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Title: Lucia in London

Author: E. F. Benson

Release date: August 24, 2024 [eBook #74310]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc

Credits: Aaron Adrignola, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUCIA IN LONDON ***





                            LUCIA IN LONDON

                           _BY E. F. BENSON_


                        PHARISEES AND PUBLICANS
                               MEZZANINE
                         VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE
                                 DODO
                             DODO WONDERS
                             ROBIN LINNET
                              QUEEN LUCIA
                               MISS MAPP
                                 COLIN
                               COLIN II
                                  REX
                                 ALAN
                        DAVID BLAIZE OF KING’S
                                 PETER
                          LOVERS AND FRIENDS
                           ACROSS THE STREAM
                              UP AND DOWN
                           AN AUTUMN SOWING
                             THE TORTOISE
                             DAVID BLAIZE
                    DAVID BLAIZE AND THE BLUE DOOR
                                MICHAEL
                            THE OAKLEYITES
                                ARUNDEL
                          OUR FAMILY AFFAIRS




                           _Lucia in London_

                _A Novel by_  :  :  :   _E. F. Benson_

                            [Illustration]


                   DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC.
                       GARDEN CITY      NEW YORK
                                 1928


                  COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY GEORGE H. DORAN
                 COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED
                  IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY
                  LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK.




LUCIA IN LONDON




CHAPTER I


Considering that Philip Lucas’s aunt who died early in April was no less
than eighty-three years old, and had spent the last seven of them
bedridden in a private lunatic asylum, it had been generally and perhaps
reasonably hoped among his friends and those of his wife that the
bereavement would not be regarded by either of them as an intolerable
tragedy. Mrs. Quantock, in fact, who, like everybody else at Riseholme,
had sent a neat little note of condolence to Mrs. Lucas, had, without
using the actual words “happy release,” certainly implied it or its
close equivalent.

She was hoping that there would be a reply to it, for though she had
said in her note that her dear Lucia mustn’t dream of answering it, that
was a mere figure of speech, and she had instructed her parlour-maid who
took it across to “The Hurst” immediately after lunch to say that she
didn’t know if there was an answer, and would wait to see, for Mrs.
Lucas might perhaps give a little hint ever so vaguely about what the
expectations were concerning which everybody was dying to get
information....

While she waited for this, Daisy Quantock was busy, like everybody else
in the village on this beautiful afternoon of spring, with her garden,
hacking about with a small but destructive fork in her flower-beds. She
was a gardener of the ruthless type, and went for any small green thing
that incautiously showed a timid spike above the earth, suspecting it of
being a weed. She had had a slight difference with the professional
gardener who had hitherto worked for her on three afternoons during the
week, and had told him that his services were no longer required. She
meant to do her gardening herself this year, and was confident that a
profusion of beautiful flowers and a plethora of delicious vegetables
would be the result. At the end of her garden path was a barrow of rich
manure, which she proposed, when she had finished the slaughter of the
innocents, to dig into the depopulated beds. On the other side of her
paling her neighbour Georgie Pillson was rolling his strip of lawn, on
which during the summer he often played croquet on a small scale.
Occasionally they shouted remarks to each other, but as they got more
and more out of breath with their exertions the remarks got fewer. Mrs.
Quantock’s last question had been “What do you do with slugs, Georgie?”
and George had panted out, “Pretend you don’t see them.”

Mrs. Quantock had lately grown rather stout owing to a diet of sour
milk, which with plenty of sugar was not palatable; but sour milk and
pyramids of raw vegetables had quite stopped all the symptoms of
consumption which the study of a small but lurid medical manual had
induced. To-day she had eaten a large but normal lunch in order to test
the merits of her new cook, who certainly was a success, for her husband
had gobbled up his food with great avidity instead of turning it over
and over with his fork as if it was hay. In consequence stoutness,
surfeit, and so much stooping had made her feel rather giddy, and she
was standing up to recover, wondering if this giddiness was a symptom of
something dire, when de Vere, for such was the incredible name of her
parlour-maid, came down the steps from the dining-room with a note in
her hand. So Mrs. Quantock hastily took off her gardening gloves of
stout leather, and opened it.

There was a sentence of formal thanks for her sympathy which Mrs. Lucas
immensely prized, and then followed these ridiculous words:

     It has been a terrible blow to my poor Pepino and myself. We
     trusted that Auntie Amy might have been spared us for a few years
     yet.

                                             Ever, dear Daisy, your sad
                                                                 LUCIA.

And not a word about expectations!... Lucia’s dear Daisy crumpled up the
absurd note, and said “Rubbish,” so loud that Georgie Pillson in the
next garden thought he was being addressed.

“What’s that?” he said.

“Georgie, come to the fence a minute,” said Mrs. Quantock. “I want to
speak to you.”

Georgie, longing for a little gossip, let go of the handle of his
roller, which, suddenly released, gave a loud squeak and rapped him
smartly on the elbow.

“Tarsome thing!” said Georgie.

He went to the fence and, being tall, could look over it. There was Mrs.
Quantock angrily poking Lucia’s note into the flower-bed she had been
weeding.

“What is it?” said Georgie. “Shall I like it?”

His face red and moist with exertion, appearing just over the top of the
fence, looked like the sun about to set below the flat gray horizon of
the sea.

“I don’t know if you’ll like it,” said Daisy, “but it’s your Lucia. I
sent her a little note of condolence about the aunt, and she says it has
been a terrible blow to Pepino and herself. They hoped that the old lady
might have been spared them a few years yet.”

“No!” said Georgie, wiping the moisture off his forehead with the back
of one of his beautiful pearl-gray gloves.

“But she did,” said the infuriated Daisy, “they were her very words. I
could show you if I hadn’t dug it in. Such a pack of nonsense! I hope
that long before I’ve been bedridden for seven years, somebody will
strangle me with a bootlace, or anything handy. Why does Lucia pretend
to be sorry? What does it all mean?”

Georgie had long been devoted henchman to Lucia (Mrs. Lucas, wife of
Philip Lucas, and so Lucia), and though he could criticize her in his
mind, when he was alone in his bed or his bath, he always championed her
in the face of the criticism of others. Whereas Daisy criticized
everybody everywhere....

“Perhaps it means what it says,” he observed with the delicate sarcasm
that never had any effect on his neighbour.

“It can’t possibly do that,” said Mrs. Quantock. “Neither Lucia nor
Pepino has set eyes on his aunt for years, nor spoken of her. Last time
Pepino went to see her she bit him. Sling for a week afterwards, don’t
you remember, and he was terrified of blood-poisoning. How can her death
be a blow, and as for her being spared----”

Mrs. Quantock suddenly broke off, remembering that de Vere was still
standing there and drinking it all in.

“That’s all, de Vere,” she said.

“Thank you, ma’am,” said de Vere, striding back toward the house. She
had high-heeled shoes on, and each time she lifted her foot, the heel
which had been embedded by her weight in the soft lawn came out with the
sound of a cork being drawn. Then Daisy came closer to the fence, with
the light of inductive reasoning, which was much cultivated at
Riseholme, veiling the fury of her eye.

“Georgie, I’ve got it,” she said. “I’ve guessed what it means.”

Now though Georgie was devoted to his Lucia, he was just as devoted to
inductive reasoning, and Daisy Quantock was, with the exception of
himself, far the most powerful logician in the place.

“What is it, then?” he asked.

“Stupid of me not to have thought of it at once,” said Daisy. “Why,
don’t you see? Pepino is Auntie’s heir, for she was unmarried, and he’s
the only nephew, and probably he has been left piles and piles. So
naturally they say it’s a terrible blow. Wouldn’t do to be exultant.
They must say it’s a terrible blow, to show they don’t care about the
money. The more they’re left, the sadder it is. So natural. I blame
myself for not having thought of it at once. Have you seen her since?”

“Not for a quiet talk,” said Georgie. “Pepino was there, and a man who,
I think, was Pepino’s lawyer. He was frightfully deferential.”

“That proves it,” said Daisy. “And nothing said of any kind?”

Georgie’s face screwed itself up in the effort to remember.

“Yes, there was something,” he said, “but I was talking to Lucia, and
the others were talking rather low. But I did hear the lawyer say
something to Pepino about pearls. I do remember the word ‘pearls.’
Perhaps it was the old lady’s pearls.”

Mrs. Quantock gave a short laugh.

“It couldn’t have been Pepino’s,” she said. “He has one in a tie-pin.
It’s called pear-shaped, but there’s little shape about it. When do
wills come out?”

“Oh, ages,” said Georgie. “Months. And there’s a house in London, I
know.”

“Whereabouts?” asked Daisy greedily.

Georgie’s face assumed a look of intense concentration.

“I couldn’t tell you for certain,” he said, “but I know Pepino went up
to town not long ago to see about some repairs to his aunt’s house, and
I think it was the roof.”

“It doesn’t matter where the repairs were,” said Daisy impatiently. “I
want to know where the house was.”

“You interrupt me,” said Georgie. “I was telling you. I know he went to
Harrod’s afterward and walked there, because he and Lucia were dining
with me and he said so. So the house must have been close to Harrod’s,
quite close I mean, because it was raining, and if it had been any
reasonable distance he would have had a taxi. So it might be
Knightsbridge.”

Mrs. Quantock put on her gardening-gloves again.

“How frightfully secretive people are,” she said. “Fancy his never
having told you where his aunt’s house was.”

“But they never spoke of her,” said Georgie. “She’s been in that
nursing-home so many years.”

“You may call it a nursing-home,” observed Mrs. Quantock, “or, if you
choose, you may call it a post office. But it was an asylum. And they’re
just as secretive about the property.”

“But you never talk about the property till after the funeral,” said
Georgie. “I believe it’s to-morrow.”

Mrs. Quantock gave a prodigious sniff.

“They would have, if there hadn’t been any,” she said.

“How horrid you are,” said Georgie. “How----”

His speech was cut off by several loud sneezes. However beautiful the
sleeve-links, it wasn’t wise to stand without a coat after being in such
a heat.

“How what?” asked Mrs. Quantock, when the sneezing was over.

“I’ve forgotten now. I shall get back to my rolling. A little chilly.
I’ve done half the lawn.”

A telephone-bell had been ringing for the last few seconds, and Mrs.
Quantock localized it as being in his house, not hers. Georgie was
rather deaf, however much he pretended not to be.

“Your telephone bell’s ringing, Georgie,” she said.

“I thought it was,” said Georgie, who had not heard it at all.

“And come in presently for a cup of tea,” shouted Mrs. Quantock.

“Should love to. But I must have a bath first.”

Georgie hurried indoors, for a telephone call usually meant a little
gossip with a friend. A very familiar voice, though a little husky and
broken, asked if it was he.

“Yes, it’s me, Lucia,” he said in soft firm tones of sympathy. “How are
you?”

Lucia sighed. It was a long, very audible, intentional sigh. Georgie
could visualize her putting her mouth quite close to the telephone, so
as to make sure it carried.

“Quite well,” she said. “And so is my Pepino, thank heaven. Bearing up
wonderfully. He’s just gone.”

Georgie was on the point of asking where, but guessed in time.

“I see,” he said. “And you didn’t go. I’m very glad. So wise.”

“I felt I couldn’t,” she said, “and he urged me not. It’s to-morrow. He
sleeps in London to-night----”

(Again Georgie longed to say “where?” for it was impossible not to
wonder if he would sleep in the house of unknown locality near
Harrod’s.)

“And he’ll be back to-morrow evening,” said Lucia without pause. “I
wonder if you would take pity on me and come and dine. Just something to
eat, you know; the house is so upset. Don’t dress.”

“Delighted,” said Georgie, though he had ordered oysters. But they could
be scolloped for to-morrow.... “Love to come.”

“Eight o’clock then? Nobody else of course. If you care to bring our
Mozart duet.”

“Rather,” said Georgie. “Good for you to be occupied, Lucia. We’ll have
a good go at it.”

“Dear Georgie,” said Lucia faintly. He heard her sigh, again, not quite
so successfully, and replace the ear-piece with a click.

Georgie moved away from the telephone, feeling immensely busy: there was
so much to think about and to do. The first thing was to speak about the
oysters, and, his parlour-maid being out, he called down the
kitchen-stairs. The absence of Foljambe made it necessary for him to get
his bath ready himself, and he turned the hot water tap half on, so that
he could run downstairs again and out into the garden (for there was not
time to finish the lawn if he was to have a bath and change before tea)
in order to put the roller back in the shed. Then he had to get his
clothes out, and select something which would do for tea and also for
dinner, as Lucia had told him not to dress. There was a new suit which
he had not worn yet, rather daring, for the trousers, dark fawn, were
distinctly of Oxford cut, and he felt quite boyish as he looked at them.
He had ordered them in a moment of reckless sartorial courage, and a
quiet tea with Daisy Quantock, followed by a quiet dinner with Lucia,
was just the way to make a beginning with them, far better than wearing
them for the first time at church on Sunday, when the whole of Riseholme
simultaneously would see them. The coat and waistcoat were very dark
blue: they would look blue at tea and black at dinner; and there were
some gray silk socks, rather silvery, and a tie to match them. These
took some time to find, and his search was interrupted by volumes of
steam pouring into his bedroom from his bathroom; he ran in to find the
bath full nearly to the brim of boiling water. It had been little more
than lukewarm yesterday, and his cook had evidently taken to heart his
too-sharp words after breakfast this morning. So he had to pull up the
plug of his bath to let the boiling contents subside, and fill up with
cold.

He went back to his bedroom and began undressing. All this news about
Lucia and Pepino, with Daisy Quantock’s penetrating comments, was
intensely interesting. Old Miss Lucas had been in this nursing-home or
private asylum for years, and Georgie didn’t suppose that the inclusive
charges could be less than fifteen pounds a week, and fifteen times
fifty-two was a large sum. There was income too, and say it was at five
per cent., the capital it represented was considerable. Then there was
that house in London. If it was freehold, that meant a great deal more
capital: if it was on lease it meant a great deal more income. Then
there were rates and taxes, and the wages of a caretaker, and no doubt a
margin. And there were the pearls.

Georgie took a half-sheet of paper from the drawer in a writing-table
where he kept half-sheets and pieces of string untied from parcels, and
began to calculate. There was necessarily a good deal of guesswork about
it, and the pearls had to be omitted altogether, since nobody could say
what “pearls” were worth without knowing their quantity or quality. But
even omitting these, and putting quite a low figure on the possible rent
of the house near Harrod’s, he was astounded at the capital which these
annual outgoings appeared to represent.

“I don’t put it at a penny less than fifty thousand pounds,” he said to
himself, “and the income at two thousand six hundred.”

He had got a little chilly as he sat at his figures, and with a
luxurious foretaste of a beautiful hot bath, he hurried into his
bathroom. The whole of the boiling water had run out.

“How tarsome! Damn!” said Georgie, putting in the plug and turning on
both taps simultaneously.

His calculations, of course, had only been the materials on which his
imagination built, and as he dressed it was hard at work, between
glances at his trousers as reflected in the full-length mirror which
stood in his window. What would Lucia and Pepino do with this vast
increase of fortune? Lucia already had the biggest house in Riseholme
and the most Elizabethan decor, and a motor, and as many new clothes as
she chose. She did not spend much on them because her lofty mind
despised clothes, but Georgie permitted himself to indulge cynical
reflections that the pearls might make her dressier. Then she already
entertained as much as she felt disposed; and more money would not make
her wish to give more dinners. And she went up to London whenever there
was anything in the way of pictures or plays or music which she felt
held the seed of culture. Society (so-called) she despised as thoroughly
as she despised clothes, and always said she came back to Riseholme
feeling intellectually starved. Perhaps she would endow a permanent fund
for holding May-day revels on the village green, for Lucia had said she
meant to have May-day revels every year. They had been a great success
last year, though fatiguing, for everybody dressed up in
sixteenth-century costume, and danced Morris dances till they all
hobbled home dead lame at the merciful sunset. It had all been
wonderfully Elizabethan, and Georgie’s jerkin had hurt him very much.

Lucia was a wonderful character, thought Georgie, and she would find a
way to spend two or three thousand a year more in an edifying and
cultured manner. (Were Oxford trousers meant to turn up at the bottom?
He thought not: and how small these voluminous folds made your feet
look.) Georgie knew what he himself would do with two or three thousand
a year more: indeed he had often considered whether he would not try to
do it without. He wanted, ever so much, to have a little flat in London
(or a couple of rooms would serve), just for a dip every now and then
in the life which Lucia found so vapid. But he knew he wasn’t a strong,
serious character like Lucia, whose only frivolities were artistic or
Elizabethan.

His eye fell on a large photograph on the table by his bedside in a
silver frame, representing Brunnhilde. It was signed “Olga to beloved
Georgie,” and his waistcoat felt quite tight as, drawing in a long
breath, he recalled that wonderful six months when Olga Bracely, the
prima donna, had bought Old Place, and lived here, and had altered all
the values of everything. Georgie believed himself to have been
desperately in love with her, but it had been a very exciting time for
more reasons than that. Old values had gone: she had thought Riseholme
the most splendid joke that had ever been made; she loved them all and
laughed at them all, and nobody minded a bit, but followed her whims as
if she had been a Pied Piper. All but Lucia, that is to say, whose
throne had, quite unintentionally on Olga’s part, been pulled smartly
from under her, and her sceptre flew in one direction, and her crown in
another. Then Olga had gone off for an operatic tour in America, and,
after six triumphant months there, had gone on to Australia. But she
would be back in England by now, for she was singing in London this
season, and her house at Riseholme, so long closed, would be open
again.... And the coat buttoned beautifully, just the last button,
leaving the rest negligently wide and a little loose. Georgie put an
amethyst tie-pin in his gray tie, which gave a pretty touch of colour,
brushed his hair back from his forehead, so that the toupé was quite
indistinguishable from his own hair, and hurried downstairs to go out to
tea with Daisy Quantock.

Daisy was seated at her writing-table when he entered, very busy with a
pencil and piece of paper and counting something up on her fingers. Her
gardening-fork lay in the grate with the fire-irons, on the carpet there
were one or two little sausages of garden-mould, which no doubt had
peeled off from her boots, and her gardening gloves were on the floor by
her side. Georgie instantly registered the conclusion that something
important must have occurred, and that she had come indoors in a great
hurry, because the carpet was nearly new, and she always made a great
fuss if the smallest atom of cigarette ash dropped on it.

“Thirty-seven, forty-seven, fifty-two, and carry five,” she muttered, as
Georgie stood in front of the fire, so that the entire new suit should
be seen at once. “Wait a moment, Georgie--and seventeen and five’s
twenty-three--no, twenty-two, and that’s put me out: I must begin again.
That can’t be right. Help yourself, if de Vere has brought in tea, and
if not ring---- Oh, I left out the four, and altogether it’s two
thousand five hundred pounds.”

Georgie had thought at first that Daisy was merely doing some belated
household accounts, but the moment she said “two thousand five hundred
pounds” he guessed, and did not even go through the formality of asking
what was two thousand five hundred pounds.

“I made it two thousand six hundred,” he said. “But we’re pretty well
agreed.”

Naturally Daisy understood that he understood.

“Perhaps you reckoned the pearls as capital,” she said, “and added the
interest.”

“No I didn’t,” he said. “How could I tell how much they were worth? I
didn’t reckon them in at all.”

“Well, it’s a lot of money,” said Daisy. “Let’s have tea. What will she
do with it?”

She seemed quite blind to the Oxford trousers, and Georgie wondered
whether that was from mere feebleness of vision. Daisy was
short-sighted, though she steadily refused to recognize that, and would
never wear spectacles. In fact, Lucia had made an unkind little epigram
about it at a time when there was a slight coolness between the two, and
had said “Dear Daisy is too short-sighted to see how short-sighted she
is.” Of course it was unkind, but very brilliant, and Georgie had read
through “The Importance of Being Earnest” which Lucia had gone up to
town to see, in the hopes of discovering it.... Or was Daisy’s
unconsciousness of his trousers merely due to her preoccupation with
Lucia’s probable income?... Or were the trousers, after all, not so
daring as he had thought them?

He sat down with one leg thrown carelessly over the arm of his chair, so
that Daisy could hardly fail to see it. Then he took a piece of
tea-cake.

“Yes, do tell me what you think she will do with it?” he asked. “I’ve
been puzzling over it too.”

“I can’t imagine,” said Daisy. “She’s got everything she wants now.
Perhaps they’ll just hoard it, in order that when Pepino dies we may all
see how much richer he was than we ever imagined. That’s too posthumous
for me. Give me what I want now, and a pauper’s funeral afterward.”

“Me too,” said Georgie, waving his leg. “But I don’t think Lucia will do
that. It did occur to me----”

“The house in London, you mean,” said Daisy, swiftly interrupting. “Of
course if they kept both houses open, with a staff in each, so that they
could run up and down as they chose, that would make a big hole in it.
Lucia has always said that she couldn’t live in London, but she may
manage it if she’s got a house there.”

“I’m dining with her to-night,” said Georgie. “Perhaps she’ll say
something.”

Mrs. Quantock was very thirsty with her gardening, and the tea was very
hot. She poured it into her saucer and blew on it.

“Lucia would be wise not to waste any time,” she said, “if she intends
to have any fun out of it, for, you know, Georgie, we’re beginning to
get old. I’m fifty-two. How old are you?”

Georgie disliked that barbarous sort of question. He had been the young
man of Riseholme so long that the habit was ingrained, and he hardly
believed that he was forty-eight.

“Forty-three,” he said, “but what does it matter how old we are, as long
as we’re busy and amused? And I’m sure Lucia has got all the energy and
life she ever had. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if she made a start in
London, and went in for all that. Then of course, there’s Pepino, but he
only cares for writing his poetry and looking through his telescope.”

“I hate that telescope,” said Daisy. “He took me up on to the roof the
other night and showed me what he said was Mars, and I’ll take my oath
he said that the same one was Venus only a week before. But as I
couldn’t see anything either time, it didn’t make much difference.”

The door opened, and Mr. Quantock came in. Robert was like a little
round brown sarcastic beetle. Georgie got up to greet him, and stood in
the full blaze of the light. Robert certainly saw his trousers, for his
eyes seemed unable to quit the spreading folds that lay round Georgie’s
ankles: he looked at them as if he was Cortez and they some new planet.
Then without a word he folded his arms and danced a few steps of what
was clearly meant to be a sailor’s hornpipe.

“Heave-ho, Georgie,” he said. “Belay there and avast.”

“What is he talking about?” said Daisy.

Georgie, quite apart from his general good-nature, always strove to
propitiate Mr. Quantock. He was far the most sarcastic person in
Riseholme and could say sharp things straight off, whereas Georgie had
to think a long time before he got a nasty edge to any remark, and then
his good-nature generally forbade him to slash with it.

“He’s talking about my new clothes,” he said, “and he’s being very
naughty. Any news?”

“Any news?” was the general gambit of conversation in Riseholme. It
could not have been bettered, for there always was news. And there was
now.

“Yes, Pepino’s gone to the station,” said Mr. Quantock. “Just like a
large black crow. Waved a black hand. Bah! Why not call a release a
release and have done with it? And if you don’t know--why, I’ll tell
you. It’s because they’re rolling in riches. Why, I’ve calculated----”

“Yes?” said Daisy and Georgie simultaneously.

“So you’ve been calculating too?” said Mr. Quantock. “Might have a
sweepstake for the one who gets nearest. I say three thousand a year.”

“Not so much,” said Georgie and Daisy again simultaneously.

“All right. But that’s no reason why I shouldn’t have a lump of sugar in
my tea.”

“Dear me, no,” said Daisy genially. “But how do you make it up to three
thousand?”

“By addition,” said this annoying man. “There’ll be every penny of that.
I was at the lending library after lunch, and those who could add made
it all that.”

Daisy turned to Georgie.

“You’ll be alone with Lucia then to-night,” she said.

“Oh, I knew that,” said Georgie. “She told me Pepino had gone. I expect
he’s sleeping in that house to-night.”

Mr. Quantock produced his calculations, and the argument waxed hot. It
was still raging when Georgie left in order to get a little rest before
going on to dinner, and to practise the Mozart duet. He and Lucia hadn’t
tried it before, so it was as well to practise both parts, and let her
choose which she liked. Foljambe had come back from her afternoon out,
and told him that there had been a trunk call for him while he was at
tea, but she could make nothing of it.

“Somebody in a great hurry, sir,” she said, “and kept asking if I
was--excuse me, sir, if I was Georgie--I kept saying I wasn’t, but I’d
fetch you. That wouldn’t do, and she said she’d telegraph.”

“But who was it?” asked Georgie.

“Couldn’t say, sir. She never gave a name, but only kept asking.”

“She?” asked Georgie.

“Sounded like one!” said Foljambe.

“Most mysterious,” said Georgie. It couldn’t be either of his sisters,
for they sounded not like a she but a he. So he lay down on his sofa to
rest a little before he took a turn at the Mozart.

       *       *       *       *       *

The evening had turned chilly, and he put on his blue cape with the
velvet collar to trot across to Lucia’s house. The parlour-maid received
him with a faint haggard smile of recognition, and then grew funereal
again, and preceding him, not at her usual brisk pace, but sadly and
slowly, opened the door of the music-room and pronounced his name in a
mournful whisper. It was a gay cheerful room, in the ordinary way; now
only one light was burning, and from the deepest of the shadows, there
came a rustling, and Lucia rose to meet him.

“Georgie, dear,” she said. “Good of you.”

Georgie held her hand a moment longer than was usual, and gave it a
little extra pressure for the conveyance of sympathy. Lucia, to
acknowledge that, pressed a little more, and Georgie tightened his grip
again to show that he understood, until their respective finger-nails
grew white with the conveyance and reception of sympathy. It was rather
agonizing, because a bit of skin on his little finger had got caught
between two of the rings on his third finger, and he was glad when they
quite understood each other.

Of course it was not to be expected that in these first moments Lucia
should notice his trousers. She herself was dressed in deep mourning,
and Georgie thought he recognized the little cap she wore as being that
which had faintly expressed her grief over the death of Queen Victoria.
But black suited her, and she certainly looked very well. Dinner was
announced immediately, and she took Georgie’s arm, and with faltering
steps they went into the dining-room.

Georgie had determined that his rôle was to be sympathetic, but bracing.
Lucia must rally from this blow, and her suggestion that he should bring
the Mozart duet was hopeful. And though her voice was low and unsteady,
she did say, as they sat down,

“Any news?”

“I’ve hardly been outside my house and garden all day,” said Georgie.
“Rolling the lawn. And Daisy Quantock--did you know?--has had a row with
her gardener, and is going to do it all herself. So there she was next
door with a fork and a wheelbarrow full of manure.”

Lucia gave a wan smile.

“Dear Daisy!” she said. “What a garden it will be! Anything else?”

“Yes, I had tea with them, and while I was out, there was a trunk-call
for me. So tarsome. Whoever it was couldn’t make any way, and she’s
going to telegraph. I can’t imagine who it was.”

“I wonder!” said Lucia in an interested voice. Then she recollected
herself again. “I had a sort of presentiment, Georgie, when I saw that
telegram for Pepino on the table, two days ago, that it was bad news.”

“Curious,” said Georgie. “And what delicious fish! How do you always
manage to get better things than any of us? It tastes of the sea. And I
am so hungry after all my work.”

Lucia went firmly on.

“I took it to poor Pepino,” she said, “and he got quite white. And
then--so like him--he thought of me. ‘It’s bad news, darling,’ he said,
‘and we’ve got to help each other to bear it!’”

“So like Pepino,” said Georgie. “Mr. Quantock saw him going to the
station. Where is he going to sleep to-night?”

Lucia took a little more fish.

“In Auntie’s house in Brompton Square,” she said.

“So _that’s_ where it is!” thought Georgie. If there was a light
anywhere in Daisy’s house, except in the attics, he would have to go in
for a minute, on his return home, and communicate the news.

“Oh, she had a house there, had she?” he said.

“Yes, a charming house,” said Lucia, “and full, of course, of dear old
memories to Pepino. It will be very trying for him, for he used to go
there when he was a boy to see Auntie.”

“And has she left it him?” asked Georgie, trying to make his voice sound
unconcerned.

“Yes, and it’s a freehold,” said Lucia. “That makes it easier to dispose
of if Pepino settles to sell it. And beautiful Queen Anne furniture.”

“My dear, how delicious!” said Georgie. “Probably worth a fortune.”

Lucia was certainly rallying from the terrible blow, but she did not
allow herself to rally too far, and shook her head sadly.

“Pepino would hate to have to part with Auntie’s things,” she said. “So
many memories. He can recollect her sitting at the walnut bureau (one of
those tall ones, you know, which let down in front, and the handles of
the drawers all original), doing her accounts in the morning. And a
picture of her with her pearls over the fireplace by Sargent; quite an
early one. Some fine Chinese Chippendale chairs in the dining-room. We
must try to keep some of the things.”

Georgie longed to ask a hundred questions, but it would not be wise, for
Lucia was so evidently enjoying letting these sumptuous details leak out
mingled with memories. He was beginning to feel sure that Daisy’s
cynical suggestion was correct, and that the stricken desolation of
Pepino and Lucia cloaked a very substantial inheritance. Bits of
exultation kept peeping out, and Lucia kept poking them back.

“But where will you put all those lovely things, if you sell the house?”
he asked. “Your house here is so perfect already.”

“Nothing is settled yet,” said Lucia. “Neither he nor I can think of
anything but dear Auntie. Such a keen intelligent mind she had when
Pepino first remembered her. Very good-looking still in the Sargent
picture. And it was all so sudden, when Pepino saw her last she was so
full of vigour.”

(“That was the time she bit him,” thought Georgie.) Aloud he said:

“Of course you must feel it dreadfully. What is the Sargent? A kit-cat
or a full length?”

“Full length, I believe,” said Lucia. “I don’t know where we could put
it here. And a William III whatnot. But of course it is not possible to
think about that yet. A glass of port?”

“I’m going to give you one,” said Georgie, “it’s just what you want
after all your worries and griefs.”

Lucia pushed her glass toward him.

“Just half a glass,” she said. “You are so dear and understanding,
Georgie; I couldn’t talk to anyone but you, and perhaps it does me good
to talk. There is some wonderful port in Auntie’s cellar, Pepino says.”

She rose.

“Let us go into the music-room,” she said. “We will talk a little more,
and then play our Mozart if I feel up to it.”

“That’ll do you good too,” said Georgie.

Lucia felt equal to having more illumination than there had been when
she rose out of the shadows before dinner, and they established
themselves quite cosily by the fire.

“There will be a terrible lot of business for Pepino,” she said.
“Luckily his lawyer is the same firm as Auntie’s, and quite a family
friend. Whatever Auntie had, so he told us, goes to Pepino, though we
haven’t really any idea what it is. But with death duties and succession
duties, I know we shall have to be prepared to be very poor until they
are paid off, and the duties increase so iniquitously in proportion to
the inheritance. Then everything in Brompton Square has to be valued,
and we have to pay on the entire contents, the very carpets and rugs are
priced, and some are beautiful Persians. And then there’s the valuer to
pay, and all the lawyer’s charges. And when all that has been paid and
finished, there is the higher super-tax.”

“But there’s a bigger income,” said Georgie.

“Yes, that’s one way of looking at it,” said Lucia. “But Pepino says
that the charges will be enormous. And there’s a beautiful music-room.”

Lucia gave him one of her rather gimlet-like looks.

“Georgino, I suppose everybody in Riseholme is all agog to know what
Pepino has been left. That is so dreadfully vulgar, but I suppose it’s
natural. Is everybody talking about it?”

“Well, I have heard it mentioned,” said Georgie. “But I don’t see why
it’s vulgar. I’m interested in it myself. It concerns you and Pepino,
and what concerns one’s friends must be of interest to one.”

“_Caro_, I know that,” said Lucia. “But so much more than the actual
money is the responsibility it brings. Pepino and I have all we want
for our quiet little needs, and now this great increase of wealth is
coming to us--great, that is, compared to our modest little income
now--and, as I say, it brings its responsibilities. We shall have to use
wisely and without extravagance whatever is left after all these immense
expenses have been paid. That meadow at the bottom of the garden, of
course, we shall buy at once, so that there will no longer be any fear
of its being built over and spoiling the garden. And then perhaps a new
telescope for Pepino. But what do I want in Riseholme beyond what I’ve
got? Music and friends, and the power to entertain them, my books and my
flowers. Perhaps a library, built on at the end of the wing, where
Pepino can be undisturbed, and perhaps every now and then a string
quartette down from London. That will give a great deal of pleasure, and
music is more than pleasure, isn’t it?”

Again she turned the gimlet-look onto Georgie.

“And then there’s the house in Brompton Square,” she said, “where Auntie
was born. Are we to sell that?”

Georgie guessed exactly what was in her mind. It had been in his too,
ever since Lucia had alluded to the beautiful music-room. Her voice had
lingered over the beautiful music-room: she had seemed to underline it,
to caress it, to appropriate it.

“I believe you are thinking of keeping the house and partly living
there,” he said.

Lucia looked round, as if a hundred eavesdroppers had entered unaware.

“Hush, Georgie,” she said, “not a word must be said about that. But it
has occurred to both Pepino and me.”

“But I thought you hated London,” he said. “You’re always so glad to get
back, you find it so common and garish.”

“It is, compared to the exquisite peace and seriousness of our
Riseholme,” she said, “where there never is a jarring note, at least
hardly ever. But there is in London a certain stir and movement which we
lack here. In the swim, Georgie, in the middle of things! Perhaps we get
too sensitive here where everything is full of harmony and culture,
perhaps we are too much sheltered. If I followed my inclination I would
never leave our dear Riseholme for a single day. Oh, how easy everything
would be if one only followed one’s inclination! A morning with my
books, an afternoon in my garden, my piano after tea, and a friend like
you to come in to dine with my Pepino and me and scold me well, as
you’ll soon be doing for being so bungling over Mozartino.”

Lucia twirled round the Elizabethan spit that hung in the wide chimney,
and again fixed him rather in the style of the Ancient Mariner. Georgie
could not choose but hear ... Lucia’s eloquent well-ordered sentences
had nothing impromptu about them; what she said was evidently all
thought out and probably talked out. If she and Pepino had been talking
of nothing else since the terrible blow had shattered them, she could
not have been more lucid and crystal-clear.

“Georgie, I feel like a leisurely old horse who has been turned out to
grass being suddenly bridled and harnessed again. But there is work and
energy in me yet, though I thought that I should be permitted to grow
old in the delicious peace and leisure of our dear quiet humdrum
Riseholme. But I feel that perhaps that is not to be. My conscience is
cracking the whip at me, and saying ‘You’ve got to trot again, you lazy
old thing.’ And I’ve got to think of Pepino. Dear, contented Pepino
would never complain if I refused to budge. He would read his paper, and
potter in the garden, and write his dear little poems--such a sweet one,
‘Bereavement,’ he began it yesterday, a sonnet--and look at the stars.
But is it a life for a man?”

Georgie made an uneasy movement in his chair, and Lucia hastened to
correct the implied criticism.

“You’re different, my dear,” she said. “You’ve got that wonderful power
of being interested in everything. Everything. But think what London
would give Pepino! His club: the Astronomer-Royal is a member, his other
club, political, and politics have lately been quite an obsession with
him. The reading-room at the British Museum. No, I should be very
selfish if I did not see all that. I must and I do think of Pepino. I
mustn’t be selfish, Georgie.”

This idea of Lucia’s leaving Riseholme was a live bomb. At the moment of
its explosion, Georgie seemed to see Riseholme fly into a thousand
disintegrated fragments. And then, faintly, through the smoke he seemed
to see Riseholme still intact. Somebody, of course, would have to fill
the vacant throne and direct its affairs. And the thought of Beau Nash
at Bath flitted across the distant horizon of his mind. It was a naughty
thought, but its vagueness absolved it from treason. He shook it off.

“But how on earth are we to get on without you?” he asked.

“Sweet of you to say that, Georgie,” said she, giving another twirl to
the spit. (There had been a leg of mutton roasted on it last May-day,
while they all sat round in jerkins and stomachers and hose, and all the
perfumes of Arabia had hardly sufficed to quell the odour of roast meat
which had pervaded the room for weeks afterward.) “Sweet of you to say
that, but you mustn’t think that I am deserting Riseholme. We should be
in London perhaps (though, as I say, nothing is settled) for two or
three months in the summer, and always come here for week-ends, and
perhaps from November till Christmas, and a little while in the spring.
And then Riseholme would always be coming up to us. Five spare bedrooms,
I believe, and one of them quite a little suite with a bathroom and
sitting-room attached. No, dear Georgie, I would never desert my dear
Riseholme. If it was a choice between London and Riseholme, I should not
hesitate in my choice.”

“Then would you keep both houses open?” asked Georgie, thrilled to the
marrow.

“Pepino thought we could manage it,” she said, utterly erasing the
impression of the shattered nephew. “He was calculating it out last
night, and with board wages at the other house, if you understand, and
vegetables from the country, he thought that with care we could live
well within our means. He got quite excited about it, and I heard him
walking about long after I had gone to bed. Pepino has such a head for
detail. He intends to keep a complete set of things, clothes and sponge
and everything in London, so that he will have no luggage. Such a saving
of tips and small expenses, in which as he so truly says, money leaks
away. Then there will be no garage expenses in London: we shall leave
the motor here, and rough it with tubes and taxis in town.”

Georgie was fully as excited as Pepino, and could not be discreet any
longer.

“Tell me,” he said, “how much do you think it will all come to? The
money he’ll come into, I mean.”

Lucia also threw discretion to the winds, and forgot all about the fact
that they were to be so terribly poor for a long time.

“About three thousand a year, Pepino imagines, when everything is paid.
Our income will be doubled, in fact.”

Georgie gave a sigh of pure satisfaction. So much was revealed, not only
of the future, but of the past, for no one hitherto had known what their
income was. And how clever of Robert Quantock to have made so accurate a
guess!

“It’s too wonderful for you,” he said. “And I know you’ll spend it
beautifully. I had been thinking over it this afternoon, but I never
thought it would be as much as that. And then there are the pearls. I do
congratulate you.”

Lucia suddenly felt that she had shown too much of the silver (or was it
gold?) lining to the cloud of affliction that had overshadowed her.

“Poor Auntie!” she said. “We don’t forget her through it all. We hoped
she might have been spared us a little longer.”

That came out of her note to Daisy Quantock (and perhaps to others as
well), but Lucia could not have known that Georgie had already been told
about that.

“Now, I’ve come here to take your mind off these sad things,” he said.
“You mustn’t dwell on them any longer.”

She rose briskly.

“You’ve been ever so good to me,” she said. “I should just have moped if
I had been alone.”

She lapsed into the baby-language which they sometimes spoke, varying it
with easy Italian.

“Ickle music, Georgie?” she said. “And you must be kindy-kindy to me. No
practice all these days. You brought Mozart? Which part is easiest?
Lucia wants to take easiest part.”

“Lucia shall take which ever part she likes,” said Georgie who had had a
good practise at both.

“Treble then,” said Lucia. “But oh, how diffy it looks! Hundreds of
ickle notes. And me so tupid at reading! Come on then. You begin, Uno,
due, tre.”

The light by the piano was not very good, but Georgie did not want to
put on his spectacles unless he was obliged, for he did not think Lucia
knew that he wore them, and somehow spectacles did not seem to “go” with
Oxford trousers. But it was no good, and after having made a miserable
hash of the first page, he surrendered.

“Me must put on speckies,” he said. “Me a blind old man.”

Then he had an immense surprise.

“And me a blind old woman,” said Lucia. “I’ve just got speckies too. Oh,
Georgie, aren’t we getting vecchio? Now we’ll start again. Uno, due----”

The Mozart went beautifully after that, and each of them inwardly
wondered at the accuracy of the other’s reading. Lucia suspected that
Georgie had been having a try at it, but then, after all, she had had
the choice of which part she would take, and if Georgie had practised
already, he would have been almost certain to have practised the treble;
it never entered her head that he had been so thorough as to practise
both. Then they played it through again, changing parts, and again it
went excellently. It was late now, and soon Georgie rose to go.

“And what shall I say if anybody who knows I’ve been dining with you,
asks if you’ve told me anything?” he asked.

Lucia closed the piano and concentrated.

“Say nothing of our plans about the house in Brompton Square,” she said,
“but there’s no reason why people shouldn’t know that there is a house
there. I hate secretiveness, and after all, when the will comes out,
everyone will know. So say there is a house there, full of beautiful
things. And similarly they will know about the money. So say what Pepino
thinks it will come to.”

“I see,” said Georgie.

She came with him to the door, and strolled out into the little garden
in front where the daffodils were in flower. The night was clear, but
moonless, and the company of stars burned brightly.

“Aldebaran!” said Lucia, pointing inclusively to the spangled arch of
the sky. “That bright one. Oh, Georgie, how restful it is to look at
Aldebaran if one is worried and sad. It lifts one’s mind above petty
cares and personal sorrows. The patens of bright gold! Wonderful
Shakespeare! Look in to-morrow afternoon, won’t you, and tell me if
there is any news. Naturally, I sha’n’t go out.”

“Oh, come and have lunch,” said Georgie.

“No, dear Georgie: the funeral is at two. Putney Vale. _Buona notte._”

“_Buona notte_, dear Lucia,” he said.

       *       *       *       *       *

Georgie hurried back to his house, and was disappointed to see that
there were no lights in Daisy’s drawing-room nor in Robert Quantock’s
study. But when he got up to his bedroom, where Foljambe had forgotten
to pull down the blinds, he saw a light in Daisy’s bedroom. Even as he
looked the curtains there were drawn back, and he saw her amply clad in
a dressing-gown, opening windows at top and bottom, for just now the
first principle of health consisted in sleeping in a gale. She too must
have seen his room was lit, and his face at the window, for she made
violent signs to him, and threw open the casement.

“Well?” she said.

“In Brompton Square,” said George. “And three thousand a year!”

“No!” said Daisy.




CHAPTER II


This simple word “No” connoted a great deal in the Riseholme vernacular.
It was used, of course, as a mere negative, without emphasis, and if you
wanted to give weight to your negative you added “Certainly not.” But
when you used the world “No” with emphasis, as Daisy had used it from
her bedroom window to Georgie, it was not a negative at all, and its
signification briefly put was “I never heard anything so marvellous, and
it thrills me through and through. Please go on at once, and tell me a
great deal more, and then let us talk it all over.”

On that occasion Georgie did not go on at once, for having made his
climax he, with supreme art, shut the window and drew down the blind,
leaving Daisy to lie awake half the night and ponder over this
remarkable news and wonder what Pepino and Lucia would do with all that
money. She arrived at several conclusions: she guessed that they would
buy the meadow beyond the garden, and have a new telescope, but the
building of a library did not occur to her. Before she went to sleep an
even more important problem presented itself, and she scribbled a note
to Georgie to be taken across in the morning early, in which she wrote:
“And did she say anything about the house? What’s going to happen to it?
And you didn’t tell me the number,” exactly as she would have continued
the conversation if he had not shut his window so quickly and drawn down
the blind, ringing down the curtain on his magnificent climax.

Foljambe brought up this note with Georgie’s early morning tea and the
glass of very hot water which sometimes he drank instead of it if he
suspected an error of diet the night before, and the little glass
gallipot of Kruschen salts, which occasionally he added to the hot water
or the tea. Georgie was very sleepy, and, only half awake, turned round
in bed, so that Foljambe should not see the place where he wore the
toupée, and smothered a snore, for he would not like her to think that
he snored. But when she said “Telegram for you, sir,” Georgie sat up at
once in his pink silk pyjamas.

