing the constituency. The first definite news of my candidature came to me, curiously enough, from Lalage. Lord Thormanby and the Archdeacon were in the smoking room, so we pretended we'd come to look for Hilda's pocket snuffler.
I wish I did. There was a letter from her this morning to Lord Thormanby, but he didn't show it to me." "If it's in her handwriting," I said, "there's no use my saying I wrote it. He wouldn't believe me. But if it's typewritten and not signed, I'll say it's mine." "Oh, I wouldn't ask you to do so much as that. Besides, it wouldn't be true."
"Lalage hasn't confided in me," she said, "but she has told Miss Battersby " "Ah!" I said, "Miss Battersby is so wonderfully sympathetic. Anybody would confide in her." "She told Miss Battersby," my mother went on, "that she was studying the situation and looking into the law of the matter." "Let her stick to that," said Thormanby. "Are Hilda and Selby-Harrison down here?" I asked.
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