Part 8 (1/2)

”Don't you call bishops Doctors? Well, then, call me Bishop!” Jackson laughed.

Lady Canterville visibly didn't follow. ”I don't care for _any_ t.i.tles,”

she nevertheless observed. ”I don't see why a gentleman shouldn't be called Mr.”

It suddenly appeared to her young friend that there was something helpless, confused and even slightly comical in her state. The impression was mollifying, and he too, like Lord Canterville, had begun to long for a short cut. He relaxed a moment and, leaning toward his hostess with a smile and his hands on his little knees, he said softly: ”It seems to me a question of no importance. All I desire is that you should call me your son-in-law.”

She gave him her hand and he pressed it almost affectionately. Then she got up, remarking that before anything was decided she must see her child, must learn from her own lips the state of her feelings. ”I don't like at all her not having spoken to me already,” she added.

”Where has she gone-to Roehampton? I daresay she has told it all to her G.o.dmother,” said Lord Canterville.

”She won't have much to tell, poor girl!” Jackson freely commented. ”I must really insist on seeing with more freedom the person I wish to marry.”

”You shall have all the freedom you want in two or three days,” said Lady Canterville. She irradiated all her charity; she appeared to have accepted him and yet still to be making tacit a.s.sumptions. ”Aren't there certain things to be talked of first?”

”Certain things, dear lady?”

She looked at her husband, and though he was still at his window he felt it this time in her silence and had to come away and speak. ”Oh she means settlements and that kind of thing.” This was an allusion that came with a much better grace from the father.

Jackson turned from one of his companions to the other; he coloured a little and his self-control was perhaps a trifle strained. ”Settlements?

We don't make them in my country. You may be sure I shall make a proper provision for my wife.”

”My dear fellow, over here-in our cla.s.s, you know-it's the custom,” said Lord Canterville with a truer ease in his face at the thought that the discussion was over.

”I've my own ideas,” Jackson returned with even greater confidence.

”It seems to me it's a question for the solicitors to discuss,” Lady Canterville suggested.

”They may discuss it as much as they please”-the young man showed amus.e.m.e.nt. He thought he saw his solicitors discussing it! He had indeed his own ideas. He opened the door for his hostess and the three pa.s.sed out of the room together, walking into the hall in a silence that expressed a considerable awkwardness. A note had been struck which grated and scratched a little. A pair of s.h.i.+ning footmen, at their approach, rose from a bench to a great alt.i.tude and stood there like sentinels presenting arms. Jackson stopped, looking for a moment into the interior of his hat, which he had in his hand. Then raising his keen eyes he fixed them a moment on those of Lady Canterville, addressing her instinctively rather than his other critic. ”I guess you and Lord Canterville had better leave it to me!”

”We have our traditions, Mr. Lemon,” said her ladys.h.i.+p with a firm grace.

”I imagine you don't know-!” she gravely breathed.

Lord Canterville laid his hand on their visitor's shoulder. ”My dear boy, those fellows will settle it in three minutes.”

”Very likely they will!” said Jackson Lemon. Then he asked of Lady Canterville when he might see Lady Barb.

She turned it s.p.a.ciously over. ”I'll write you a note.”

One of the tall footmen at the end of the impressive vista had opened wide the portals, as if even he were aware of the dignity to which the small strange gentleman had virtually been raised. But Jackson lingered; he was visibly unsatisfied, though apparently so little conscious he was unsatisfying. ”I don't think you understand me.”

”Your ideas are certainly different,” said Lady Canterville.

His lords.h.i.+p, however, made comparatively light of it. ”If the girl understands you that's enough!”

”Mayn't _she_ write to me?” Jackson asked of her mother. ”I certainly must write to her, you know, if you won't let me see her.”.

”Oh yes, you may write to her, Mr. Lemon.”