“No!” he said with emphasis.

He tore the envelope open, and a whole sheaf of sheets fell out. The
moment he set eyes on the first words, he knew so well from whom it came
that he did not even trouble to look at the last sheet where it would be
signed.

     BELOVED GEORGIE (it ran),

     I rang you up till I lost my temper and so send this. Most
     expensive, but terribly important. I arrived in London yesterday
     and shall come down for week-end to Riseholme. Shall dine with you
     Saturday all alone to hear about everything. Come to lunch and
     dinner Sunday, and ask everybody to one or other, particularly
     Lucia. Am bringing cook, but order sufficient food for Sunday.
     Wonderful American and Australian tour, and I’m taking house in
     London for season. Shall motor down. Bless you.

                                                                  OLGA.

Georgie sprang out of bed, merely glancing through Daisy’s pencilled
note and throwing it away. There was nothing to be said to it in any
case, since he had been told not to divulge the project with regard to
the house in Brompton Square, and he didn’t know the number. But in
Olga’s telegram there was enough to make anybody busy for the day, for
he had to ask all her friends to lunch or dinner on Sunday, order the
necessary food, and arrange a little meal for Olga and himself to-morrow
night. He scarcely knew what he was drinking, tea or hot water or
Kruschen salts, so excited was he. He foresaw too, that there would be
call for the most skilled diplomacy with regard to Lucia. She must
certainly be asked first, and some urging might be required to make her
consent to come at all, either to lunch or dinner, even if due regard
was paid to her deep mourning, and the festivity limited to one or two
guests of her own selection. Yet somehow Georgie felt that she would
stretch a point and be persuaded, for everybody else would be going some
time on Sunday to Olga’s, and it would be tiresome for her to explain
again and again in the days that followed that she had been asked and
had not felt up to it. And if she didn’t explain carefully every time,
Riseholme would be sure to think she hadn’t been asked. “A little
diplomacy,” thought George, as he trotted across to her house after
breakfast with no hat, but a fur tippet round his neck.

He was shown into the music-room, while her maid went to fetch her. The
piano was open, so she had evidently been practising, and there was a
copy of the Mozart duet which she had read so skilfully last night on
the music-rest. For the moment Georgie thought he must have forgotten to
take his copy away with him, but then looking at it more carefully he
saw that there were pencilled marks for the fingering scribbled over the
more difficult passages in the treble, which certainly he had never put
there. At the moment he saw Lucia through the window coming up the
garden, and he hastily took a chair far away from the piano and buried
himself in _The Times_.

They sat close together in front of the fire, and Georgie opened his
errand.

“I heard from Olga this morning,” he said, “a great long telegram. She
is coming down for the week-end.”

Lucia gave a wintry smile. She did not care for Olga’s coming down.
Riseholme was quite silly about Olga.

“That will be nice for you, Georgie,” she said.

“She sent you a special message,” said he.

“I am grateful for her sympathy,” said Lucia. “She might perhaps have
written direct to me, but I’m sure she was full of kind intentions. As
she sent the message by you verbally, will you verbally thank her? I
appreciate it.”

Even as she delivered these icy sentiments, Lucia got up rather hastily
and passed behind him. Something white on the music-rest of the piano
had caught her eye.

“Don’t move, Georgie,” she said, “sit and warm yourself and light your
cigarette. Anything else?”

She walked up the room to the far end where the piano stood, and
Georgie, though he was a little deaf, quite distinctly heard the rustle
of paper. The most elementary rudiments of politeness forbade him to
look round. Besides he knew exactly what was happening. Then there came
a second rustle of paper, which he could not interpret.

“Anything else, Georgie?” repeated Lucia, coming back to her chair.

“Yes. But Olga’s message wasn’t quite that,” he said. “She evidently
hadn’t heard of your bereavement.”

“Odd,” said Lucia. “I should have thought perhaps that the death of Miss
Amy Lucas--however, what was her message then?”

“She wanted you very much--she said ‘particularly Lucia’--to go to lunch
or dine with her on Sunday. Pepino, too, of course.”

“So kind of her, but naturally quite impossible,” said Lucia.

“Oh, but you mustn’t say that,” said Georgie. “She is down for just that
day, and she wants to see all her old friends. Particularly Lucia, you
know. In fact she asked me to get up two little parties for her at lunch
and dinner. So, of course, I came to see you first, to know which you
would prefer.”

Lucia shook her head.

“A party!” she said. “How do you think I could?”

“But it wouldn’t be _that_ sort of party,” said Georgie. “Just a few of
your friends. You and Pepino will have seen nobody to-night and all
to-morrow. He will have told you everything by Sunday. And so bad to sit
brooding.”

The moment Lucia had said it was quite impossible she had been longing
for Georgie to urge her, and had indeed been prepared to encourage him
to urge her if he didn’t do so of his own accord. His last words had
given her an admirable opening.

“I wonder!” she said. “Perhaps Pepino might feel inclined to go, if
there really was no party. It doesn’t do to brood: you are right, I
mustn’t let him brood. Selfish of me not to think of that. Who would
there be, Georgie?”

“That’s really for you to settle,” he said.

“You?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Georgie, thinking it unnecessary to add that Olga was dining
with him on Sunday, and that he would be at lunch and dinner on Sunday.
“Yes: she asked me to come.”

“Well, then, what if you asked poor Daisy and her husband?” said Lucia.
“It would be a treat for them. That would make six. I think six would be
enough. I will do my best to persuade Pepino.”

“Capital,” said Georgie. “And would you prefer lunch or dinner?”

Lucia sighed.

“I think dinner,” she said. “One feels more capable of making the
necessary effort in the evening. But, of course, it is all conditional
on Pepino’s feeling.”

She glanced at the clock.

“He will just be leaving Brompton Square,” she said. “And then,
afterward, his lawyer is coming to lunch with him and have a talk. Such
a lot of business to see to.”

Georgie suddenly remembered that he did not yet know the number of the
house.

“Indeed there must be,” he said. “Such a delightful Square, but rather
noisy, I should think, at the lower end.”

“Yes, but deliciously quiet at the top end,” said Lucia. “A curve you
know, and a _cul de sac_. Number twenty-five is just before the
beginning of the curve. And no houses at the back. Just the peaceful old
church-yard--though sad for Pepino to look out on this morning--and a
footpath only up to Ennismore Gardens. My music-room looks out at the
back.”

Lucia rose.

“Well, Georgie, you will be very busy this morning,” she said, “getting
all the guests for Sunday, and I mustn’t keep you. But I should like to
play you a morsel of Stravinski which I have been trying over. Terribly
modern, of course, and it may sound hideous to you at first, and at best
it’s a mere little tinkle if you compare it with the immortals. But
there is something about it, and one mustn’t condemn all modern work
unheard. There was a time no doubt when even Beethoven’s greatest
sonatas were thought to be modern and revolutionary.”

She led the way to the piano, where on the music-rest was the morsel of
Stravinski, which explained the second and hitherto unintelligible
rustle.

“Sit by me, Georgie,” she said, “and turn over quick, when I nod.
Something like this.”

Lucia got through the first page beautifully, but then everything seemed
to go wrong. Georgie had expected it all to be odd and aimless, but
surely Stravinski hadn’t meant quite what Lucia was playing. Then he
suddenly saw that the key had been changed, but in a very inconspicuous
manner, right in the middle of a bar, and Lucia had not observed this.
She went on playing with amazing agility, nodded at the end of the
second page, and then luckily the piece changed back again into its
original clef. Would it be wise to tell her? He thought not: next time
she tried it, or the time after, she would very likely notice the change
of key.

A brilliant roulade consisting of chromatic scales in contrary
directions, brought this firework to an end, and Lucia gave a little
shiver.

“I must work at it,” she said, “before I can judge of it....”

Her fingers strayed about the piano, and she paused. Then with the
wistful expression Georgie knew so well, she played the first movement
of the Moonlight Sonata. Georgie set his face also into the
Beethoven-expression, and at the end gave the usual little sigh.

“Divine,” he said. “You never played it better. Thank you, Lucia.”

She rose.

“You must thank immortal Beethoven,” she said.

       *       *       *       *       *

Georgie’s head buzzed with inductive reasoning, as he hurried about on
his vicariously hospitable errands. Lucia had certainly determined to
make a second home in London, for she had distinctly said, “my music
room” when she referred to the house in Brompton Square. Also it was
easy to see the significance of her deigning to touch Stravinski with
even the tip of one finger. She was visualizing herself in the modern
world, she was going to be up-to-date: the music-room in Brompton Square
was not only to echo with the first movement of the Moonlight.... “It’s
too thrilling,” said Georgie, as, warmed with this mental activity, he
quite forgot to put on his fur tippet.

His first visit, of course, was to Daisy Quantock, but he meant to stay
no longer than just to secure her and her husband for dinner on Sunday
with Olga, and tell her the number of the house in Brompton Square. He
found that she had dug a large trench round her mulberry tree, and was
busily pruning the roots with the wood-axe by the light of Nature: in
fact she had cut off all their ends, and there was a great pile of
chunks of mulberry root to be transferred in the wheelbarrow, now empty
of manure, to the wood-shed.

“Twenty-five, that’s easy to remember,” she said. “And are they going to
sell it?”

“Nothing settled,” said Georgie. “My dear, you’re being rather drastic,
aren’t you? Won’t it die?”

“Not a bit,” said Daisy. “It’ll bear twice as many mulberries as before.
Last year there was one. You should always prune the roots of a fruit
tree that doesn’t bear. And the pearls?”

“No news,” said Georgie, “except that they come in a portrait of the
aunt by Sargent.”

“No! By Sargent?” asked Daisy.

“Yes, and Queen Anne furniture and Chinese Chippendale chairs,” said
Georgie.

“And how many bedrooms?” asked Daisy, wiping her axe on the grass.

“Five spare, so I suppose that means seven,” said Georgie, “and one with
a sitting-room and bathroom attached. And a beautiful music-room.”

“Georgie, she means to live there,” said Daisy, “whether she told you or
not. You don’t count the bedrooms like that in a house you’re going to
sell. It isn’t done.”

“Nothing settled, I tell you,” said Georgie. “So you’ll dine with Olga
on Sunday, and now I must fly and get people to lunch with her.”

“No! A lunch-party too?” asked Daisy.

“Yes. She wants to see everybody.”

“And five spare rooms, did you say?” asked Daisy, beginning to fill in
her trench.

Georgie hurried out of the front gate, and Daisy shovelled the earth
back and hurried indoors to impart all this news to her husband. He had
a little rheumatism in his shoulder, and she gave him Coué treatment
before she counterordered the chicken which she had bespoken for his
dinner on Sunday.

Georgie thought it wise to go first to Olga’s house, to make sure that
she had told her caretaker that she was coming down for the week-end.
That was the kind of thing that prima-donnas sometimes forgot. There was
a man sitting on the roof of Old Place with a coil of wire, and another
sitting on the chimney. Though listening-in had not yet arrived at
Riseholme, Georgie at once conjectured that Olga was installing it, and
what would Lucia say? It was utterly un-Elizabethan to begin with, and
though she countenanced the telephone, she had expressed herself very
strongly on the subject of listening-in. She had had an unfortunate
experience of it herself, for on a visit to London not long ago, her
hostess had switched it on, and the company was regaled with a vivid
lecture on pyorrhœa by a hospital nurse.... Georgie, however, would see
Olga before Lucia came to dinner on Sunday and would explain her
abhorrence of the instrument.

Then there was the delightful task of asking everybody to lunch. It was
the hour now when Riseholme generally was popping in and out of shops,
and finding out the news. It was already known that Georgie had dined
with Lucia last night and that Pepino had gone to his aunt’s funeral,
and everyone was agog to ascertain if anything definite had yet been
ascertained about the immense fortune which had certainly come to the
Lucases.... Mrs. Antrobus spied Georgie going into Olga’s house (for the
keenness of her eyesight made up for her deafness), and there she was
with her ear-trumpet adjusted, looking at the view just outside Old
Place when Georgie came out. Already the popular estimate had grown like
a gourd.

“A quarter of a million, I’m told, Mr. Georgie,” said she, “and a house
in Grosvenor Square, eh?”

Before Georgie could reply, Mrs. Antrobus’s two daughters, Piggy and
Goosie came bounding up hand in hand. Piggy and Goosie never walked like
other people: they skipped and gambolled to show how girlish an age is
thirty-four and thirty-five.

“Oh stop, Mr. Georgie,” said Piggy. “Let us all hear. And are the pearls
worth a Queen’s ransom?”

“Silly thing,” said Goosie. “I don’t believe in the pearls.”

“Well, I don’t believe in Grosvenor Square,” said Goosie. “So silly
yourself!”

When this ebullition of high spirits had subsided, and Piggy had slapped
Goosie on the back of her hands, they both said “Hush!” simultaneously.

“Well, I can’t say about the pearls,” said Georgie.

“Eh, what can’t you say?” said Mrs. Antrobus.

“About the pearls,” said Georgie, addressing himself to the end of Mrs.
Antrobus’s trumpet. It was like the trunk of a very short elephant, and
she waved it about as if asking for a bun.

“About the pearls, mamma,” screamed Goosie and Piggy together. “Don’t
interrupt Mr. Georgie.”

“And the house isn’t in Grosvenor Square, but in Brompton Square,” said
Georgie.

“But that’s quite in the slums,” said Mrs. Antrobus. “I am
disappointed.”

“Not at all, a charming neighbourhood,” said Georgie. This was not at
all what he had been looking forward to: he had expected cries of
envious surprise at his news. “As for the fortune, about three thousand
a year.”

“Is that all?” said Piggy with an air of deep disgust.

“A mere pittance to millionaires like Piggy,” said Goosie, and they
slapped each other again.

“Any more news?” asked Mrs. Antrobus.

“Yes,” said Georgie, “Olga Bracely is coming down to-morrow----”

“No!” said all the ladies together.

“And her husband?” asked Piggy.

“No,” said Georgie without emphasis. “At least she didn’t say so. But
she wants all her friends to come to lunch on Sunday. So you’ll all
come, will you? She told me to ask everybody.”

“Yes,” said Piggy. “Oh, how lovely! I adore Olga. Will she let me sit
next her?”

“Eh?” said Mrs. Antrobus.

“Lunch on Sunday, mamma, with Olga Bracely,” screamed Goosie.

“But she’s not here,” said Mrs. Antrobus.

“No, but she’s coming, mamma,” shouted Piggy. “Come along, Goosie.
There’s Mrs. Boucher. We’ll tell her about poor Mrs. Lucas.”

Mrs. Boucher’s bath-chair was stationed opposite the butcher’s, where
her husband was ordering the joint for Sunday. Piggy and Goosie had
poured the tale of Lucia’s comparative poverty into her ear, before
Georgie got to her. Here, however, it had a different reception, and
Georgie found himself the hero of the hour.

“An immense fortune. I call it an immense fortune,” said Mrs. Boucher,
emphatically, as Georgie approached. “Good morning, Mr. Georgie, I’ve
heard your news, and I hope Mrs. Lucas will use it well. Brompton
Square, too! I had an aunt who lived there once, my mother’s sister, you
understand, not my father’s, and she used to say that she would sooner
live in Brompton Square than in Buckingham Palace. What will they do
with it, do you suppose? It must be worth its weight in gold. What a
strange coincidence that Mr. Lucas’s aunt and mine should both have
lived there! Any more news?”

“Yes,” said Georgie. “Olga is coming down to-morrow----”

“Well, that’s a bit of news!” said Mrs. Boucher, as her husband came
out of the butcher’s shop. “Jacob, Olga’s coming down to-morrow, so Mr.
Georgie says. That’ll make you happy! You’re madly in love with Olga,
Jacob, so don’t deny it. You’re an old flirt, Jacob, that’s what you
are. I sha’n’t get much of your attention till Olga goes away again. I
should be ashamed at your age, I should. And young enough to be your
daughter or mine either. And three thousand a year, Mr. Georgie says. I
call it an immense fortune. That’s Mrs. Lucas, you know. I thought
perhaps two. I’m astounded. Why, when old Mrs. Toppington--not the wife
of the young Mr. Toppington who married the niece of the man who
invented laughing gas--but of his father, or perhaps his uncle, I can’t
be quite sure which, but when old Mr. Toppington died, he left his son
or nephew, whichever it was, a sum that brought him in just about that,
and he was considered a very rich man. He had the house just beyond the
church at Scroby Windham where my father was rector, and he built the
new wing with the billiard-room----”

Georgie knew he would never get through his morning’s work if he
listened to everything that Mrs. Boucher had to say about young Mr.
Toppington, and broke in.

“And she wants you and the colonel to lunch with her on Sunday,” he
said. “She told me to ask all her old friends.”

“Well, I do call that kind,” said Mrs. Boucher, “and of course we’ll
go.... Jacob, the joint. We sha’n’t want the joint. I was going to give
you a veal cutlet in the evening, so what’s the good of a joint? Just a
bit of steak for the servants, a nice piece. Well, that will be a treat,
to lunch with our dear Olga! Quite a party, I daresay.”

Mrs. Quantock’s chicken, already countermanded, came in nicely for
Georgie’s dinner for Olga on Saturday, and by the time all his errands
were done the morning was gone, without any practise at his piano, or
work in his garden, or single stitch in his new piece of embroidery.
Fresh amazements awaited him when he made his fatigued return to his
house. For Foljambe told him that Lucia, had sent her maid to borrow his
manual on Auction Bridge. He was too tired to puzzle over that now, but
it was strange that Lucia, who despised any form of cards as only fit
for those who had not the intelligence to talk or to listen, should have
done that. Cards came next to cross-word puzzles in Lucia’s index of
inanities. What did it mean?

Neither Lucia nor Pepino were seen in public at all till Sunday morning,
though Daisy Quantock had caught sight of Pepino on his arrival on
Friday afternoon, walking bowed with grief and with a faltering gait
through the little paved garden in front of The Hurst, to his door.
Lucia opened it for him, and they both shook their heads sadly and
passed inside. But it was believed that they never came out the whole of
Saturday, and their first appearance was at church on Sunday, though
indeed, Lucia could hardly be said to have appeared, so impenetrable was
her black veil. But that, so to speak, was the end of all mourning
(besides, everybody knew that she was dining with Olga that night), and
at the end of the service, she put up her veil, and held a sort of
little reception standing in the porch, and shaking hands with all her
friends as they went out. It was generally felt that this signified her
reëntry into Riseholme life.

Hardly less conspicuous a figure was Georgie. Though Robert had been so
sarcastic about his Oxford trousers, he had made up his mind to get it
over, and after church he walked twice round the green quite slowly and
talked to everybody, standing a little away so that they should get a
complete view. The odious Piggy, it is true, burst into a squeal of
laughter and cried, “Oh, Mr. Georgie, I see you’ve gone into long
frocks,” and her mother put up her ear-trumpet as she approached as if
to give a greater keenness to her general perceptions. But apart from
the jarring incident of Piggy, Georgie was pleased with his trousers’
reception. They were beautifully cut too, and fell in charming lines,
and the sensation they created was quite a respectful one. But it had
been an anxious morning, and he was pleased when it was over.

And such a talk he had had with Olga last night, when she dined alone
with him, and sat so long with her elbows on the table that Foljambe
looked in three times in order to clear away. Her own adventures, she
said, didn’t matter: she could tell Georgie about the American tour and
the Australian tour, and the coming season in London any time at
leisure. What she had to know about with the utmost detail was exactly
everything that had happened at Riseholme since she had left it a year
ago.

“Good heavens!” she said. “To think that I once thought that it was a
quiet back-watery place where I could rest and do nothing but study. But
it’s a whirl! There’s always something wildly exciting going on. Oh,
what fools people are not to take an interest in what they call little
things. Now go on about Lucia. It’s his aunt, isn’t it, and mad?”

“Yes, and Pepino’s been left her house in Brompton Square,” began
Georgie.

“No! That’s where I’ve taken a house for the season. What number?”

“Twenty-five,” said Georgie.

“Twenty-five?” said Olga. “Why, that’s just where the curve begins. And
a big----”

“Music-room built out at the back,” said Georgie.

“I’m almost exactly opposite. But mine’s a small one. Just room for my
husband and me, and one spare room. Go on quickly.”

“And about three thousand a year and some pearls,” said Georgie. “And
the house is full of beautiful furniture.”

“And will they sell it?”

“Nothing settled,” said Georgie.

“That means you think they won’t. Do you think that they’ll settle
altogether in London?”

“No, I don’t think that,” said Georgie very carefully.

“You are tactful. Lucia has told you all about it, but has also said
firmly that nothing’s settled. So I won’t pump you. And I met Colonel
Boucher on my way here. Why only one bull-dog?”

“Because the other always growled so frightfully at Mrs. Boucher. He
gave it away to his brother.”

“And Daisy Quantock? Is it still spiritualism?”

“No; that’s over, though I rather think it’s coming back. After that it
was sour milk, and now it’s raw vegetables. You’ll see to-morrow at
dinner. She brings them in a paper bag. Carrots and turnips and celery.
Raw. But perhaps she may not. Every now and then she eats like anybody
else.”

“And Piggy and Goosie?”

“Just the same. But Mrs. Antrobus has got a new ear-trumpet. But what I
want to know is, why did Lucia send across for my manual on Auction
Bridge? She thinks all card-games imbecile.”

“Oh, Georgie, that’s easy!” said Olga. “Why, of course, Brompton Square,
though nothing’s settled. Parties, you know, when she wants people who
like to play Bridge.”

Georgie became deeply thoughtful.

“It might be that,” he said. “But it would be tremendously thorough.”

“How else can you account for it? By the way, I’ve had a listening-in
put up at Old Place.”

“I know. I saw them at it yesterday. But don’t turn it on to-morrow
night. Lucia hates it. She only heard it once, and that time it was a
lecture on pyorrhœa. Now tell me about yourself. And shall we go into
the drawing-room? Foljambe’s getting restless.”

Olga allowed herself to be weaned from subjects so much more entrancing
to her, and told him of the huge success of the American tour, and spoke
of the eight weeks’ season which was to begin at Covent Garden in the
middle of May. But it all led back to Riseholme.

“I’m singing twice a week,” she said. “Brunnhilde and Lucrezia and
Salome. Oh, my dear, how I love it! But I shall come down here every
single week-end. To go back to Lucia: do you suppose she’ll settle in
London for the season? I believe that’s the idea. Fresh worlds to
conquer.”

Georgie was silent a moment.

“I think you may be right about the Auction Bridge,” he said at length.
“And that would account for Stravinski too.”

“What’s that?” said Olga greedily.

“Why, she played me a bit of Stravinski yesterday morning,” said
Georgie. “And before she never would listen to anything modern. It all
fits in.”

“Perfect,” said Olga.

       *       *       *       *       *

Georgie and the Quantocks walked up together the next evening to dine
with Olga, and Daisy was carrying a little paper parcel. But that proved
to be a disappointment, for it did not contain carrots, but only evening
shoes. Lucia and Pepino, as usual, were a little late, for it was
Lucia’s habit to arrive last at any party, as befitted the Queen of
Riseholme, and to make her gracious round of the guests. Everyone of
course was wondering if she would wear the pearls, but again there was a
disappointment, for her only ornaments were two black bangles, and the
brooch of entwined sausages of gold containing a lock of Beethoven’s
hair. (As a matter of fact Beethoven’s hair had fallen out some years
ago, and she had replaced it with a lock of Pepino’s which was the same
colour.... Pepino had never told anybody.) From the first it was evident
that though the habiliments of woe still decked her, she had cast off
the numb misery of the bereavement.

“So kind of you to invite us,” she said to Olga, “and so good,” she
added in a whisper, “for my poor Pepino. I’ve been telling him he must
face the world again and not mope. Daisy, dear! Sweet to see you, and
Mr. Robert. Georgie! Well, I do think this is a delicious little party.”

Pepino followed her: it was just like the arrival of Royal Personages,
and Olga had to stiffen her knees so as not to curtsey.

Having greeted those who had the honour to meet her, Lucia became
affable rather than gracious. Robert Quantock was between her and Olga
at dinner, but then at dinner, everybody left Robert alone, for if
disturbed over that function, he was apt to behave rather like a dog
with a bone and growl. But if left alone, he was in an extremely good
temper afterward.

“And you’re only here just for two days, Miss Olga,” she said, “at least
so Georgie tells me, and he usually knows your movements. And then
London, I suppose, and you’ll be busy rehearsing for the opera. I must
certainly manage to be in London for a week or two this year, and come
to ‘Siegried,’ and ‘The Valkyrie,’ in which, so I see in the papers,
you’re singing. Georgie, you must take me up to London when the opera
comes on. Or perhaps----”

She paused a moment.

“Pepino, shall I tell all our dear friends our little secret?” she said.
“If you say ‘no,’ I sha’n’t. But, please, Pepino----”

Pepino, however, had been instructed to say “yes,” and accordingly did
so.

“You see, dear Miss Olga,” said Lucia, “that a little property has come
to us through that grievous tragedy last week. A house has been left to
Pepino in Brompton Square, all furnished, and with a beautiful
music-room. So we’re thinking, as there is no immediate hurry about
selling it, of spending a few weeks there this season, very quietly of
course, but still perhaps entertaining a few friends. Then we shall have
time to look about us, and as the house is there, why not use it in the
interval? We shall go there at the end of the month.”

This little speech had been carefully prepared, for Lucia felt that if
she announced the full extent of their plan, Riseholme would suffer a
terrible blow. It must be broken to Riseholme by degrees: Riseholme must
first be told that they were to be up in town for a week or two, pending
the sale of the house. Subsequently Riseholme would hear that they were
not going to sell the house.

She looked round to see how this section of Riseholme took it. A chorus
of the emphatic “No” burst from Georgie, Mrs. Quantock, and Olga, who,
of course, had fully discussed this disclosure already; even Robert,
very busy with his dinner, said “No” and went on gobbling.

“So sweet of you all to say ‘No,’” said Lucia, who knew perfectly well
that the emphatic interjection meant only surprise, and the desire to
hear more, not the denial that such a thing was possible, “but there it
is. Pepino and I have talked it over--_non è vero, carissimo?_--and we
feel that there is a sort of call to us to go to London. Dearest Aunt
Amy, you know, and all her beautiful furniture! She never would have a
stick of it sold, and that seems to point to the fact that she expected
Pepino and me not to wholly desert the dear old family home. Aunt Amy
was born there, eighty-three years ago.”

“My dear! How it takes one back!” said Georgie.

“Doesn’t it?” said Olga.

Lucia had now, so to speak, developed her full horsepower. Pepino’s
presence stoked her, Robert was stoking himself and might be
disregarded, while Olga and Georgie were hanging on her words.

“But it isn’t the past only that we are thinking of,” she said, “but the
present and the future. Of course our spiritual home is here--like Lord
Haldane and Germany--and oh, how much we have learned at Riseholme, its
lovely seriousness and its gaiety, its culture, its absorption in all
that is worthy in art and literature, its old customs, its simplicity.”

“Yes,” said Olga. (She had meant long ago to tell Lucia that she had
taken a house in Brompton Square exactly opposite Lucia’s, but who could
interrupt the splendour that was pouring out on them?)

Lucia fumbled for a moment at the brooch containing Beethoven’s hair.
She had a feeling that the pin had come undone. “Dear Miss Olga,” she
said, “how good of you to take an interest, you with your great mission
of melody in the world, in our little affairs! I am encouraged. Well,
Pepino and I feel--don’t we, _sposo mio?_--that now that this
opportunity has come to us, of perhaps having a little salon in London,
we ought to take it. There are modern movements in the world we really
know nothing about. We want to educate ourselves. We want to know what
the cosmopolitan mind is thinking about. Of course we’re old, but it is
never too late to learn. How we shall treasure all we are lucky enough
to glean, and bring it back to our dear Riseholme.”

There was a slight and muffled thud on the ground, and Lucia’s fingers
went back where the brooch should have been.

“Georgino, my brooch, the Beethoven brooch,” she said; “it has fallen.”

Georgie stooped rather stiffly to pick it up: that work with the garden
roller had found out his lumbar muscles. Olga rose.

“Too thrilling, Mrs. Lucas!” she said. “You must tell me much more.
Shall we go? And how lovely for me: I have just taken a house in
Brompton Square for the season.”

“No!” said Lucia. “Which?”

“Oh, one of the little ones,” said Olga. “Just opposite yours. Forty-two
A.”

“Such dear little houses!” said Lucia. “I have a music-room. Always
yours to practise in.”

“Capital good dinner,” said Robert, who had not spoken for a long time.

Lucia put an arm round Daisy Quantock’s ample waist, and thus tactfully
avoided the question of precedence. Daisy, of course, was far, far the
elder, but then Lucia was Lucia.

“Delicious indeed,” she said. “Georgie, bring the Beethoven with you.”

“And don’t be long,” said Olga.

Georgie had no use for the society of his own sex unless they were
young, which made him feel young too, or much older than himself, which
had the same result. But Pepino had an unpleasant habit of saying to him
“When we come to our age” (which was an unreasonable assumption of
juvenility), and Robert of sipping port with the sound of many waters
for an indefinite period. So when Georgie had let Robert have two good
glasses, he broke up this symposium and trundled them away into the
drawing-room, only pausing to snatch up his embroidery tambour, on which
he was working at what had been originally intended for a bedspread, but
was getting so lovely that he now thought of putting it when finished on
the top of his piano. He noticed that Lucia had brought a portfolio of
music, and peeping inside saw the morsel of Stravinski....

And then, as he came within range of the conversation of the ladies, he
nearly fell down from sheer shock.

“Oh, but I adore it,” Lucia was saying. “One of the most marvellous
inventions of modern times. Were we not saying so last night, Pepino?
And Miss Olga is telling me that everyone in London has a listening-in
apparatus. Pray turn it on, Miss Olga; it will be a treat to hear it!
Ah, the Beethoven brooch: thank you, Georgie--_mille grazie_.”

Olga turned a handle or a screw or something, and there was a short
pause: the next item presumably had already been announced. And then,
wonder of wonders, there came from the trumpet the first bars of the
Moonlight Sonata.

Now the Moonlight Sonata (especially the first movement of it) had an
almost sacred significance in Riseholme. It was Lucia’s tune, much as
God Save the King is the King’s tune. Whatever musical entertainment had
been going on, it was certain that if Lucia was present she would sooner
or later be easily induced to play the first movement of the Moonlight
Sonata. Astonished as everybody already was at her not only
countenancing but even allowing this mechanism, so lately abhorred by
her, to be set to work at all, it was infinitely more amazing that she
should permit it to play Her tune. But there she was composing her face
to her well-known Beethoven expression, leaning a little forward, with
her chin in her hand, and her eyes wearing the far-away look from which
the last chord would recall her. At the end of the first movement
everybody gave the little sigh which was its due, and the wistful
sadness faded from their faces, and Lucia, with a gesture, hushing all
attempt at comment or applause, gave a gay little smile to show she knew
what was coming next. The smile broadened, as the Scherzo began, into a
little ripple of laughter, the hand which had supported her chin once
more sought the Beethoven brooch, and she sat eager and joyful and
alert, sometimes just shaking her head in wordless criticism, and once
saying “Tut-tut” when the clarity of a run did not come up to her
standard, till the sonata was finished.

“A treat,” she said at the end, “really most enjoyable. That dear old
tune! I thought the first movement was a little hurried: Cortot, I
remember, took it a little more slowly, and a little more _legato_, but
it was very creditably played.”

Olga at the machine, was out of sight of Lucia, and during the
performance Georgie noticed that she had glanced at the Sunday paper.
And now when Lucia referred to Cortot, she hurriedly chucked it into a
window-seat and changed the subject.

“I ought to have stopped it,” she said, “because we needn’t go to the
wireless to hear that. Do show us what you mean, Mrs. Lucas, about the
first movement.”

Lucia glided to the piano.

“Just a bar or two, shall I?” she said.

Everybody gave a sympathetic murmur, and they had the first movement
over again.

“Only just my impression of how Cortot plays it,” she said. “It
coincides with my own view of it.”

“Don’t move,” said Olga, and everybody murmured “Don’t,” or “Please.”
Robert said “Please” long after the others, because he was drowsy. But
he wanted more music, because he wished to doze a little and not to
talk.

“How you all work me!” said Lucia, running her hands up and down the
piano with a butterfly touch. “London will be quite a rest after
Riseholme. Pepino mio, my portfolio on the top of my cloak; would
you?... Pepino insisted on my bringing some music: he would not let me
start without it.” (This was a piece of picturesqueness during Pepino’s
absence: it would have been more accurate to say he was sent back for
it, but less picturesque.) “Thank you, _carissimo_. A little morsel of
Stravinski; Miss Olga, I am sure, knows it by heart, and I am terrified.
Georgie, would you turn over?”

The morsel of Stravinski had improved immensely since Friday: it was
still very odd, very modern, but not nearly so odd as when, a few days
ago, Lucia had failed to observe the change of key. But it was strange
to the true Riseholmite to hear the arch-priestess of Beethoven and the
foe of all modern music, which she used to account sheer Bolshevism,
producing these scrannel staccato tinklings that had so often made her
wince. And yet it all fitted in with her approbation of the wireless and
her borrowing of Georgie’s manual on Auction Bridge. It was not the
morsel of Stravinski alone that Lucia was practising (the performance
though really improved might still be called practice): it was modern
life, modern ideas on which she was engaged preparatory to her descent
on London. Though still in harbour at Riseholme, so to speak, it was
generally felt that Lucia had cast off her cable, and was preparing to
put to sea.

“Very pretty: I call that very pretty. Honk!” said Robert when the
morsel was finished, “I call that music.”

“Dear Mr. Robert, how sweet of you,” said Lucia, wheeling round on the
music-stool. “Now positively, I will not touch another note. But may we,
might we, have another little tune on your wonderful wireless, Miss
Olga! Such a treat! I shall certainly have one installed at Brompton
Square, and listen to it while Pepino is doing his cross-word puzzles.
Pepino can think of nothing else now but Auction Bridge and cross-word
puzzles, and interrupts me in the middle of my practice to ask for an
Athenian sculptor whose name begins with P and is of ten letters.”

“Ah, I’ve got it,” said Pepino, “Praxiteles.”

Lucia clapped her hands.

“Bravo,” she said. “We shall not sit up till morning again.”

There was a splendour in the ruthlessness with which Lucia bowled over,
like ninepins, every article of her own Riseholme creed, which saw
Bolshevism in all modern art, inanity in crossword puzzles and Bridge,
and aimless vacuity in London.... Immediately after the fresh tune on
the wireless began, and most unfortunately, they came in for the Funeral
March of a Marionette. A spasm of pain crossed Lucia’s face, and Olga
abruptly turned off this sad reminder of unavailing woe.

“Go on: I like that tune!” said the drowsy and thoughtless Robert, and a
hurried buzz of conversation covered this melancholy coincidence.

It was already late, and Lucia rose to go.

“Delicious evening!” she said. “And lovely to think that we shall so
soon be neighbours in London as well. My music-room always at your
disposal. Are you coming, Georgie?”

“Not this minute,” said Georgie firmly.

Lucia was not quite accustomed to this, for Georgie usually left any
party when she left. She put her head in the air as she swept by him,
but then relented again.

“Dine to-morrow, then? We won’t have any music after this feast
to-night,” said she forgetting that the feast had been almost completely
of her own providing. “But perhaps little game of cut-throat, you and
Pepino and me.”

“Delightful,” said Georgie.

       *       *       *       *       *

Olga hurried back after seeing off her other guests.

“Oh, Georgie, what richness,” she said. “By the way, of course it _was_
Cortot who was playing the Moonlight faster than Cortot plays it.”

Georgie put down his tambour.

“I thought it probably would be,” he said. “That’s the kind of thing
that happens to Lucia. And now we know where we are. She’s going to make
a circle in London and be its centre. Too thrilling! It’s all as clear
as it can be. All we don’t know about yet is the pearls.”

“I doubt the pearls,” said Olga.

“No, I think there are pearls,” said Georgie, after a moment’s intense
concentration. “Otherwise she wouldn’t have told me they appeared in the
Sargent portrait of the aunt.”

Olga suddenly gave a wild hoot of laughter.

“Oh, why does one ever spend a single hour away from Riseholme?” she
said.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” said Georgie. “But you go off to-morrow?”

“Yes, to Paris. My excuse is to meet my Georgie----”

“Here he is,” said Georgie.

“Yes, bless him. But the one who happens to be my husband. Georgie, I
think I’m going to change my name and become what I really am, Mrs.
George Shuttleworth. Why should singers and actresses call themselves
Madame Macaroni or Signora Semolina? Yes, that’s my excuse, as I said
when you interrupted me, and my reason is gowns. I’m going to have lots
of new gowns.”

“Tell me about them,” said Georgie. He loved hearing about dress.

“I don’t know about them yet; I’m going to Paris to find out. Georgie,
you’ll have to come and stay with me when I’m settled in London. And
when I go to practise in Lucia’s music-room you shall play my
accompaniments. And shall I be shingled?”

Georgie’s face was suddenly immersed in concentration.

“I wouldn’t mind betting----” he began.

Olga again shouted with laughter.

“If you’ll give me three to one that I don’t know what you were going to
say, I’ll take it,” she said.

“But you can’t know,” said Georgie.

“Yes I do. You wouldn’t mind betting that Lucia will be shingled.”

“Well, you are quick,” said Georgie admiringly.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was known, of course, next morning, that Lucia and Pepino were
intending to spend a few weeks in London before selling the house, and
who knew what _that_ was going to mean? Already it was time to begin
rehearsing for the next May Day revels, and Foljambe, that paragon of
all parlour-maids, had been overhauling Georgie’s jerkin and hose and
dainty little hunting boots with turn-down flaps in order to be ready.
But when Georgie, dining at The Hurst next evening, said something about
May Day revels (Lucia, of course, would be Queen again) as they played
Cut-throat with the Manual on Auction Bridge handy for the settlement of
such small disputes as might arise over the value of the different
suits, she only said:

“Those dear old customs! So quaint! And fifty to me above, Pepino, or is
it a hundred? I will turn it up while you deal, Georgie!”

This complete apathy of Lucia to May Day revels indicated one of two
things, that either mourning would prevent her being Queen, or absence.
In consequence of which Georgie had his jerkin folded up again and put
away, for he was determined that nobody except Lucia should drive him
out to partake in such a day of purgatory as had been his last year....
Still, there was nothing conclusive about that: it might be mourning.
But the evidence accumulated that Lucia meant to make a pretty solid
stay in London, for she certainly had some cards printed at “Ye Signe of
Ye Daffodille” on the Village Green where Pepino’s poems were on sale,
with the inscription

                      _Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas
                request the pleasure of the company of_
                            ...............

               _at_ ............... _on_ ...............

                  25 Brompton Square.       R.S.V.P.

Daisy Quantock had found that out, for she saw the engraved copper-plate
lying on the counter, and while the shopman’s back was turned, had very
cleverly read it, though it was printed the wrong way round, and was
very confusing. Still she managed to do so, and the purport was plain
enough: that Lucia contemplated formally asking somebody to something
some time at 25 Brompton Square. “And would she,” demanded Daisy, with
bitter irony, “have had cards printed like that, if they were only
meaning to go up for a week or two?” And if that was not enough Georgie
saw a postcard on Lucia’s writing table “From Mrs. Philip Lucas, 25
Brompton Square, S.W.3,” plainly printed on the top.

It was getting very clear then (and during this week Riseholme naturally
thought of nothing else) that Lucia designed a longer residence in the
garish metropolis than she had admitted. Since she chose to give no
information on the subject, mere pride and scorn of vulgar curiosity
forebade anyone to ask her, though of course it was quite proper (indeed
a matter of duty) to probe the matter to the bottom by every other means
in your power, and as these bits of evidence pieced themselves together,
Riseholme began to take a very gloomy view of Lucia’s real nature. On
the whole it was felt that Mrs. Boucher, when she paused in her
bath-chair as it was being wheeled round the green, nodding her head
very emphatically, and bawling into Mrs. Antrobus’s ear-trumpet,
reflected public opinion.

“She’s deserting Riseholme and all her friends,” said Mrs. Boucher,
“that’s what she’s doing. She means to cut a dash in London, and lead
London by the nose. There’ll be fashionable parties, you’ll see,
there’ll be paragraphs, and then when the season’s over she’ll come back
and swagger about them. For my part I shall take no interest in them.
Perhaps she’ll bring down some of her smart friends for a Saturday till
Monday. There’ll be Dukes and Duchesses at The Hurst. That’s what she’s
meaning to do, I tell you, and I don’t care who hears it.”

That was lucky, as anyone within the radius of a quarter of a mile could
have heard it.

“Well, never mind, my dear,” said Colonel Boucher, who was pushing his
wife’s chair.

“Mind? I should hope not, Jacob,” said Mrs. Boucher. “And now let us go
home, or we’ll be late for lunch and that would never do, for I expect
the Prince of Wales and the Lord Chancellor, and we’ll play Bridge and
cross-word puzzles all afternoon.”

Such fury and withering sarcasm, though possibly excessive, had, it was
felt, a certain justification, for had not Lucia for years given little
indulgent smiles when anyone referred to the cheap delights and restless
apish chatterings of London? She had always come back from her visits to
that truly provincial place which thought itself a centre, wearied with
its false and foolish activity, its veneer of culture, its
pseudo-Athenian rage for any new thing. They were all busy enough at
Riseholme, but busy over worthy objects, over Beethoven and Shakespeare,
over high thinking, over study of the true masterpieces. And now, the
moment that Aunt Amy’s death gave her and Pepino the means to live in
the fiddling little ant-hill by the Thames they were turning their backs
on all that hitherto had made existence so splendid and serious a
reality, and were training, positively training for frivolity by
exercises in Stravinski, Auction Bridge, and cross-word puzzles. Only
the day before the fatal influx of fortune had come to them, Lucia,
dropping in on Colonel and Mrs. Boucher about tea-time, had found them
very cosily puzzling out a Children’s Cross-word in the evening paper,
having given up the adult conundrum as too difficult, had pretended that
even this was far beyond her poor wits, and had gone home the moment she
had swallowed her tea in order to finish a canto of Dante’s
Purgatorio.... And it was no use Lucia’s saying that they intended only
to spend a week or two in Brompton Square before the house was sold:
Daisy’s quickness and cleverness about the copper-plate at “Ye Signe of
Ye Daffodille” had made short work of that. Lucia was evidently the prey
of a guilty conscience too: she meant, so Mrs. Boucher was firmly
convinced, to steal away, leaving the impression she was soon coming
back.

Vigorous reflections like these came in fits and spurts from Mrs.
Boucher as her husband wheeled her home for lunch.

“And as for the pearls, Jacob,” she said, as she got out, hot with
indignation, “if you asked me, actually asked me what I think about the
pearls, I should have to tell you that I don’t believe in the pearls.
There may be half a dozen seed pearls in an old pill-box: I don’t say
there are not, but that’s all the pearls we shall see. Pearls!”




CHAPTER III


Georgie had only just come down to breakfast and had not yet opened his
_Times_, one morning at the end of this hectic week, when the telephone
bell rang. Lucia had not been seen at all the day before and he had a
distinct premonition, though he had not time to write it down, that this
was she. It was: and her voice sounded very brisk and playful.

“Is that Georgino?” she said. “Zat oo, Georgie?”

Georgie had another premonition, stronger than the first.

“Yes, it’s me,” he said.

“Georgie, is oo coming round to say Ta-ta to poor Lucia and Pepino?” she
said.

(“I knew it,” thought Georgie.)

“What, are you going away?” he asked.

