Andrew Lang - The Disentanglers

The interview, an early one, had lasted for some time. Merton felt that the hour of luncheon had arrived, and, after luncheon, it had been his intention to go up to the University match. He also knew, from various sounds, that clients were waiting in the ante-chamber. At this moment the door opened, and the office boy, entering, laid three cards before him.

‘The gentlemen asked when you could see them, sir. They have been waiting some time. They say that their appointment was at one o’clock, and they wish to go back to Lord’s.’

‘So do I,’ thought Merton sadly. He looked at the cards, repressed a whistle, and handed them silently to Miss Crofton, bidding the boy go, and return in three minutes.

Miss Crofton uttered a little shriek, and pressed the cards on Julia’s attention. Raising her veil, Julia scanned them, wrung her hands, and displayed symptoms of a tendency to faint. The cards bore the names of the Rev. Mr. Bathe, the Rev. Mr. Brooke, and the Rev. Mr. Clancy.

‘What is to be done?’ asked Miss Crofton in a whisper. ‘Can’t you send them away?’

‘Impossible,’ said Merton firmly.

‘If we go out they will know me, and suspect Julia.’

Miss Crofton looked round the room with eyes of desperate scrutiny. They at once fell on a large old-fashioned screen, covered with engravings, which Merton had picked up for the sake of two or three old mezzotints, barbarously pasted on to this article of furniture by some ignorant owner.

‘Saved! we are saved! Hist, Julia, hither!’ said Miss Crofton in a stage whisper. And while Merton murmured ‘Highly unprofessional,’ the skirts of the two ladies vanished behind the screen.

Miss Crofton had not played Lady Teazle for nothing.

‘Ask the gentlemen to come in,’ said Merton, when the boy returned.

They entered: three fair young curates, nervous and inclined to giggle. Shades of difference of ecclesiastical opinion declared themselves in their hats, costume, and jewellery.

‘Be seated, gentlemen,’ said Merton, and they sat down on three chairs, in identical attitudes.

‘We hope,’ said the man on the left, ‘that we are not here inconveniently. We would have waited, but, you see, we have all come up for the match.’

‘How is it going?’ asked Merton anxiously.

‘Cambridge four wickets down for 115, but – ’ and the young man stared, ‘it must be, it is Pussy Merton!’

‘And you, Clancy Minor, why are you not converting the Heathen Chinee? You deserve a death of torture.’

‘Goodness! How do you know that?’ asked Clancy.

‘I know many things,’ answered Merton. ‘I am not sure which of you is Mr. Bathe.’

Clancy presented Mr. Bathe, a florid young evangelist, who blushed.

‘Armenia is still suffering, Mr. Bathe; and Mr. Brooke,’ said Merton, detecting him by the Method of Residues, ‘the oven is still hot in the New Hebrides. What have you got to say for yourselves?’

The curates shifted nervously on their chairs.

‘We see, Merton,’ said Clancy, ‘that you know a good deal which we did not know ourselves till lately. In fact, we did not know each other till the Church Congress at Leamington. Then the other men came to tea at my rooms, and saw – ’

‘A portrait of a lady; each of you possessed a similar portrait,’ said Merton.

‘How the dev – I mean, how do you know that ?’

‘By a simple deductive process,’ said Merton. ‘There were also letters,’ he said. Here a gurgle from behind the screen was audible to Merton.

‘We did not read each others’ letters,’ said Clancy, blushing.

‘Of course not,’ said Merton.

‘But the handwriting on the envelopes was identical,’ Clancy went on.

‘Well, and what can our Society do for you?’

‘Why, we saw your advertisements, never guessed they were yours , of course, Pussy, and – none of us is a man of the world – ’

‘I congratulate you,’ said Merton.

‘So we thought we had better take advice: it seemed rather a lark, too, don’t you know? The fact is – you appear to have divined it somehow – we find that we are all engaged to the same lady. We can’t fight, and we can’t all marry her.’

‘In Thibet it might be practicable: martyrdom might also be secured there,’ said Merton.

‘Martyrdom is not good enough,’ said Clancy.

‘Not half,’ said Bathe.

‘A man has his duties in his own country,’ said Brooke.

‘May I ask whether in fact your sorrows at this discovery have been intense?’ asked Merton.

‘I was a good deal cut up at first,’ said Clancy, ‘I being the latest recruit. Bathe had practically given up hope, and had seen some one else.’ Mr. Bathe drooped his head, and blushed. ‘Brooke laughed. Indeed we all laughed, though we felt rather foolish. But what are we to do? Should we write her a Round Robin? Bathe says he ought to be the man, because he was first man in, and I say I ought to be the man, because I am not out.’

‘I would not build much on that ,’ said Merton, and he was sure that he heard a rustle behind the screen, and a slight struggle. Julia was trying to emerge, restrained by Miss Crofton.

‘I knew,’ said Clancy, ‘that there was something – that there were other fellows. But that I learned, more or less, under the seal of confession, so to speak.’

‘At a picnic,’ said Merton.

At this moment the screen fell with a crash, and Julia emerged, her eyes blazing, while Miss Crofton followed, her hat somewhat crushed by the falling screen. The three young men in Holy Orders, all of them desirable young men, arose to their feet, trembling visibly.

‘Apostates!’ cried Julia, who had by far the best of the dramatic situation and pressed her advantage. ‘Recreants! was it for such as you that I pointed to the crown of martyrdom? Was it for your shattered ideals that I have wept many a night on Serena’s faithful breast?’ She pointed to Miss Crofton, who enfolded her in an embrace. ‘You!’ Julia went on, aiming at them the finger of conviction. ‘I am but a woman, weak I may have been, wavering I may have been, but I took you for men! I chose you to dare, perhaps to perish, for a Cause. But now, triflers that you are, boys, mere boys, back with you to your silly games, back to the thoughtless throng. I have done.’

Julia, attended by Miss Crofton, swept from the chamber, under her indignation (which was quite as real as any of her other emotions) the happiest woman in London. She had no more occasion for remorse, no ideals had she sensibly injured. Her entanglements were disentangled. She inhaled the fragrance of orange blossoms from afar, and heard the marriage music in the chapel of the Guards. Meanwhile the three curates and Merton felt as if they had been whipped.

‘Trust a woman to have the best of it,’ muttered Merton admiringly. ‘And now, Clancy, may I offer a hasty luncheon to you and your friends before we go to Lord’s? Your business has been rather rapidly despatched.’

The conversation at luncheon turned exclusively on cricket.

It cannot be said that the bearers of the noblest names in the land flocked at first to the offices of Messrs. Gray and Graham. In fact the reverse, in the beginning, was the case. Members even of the more learned professions held aloof: indeed barristers and physicians never became eager clients. On the other hand, Messrs. Gray and Graham received many letters in such handwritings, such grammar, and such orthography, that they burned them without replying. A common sort of case was that of the young farmer whose widowed mother had set her heart on marriage with ‘a bonny labouring boy,’ a ploughman.