“Yes, I told you the other night,” said Lucia in a great hurry, “when
you were doing cross-words, you and Pepino. Sure I did. Perhaps you
weren’t attending. But----”

“No, you never told me,” said Georgie firmly.

“How cwoss oo sounds. But come round, Georgie, about eleven and have
’ickle chat. We’re going to be very stravvy and motor up, and perhaps
keep the motor for a day or two.”

“And when are you coming back?” asked Georgie.

“Not quite settled,” said Lucia brightly. “There’s a lot of bizz-bizz
for poor Pepino. Can’t quite tell how long it will take. Eleven, then?”

Georgie had hardly replaced the receiver when there came a series of
bangs and rings at his front door, and Foljambe coming from the kitchen
with his dish of bacon in one hand, turned to open it. It was only de
Vere with a copy of the _Times_ in her hand.

“With Mrs. Quantock’s compliments,” said de Vere, “and would Mr. Pillson
look at the paragraph she has marked, and send it back? Mrs. Quantock
will see him whenever he comes round.”

“That all?” said Foljambe rather crossly. “What did you want to knock
the house down for then?”

De Vere vouchsafed no reply, but turned slowly in her high-heeled shoes
and regarded the prospect.

Georgie also had come into the hall at this battering summons, and
Foljambe gave him the paper. There were a large blue pencil mark and
several notes of exclamation opposite a short paragraph.

“Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas will arrive to-day from The Hurst, Riseholme,
at 25 Brompton Square.”

“No!” said Georgie. “Tell Mrs. Quantock I’ll look in after breakfast,”
and he hurried back, and opened his copy of the _Times_ to see if it
were the same there. It was: there was no misprint, nor could any other
interpretation be attached to it. Though he knew the fact already, print
seemed to bring it home. Print also disclosed the further fact that
Lucia must have settled everything at least before the morning post
yesterday, or this paragraph could never have appeared to-day. He
gobbled up his breakfast, burning his tongue terribly with his tea....

“It isn’t only deception,” said Daisy the moment he appeared without
even greeting him, “for that we knew already, but it’s funk as well. She
didn’t dare tell us.”

“She’s going to motor up,” said Georgie, “starting soon after eleven.
She’s just asked me to come and say good-bye.”

“That’s more deception then,” said Daisy, “for naturally, having read
that, we should have imagined she was going up by the afternoon train,
and gone round to say good-bye after lunch, and found her gone. If I
were you, I shouldn’t dream of going to say good-bye to her after this.
She’s shaking the dust of Riseholme off her London shoes.... But we’ll
have no May-Day revels if I’ve got anything to do with it.”

“Nor me,” said Georgie. “But it’s no use being cross with her. Besides,
it’s so terribly interesting. I shouldn’t wonder if she was writing some
invitations on the cards you saw----”

“No, I never saw the cards,” said Daisy, scrupulously. “Only the plate.”

“It’s the same thing. She may be writing invitations now, to post in
London.”

“Go a little before eleven then, and see,” said Daisy. “Even if she’s
not writing them then, there’ll be envelopes lying about perhaps.”

“Come too,” said Georgie.

“Certainly not,” said Daisy. “If Lucia doesn’t choose to tell me she’s
going away, the only dignified thing to do is to behave as if I knew
nothing whatever about it. I’m sure I hope she’ll have a very pleasant
drive. That’s all I can say about it; I take no further interest in her
movements. Besides, I’m very busy: I’ve got to finish weeding my garden,
for I’ve not been able to touch it these last days, and then my
Planchette arrived this morning. And a Ouija board.”

“What’s that?” said Georgie.

“A sort of Planchette, but much more--much more powerful. Only it takes
longer, as it points at letters instead of writing,” said Daisy. “I
shall begin with Planchette and take it up seriously, because I know I’m
very psychic, and there’ll be a little time for it now that we sha’n’t
be trapesing round all day in ruffs and stomachers over those May-Day
revels. Perhaps there’ll be May-Day revels in Brompton Square for a
change. I shouldn’t wonder: nothing would surprise me about Lucia now.
And it’s my opinion we shall get on very well without her.”

Georgie felt he must stick up for her: she was catching it so
frightfully hot all round.

“After all, it isn’t criminal to spend a few weeks in London,” he
observed.

“Whoever said it was?” said Daisy. “I’m all for everybody doing exactly
as they like. I just shrug my shoulders.”

She heaved up her round little shoulders with an effort.

“Georgie, how do you think she’ll begin up there?” she said. “There’s
that cousin of hers with whom she stayed sometimes, Aggie Sandeman, and
then, of course, there’s Olga Bracely. Will she just pick up
acquaintances, and pick up more from them, like one of those charity
snowballs? Will she be presented? Not that I take the slightest interest
in it.”

Georgie looked at his watch and rose.

“I do,” he said. “I’m thrilled about it. I expect she’ll manage. After
all, we none of us wanted to have May-Day revels last year but she got
us to. She’s got drive.”

“I should call it push,” said Daisy. “Come back and tell me exactly
what’s happened.”

“Any message?” asked Georgie.

“Certainly not,” said Daisy again, and began untying the string of the
parcel that held the instruments of divination.

Georgie went quickly down the road (for he saw Lucia’s motor already at
the door) and up the paved walk that led past the sundial, round which
was the circular flower-border known as Perdita’s border, for it
contained only the flowers that Perdita gathered. To-day it was all
a-bloom with daffodils and violets and primroses, and it was strange to
think that Lucia would not go gassing on about Perdita’s border, as she
always did at this time of the year, but would have to be content with
whatever flowers there happened to be in Brompton Square: a few sooty
crocuses perhaps and a periwinkle.... She was waiting for him, kissed
her hand through the window, and opened the door.

“Now for a little chat,” she said, adjusting a very smart hat, which
Georgie was sure he had never seen before. There was no trace of
mourning about it: it looked in the highest spirits. So, too, did Lucia.

“Sit down, Georgie,” she said, “and cheer me up. Poor Lucia feels ever
so sad at going away.”

“It is rather sudden,” he said. “Nobody dreamed you were off to-day, at
least until they saw the _Times_ this morning.”

Lucia gave a little sigh.

“I know,” she said, “but Pepino thought that was the best plan. He said
that if Riseholme knew when I was going, you’d all have had little
dinners and lunches for us, and I should have been completely worn out
with your kindness and hospitality. And there was so much to do, and we
weren’t feeling much like gaiety. Seen anybody this morning? Any news?”

“I saw Daisy,” said Georgie.

“And told her?”

“No, it was she who saw it in the _Times_ first, and sent it round to
me,” said Georgie. “She’s got a Ouija board, by the way. It came this
morning.”

“That’s nice,” said Lucia. “I shall think of Riseholme as being ever so
busy. And everybody must come up and stay with me, and you first of all.
When will you be able to come?”

“Whenever you ask me,” said Georgie.

“Then you must give me a day or two to settle down, and I’ll write to
you. You’ll be popping across though every moment of the day to see
Olga.”

“She’s in Paris,” said Georgie.

“No! What a disappointment! I had already written her a card, asking her
to dine with us the day after to-morrow, which I was taking up to London
to post there.”

“She may be back by then,” said Georgie.

Lucia rose and went to her writing table, on which, as Georgie was
thrilled to observe, was a whole pile of stamped and directed envelopes.

“I think I won’t chance it,” said Lucia, “for I had enclosed another
card for Signor Cortese which I wanted her to forward, asking him for
the same night. He composed ‘Lucrezia’ you know, which I see is coming
out in London in the first week of the Opera Season, with her, of
course, in the name-part. But it will be safer to ask them when I know
she is back.”

Georgie longed to know to whom all the other invitations were addressed.
He saw that the top one was directed to an M.P., and guessed that it was
for the member for the Riseholme district, who had lunched at The Hurst
during the last election.

“And what are you going to do to-night?” he asked.

“Dining with dear Aggie Sandeman. I threw myself on her mercy, for the
servants won’t have settled in, and I hoped we should have just a little
quiet evening with her. But it seems that she’s got a large dinner-party
on. Not what I should have chosen, but there’s no help for it now. Oh,
Georgie, to think of you in dear old quiet Riseholme and poor Pepino and
me gabbling and gobbling at a huge dinner-party.”

She looked wistfully round the room.

“Good-bye, dear music-room,” she said, kissing her hand in all
directions. “How glad I shall be to get back! Oh, Georgie, your Manual
on Auction Bridge got packed by mistake. So sorry. I’ll send it back.
Come in and play the piano sometimes, and then it won’t feel lonely. We
must be off, or Pepino will get fussing. Say good-bye to everyone for
us, and explain. And Perdita’s border! Will sweet Perdita forgive me
for leaving all her lovely flowers and running away to London? After
all, Georgie, Shakespeare wrote ‘The Winter’s Tale’ in London, did he
not? Lovely daffies! And violets dim. Let me give you ’ickle violet,
Georgie, to remind you of poor Lucia tramping about in long unlovely
streets, as Tennyson said.”

Lucia, so Georgie felt, wanted no more comments or questions about her
departure, and went on drivelling like this till she was safely in the
motor. She had expected Pepino to be waiting for her and beginning to
fuss, but so far from his fussing he was not there at all. So she got in
a fuss instead.

“Georgino, will you run back and shout for Pepino?” she said. “We shall
be so late, and tell him that I am sitting in the motor waiting. Ah,
there he is! Pepino, where have you been? Do get in and let us start,
for there are Piggy and Goosie running across the green, and we shall
never get off if we have to begin kissing everybody. Give them my love,
Georgie, and say how sorry we were just to miss them. Shut the door
quickly, Pepino, and tell him to drive on.”

The motor purred and started. Lucia was gone. “She had a bad conscience
too,” thought Georgie, as Piggy and Goosie gambolled up rather out of
breath with pretty playful cries, “and I’m sure I don’t wonder.”

The news that she had gone of course now spread rapidly, and by lunch
time Riseholme had made up its mind what to do, and that was
hermetically to close its lips for ever on the subject of Lucia. You
might think what you pleased, for it was a free country, but silence was
best. But this counsel of perfection was not easy to practise next day
when the evening paper came. There, for all the world to read were two
quite long paragraphs, in “Five o’clock Chit-Chat,” over the renowned
signature of Hermione, entirely about Lucia and 25 Brompton Square, and
there for all the world to see was the reproduction of one of her most
elegant photographs, in which she gazed dreamily outward and a little
upward, with her fingers still pressed on the last chord of (probably)
the Moonlight Sonata.... She had come up, so Hermione told countless
readers, from her Elizabethan country seat at Riseholme (where she was a
neighbour of Miss Olga Bracely) and was settling for the season in the
beautiful little house in Brompton Square, which was the freehold
property of her husband, and had just come to him on the death of his
aunt. It was a veritable treasure house of exquisite furniture, with a
charming music-room where Lucia had given Hermione a cup of tea from her
marvellous Worcester tea service.... (At this point Daisy, whose hands
were trembling with passion, exclaimed in a loud and injured voice, “The
very day she arrived!”) Mrs. Lucas (one of the Warwickshire Smythes by
birth) was, as all the world knew, a most accomplished musician and
Shakespearean scholar, and had made Riseholme a centre of culture and
art. But nobody would suspect the blue stocking in the brilliant,
beautiful and witty hostess whose presence would lend an added gaiety to
the London season.

Daisy was beginning to feel physically unwell. She hurried over the few
remaining lines, and then ejaculating “Witty! Beautiful!” sent de Vere
across to Georgie’s with the paper, bidding him to return it, as she
hadn’t finished with it. But she thought he ought to know.... Georgie
read it through, and with admirable self restraint, sent Foljambe back
with it and a message of thanks--nothing more--to Mrs. Quantock for the
loan of it. Daisy, by this time feeling better, memorized the whole of
it.

Life under the new conditions was not easy, for a mere glance at the
paper might send any true Riseholmite into a paroxysm of chattering rage
or a deep disgusted melancholy. The _Times_ again recorded the fact
that Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas had arrived at 25 Brompton Square, there
was another terrible paragraph headed “Dinner,” stating that Mrs.
Sandeman entertained the following to dinner. There were an Ambassador,
a Marquis, a Countess (dowager), two Viscounts with wives, a Baronet, a
quantity of Honourables and Knights, and Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas.
Every single person except Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas had a title. The
list was too much for Mrs. Boucher, who, reading it at breakfast,
suddenly exclaimed:

“I didn’t think it of them. And it’s a poor consolation to know that
they must have gone in last.”

Then she hermetically sealed her lips again on this painful subject, and
when she had finished her breakfast (her appetite had quite gone) she
looked up every member of that degrading party in Colonel Boucher’s
“Who’s Who.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The announcement that Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas had arrived at 25
Brompton Square was repeated once more, in case anybody had missed it
(Riseholme had not), and Robert Quantock observed that at this rate the
three thousand pounds a year would soon be gone, with nothing to show
for it except a few press-cuttings. That was very clever and very
withering, but anyone could be withering over such a subject. It roused,
it is true, a faint and unexpressed hope that the arrival of Lucia in
London had not spontaneously produced the desired effect, or why should
she cause it to be repeated so often? But that brought no real comfort,
and a few days afterward, there fell a further staggering blow. There
was a Court, and Mrs. Agnes Sandeman presented Mrs. Philip Lucas. Worse
yet, her gown was minutely described, and her ornaments were diamonds
and pearls.

The vow of silence could no longer be observed: human nature was human
nature, and Riseholme would have burst unless it had spoken. Georgie
sitting in his little back parlour overlooking the garden, and lost in
exasperated meditation, was roused by his name being loudly called from
Daisy’s garden next door, and looking out, saw the unprecedented sight
of Mrs. Boucher’s bath-chair planted on Daisy’s lawn.

“She must have come in along the gravel path by the back door,” he
thought to himself. “I shouldn’t have thought it was wide enough.” He
looked to see if his tie was straight, and then leaned out to answer.

“Georgie, come round a minute,” called Daisy. “Have you seen it?”

“Yes,” said Georgie, “I have. And I’ll come.”

Mrs. Boucher was talking in her loud emphatic voice, when he arrived.

“As for pearls,” she said, “I can’t say anything about them, not having
seen them. But as for diamonds, the only diamonds she ever had was two
or three little chips on the back of her wrist-watch. That I’ll swear
to.”

The two ladies took no notice of him: Daisy referred to the description
of Lucia’s dress again.

“I believe it was her last dinner-gown with a train added,” she said.
“It was a sort of brocade.”

“Yes, and plush is a sort of velvet,” said Mrs. Boucher. “I’ve a good
mind to write to the _Times_, and say they’re mistaken. Brocade! Bunkum!
It’s pushing and shoving instead of diamonds and pearls. But I’ve had my
say, and that’s all. I shouldn’t a bit wonder if we saw the King and
Queen had gone to lunch quite quietly at Brompton Square.”

“That’s all very well,” said Daisy, “but what are we to do?”

“Do?” said Mrs. Boucher. “There’s plenty to do in Riseholme, isn’t
there? I’m sure I never suffered from lack of employment, and I should
be sorry to think that I had less interests now than I had before last
Wednesday week. Wednesday, or was it Thursday, when they slipped away
like that? Whichever it was, it makes no difference to me, and if you’re
both disengaged this evening, you and Mr. Georgie, the Colonel and I
would be very glad if you would come and take your bit of dinner with
us. And Mr. Quantock too, of course. But as for diamonds and pearls,
well, let’s leave that alone. I shall wear my emerald tiara to-night and
my ruby necklace. My sapphires have gone to be cleaned.”

But though Riseholme was justifiably incensed over Lucia’s worldliness
and all this pushing and shoving and this self-advertising publicity, it
had seldom been so wildly interested. Also, after the first pangs of
shame had lost their fierceness, a very different sort of emotion began
to soothe the wounded hearts: it was possible to see Lucia in another
light. She had stepped straight from the sheltered and cultured life of
Riseholme into the great busy feverish world, and already she was making
her splendid mark there. Though it might have been she who had told
Hermione what to say in those fashionable paragraphs of hers (and those
who knew Lucia best were surely best competent to form just conclusions
about that) still Hermione had said it, and the public now knew how
witty and beautiful Lucia was, and what a wonderful house she had. Then
on the very night of her arrival she had been a guest at an obviously
superb dinner-party, and had since been presented at Court. All this, to
look at it fairly, reflected glory on Riseholme, and if it was
impossible in one mood not to be ashamed of her, it was even more
impossible in other moods not to be proud of her. She had come, and
almost before she had seen, she was conquering. She could be viewed as a
sort of ambassadress, and her conquests in that light were Riseholme’s
conquests. But pride did not oust shame, nor shame pride, and
shuddering anticipations as to what new enormity the daily papers might
reveal were mingled with secret and delighted conjectures as to what
Riseholme’s next triumph would be.

It was not till the day after her presentation that any news came to
Riseholme direct from the ambassadress’s headquarters. Every day Georgie
had been expecting to hear, and in anticipation of her summons to come
up and stay in the bedroom with the bathroom and sitting-room attached,
had been carefully through his wardrobe, and was satisfied that he would
present a creditable appearance. His small portmanteau, Foljambe
declared, would be ample to hold all that he wanted, including the suit
with the Oxford trousers, and his cloth-topped boots. When the long
expected letter came, he therefore felt prepared to start that very
afternoon, and tore it open with the most eager haste and propped it
against his teapot.

     GEORGINO MIO,

     Such a whirl ever since we left, that I haven’t had a moment. But
     to-night (Oh such a relief) Pepino and I have dined alone, quite à
     la Riseholme, and for the first time I have had half an hour’s
     quiet practice in my music-room, and now sit down to write to you.
     (You’d have scolded me if you’d heard me play, so stiff and rusty
     have I become.)

     Well, now for my little chronicles. The very first evening we were
     here, we went out to a big dinner at dearest Aggie’s. Some
     interesting people: I enjoyed a pleasant talk with the Italian
     Ambassador, and called on them the day after, but I had no long
     conversation with anyone, for Aggie kept bringing up fresh people
     to introduce me to, and your poor Lucia got quite confused with so
     many, till Pepino and I sorted them out afterward. Everyone seemed
     to have heard of our coming up to town, and I assure you that ever
     since the tiresome telephone has been a perfect nuisance, though
     all so kind. Would we go to lunch one day, or would we go to dinner
     another, and there was a private view here, and a little music in
     the afternoon there: I assure you I have never been so petted and
     made so much of.

     We have done a little entertaining too, already, just a few old
     friends like our member of Parliament, Mr. Garroby-Ashton. (“She
     met him once,” thought Georgie in parenthesis.) He insisted also
     on our going to tea with him at the House of Commons. I knew that
     would interest Pepino, for he’s becoming quite a politician, and so
     we went. Tea on the terrace, and a pleasant little chat with the
     Prime Minister who came and sat at our table for ever so long. How
     I wanted you to be there and make a sketch of the Thames; just the
     sort of view you do so beautifully! Wonderful river, and I repeated
     to myself “Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.” Then such
     a scurry to get back to dine somewhere or other and go to a play.
     Then dearest Aggie (such a good soul) had set her heart on
     presenting me and I couldn’t disappoint her. Did you see the
     description of my dress? How annoyed I was that it appeared in the
     papers! So vulgar all that sort of thing, and you know how I hate
     publicity, but they tell me I must just put up with it and not
     mind.

     The house is getting into order, but there are lots of little
     changes and furbishings up to be done before I venture to show it
     to anyone as critical as you, Georgino. How you would scream at the
     carpet in the dining-room! I know it would give you indigestion.
     But when I get the house straight, I shall insist on your coming,
     whatever your engagements are, and staying a long, long time. We
     will fix a date when I come down for some week-end.

     Your beloved Olga is back, but I haven’t seen her yet. I asked
     Signor Cortese to dine and meet her one night, and I asked her to
     meet him. I thought that would make a pleasant little party, but
     they were both engaged. I hope they have not quarrelled. Her house,
     just opposite mine, looks very tiny, but I daresay it is quite
     large enough for her and her husband. She sings at the opening
     night of the Opera next week, in “Lucrezia.” I must manage to go
     even if I can only look in for an act or two. Pepino (so
     extravagant of him) has taken a box for two nights in the week. It
     is his birthday present to me, so I couldn’t scold the dear! And
     after all, we shall give a great deal of pleasure to friends, by
     letting them have it when we do not want it ourselves.

     Love to everybody at dear Riseholme. I feel quite like an exile,
     and sometimes I long for its sweet peace and quietness. But there
     is no doubt that London suits Pepino very well, and I must make the
     best of this incessant hustle. I had hoped to get down for next
     Sunday, but Mrs. Garroby-Ashton (I hear he will certainly be raised
     to the peerage when the birthday honours come out) has made a point
     of our spending it with them.... Good-night, dear Georgino. Me so
     so sleepy.

                                                                 LUCIA.

Georgie swallowed this letter at a gulp, and then, beginning again, took
it in sips. At first it gave him an impression of someone wholly unlike
her, but when sipped, every sentence seemed wonderfully characteristic.
She was not adapting herself to new circumstances, she was adapting new
circumstances to herself with all her old ingenuity and success, and
with all her invincible energy. True, you had sometimes to read between
the lines, and divide everything by about three in order to allow for
exaggerations, and when Lucia spoke of not disappointing dearest Aggie,
who had set her heart on presenting her at Court, or of Mrs.
Garroby-Ashton making a point of her going down for the week-end which
she had intended to spend at Riseholme, Georgie only had to remember how
she had been forced (so she said) to be Queen at those May Day revels.
By sheer power of will she had made each of them become a Robin Hood or
a Maid Marian, or whatever it was, and then, when she had got them all
at work she said it was she who was being worked to death over _their_
May Day revels. They had forced her to organize them, they had insisted
that she should be Queen, and lead the dances and sing louder than
anybody, and be crowned and curtsied to. They had been wax in her hands,
and now in new circumstances, Georgie felt sure that dearest Aggie had
been positively forced to present her, and no doubt Mrs. Garroby-Ashton,
cornered on that terrace of the House of Commons, while sweet Thames
flowed softly, had had no choice but to ask her down for a Sunday.
Willpower, indomitable perseverance now, as always, was getting her just
precisely what she had wanted: by it she had become Queen of Riseholme,
and by it she was firmly climbing away in London, and already she was
saying that everybody was insisting on her dining and lunching with
them, whereas it was her moral force that made them powerless in her
grip. Riseholme she had no use for now: she was busy with something
else; she did not care to be bothered with Georgie, and so she said it
was the dining-room carpet.

“Very well,” said Georgie bitterly. “And if she doesn’t want me, I won’t
want her. So that’s that.”

He briskly put the letter away, and began to consider what he should do
with himself all day. It was warm enough to sit out and paint: in fact,
he had already begun a sketch of the front of his house from the Green
opposite; there was his piano if he settled to have a morning of music;
there was the paper to read, there was news to collect, there was Daisy
Quantock next door who would be delighted to have a sitting with the
planchette, which was really beginning to write whole words instead of
making meaningless dashes and scribbles, and yet none of these things
which, together with plenty of conversation and a little housekeeping
and manicuring, had long made life such a busy and strenuous
performance, seemed to offer an adequate stimulus. And he knew well
enough what rendered them devoid of tonic: it was that Lucia was not
here, and however much he told himself he did not want her, he like all
the rest of Riseholme was beginning to miss her dreadfully. She
aggravated and exasperated them: she was a hypocrite (all that pretence
of not having read the Mozart duet, and desolation at Auntie’s death), a
poseuse, a sham and a snob, but there was something about her that
stirred you into violent though protesting activity, and though she
might infuriate you, she prevented your being dull. Georgie enjoyed
painting, but he knew that the fact that he would show his sketch to
Lucia gave spice to his enjoyment, and that she, though knowing no more
about it than a rhinoceros, would hold it at arm’s length with her head
a little on one side and her eyes slightly closed, and say:

“Yes, Georgie, very nice, very nice. But have you got the value of your
middle-distance quite right? And a little more depth in your distance,
do you think?”

Or if he played his piano, he knew that what inspired his nimbleness
would be the prospect of playing his piece to her, and if he was
practising on the sly a duet for performance with her, the knowledge
that he was stealing a march on her and would astonish her (though she
might suspect the cause of his facility). And as for conversation, it
was useless to deny that conversation languished in Riseholme if the
subject of Lucia, her feats and her frailties was tabooed.

“We’ve got to pull ourselves together,” thought Georgie, “and start
again. We must get going and learn to do without her, as she’s getting
on so nicely without us. I shall go and see how the planchette is
progressing.”

Daisy was already at it, and the pencil was getting up steam. A day or
two ago it had written not once only but many times a strange sort of
hieroglyphic, which might easily be interpreted to be the mystic word
Abfou. Daisy had therefore settled (what could be more obvious?) that
the name of the control who guided these strange gyrations was Abfou,
which sounded very Egyptian and antique. Therefore, she powerfully
reasoned, the scribbles which could not be made to fit any known
configuration of English letters might easily be Arabic. Why Abfou
should write his name in English characters and his communications in
Arabic was not Daisy’s concern, for who knew what were the conditions on
the other side? A sheet was finished just as Georgie came in, and though
it presented nothing but Arabic script, the movements of the planchette
had been so swift and eager that Daisy quite forgot to ask if there was
any news.

“Abfou is getting in more direct touch with me every time I sit,” said
Daisy. “I feel sure we shall have something of great importance before
long. Put your hand on the planchette too, Georgie, for I have always
believed that you have mediumistic powers. Concentrate first: that means
you must put everything else out of your head. Let us sit for a minute
or two with our eyes shut. Breathe deeply. Relax. Sometimes slight
hypnosis comes on, so the book says, which means you get very drowsy.”

There was silence for a few moments: Georgie wanted to tell Daisy about
Lucia’s letter, but that would certainly interrupt Abfou, so he drew up
a chair, and after laying his hand on Daisy’s, closed his eyes and
breathed deeply. And then suddenly the most extraordinary things began
to happen.

The planchette trembled: it vibrated like a kettle on the boil, and
began to skate about the paper. He had no idea what its antic motions
meant: he only knew that it was writing something, Arabic perhaps, but
something firm and decided. It seemed to him that so far from aiding its
movement, he almost, to be on the safe side, checked it. He opened his
eyes, for it was impossible not to want to watch this manifestation of
psychic force, and also he wished to be sure (though he had no real
suspicions on the subject) that his collaborator was not, to put it
coarsely, pushing. Exactly the same train of thought was passing in
Daisy’s mind, and she opened her eyes too.

“Georgie, my hand is positively being dragged about,” she said
excitedly. “If anything, I try to resist.”

“Mine too; so do I,” said Georgie. “It’s too wonderful. Do you suppose
it’s Arabic still?”

The pencil gave a great dash, and stopped.

“It is Arabic,” said Daisy as she examined the message, “at least,
there’s heaps of English too.”

“No!” said Georgie, putting on his spectacles in his excitement, and not
caring whether Daisy knew he wore them or not. “I can see it looks like
English, but what a difficult handwriting! Look, that’s ‘Abfou,’ isn’t
it? And that is ‘Abfou’ again there.”

They bent their heads over the script.

“There’s an ‘L,’” cried Daisy, “and there it is again. And then there’s
‘L from L.’ And then there’s ‘Dead’ repeated twice. It can’t mean that
Abfou is dead, because this is positive proof that he’s alive. And then
I can see ‘Mouse’?”

“Where?” said Georgie eagerly. “And what would ‘dead mouse’ mean?”

“There!” said Daisy pointing. “No: it isn’t ‘dead mouse.’ It’s ‘dead’
and then a lot of Arabic, and then ‘mouse.’”

“I don’t believe it is ‘mouse,’” said Georgie, “though of course, you
know Abfou’s handwriting much better than I do. It looks to me far more
like ‘Museum.’”

“Perhaps he wants me to send all the Arabic he’s written up to the
British Museum,” said Daisy with a flash of genius, “so that they can
read it and say what it means.”

“But then there’s ‘Museum’ or ‘Mouse’ again there,” said Georgie, “and
surely that word in front of it--It is! It’s Riseholme! Riseholme Mouse
or Riseholme Museum! I don’t know what either would mean.”

“You may depend upon it that it means something,” said Daisy, “and
there’s another capital ‘L.’ Does it mean Lucia, do you think? But
‘dead’....”

“No: dead’s got nothing to do with the ‘L,’” said Georgie. “‘Museum’
comes in between, and quantities of Arabic.”

“I think I’ll just record the exact time; it would be more scientific,”
said Daisy. “A quarter to eleven. No, that clock’s three minutes fast by
the church time.”

“No, the church time is slow,” said Georgie.

Suddenly he jumped up.

“I’ve got it,” he said. “Look! ‘L from L.’ That means a letter from
Lucia. And it’s quite true. I heard this morning, and it’s in my pocket
now.”

“No!” said Daisy, “that’s just a sign Abfou is giving us, that he
really is with us, and knows what is going on. Very evidential.”

The absorption of them both in this script may be faintly appreciated by
the fact that neither Daisy evinced the slightest curiosity as to what
Lucia said, nor Georgie the least desire to communicate it.

“And then there’s ‘dead,’” said Georgie, looking out of the window. “I
wonder what that means.”

“I’m sure I hope it’s not Lucia,” said Daisy with stoical calmness, “but
I can’t think of anybody else.”

Georgie’s eyes wandered over the Green; Mrs. Boucher was speeding round
in her bath-chair, pushed by her husband, and there was the Vicar
walking very fast, and Mrs. Antrobus and Piggy and Goosie ... nobody
else seemed to be dead. Then his eye came back to the foreground of
Daisy’s front garden.

“What has happened to your mulberry-tree?” he said parenthetically. “Its
leaves are all drooping. You ought never to have pruned its roots
without knowing how to do it.”

Daisy jumped up.

“Georgie, you’ve got it!” she said. “It’s the mulberry-tree that’s dead.
Isn’t that wonderful?”

Georgie was suitably impressed.

“That’s very curious: very curious indeed,” he said. “Letter from Lucia,
and the dead mulberry tree. I do believe there’s something in it. But
let’s go on studying the script. Now I look at it again I feel certain
it is Riseholme Museum, not Riseholme Mouse. The only difficulty is that
there isn’t a Museum in Riseholme.”

“There are plenty of mice,” observed Daisy, who had had some trouble
with these little creatures. “Abfou may be wanting to give me advice
about some kind of ancient Egyptian trap.... But if you aren’t very busy
this morning, Georgie, we might have another sitting and see if we get
anything more definite. Let us attain collectedness as the directions
advise.”

“What’s collectedness?” asked Georgie.

Daisy gave him the directions. Collectedness seemed to be a sort of
mixture of intense concentration and complete vacuity of mind.

“You seem to have to concentrate your mind upon nothing at all,” said he
after reading it.

“That’s just it,” said Daisy. “You put all thoughts out of your head,
and then focus your mind. We have to be only the instrument through
which Abfou functions.”

They sat down again after a little deep breathing and relaxation, and
almost immediately the planchette began to move across the paper with a
firm and steady progression. It stopped sometimes for a few minutes,
which was proof of the authenticity of the controlling force, for in
spite of all efforts at collectedness, both Daisy’s and Georgie’s minds
were full of things which they longed for Abfou to communicate, and if
either of them was consciously directing those movements, there could
have been no pause at all. When finally it gave that great dash across
the paper again, indicating that the communication was finished, they
found the most remarkable results.

Abfou had written two pages of foolscap in a tall upright hand, which
was quite unlike either Daisy’s or Georgie’s ordinary script, and this
was another proof (if proof were wanted) of authenticity. It was
comparatively easy to read, and, except for a long passage at the end in
Arabic, was written almost entirely in English.

“Look, there’s Lucia written out in full four times,” said Daisy
eagerly. “And ‘Pepper.’ What’s Pepper?”

Georgie gasped.

“Why Pepino, of course,” he said. “I do call that odd. And see how it
goes on--‘Muck company,’ no ‘Much company, much grand company, higher
and higher.’”

“Poor Lucia!” said Daisy. “How sarcastic! That’s what Abfou thinks about
it all. By the way, you haven’t told me what she says yet; never mind,
this is far more interesting.... Then there’s a little Arabic, at least
I think it’s Arabic, for I can’t make anything out of it, and then--why,
I believe those next words are ‘From Olga.’ Have you heard from Olga?”

“No,” said Georgie, “but there’s something about her in Lucia’s letter.
Perhaps that’s it.”

“Very likely. And then I can make out Riseholme, and it isn’t ‘mouse,’
it’s quite clearly ‘Museum,’ and then--I can’t read that, but it looks
English, and then ‘opera,’ that’s Olga again, and ‘dead,’ which is the
mulberry tree. And then ‘It is better to work than to be idle. Think
not----’ something----”

“‘Bark,’” said Georgie. “No, ‘hard.’”

“Yes. ‘Think not hard thoughts of any, but turn thy mind to improving
work.’--Georgie, isn’t that wonderful?--and then it goes off into
Arabic, what a pity! It might have been more about the museum. I shall
certainly send all the first Arabic scripts to the British Museum.”

Georgie considered this.

“Somehow I don’t believe that is what Abfou means,” said he. “He says
Riseholme Museum, not British Museum. You can’t possibly get ‘British’
out of that word.”

Georgie left Daisy still attempting to detect more English among Arabic
passages and engaged himself to come in again after tea for fresh
investigation. Within a minute of his departure Daisy’s telephone rang.

“How tiresome these interruptions are,” said Daisy to herself, as she
hurried to the instrument. “Yes, yes. Who is it?”

Georgie’s voice had the composure of terrific excitement.

“It’s me,” he said. “The second post has just come in, and a letter from
Olga. ‘From Olga,’ you remember.”

“No!” said Daisy. “Do tell me if she says anything about----”

But Georgie had already rung off. He wanted to read his letter from
Olga, and Daisy sat down again quite awestruck at this further
revelation. The future clearly was known to Abfou as well as the past,
for Georgie knew nothing about Olga’s letter when the words “From Olga”
occurred in the script. And if in it she said anything about “opera”
(which really was on the cards) it would be more wonderful still.

The morning was nearly over, so Daisy observed to her prodigious
surprise, for it had really gone like a flash (a flash of the highest
illuminative power), and she hurried out with a trowel and a rake to get
half an hour in the garden before lunch. It was rather disconcerting to
find that though she spent the entire day in the garden, often not
sitting down to her planchette till dusk rendered it impossible to see
the mazes of cotton threads she had stretched over newly-sown beds, to
keep off sparrows (she had on one occasion shattered with a couple of
hasty steps the whole of those defensive fortifications) she seemed, in
spite of blistered hands and aching back, to be falling more and more
into arrears over her horticulture. Whereas that ruffian Simkinson, whom
she had dismissed for laziness when she found him smoking a pipe in the
potting-shed and doing a cross-word puzzle when he ought to have been
working, really kept her garden in very good order by slouching about it
for three half-days in the week. To be sure, she had pruned the roots of
the mulberry tree, which had taken a whole day (and so incidentally had
killed the mulberry tree) and though the death of that antique vegetable
had given Abfou a fine opportunity for proving himself, evidence now
was getting so abundant that Daisy almost wished it hadn’t happened.
Then, too, she was beginning to have secret qualms that she had torn up
as weeds a quantity of seedlings which the indolent Simkinson had just
pricked out, for though the beds were now certainly weedless, there was
no sign of any other growth there. And either Daisy’s little wooden
labels had got mixed, or she had sown Brussels sprouts in the circular
bed just outside the dining-room window instead of Phlox Drummondi. She
thought she had attached the appropriate label to the seed she had sown,
but it was very dark at the time, and in the morning the label certainly
said “Brussels sprouts.” In which case there would be a bed of Phlox at
the far end of the little strip of kitchen garden. The seeds in both
places were sprouting now, so she would know the worst or the best
before long.

Then, again, there was the rockery she had told Simkinson to build,
which he had neglected for cross-word puzzles, and though Daisy had been
working six or eight hours a day in her garden ever since, she had not
found time to touch a stone of it, and the fragments lying like a
moraine on the path by the potting-shed still rendered any approach to
the latter a mountaineering feat. They consisted of fragments of
mediæval masonry, from the site of the ancient abbey, finials and
crockets and pieces of mullioned windows which had been turned up when a
new siding of the railway had been made, and everyone almost had got
some with the exception of Mrs. Boucher, who called them rubbish. Then
there were some fossils, ammonites and spar and curious flints with
holes in them and bits of talc, for Lucia one year had commandeered them
all into the study of geology and they had got hammers and whacked away
at the face of an old quarry, detaching these petrified relics and
hitting themselves over the fingers in the process. It was that year
that the Roman camp outside the village had been put under the plough
and Riseholme had followed it like a bevy of rooks, and Georgie had got
several trays full of fragments of iridescent glass, and Colonel Boucher
had collected bits of Samian ware, and Mrs. Antrobus had found a bronze
fibula or safety-pin. Daisy had got some chunks of Roman brickwork, and
a section of Roman drainpipe, which now figured among the materials for
her rockery; and she had bought, for about their weight in gold, quite a
dozen bronze coins. These, of course, would not be placed in the
rockery, but she had put them somewhere very carefully, and had
subsequently forgotten where that was. Now as these archæological
associations came into her mind from the contemplation of the materials
for the rockery, she suddenly thought she remembered that she had put
them at the back of the drawer in her card-table.

The sight of these antique fragments disgusted Daisy; they littered the
path, and she could not imagine them built up into a rockery that should
have the smallest claim to be an attractive object. How could the
juxtaposition of a stone mullion, a drain-pipe and an ammonite present a
pleasant appearance? Besides, who was to juxtapose them? She could not
keep pace with the other needs of the garden, let alone a rockery, and
where, after all, was the rockery to stand? The asparagus-bed seemed the
only place, and she preferred asparagus.

Robert was bawling out from the dining-room window that lunch was ready,
and as she retraced her steps to the house, she thought that perhaps it
would be better to eat humble pie and get Simkinson to return. It was
clear to Daisy that if she was to do her duty as medium between ancient
Egypt and the world of to-day, the garden would deteriorate even more
rapidly than it was doing already, and no doubt Robert would consent to
eat the humble pie for her, and tell Simkinson that they couldn’t get on
without him, and that when she had said he was lazy, she had meant
industrious, or whatever else was necessary.

Robert was in a very good temper that day because Roumanian oils which
were the main source of his fortunes had announced a higher dividend
than usual, and he promised to seek out Simkinson and explain what lazy
meant, and if he didn’t understand to soothe his injured feelings with a
small tip.

“And tell him he needn’t make a rockery at all,” said Daisy. “He always
hated the idea of a rockery. He can dig a pit and bury the fossils and
the architectural fragments and everything. That will be the easiest way
of disposing of them.”

“And what is he to do with the earth he takes out of the pit, my dear?”
asked Robert.

“Put it back, I suppose,” said Daisy rather sharply. Robert was so
pleased at having “caught” her, that he did not even explain that she
had been caught....

       *       *       *       *       *

After lunch Daisy found the coins; it was odd that, having forgotten
where she had put them for so long, she should suddenly remember, and
she was inclined to attribute this inspiration to Abfou. The difficulty
was to know what, having found them, to do with them next. Some of them
obviously bore signs of once having had profiles of Roman emperors
stamped on them, and she was sure she had heard that some Roman coins
were of great value, and probably these were the ones. Perhaps when she
sent the Arabic script to the British Museum she might send these too
for identification.... And then she dropped them all on the floor as the
great idea struck her.

She flew into the garden, calling to Georgie, who was putting up
croquet-hoops.

“Georgie, I’ve got it!” she said. “It’s as plain as plain. What Abfou
wants us to do is to start a Riseholme Museum. He wrote Riseholme Museum
quite distinctly. Think how it would pay too, when we’re overrun with
American tourists in the summer! They would all come to see it. A
shilling admission I should put it at, and sixpence for the catalogue.”

“I wonder if Abfou meant that,” said Georgie.

“He said it,” said Daisy. “You can’t deny that!”

“But what should we put in the Museum?” asked he.

“My dear, we should fill it with antiquities and things which none of us
want in our houses. There are those beautiful fragments of the Abbey
which I’ve got, and which are simply wasted in my garden with no one to
see them, and my drainpipe. I would present them all to the Museum, and
the fossils, and perhaps some of my coins. And my Roman brick-work.”

Georgie paused with a hoop in his hand.

“That is an idea,” he said. “And I’ve got all those lovely pieces of
iridescent glass, which are always tumbling about. I would give them.”

“And Colonel Boucher’s Samian ware,” cried Daisy. “He was saying only
the other day how he hated it, but didn’t quite want to throw it away.
It will be a question of what we leave out, not of what we put in.
Besides, I’m sure that’s what Abfou meant. We must form a committee at
once. You and Mrs. Boucher and I, I should think, would be enough. Large
committees are a great mistake.”

“Not Lucia?” asked Georgie, with lingering loyalty.

“No. Certainly not,” said Daisy. “She would only send us orders from
London, as to what we were to do and want us to undo all we had done
when she came back, besides saying she had thought of it, and making
herself President!”

“There’s something in that,” said Georgie.

“Of course there is, there’s sense,” said Daisy. “Now I shall go
straight and see Mrs. Boucher.”

Georgie dealt a few smart blows with his mallet to the hoop he was
putting in place.

“I shall come too,” he said. “Riseholme Museum! I believe Abfou did mean
that. We _shall_ be busy again.”




CHAPTER IV


The committee met that very afternoon, and the next morning and the next
afternoon, and the scheme quickly took shape. Robert, rolling in golden
billows of Roumanion oil, was called in as financial adviser, and after
calculation, the scheme strongly recommended itself to him. All the
summer the town was thronged with visitors, and inquiring American minds
would hardly leave unvisited the Museum at so Elizabethan a place.

“I don’t know what you’ll have in your Museum,” he said, “but I expect
they’ll go to look, and even if they don’t find much they’ll have paid
their shillings. And if Mrs. Boucher thinks her husband will let you
have that big tithe-barn of his, at a small rent, I daresay you’ll have
a paying proposition.”

The question of funds therefore in order to convert the tithe-barn into
a museum was instantly gone into. Robert professed himself perfectly
ready to equip the tithe-barn with all necessary furniture and
decoration, if he might collar the whole of the receipts, but his
willingness to take all financial responsibilities made the committee
think that they would like to have a share in them, since so shrewd a
business man clearly saw the probability of making something out of it.
Up till then, the sordid question of money had not really occurred to
them: there was to be a museum which would make them busy again, and the
committee was to run it. They were quite willing to devote practically
the whole of their time to it, for Riseholme was one of those happy
places where the proverb that Time is money was a flat fallacy, for
nobody had ever earned a penny with it. But since Robert’s financial
judgment argued that the Museum would be a profitable investment, the
committee naturally wished to have a hand in it, and the three members
each subscribed fifty pounds, and co-opted Robert to join the board and
supply the rest. Profits (if any) would be divided up between the
members of the committee in proportion to their subscriptions. The
financial Robert would see to all that, and the rest of them could turn
their attention to the provision of curiosities.

There was evidently to be no lack of them, for everyone in Riseholme had
stores of miscellaneous antiquities and “specimens” of various kinds
which encumbered their houses and required a deal of dusting, but which
couldn’t quite be thrown away. A very few striking objects were only
lent: among these were Daisy’s box of coins, and Mrs. Antrobus’s fibula,
but the most of them, like Georgie’s glass and Colonel Boucher’s pieces
of Samian ware, were fervently bestowed. Objects of all sorts poured in:
the greater portion of a spinning-wheel, an Elizabethan pestle and
mortar, no end of Roman tiles, a large wooden post unhesitatingly called
a whipping-post, some indecipherable documents on parchment with seals
attached, belonging to the vicar, an ordnance map of the district,
numerous collections of fossils and of carved stones from the site of
the abbey, ancient quilts, a baby’s cradle, worm-eaten enough to be
Anglo-Saxon, queer-shaped bottles, a tiger-ware jug, fire-irons too
ponderous for use, and (by special vote of the Parish Council) the
stocks which had hitherto stood at the edge of the pond on the green.
All Riseholme was busy again, for fossils had to be sorted out (it was
early realized that even a museum could have too many ammonites),
curtains had to be stitched for the windows, labels to be written,
Samian ware to be pieced together, cases arranged, a catalogue
prepared. The period of flatness consequent on Lucia’s desertion had
passed off, and what had certainly added zest to industry was the
thought that Lucia had nothing to do with the Museum. When next she
deigned to visit her discarded kingdom, she would find how busily and
successfully and originally they had got on without her, and that there
was no place for her on the committee, and probably none in the Museum
for the Elizabethan turnspit which so often made the chimney of her
music-room to smoke.

Riseholme, indeed, was busier than ever, for not only had it the Museum
feverishly to occupy it so that it might be open for the tourist season
this year, and, if possible, before Lucia came down for one of her
promised week-ends, but it was immersed in a wave of psychical
experiments. Daisy Quantock had been perfectly honest in acknowledging
that the idea of the Museum was not hers at all, but Abfou’s, her
Egyptian guide. She had, it is true, been as ingenious as Joseph in
interpreting Abfou’s directions, but it was Abfou to whom all credit was
due, and who evidently took such a deep interest in the affairs of
Riseholme. She even offered to present the Museum with the sheet of
foolscap on which the words “Riseholme Museum” (not “mouse”) were
written, but the general feeling of the committee, while thanking her
for her munificence, was that it would not be tactful to display it,
since the same Sibylline sheet contained those sarcastic remarks about
Lucia. It was proved also that Abfou had meant the Museum to be started,
for subsequently he several times said, “Much pleased with your plans
for the Museum. Abfou approves.” So everybody else wanted to get into
touch with Abfou too, and no less than four planchettes or ouija-boards
were immediately ordered by various members of Riseholme society. At
present Abfou did not manifest himself to any of them, except in what
was possibly Arabic script (for it certainly bore a strong resemblance
to his earlier efforts of communication with Daisy), and while she
encouraged the scribes to persevere in the hope that he might soon
regale them with English, she was not really very anxious that he
should. With her he was getting Englisher and Englisher every day, and
had not Simkinson, after having had the true meaning of the word “lazy”
carefully explained to him, consented to manage her garden again, it
certainly would have degenerated into primeval jungle, for she
absolutely had not a minute to attend to it.

Simkinson, however, was quite genial.

“Oh yes, ma’am, very pleased to come back,” he said. “I knew you
wouldn’t be able to get on long without me, and I want no explanations.
Now let’s have a look round and see what you’ve been doing. Why,
whatever’s happened to my mulberry tree?”

That was Simkinson’s way: he always talked of “my flowers” and “my
asparagus” when he meant hers.

“I’ve been pruning its roots,” she said.

“Well, ma’am, you’ve done your best to do it in,” said Simkinson. “I
don’t think it’s dead though, I daresay it’ll pull round.”

Abfou had been understood to say it was dead, but perhaps he meant
something else, thought Daisy, and they went on to the small circular
bed below the dining-room windows.

“Phlox,” said Daisy hopefully.

“Broccoli,” said Simkinson examining the young green sprouts. “And the
long bed there. I sowed a lot of annuals there, and I don’t see a sign
of anything coming up.”

He fixed her with a merry eye.

“I believe you’ve been weeding, ma’am,” he said. “I shall have to get
you a lot of young plants if you want a bit of colour there. It’s too
late for me to put my seeds in again.”

Daisy rather wished she hadn’t come out with him, and changed the
subject to something more cheerful.

“Well, I sha’n’t want the rockery,” she said. “You needn’t bother about
that. All these stones will be carted away in a day or two.”

“Glad of that, ma’am. I’ll be able to get to my potting-shed again.
Well, I’ll try to put you to rights. I’d best pull up the broccoli
first, you won’t want it under your windows, will you? You stick to
rolling the lawn, ma’am, if you want to garden. You won’t do any harm
then.”

It was rather dreadful being put in one’s place like this, but Daisy did
not dare risk a second quarrel, and the sight of Georgie at the
dining-room window (he had come across to “weedj,” as the psychical
processes, whether ouija or planchette, were now called) was rather a
relief. Weeding, after all, was unimportant compared to weedjing.

“And I don’t believe I ever told you what Olga wrote about,” said
Georgie, as soon as she was within range. “We’ve talked of nothing but
museum. Oh, and Mrs. Boucher’s planchette has come. But it broke in the
post, and she’s gumming it together.”

“I doubt if it will act,” said Daisy. “But what did Olga say? It quite
went out of my head to ask you.”

“It’s too heavenly of her,” said he. “She’s asked me to go up and stay
with her for the first night of the opera. She’s singing Lucrezia, and
has got a stall for me.”

“No!” said Daisy, making a trial trip over the blotting-paper to see if
the pencil was sharp. “That will be an event! I suppose you’re going.”

“Just about,” said Georgie. “It’s going to be broadcasted, too, and I
shall be listening to the original.”

“How interesting!” said Daisy. “And there you’ll be in Brompton Square,
just opposite Lucia. Oh, you heard from her? What did she say?”

“Apparently she’s getting on marvellously,” said Georgie. “Not a moment
to spare. Just what she likes.”

Daisy pushed the planchette aside. There would be time for that when she
had had a little talk about Lucia.

“And are you going to stay with her too?” she asked.

Georgie was quite determined not to be ill-natured. He had taken no part
(or very little) in this trampling on Lucia’s majesty, which had been so
merrily going on.

“I should love to, if she would ask me,” he observed. “She only says
she’s going to. Of course, I shall go to see her.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Daisy savagely. “If she asked me fifty times I should
say ‘no’ fifty times. What’s happened is that she’s dropped us. I
wouldn’t have her on our museum committee if--if she gave her pearls to
it and said they belonged to Queen Elizabeth. I wonder you haven’t got
more spirit.”

“I’ve got plenty of spirit,” said Georgie, “and I allow I did feel
rather hurt at her letter. But then, after all, what does it matter?”

“Of course it doesn’t if you’re going to stay with Olga,” said Daisy.
“How she’ll hate you for that!”

“Well, I can’t help it,” he said. “Lucia hasn’t asked me and Olga has.
She’s twice reminded Olga that she may use her music-room to practise in
whenever she likes. Isn’t that kind? She would love to be able to say
that Olga’s always practising in her music-room. But aren’t we
ill-natured? Let’s weedj instead.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Georgie found, when he arrived next afternoon in Brompton Square, that
Olga had already had her early dinner, and that he was to dine alone at
seven and follow her to the opera house.

“I’m on the point of collapse from sheer nerves,” she said. “I always am
before I sing, and then out of desperation I pull myself together.
If--I say ‘if’--I survive till midnight, we’re going to have a little
party here. Cortese is coming, and Princess Isabel, and one or two other
people. Georgie, it’s very daring of you to come here, you know, because
my husband’s away, and I’m an unprotected female alone with Don Juan.
How’s Riseholme? Talk to me about Riseholme. Are you engaged to Piggy
yet? And is it broccoli or phlox in Daisy’s round bed? Your letter was
so mysterious too. I know nothing about the Museum yet. What museum? Are
you going to kill and stuff Lucia and put her in the hall? You simply
alluded to the Museum as if I knew all about it. If you don’t talk to
me, I shall scream.”

Georgie flung himself into the task, delighted to be thought capable of
doing anything for Olga. He described at great length and with much
emphasis the whole of the history of Riseholme from the first epiphany
of Arabic and Abfou on the planchette-board down to the return of
Simkinson. Olga lost herself in these chronicles, and when her maid came
in to tell her it was time to start, she got up quite cheerfully.

“And so it was broccoli,” she said. “I was afraid it was going to be
phlox after all. You’re an angel, Georgie, for getting me through my bad
hour. I’ll give you anything you like for the Museum. Wait for me
afterward at the stage door. We’ll drive back together.”

From the moment Olga appeared, the success of the opera was secure.
Cortese, who was conducting, had made his music well; it thoroughly
suited her, and she was singing and looking and acting her best. Again
and again after the first act the curtain had to go up, and not until
the house was satisfied could Georgie turn his glances this way and that
to observe the audience. Then in the twilight of a small box on the
second tier he espied a woman who was kissing her hand somewhere in his
direction, and a man waving a programme, and then he suddenly focussed
them and saw who they were. He ran upstairs to visit them, and there was
Lucia in an extraordinarily short skirt with her hair shingled, and
round her neck three short rows of seed pearls.

“Georgino mio!” she cried. “This is a surprise! You came up to see our
dear Olga’s triumph. I do call that loyalty. Why did you not tell me you
were coming?”

“I thought I would call to-morrow,” said Georgie, with his eyes still
going backward and forward between the shingle and the pearls and the
legs.

“Ah, you are staying the night in town?” she asked. “Not going back by
the midnight train? The dear old midnight train, and waking in
Riseholme! At your club?”

“No, I’m staying with Olga,” said Georgie.

Lucia seemed to become slightly cataleptic for a moment, but recovered.

“No! Are you really?” she said. “I think that is unkind of you, Georgie.
You might have told me you were coming.”

“But you said that the house wasn’t ready,” said he. “And she asked me.”

Lucia put on a bright smile.

“Well, you’re forgiven,” she said. “We’re all at sixes and sevens yet.
And we’ve seen nothing of dearest Olga--or Mrs. Shuttleworth, I should
say, for that’s on the bills. Of course we’ll drive you home, and you
must come in for a chat, before Mrs. Shuttleworth gets home, and then no
doubt she will be very tired and want to go to bed.”

Lucia as she spoke had been surveying the house with occasional little
smiles and wagglings of her hand in vague directions.

“Ah, there’s Elsie Garroby-Ashton,” she said, “and who is that with her,
Pepino? Lord Shrivenham, surely. So come back with me and have ’ickle
talk, Georgie. Oh, there’s the Italian Ambassadress. Dearest Gioconda!
Such a sweet. And look at the Royal box; what a gathering! That’s the
Royal box, Georgie, away to the left--that large one--in the tier below.
Too near the stage for my taste: so little illusion----”

Lucia suddenly rose and made a profound curtsey.

“I think she saw us, Pepino,” she said, “perhaps you had better bow. No,
she’s looking somewhere else now: you did not bow quick enough. And what
a party in dearest Aggie’s box. Who can that be? Oh yes, it’s Toby
Limpsfield. We met him at Aggie’s, do you remember, on the first night
we were up. So join us at the grand entrance, Georgie, and drive back
with us. We shall be giving a lift to somebody else, I’ll be bound, but
if you have your motor, it is so ill-natured not to pick up friends. I
always do it: they will be calling us the ‘Lifts of London,’ as Marcia
Whitby said.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” said Georgie. “I’m waiting for Olga, and
she’s having a little party, I believe.”

“No! Is she really?” asked Lucia, with all the old Riseholme vivacity.
“Who is coming?”

“Cortese, I believe,” said Georgie, thinking it might be too much for
Lucia if he mentioned a princess, “and one or two of the singers.”

Lucia’s mouth watered, and she swallowed rapidly. That was the kind of
party she longed to be asked to, for it would be so wonderful and
glorious to be able casually to allude to Olga’s tiny, tiny little party
after the first night of the opera, not a party at all really, just a
few _intimes_, herself and Cortese and so on. How could she manage it,
she wondered? Could she pretend not to know that there was a party, and
just drop in for a moment in neighbourly fashion with enthusiastic
congratulations? Or should she pretend her motor had not come, and hang
about the stage-door with Georgie--Pepino could go home in the
motor--and get a lift? Or should she hint very violently to Georgie how
she would like to come in just for a minute? Or should she, now that she
knew there was to be a party, merely assert that she had been to it?
Perhaps a hint to Georgie was the best plan....

Her momentary indecision was put an end to by the appearance of Cortese
threading his way among the orchestra, and the lowering of the lights.
Georgie, without giving her any further opportunity, hurried back to his
stall, feeling that he had had an escape, for Lucia’s beady eye had been
fixing him, just in the way it always used to do when she wanted
something and, in consequence, meant to get it. He felt he had been
quite wrong in ever supposing that Lucia had changed. She was just
precisely the same, translated into a larger sphere. She had expanded:
strange though it seemed, she had only been in bud at Riseholme. “I
wonder what she’ll do?” thought Georgie as he settled himself into his
stall. “She wants dreadfully to come.”

The opera came to an end in a blaze of bouquets and triumph and recalls,
and curtseys. It was something of an occasion, for it was the first
night of the opera, and the first performance of “Lucrezia” in London,
and it was late when Olga came florally out. The party, which was
originally meant to be no party at all, but just a little supper with
Cortese and one or two of the singers, had marvellously increased during
the evening, for friends had sent round messages and congratulations,
and Olga had asked them to drop in, and when she and Georgie arrived at
Brompton Square, the whole of the curve at the top was packed with
motors.

“Heavens, what a lot of people I seem to have asked,” she said, “but it
will be great fun. There won’t be nearly enough chairs, but we’ll sit on
the floor, and there won’t be nearly enough supper, but I know there’s a
ham, and what can be better than a ham? Oh, Georgie, I am happy.”

Now from opposite, across the narrow space of the square, Lucia had seen
the arrival of all these cars. In order to see them better she had gone
on to the balcony of her drawing-room, and noted their occupants with
her opera-glasses. There was Lord Limpsfield, and the Italian
Ambassadress, and Mr. Garroby-Ashton, and Cortese, and some woman to
whom Mr. Garroby-Ashton bowed and Mrs. Garroby-Ashton curtsied. Up they
streamed. And there was the Duchess of Whitby, (Marcia, for Lucia had
heard her called that) coming up the steps, and curtseying too, but as
yet Olga and Georgie quite certainly had not come. It seemed strange
that so many brilliant guests should arrive before their hostess, but
Lucia saw at once that this was the most _chic_ informality that it was
possible to conceive. No doubt Mr. Shuttleworth was there to receive
them, but how wonderful it all was!... And then the thought occurred to
her that Olga would arrive, and with her would be Georgie, and she felt
herself turning bright green all over with impotent jealousy. Georgie in
that crowd! It was impossible that Georgie should be there, and not she,
but that was certainly what would happen unless she thought of
something. Georgie would go back to Riseholme and describe this
gathering, and he would say that Lucia was not there: he supposed she
had not been asked.

Lucia thought of something; she hurried downstairs and let herself out.
Motors were still arriving, but perhaps she was not too late. She took
up her stand in the central shadow of a gas-lamp close to Olga’s door
and waited.

Up the square came yet another car, and she could see it was full of
flowers. Olga stepped out, and she darted forward.

“O Mrs. Shuttleworth,” she said. “Splendid! Glorious! Marvellous! If
only Beethoven was alive! I could not think of going to bed, without
just popping across to thank you for a revelation! Georgie, dear! Just
to shake your hand: that is all. All! I won’t detain you. I see you have
a party! You wonderful Queen of Song.”

Olga at all times was good-natured. Her eye met Georgie’s for a moment.

“O, but come in,” she said. “Do come in. It isn’t a party: it’s just
anybody. Georgie, be a dear, and help to carry all those flowers in. How
nice of you to come across, Mrs. Lucas! I know you’ll excuse my running
on ahead, because all--at least I hope all--my guests have come, and
there’s no one to look after them.”

Lucia, following closely in her wake, and taking no further notice of
Georgie, slipped into the little front drawing-room behind her. It was
crammed, and it was such a little room. Why had she not foreseen this,
why had she not sent a note across to Olga earlier in the day, asking
her to treat Lucia’s house precisely as her own, and have her party in
the spacious music-room? It would have been only neighbourly. But the
bitterness of such regrets soon vanished in the extraordinary sweetness
of the present, and she was soon in conversation with Mrs.
Garroby-Ashton, and distributing little smiles and nods to all the folk
with whom she had the slightest acquaintance. By the fireplace was
standing the Royal lady, and that for the moment was the only chagrin,
for Lucia had not the vaguest idea who she was. Then Georgie came in,
looking like a flower-stall, and then came a slight second chagrin, for
Olga led him up to the Royal lady, and introduced him. But that would be
all right, for she could easily get Georgie to tell her who she was,
without exactly asking him, and then poor Georgie made a very awkward
sort of bow, and dropped a large quantity of flowers, and said
“tarsome.”

Lucia glided away from Mrs. Garroby-Ashton and stood near the Duchess of
Whitby. Marcia did not seem to recognize her at first, but that was
quickly remedied, and after a little pleasant talk, Lucia asked her to
lunch to meet Olga, and fixed in her mind that she must ask Olga to
lunch on the same day to meet the Duchess of Whitby. Then edging a
little nearer to the centre of attraction, she secured Lord Limpsfield
by angling for him with the bait of dearest Aggie, to whom she must
remember to telephone early next morning, to ask her to come and meet
Lord Limpsfield.

That would do for the present, and Lucia abandoned herself to the joys
of the moment. A move was made downstairs to supper, and Lucia, sticking
like a limpet to Lord Limpsfield, was wafted in azure to Olga’s little
tiny dining-room, and saw at once that there were not nearly enough
seats for everybody. There were two small round tables, and that was
absolutely all: the rest would have to stand and forage at the narrow
buffet which ran along the wall.

“It’s musical chairs,” said Olga cheerfully, “those who are quick get
seats, and the others don’t. Tony, go and sit next the Princess; and
Cortese, you go the other side. We shall all get something to eat
sometime. Georgie, go and stand by the buffet, there’s a dear, and make
yourself wonderfully useful, and oh, rush upstairs first, and bring the
cigarettes; they stay the pangs of hunger. Now we’re getting on
beautifully. Darling Marcia, there’s just one chair left. Slip into it.”

Lucia had lingered for a moment at the door to ask Olga to lunch the day
after to-morrow, and Olga said she would be delighted, so there was a
wonderful little party arranged for. To complete her content it was only
needful to be presented to the hitherto anonymous Princess and learn her
name. By dexterously picking up her fan for her and much admiring it, as
she made a low curtsey, she secured a few precious words with her, but
the name was still denied her. To ask anybody what it was would faintly
indicate that she didn’t know it, and that was not to be thought of.

Georgie popped in, as they all said at Riseholme, to see Lucia next
morning when Olga had gone to a rehearsal at Covent Garden, and found
her in her music-room, busy over Stravinski. Olga’s party had not been
in the _Times_, which was annoying, and Lucia was still unaware what the
Princess’s name was. Though the previous evening had been far the most
rewarding she had yet spent, it was wiser to let Georgie suppose that
such an affair was a very ordinary occurrence, and not to allude to it
for some time.

“Ah, Georgino!” she said. “How nice of you to pop in. By _buona fortuna_
I have got a spare hour this morning, before Sophy Alingsby--dear Sophy,
such a brain--fetches me to go to some private view or other, so we can
have a good chat. Yes, this is the music-room, and before you go, I must
trot you round to see the rest of our little establishment. Not a bad
room--those are the famous Chippendale chairs--as soon as we get a
little more settled, I shall give an evening party or two with some
music. You must come.”

“Should love to,” said Georgie.

“Such a whirl it has been, and it gets worse every day,” went on Lucia.
“Sometimes Pepino and I go out together, but often he dines at one house
and I at another--they do that in London, you know--and sometimes I
hardly set eyes on him all day. I haven’t seen him this morning, but
just now they told me he had gone out. He enjoys it so much that I do
not mind how tired I get. Ah! that telephone, it never ceases ringing.
Sometimes I think I will have it taken out of the house altogether, for
I get no peace. Somebody always seems to be wanting Pepino or me.”

She hurried, all the same, with considerable alacrity to the machine,
and really there was no thought in her mind of having the telephone
taken out, for it had only just been installed. The call, however, was
rather a disappointment, for it only concerned a pair of walking shoes.
There was no need, however, to tell Georgie that, and pressing her
finger to her forehead she said, “Yes, I can manage 3.30,” (which meant
nothing) and quickly rang off.

“Not a moment’s peace,” said Lucia. “Ting-a-ting-a-ting from morning
till night. Now tell me all about Riseholme, Georgie; that will give me
such a delicious feeling of tranquillity. Dear me, who is this coming to
interrupt us now?”

It was only Pepino. He seemed leisurely enough, and rather unnecessarily
explained that he had only been out to get a tooth-brush from the
chemist’s in Brompton Road. This he carried in a small paper parcel.

“And there’s the man coming about the telephone this morning, Lucia,” he
said. “You want the extension to your bedroom, don’t you?”

“Yes, dear, as we have got it in the house we may as well have it
conveniently placed,” she said. “I’m sure the miles I walk up and down
stairs, as I was telling Georgie----”

Pepino chuckled.

“She woke them up, Georgie,” he said. “None of their leisurely London
ways for Lucia. She had the telephone put into the house in record time.
Gave them no peace till she got it done.”

“Very wise,” said Georgie tactfully. “That’s the way to get things.
Well, about Riseholme. We’ve really been very busy indeed.”

“Dear old place!” said Lucia. “Tell me all about it.”

Georgie rapidly considered with himself whether he should mention the
Museum. He decided against it, for, put it as you might, the Museum,
apart from the convenience of getting rid of interesting rubbish, was of
a conspiratorial nature, a policy of revenge against Lucia for her
desertion, and a demonstration of how wonderfully well and truly they
all got on without her. It was then, the mark of a highly injudicious
conspirator to give information to her against whom this plot was
directed.

“Well, Daisy has been having some most remarkable experiences,” he said.
“She got a ouija board and a planchette--we use the planchette most--and
very soon it was quite clear that messages were coming through from a
guide.”

Lucia laughed with a shrill metallic note of rather hostile timbre.

“Dear Daisy,” she said. “If only she would take commonsense as her
guide. I suppose the guide is a Chaldean astrologer or King
Nebuchadnezzar.”

“Not at all,” said Georgie. “It’s an Egyptian called Abfou.”

A momentary pang of envy shot through Lucia. She could well imagine the
quality of excitement which thrilled Riseholme, how Georgie would have
popped in to tell her about it, and how she would have got a ouija board
too, and obtained twice as many messages as Daisy. She hated the thought
of Daisy having Abfou all her own way, and gave another little shrill
laugh.

“Daisy is priceless,” she said. “And what has Abfou told her?”

“Well, it was very odd,” said Georgie. “The morning I got your letter
Abfou wrote ‘L from L,’ and if that doesn’t mean ‘Letter from Lucia,’ I
don’t know what else it could be.”

“It might just as well mean ‘Lozengers from Leamington,’” said Lucia
witheringly. “And what else?”

Georgie felt the conversation was beginning to border rather dangerously
on the Museum, and tried a light-hearted sortie into another subject.

“Oh, just things of that sort,” he said. “And then she had a terrible
time over her garden. She dismissed Simkinson for doing cross-word
puzzles instead of the lawn, and determined to do it all herself. She
sowed sprouts in that round bed under the dining-room window.”

“No!” said Pepino, who was listening with qualms of home-sickness to
these chronicles.

“Yes, and the phlox in the kitchen garden,” said Georgie.

He looked at Lucia, and became aware that her gimlet-eye was on him, and
was afraid he had made the transition from Abfou to horticulture rather
too eagerly. He went volubly on.

“And she dug up all the seeds that Simkinson had planted, and pruned the
roots of her mulberry tree and probably killed it,” he said. “Then in
that warm weather last week, no, the week before, I got out my painting
things again, and am doing a sketch of my house from the Green. Foljambe
is very well, and, and....” he could think of nothing else except the
Museum.

Lucia waited till he had quite run down.

“And what more did Abfou say?” she asked. “His message of ‘L from L’
would not have made you busy for very long.”

Georgie had to reconsider the wisdom of silence. Lucia clearly suspected
something, and when she came down for her week-end, and found the
affairs of the Museum entirely engrossing the whole of Riseholme, his
reticence, if he persisted in it, would wear a very suspicious aspect.

“Oh yes, the Museum,” he said with feigned lightness. “Abfou told us to
start a museum, and it’s getting on splendidly. That tithe-barn of
Colonel Boucher’s. And Daisy’s given all the things she was going to
make into a rockery, and I’m giving my Roman glass and two sketches, and
Colonel Boucher his Samian ware and an ordnance map, and there are lots
of fossils and some coins.”

“And a committee?” asked Lucia.

“Yes. Daisy and Mrs. Boucher and I, and we co-opted Robert,” he said
with affected carelessness.

Again some nameless pang shot through Lucia. Absent or present, she
ought to have been the chairman of the committee and told them exactly
what to do, and how to do it. But she felt no doubt that she could
remedy all that when she came down to Riseholme for a week-end. In the
meantime, it was sufficient to have pulled his secret out of Georgie,
like a cork, with a loud pop, and an effusion of contents.

“Most interesting,” she said. “I must think what I can give you for your
museum. Well, that’s a nice little gossip.”

Georgie could not bring himself to tell her that the stocks had already
been moved from the village green to the tithe-barn, for he seemed to
remember that Lucia and Pepino had presented them to the Parish Council.
Now the Parish Council had presented them to the Museum, but that was a
reason the more why the Parish Council and not he should face the
donors.

“A nice little gossip,” said Lucia. “And what a pleasant party last
night. I just popped over, to congratulate dear Olga on the favourable,
indeed the very favourable reception of ‘Lucrezia,’ for I thought she
would be hurt--artists are so sensitive--if I did not add my little
tribute, and then you saw how she refused to let me go, but insisted
that I should come in. And I found it all most pleasant: one met many
friends, and I was very glad to be able to look in.”

This expressed very properly what Lucia meant to convey. She did not in
the least want to put Olga in her place, but to put herself, in
Georgie’s eyes, in her own place. She had just, out of kindness, stepped
across to congratulate Olga, and then had been dragged in. Unfortunately
Georgie did not believe a single word of it: he had already made up his
mind that Lucia had laid an ambush for Olga, so swiftly and punctually
had she come out of the shadow of the gas-lamp on her arrival. He
answered her therefore precisely in the spirit in which she had spoken.
Lucia would know very well....

“It was good of you,” he said enthusiastically. “I’m sure Olga
appreciated your coming immensely. How forgetful of her not to have
asked you at first! And as for ‘Lucrezia’ just having a favourable
reception, I thought it was the most brilliant success it is possible to
imagine.”

Lucia felt that her attitude hadn’t quite produced the impression she
had intended. Though she did not want Georgie (and Riseholme) to think
_she_ joined in the uncritical adulation of Olga, she certainly did not
want Georgie to tell Olga that she didn’t. And she still wanted to hear
the Princess’s name.

“No doubt, dear Georgie,” she said, “it was a great success. And she was
in wonderful voice, and looked most charming. As you know, I am terribly
critical, but I can certainly say that. Yes. And her party delicious. So
many pleasant people. I saw you having great jokes with the Princess.”

Pepino having been asleep when Lucia came back last night, and not
having seen her this morning, had not heard about the Princess.

“Indeed, who was that?” he asked Lucia.

Very tiresome of Pepino. But Lucia’s guide (better than poor Daisy’s
Abfou) must have been very attentive to her needs that morning, for
Pepino had hardly uttered these awkward words, when the telephone rang.
She could easily therefore trip across to it, protesting at these
tiresome interruptions, and leaving Georgie to answer.

“Yes, Mrs. Lucas,” said Lucia. “Covent Garden? Yes. Then please put me
through.... Dearest Olga is ringing up. No doubt about ‘The Valkyrie’
next week....”

Georgie had a brain wave. He felt sure Lucia would have answered
Pepino’s question instantly if she had known what the Princess’s name
was. He had noticed that Lucia in spite of her hangings about had not
been presented to the illustrious lady last night, and the brain wave
that she did not know the illustrious lady’s name swept over him. He
also saw that Lucia was anxiously listening not to the telephone only,
but to him. If Lucia (and there could be no doubt about that) wanted to
know, she must eat her humble pie and ask him....

“Yes, dear Diva, it’s me,” said Lucia. “Couldn’t sleep a wink.
‘Lucrezia’ running in my head all night. Marvellous. You rang me up?”

Her face fell.

“Oh, I am disappointed you can’t come,” she said. “You are naughty. I
shall have to give you a little engagement book to put things down
in....”

Lucia’s guide befriended her again, and her face brightened. It grew
almost to an unearthly brightness as she listened to Olga’s apologies
and a further proposal.

“Sunday evening?” she said. “Now let me think a moment: yes, I am free
on Sunday. So glad you said Sunday, because all other nights are full.
Delightful. And how nice to see Princess Isabel again. Good-bye.”

She snapped the receiver back in triumph.

“What was it you asked me, Pepino?” she said.

“Oh, yes: it was Princess Isabel. Dear Olga insists on my dining with
her on Sunday to meet her again. Such a nice woman.”

“I thought we were going down to Riseholme for the Sunday,” said Pepino.

Lucia made a little despairing gesture.

“My poor head!” she said. “It is I who ought to have an engagement book
chained to me. What am I to do? I hardly like to disappoint dear Olga.
But you go down, Pepino, just the same. I know you are longing to get a
breath of country air. Georgie will give you dinner one night, I am
sure, and the other he will dine with you. Won’t you, Georgie? So dear
of you. Now who shall I get to fill my Olga’s place at lunch to-morrow?
Mrs. Garroby-Ashton, I think. Dear me, it is close on twelve, and Sophy
will scold me if I keep her waiting. How the morning flashes by! I had
hardly begun my practice, when Georgie came, and I’ve hardly had a word
with him before it is time to go out. What will happen to my morning’s
post I’m sure I don’t know. But I insist on your getting your breath of
country air on Sunday, Pepino. I shall have plenty to do here, with all
my arrears.”

There was one note Lucia found she had to write before she went out, and
she sent Pepino to show Georgie the house while she scribbled it, and
addressing it to Mr. Stephen Merriall at the office of the _Evening
Gazette_, sent it off by hand. This was hardly done when Mrs. Alingsby
arrived, and they went off together to the private view of the
Post-Cubists, and revelled in the works of those remarkable artists.
Some were portraits and some landscapes, and it was usually easy to tell
which was which, because a careful scrutiny revealed an eye or a stray
mouth in some, and a tree or a house in others. Lucia was specially
enthusiastic over a picture of Waterloo Bridge, but she had mistaken the
number in the catalogue, and it proved to be a portrait of the artist’s
wife. Luckily she had not actually read out to Sophy that it was
Waterloo Bridge, though she had said something about the river, but this
was easily covered up in appreciation.

“Too wonderful,” she said. “How they get to the very soul of things!
What is it that Wordsworth says? ‘The very pulse of the machine.’
Pulsating, is it not?”

Mrs. Alingsby was tall and weird and intense, dressed rather like a
bird-of-paradise that had been out in a high gale, but very well
connected. She had long straight hair which fell over her forehead, and
sometimes got in her eyes, and she wore on her head a scarlet jockey-cap
with an immense cameo in front of it. She hated all art that was earlier
than 1923, and a considerable lot of what was later. In music, on the
other hand, she was primitive, and thought Bach decadent: in literature
her taste was for stories without a story, and poems without metre or
meaning. But she had collected round her a group of interesting outlaws,
of whom the men looked like women, and the women like nothing at all,
and though nobody ever knew what they were talking about, they
themselves were talked about. Lucia had been to a party of hers, where
they all sat in a room with black walls, and listened to early Italian
music on a spinet while a charcoal brazier on a blue hearth was fed with
incense.... Lucia’s general opinion of her was that she might be useful
up to a point, for she certainly excited interest.

“Wordsworth?” she asked. “Oh, yes, I remember who you mean. About the
Westmorland Lakes. Such a kill-joy.”

She put on her large horn spectacles to look at the picture of the
artist’s wife, and her body began to sway with a lithe circular motion.

“Marvellous! What a rhythm!” she said. “Sigismund is the most rhythmical
of them all. You ought to be painted by him. He would make something
wonderful of you. Something _andante, adagio_ almost. He’s coming to see
me on Sunday. Come and meet him. Breakfast about half-past twelve.
Vegetarian with cocktails.”

Lucia accepted this remarkable invitation with avidity: it would be an
interesting and progressive meal. In these first weeks, she was
designedly experimental; she intended to sweep into her net all there
was which could conceivably harbour distinction, and sort it out by
degrees. She was no snob in the narrow sense of the word; she would have
been very discontented if she had only the high-born on her visiting
list. The high-born, of course, were safe--you could not make a mistake
in having a duchess to tea, because in her own line a duchess had
distinction--but it would not have been enough to have all the duchesses
there were: it might even have been a disappointing tea-party if the
whole room was packed with them. What she wanted was the foam of the
wave, the topmost, the most sunlit of the billows that rode the sea.
Anything that had proved itself billowish was her game, and anything
which showed signs of being a billow, even if it entailed a vegetarian
lunch with cocktails and the possible necessity of being painted like
the artist’s wife with an eyebrow in one corner of the picture and a
substance like desiccated cauliflower in the centre. That had always
been her way: whatever those dear funny folk at Riseholme had thought
of, a juggler, a professor of Yoga, a geologist, a psycho-analyst had
been snapped up by her and exploited till he exploded.

But Pepino was not as nimble as she. The incense at Sophy’s had made him
sneeze, and the primitive tunes on the spinet had made him snore; that
had been all the uplift they had held for him. Thus, though she did not
mind tiring herself to death, because Pepino was having such an
interesting time, she didn’t mind his going down to Riseholme for the
Sunday to rest, while she had a vegetarian lunch with post-cubists, and
a dinner with a princess. Literally, she could scarcely tell which of
the two she looked forward to most; the princess was safe, but the
post-cubists might prove more perilously paying. It was impossible to
make a corner in princesses for they were too independent, but already,
in case of post-cubism turning out to be the rage, she could visualize
her music-room and even the famous Chippendale chairs being painted
black, and the Sargent picture of Auntie being banished to the attic.
She could not make them the rage, for she was not (as yet) the supreme
arbiter here that she had been at Riseholme, but should they become the
rage, there was no one surely more capable than herself of giving the
impression that she had discovered them.

Lucia spent a strenuous afternoon with correspondence and telephonings,
and dropped into Mrs. Sandeman’s for a cup of tea, of which she stood
sorely in need. She found there was no need to tell dearest Aggie about
the party last night at Olga’s, for the _Evening Gazette_ had come in,
and there was an account of it, described in Hermione’s matchless style.
Hermione had found the bijou residence of the prima-donna in Brompton
Square full of friends--_très intimes_--who had been invited to
celebrate the huge success of “Lucrezia” and to congratulate Mrs.
Shuttleworth. There was Princess Isabel, wearing her wonderful
turquoises, chatting with the composer, Signor Cortese (Princess Isabel
spoke Italian perfectly), and among other friends Hermione had noticed
the Duchess of Whitby, Lord Limpsfield, Mrs. Garroby-Ashton, and Mrs.
Philip Lucas.




CHAPTER V


The mystery of that Friday evening in the last week in June became
portentous on the ensuing Saturday morning....

A cab had certainly driven from the station to The Hurst late on Friday
evening, but owing to the darkness it was not known who got out of it.
Previously the windows of The Hurst had been very diligently cleaned all
Friday afternoon. Of course the latter might be accounted for by the
mere fact that they needed cleaning, but if it had been Pepino or Lucia
herself who had arrived by the cab (if both of them, they would almost
certainly have come by their motor), surely some sign of their presence
would have manifested itself either to Riseholme’s collective eye, or to
Riseholme’s ear. But the piano, Daisy felt certain, had not been heard,
nor had the telephone tinkled for anybody. Also, when she looked out
about half-past ten in the evening, and again when she went upstairs to
bed, there were no lights in the house. But somebody had come, and as
the servants’ rooms looked out on to the back, it was probably a servant
or servants. Daisy had felt so terribly interested in this that she came
restlessly down, and had a quarter of an hour’s weedjing to see if Abfou
could tell her. She had been quite unable to form any satisfactory
conjecture herself, and Abfou, after writing “Museum” once or twice, had
relapsed into rapid and unintelligible Arabic. She did not ring up
Georgie to ask help in solving this conundrum, because she hoped to
solve it unaided and be able to tell him the answer.

She went upstairs again, and after a little deep breathing and bathing
her feet in alternate applications of hot and cold water in order to
produce somnolence, found herself more widely awake than ever. Her
well-trained mind cantered about on scents that led nowhere, and she was
unable to find any that seemed likely to lead anywhere. Of Lucia nothing
whatever was known except what was accessible to anybody who spent a
penny on the _Evening Gazette_. She had written to nobody, she had given
no sign of any sort, and, but for the _Evening Gazette_, she might, as
far as Riseholme was concerned, be dead. But the _Evening Gazette_
showed that she was alive, painfully alive in fact, if Hermione could be
trusted. She had been seen here, there, and everywhere in London:
Hermione had observed her chatting in the Park with friends, sitting
with friends in her box at the opera, shopping in Bond Street, watching
polo (why, she did not know a horse from a cow!) at Hurlingham, and even
in a punt at Henley. She had been entertaining in her own house too:
there had been dinner-parties and musical parties, and she had dined at
so many houses that Daisy had added them all up, hoping to prove that
she had spent more evenings than there had been evenings to spend, but
to her great regret they came out exactly right. Now she was having her
portrait painted by Sigismund, and not a word had she written, not a
glimpse of herself had she vouchsafed, to Riseholme.... Of course
Georgie had seen her, when he went up to stay with Olga, but his account
of her had been far from reassuring. She had said that she did not care
how tired she got while Pepino was enjoying London so tremendously. Why
then, thought Daisy with a sense of incredulous indignation, had Pepino
come down a few Sundays ago, all by himself, and looking a perfect
wreck?... “Very odd, _I_ call it,” muttered Daisy, turning over to her
other side.

It was odd, and Pepino had been odd. He had dined with Georgie one
night, and, on the other, Georgie had dined with him, but he had said
nothing about Lucia that Hermione had not trumpeted to the world.
Otherwise, Pepino had not been seen at all on that Sunday except when
Mrs. Antrobus, not feeling very well in the middle of the Psalms on
Sunday morning, had come out, and observed him standing on tip-toe and
peering into the window of the Museum that looked on to the Roman
Antiquities. Mrs. Antrobus (feeling much better as soon as she got into
the air) had come quite close up to him before he perceived her, and
then with only the curtest word of greeting, just as if she was the
Museum Committee, he had walked away so fast that she could not but
conclude that he wished to be alone. It was odd too, and scarcely
honourable, that he should have looked into the window like that, and
clearly it was for that purpose that he had absented himself from
church, thinking that he would be unobserved. Daisy had not the smallest
doubt that he was spying for Lucia, and had been told merely to collect
information and to say nothing, for though he knew that Georgie was on
the committee, he had carefully kept off the subject of the Museum on
both their tête-à-tête dinners. Probably he had begun his spying the
moment church began, and if Mrs. Antrobus had not so providentially felt
faint, no one would have known anything about it. As it was, it was
quite likely that he had looked into every window by the time she saw
him, and knew all that the Museum contained. Since then, the Museum had
been formally opened by Lady Ambermere, who had lent (not presented)
some mittens which she said belonged to Queen Charlotte (it was
impossible to prove that they hadn’t), and the committee had put up some
very baffling casement curtains which would make an end to spying for
ever.

Now this degrading espionage had happened three weeks ago (come
Sunday), and therefore for three weeks (come Monday), Lucia must have
known all about the Museum. But not a word had she transmitted on that
or any other subject; she had not demanded a place on the committee, nor
presented the Elizabethan spit which so often made the chimney of her
music-room to smoke, nor written to say that they must arrange it all
quite differently. That she had a plan, a policy about the Museum, no
one who knew Lucia could possibly doubt, but her policy (which thus at
present was wrapped in mystery) might be her complete and eternal
ignoring of it. It would indeed be dreadful if she intended to remain
unaware of it, but Daisy doubted if anyone in her position and of her
domineering character could be capable of such inhuman self-control. No:
she meant to do something when she came back, but nobody could guess
what it was, or when she was coming.

Daisy tossed and turned as she revolved these knotty points. She was
sure Lucia would punish them all for making a museum while she was away,
and not asking her advice and begging her to be president, and she would
be ill with chagrin when she learned how successful it was proving. The
tourist season, when char-a-bancs passed through Riseholme in endless
procession, had begun, and whole parties after lunching at the Ambermere
Arms went to see it. In the first week alone there had been a hundred
and twenty-six visitors, and that meant a corresponding tale of
shillings without reckoning sixpenny catalogues. Even the committee paid
their shillings when they went in to look at their own exhibits, and
there had been quite a scene when Lady Ambermere with a party from the
Hall tried to get in without paying for any of them on the ground that
she had lent the Museum Queen Charlotte’s mittens. Georgie, who was
hanging up another picture of his, had heard it all and hidden behind a
curtain. The small boy in charge of the turnstile (bought from a
bankrupt circus for a mere song) had, though trembling with fright,
absolutely refused to let the turnstile turn until the requisite number
of shillings had been paid, and didn’t care whose mittens they were
which Lady Ambermere had lent, and when, snatching up a catalogue
without paying for it, she had threatened to report him to the
committee, this intrepid lad had followed her, continuing to say
“Sixpence, please, my lady,” till one of the party, in order to save
brawling in a public place, had produced the insignificant sum. And if
Lucia tried to get in without paying, on the ground that she and Pepino
had given the stocks to the Parish Council, which had lent them to the
Museum, she would find her mistake. At length, in the effort to
calculate what would be the total receipts of the year if a hundred and
twenty-six people per week paid their shillings, Daisy lapsed into an
uneasy arithmetical slumber.

Next morning (Saturday), the mystery of that arrival at The Hurst the
evening before grew infinitely more intense. It was believed that only
one person had come, and yet there was no doubt that several pounds of
salmon, dozens (“Literally dozens,” said Mrs. Boucher, “for I saw the
basket”) of eggs, two chickens, a leg of lamb, as well as countless
other provisions unidentified were delivered at the back door of The
Hurst; a positive frieze of tradesmen’s boys was strung across the
Green. Even if the mysterious arrival was Lucia herself, she could not,
unless the whirl and worldliness of her London life had strangely
increased her appetite, eat all that before Monday. And besides, why had
she not rung up Georgie, or somebody, or opened her bedroom window on
this hot morning? Or could it be Pepino again, sent down here for a
rest-cure and a stuffing of his emaciated frame? But then he would not
have come down without some sort of attendant to look after him....
Riseholme was completely baffled; never had its powers of inductive
reasoning been so nonplussed, for though so much went into The Hurst,
nobody but the tradesmen’s boys with empty baskets came out. Georgie and
Daisy stared at each other in blankness over the garden paling, and
when, in despair of arriving at any solution, they sought the oracles of
Abfou, he would give them nothing but hesitating Arabic.

“Which shows,” said Daisy, as she put the planchette away in disgust,
“that even he doesn’t know, or doesn’t wish to tell us.” Lunch time
arrived, and there were very poor appetites in Riseholme (with the
exception of that Gargantuan of whom nothing was known). But as for
going to The Hurst and ringing the bell and asking if Mrs. Lucas was at
home all Riseholme would sooner have died lingering and painful deaths,
rather than let Lucia know that they took the smallest interest in
anything she had done, was doing, or would do.

About three o’clock Georgie was sitting on the Green opposite his house,
finishing his sketch, which the affairs of the Museum had caused him
sadly to neglect. He had got it upside down on his easel and was washing
some more blue into the sky, when he heard the hoot of a motor. He just
looked up, and what he saw caused his hand to twitch so violently that
he put a large dab of cobalt on the middle of his red-brick house. For
the motor had stopped at The Hurst, not a hundred yards away, and out of
it got Lucia and Pepino. She gave some orders to her chauffeur, and then
without noticing him (_perhaps_ without seeing him) she followed Pepino
into the house. Hardly waiting to wash the worst of the cobalt off his
house, Georgie hurried into Daisy’s, and told her exactly what had
happened.

“No!” said Daisy, and out they came again, and stood in the shadow of
her mulberry tree to see what would happen next. The mulberry tree had
recovered from the pruning of its roots (so it wasn’t it which Abfou had
said was dead), and gave them good shelter.

Nothing happened next.

“But it’s impossible,” said Daisy, speaking in a sort of conspiratorial
whisper. “It’s queer enough her coming without telling any of us, but
now she’s here, she surely must ring somebody up.”

Georgie was thinking intently.

“The next thing that will happen,” he said, “will be that servants and
luggage will arrive from the station. They’ll be here any minute; I
heard the 3.20 whistle just now. She and Pepino have driven down.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Daisy. “But even now, what about the chickens
and all those eggs? Georgie, it must have been her cook who came last
night--she and Pepino were dining out in London--and ordered all those
provisions this morning. But there were enough to last them a week. And
three pints of cream, so I’ve heard since, and enough ice for a skating
rink and----”

It was then that Georgie had the flash of intuition that was for ever
memorable. It soared above inductive reasoning.

“She’s having a week-end party of some of her smart friends from
London,” he said slowly. “And she doesn’t want any of us.”

Daisy blinked at this amazing light. Then she cast one withering glance
in the direction of The Hurst.

“She!” she said. “And her shingles. And her seed-pearls! That’s all.”

A minute afterward the station cab arrived pyramidal with luggage. Four
figures disembarked, three female and one male.

“The major-domo,” said Daisy, and without another word marched back
into her house to ask Abfou about it all. He came through at once, and
wrote “Snob” all over the paper.

There was no reason why Georgie should not finish his sketch, and he sat
down again and began by taking out the rest of the misplaced cobalt. He
felt so certain of the truth of his prophecy that he just let it alone
to fulfil itself, and for the next hour he never worked with more
absorbed attention. He knew that Daisy came out of her house, walking
very fast, and he supposed she was on her way to spread the news and
forecast the sequel. But beyond the fact that he was perfectly sure that
a party from London was coming down for the week-end, he could form no
idea of what would be the result of that. It might be that Lucia would
ask him or Daisy, or some of her old friends to dine, but if she had
intended to do that she would probably have done it already. The only
alternative seemed to be that she meant to ignore Riseholme altogether.
But shortly before the arrival of the fast train from London at 4.30,
his prophetical calm began (for he was but human) to be violently
agitated, and he took his tea in the window of his drawing-room, which
commanded a good view of the front garden of The Hurst, and put his
opera-glasses ready to hand. The window was a big bow, and he distinctly
saw the end of Robert’s brass telescope projecting from the
corresponding window next door.

Once more a motor-horn sounded, and the Lucases’ car drew up at the gate
of The Hurst. There stepped out Mrs. Garroby-Ashton, followed by the
weird bright thing which had called to take Lucia to the private view of
the Post-Cubists. Georgie had not time for the moment to rack his brain
as to the name he had forgotten, for observation was his primary
concern, and next he saw Lord Limpsfield, whom he had met at Olga’s
party. Finally there emerged a tall, slim, middle-aged man in Oxford
trousers, for whom Georgie instantly conceived a deep distrust. He had
thick auburn hair, for he wore no hat, and he waved his hands about in a
silly manner as he talked. Over his shoulder was a little cape. Then
Lucia came tripping out of the house with her short skirts and her
shingles, and they all chattered together, and kissed and squealed, and
pointed in different directions, and moved up the garden into the house.
The door was shut, and the end of Robert’s brass telescope withdrawn.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hardly had these shameful events occurred when Georgie’s telephone bell
rang. It might be Daisy wanting to compare notes, but it might be Lucia
asking him to tea. He felt torn in half at the idea; carnal curiosity
urged him with clamour to go, dignity dissuaded him. Still halting
between two opinions, he went toward the instrument, which continued
ringing. He felt sure now that it was Lucia, and what on earth was he to
say? He stood there so long that Foljambe came hurrying into the room,
in case he had gone out.

“See who it is, Foljambe,” he said.

Foljambe with amazing calm took off the receiver.

“Trunk call,” she said.

He glued himself to the instrument, and soon there came a voice he knew.

“No! Is it you?” he asked. “What is it?”

“I’m motoring down to-morrow morning,” said Olga, “and Princess Isabel
is probably coming with me, though she is not absolutely certain. But
expect her, unless I telephone to-morrow. Be a darling and give us
lunch, as we shall be late, and come and dine. Terrible hurry:
good-bye.”

“No, you must wait a minute,” screamed Georgie. “Of course I’ll do that,
but I must tell you, Lucia’s just come with a party from London and
hasn’t asked any of us.”

“No!” said Olga. “Then don’t tell her I’m coming. She’s become such a
bore. She asks me to lunch and dinner every day. How thrilling though,
Georgie! Whom has she got?”

Suddenly the name of the weird bright female came back to Georgie.

“Mrs. Alingsby,” he said.

“Lor!” said Olga. “Who else?”

“Mrs. Garroby-Ashton----”

“What?”

“Garr-o-by Ash-ton,” said Georgie very distinctly; “and Lord Limpsfield.
And a tall man in Oxford trousers with auburn hair.”

“It sounds like your double, Georgie,” said Olga. “And a little cape
like yours?”

“Yes,” said Georgie rather coldly.

“I think it must be Stephen Merriall,” said Olga after a pause.

“And who’s that?” asked he.

“Lucia’s lover,” said Olga quite distinctly.

“No!” said Georgie.

“Of course he isn’t. I only meant he was always there. But I believe
he’s Hermione. I’m not sure, but I think so. Georgie, we shall have a
hectic Sunday. Good-bye, to-morrow about two or three for lunch, and two
or three _for_ lunch. What a gossip you are.”

He heard that delicious laugh, and the click of her receiver.

Georgie was far too thrilled to gasp. He sat quite quiet, breathing
gently. For the honour of Riseholme he was glad that a princess was
perhaps coming to lunch with him, but apart from that he would really
have much preferred that Olga should be alone. The “affaire Lucia” was
so much more thrilling than anything else, but Princess Isabel might
feel no interest in it, and instead they would talk about all sorts of
dull things like kings and courts.... Then suddenly he sprang from his
chair: there was a leg of lamb for Sunday lunch, and an apple tart, and
nothing else at all. What was to be done? The shops by now would be
shut.

He rang for Foljambe.

“Miss Olga’s coming to lunch and possibly--possibly a friend of hers,”
he said. “What are we to do?”

“A leg of lamb and an apple tart’s good enough for anybody, isn’t it?”
said Foljambe severely.

This really seemed true as soon as it was pointed out, and Georgie made
an effort to dismiss the matter from his mind. But he could not stop
still: it was all so exciting, and after having changed his Oxford
trousers in order to minimize the likeness between him and that odious
Mr. Merriall, he went out for a constitutional, round the Green from all
points of which he could see any important development at The Hurst.
Riseholme generally was doing the same, and his stroll was interrupted
by many agreeable stoppages. It was already known that Lucia and Pepino
had arrived, and that servants and luggage had come by the 3.20, and
that Lucia’s motor had met the 4.30 and returned laden with exciting
people. Georgie therefore was in high demand, for he might supply the
names of the exciting people, and he had the further information to
divulge that Olga was arriving to-morrow, and was lunching with him and
dining at her own house. He said nothing about a possible princess: she
might not come, and in that case he knew that there would be a faint
suspicion in everybody’s mind that he had invented it; whereas if she
did, she would no doubt sign his visitors’ book for everyone to see.

Feeling ran stormy high against Lucia, and as usual when Riseholme felt
a thing deeply there was little said by way of public comment, though
couples might have been observed with set and angry faces and gabbling
mouths. But higher yet ran curiosity and surmise as to what Lucia would
do, and what Olga would do. Not a sign had come from anyone from The
Hurst, not a soul had been asked to lunch, dinner, or even tea, and if
Lucia seemed to be ashamed of Riseholme society before her grand
friends, there was no doubt that Riseholme society was ashamed of
Lucia....

And then suddenly a deadly hush fell on these discussions, and even
those who were walking fastest in their indignation came to a halt, for
out of the front door of The Hurst streamed the “exciting people” and
their hosts. There was Lucia, hatless and shingled and short-skirted,
and the Bird-of-Paradise and Mrs. Garroby-Ashton, and Pepino and Lord
Limpsfield and Mr. Merriall all talking shrilly together, with shrieks
of hollow laughter. They came slowly across the Green toward the little
pond round which Riseholme stood, and passed within fifty yards of it,
and if Lucia had been the Gorgon, Riseholme could not more effectually
have been turned into stone. She too, appeared not to notice them, so
absorbed was she in conversation, and on they went straight toward the
Museum. Just as they passed Colonel Boucher’s house, Mrs. Boucher came
out in her bath-chair, and without pause was wheeled straight through
the middle of them. She then drew up by the side of the Green below the
large elm.

The party passed into the Museum. The windows were open, and from inside
there came shrieks of laughter. This continued for about ten minutes,
and then ... they all came out again. Several of them carried
catalogues, and Mr. Merriall was reading out of one in a loud voice.

“Pair of worsted mittens,” he announced, “belonging to Queen Charlotte
and presented by the Lady Ambermere.”

“Don’t,” said Lucia. “Don’t make fun of our dear little Museum,
Stephen.”

As they retraced their way along the edge of the Green, movement came
back to Riseholme again. Lucia’s policy with regard to the Museum had
declared itself. Georgie strolled up to Mrs. Boucher’s bath-chair. Mrs.
Boucher was extremely red in the face, and her hands were trembling.

“Good evening, Mr. Georgie,” she said. “Another party of strangers, I
see, visiting the Museum. They looked very odd people, and I hope we
sha’n’t find anything missing. Any news?”

That was a very dignified way of taking it, and Georgie responded in the
same spirit.

“Not a scrap that I know of,” he said, “except that Olga’s coming down
to-morrow.”

“That will be nice,” said Mrs. Boucher. “Riseholme is always glad to see
_her_.”

Daisy joined them.

“Good evening, Mrs. Quantock,” said Mrs. Boucher. “Any news?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Daisy rather breathlessly. “Didn’t you see them?
Lucia and her party?”

“No,” said Mrs. Boucher firmly. “She is in London surely. Anything
else?”

Daisy took the cue. Complete ignorance that Lucia was in Riseholme at
all was a noble manœuvre.

“It must have been my mistake,” she said. “Oh, my mulberry tree has
quite come round.”

“No!” said Mrs. Boucher in the Riseholme voice. “I am pleased. I daresay
the pruning did it good. And Mr. Georgie’s just told me that our dear
Olga, or I should say Mrs. Shuttleworth, is coming down to-morrow, but
he hasn’t told me what time yet.”

“Two or three, she said,” answered Georgie. “She’s motoring down, and is
going to have lunch with me whenever she gets here.”

“Indeed! Then I should advise you to have something cold that won’t
spoil by waiting. A bit of cold lamb, for instance. Nothing so good on a
hot day.”

“What an excellent idea!” said Georgie. “I was thinking of hot lamb. But
the other’s much better. I’ll have it cooked to-night.”

“And a nice tomato salad,” said Mrs. Boucher, “and if you haven’t got
any, I can give you some. Send your Foljambe round, and she’ll come back
with half a dozen ripe tomatoes.”

Georgie hurried off to see to these new arrangements, and Colonel
Boucher having strolled away with Piggy, his wife could talk freely to
Mrs. Quantock.... She did.

       *       *       *       *       *

Lucia waking rather early next morning found she had rather an uneasy
conscience as her bedfellow, and she used what seemed very reasonable
arguments to quiet it. There would have been no point in writing to
Georgie or any of them to say that she was bringing down some friends
for the week-end and would be occupied with them all Sunday. She could
not with all these guests play duets with Georgie, or get poor Daisy to
give an exhibition of ouija, or have Mrs. Boucher in her bath-chair to
tea, for she would give them all long histories of purely local
interest, which could not conceivably amuse people like Lord Limpsfield
or weird Sophy. She had been quite wise to keep Riseholme and Brompton
Square apart, for they would not mix. Besides, her guests would go away
on Monday morning, and she had determined to stop over till Tuesday and
be extremely kind, and not the least condescending. She would have one
or two of them to lunch, and one or two more to dinner, and give Georgie
a full hour of duets as well. Naturally if Olga had been here, she would
have asked Olga on Sunday but Olga had been singing last night at the
opera. Lucia had talked a good deal about her at dinner, and given the
impression that they were never out of each other’s houses either in
town or here, and had lamented her absence.

“Such a pity,” she had said. “For dearest Olga loves singing in my
music-room. I shall never forget how she dropped in for some little
garden-party and sang the awakening of Brunnhilde. Even you, dear Sophy,
with your passion for the primitive, would have enjoyed that. She sang
‘Lucrezia’ here, too, before anyone had heard it. Cortese brought the
score down the moment he had finished it--ah, I think that was in her
house--there was just Pepino and me, and perhaps one or two others. We
would have had dearest Olga here all day to-morrow if only she had been
here....”

So Lucia felt fairly easy, having planned these treats for Riseholme on
Monday, as to her aloofness to-day, and then her conscience brought up
the question of the Museum. Here she stoutly defended herself: she knew
nothing about the Museum (except what Pepino had seen through the window
a few Sundays before); she had not been consulted about the Museum, she
was not on the committee, and it was perfectly proper for her to take
her party to see it. She could not prevent them bursting into shrieks of
laughter at Queen Charlotte’s mittens and Daisy’s drain-pipes, nor could
she possibly prevent herself from joining in those shrieks of laughter
herself, for surely this was the most ridiculous collection of rubbish
ever brought together. A glass case for Queen Charlotte’s mittens, a
heap of fossils such as she had chipped out by the score from the old
quarry, some fragments of glass (Georgie ought to have known better),
some quilts, a dozen coins, lent, only lent, by poor Daisy! In fact the
only object of the slightest interest was the pair of stocks which she
and Pepino had bought and set up on the village green. She would see
about that when she came down in August, and back they should go on to
the village green. Then there was the catalogue: who could help laughing
at the catalogue which described in most pompous language the contents
of this dust-bin? There was nothing to be uneasy about over that. And as
for Mrs. Boucher having driven right through her party without a glance
of recognition, what did that matter? On her own side also, Lucia had
given no glance of recognition to Mrs. Boucher: if she had, Mrs. Boucher
would have told them all about her asparagus or how her Elizabeth had
broken a plate. It was odd, perhaps, that Mrs. Boucher hadn’t stopped
... and was it rather odd also that, though from the corner of her eye
she had seen all Riseholme standing about on the Green, no one had made
the smallest sign of welcome? It was true that she had practically cut
them (if a process conducted at the distance of fifty yards can be
called a cut), but she was not quite sure that she enjoyed the same
process herself. Probably it meant nothing; they saw she was engaged
with her friends, and very properly had not thrust themselves forward.

Her guests mostly breakfasted upstairs, but by the middle of the morning
they had all straggled down. Lucia had brought with her yesterday her
portrait by Sigismund, which Sophy declared was a masterpiece of
_adagio_. She was advising her to clear all other pictures out of the
music-room and hang it there alone, like a wonderful slow movement, when
Mr. Merriall came in with the Sunday paper.

“Ah, the paper has come,” said Lucia. “Is not that Riseholmish of us? We
never get the Sunday paper till midday.”

“Better late than never,” said Mr. Merriall, who was rather addicted to
quoting proverbial sayings. “I see that Mrs. Shuttleworth’s coming down
here to-day. Do ask her to dine and perhaps she’ll sing to us.”

Lucia paused for a single second, then clapped her hands.

“Oh, what fun that would be!” she said. “But I don’t think it can be
true. Dearest Olga popped in--or did I pop in--yesterday morning in
town, and she said nothing about it. No doubt she had not made up her
mind then whether she was coming or not. Of course I’ll ring her up at
once and scold her for not telling me.”

Lucia found from Olga’s caretaker that she and a friend were expected,
but she knew they couldn’t come to lunch with her, as they were lunching
with Mr. Pillson. She “couldn’t say, I’m sure” who the friend was, but
promised to give the message that Mrs. Lucas hoped they would both come
and dine.... The next thing was to ring up Georgie and be wonderfully
cordial.

“Georgino mio, is it ’oo?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Georgie. He did not have to ask who it was, nor did he feel
inclined for baby-talk.

“Georgino, I never caught a glimpse of you yesterday,” she said. “Why
didn’t ’oo come round and see me?”

“Because you never asked me,” said Georgie firmly, “and because you
never told me you were coming.”

“Me so sorry,” said Lucia. “But me was so fussed and busy in town.
Delicious to be in Riseholme again.”

“Delicious,” said Georgie.

Lucia paused a moment.

“Is Georgino cross with me?” she asked.

“Not a bit,” said Georgie brightly. “Why?”

“I didn’t know. And I hear my Olga and a friend are lunching with you. I
am hoping they will come and dine with me to-night. And do come in
afterward. We shall be eight already, or of course I should ask you.”

“Thanks so much, but I’m dining with her,” said Georgie.

A pause.

“Well, all of you come and dine here,” said Lucia. “Such amusing people,
and I’ll squeeze you in.”

“I’m afraid I can’t accept for Olga,” said Georgie. “And I’m dining with
her, you see.”

“Well, will you come across after lunch and bring them?” said Lucia. “Or
tea?”

“I don’t know what they will feel inclined to do,” said Georgie. “But
I’ll tell them.”

“Do, and I’ll ring up at lunch-time again, and have ickle talk to my
Olga. Who is her friend?”

Georgie hesitated: he thought he would not give that away just yet.
Lucia would know in heaps of time.

“Oh, just somebody whom she’s possibly bringing down,” he said, and rang
off.

Lucia began to suspect a slight mystery, and she disliked mysteries,
except when she made them herself. Olga’s caretaker was “sure she
couldn’t say,” and Georgie (Lucia was sure) wouldn’t. So she went back
to her guests, and very prudently said that Olga had not arrived at
present, and then gave them a wonderful account of her little _intime_
dinner with Olga and Princess Isabel. Such a delightful amusing woman:
they must all come and meet Princess Isabel some day soon in town.

Lucia and her guests, with the exception of Sophy Alingsby who continued
to play primitive tunes with one finger on the piano, went for a stroll
on the Green before lunch. Mrs. Quantock hurried by with averted face,
and naturally everybody wanted to know how the Red Queen from Alice in
Wonderland was. Lucia amused them by a bright version of poor Daisy’s
ouija-board and the story of the mulberry tree.

“Such dears they all are,” she said. “But too killing. And then she
planted broccoli instead of phlox. It’s only in Riseholme that such
things happen. You must all come and stay with me in August, and we’ll
enter into the life of the place. I adore it, simply adore it. We are
always wildly excited about something.... And next door is Georgie
Pillson’s house. A lamb! I’m devoted to him. He does embroidery, and
gave those broken bits of glass to the Museum. And that’s dear Olga’s
house at the end of the road....”

Just as Lucia was kissing her hand to Olga’s house, her eagle eye had
seen a motor approaching, and it drew up at Georgie’s house. Two women
got out, and there was no doubt whatever who either of them were. They
went in at the gate, and he came out of his front door like the cuckoo
out of a clock and made a low bow. All this Lucia saw, and though for
the moment petrified, she quickly recovered, and turned sharply round.

“Well, we must be getting home again,” she said, in a rather strangled
voice. “It is lunch-time.”

Mr. Merriall did not turn so quickly, but watched the three figures at
Georgie’s door.

“Appearances are deceptive,” he said. “But isn’t that Olga Shuttleworth
and Princess Isabel?”

“No! Where?” said Lucia looking in the opposite direction.

“Just gone into that house; Georgie Pillson’s, didn’t you say?”

“No, really?” said Lucia. “How stupid of me not to have seen them. Shall
I pop in now? No, I think I will ring them up presently, unless we find
that they have already rung me up.”

Lucia was putting a brave face on it, but she was far from easy. It
looked like a plot: it did indeed, for Olga had never told her she was
coming to Riseholme, and Georgie had never told her that Princess Isabel
was the friend she was bringing with her. However, there was lunch-time
in which to think over what was to be done. But though she talked
incessantly and rather satirically about Riseholme, she said no more
about the prima donna and the princess....

       *       *       *       *       *

Lucia might have been gratified (or again she might not) if she had
known how vivacious a subject of conversation she afforded at Georgie’s
select little luncheon party. Princess Isabel (with her mouth now full
of Mrs. Boucher’s tomatoes) had been subjected during this last week to
an incessant bombardment from Lucia, and had heard on quite good
authority that she alluded to her as “Isabel, dear Princess Isabel.”

“And I will not go to her house,” she said. “It is a free country, and I
do not choose to go to her kind house. No doubt she is a very good
woman. But I want to hear more of her, for she thrills me. So does your
Riseholme. You were talking of the Museum.”

“Georgie, go on about the Museum,” said Olga.

“Well,” said Georgie, “there it was. They all went in, and then they all
came out again, and one of them was reading my catalogue--I made
it--aloud, and they all screamed with laughter.”

“But I daresay it was a very funny catalogue, Georgie,” said Olga.

“I don’t think so. Mr. Merriall read out about Queen Charlotte’s mittens
presented by Lady Ambermere.”

“No!” said Olga.

“Most interesting!” said the Princess. “She was my aunt, big-aunt, is
it? No, great-aunt--that is it. Afterward we will go to the Museum and
see her mittens. Also, I must see the lady who kills mulberry trees.
Olga, can’t you ask her to bring her planchette and prophesy?”

“Georgie, ring up Daisy, and ask her to come to tea with me,” said Olga.
“We must have a weedj.”

“And I must go for a drive, and I must walk on the Green, and I must
have some more delicious apple pie,” began the Princess.

Georgie had just risen to ring up Daisy, when Foljambe entered with the
news that Mrs. Lucas was on the telephone and would like to speak to
Olga.

“Oh, say we’re still at lunch, please, Foljambe,” said she. “Can she
send a message? And you say Stephen Merriall is there, Georgie?”

“No, you said he was there,” said Georgie. “I only described him.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure it is he, but you will have to go sometime this
afternoon and find out. If it is, he’s Hermione, who’s always writing
about Lucia in the _Evening Gazette_. Priceless! So you must go across
for a few minutes, Georgie, and make certain.”

Foljambe came back to ask if Mrs. Lucas might pop in to pay her respects
to Princess Isabel.

“So kind of her, but she must not dream of troubling herself,” said the
Princess.

Foljambe retired and appeared for the third time with a faint, firm
smile.

“Mrs. Lucas will ring up Mrs. Shuttleworth in a quarter of an hour,” she
said.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Princess finished her apple-tart.

“And now let us go and see the Museum,” she said.

Georgie remained behind to ring up Daisy, to explain when Lucia
telephoned next that Olga had gone out, and to pay his visit to The
Hurst. To pretend that he did not enjoy that, would be to misunderstand
him altogether. Lucia had come down here with her smart party and had
taken no notice of Riseholme, and now two people a million times smarter
had by a clearly providential dealing come down at the same time and
were taking no notice of her. Instead they were hobnobbing with people
like himself and Daisy whom Lucia had slighted. Then she had laughed at
the Museum, and especially at the catalogue and the mittens, and now the
great-niece of the owner of the mittens had gone to see them. That was a
stinger, in fact it was all a stinger, and well Lucia deserved it.

He was shown into the music-room, and he had just time to observe that
there was a printed envelope on the writing-table addressed to the
_Evening Gazette_, when Lucia and Mr. Merriall came hurrying in.

“Georgino mio,” said Lucia effusively. “How nice of you to come in. But
you’ve not brought your ladies? Oh, this is Mr. Merriall.”

(Hermione, of the _Evening Gazette_, it’s proved, thought Georgie.)

“They thought they wouldn’t add to your big party,” said Georgie
sumptuously. (That was another stinger.)

“And was it Princess Isabel I saw at your door?” asked Mr. Merriall with
an involuntary glance at the writing-table. (Lucia had not mentioned her
since.)

“Oh yes. They just motored down and took potluck with me.”

“What did you give them?” asked Lucia, forgetting her anxieties for a
moment.

“Oh, just cold lamb and apple tart,” said Georgie.

“No!” said Lucia. “You ought to have brought them to lunch here. O
Georgie, my picture, look. By Sigismund.”

“Oh yes,” said Georgie. “What’s it of?”

“_Cattivo!_” said Lucia. “Why, it’s a portrait of me. Sigismund, you
know, he’s the greatest rage in London just now. Everybody is crazy to
be painted by him.”

“And they look crazy when they are. It’s a mad world, my masters,” said
Mr. Merriall.

“Naughty,” said Lucia. “Is it not wonderful, Georgie?”

“Yes. I expect it’s very clever,” said Georgie. “Very clever indeed.”

“I should so like to show it dearest Olga,” said Lucia, “and I’m sure
the Princess would be interested in it. She was talking about modern art
the other day when I dined with Olga. I wonder if they would look in at
tea-time, or indeed any other time.”

“Not very likely, I’m afraid,” said Georgie, “for Daisy Quantock’s
coming to tea, I know. We’re going to weedj. And they’re going out for a
drive sometime.”

“And where are they now?” asked Lucia. It was terrible to have to get
news of her intimate friends from Georgie, but how else was she to find
out?

“They went across to see the Museum,” said he. “They were most
interested in it.”

Mr. Merriall waved his hands, just in the same way as Georgie did.

“Ah, that Museum!” he said. “Those mittens! Shall I ever get over those
mittens? Lucia said she would give it the next shoe-lace she broke.”

“Yes,” said Georgie. “The Princess wanted to see those mittens. Queen
Charlotte was her great-aunt. I told them how amused you all were at the
mittens.”

Lucia had been pressing her finger to her forehead, a sign of
concentration. She rose as if going back to her other guests.

“Coming into the garden presently?” she asked, and glided from the room.

“And so you’re going to have a sitting with the ouija-board,” said Mr.
Merriall. “I am intensely interested in ouija. Very odd phenomena
certainly occur. Strange but true.”

A fresh idea had come into Georgie’s head. Lucia certainly had not
appeared outside the window that looked into the garden, and so he
walked across to the other one which commanded a view of the Green.
There she was heading straight for the Museum.

“It is marvellous,” he said to Mr. Merriall. “We have had some curious
results here, too.”

Mr. Merriall was moving daintily about the room, and Georgie wondered if
it would be possible to convert Oxford trousers into an ordinary pair.
It was dreadful to think that Olga, even in fun, had suggested that such
a man was his double. There was the little cape as well.

“I have quite fallen in love with your Riseholme,” said Mr. Merriall.

“We all adore it,” said Georgie, not attending very much because his
whole mind was fixed on the progress of Lucia across the Green. Would
she catch them in the Museum, or had they already gone? Smaller and
smaller grew her figure and her twinkling legs, and at last she crossed
the road and vanished behind the belt of shrubs in front of the
tithe-barn.

“All so homey and intimate. ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ in fact,” said Mr.
Merriall. “We have been hearing how Mrs. Shuttleworth loves singing in
this room.”

Georgie was instantly on his guard again. It was quite right and proper
that Lucia should be punished, and of course Riseholme would know all
about it, for indeed Riseholme was administering the punishment. But it
was a very different thing to let her down before those who were not
Riseholme.

“Oh yes, she sings here constantly,” he said. “We are all in and out of
each other’s houses. But I must be getting back to mine now.”

Mr. Merriall longed to be asked to this little ouija party at Olga’s,
and at present his hostess had been quite unsuccessful in capturing
either of the two great stars. There was no harm in trying....

“You couldn’t perhaps take me to Mrs. Shuttleworth’s for tea?” he asked.

“No, I’m afraid I could hardly do that,” said Georgie. “Good-bye. I hope
we shall meet again.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Nemesis meantime had been dogging Lucia’s footsteps, with more success
than Lucia was having in dogging Olga’s. She had arrived, as Georgie had
seen, at the Museum, and again paid a shilling to enter that despised
exhibition. It was rather full, for visitors who had lunched at the
Ambermere Arms had come in, and there was quite a crowd round Queen
Charlotte’s mittens, among whom was Lady Ambermere herself who had
driven over from the Hall with two depressed guests whom she had forced
to come with her. She put up her glasses and stared at Lucia.

“Ah, Mrs. Lucas!” she said with the singular directness for which she
was famous. “For the moment I did not recognize you with your hair like
that. It is a fashion that does not commend itself to me. You have come
in, of course, to look at Her late Majesty’s mittens, for really there
is very little else to see.”

As a rule, Lucia shamelessly truckled to Lady Ambermere, and schemed to
get her to lunch or dinner. But to-day she didn’t care two straws about
her, and while these rather severe remarks were being addressed to her,
her eyes darted eagerly round the room in search of those for whom she
would have dropped Lady Ambermere without the smallest hesitation.

“Yes, dear Lady Ambermere,” she said. “So interesting to think that
Queen Charlotte wore them. Most good of you to have presented them to
our little Museum.”

“Lent,” said Lady Ambermere. “They are heirlooms in my family. But I am
glad to let others enjoy the sight of them. And by a remarkable
coincidence I have just had the priviledge of showing them to a relative
of their late owner. Princess Isabel. I offered to have the case opened
for her, and let her try them on. She said, most graciously, that it was
not necessary.”

“Yes, dear Princess Isabel,” said Lucia, “I heard she had come down. Is
she here still?”

“No. She and Mrs. Shuttleworth have just gone. A motor drive, I
understand, before tea. I suggested, of course, a visit to the Hall,
where I would have been delighted to entertain them. Where did they
lunch?”

“At Georgie Pillson’s,” said Lucia bitterly.

“Indeed. I wonder why Mr. Pillson did not let me know. Did you lunch
there too?”

“No. I have a party in my own house. Some friends from London, Lord
Limpsfield, Mrs. Garroby-Ashton----”

“Indeed!” said Lady Ambermere. “I had meant to return to the Hall for
tea, but I will change my plans and have a cup of tea with you, Mrs.
Lucas. Perhaps you would ask Mrs. Shuttleworth and her distinguished
guest to drop in. I will present you to her. You have a pretty little
garden, I remember. Quaint. You are at liberty to say that I am taking
tea with you. But stay! If they have gone out for a drive, they will not
be back quite yet. It does not matter: we will sit in your garden.”

Now in the ordinary way this would have been a most honourable event,
but to-day, though Lady Ambermere had not changed, her value had. If
only Olga had not come down bringing her whom Lucia could almost refer
to as that infernal Princess, it would have been rich, it would have
been glorious, to have Lady Ambermere dropping in to tea. Even now she
would be better than nothing, thought Lucia, and after inspecting the
visitors’ book of the Museum, where Olga and the Princess had inscribed
their names, and where now Lady Ambermere wrote hers, very close to the
last one, so as to convey the impression that they were one party, they
left the place.

Outside was drawn up Lady Ambermere’s car, with her companion, the meek
Miss Lyall, sitting on the front seat nursing Lady Ambermere’s
stertorous pug.

“Let me see,” said she. “How had we best arrange? A walk would be good
for Pug before he has his tea. Pug takes lukewarm milk with a biscuit
broken up into it. Please put Pug on his leash, Miss Lyall, and we will
all walk across the Green to Mrs. Lucas’s little house. The motor shall
go round by the road and wait for us there. That is Mrs. Shuttleworth’s
little house, is it not? So you might kindly step in there, Mrs. Lucas,
and leave a message for them about tea, stating that I shall be there.
We will walk slowly and you will soon catch us up.”

The speech was thoroughly Ambermerian: everybody in Riseholme had a
“little house” compared with the Hall: everybody had a “little garden.”
Equally Ambermerian was her complete confidence that her wish was
everybody else’s pleasure, and Lucia dismally reflected that she, for
her part, had never failed to indicate that it was. But just now, though
Lady Ambermere was so conspicuously second-best, and though she was like
a small luggage-engine with a Roman nose and a fat dog, the wretched
Lucia badly wanted somebody to “drop in,” and by so doing give her some
sort of status--alas, that one so lately the Queen of Riseholme should
desire it--in the sight of her guests. She could say what a bore Lady
Ambermere was the moment she had gone.

Wretched also was her errand: she knew that Olga and the infernal
Princess were to have a ouija with Daisy and Georgie, and that her
invitation would be futile, and as for that foolish old woman’s
suggestion that her presence at The Hurst would prove an attraction to
Olga, she was aware that if anything was needful to make Olga refuse to
come, it would be that Lady Ambermere was there. Olga had dined at The
Hall once, and had been induced to sing, while her hostess played
Patience and talked to Pug.

Lucia had a thought: not a very bright one, but comparatively so. She
might write her name in the Princess’s book: that would be something.
So, when her ring was answered, and she ascertained, as she already
knew, that Olga was out, and left the hopeless invitation that she and
her guest would come to tea, where they would meet Lady Ambermere, she
asked for the Princess’s book.

Olga’s parlour-maid looked puzzled.

“Would that be the book of cross-word puzzles, ma’am?” she asked. “I
don’t think her Highness brought any other book, and that she’s taken
with her for her drive.”

Lucia trudged sadly away. Half way across the Green she saw Georgie and
Daisy Quantock with a large sort of drawing-board under arm coming
briskly in her direction. She knew where they were going, and she pulled
her shattered forces together.

“Dearest Daisy, not set eyes on you!” she said. “A few friends from
London, how it ties one! But I shall pop in to-morrow, for I stop till
Tuesday. Going to have a ouija party with dear Piggy and Goosie? Wish I
could come, but Lady Ambermere has quartered herself on me for tea, and
I must run on and catch her up. Just been to your delicious Museum.
Wonderful mittens! Wonderful everything. Pepino and I will look out
something for it!”

“Very kind,” said Daisy. It was as if the North Pole had spoken.

Pug and Miss Lyall and Lady Ambermere and her two depressed guests had
been admitted to The Hurst before Lucia caught them up, and she found
them all seated stonily in the music-room, where Stephen Merriall had
been finishing his official correspondence. Well Lucia knew what he had
been writing about: there might perhaps be a line or two about The
Hurst, and the party week-ending there, but that, she was afraid, would
form a mere little postscript to more exalted paragraphs. She hastily
introduced him to Lady Ambermere and Miss Lyall, but she had no idea who
Lady Ambermere’s guests were, and suspected they were poor relations,
for Lady Ambermere introduced them to nobody.

Pug gave a series of wheezy barks.

“Clever little man,” said Lady Ambermere. “He is asking for his tea. He
barks four times like that for his tea.”

“And he shall have it,” said Lucia. “Where are the others, Stephen?”

Mr. Merriall exerted himself a little on hearing Lady Ambermere’s name:
he would put in a sentence about her....

“Lord Limpsfield and Mrs. Garroby-Ashton have gone to play golf,” he
said. “Barbarously energetic of them, is it not, Lady Ambermere? What a
sweet little dog.”

“Pug does not like strangers,” said Lady Ambermere. “And I am
disappointed not to see Lord Limpsfield. Do we expect Mrs. Shuttleworth
and the Princess?”

“I left the message,” said Lucia.

Lady Ambermere’s eyes finished looking at Mr. Merriall and proceeded
slowly round the room.

“What is that curious picture?” she said. “I am completely puzzled.”

Lucia gave her bright laugh: it was being an awful afternoon, but she
had to keep her flag flying.

“Striking, is it not?” she said. “Dear Benjy Sigismund insisted on
painting me. Such a lot of sittings.”

Lady Ambermere looked from one to the other.

“I do not see any resemblance,” she said. “It appears to me to resemble
nothing. Ah, here is tea. A little lukewarm milk for Pug, Miss Lyall.
Mix a little hot water with it, it does not suit him to have it quite
cold. And I should like to see Mr. Georgie Pillson. No doubt he could be
told that I am here.”

This was really rather desperate: Lucia could not produce Olga or the
Princess, or Lord Limpsfield or Mrs. Garroby-Ashton for Lady Ambermere,
and she knew she could not produce Georgie, for by that time he would be
at Olga’s. All that was left for her was to be able to tell Lord
Limpsfield and Mrs. Garroby-Ashton when they returned that they had
missed Lady Ambermere. As for Riseholme ... but it was better not to
think how she stood with regard to Riseholme, which, yesterday, she had
settled to be of no account at all. If only, before coming down, she had
asked them all to lunch and tea and dinner....

The message came back that Mr. Pillson had gone to tea with Mrs.
Shuttleworth. Five minutes later came regrets from Olga that she had
friends with her, and could not come to tea. Lady Ambermere ate seed
cake in silence. Mrs. Alingsby meantime had been spending the afternoon
in her bedroom, and she now appeared in a chintz wrapper and morocco
slippers. Her hair fell over her eyes like that of an Aberdeen terrier,
and she gave a shrill scream when she saw Pug.

“I can’t bear dogs,” she said. “Take that dog away, dear Lucia. Burn it,
drown it! You told me you hadn’t got any dogs.”

Lady Ambermere turned on her a face that should have instantly petrified
her, if she had had any proper feeling. Never had Pug been so
blasphemed. She rose as she swallowed the last mouthful of seed cake.

“We are inconveniencing your guests, Mrs. Lucas,” she said. “Pug and I
will be off. Miss Lyall, Pug’s leash. We must be getting back to the
Hall. I shall look in at Mrs. Shuttleworth’s, and sign my name in the
Princess’s book. Good-bye, Mrs. Lucas. Thank you for my tea.”

She pointedly ignored Mrs. Alingsby, and headed the gloomy frieze that
defiled through the door. The sole bright spot was that she would find
only a book of cross-word puzzles to write her name in.




CHAPTER VI


Lucia’s guests went off by the early train next morning and she was
left, like Marius among the ruins of Carthage. But, unlike that
weak-hearted senator, she had no intention of mourning; her first
function was to rebuild, and presently she became aware that the work of
rebuilding had to begin from its very foundations. There was as
background the fact that her week-end party had not been a triumphant
success, for she had been speaking in London of Riseholme being such a
queer dear old-fashioned little place, where everybody adored her, and
where Olga kept incessantly running in to sing acts and acts of the most
renowned operas in her music-room; she had also represented Princess
Isabel as being a dear and intimate friend, and these two cronies of
hers had politely but firmly refused all invitations to pop in. Lady
Ambermere, it is true, had popped in, but nobody had seemed the least
impressed with her, and Lucia had really been very glad when after
Sophy’s painful remarks about Pug, she had popped out, leaving that
astonished post-cubist free to inquire who that crashing old hag was. Of
course all this could be quickly lived down again when she got to
London, but it certainly did require obliteration.

What gave her more pause for thought was the effect that her week-end
had produced on Riseholme. Lucia knew that all Riseholme knew that Olga
and the Princess had lunched off cold lamb with Georgie, and had never
been near The Hurst, and Riseholme, if she knew Riseholme at all, would
have something to talk about there. Riseholme knew also that Lucia and
her party had shrieked with laughter at the Museum, while the Princess
had politely signed her name in the visitors book after reverently
viewing her great-aunt’s mittens. But what else had been happening,
whether Olga was here still, what Daisy and her ouija board had been up
to, who had dined (if anyone except Georgie) at Olga’s last night, Lucia
was at present ignorant, and all that she had to find out, for she had a
presentiment that nobody would pop in and tell her. Above all, what was
Riseholme saying about her? How were they taking it all?

Lucia had determined to devote this day to her old friends, and she rang
up Daisy and asked her and Robert to lunch. Daisy regretted that she was
engaged, and rang off with such precipitation that (so it was easy to
guess) she dropped the receiver on the floor, said “Drat,” and replaced
it. Lucia then rang up Mrs. Boucher and asked her and the colonel to
lunch. Mrs. Boucher with great emphasis said that she had got friends to
lunch. Of course that might mean that Daisy Quantock was lunching there;
indeed it seemed a very natural explanation, but somehow it was far from
satisfying Lucia.

She sat down to think, and the unwelcome result of thought was a faint
suspicion that just as she had decided to ignore Riseholme while her
smart party from London was with her, Riseholme was malignant enough to
retaliate. It was very base, it was very childish, but there was that
possibility. She resolved to put a playful face on it and rang up
Georgie. From the extraordinary celerity with which he answered, she
wondered whether he was expecting a call from her or another.

“Georgino mio!” she said.

The eagerness with which Georgie had said, “Yes. Who is it?” seemed to
die out of his voice.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said. “Good morning.”

Lucia was not discouraged.

“Me coming round to have good long chat,” she said. “All my tiresome
guests have gone, Georgie, and I’m staying till _domani_. So lovely to
be here again.”

“_Si_,” said Georgie; just “‘_si_’.”

The faint suspicion became a shade more definite.

“Coming at once then,” said Lucia.

Lucia set forth and emerging on to the Green, was in time to see Daisy
Quantock hurry out of Georgie’s house and bolt into her own like a plump
little redfaced rabbit. Somehow that was slightly disconcerting: it
required very little inductive reasoning to form the theory that Daisy
had popped in to tell Georgie that Lucia had asked her to lunch, and
that she had refused. Daisy must have been present also when Lucia rang
Georgie up and instead of waiting to join in the good long chat had
scuttled home again. A slight effort therefore was needed to keep
herself up to the gay playful level and be quite unconscious that
anything unpropitious could possibly have occurred. She found Georgie
with his sewing in the little room which he called his study because he
did his embroidery there. He seemed somehow to Lucia to be encased in a
thin covering of ice, and she directed her full effulgence to the task
of melting it.

“Now that is nice!” she said. “And we’ll have a good gossip. So lovely
to be in Riseholme again. And isn’t it naughty of me? I was almost glad
when I saw the last of my guests off this morning, and promised myself a
real Riseholme day. Such dears all of them, too, and tremendously in the
movement; such arguments and discussions as we had! All day yesterday I
was occupied, talks with one, strolls with another, and all the time I
was longing to trot round and see you and Daisy and all the rest. Any
news, Georgie? What did you do with yourself yesterday?”

“Well, I was very busy too,” said Georgie. “Quite a rush. I had two
guests at lunch, and then I had tea at Olga’s----”

“Is she here still?” asked Lucia. She did not intend to ask that, but
she simply could not help it.

“Oh yes. She’s going to stop here two or three days, as she doesn’t sing
in London again till Thursday.”

Lucia longed to ask if the Princess was remaining as well, but she had
self control enough not to. Perhaps it would come out some other way....

“Dear Olga,” said Lucia effusively. “I reckon her quite a Riseholmite.”

“Oh quite,” said Georgie, who was determined not to let his ice melt.
“Yes: I had tea at Olga’s, and we had the most wonderful weedj. Just she
and the Princess and Daisy and I.”

Lucia gave her silvery peal of laughter. It sounded as if it had
“turned” a little in this hot weather, or got a little tarnished.

“Dear Daisy!” she said. “Is she not priceless? How she adores her
conjuring tricks and hocus-pocuses! Tell me all about it. An Egyptian
guide: Abfou, was it not?”

Georgie thought it might be wiser not to tell Lucia all that Abfou had
vouchsafed, unless she really insisted, for Abfou had written the most
sarcastic things about her in perfect English at top-speed. He had
called her a snob again, and said she was too grand now for her old
friends, and had been really rude about her shingled hair.

“Yes, Abfou,” he said. “Abfou was in great form, and Olga has
telegraphed for a planchette. Abfou said she was most psychical, and had
great mediumistic gifts. Well, that went on a long time.”

“What else did Abfou say?” asked Lucia, fixing Georgie with her
penetrating eye.

“Oh, he talked about Riseholme affairs,” said Georgie. “He knew the
Princess had been to the Museum, for he had seen her there. It was he,
you know, who suggested the Museum. He kept writing Museum, though we
thought it was ‘Mouse’ at first.”

Lucia felt perfectly certain in her own mind that Abfou had been saying
things about her. But perhaps, as it was Daisy who had been operating,
it was better not to ask what they were. Ignorance was not bliss, but
knowledge might be even less blissful. And Georgie was not thawing: he
was polite, he was reserved, but so far from chatting, he was talking
with great care. She must get him in a more confidential mood.

“That reminds me,” she said. “Pepino and I haven’t given you anything
for the Museum yet. I must send you the Elizabethan spit from my
music-room. They say it is the most perfect spit in existence. I don’t
know what Pepino didn’t pay for it.”

“How kind of you,” said Georgie. “I will tell the committee of your
offer. Olga gave us a most magnificent present yesterday: the manuscript
of ‘Lucrezia,’ which Cortese had given her. I took it to the Museum
directly after breakfast, and put it in the glass case opposite the
door.”

Again Lucia longed to be as sarcastic as Abfou, and asked whether a
committee meeting had been held to settle if this should be accepted.
Probably Georgie had some perception of that, for he went on in a great
hurry.

“Well, the weedj lasted so long that I had only just time to get home to
dress for dinner and go back to Olga’s,” he said.

“Who was there?” asked Lucia.

“Colonel and Mrs. Boucher, that’s all,” said Georgie. “And after dinner
Olga sang too divinely. I played her accompaniments. A lot of Schubert
songs.”

Lucia was beginning to feel sick with envy. She pictured to herself the
glory of having taken her party across to Olga’s after dinner last
night, of having played the accompaniments instead of Georgie (who was
a miserable accompanist), of having been persuaded afterward to give
them the little morsel of Stravinski, which she had got by heart. How
brilliant it would all have been; what a sumptuous paragraph Hermione
would have written about her week-end! Instead of which Olga had sung to
those old Bouchers, neither of whom knew one note from another, nor
cared the least for the distinction of hearing the prima-donna sing in
her own house. The bitterness of it could not be suppressed.

“Dear old Schubert songs!” she said with extraordinary acidity. “Such
sweet old-fashioned things. ‘Wiedmung,’ I suppose.”

“No, that’s by Schumann,” said Georgie, who was nettled by her tone,
though he guessed what she was suffering.

Lucia knew he was right, but had to uphold her own unfortunate mistake.

“Schubert, I think,” she said. “Not that it matters. And so, as dear old
Pepys said, and so to bed?”

Georgie was certainly enjoying himself.

“Oh no, we didn’t go to bed till terribly late,” he said. “But you would
have hated to be there, for what we did next. We turned on the
gramophone----”

Lucia gave a little wince. Her views about gramophones as being a
profane parody of music, were well known.

“Yes, I should have run away then,” she said.

“We turned on the gramophone and danced!” said Georgie firmly.

This was the worst she had heard yet. Again she pictured what yesterday
evening might have been. The idea of having popped in with her party
after dinner, to hear Olga sing, and then dance impromptu with a
prima-donna and a princess.... It was agonizing: it was intolerable.

She gave a dreadful little titter.

“How very droll!” she said. “I can hardly imagine it. Mrs. Boucher in
her bath-chair must have been an unwieldy partner, Georgie. Are you not
very stiff this morning?”

“No, Mrs. Boucher didn’t dance,” said Georgie with fearful literalness.
“She looked on and wound up the gramophone. Just we four danced: Olga
and the Princess and Colonel Boucher and I.”

Lucia made a great effort with herself. She knew quite well that Georgie
knew how she would have given anything to have brought her party across,
and it only made matters worse (if they could be made worse) to be
sarcastic about it and pretend to find it all ridiculous. Olga certainly
had left her and her friends alone, just as she herself had left
Riseholme alone, in this matter of her week-end party. Yet it was unwise
to be withering about Colonel Boucher’s dancing. She had made it clear
that she was busy with her party, and but for this unfortunate accident
of Olga’s coming down, nothing else could have happened in Riseholme
that day except by her dispensing. It was unfortunate, but it must be
lived down, and if dear old Riseholme was offended with her, Riseholme
must be propitiated.

“Great fun it must have been,” she said. “How delicious a little
impromptu thing like that is! And singing too: well, you had a nice
evening, Georgie. And now let us make some delicious little plan for
to-day. Pop in presently and have ’ickle music and bit of lunch.”

“I’m afraid I’ve just promised to lunch with Daisy,” said he.

This again was rather ominous, for there could be no doubt that Daisy,
having said she was engaged, had popped in here to effect an
engagement.

“How gay!” said Lucia. “Come and dine this evening then! Really,
Georgie, you are busier than any of us in London.”

“Too tarsome,” said Georgie, “because Olga’s coming in here.”

“And the Princess?” asked Lucia before she could stop herself.

“No, she went away this morning,” said Georgie.

That was something, anyhow, thought Lucia. One distinguished person had
gone away from Riseholme. She waited, in slowly diminishing confidence,
for Georgie to ask her to dine with him instead. Perhaps he would ask
Pepino too, but if not, Pepino would be quite happy with his telescope
and his cross-words all by himself. But it was odd and distasteful to
wait to be asked to dinner by anybody in Riseholme instead of everyone
wanting to be asked by her.

“She went away by the ten-thirty,” said Georgie, after an awful pause.

Lucia had already learned certain lessons in London. If you get a
snub--and this seemed very like a snub--the only possible course was to
be unaware of it. So, though the thought of being snubbed by Georgie
nearly made her swoon, she was unaware of it.

“Such a good train,” she said, magnificently disregarding the well-known
fact that it stopped at every station, and crawled in between.

“Excellent,” said Georgie with conviction. He had not the slightest
intention of asking Lucia to dine, for he wanted his tête-à-tête with
Olga. There would be such a lot to talk over, and besides it would be
tiresome to have Lucia there, for she would be sure to gabble away about
her wonderful life in London, and her music-room and her Chippendale
chairs, and generally to lay down the law. She must be punished too, for
her loathsome conduct in disregarding her old friends when she had her
party from London, and be made to learn that her old friends were being
much smarter than she was.

Lucia kept her end up nobly.

“Well, Georgie, I must trot away,” she said. “Such a lot of people to
see. Look in, if you’ve got a spare minute. I’m off again to-morrow.
Such a whirl of things in London this week.”

Lucia, instead of proceeding to see lots of people, went back to her
house and saw Pepino. He was sitting in the garden in very old clothes,
smoking a pipe, and thoroughly enjoying the complete absence of anything
to do. He was aware that officially he loved the bustle of London, but
it was extremely pleasant to sit in his garden and smoke a pipe, and
above all to be rid of those rather hectic people who had talked quite
incessantly from morning till night all Sunday. He had given up the
cross-word, and was thinking over the material for a sonnet on
Tranquillity, when Lucia came out to him.

“I was wondering, Pepino,” she said, “if it would not be pleasanter to
go up to town this afternoon. We should get the cool of the evening for
our drive, and really, now all our guests have gone, and we are going
to-morrow, these hours will be rather tedious. We are spoilt, _caro_,
you and I, by our full life up there, where any moment the telephone
bell may ring with some delightful invitation. Of course in August we
will be here, and settle down to our quaint old life again, but these
little odds and ends of time, you know.”

Pepino was reasonably astonished. Half an hour ago Lucia had set out,
burning with enthusiasm to pick up the “old threads,” and now all she
seemed to want to do was to drop the old threads as quickly as possible.
Though he knew himself to be incapable of following the swift and antic
movements of Lucia’s mind, he was capable of putting two and two
together. He had been faintly conscious all yesterday that matters were
not going precisely as Lucia wished, and knew that her efforts to entice
Olga and her guest to the house had been as barren as a fig-tree, but
there must have been something more than that. Though not an imaginative
man (except in thinking that words rhymed when they did not), it
occurred to him that Riseholme was irritated with Lucia, and was
indicating it in some unusual manner.

“Why, my dear, I thought you were going to have people to lunch and
dinner,” he said, “and see about sending the spit to the Museum, and be
tremendously busy all day.”

Lucia pulled herself together. She had a momentary impulse to confide in
Pepino and tell him all the ominous happenings of the last hour, how
Daisy had said she was engaged for lunch and Mrs. Boucher had friends to
lunch, and Georgie had Olga to dinner and had not asked her, and how the
munificent gift of the spit was to be considered by the Museum committee
before they accepted it. But to have done that would be to acknowledge
not one snub but many snubs, which was contrary to the whole principle
of successful attainment. Never must she confess, even to Pepino, that
the wheels of her chariot seemed to drive heavily, or that Riseholme was
not at the moment agape to receive the signs of her favour. She must not
even confess it to herself, and she made a rapid and complete _volte
face_.

“It shall be as you like, _caro_,” she said. “You would prefer to spend
a quiet day here, so you shall. As for me, you’ve never known me yet
otherwise than busy, have you? I have a stack of letters to write, and
there’s my piano looking, oh, so reproachfully at me, for I haven’t
touched the dear keys since I came, and I must just glance through
‘Henry VIII,’ as we’re going to see it to-morrow. I shall be busy
enough, and you will have your day in the sun and the air. I only
thought you might prefer to run up to town to-day, instead of waiting
till to-morrow. Now don’t keep me chatting here any longer.”

Lucia proved her quality on that dismal day. She played her piano with
all her usual concentration, she read “Henry VIII,” she wrote her
letters, and it was not till the _Evening Gazette_ came in that she
allowed herself a moment’s relaxation. Hurriedly she turned the pages,
stopping neither for cross-word nor record of international interests,
till she came to Hermione’s column. She had feared (and with a gasp of
relief she saw how unfounded her fears had been) that Hermione would
have devoted his picturesque pen to Olga and the Princess, and given her
and her party only the fag-end of his last paragraph, but she had
disquieted herself in vain. Olga had taken no notice of him, and now
(what could be fairer?) he took no notice of Olga. He just mentioned
that she had a “pretty little cottage” at Riseholme, where she came
occasionally for week-ends, and there were three long sumptuous
paragraphs about The Hurst, and Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas who had Lord
Limpsfield and the wife of the member, Mrs. Garroby-Ashton, and Mrs.
Alingsby staying with them. Lady Ambermere and her party from the Hall
had come to tea, and it was all glorious and distinguished. Hermione had
proved himself a true friend, and there was not a word about Olga and
the Princess going to lunch with Georgie, or about Daisy and her absurd
weedj.... Lucia read the luscious lines through twice, and then, as she
often did, sent her copy across to Georgie, in order to help him to
readjust values. Almost simultaneously Daisy sent de Vere across to him
with her copy, and Mrs. Boucher did the same, calling attention to the
obnoxious paragraphs with blue and red pencil respectively, and a great
many exclamation marks in both cases.

Riseholme settled back into its strenuous life again when Lucia departed
next morning to resume her vapid existence in London. It was not annoyed
with her any more, because it had “larned” her, and was quite prepared
to welcome her back if (and when) she returned in a proper spirit and
behaved herself suitably. Moreover, even with its own perennial
interests to attend to, it privately missed the old Lucia, who gave them
a lead in everything, even though she domineered, and was absurd, and
pretended to know all about everything, and put her finger into every
pie within reach. But it did not miss the new shingled Lucia, the one
who had come down with a party of fresh friends, and had laughed at the
Museum, and had neglected her old friends altogether, till she found out
that Olga and a Princess were in the place: the less seen of her the
better. It was considered also that she had remained down here this
extra day in order to propitiate those whom she had treated as pariahs,
and condescend to take notice of them again, and if there was one thing
that Riseholme could not stand, and did not mean to stand from anybody,
it was condescension. It was therefore perfectly correct for Daisy and
Mrs. Boucher to say they were engaged for lunch, and for Georgie to
decline to ask her to dinner.... These three formed the committee of the
Museum, and they met that morning to audit the accounts for the week and
discuss any other business connected or unconnected with their office.
There was not, of course, with so small and intimate a body, any need to
have a chairman, and they all rapped the table when they wanted to be
listened to.

Mrs. Boucher was greedily counting the shillings which had been taken
from the till, while Georgie counted the counterfoils of the tickets.

“A hundred and twenty-three,” he said. “That’s nearly the best week
we’ve had yet.”

“And fifteen and four is nineteen,” said Mrs. Boucher, “and four is
twenty-three which makes exactly six pounds three shillings. Well, I do
call that good. And I hear we’ve had a wonderful bequest made. Most
generous of our dear Olga. I think she ought not only to be thanked, but
asked to join the committee. I always said----”

Daisy rapped the table.

“Abfou said just the same,” she interrupted. “I had a sitting this
morning, and he kept writing ‘committee.’ I brought the paper along with
me, because I was going to propose that myself. But there’s another
thing first, and that’s about Insurance. Robert told me he was insuring
the building and its contents separately for a thousand pounds each. We
shall have to pay a premium, of course. Oh, here’s Abfou’s message.
‘Committee,’ you see ‘committee’ written three times. I feel quite sure
he meant Olga.”

“He spells it with only one ‘m,’” said Georgie, “but I expect he meant
that. There’s one bit of business that comes before that, for I have
been offered another object for the Museum, and I said I would refer the
offer to the committee before I accepted it. Lucia came to see me
yesterday morning and asked----”

“The Elizabethan spit,” said Mrs. Boucher. “I don’t see what we want
with it, for my part, and if I had to say what I thought, I should thank
her most politely, and beg that she would keep it herself. Most kind of
her, I’m sure. Sorry to refuse, which was just what I said when she
asked me to lunch yesterday. There’d have been legs of cold chickens of
which her friends from London had eaten wings.”

“She asked me too,” said Daisy, “and I said ‘no.’ Did she leave this
morning?”

“Yes, about half past ten,” said Georgie. “She wanted me to ask her to
dinner last night.”

Daisy had been writing “committee” again and again on her blotting
paper. It looked very odd with two “m’s” and she would certainly have
spelt it with one herself.

“I think Abfou is right about the way to spell ‘committee,’” she said,
“and even if he weren’t, the meaning is clear enough. But about the
insurance. Robert only advises insurance against fire, for he says no
burglar in his senses----”

Mrs. Boucher rapped the table.

“But there wasn’t the manuscript of ‘Lucrezia’ then,” she said. “And I
should think that any burglar whether in his senses or out of them would
think _that_ worth taking. If it was a question of insuring an
Elizabethan spit----”

“Well, I want to know what the committee wishes me to say about that,”
said Georgie. “Oh, by the way, when we have a new edition of the
catalogue, we must bring it up to date. There’ll be the manuscript of
‘Lucrezia.’”

“And if you ask me,” said Mrs. Boucher, “she only wanted to get rid of
the spit because it makes her chimney smoke. Tell her to get her chimney
swept and keep the spit.”

“There’s a portrait of her in the music-room,” said Georgie, “by
Sigismund. It looks like nothing at all----”

“Of course everybody has a right to have their hair shingled,” said Mrs.
Boucher, “whatever their age, and there’s no law to prevent you.”

Daisy rapped the table.

“We were considering as to whether we should ask Mrs. Shuttleworth to
join the committee,” she said.

“She sang too, beautifully, on Sunday night,” said Georgie, “and what
fun we had dancing. Oh, and Lucia asked for the Princess’s book to sign
her name in, and the only book she had brought was a book of cross-word
puzzles.”

“No!” said both ladies together.

“She did, because Olga’s parlour-maid told Foljambe, and----”

“Well I never!” said Daisy. “That served her out. Did she write Lucia
across, and Pepino down?”

“I’m sure I’ve nothing to say against her,” said Mrs. Boucher, “but
people usually get what they deserve. Certainly let us have the Museum
insured if that’s the right thing to do, and as for asking Olga to be on
the committee, why we settled that hours ago, and I have nothing more to
say about the spit. Have the spit if you like, but I would no more think
of insuring it, than insuring a cold in the head. I’ve as much use for
one as the other. All that stuff too about the gracious chatelaine at
The Hurst in the _Evening Gazette_! My husband read it, and what he said
was ‘Faugh!’ ‘Tush’ and ‘faugh,’ was what he said.”

Public opinion was beginning to boil up again about Lucia, and Georgie
intervened.

“I think that’s all the business before the meeting,” he said, “and so
we accept the manuscript of ‘Lucrezia’ and decline the spit. I’m sure it
was very kind of both the donors. And Olga’s to be asked to join the
committee. Well, we have got through a good morning’s work.”

Lucia meanwhile was driving back to London, where she intended to make
herself a busy week. There would be two nights at the opera, on the
second of which Olga was singing in “The Valkyrie,” and so far from
intending to depreciate her singing, or to refrain from going, by way of
revenge for the slight she had suffered, she meant, even if Olga sang
like a screech-owl and acted like a stick, to say there had never been
so perfect a presentation of Brunnhilde. She could not conceive doing
anything so stupid as snubbing Olga because she had not come to her
house or permitted her to enter Old Place: that would have been the
height of folly.

At present, she was (or hoped to be) on the upward road, and the upward
road could only be climbed by industry and appreciation. When she got to
the top, it would be a different matter, but just now it was an asset, a
score to allude to dear Olga and the hoppings in and out that took place
all day at Riseholme: she knew too, a good deal that Olga had done on
Sunday and that would all be useful. “Always appreciate, always admire,”
thought Lucia to herself as she woke Pepino up from a profound nap on
their arrival at Brompton Square. “Be busy: work, work, work.”

She knew already that there would be hard work in front of her before
she got where she wanted to get, and she whisked off like a disturbing
fly which impeded concentration the slight disappointment which her
week-end had brought. If you meant to progress, you must never look back
(the awful example of Lot’s wife!) and never, unless you are certain it
is absolutely useless, kick down a ladder which has brought you
anywhere, or might in the future bring you anywhere. Already she had
learned a lesson about that, for if she had only told Georgie that she
had been coming down for a week-end, and had bidden him to lunch and
dinner and anything else he liked, he would certainly have got Olga to
pop in at The Hurst, or have said that he couldn’t dine with Olga on
that fateful Sunday night because he was dining with her, and then no
doubt Olga would have asked them all to come in afterward. It had been a
mistake to kick Riseholme down, a woeful mistake, and she would never do
such a thing again. It was a mistake also to be sarcastic about anybody
till you were sure they could not help you, and who could be sure of
that? Even poor dear Daisy with her ridiculous Abfou had proved such an
attraction at Old Place, that Georgie had barely time to get back and
dress for dinner, and a benignant Daisy instead of a militant and
malignant Daisy would have helped. Everything helps, thought Lucia, as
she snatched up the tablets which stood by the telephone and recorded
the ringings up that had taken place in her absence.

She fairly gasped at the amazing appropriateness of a message that had
been received only ten minutes ago. Marcia Whitby hoped that she could
dine that evening: the message was to be delivered as soon as she
arrived. Obviously it was a last moment invitation: somebody had thrown
her over, and perhaps that made them thirteen. There was no great
compliment in it, for Marcia, so Lucia conjectured, had already tried
high and low to get another woman, and now in despair she tried
Lucia.... Of course there were the tickets for “Henry VIII,” and it was
a first night, but perhaps she could get somebody to go with Pepino....
Ah, she remembered Aggie Sanderson lamenting that she had been unable to
secure a seat! Without a pause she rang up the Duchess of Whitby, and
expressed her eager delight at coming to dine to-night. So lucky, so
charmed. Then having committed herself, she rang up Aggie and hoped for
the best, and Aggie jumped at the idea of a ticket for Henry VIII, and
then she told Pepino all about it.

“_Caro_, I had to be kind,” she said, tripping off into the music-room
where he was at tea. “Poor Marcia Whitby in despair.”

“Dear me, what has happened?” asked Pepino.

“One short, one woman short, evidently, for her dinner to-night:
besought me to go. But you shall have your play all the same, and a dear
sweet woman to take to it. Guess! No. I’ll tell you: Aggie. She was
longing to go, and so it’s a kindness all round. You will have somebody
more exciting to talk to than your poor old _sposa_, and dearest Aggie
will get her play, and Marcia will be ever so grateful to me. I shall
miss the play, but I will go another night unless you tell me it is no
good....”

Of course the _Evening Gazette_ would contain no further news of the
chatelaine at The Hurst, but Lucia turned to Hermione’s column with a
certain eagerness, for there might be something about the Duchess’s
dinner this evening. Hermione did not seem to have heard of it, but if
Hermione came to lunch to-morrow, he would hear of it then. She rang him
up....

       *       *       *       *       *

Lucia’s kindness to Marcia Whitby met with all sorts of rewards. She got
there, as was her custom in London, rather early, so that she could hear
the names of all the guests as they arrived, and Marcia, feeling
thoroughly warm-hearted to her, for she had tried dozens of women to
turn her party from thirteen into fourteen, called her Lucia instead of
Mrs. Lucas. It was no difficulty to Lucia to reciprocate this intimacy
in a natural manner, for she had alluded to the Duchess as Marcia behind
her back, for weeks, and now the syllables tripped to her tongue with
the familiarity of custom.

“Sweet of you to ask me, dear Marcia,” she said. “Pepino and I only
arrived from Riseholme an hour or two ago, and he took Aggie Sandeman to
the theatre instead of me. Such a lovely Sunday at Riseholme: you must
spare a week-end and come down and vegetate. Olga Shuttleworth was there
with Princess Isabel, and she sang too divinely on Sunday evening, and
then, would you believe it, we turned on the gramophone and danced.”

“What a coincidence!” said Marcia, “because I’ve got a small dance
to-night, and Princess Isabel is coming. But not nearly so chic as your
dance at Riseholme.”

She moved toward the door to receive the guests who were beginning to
arrive, and Lucia with ears open for distinguished names, had just a
moment’s qualm for having given the impression which she meant to give,
that she had been dancing to Olga’s gramophone. It was no more than
momentary, and presently the Princess arrived, and was led round by her
hostess, to receive curtseys.

“And of course you know Mrs. Lucas,” said Marcia. “She’s been telling me
about your dancing to the gramophone at her house on Sunday.”

Lucia recovered from her curtsey.

“No, dear Marcia,” she said. “It was at Olga’s, in fact----”

The Princess fixed her with a royal eye before she passed on, as if she
seemed to understand.

But that was the only catastrophe, and how small a one! The Princess
liked freaks, and so Marcia had asked a star of the movies and a
distinguished novelist, and a woman with a skin like a kipper from
having crossed the Sahara twice on foot, or having swum the Atlantic
twice, or something of the sort, and a society caricaturist and a slim
young gentleman with a soft voice, who turned out to be the bloodiest
pugilist of the century, and the Prime Minister, two ambassadresses, and
the great Mrs. Beaucourt who had just astounded the world by her
scandalous volume of purely imaginary reminiscences. Each of these would
furnish a brilliant centre for a dinner party, and the idea of spreading
the butter as thick as that seemed to Lucia almost criminal: she
herself, indeed, was the only bit of bread to be seen anywhere. Before
dinner was over she had engaged both her neighbours, the pugilist and
the cinema star, to dine with her on consecutive nights next week, and
was mentally running through her list of friends to settle whom to group
round them. Alf Watson, the pugilist, it appeared, when not engaged in
knocking people out, spent his time in playing the flute to soothe his
savage breast, while Marcelle Periscope when not impersonating
impassioned lovers, played with his moderately tame lion-cub. Lucia
begged Alf to bring his flute, and they would have some music, but did
not extend her invitation to the lion-cub, which sounded slightly
Bolshevistic.... Later in the evening she got hold of Herbert Alton, the
social caricaturist, who promised to lunch on Sunday, but failed to do
business with the lady from the Sahara, who was leaving next day to swim
another sea, or cross another desert. Then the guests for the dance
began to arrive, and Lucia, already half-intoxicated by celebrities,
sank rapt in a chair at the top of the staircase and listened to the
catalogue of sonorous names. Up trooped stars and garters and tiaras,
and when she felt stronger, she clung firmly to Lord Limpsfield, who
seemed to know everybody and raked in introductions.

Lucia did not get home till three o’clock (for having given up her play
out of kindness to Marcia, she might as well do it thoroughly), but she
was busy writing invitations for her two dinner parties next week by
nine in the morning. Pepino was lunching at his club, where he might
meet the Astronomer Royal, and have a chat about the constellations, but
he was to ring her up about a quarter past two and ascertain if she had
made any engagement for him during the afternoon. The idea of this
somehow occupied her brain as she filled up the cards of invitation in
her small exquisite handwriting. There was a telephone in her dining
room, and she began to visualize to herself Pepino’s ringing her up,
while she and the two or three friends who were lunching with her would
be still at table. It would be at the end of lunch: they would be
drinking their coffee, which she always made herself in a glass machine
with a spirit-lamp which, when it appeared to be on the point of
exploding, indicated that coffee was ready. The servants would have
left the room, and she would go to the telephone herself.... She would
hear Pepino’s voice, but nobody else would. They would not know who was
at the other end, and she might easily pretend that it was not Pepino,
but.... She would give a gabbling answer, audible to her guests, but she
could divert her mouth a little away so that Pepino could not make
anything out of it, and then hang up the receiver again.... Pepino no
doubt would think he had got hold of the wrong number, and presently
call her again, and she would then tell him anything there was to
communicate. As she scribbled away, the idea took shape and substance:
there was an attraction about it, it smiled on her.

She came to the end of her dinner-invitations grouped round the
cinema-star and the fluting prizefighter, and she considered whom to ask
to meet Herbert Alton on Sunday. He was working hard, he had told her,
to finish his little gallery of caricatures with which he annually
regaled London, and which was to open in a fortnight. He was a licensed
satirist, and all London always flocked to his show to observe with glee
what he made of them all, and what witty and pungent little remarks he
affixed to their monstrous effigies. It was a distinct _cachet_, too, to
be caricatured by him, a sign that you attracted attention and were a
notable figure. He might (in fact, he always did) make you a perfect
guy, and his captions invariably made fun of something characteristic,
but it gave you publicity. She wondered whether he would take a
commission: she wondered whether he might be induced to do a caricature
of Pepino or herself or of them both, at a handsome price, with the
proviso that it was to be on view at his exhibition. That could probably
be ascertained, and then she might approach the subject on Sunday.
Anyhow, she would ask one or two pleasant people to meet him, and hope
for the best.

Lucia’s little lunch-party that day consisted only of four people.
Lunch, Lucia considered, was for _intimes_: you sat with your elbows on
the table, and all talked together, and learned the news, just as you
did on the Green at Riseholme. There was something unwieldy about a
large lunch-party; it was a distracted affair, and in the effort to
assimilate more news than you could really digest, you forgot half of
it. To-day, therefore, there was only Aggie Sandeman who had been to the
play last night with Pepino, and was bringing her cousin Adele Brixton
(whom Lucia had not yet met, but very much wanted to know), and Stephen
Merriall. Lady Brixton was a lean, intelligent American of large fortune
who found she got on better without a husband. But as Lord Brixton
preferred living in America and she in England, satisfactory
arrangements were easily made. Occasionally she had to go to see
relatives in America, and he selected such periods for seeing relatives
in England.

She explained the situation very good-naturedly to Lucia who rather
rashly asked after her husband.

“In fact,” she said, “we blow kisses to each other from the decks of
Atlantic liners going in opposite directions, if it’s calm, and if it’s
rough, we’re sick into the same ocean.”

Now that would never have been said at Riseholme, or if it was, it would
have been very ill thought of, and a forced smile followed by a complete
change of conversation would have given it a chilly welcome. Now, out of
habit, Lucia smiled a forced smile, and then remembered that you could
not judge London by the chaste standards of Riseholme. She turned the
forced smile into a genial one.

“Too delicious!” she said. “I must tell Pepino that.”

“Pep what?” asked Lady Brixton.

This was explained; it was also explained that Aggie had been with
Pepino to the play last night; in fact there was rather too much
explanation going on for social ease, and Lucia thought it was time to
tell them all about what she had done last night. She did this in a
characteristic manner.

“Dear Lady Brixton,” she said, “ever since you came in I’ve been
wondering where I have seen you. Of course it was last night, at our
darling Marcia’s dance.”

This seemed to introduce the desirable topic, and though it was not in
the least true, it was a wonderfully good shot.

“Yes, I was there,” said Adele. “What a crush. Sheer Mormonism: one man
to fifty women.”

“How unkind of you! I dined there first; quite a small party. Princess
Isabel, who had been down at our dear little Riseholme on Sunday,
staying with Olga--such a coincidence----” Lucia stopped just in time;
she was about to describe the impromptu dance at Olga’s on Sunday night,
but remembered that Stephen knew she had not been to it. So she left the
coincidence alone, and went rapidly on:

“Dear Marcia insisted on my coming,” she said, “and so, really, like a
true friend I gave up the play and went. Such an amusing little dinner.
Marcelle--Marcelle Periscope, the Prime Minister and the Italian
ambassadress, and Princess Isabel of course, and Alf, and a few more.
There’s nobody like Marcia for getting up a wonderful unexpected little
party like that. Alf was too delicious.”

“Not Alf Watson?” asked Lady Brixton.

“Yes, I sat next him at dinner, and he’s coming to dine with me next
week, and is bringing his flute. He adores playing the flute. Can’t I
persuade you to come, Lady Brixton? Thursday, let me see, is it
Thursday? Yes, Thursday. No party at all, just a few old friends, and
some music. I must find some duets for the piano and flute: Alf made me
promise that I would play his accompaniments for him. And Dora: Dora
Beaucourt. What a lurid life! And Sigismund: no, I don’t think Sigismund
was there; it was at Sophy’s. Such a marvellous portrait he has done of
me: is it not marvellous, Stephen? You remember it down at Riseholme.
How amusing Sophy was, insisting that I should move every other picture
out of my music-room. I must get her to come in after dinner on
Thursday; there is something primitive about the flute.” So Theocritan!

Lucia suddenly remembered that she mustn’t kick ladders down, and turned
to Aggie. Aggie had been very useful when first she came up to London,
and she might quite easily be useful again, for she knew quantities of
solid people, and if her parties lacked brilliance, they were highly
respectable. The people whom Sophy called “the old crusted” went there.

“Aggie dear, as soon as you get home, put down Wednesday for dining with
me,” she said, “and if there’s an engagement there already, as there’s
sure to be, cross it out and have pseudo-influenza. Marcelle--Marcelle
Periscope is coming, but I didn’t ask the lion-cub. A lion-cub: so
quaint of him--and who else was there last night? Dear me, I get so
mixed up with all the people one runs across.”

Lucia, of course, never got mixed up at all: there was no one so clear
headed, but she had to spin things out a little, for Pepino was rather
late ringing up. The coffee-equipage had been set before her, and she
kept drawing away the spirit-lamp in an absent manner just before it
boiled, for they must still be sitting in the dining-room when he rang
up. But even as she lamented her muddled memory, the tinkle of the
telephone bell sounded. She rapidly rehearsed in her mind what she was
going to say.

“Ah, that telephone,” she said, rising hastily, so as to get to it
before one of the servants came back. “I often tell Pepino I shall cut
it out of the house, for one never gets a moment’s peace. Yes, yes, who
is it?”

Lucia listened for a second, and then gave a curtsey.

“Oh, is it you, ma’am?” she said, holding the mouthpiece a little
obliquely. “Yes, I’m Mrs. Lucas.”

A rather gruff noise, clearly Pepino’s voice, came from the instrument,
but she trusted it was inaudible to the others, and she soon broke in
again talking very rapidly.

“Oh, that is kind of you, your Highness,” she said. “It would be too
delightful. To-morrow: charmed. Delighted.”

She replaced the mouthpiece, and instantly began to talk again from the
point at which she had left off.

“Yes, and of course Herbert Alton was there,” she said. “His show opens
in a fortnight, and how we shall all meet there at the private view and
laugh at each other’s caricatures! What is it that Rousseau--is it
Rousseau?--says, about our not being wholly grieved at the misfortunes
of our friends? So true! Bertie is rather wicked sometimes though, but
still one forgives him everything. Ah, the coffee is boiling at last.”

Pepino, as Lucia had foreseen, rang up again almost immediately, and she
told him he had missed the most charming little lunch party, because he
would go to his club. Her guests, of course, were burning to know to
whom she had curtsied, but Lucia gave no information on the point. Adele
Brixton and Aggie presently went off to a matinée, but Stephen remained
behind. That looked rather well, Lucia thought, for she had noticed that
often a handsome and tolerably young man lingered with the hostess when
other guests had gone. There was something rather _chic_ about it; if it
happened very constantly, or if at another house they came together or
went away together, people would begin to talk, quite pleasantly of
course, about his devotion to her. Georgie had been just such a
_cavaliere servente_. Stephen, for his part, was quite unconscious of
any such scintillations in Lucia’s mind: he merely knew that it was
certainly convenient for an unattached man to have a very pleasant house
always to go to, where he would be sure of hearing things that
interested Hermione.

“Delicious little lunch party,” he said. “What a charming woman Lady
Brixton is.”

“Dear Adele,” said Lucia dreamily. “Charming, isn’t she? How pleased she
was at the thought of meeting Alf! Do look in after dinner that night,
Stephen, I wish I could ask you to dine, but I expect to be crammed as
it is. Dine on Wednesday, though: let me see, Marcelle comes that night.
What a rush next week will be!”

Stephen waited for her to allude to the voice to which she had curtsied,
but he waited in vain.




CHAPTER VII


This delicious little luncheon-party had violently excited Adele
Brixton: she was thrilled to the marrow at Lucia’s curtsey to the
telephone.

“My dear, she’s marvellous,” she said to Aggie. “She’s a study. She’s
cosmic. The telephone, the curtsey! I’ve never seen the like. But why in
the name of wonder didn’t she tell us who the Highness was? She wasn’t
shy of talking about the other folk she’d met. Alf and Marcelle and
Marcia and Bertie. But she made a mistake over Bertie. She shouldn’t
have said ‘Bertie.’ I’ve known Herbert Alton for years, and never has
anybody called him anything but Herbert. ‘Bertie’ was a mistake, but
don’t tell her. I adore your Lucia. She’ll go far, mark my words, and I
bet you she’s talking of me as Adele this moment. Don’t you see how
wonderful she is? I’ve been a climber myself and I know. But I was a
snail compared to her.”

Aggie Sandeman was rather vexed at not being asked to the Alf party.

“You needn’t tell me how wonderful she is,” she observed with some
asperity. “It’s not two months since she came to London first, and she
didn’t know a soul. She dined with me the first night she came up, and
since then she has annexed every single person she met at my house.”

“She would,” said Adele appreciatively. “And who was the man who looked
as if he had been labelled ‘Man’ by mistake when he was born, and ought
to have been labelled ‘Lady’? I never saw such a perfect lady, though I
only know him as Stephen at present. She just said, ‘Stephen, do you
know Lady Brixton?’”

“Stephen Merriall,” said Aggie. “Just one of the men who go out to tea
every day--one of the unattached.”

“Well then, she’s going to attach him,” said Adele. “Dear me, aren’t I
poisonous, when I’m going to her house to meet Alf next week! But I
don’t feel poisonous; I feel wildly interested: I adore her. Here we are
at the theatre: what a bore! And there’s Tony Limpsfield. Tony, come and
help me out. We’ve been lunching with the most marvellous----”

“I expect you mean Lucia,” said Tony. “I spent Sunday with her at
Riseholme.”

“She curtsied to the telephone,” began Adele.

“Who was at the other end?” asked Tony eagerly.

“That’s what she didn’t say,” said Adele.

“Why not?” asked Tony.

Adele stepped briskly out of her car, followed by Aggie.

“I can’t make out,” she said. “Oh, do you know Mrs. Sandeman?”

“Yes, of course,” said Tony. “And it couldn’t have been Princess
Isabel.”

“Why not? She met her at Marcia’s last night.”

“Yes, but the Princess fled from her. She fled from her at Riseholme
too, and said she would never go to her house. It can’t have been she.
But she got hold of that boxer----”

“Alf Watson,” said Adele. “She called him Alf, and I’m going to meet him
at her house on Thursday.”

“Then it’s very unkind of you to crab her, Adele,” said Tony.

“I’m not: I’m simply wildly interested. Anyhow, what about you? You
spent a Sunday with her at Riseholme.”

“And she calls you Tony,” said Aggie vituperatively, still thinking
about the Alf party.

“No, does she really?” said Tony. “But after all, I call her Lucia when
she’s not there. The bell’s gone, by the way: the curtain will be up.”

Adele hurried in.

“Come to my box, Tony,” she said, “after the first act. I haven’t been
so interested in anything for years.”

Adele paid no attention whatever to the gloomy play of Tchekov’s. Her
whole mind was concentrated on Lucia, and soon she leaned across to
Aggie, and whispered:

“I believe it was Pepino who rang her up.”

Aggie knitted her brows for a moment.

“Couldn’t have been,” she said. “He rang her up directly afterward.”

Adele’s face fell. Not being able to think as far ahead as Lucia she
didn’t see the answer to that, and relapsed into Lucian meditation, till
the moment the curtain fell, when Tony Limpsfield slid into their box.

“I don’t know what the play has been about,” he said, “but I must tell
you why she was at Marcia’s last night. Some women chucked Marcia during
the afternoon and made her thirteen----”

“Marcia would like that,” said Aggie.

Tony took no notice of this silly joke.

“So she rang up everybody in town----” he continued.

“Except me,” said Aggie bitterly.

“Oh, never mind that,” said Tony. “She rang up everybody, and couldn’t
get hold of anyone. Then she rang up Lucia.”

“Who instantly said she was disengaged, and rang me up to go to the
theatre with Pepino,” said Aggie. “I suspected something of the sort,
but I wanted to see the play, and I wasn’t going to cut off my nose to
spite Lucia’s face.”

“Besides, she would have got someone else, or sent Pepino to the play
alone,” said Tony. “And you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick,
Aggie. Nobody wants to spite Lucia. We all want her to have the most
glorious time.”

“Aggie’s vexed because she thinks she invented Lucia,” observed Adele.
“That’s the wrong attitude altogether. Tell me about Pep.”

“Simply nothing to say about him,” said Tony. “He has trousers and a
hat, and a telescope on the roof at Riseholme, and when you talk to him
you see he remembers what the leading articles in the _Times_ said that
morning. Don’t introduce irrelevant matters, Adele.”

“But husbands are relevant--all but mine,” said Adele. “Part of the
picture. And what about Stephen?”

“Oh, you always see him handing buns at tea-parties. He’s irrelevant
too.”

“He might not be if her husband is,” said Adele.

Tony exploded with laughter.

“You are off the track,” he said. “You’ll get nowhere if you attempt to
smirch Lucia’s character. How could she have time for a lover to begin
with? And you misunderstand her altogether, if you think that.”

“It would be frightfully picturesque,” said Adele.

“No, it would spoil it altogether.... Oh, there’s this stupid play
beginning again.... Gracious heavens, look there!”

They followed his finger, and saw Lucia followed by Stephen coming up
the central aisle of the stalls to two places in the front row. Just as
she reached her place she turned round to survey the house, and caught
sight of them. Then the lights were lowered, and her face slid into
darkness.

       *       *       *       *       *

This little colloquy in Adele’s box was really the foundation of the
secret society of the Luciaphils, and the membership of the Luciaphils
began swiftly to increase. Aggie Sandeman was scarcely eligible, for
complete goodwill toward Lucia was a _sine qua non_ of membership, and
there was in her mind a certain asperity when she thought that it was
she who had given Lucia her gambit, and that already she was beginning
to be relegated to second circles in Lucia’s scale of social precedence.
It was true that she had been asked to dine to meet Marcelle Periscope,
but the party to meet Alf and his flute was clearly the smarter of the
two. Adele, however, and Tony Limpsfield were real members, so too, when
she came up a few days later, was Olga. Marcia Whitby was another who
greedily followed her career, and such as these, whenever they met, gave
eager news to each other about it. There was, of course, another camp,
consisting of those whom Lucia bombarded with pleasant invitations, but
who (at present) firmly refused them. They professed not to know her and
not to take the slightest interest in her, which showed, as Adele said,
a deplorable narrowness of mind. Types and striking characters like
Lucia, who pursued undaunted and indefatigable their aim in life, were
rare, and when they occurred should be studied with reverent
affection.... Sometimes one of the old and original members of the
Luciaphils discovered others, and if when Lucia’s name was mentioned an
eager and a kindly light shone in their eyes, and they said in a hushed
whisper “Did you hear who was there on Thursday?” they thus disclosed
themselves as Luciaphils.... All this was gradual, but the movement went
steadily on, keeping pace with her astonishing career, for the days were
few on which some gratifying achievement was not recorded in the
veracious columns of Hermione.

       *       *       *       *       *

Lucia was driving home one afternoon after a day passed in the Divorce
Court. She had made the acquaintance of the President not long ago, and
had asked him to dinner on the evening before this trial, which was the
talk of the town, was to begin, and at the third attempt had got him to
give her a seat in the court. The trial had already lasted three days,
and really no one seemed to think about anything else, and the papers
had been full of soulful and surprising evidence. Certainly, Babs
Shyton, the lady whose husband wanted to get rid of her, had written
very odd letters to Woof-dog, otherwise known as Lord Middlesex, and he
to her: Lucia could not imagine writing to anybody like that, and she
would have been very much surprised if anyone had written to her as
Woof-dog wrote to Babs. But as the trial went on, Lucia found herself
growing warm with sympathy for Babs. Her husband, Colonel Shyton, must
have been an impossible person to live with, for sometimes he would lie
in bed all day, get up in the evening, have breakfast at 8 p.m., lunch a
little after midnight, and dine heavily at 8.30 in the morning. Surely
with a husband like that, any woman would want some sort of a Woof-dog
to take care of her. Both Babs and he, in the extracts from the
remarkable correspondence between them which were read out in court,
alluded to Colonel Shyton as the S.P., which Babs (amid loud laughter)
frankly confessed meant Stinkpot; and Babs had certainly written to
Woof-dog to say that she was in bed and very sleepy and cross, but
wished that Woof-dog was thumping his tail on the hearth-rug. That was
indiscreet, but there was nothing incriminating about it, and as for the
row of crosses which followed Babs’s signature, she explained frankly
that they indicated that she was cross. There were roars of laughter
again at this, and even the judge wore a broad grin as he said that if
there was any more disturbance he should clear the court. Babs had
produced an excellent impression, in fact: she had looked so pretty and
had answered so gaily, and the Woof-dog had been just as admirable, for
he was a strong silent Englishman, and when he was asked whether he had
ever kissed Babs he said “That’s a lie” in such a loud fierce voice
that you felt that the jury had better believe him unless they all
wanted to be knocked down. The verdict was expected next day, and Lucia
meant to lose no time in asking Babs to dinner if it was in her favour.

The court had been very hot and airless, and Lucia directed her
chauffeur to drive round the park before going home. She had asked one
or two people to tea at five, and one or two more at half-past, but
there was time for a turn first, and, diverting her mind from the
special features of the case to the general features of such cases, she
thought what an amazing and incomparable publicity they gave any woman.
Of course, if the verdict went against her, such publicity would be
extremely disagreeable, but, given that the jury decided that there was
nothing against her, Lucia could imagine being almost envious of her.
She did not actually want to be placed in such a situation herself, but
certainly it would convey a notoriety that could scarcely be
accomplished by years of patient effort. Babs would feel that there was
not a single person in any gathering who did not know who she was, and
all about her, and, if she was innocent, that would be a wholly
delightful result. Naturally, Lucia only envied the outcome of such an
experience, not the experience itself, for it would entail a miserable
life with Pepino, and she felt sure that dinner at 8.30 in the morning
would be highly indigestible, but it would be wonderful to be as
well-known as Babs.

Another point that had struck her, both in the trial itself and in the
torrents of talk that for the last few days had been poured out over the
case, was the warm sympathy of the world in general with Babs, whether
guilty or innocent. “The world always loves a lover,” thought Lucia, and
Woof-dog thumping his tail on the rug by her bedroom fire was a
beautiful image.

Her thoughts took a more personal turn. The idea of having a real lover
was, of course, absolutely abhorrent to her whole nature, and besides,
she did not know whom she could get. But the reputation of having a
lover was a wholly different matter, presenting no such objections or
difficulties, and most decidedly it gave a woman a certain _cachet_, if
a man was always seen about with her and was supposed to be deeply
devoted to her. The idea had occurred to her vaguely before, but now it
took more definite shape, and as to her choice of this sort of lover,
there was no difficulty about that. Hitherto, she had done nothing to
encourage the notion, beyond having Stephen at the house a good deal,
but now she saw herself assuming an air of devoted proprietorship of
him; she could see herself talking to him in a corner, and even laying
her hand on his sleeve, arriving with him at an evening party, and going
away with him, for Pepino hated going out after dinner....

But caution was necessary in the first steps, for it would be hard to
explain to Stephen what the proposed relationship was, and she could not
imagine herself saying “We are going to pretend to be lovers, but we
aren’t.” It would be quite dreadful if he misunderstood and unexpectedly
imprinted on her lips or even her hand a hot lascivious kiss, but up
till now he certainly had not shewn the smallest desire to do anything
of the sort. She would never be able to see him again if he did that,
and the world would probably say that he had dropped her. But she knew
she couldn’t explain the proposed position to him and he would have to
guess: she could only give him a lead and must trust to his
intelligence, and to the absence in him of any unsuspected amorous
proclivities. She would begin gently, anyhow, and have him to dinner
every day that she was at home. And really it would be very pleasant for
him, for she was entertaining a great deal during this next week or
two, and if he only did not yield to one of those rash and turbulent
impulses of the male, all would be well. Georgie, until (so Lucia put it
to herself) Olga had come between them, had done it beautifully, and
Stephen was rather like Georgie. As for herself, she knew she could
trust her firm slow pulses never to beat wild measures for anybody.

       *       *       *       *       *

She reached home to find that Adele had already arrived, and pausing
only to tell her servant to ring up Stephen and ask him to come round at
once, she went upstairs.

“Dearest Adele,” she said, “a million pardons. I have been in the
Divorce Court all day. Too thrilled. Babs, dear Babs Shyton, was
wonderful. They got nothing out of her at all----”

“No: Lord Middlesex has got everything out of her already,” observed
Adele.

“Ah, how can you say that?” said Lucia. “Lord Middlesex--Woof-dog, you
know--was just as wonderful. I feel sure the jury will believe them.
Dear Babs! I must get her to come here some night soon and have a
friendly little party for her. Think of that horrid old man who had
lunch in the middle of the night! How terrible for her to have to go
back to him. Dear me, what is her address?”

“She may not have to go back to him,” said Adele. “If so, ‘care of
Woof-dog’ would probably find her.”

Adele had been feeling rather cross. Her husband had announced his
intention of visiting his friends and relatives in England, and she did
not feel inclined to make a corresponding journey to America. But as
Lucia went on, she forgot these minor troubles, and became enthralled.
Though she was still talking about Babs and Woof-dog, Adele felt sure
these were only symbols, like the dreams of psycho-analysts.

“My sympathy is entirely with dear Babs,” she said. “Think of her
position with that dreadful old wretch. A woman surely may be pardoned,
even if the jury don’t believe her for----”

“Of course she may,” said Adele with a final spurt of ill-temper. “What
she’s not pardoned for is being found out.”

“Now you’re talking as everybody talked in that dreadful play I went to
last night,” said Lucia. “Dear Olga was there: she is singing to-morrow,
is she not? And you are assuming that Babs is guilty. How glad I am,
Adele, that you are not on the jury! I take quite the other view: a
woman with a wretched home like that must have a man with whom she is
friends. I think it was a pure and beautiful affection between Babs and
Woof-dog, such as any woman, even if she was happily married, might be
proud to enjoy. There can be no doubt of Lord Middlesex’s devotion to
her, and really--I hope this does not shock you--what their relations
were concerns nobody but them. George Sand and Chopin, you know. Nelson
and Lady Hamilton. Sir Andrew Moss--he was the Judge, you know--dined
here the other night; I’m sure he is broadminded. He gave me an
admission card to the court.... Ah, Stephen, there you are. Come in, my
dear. You know Lady Brixton, don’t you? We were talking of Babs Shyton.
Bring up your chair. Let me see, no sugar, isn’t it? How you scolded me
when I put sugar into your tea by mistake the other day!”

She held Stephen’s hand for as long as anybody might, or, as Browning
says, “so very little longer,” and Adele saw a look of faint surprise on
his face. It was not alarm, it was not rapture, it was just surprise.

“Were you there?” he said. “No verdict yet, I suppose.”

“Not till to-morrow, but then you will see. Adele has been horrid about
her, quite horrid, and I have been preaching to her. I shall certainly
ask Babs to dine some night soon, and you shall come, if you can spare
an evening, but we won’t ask Adele. Tell me the news, Stephen. I’ve been
in court all day.”

“Lucia’s quite misunderstood me,” said Adele. “My sympathy is entirely
with Babs: all I blame her for is being found out. If you and I had an
affair, Mr. Merriall, we should receive the envious sympathy of
everybody, until we were officially brought to book. But then we should
acquiesce in even our darling Lucia’s cutting us. And if you had an
affair with anybody else--I’m sure you’ve got hundreds--I and everybody
else would be ever so pleased and interested, until---- Mark that word
‘until.’ Now I must go, and leave you two to talk me well over.”

Lucia rose, making affectionate but rather halfhearted murmurs to induce
her to stop.

“Must you really be going, Adele?” she said. “Let me see, what am I
doing to-morrow--Stephen, what is to-morrow, and what am I doing? Ah
yes, Bertie Alton’s private view in the morning. We shall be sure to
meet there, Adele. The wretch has done two caricatures of Pepino and me.
I feel as if I was to be flayed in the sight of all London. Au revoir,
then, dear Adele, if you’re so tired of us. And then the opera in the
evening: I shall hardly dare to show my face. Your motor’s here, is it?
Ring, Stephen, will you? Such a short visit, and I expect Olga will pop
in presently. All sorts of messages to her, I suppose. Look in again,
Adele: propose yourself.”

       *       *       *       *       *

On the doorstep Adele met Tony Limpsfield. She hurried him into her
motor, and told the chauffeur not to drive on.

“News!” she said. “Lucia’s going to have a lover.”

“No!” said Tony in the Riseholme manner.

“But I tell you she is. He’s with her now.”

“They won’t want me then,” said Tony. “And yet she asked me to come at
half-past five.”

“Nonsense, my dear. They will want you, both of them.... Oh Tony, don’t
you see? It’s a stunt.”

Tony assumed the rapt expression of Luciaphils receiving intelligence.

“Tell me all about it,” he said.

“I’m sure I’m right,” said she. “Her poppet came in just now, and she
held his hand as women do, and made him draw his chair up to her, and
said he scolded her. I’m not sure that he knows yet. But I saw that he
guessed something was up. I wonder if he’s clever enough to do it
properly.... I wish she had chosen you, Tony, you’d have done it
perfectly. They have got--don’t you understand?--to have the appearance
of being lovers, everyone must think they are lovers, while all the time
there’s nothing at all of any sort in it. It’s a stunt: it’s a play:
it’s a glory.”

“But perhaps there is something in it,” said Tony. “I really think I had
better not go in.”

“Tony, trust me. Lucia has no more idea of keeping a real lover than of
keeping a chimpanzee. She’s as chaste as snow, a kiss would scorch her.
Besides, she hasn’t time. She asked Stephen there in order to show him
to me, and to show him to you. It’s the most wonderful plan; and it’s
wonderful of me to have understood it so quickly. You must go in:
there’s nothing private of any kind: indeed, she thirsts for publicity.”

Her confidence inspired confidence, and Tony was naturally consumed with
curiosity. He got out, told Adele’s chauffeur to drive on, and went
upstairs. Stephen was no longer sitting in the chair next to Lucia, but
on the sofa at the other side of the tea-table. This rather looked as if
Adele was right: it was consistent anyhow with their being lovers in
public, but certainly not lovers in private.

“Dear Lord Tony,” said Lucia--this appellation was a half-way house
between Lord Limpsfield and Tony, and she left out the “Lord” except to
him--“how nice of you to drop in. You have just missed Adele. Stephen,
you know Lord Limpsfield?”

Lucia gave him his tea, and presently getting up, reseated herself
negligently on the sofa beside Stephen. She was a shade too close at
first, and edged slightly away.

“Wonderful play of Tchekov’s the other day,” she said. “Such a strange,
unhappy atmosphere. We came out, didn’t we, Stephen, feeling as if we
had been in some remote dream. I saw you there, Lord Tony, with Adele
who had been lunching with me.”

Tony knew that: was not that the birthday of the Luciaphils?

“It was a dream I wasn’t sorry to wake from,” he said. “I found it a
boring dream.”

“Ah, how can you say so? Such an experience! I felt as if the woe of a
thousand years had come upon me, some old anguish which I had forgotten.
With the effect, too, that I wanted to live more fully and vividly than
ever, till the dusk closed round.”

Stephen waved his hands, as he edged a little further away from Lucia.
There was something strange about Lucia to-day. In those few minutes
when they had been alone she had been quite normal, but both before,
when Adele was here, and now after Lord Limpsfield’s entry, she seemed
to be implying a certain intimacy, to which he felt he ought to respond.

“Morbid fancies, Lucia,” he said, “I sha’n’t let you go to a Tchekov
play again.”

“Horrid boy,” said Lucia daringly. “But that’s the way with all you men.
You want women to be gay and bright and thoughtless, and have no other
ideas except to amuse you. I sha’n’t ever talk to either of you again
about my real feelings. We will talk about the trial to-day. My entire
sympathies are with Babs, Lord Tony. I’m sure yours are too.”

Lord Limpsfield left Stephen there when he took his leave, after a
quarter of an hour’s lighter conversation, and as nobody else dropped
in, Lucia only asked her lover to dine on two or three nights the next
week, to meet her at the private view of Herbert Alton’s Exhibition next
morning, and let him go in a slightly bewildered frame of mind.

       *       *       *       *       *

Stephen walked slowly up the Brompton Road, looking into the shop
windows, and puzzling this out. She had held his hand oddly, she had sat
close to him on the sofa, she had waved a dozen of those little signals
of intimacy which gave colour to a supposition which, though it did not
actually make his blood run cold, certainly did not make it run hot....
He and Lucia were excellent friends, they had many tastes in common, but
Stephen knew that he would sooner never see her again than have an
intrigue with her. He was no hand, to begin with, at amorous adventures,
and even if he had been he could not conceive a woman more ill-adapted
to dally with than Lucia. “Galahad and Artemis would make a better job
of it than Lucia and me,” he muttered to himself, turning hastily away
from a window full of dainty underclothing for ladies. In vain he
searched the blameless records of his intercourse with Lucia: he could
not accuse himself of thought, word or deed which could possibly have
given rise to any disordered fancy of hers that he observed her with a
lascivious eye.

“God knows I am innocent,” he said to himself, and froze with horror at
the sudden sight of a large newsboard on which was printed in large
capitals “Babs wants Woof-dog on the hearthrug.”

He knew he had no taste for gallantry, and he felt morally certain that
Lucia hadn’t either.... What then could she mean by those little tweaks
and pressures? Conning them over for the second time, it struck him more
forcibly than before that she had only indulged in these little
licentiousnesses when there was someone else present. Little as he knew
of the ways of lovers, he always imagined that they exchanged such
tokens chiefly in private, and in public only when their passions had to
find a small safety-valve. Again, if she had had designs on his virtue,
she would surely, having got him alone, have given a message to her
servants that she was out and not have had Lord Limpsfield admitted....
He felt sure she was up to something, but to his dull male sense, it was
at present wrapped in mystery. He did not want to give up all those
charming hospitalities of hers, but he must needs be very circumspect.

It was, however, without much misgiving that he awaited her next morning
at the doors of the little Rutland Gallery, for he felt safe in so
public a place as a private view. Only a few early visitors had come in
when Lucia arrived, and as she passed the turnstile showing the two
cards of invitation for herself and Pepino, impersonated by Stephen, she
asked for hers back, saying that she was only going to make a short
visit now and would return later. She had not yet seen the caricature of
herself and Pepino, for which Bertie Alton (she still stuck to this
little mistake) had accepted a commission, and she made her way at once
to Numbers 39 and 40, which her catalogue told her were of Mr. and Mrs.
Philip Lucas. Subjoined to their names were the captions, and she read
with excitement that Pepino was supposed to be saying “At whatever
personal inconvenience I must live up to Lucia” while below Number 40
was the enticing little legend “Oh, these duchesses! They give one no
peace!” ... And there was Pepino, in the knee-breeches of levee dress,
tripping over his sword which had got entangled with his legs, and a
cocked-hat on the back of his head, with his eyes very much apart, and
no nose, and a small agonized hole in his face for a mouth.... And there
was she with a pile of opened letters on the floor, and a pile of
unopened letters on the table. There was not much of her face to be
seen, for she was talking into a telephone, but her skirt was very
short, and so was her hair, and there was a wealth of weary resignation
in the limpness of her carriage.

Lucia examined them both carefully, and then gave a long sigh of perfect
happiness. That was her irrepressible comment: she could not have
imagined anything more ideal. Then she gave a little peal of laughter.

“Look, Stephen,” she said. “Bobbie--I mean Bertie--really is too wicked
for anything--Really, outrageous! I am furious with him, and yet I can’t
help laughing. Poor Pepino, and poor me! Marcia will adore it. She
always says she can never get hold of me nowadays.”

Lucia gave a swift scrutiny to the rest of the collection, so as to be
able to recognize them all without reference to her catalogue, when she
came back, as she intended to do later in the morning. There was hardly
anyone here at present, but the place would certainly be crowded an hour
before lunch time, and she proposed to make a _soi-disant_ first visit
then, and know at once whom all the caricatures represented (for Bertie
in his enthusiasm for caricature sometimes omitted likenesses), and go
into peals of laughter at those of herself and Pepino, and say she must
buy them, which of course she had already done. Stephen remained behind,
for Hermione was going to say a good deal about the exhibition, but
promised to wait till Lucia came back. She had not shown the smallest
sign of amorousness this morning. His apprehensions were considerably
relieved, and it looked as if no storm of emotion was likely to be
required of him.

“Hundreds of things to do!” she said. “Let me see, half-past eleven,
twelve--yes, I shall be back soon after twelve, and we’ll have a real
look at them. And you’ll lunch? Just a few people coming.”

Before Lucia got back, the gallery had got thick with visitors, and
Hermione was busy noting those whom he saw chatting with friends or
looking lovely, or being very pleased with the new house in Park Lane,
or receiving congratulations on the engagement of a daughter. There was
no doubt which of the pictures excited most interest, and soon there was
a regular _queue_ waiting to look at Numbers 39 and 40. People stood in
front of them regarding them gravely and consulting their catalogues and
then bursting into loud cracks of laughter and looking again till the
growing weight of the _queue_ dislodged them. One of those who lingered
longest and stood her ground best was Adele, who, when she was
eventually shoved on, ran round to the tail of the _queue_ and herself
shoved till she got opposite again. She saw Stephen.

“Ah, then Lucia won’t be far off,” she observed archly. “Doesn’t she
adore it? Where is Lucia?”

“She’s been, but she’s coming back,” he said. “I expect her every
minute. Ah! there she is.”

This was rather stupid of Stephen. He ought to have guessed that Lucia’s
second appearance was officially intended to be her first. He grasped
that when she squeezed her way through the crowd and greeted him as if
they had not met before that morning.

“And dearest Adele,” she said. “What a crush! Tell me quickly, where are
the caricatures of Pepino and me? I’m dying to see them; and when I see
them no doubt I shall wish I was dead.”

The light of Luciaphilism came into Adele’s intelligent eyes.

“We’ll look for them together,” she said. “Ah thirty-nine and forty.
They must be somewhere just ahead.”

Lucia exerted a steady indefatigable pressure on those in front, and
presently came into range.

“Well, I never!” she said. “Oh, but so like Pepino! How could Bertie
have told he got his sword entangled just like that? And look what he
says.... Oh, and then Me! Just because I met him at Marcia’s party and
people were wanting to know when I had an evening free! Of all the
impertinences! How I shall scold him!”

Lucia did it quite admirably in blissful unconsciousness that Adele knew
she had been here before. She laughed, she looked again and laughed
again (Mrs. Lucas and Lady Brixton in fits of merriment over the cartoon
of Mr. Lucas and herself, thought Hermione.)

“Ah, and there’s Lord Hurtacombe,” she said. “I’m sure that’s Lord
Hurtacombe, though you can’t see much of him, and, look, Olga surely, is
it not? How does he do it?”

That was a very clever identification for one who had not previously
studied the catalogue, for Olga’s face consisted entirely of a large
open mouth and the tip of a chin, it might have been the face of anybody
yawning. Her arms were stretched wide, and she towered above a small man
in shorts.

“The last scene in Siegfried, I’m sure,” said Lucia. “What does the
catalogue say, Stephen? Yes, I am right. ‘Siegfried! Brunnhilde!’ How
wicked, is it not? But killing! Who could be cross with him?”

This was all splendid stuff for Luciaphils; it was amazing how at a
first glance she recognized everybody. The gallery, too, was full of
dears and darlings of a few weeks’ standing, and she completed a little
dinner-party for next Tuesday long before she had made the circuit. All
the time she kept Stephen by her side, looked over his catalogue, put a
hand on his arm to direct his attention to some picture, took a speck of
alien material off his sleeve, and all the time the entranced Adele
felt increasingly certain that she had plumbed the depth of the adorable
situation. Her sole anxiety was as to whether Stephen would plumb it
too. He might--though he didn’t look like it--welcome these little
tokens of intimacy as indicating something more, and when they were
alone attempt to kiss her, and that would ruin the whole exquisite
design. Luckily his demeanour was not that of a favoured swain; it was,
on the other hand, more the demeanour of a swain who feared to be
favoured, and if that shy thing took fright, the situation would be
equally ruined.... To think that the most perfect piece of Luciaphilism
was dependent on the just perceptions of Stephen! As the three made
their slow progress, listening to Lucia’s brilliant identifications,
Adele willed Stephen to understand; she projected a perfect torrent of
suggestion toward his mind. He must, he should understand....

Fervent desire, so every psychist affirms, is never barren. It conveys
something of its yearning to the consciousness to which it is directed,
and there began to break on the dull male mind what had been so obvious
to the finer feminine sense of Adele. Once again, and in the blaze of
publicity, Lucia was full of touches and tweaks, and the significance of
them dawned, like some pale, austere sunrise, on his darkened senses.
The situation was revealed, and he saw it was one with which he could
easily deal. His gloomy apprehensions brightened, and he perceived that
there would be no need, when he went to stay at Riseholme next, to lock
his bedroom door, a practice which was abhorrent to him, for fear of
fire suddenly breaking out in the house. Last night he had had a
miserable dream about what had happened when he failed to lock his door
at The Hurst, but now he dismissed its haunting. These little intimacies
of Lucia’s were purely a public performance.

“Lucia, we must be off,” he said loudly and confidently. “Pepino will
wonder where we are.”

Lucia sighed.

“He always bullies me like that, Adele,” she said. “I must go: _au
revoir_, dear. Tuesday next: just a few _intimes_.”

Lucia’s relief was hardly less than Stephen’s. He would surely not have
said anything so indiscreet if he had been contemplating an
indiscretion, and she had no fear that his hurry to be off was due to
any passionate desire to embrace her in the privacy of her car. She
believed he understood, and her belief felt justified when he proposed
that the car should be opened.

       *       *       *       *       *

Riseholme, in the last three weeks of social progress, had not occupied
the front row of Lucia’s thoughts, but the second row, so to speak, had
been entirely filled with it, for, as far as the future dimly outlined
itself behind the present, the plan was to go down there early in
August, and remain there, with a few brilliant excursions till autumn
peopled London again. She had hoped for a dash to Aix, where there would
be many pleasant people, but Pepino had told her summarily that the
treasury would not stand it. Lucia had accepted that with the frankest
good-nature: she had made quite a gay little lament about it, when she
was asked what she was going to do in August. “Ah, all you lucky rich
people with money to throw about; we’ve got to go and live quietly at
home,” she used to say. “But I shall love it, though I shall miss you
all dreadfully. Riseholme, dear Riseholme, you know, adorable, and all
the delicious funny friends down there who spoil me so dreadfully. I
shall have lovely tranquil days, with a trot across the Green to order
fish, and a chat on the way, and my books and my piano, and a chair in
the garden, and an early bed-time instead of all these late hours. An
anchorite life, but if you have a week-end to spare between your Aix and
your yacht and your Scotland, ah, how nice it would be if you just sent
a postcard!”

Before they became anchorites, however, there was a long week-end for
her and Pepino over the August bank-holiday, and Lucia looked forward to
that with unusual excitement. Adele was the hostess, and the scene that
immense country-house of hers in Essex. The whole world, apparently, was
to be there, for Adele had said the house would be full; and it was to
be a final reunion of the choicest spirits before the annual dispersion.
Mrs. Garroby-Ashton had longed to be bidden, but was not, and though
Lucia was sorry for dear Millicent’s disappointment, she could not but
look down on it, as a sort of perch far below her that showed how
dizzily she herself had gone upward. But she had no intention of
dropping good kind Millie who was hopping about below: she must
certainly come to The Hurst for a Sunday: that would be nice for her,
and she would learn all about Adele’s party.

There were yet ten days before that, and the morning after the
triumphant affair at the Rutland Gallery, Lucia heard a faint rumour,
coming from nowhere in particular, that Marcia Whitby was going to give
a very small and very wonderful dance to wind up the season. She had not
seen much of Marcia lately, in other words she had seen nothing at all,
and Lucia’s last three invitations to her had been declined, one through
a secretary, and two through a telephone. Lucia continued, however, to
talk about her with unabated familiarity and affection. The next day the
rumour became slightly more solid: Adele let slip some allusion to
Marcia’s ball, and hurriedly covered it up with talk of her own
week-end. Lucia fixed her with a penetrating eye for a moment, but the
eye failed apparently to penetrate: Adele went on gabbling about her
own party, and took not the slightest notice of it.

But in truth Adele’s gabble was a frenzied and feverish manœuvre to get
away from the subject of Marcia’s ball. Marcia was no true Luciaphil;
instead of feeling entranced pleasure in Lucia’s successes and failures,
her schemes and attainments and ambitions, she had lately been taking a
high severe line about her.

“She’s beyond a joke, Adele,” she said. “I hear she’s got a scrap-book,
and puts in picture post-cards and photographs of country-houses, with
dates below them to indicate she has been there----”

“No!” said Adele. “How heavenly of her. I must see it, or did you make
it up?”

“Indeed I didn’t,” said the injured Marcia. “And she’s got in it a
picture post-card of the moat-garden at Whitby with the date of the
Sunday before last, when I had a party there and didn’t ask her.
Besides, she was in London at the time. And there’s one of Buckingham
Palace Garden, with the date of the last garden-party. Was she asked?”

“I haven’t heard she was,” said Adele.

“Then you may be sure she wasn’t. She’s beyond a joke, I tell you, and
I’m not going to ask her to my dance. I won’t, I won’t--I will not. And
she asked me to dine three times last week. It isn’t fair: it’s
bullying. A weak-minded person would have submitted, but I’m not
weak-minded, and I won’t be bullied. I won’t be forcibly fed, and I
won’t ask her to my dance. There!”

“Don’t be so unkind,” said Adele. “Besides, you’ll meet her down at my
house only a few days afterward, and it will be awkward. Everybody else
will have been.”

“Well, then she can pretend she has been exclusive,” said Marcia
snappily, “and she’ll like that....”

The rumours solidified into fact, and soon Lucia was forced to the
dreadful conclusion that Marcia’s ball was to take place without her.
That was an intolerable thought, and she gave Marcia one more chance by
ringing her up and inviting her to dinner on that night (so as to remind
her she knew nothing about the ball), but Marcia’s stony voice replied
that most unfortunately she had a few people to dinner herself. Wherever
she went (and where now did Lucia not go?) she heard talk of the ball,
and the plethora of Princes and Princesses that were to attend it.

For a moment the thought of Princesses lightened the depression of this
topic. Princess Isabel was rather seriously ill with influenza, so
Lucia, driving down Park Lane, thought it would not be amiss to call and
enquire how she was, for she had noticed that sometimes the papers
recorded the names of enquirers. She did not any longer care in the
least how Princess Isabel was; whether she died or recovered was a
matter of complete indifference to her in her present embittered frame
of mind, for the Princess had not taken the smallest notice of her all
these weeks. However, there was the front door open, for there were
other enquirers on the threshold, and Lucia joined them. She presented
her card, and asked in a trembling voice what news there was, and was
told that the Princess was no better. Lucia bowed her head in
resignation, and then, after faltering a moment in her walk, pulled
herself together, and with a firmer step went back to her motor.

After this interlude her mind returned to the terrible topic. She was
due at a drawing-room meeting at Sophy Alingsby’s house to hear a
lecture on psycho-analysis, and she really hardly felt up to it. But
there would certainly be a quantity of interesting people there, and the
lecture itself might possibly be of interest, and so before long she
found herself in the black dining-room, which had been cleared for the
purpose. With the self-effacing instincts of the English the audience
had left the front row chairs completely unoccupied, and she got a very
good place. The lecture had just begun, and so her entry was not
unmarked. Stephen was there, and as she seated herself, she nodded to
him, and patted the empty chair by her side with a beckoning gesture.
Her lover, therefore, sidled up to her and took it.

Lucia whistled her thoughts away from such ephemeral and frivolous
subjects as dances, and tried to give Professor Bonstetter her
attention. She felt that she had been living a very hectic life lately;
the world and its empty vanities had been too much with her, and she
needed some intellectual tonic. She had seen no pictures lately, except
Bobbie (or was it Bertie?) Alton’s, she had heard no music, she had not
touched the piano herself for weeks, she had read no books, and at the
most had skimmed the reviews of such as had lately appeared in order to
be up to date and be able to reproduce a short but striking criticism or
two if the talk became literary. She must not let the mere froth of
living entirely conceal by its winking headiness of foam the true
beverage below it. There was Sophy, with her hair over her eyes and her
chin in her hand, dressed in a faded rainbow, weird beyond description,
but rapt in concentration, while she herself was letting the notion of a
dance to which she had not been asked and was clearly not to be asked,
drive like a mist between her and these cosmic facts about dreams and
the unconscious self. How curious that if you dreamed about boiled
rabbit, it meant that sometime in early childhood you had been kissed by
a poacher in a railway-carriage, and had forgotten all about it! What a
magnificent subject for excited research psycho-analysis would have been
in those keen intellectual days at Riseholme.... She thought of them now
with a vague yearning for their simplicity and absorbing earnestness; of
the hours she had spent with Georgie over piano-duets, of Daisy
Quantock’s ouija-board and planchette, of the Museum with its mittens.
Riseholme presented itself now as an abode of sweet peace, where there
were no disappointments or heart-burnings, for sooner or later she had
always managed to assert her will and constitute herself priestess of
the current interests.... Suddenly the solution of her present
difficulty flashed upon her. Riseholme. She would go to Riseholme: that
would explain her absence from Marcia’s stupid ball.

The lecture came to an end, and with others she buzzed for a little
while round Professor Bonstetter, and had a few words with her hostess.

“Too interesting: marvellous, was it not, dear Sophy? Boiled rabbit! How
curious! And the outcropping of the unconscious in dreams. Explains so
much about phobias; people who can’t go in the tube. So pleased to have
heard it. Ah, there’s Aggie. Aggie darling! What a treat, wasn’t it?
Such a refreshment from our bustlings and runnings-about to get back
into origins. I’ve got to fly, but I couldn’t miss this. Dreadful
overlapping all this afternoon, and poor Princess Isabel is no better. I
just called on my way here, but I wasn’t allowed to see her. Stephen,
where is Stephen? See if my motor is there, dear. Au revoir, dear Sophy.
We must meet again very soon. Are you going to Adele’s next week? No?
How tiresome! Wonderful lecture! Calming!”

Lucia edged herself out of the room with these very hurried greetings,
for she was really eager to get home. She found Pepino there, having tea
peacefully all by himself, and sank exhausted in a chair.

“Give me a cup of tea, strong tea, Pepino,” she said. “I’ve been
racketing about all day, and I feel done for. How I shall get through
these next two or three days I really don’t know. And London is
stifling. You look worn out too, my dear.”

Pepino acknowledged the truth of this. He had hardly had time even to go
to his club this last day or two, and had been reflecting on the
enormous strength of the weaker sex. But for Lucia to confess herself
done for was a portentous thing: he could not remember such a thing
happening before.

“Well, there are not many more days of it,” he said. “Three more this
week, and then Lady Brixton’s party.”

He gave several loud sneezes.

“Not a cold?” asked Lucia.

“Something extraordinarily like one,” said he.

Lucia became suddenly alert again. She was sorry for Pepino’s cold, but
it gave her an admirable gambit for what she had made up her mind to do.

“My dear, that’s enough,” she said. “I won’t have you flying about
London with a bad cold coming on. I shall take you down to Riseholme
to-morrow.”

“Oh, but you can’t, my dear,” said he. “You’ve got your engagement-book
full for the next three days.”

“Oh, a lot of stupid things,” said she. “And really, I tell you, quite
honestly, I’m fairly worn out. It’ll do us both good to have a rest for
a day or two. Now don’t make objections. Let us see what I’ve got to
do.”

The days were pretty full (though, alas, Thursday evening was deplorably
empty) and Lucia had a brisk half-hour at the telephone. To those who
had been bidden here, and to those to whom she had been bidden, she gave
the same excuse, namely, that she had been advised (by herself) two or
three days’ complete rest.

She rang up The Hurst, to say that they were coming down to-morrow, and
would bring the necessary attendants, she rang up Georgie (for she was
not going to fall into _that_ error again) and in a mixture of baby
language and Italian, which he found very hard to understand, asked him
to dine to-morrow night, and finally she scribbled a short paragraph to
the leading morning papers to say that Mrs. Philip Lucas had been
ordered to leave London for two or three days’ complete rest. She had
hesitated a moment over the wording of that, for it was Pepino who was
much more in need of rest than she, but it would have been rather
ludicrous to say that Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas were in need of a
complete rest.... These announcements she sent by hand so that there
might be no miscarriage in their appearance to-morrow morning. And then,
as an afterthought, she rang up Daisy Quantock and asked her and Robert
to lunch to-morrow.

She felt much happier. She would not be at the fell Marcia’s ball,
because she was resting in the country.




CHAPTER VIII


A few minutes before Lucia and Pepino drove off next morning from
Brompton Square, Marcia observed Lucia’s announcement in the _Morning
Post_. She was a good-natured woman, but she had been goaded, and now
that Lucia could goad her no more for the present, she saw no objection
to asking her to her ball. She thought of telephoning, but there was the
chance that Lucia had not yet started, so she sent her a card instead,
directing it to 25 Brompton Square, saying that she was At Home,
dancing, to have the honour to meet a string of exalted personages. If
she had telephoned, no one knows what would have happened, whether Daisy
would have had any lunch that day or Georgie any dinner that night, and
what excuse Lucia would have made to them.... Adele and Tony Limpsfield,
the most adept of all the Luciaphils, subsequently argued the matter out
with much heat, but never arrived at a solution that they felt was
satisfactory. But then Marcia did not telephone....

The news that the two were coming down was, of course, all over
Riseholme a few minutes after Lucia had rung Georgie up. He was in his
study when the telephone bell rang, in the fawn-coloured Oxford
trousers, which had been cut down from their monstrous proportions and
fitted quite nicely, though there had been a sad waste of stuff. Robert
Quantock, the wag who had danced a hornpipe when Georgie had appeared in
the original voluminousness, was waggish again, when he saw the
abbreviated garments, and _à propos_ of nothing in particular had said
“Home is the sailor, home from sea,” and that was the epitaph on the
Oxford trousers.

Georgie had been busy indoors this afternoon, for he had been attending
to his hair, and it was not quite dry yet, and the smell of the auburn
mixture still clung to it. But the telephone was a trunk-call, and,
whether his hair was dry or not, it must be attended to. Since Lucia had
disappeared after that week-end party, he had had a line from her once
or twice, saying that they must really settle when he would come and
spend a few days in London, but she had never descended to the sordid
mention of dates.

A trunk-call, as far as he knew, could only be Lucia or Olga, and one
would be interesting and the other delightful. It proved to be the
interesting one, and though rather difficult to understand because of
the aforesaid mixture of baby-talk and Italian, it certainly conveyed
the gist of the originator’s intention.

“Me so tired,” Lucia said, “and it will be divine to get to Riseholme
again. So come to ’ickle quiet din-din with me and Pepino to-morrow,
Georgino. Shall want to hear all novelle----”

“What?” said Georgie.

“All the news,” said Lucia.

Georgie sat in the draught--it was very hot to-day--until the auburn
mixture dried. He knew that Daisy Quantock and Robert were playing
clock-golf on the other side of his garden paling, for their voices had
been very audible. Daisy had not been weeding much lately but had taken
to golf, and since all the authorities said that matches were entirely
won or lost on the putting-green, she with her usual wisdom devoted
herself to the winning factor in the game. Presently she would learn to
drive and approach and niblick and that sort of thing, and then they
would see.... She wondered how good Miss Wethered really was.

Georgie, now dry, tripped out into the garden and shouted “May I come
in?” That meant, of course, might he look over the garden paling and
talk.

Daisy missed a very short putt, owing to the interruption.

“Yes, do,” she said icily. “I supposed you would give me that, Robert.”

“You supposed wrong,” said Robert, who was now two up.

Georgie stepped on a beautiful pansy.

“Lucia’s coming down to-morrow,” he said.

Daisy dropped her putter.

“No!” she exclaimed.

“And Pepino,” went on Georgie. “She says she’s very tired.”

“All those duchesses,” said Daisy. Robert Alton’s cartoon had been
reproduced in an illustrated weekly, but Riseholme up to this moment had
been absolutely silent about it. It was beneath notice.

“And she’s asked me to dinner to-morrow,” said Georgie.

“So she’s not bringing down a party?” said Daisy.

“I don’t know,” remarked Robert, “if you are going on putting, or if you
give me the match.”

“Pouf!” said Daisy, just like that. “But tired, Georgie? What does that
mean?”

“I don’t know,” said Georgie, “but that’s what she said.”

“It means something else,” said Daisy, “I can’t tell you what, but it
doesn’t mean that. I suppose you’ve said you’re engaged.”

“No I haven’t,” said Georgie.

De Vere came out from the house. In this dry weather her heels made no
indentations on the lawn.

“Trunk-call, ma’am,” she said to Daisy.

“These tiresome interruptions,” said Daisy, hurrying indoors with great
alacrity.

Georgie lingered. He longed to know what the trunk-call was, and was
determined to remain with his head on the top of the paling till Daisy
came back. So he made conversation.

“Your lawn is better than mine,” he said pleasantly to Robert.

Robert was cross at this delay.

“That’s not saying much,” he observed.

“I can’t say any more,” said Georgie, rather nettled. “And there’s the
leather-jacket grub I see has begun on yours. I daresay there won’t be a
blade of grass left presently.”

Robert changed the conversation: there were bare patches. “The Museum
insurance,” he said. “I got the fire-policy this morning. The contents
are the property of the four trustees, me and you and Daisy and Mrs.
Boucher. The building is Colonel Boucher’s, and that’s insured
separately. If you had a spark of enterprise about you, you would take a
match, set light to the mittens, and hope for the best.”

“You’re very tarsome and cross,” said Georgie. “I should like to take a
match and set light to you.”

Georgie hated rude conversations like this, but when Robert was in such
a mood, it was best to be playful. He did not mean, in any case, to
cease leaning over the garden paling till Daisy came back from her
trunk-call.

“Beyond the mittens,” began Robert, “and, of course, those three
sketches of yours, which I daresay are masterpieces----”

Daisy bowled out of the dining-room and came with such speed down the
steps that she nearly fell into the circular bed where the broccoli had
been. (The mignonette there was poorish.)

“At half-past one or two,” said she, bursting with the news and at the
same time unable to suppress her gift for withering sarcasm. “Lunch
to-morrow. Just a picnic, you know, as soon as she happens to arrive.
So kind of her. More notice than she took of me last time.”

“Lucia?” asked Georgie.

“Yes. Let me see, I was putting, wasn’t I?”

“If you call it putting,” said Robert. He was not often two up and he
made the most of it.

“So I suppose you said you were engaged,” said Georgie.

Daisy did not trouble to reply at all. She merely went on putting. That
was the way to deal with inquisitive questions.

This news, therefore, was very soon all over Riseholme, and next morning
it was supplemented by the amazing announcement in the _Times_, _Morning
Post_, _Daily Telegraph_, and _Daily Mail_ that Mrs. Philip Lucas had
left London for two or three days’ complete rest. It sounded incredible
to Riseholme, but of course it might be true and, as Daisy had said,
that the duchesses had been too much for her. (This was nearer the mark
than the sarcastic Daisy had known, for it was absolutely and literally
true that one duchess had been too much for her....) In any case, Lucia
was coming back to them again, and though Riseholme was still a little
dignified and reticent, Georgie’s acceptance of his dinner-invitation,
and Daisy’s of her lunch invitation, were symptomatic of Riseholme’s
feelings. Lucia had foully deserted them, she had been down here only
once since that fatal accession to fortune, and on that occasion had
evidently intended to see nothing of her old friends while that Yahoo
party (“Yahoo” was the only word for Mrs. Alingsby) was with her; she
had laughed at their Museum, she had courted the vulgar publicity of the
press to record her movements in London, but Riseholme was really
perfectly willing to forget and forgive if she behaved properly now.
For, though no one would have confessed it, they missed her more and
more. In spite of all her bullying monarchical ways, she had
initiative, and though the excitement of the Museum and the Sagas from
Abfou had kept them going for a while, it was really in relation to
Lucia that these enterprises had been interesting. Since then, too,
Abfou had been full of vain repetitions, and no one could go on being
excited by his denunciation of Lucia as a snob, indefinitely. Lucia had
personality, and if she had been here and had taken to golf Riseholme
would have been thrilled at her skill, and have exulted over her want of
it, whereas Daisy’s wonderful scores at clock-golf (she was off her game
to-day) produced no real interest. Degrading, too, as were the records
of Lucia’s movements in the columns of Hermione, Riseholme had been
thrilled (though disgusted) by them, because they were about Lucia, and
though she was coming down now for complete rest (whatever that might
mean), the mere fact of her being here would make things hum. This time
too she had behaved properly (perhaps she had learned wisdom) and had
announced her coming, and asked old friends in.

Forgiveness, therefore, and excitement were the prevalent emotions in
the morning parliament on the Green next day. Mrs. Boucher alone
expressed grave doubts on the situation.

“I don’t believe she’s ill,” she said. “If she’s ill, I shall be very
sorry, but I don’t believe it. If she is, Mr. Georgie, I’m all for
accepting her gift of the spit to the Museum, for it would be unkind not
to. You can write and say that the Committee have reconsidered it and
would be very glad to have it. But let’s wait to see if she’s ill first.
In fact, wait to see if she’s coming at all, first.”

Piggy came whizzing up with news, while Goosie shouted into her mother’s
ear-trumpet. Before Piggy could come out with it, Goosie’s announcement
was audible everywhere.

“A cab from the station has arrived at The Hurst, Mamma,” she yelled,
“with the cook and the housemaid, and a quantity of luggage.”

“O, Mrs. Boucher, have you heard the news?” panted Piggy.

“Yes, my dear, I’ve just heard it,” said Mrs. Boucher, “and it looks as
if they were coming. That’s all I can say. And if the cook’s come by
half-past eleven, I don’t see why you shouldn’t get a proper lunch,
Daisy. No need for a cup of strong soup or a sandwich which I should
have recommended if there had been no further news since you were asked
to a picnic lunch. But if the cook’s here now....”

Daisy was too excited to go home and have any serious putting and went
off to the Museum. Mr. Rushbold, the Vicar, had just presented his
unique collection of walking-sticks to it, and though the Committee felt
it would be unkind not to accept them, it was difficult to know how to
deal with them. They could not all be stacked together in one immense
stick-stand, for then they could not be appreciated. The handles of many
were curiously carved, some with gargoyle-heads of monsters putting out
their tongues and leering, some with images of birds and fish, and there
was one rather indelicate one, of a young man and a girl passionately
embracing.... On the other hand, if they were spaced and leaned against
the wall, some slight disturbance upset the equilibrium of one and it
fell against the next, and the whole lot went down like ninepins. In
fact, the boy at the turnstile said his entire time was occupied with
picking them up. Daisy had a scheme of stretching an old lawn-tennis net
against the wall, and tastefully entangling them in its meshes....

Riseholme lingered on the Green that morning long after one o’clock,
which was its usual lunch-time, and at precisely twenty-five minutes
past they were rewarded. Out of the motor stepped Pepino in a very
thick coat and a large muffler. He sneezed twice as he held out his arm
to assist Lucia to alight. She clung to it, and leaning heavily on it
went with faltering steps past Perdita’s garden into the house. So she
was ill.

Ten minutes later, Daisy and Robert Quantock were seated at lunch with
them. Lucia certainly looked very well and she ate her lunch very
properly, but she spoke in a slightly faded voice, as befitted one who
had come here for complete rest. “But Riseholme, dear Riseholme will
soon put me all right again,” she said. “Such a joy to be here! Any
news, Daisy?”

Really there was very little. Daisy ran through such topics as had
interested Riseholme during those last weeks, and felt that the only
thing which had attracted true, feverish, Riseholme-attention was the
record of Lucia’s own movements. Apart from this there was only her own
putting, and the embarrassing gift of walking-sticks to the Museum....
But then she remembered that the Committee had authorized the acceptance
of the Elizabethan spit, if Lucia seemed ill, and she rather
precipitately decided that she was ill enough.

“Well, we’ve been busy over the Museum,” she began.

“Ah, the dear Museum,” said Lucia wistfully.

That quite settled it.

“We should so like to accept the Elizabethan spit, if we may,” said
Daisy. “It would be a great acquisition.”

“Of course; delighted,” said Lucia. “I will have it sent over. Any other
gifts?”

Daisy went on to the walking-sticks, omitting all mention of the
indelicate one in the presence of gentlemen, and described the
difficulty of placing them satisfactorily. They were eighty-one
(including the indelicacy) and a lawn-tennis net would barely hold
them. The invalid took but a wan interest in this, and Daisy’s putting
did not rouse much keener enthusiasm. But soon she recovered a greater
animation and was more herself. Indeed, before the end of lunch it had
struck Daisy that Pepino was really the invalid of the two. He certainly
had a prodigious cold, and spoke in a throaty wheeze that was scarcely
audible. She wondered if she had been a little hasty about accepting the
spit, for that gave Lucia a sort of footing in the Museum.

       *       *       *       *       *

Lucia recovered still further when her guests had gone, and her habitual
energy began to assert itself. She had made her impressive invalid entry
into Riseholme, which justified the announcement in the papers, and now,
quietly, she must be on the move again. She might begin by getting rid,
without delay, of that tiresome spit.

“I think I shall go out for a little drive, Pepino,” she said, “though
if I were you I would nurse my cold and get it all right before Saturday
when we go to Adele’s. The gardener, I think, could take the spit out of
the chimney for me, and put it in the motor, and I would drop it at the
Museum. I thought they would want it before long.... And that clock-golf
of Daisy’s; it sounds amusing; the sort of thing for Sunday afternoon if
we have guests with us. I think she said that you could get the
apparatus at the Stores. Little tournaments might be rather fun.”

The spit was easily removed, and Lucia, having written to the Stores for
a set of clock-golf, had it loaded up on the motor, and conveyed to the
Museum. So that was done. She waved and fluttered a hand of greeting to
Piggy and Goosie who were gambolling on the Green, and set forth into
the country, satisfied that she had behaved wisely in leaving London
rather than being left out in London. Apart from that, too, it had been
politic to come down to Riseholme again like this, to give them a taste
of her quality before she resumed, in August, as she entirely meant to
do, her ancient sway. She guessed from the paucity of news which that
arch-gossip, dear Daisy, had to give, that things had been remarkably
dull in her absence, and though she had made a sad mistake over her
week-end party, a little propitiation would soon put that right. And
Daisy had had nothing to say about Abfou: they seemed to have got a
little tired of Abfou. But Abfou might be revived: clock-golf and a
revival of ouija would start August very pleasantly. She would have
liked Aix better, but Pepino was quite clear about that....

Georgie was agreeably surprised to find her so much herself when he came
over for dinner. Pepino, whose cold was still extremely heavy, went to
bed very soon after, and he and Lucia settled themselves in the music
room.

“First a little chat, Georgie,” she said, “and then I insist on our
having some music. I’ve played nothing lately, you will find me terribly
out of practice, but you mustn’t scold me. Yes, the spit has gone: dear
Daisy said the Museum was most anxious to get it, and I took it across
myself this afternoon. I must see what else I can find worthy of it.”

This was all rather splendid. Lucia had a glorious way of completely
disregarding the past, and pushing on ahead into the future.

“And have you been playing much lately?” she asked.

“Hardly a note,” said Georgie, “there is nobody to play with. Piggy
wanted to do some duets, but I said ‘No, thanks.’”

“Georgie, you’ve been lazy,” she said, “there’s been nobody to keep you
up to the mark. And Olga? Has Olga been down?”

“Not since--not since that Sunday when you were both down together,”
said he.

“Very wrong of her to have deserted Riseholme. But just as wrong of me,
you will say. But now we must put our heads together and make great
plans for August. I shall be here to bully you all August. Just one
visit, which Pepino and I are paying to dear Adele Brixton on Saturday,
and then you will have me here solidly. London? Yes, it has been great
fun, though you and I never managed to arrange a date for your stay with
us. That must come in the autumn when we go up in November. But, oh, how
tired I was when we settled to leave town yesterday. Not a kick left in
me. Lots of engagements, too, and I just scrapped them. But people must
be kind to me and forgive me. And sometimes I feel that I’ve been
wasting time terribly. I’ve done nothing but see people, people, people.
All sorts, from Alf Watson the pugilist----”

“No!” said Georgie, beginning to feel the thrill of Lucia again.

“Yes, he came to dine with me, such a little duck, and brought his
flute. There was a great deal of talk about my party for Alf, and how
the women buzzed round him!”

“Who else?” said Georgie greedily.

“My dear, who _not_ else? Marcelle--Marcelle Periscope came another
night, Adele, Sophy Alingsby, Bertie Alton, Aggie--I must ask dear Aggie
down here; Tony--Tony Limpsfield; a thousand others. And then of course
dear Marcia Whitby often. She is giving a ball to-morrow night. I should
like to have been there, but I was just _finito_. Ah, and your friend
Princess Isabel. Very bad influenza. You should ring up her house,
Georgie, and ask how she is. I called there yesterday. So sad! But let
us talk of more cheerful things. Daisy’s clock-golf: I must pop in and
see her at it to-morrow. She is wonderful, I suppose. I have ordered a
set from the Stores, and we will have great games.”

“She’s been doing nothing else for weeks,” said Georgie. “I daresay
she’s very good, but nobody takes any interest in it. She’s rather a
bore about it----”

“Georgie, don’t be unkind about poor Daisy,” said Lucia. “We must start
little competitions, with prizes. Do you have partners? You and I will
be partners at mixed putting. And what about Abfou?”

It seemed to Georgie that this was just the old Lucia, and so no doubt
it was. She was intending to bag any employments that happened to be
going about and claim them as her own. It was larceny, intellectual and
physical larceny, no doubt, but Lucia breathed life into those dead
bones and made them interesting. It was weary work to watch Daisy
dabbing away with her putter and then trying to beat her score without
caring the least whether you beat it or not. And Daisy even telephoned
her more marvellous feats, and nobody cared how marvellous they were.
But it would be altogether different if Lucia was the goddess of
putting....

“I haven’t Abfou’d for ages,” said Georgie. “I fancy she has dropped
it.”

“Well, we must pick everything up again,” said Lucia briskly, “and you
sha’n’t be lazy any more, Georgie. Come and play duets. My dear piano!
What shall we do?”

They did quantities of things, and then Lucia played the slow movement
of the Moonlight Sonata, and Georgie sighed as usual, and eventually
Lucia let him out and walked with him to the garden gate. There were
quantities of stars, and as usual she quoted “See how the floor of
heaven is thick inlaid ...” and said she must ring him up in the
morning, after a good night’s rest.

There was a light in Daisy’s drawing-room, and just as he came opposite
it she heard his step, for which she had long been listening, and looked
out.

“Is it Georgie?” she said, knowing perfectly well that it must be.

“Yes,” said Georgie. “How late you are.”

“And how is Lucia?” asked Daisy.

Georgie quite forgot for the moment that Lucia was having complete rest.

“Excellent form,” he said. “Such a talk, and such a music.”

“There you are, then!” said Daisy. “There’s nothing the matter with her.
She doesn’t want rest any more--than the moon. What does it mean,
Georgie? Mark my words: it means something.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Lucia, indeed, seemed in no need whatever of complete rest the next day.
She popped into Daisy’s very soon after breakfast, and asked to be
taught how to put. Daisy gave her a demonstration, and told her how to
hold the putter and where to place her feet, and said it was absolutely
essential to stand like a rock and to concentrate. Nobody could put if
anyone spoke. Eventually Lucia was allowed to try, and she stood all
wrong and grasped her putter like an umbrella, and holed out of the
longest of puts in the middle of an uninterrupted sentence. Then they
had a match, Daisy proposing to give her four strokes in the round,
which Lucia refused, and Daisy, dithering with excitement and
superiority, couldn’t put at all. Lucia won easily, with Robert looking
on, and she praised Daisy’s putter, and said it was beautifully
balanced, though where she picked that up Daisy couldn’t imagine.

“And now I must fly,” said Lucia, “and we must have a return match
sometime. So amusing! I have sent for a set, and you will have to give
me lessons. Good-bye, dear Daisy. I’m away for the Sunday at dear Adele
Brixton’s, but after that how lovely to settle down at Riseholme again!
You must show me your ouija-board too. I feel quite rested this morning.
Shall I help you with the walking-sticks later on?”

Daisy went uneasily back to her putting: it was too awful that Lucia in
that amateurish manner should have beaten a serious exponent of the art,
and already, in dark anticipation, she saw Lucia as the impresario of
clock-golf, popularizing it in Riseholme. She herself would have to
learn to drive and approach without delay, and make Riseholme take up
real golf, instead of merely putting.

Lucia visited the Museum next, and arranged the spit in an empty and
prominent place between Daisy’s fossils and Colonel Boucher’s fragments
of Samian ware. She attended the morning parliament on the Green, and
walked beside Mrs. Boucher’s bath-chair. She shouted into Mrs.
Antrobus’s ear-trumpet, she dallied with Piggy and Goosie, and never so
much as mentioned a duchess. All her thoughts seemed wrapped up in
Riseholme; just one tiresome visit lay in front of her, and then, oh,
the joy of settling down here again! Even Mrs. Boucher felt disarmed;
little as she would have thought it, there was something in Lucia beyond
mere snobbery.

Georgie popped in that afternoon about tea time. The afternoon was
rather chilly, and Lucia had a fire lit in the grate of the music room,
which, now that the spit had been removed, burned beautifully. Pepino,
drowsy with his cold, sat by it, while the other two played duets.
Already Lucia had taken down Sigismund’s portrait and installed
Georgie’s water-colours again by the piano. They had had a fine tussle
over the Mozart duet, and Georgie had promised to practise it, and Lucia
had promised to practise it, and she had called him an idle boy, and he
had called her a lazy girl, quite in the old style, while Pepino dozed.
Just then the evening post came in, with the evening paper, and Lucia
picked up the latter to see what Hermione had said about her departure
from London. Even as she turned back the page her eye fell on two or
three letters which had been forwarded from Brompton Square. The top one
was a large square envelope, the sort of fine thick envelope that
contained a rich card of invitation, and she opened it. Next moment she
sprang from her seat.

“Pepino, dear,” she cried. “Marcia! Her ball. Marcia’s ball to-night!”

Pepino roused himself a little.

“Ball? What ball?” he said. “No ball. Riseholme.”

Lucia pushed by Georgie on the treble music stool, without seeming to
notice that he was there.

“No dear, of course you won’t go,” she said. “But do you know, I think I
shall go up and pop in for an hour. Georgie will come to dine with you,
won’t you, Georgie, and you’ll go to bed early. Half past six! Yes, I
can be in town by ten. That will be heaps of time. I shall dress at
Brompton Square. Just a sandwich to take with me and eat it in the car.”

She wheeled round to Georgie, pressing the bell in her circumvolution.

“Marcia Whitby,” she said. “Winding up the season. So easy to pop up
there, and dear Marcia would be hurt if I didn’t come. Let me see, shall
I come back to-morrow, Pepino? Perhaps it would be simpler if I stayed
up there and sent the car back. Then you could come up in comfort next
day, and we would go on to Adele’s together. I have a host of things to
do in London to-morrow. That party at Aggie’s. I will telephone to Aggie
to say that I can come after all. My maid, my chauffeur,” she said to
the butler, rather in the style of Shylock. “I want my maid and my
chauffeur and my car. Let him have his dinner quickly--no, he can get
his dinner at Brompton Square. Tell him to come round at once.”

Georgie sat positively aghast, for Lucia ran on like a thing demented.
Mozart, ouija, putting, the Elizabethan spit, all the simple joys of
Riseholme fizzle out like damp fireworks. Gone, too, utterly gone was
her need of complete rest; she had never been so full of raw, blatant,
savage vitality.

“Dear Marcia,” she said. “I felt it must be an oversight from the first,
but naturally, Georgie, though she and I are such friends, I could not
dream of reminding her. What a blessing that my delicious day at
Riseholme has so rested me: I feel I could go to fifty balls without
fatigue. Such a wonderful house, Georgie; when you come up to stay with
us in the autumn, I must take you there. Pepino, is it not lucky that I
only brought down here just enough for a couple of nights, and left
everything in London to pick up as we came through to go to Adele’s?
What a sight it will be, all the Royal Family almost I believe, and the
whole of the Diplomatic corps: my Gioconda, I know, is going. Not a
large ball though at all: not one of those great promiscuous affairs,
which I hate so. How dear Marcia was besieged for invitations! how
vulgar people are and how pushing! Good-bye, mind you practise your
Mozart, Georgie. Oh, and tell Daisy that I sha’n’t be able to have
another of those delicious puttings with her to-morrow. Back on Tuesday
after the week-end at Adele’s, and then weeks and weeks of dear
Riseholme. How long they are! I will just go and hurry my maid up.”

Georgie tripped off, as soon as she had gone, to see Daisy, and narrated
to her open-mouthed disgust this amazing scene.

“And the question is,” he said, “about the complete rest that was
ordered her. I don’t believe she was ordered any rest at all. I
believe----”

Daisy gave a triumphant crow: inductive reasoning had led her to
precisely the same point at precisely the same moment.

“Why, of course!” she said. “I always felt there was something behind
that complete rest. I told you it meant something different. She wasn’t
asked, and so----”

“And so she came down here for rest,” said Georgie in a loud voice. He
was determined to bring that out first. “Because she wasn’t asked----”

“And the moment she was asked she flew,” said Daisy. “Nothing could be
plainer. No more rest, thank you.”

“She’s wonderful,” said Georgie. “Too interesting!”

       *       *       *       *       *

Lucia sped through the summer evening on this errand of her own
reprieve, too excited to eat, and too happy to wonder how it had
happened like this. How wise, too, she had been to hold her tongue and
give way to no passionate laments at her exclusion from the paradise
toward which she was now hastening. Not one word of abuse had she
uttered against Marcia: she had asked nobody to intercede: she had
joined in all the talk about the ball as if she was going, and finally
had made it impossible for herself to go by announcing that she had been
ordered a few days of complete rest. She could (and would) explain her
appearance perfectly: she had felt much better--doctors were such
fussers--and at the last moment had made just a little effort, and here
she was.

A loud explosion interrupted these agreeable reflections and the car
drew up. A tyre had burst, but they carried an extra wheel, and though
the delay seemed terribly long they were soon on their way again. They
traversed another ten miles, and now in the north-east the smouldering
glow of London reddened the toneless hue of the summer night. The stars
burned bright, and she pictured Pepino at his telescope--no, Pepino had
a really bad cold, and would not be at his telescope. Then there came
another explosion--was it those disgusting stars in their courses that
were fighting against her?--and again the car drew up by the side of the
empty road.

“What has happened?” asked Lucia in a strangled voice.

“Another tyre gone, ma’am,” said the chauffeur. “Never knew such a
thing.”

Lucia looked at her clock. It was ten already, and she ought now to be
in Brompton Square. There was no further wheel that could be put on, and
the tyre had to be taken off and mended. The minutes passed like
seconds.... Lucia, outwardly composed, sat on a rug at the edge of the
road, and tried unsuccessfully not to curse Almighty Providence. The
moon rose, like a gelatine lozenge.

She began to count the hours that intervened between the tragic present
and, say, four o’clock in the morning, and she determined that whatever
further disasters might befall, she would go to Whitby House, even if it
was in a dustman’s cart, so long as there was a chance of a single guest
being left there. She would go....

And all the time, if she had only known it, the stars were fighting not
against her but for her. The tyre was mended, and she got to Brompton
Square at exactly a quarter past eleven. Cupboards were torn open,
drawers ransacked, her goaded maid burst into tears. Aunt Amy’s pearls
were clasped round her neck, Pepino’s hair in the shrine of gold sausage
that had once been Beethoven’s was pinned on, and at five minutes past
twelve she hurried up the great stairs at Whitby House. Precisely as she
came to the door of the ballroom there emerged the head of the
procession going down to supper. Marcia for a moment stared at her as
if she was a ghost, but Lucia was so busy curtseying that she gave no
thought to that. Seven times in rapid succession did she curtsey. It
almost became a habit, and she nearly curtseyed to Adele who (so like
Adele) followed immediately after.

“Just up from Riseholme, dearest Adele,” she said. “I felt quite
rested---- How are you, Lord Tony?---- and so I made a little effort.
Pepino urged me to come. How nice to see your Excellency! Millie!
Dearest Olga! What a lot of friends! How is poor Princess Isabel? Marcia
looked so handsome. Brilliant! Such a delicious drive: I felt I had to
pop in....”




CHAPTER IX


Poor Pepino’s cold next day, instead of being better, was a good deal
worse. He had aches and pains, and felt feverish, and sent for the
doctor, who peremptorily ordered him to go to bed. There was nothing in
the least to cause alarm, but it would be the height of folly to go to
any week-end party at all. Bed.

Pepino telegraphed to Lady Brixton with many regrets for the
unavoidable, and rang up Lucia. The state of his voice made it difficult
to catch what he said, but she quite understood that there was nothing
to be anxious about, and that he hoped she would go to Adele’s without
him. Her voice on the other hand was marvellously distinct, and he heard
a great deal about the misfortunes which had come to so brilliant a
conclusion last night. There followed a string of seven christian names,
and Lucia said a flashlight photograph had been permitted during supper.
She thought she was in it, though rather in the background.

Lucia was very sorry for Pepino’s indisposition, but, as ordered, had no
anxiety about him. She felt too, that he wouldn’t personally miss very
much by being prevented from coming to Adele’s party, for it was to be a
very large party, and Pepino--bless him--occasionally got a little dazed
at these brilliant gatherings. He did not grasp who people were with the
speed and certainty which were needful, and he had been known to grasp
the hand of an eminent author and tell him how much he had admired his
fine picture at the Academy. (Lucia constantly did that sort of thing
herself, but then she got herself out of the holes she had herself
digged with so brilliant a manœuvre that it didn’t matter, whereas
Pepino was only dazed the more by his misfortunes.) Moreover she knew
that Pepino’s presence somehow hampered her style: she could not be the
brilliant mondaine, when his patient but proud eye was on her, with
quite the dash that was hers when he was not there. There was always the
sense that he knew her best in her Riseholme incarnation, in her duets
with Georgie, and her rendering of the slow movement of the Moonlight
Sonata, and her grabbing of all Daisy’s little stunts. She electrified
him as the superb butterfly, but the electrification was accompanied by
slight shocks and surprises. When she referred by her christian name to
some woman with whom her only bond was that she had refused to dine at
Brompton Square, that puzzled Pepino.... In the autumn she must be a
little more serious, have some quiet dinner parties of ordinary people,
for really up till now there had scarcely been an “ordinary” person at
Brompton Square at all, such noble lions of every species had been
entrapped there. And Adele’s party was to be of a very leonine kind; the
smart world was to be there, and some highbrows and some politicians,
and she was aware that she herself would have to do her very best, and
be allusive, and pretend to know what she didn’t know, and seem to swim
in very distinguished currents. Dear Pepino wasn’t up to that sort of
thing, he couldn’t grapple with it, and she grappled with it best
without him.... At the moment of that vainglorious thought it is
probable that Nemesis fixed her inexorable eye on Lucia.

Lucia unconscious of this deadly scrutiny turned to her immediate
affairs. Her engagement-book pleasantly informed her that she had many
things to do on the day when the need for complete rest overtook her,
and now she heralded through the telephone the glad tidings that she
could lunch here and drop in there, and dine with Aggie. All went well
with these restorations, and the day would be full, and to-morrow also,
down to the hour of her departure for Adele’s. Having despatched this
agreeable business, she was on the point of ringing up Stephen, to fit
him in for the spare three-quarters of an hour that was left, when she
was rung up and it was Stephen’s voice that greeted her.

“_Stephano mio_,” she said. “How did you guess I was back?”

“Because I rang up Riseholme first,” said he, “and heard you had gone to
town. Were you there last night?”

There was no cause to ask where “there” was. There had only been one
place in London last night.

“Yes; delicious dance,” said Lucia. “I was just going to ring you up and
see if you could come round for a chat at 4.45, I am free till 5.30.
Such fun it was. A flashlight photograph.”

“No!” said Stephen in the Riseholme manner. “I long to hear about it.
And were there really seven of them?”

“Quite,” said Lucia magnificently.

“Wonderful! But 4.45 is no use for me. Can’t you give me another time?”

“My dear, impossible,” said Lucia. “You know what London is in these
last days. Such a scrimmage.”

“Well, we shall meet to-morrow then,” said he.

“But, alas, I go to Adele’s to-morrow,” she said.

“Yes, but so do I,” said Stephen. “She asked me this morning. I was
wondering if you would drive me down, if you’re going in your car. Would
there be room for you and Pepino and me?”

Lucia rapidly reviewed the situation. It was perfectly clear to her that
Adele had asked Stephen, at the last moment, to fill Pepino’s place. But
naturally she had not told him that, and Lucia determined not to do so
either. It would spoil his pleasure (at least it would have spoiled
hers) to know that.... And what a wonderful entry it would make for
her--rather daring--to drive down alone with her lover. She could tell
him about Pepino’s indisposition to-morrow, as if it had just occurred.

“Yes, Stephano, heaps of room,” she said. “Delighted. I’ll call for you,
shall I, on my way down, soon after three.”

“Angelic,” he said. “What fun we shall have.”

And it is probable that Nemesis at that precise moment licked her dry
lips. “Fun!” thought Nemesis.

       *       *       *       *       *

Marcia Whitby was of the party. She went down in the morning, and
lunched alone with Adele. Their main topic of conversation was obvious.

“I saw her announcement in the _Morning Post_,” said the infuriated
Marcia, “that she had gone for a few days’ complete rest into the
country, and naturally I thought I was safe. I was determined she
shouldn’t come to my ball, and when I saw that, I thought she couldn’t.
So out of sheer good nature I sent her a card, so that she could tell
everybody she had been asked. Never did I dream that there was a
possibility of her coming. Instead of which, she made the most
conspicuous entry that she could have made. I believe she timed it: I
believe she waited on the stairs till she saw we were going down to
supper.”

“I wonder!” said Adele. “Genius, if it was that. She curtseyed seven
times, too. I can’t do that without loud cracks from my aged knees.”

“And she stopped till the very end,” said Marcia. “She was positively
the last to go. I shall never do a kind thing again.”

“You’re horrid about her,” said Adele. “Besides, what has she done? You
asked her and she came. You don’t rave at your guests for coming when
they’re asked. You wouldn’t like it if none of them came.”

“That’s different,” said Marcia. “I shouldn’t wonder if she announced
she was ordered complete rest in order that I should fall into her
trap.”

Adele sighed, but shook her head.

“Oh, my dear, that _would_ have been magnificent,” she said. “But I’m
afraid I can’t hope to believe that. I daresay she went into the country
because you hadn’t asked her, and that was pretty good. But the other:
no. However, we’ll ask Tony what he thinks.”

“What’s Tony got to do with it?” said Marcia.

“Why, he’s even more wrapped up in her than I am,” said Adele. “He
thinks of nothing else.”

Marcia was silent a moment. Then a sort of softer gleam came into her
angry eye.

“Tell me some more about her,” she said.

Adele clapped her hands.

“Ah, that’s splendid,” she said. “You’re beginning to feel kinder. What
we would do without our Lucia I can’t imagine. I don’t know what there
would be to talk about.”

“She’s ridiculous!” said Marcia relapsing a little.

“No, you mustn’t feel that,” said Adele. “You mustn’t laugh at her ever.
You must just richly enjoy her.”

“She’s a snob!” said Marcia, as if this was a tremendous discovery.

“So am I: so are you: so are we all,” said Adele. “We all run after
distinguished people like--like Alf and Marcelle. The difference between
you and Lucia is entirely in her favour, for you pretend you’re not a
snob, and she is perfectly frank and open about it. Besides, what is a
duchess like you for except to give pleasure to snobs? That’s your work
in the world, darling; that’s why you were sent here. Don’t shirk it, or
when you’re old you will suffer agonies of remorse. And you’re a snob
too. You like having seven--or was it seventy?--Royals at your dance.”

“Well, tell me some more about Lucia,” said Marcia, rather struck by
this ingenious presentation of the case.

“Indeed I will: I long for your conversion to Luciaphilism. Now to-day
there are going to be marvellous happenings. You see Lucia has got a
lover----”

“Quite absolutely impossible!” said Marcia firmly.

“Oh, don’t interrupt. Of course he is only an official lover, a public
lover, and his name is Stephen Merriall. A perfect lady. Now Pepino,
Lucia’s husband, was coming down with her to-day, but he’s got a very
bad cold and has put me off. I’m rather glad: Lucia has got more--more
dash when he’s not there. So I’ve asked her lover instead----”

“No!” said Marcia. “Go on.”

“My dear, they are much better than any play I have ever seen. They do
it beautifully: they give each other little glances and smiles, and then
begin to talk hurriedly to someone else. Of course, they’re both as
chaste as snow, chaster if possible. I think poor Babs’s case put it
into Lucia’s head that in this naughty world it gave a _cachet_ to a
woman to have the reputation of having a lover. So safe too: there’s
nothing to expose. They only behave like lovers strictly in public. I
was terrified when it began that Mr. Merriall would think she meant
something, and try to kiss her when they were alone, and so rub the
delicate bloom completely off, but I’m sure he’s tumbled to it.”

“How perfect!” said Marcia.

“Isn’t it? Aren’t you feeling more Luciaphil? I’m sure you are. You must
enjoy her: it shows such a want of humour to be annoyed with her. And
really I’ve taken a great deal of trouble to get people she will revel
in. There’s the Prime Minister, there’s you, there’s Greatorex the
pianist who’s the only person who can play Stravinski, there’s Professor
Bonstetter the psycho-analyst, there’s the Italian Ambassador, there’s
her lover, there’s Tony.... I can’t go on. Oh, and I must remember to
tell her that Archie Singleton is Babs’s brother, or she may say
something dreadful. And then there are lots who will revel in Lucia, and
I the foremost. I’m devoted to her; I am really, Marcia. She’s got
character, she’s got an iron will, and I like strong talkative women so
much better than strong silent men.”

“Yes, she’s got will,” said Marcia. “She determined to come to my ball,
and she came. I allow I gave her the chance.”

“Those are the chances that come to gifted people,” said Adele. “They
don’t come to ordinary people.”

“Suppose I flirted violently with her lover?” said Marcia.

Adele’s eyes grew bright with thought.

“I can’t imagine what she would do,” she said. “But I’m sure she would
do something that scored. Otherwise she wouldn’t be Lucia. But you
mustn’t do it.”

“Just one evening,” said Marcia. “Just for an hour or two. It’s not
poaching, you see, because her lover isn’t her lover. He’s just a
stunt.”

Adele wavered.

“It would be wonderful to know what she would do,” she said. “And it’s
true that he’s only a stunt.... Perhaps for an hour or two to-morrow,
and then give him back.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Adele did not expect any of her guests till tea-time, and Marcia and she
both retired for after-lunch siestas. Adele had been down here for the
last four or five days, driving up to Marcia’s ball and back in the very
early morning, and had three days before settled everything in
connection with her party, assigning rooms, discussing questions of high
importance with her chef, and arranging to meet as many trains as
possible. It so happened, therefore, that Stephen Merriall, since the
house was full, was to occupy the spacious dressingroom, furnished as a
bedroom, next Lucia’s room, which had been originally allotted to
Pepino. Adele had told her butler that Mr. Lucas was not coming, but
that his room would be occupied by Mr. Merriall, thought no more about
it, and omitted to substitute a new card on his door. These two rooms
were half way down a long corridor of bedrooms and bathrooms that ran
the whole length of the house, a spacious oak-boarded corridor, rather
dark, with the broad staircase coming up at the end of it. Below was the
suite of public rooms, a library at the end, a big music-room, a long
gallery of a drawing-room, and the dining-room. These all opened on to a
paved terrace overlooking the gardens and tennis courts, and it was
here, with the shadow of the house lying coolly across it, that her
guests began to assemble. In ones and twos they gathered, some motoring
down from London, others arriving by train, and it was not till there
were some dozen of them, among whom were the most fervent Luciaphils,
that the object of their devotion, attended by her lover, made her
appearance, evidently at the top of her form.

“Dearest Adele,” she said. “How delicious to get into the cool country
again. Marcia dear! Such adventures I had on my way up to your ball: two
burst tyres; I thought I should never get there. How are you, your
Excellency? I saw you at the Duchess’s, but couldn’t get a word with
you. Aggie darling! Ah, Lord Tony! Yes, a cup of tea would be delicious;
no sugar, Stephen, thanks.”

Lucia had not noticed quite everybody. There were one or two people
rather retired from the tea-table, but they did not seem to be of much
importance, and certainly the Prime Minister was not among them. Stephen
hovered, loverlike, just behind her chair, and she turned to the Italian
Ambassador.

“I was afraid of a motor accident all the way down,” she said, “because
last night I dreamed I broke a looking-glass. Quaint things dreams are,
though really the psycho-analysts who interpret them are quainter. I
went to a meeting at Sophy’s, dear Sophy Alingsby, the other day--your
Excellency I am sure knows Sophy Alingsby--and heard a lecture on it.
Let me see: boiled rabbit, if you dream of boiled rabbit----”

Lucia suddenly became aware of a sort of tension. Just a tension. She
looked quickly round, and recognized one of the men she had not paid
much attention to. She sprang from her chair.

“Professor Bonstetter,” she said. “How are you? I know you won’t
remember me, but I did have the honour of shaking hands with you after
your enthralling lecture the other day. Do come and tell his Excellency
and me a little more about it. There were so many questions I longed to
ask you.”

Adele wanted to applaud, but she had to be content with catching
Marcia’s eye. Was Lucia great, or was she not? Stephen too: how exactly
right she was to hand him her empty cup when she had finished with it,
without a word, and how perfectly he took it! “More?” he said, and Lucia
just shook her head without withdrawing her attention from Professor
Bonstetter. Then the Prime Minister arrived, and she said how lovely
Chequers must be looking. She did not annex him, she just hovered and
hinted, and made no direct suggestion, and sure enough, within five
minutes he had asked her if she knew Chequers. Of course she did, but
only as a tourist--and so one thing led to another. It would be a nice
break in her long drive down to Riseholme on Tuesday to lunch at
Chequers, and not more than forty miles out of her way.

People dispersed and strolled on the terrace, and gathered again, and
some went off to their rooms. Lucia had one little turn up and down
with the Ambassador, and spoke with great tact of Mussolini, and another
with Lord Tony, and not for a long time did she let Stephen join her.
But then they wandered off into the garden, and were seen standing very
close together and arguing publicly about a flower, and Lucia seeing
they were observed, called to Adele to know if it wasn’t Dropmore
Borage. They came back very soon, and Stephen went up to his room while
Lucia remained downstairs. Adele showed her the library and the
music-room, and the long drawing-room, and then vanished. Lucia
gravitated to the music-room, opened the piano, and began the slow
movement of the Moonlight Sonata.

About half way through it, she became aware that somebody had come into
the room. But her eyes were fixed dreamily on the usual point at the
edge of the ceiling, and her fingers faultlessly doled out the slow
triplets. She gave a little sigh when she had finished, pressed her
fingers to her eyes, and slowly awoke, as from some melodious
anæsthetic.

It was a man who had come in and who had seated himself not far from the
key-board.

“Charming!” he said. “Thank you.”

Lucia didn’t remember seeing him on the terrace: perhaps he had only
just arrived. She had a vague idea, however, that whether on the terrace
or elsewhere, she had seen him before. She gave a pretty little start.
“Ah, had no idea I had an audience,” she said. “I should never have
ventured to go on playing. So dreadfully out of practice.”

“Please have a little more practice then,” said the polite stranger.

She ran her hands, butterfly fashion, over the keys.

“A little morsel of Stravinski?” she said.

It was in the middle of the morsel that Adele came in and found Lucia
playing Stravinski to Mr. Greatorex. The position seemed to be away,
away beyond her orbit altogether, and she merely waited with
undiminished faith in Lucia, to see what would happen when Lucia became
aware to whom she was playing.... It was a longish morsel, too: more
like a meal than a morsel, and it was also remarkably like a muddle.
Finally, Lucia made an optimistic attempt at the double chromatic scale
in divergent directions which brought it to an end, and laughed gaily.

“My poor fingers,” she said. “Delicious piano, dear Adele. I love a
Bechstein; that was a little morsel of Stravinski. Hectic perhaps, do
you think? But so true to the modern idea: little feverish excursions:
little bits of tunes, and nothing worked out. But I always say that
there is something in Stravinski, if you study him. How I worked at that
little piece, and I’m afraid it’s far from perfect yet.”

Lucia played one more little run with her right hand, while she
cudgelled her brain to remember where she had seen this man before, and
turned round on the music-stool. She felt sure he was an artist of some
kind, and she did not want to ask Adele to introduce him, for that would
look as if she did not know everybody. She tried pictures next.

“In Art I always think that the Stravinski school is represented by the
Post-Cubists,” she said. “They give us pattern in lines, just as
Stravinski gives us patterns in notes, and the modern poet patterns in
words. At Sophy Alingsby’s the other night we had a feast of patterns.
Dear Sophy--what a curious mixture of tastes! She cares only for the
ultra-primitive in music, and the ultra-modern in Art. Just before you
came in, Adele, I was trying to remember the first movement of
Beethoven’s Moonlight, those triplets though they look easy have to be
kept so level. And yet Sophy considers Beethoven a positive decadent. I
ought to have taken her to Diva’s little concert--Diva Dalrymple--for I
assure you really that Stravinski sounded classical compared to the rest
of the programme. It was very creditably played, too. Mr.”--what was his
name?--“Mr. Greatorex.”

She had actually said the word before her brain made the connection. She
gave her little peal of laughter.

“Ah, you wicked people,” she cried. “A plot: clearly a plot. Mr.
Greatorex, how could you? Adele told you to come in here when she heard
me begin my little strummings, and told you to sit down and encourage
me. Don’t deny it, Adele! I know it was like that. I shall tell
everybody how unkind you’ve been, unless Mr. Greatorex sits down
instantly and magically restores to life what I have just murdered.”

Adele denied nothing. In fact there was no time to deny anything, for
Lucia positively thrust Mr. Greatorex on to the music stool, and
instantly put on her rapt musical face, chin in hand, and eyes looking
dreamily upward. There was Nemesis, you would have thought, dealing
thrusts at her, but Nemesis was no match for her amazing quickness. She
parried and thrust again, and here--what richness of future
reminiscence--was Mr. Greatorex playing Stravinski to her, before no
audience but herself and Adele who really didn’t count, for the only
tune she liked was “Land of Hope and Glory”.... Great was Lucia!

Adele left the two, warning them that it was getting on for dressing
time, but there was some more Stravinski first, for Lucia’s sole ear.
Adele had told her the direction of her room, and said her name was on
the door, and Lucia found it at once. A beautiful room it was, with a
bathroom on one side, and a magnificent Charles II bed draped at the
back with wool-work tapestry. It was a little late for Lucia’s
Elizabethan taste, and she noticed that the big wardrobe was
Chippendale, which was later still. There was a Chinese paper on the
wall, and fine Persian rugs on the floor, and though she could have
criticized it was easy to admire. And there for herself was a very smart
dress, and for decoration Aunt Amy’s pearls, and the Beethoven brooch.
But she decided to avoid all possible chance of competition, and put the
pearls back into her jewel-case. The Beethoven brooch, she was sure,
need fear no rival.

Lucia felt that dinner, as far as she went, was a huge success. Stephen
was seated just opposite her, and now and then she exchanged little
distant smiles with him. Next her on one side was Lord Tony, who adored
her story about Stravinski and Greatorex. She told him also what the
Italian Ambassador had said about Mussolini, and the Prime Minister
about Chequers: she was going to pop in to lunch on her way down to
Riseholme after this delicious party. Then conversation shifted, and she
turned left, and talked to the only man whose identity she had not
grasped. But, as matter of public knowledge, she began about poor Babs,
and her own admiration of her demeanour at that wicked trial, which had
ended so disastrously. And once again there was slight tension.

Bridge and Mah-Jong followed, and rich allusive conversation and the
sense, so dear to Lucia, of being in the very centre of everything that
was distinguished. When the women went upstairs she hurried to her room,
made a swift change into greater simplicity, and, by invitation, sought
out Marcia’s room, at the far end of the passage, for a chat. Adele was
there, and dear (rather common) Aggie was there, and Aggie was being
just a shade sycophantic over the six rows of Whitby pearls. Lucia was
glad she had limited her splendours to the Beethoven brooch.

“But why didn’t you wear your pearls, Lucia?” asked Adele. “I was hoping
to see them.” (She had heard talk of Aunt Amy’s pearls, but had not
noticed them on the night of Marcia’s ball.)

“My little seedlings!” said Lucia. “Just seedlings, compared to Marcia’s
marbles. Little trumperies!”

Aggie had seen them, and she knew Lucia did not overstate their
minuteness. Like a true Luciaphil, she changed a subject that might
prove embarrassing.

“Take away your baubles, Marcia,” said Aggie. “They are only diseases of
a common shell fish which you eat when it’s healthy and wear when it’s
got a tumour.... How wretched it is to think that all of us aren’t going
to meet day after day as we have been doing! There’s Adele going to
America, and there’s Marcia going to Scotland--what a foul spot, Marcia,
come to Marienbad instead with me. And what are you going to do, Lucia?”

“Oh, my dear, how I wanted to go to Aix or Marienbad,” she said. “But my
Pepino says it’s impossible. We’ve got to stop quiet at Riseholme.
Shekels, tiresome shekels.”

“There she goes, talking about Riseholme as if it was some dreadful
penance to go there,” said Adele. “You adore Riseholme, Lucia, at least
if you don’t you ought to. Olga raves about it. She says she’s never
really happy away from it. When are you going to ask me there?”

“Adele, as if you didn’t know that you weren’t always welcome,” said
Lucia.

“Me, too,” said Marcia.

“A standing invitation to both of you always,” said Lucia. “Dear Marcia,
how sweet of you to want to come! I go there on Tuesday, and there I
remain. But it’s true, I do adore it. No balls, no parties, and such
dear Arcadians. You couldn’t believe in them without seeing them. Life
at its very simplest, dears.”

“It can’t be simpler than Scotland,” said Marcia. “In Scotland you kill
birds and fish all day, and eat them at night. That’s all.”

Lucia through these months of strenuous effort had never perhaps felt
herself so amply rewarded as she was at this moment. All evening she had
talked in an effortless deshabille of mind to the great ones of the
country, the noble, the distinguished, the accomplished, and now here
she was in a duchess’s bedroom having a good-night talk. This was nearer
Nirvana than even Marcia’s ball. And the three women there seemed to be
grouped round her: they waited--there was no mistaking it--listening for
something from her, just as Riseholme used to wait for her lead. She
felt that she was truly attaining, and put her chin in her hand and
looked a little upward.

“I shall get tremendously put in my place when I go back to Riseholme
again,” she said. “I’m sure Riseholme thinks I have been wasting my time
in idle frivolities. It sees perhaps in an evening paper that I have
been to Aggie’s party, or Adele’s house or Marcia’s ball, and I assure
you it will be very suspicious of me. Just as if I didn’t know that all
these delightful things were symbols.”

Adele had got the cataleptic look of a figure in a stained glass window,
so rapt she was. But she wanted to grasp this with full appreciation.

“Lucia, don’t be so dreadfully clever,” she said. “You’re talking high
over my head: you’re like the whirr of an aëroplane. Explain what you
mean by symbols.”

“My dear, you know,” she said. “All our runnings-about, all our gaieties
are symbols of affection: we love to see each other because we partake
of each other. Interesting people, distinguished people, obscure people,
ordinary people, we long to bring them all into our lives in order to
widen our horizons. We learn, or we try to learn of other interests
besides our own. I shall have to make Riseholme understand that dear
little Alf, playing the flute at my house, or half a dozen princes
eating quails at Marcia’s mansion, it’s all the same, isn’t it? We get
to know the point of view of prize-fighters and princes. And it seems to
me, it seems to me----”

Lucia’s gaze grew a shade more lost and aloof.

“It seems to me that we extend our very souls,” she said, “by letting
them flow into other lives. How badly I put it! But when Eric
Greatorex--so charming of him--played those delicious pieces of
Stravinski to me before dinner, I felt I was stepping over some sort of
frontier _into_ Stravinski. Eric made out my passport. A multiplication
of experience: I think that is what I mean.”

None of those present could have said with any precision what Lucia had
meant, but the general drift seemed to be that an hour with a burglar or
a cannibal was valuable for the amplification of the soul.

“Odd types too,” she said. “How good for one to be put into touch with
something quite remote. Marcelle--Marcelle Periscope--you met him at my
house, didn’t you, Aggie----”

“Why wasn’t I asked?” said Marcia.

Lucia gave a little quick smile, as at some sweet child’s interruption.

“Darling Marcia, why didn’t you propose yourself? Surely you know me
well enough to do that. Yes, Marcelle, a cinema-artist. A fresh horizon,
a fresh attitude toward life. So good for me: it helps me not to be
narrow. _Dio mio!_ how I pray I shall never be narrow. To be shocked,
too! How shocking to be shocked. If you all had fifty lovers apiece, I
should merely think it a privilege to know about them all.”

Marcia longed, with almost the imperativeness of a longing to sneeze, to
allude directly to Stephen. She raised her eyes for a half second to
Adele, the priestess of this cult in which she knew she was rapidly
becoming a worshipper, but if ever an emphatic negative was wordlessly
bawled at a tentative enquirer, it was bawled now. If Lucia chose to
say anything about Stephen it would indeed be manna, but to ask--never!
Aggie, seated sideways to them, had not seen this telegraphy, and spoke
unwisely with her lips.

“If an ordinary good-looking woman,” she said, “tells me that she hasn’t
got a lover or a man who wants to be her lover, I always say ‘You lie!’
So she does. You shall begin, Lucia, about your lovers.”

Nothing could have been more unfortunate. Adele could have hurled the
entire six rows of the Whitby pearls at Aggie’s face. Lucia had no
lover, but only the wraith of a lover, on whom direct light must never
be flashed. Such a little reflection should have shown Aggie that. The
effect of her carelessness was that Lucia became visibly embarrassed,
looked at the clock, and got up in a violent hurry.

“Good gracious me!” she said. “What a time of night! Who could have
thought that our little chat had lasted so long? Yes, dear Adele, I know
my room, on the left with my name on the door. Don’t dream of coming to
show it me.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Lucia distributed little pressures and kisses and clingings, and holding
her very smart pale blue wrapper close about her, slid noiselessly out
in her slippers into the corridor. It was late, the house was quite
quiet, for a quarter of an hour they had heard the creaking of men’s
footsteps going to their rooms. The main lights had been put out, only
here and there down the long silent aisle there burned a single small
illumination. Past half a dozen doors Lucia tiptoed, until she came to
one on which she could just see the name Philip Lucas preceded by a dim
hieroglyph which of course was “Mrs.” She turned the handle and went in.

Two yards in front of her, by the side of the bed, was standing Stephen,
voluptuous in honey-coloured pyjamas. For one awful second--for she felt
sure this was her room (_and so did he_)--they stared at each other in
dead silence.

“How dare you?” said Stephen, so agitated that he could scarcely form
the syllables.

“And how dare _you_?” hissed Lucia. “Go out of my room instantly.”

“Get out of mine!” said Stephen.

Lucia’s indignant eye left his horror-stricken face and swept round the
room. There was no Chinese paper on the wall, but a pretty Morris paper:
there was no Charles II bed with tapestry, but a brass-testered couch;
there was no Chippendale wardrobe, but something useful from Tottenham
Court Road. She gave one little squeal, of a pitch between the music of
the slate-pencil and of the bat, and closed his door again. She
staggered on to the next room where again the legend “Philip Lucas” was
legible, popped in, and locked the door. She hurried to the door of
communication between this and the fatal chamber next it, and as she
locked that also she heard from the other side of it the bolt violently
pulled forward.

She sat down on her bed in a state of painful agitation. Her excursion
into the fatal chamber had been an awful, a hideous mistake: none knew
that better than herself, but how was she to explain that to her lover?
For weeks they had been advertising the guilt of their blameless
relationship, and now it seemed to her impossible ever to resume it.
Every time she gave Stephen one of those little smiles or glances, at
which she had become so perfect an adept, there would start into her
mind that moment of speechless horror, and her smile would turn to a
tragic grimace, and her sick glance recoil from him. Worse than that,
how was she ever to speak of it to him, or passionately protest her
innocence? He had thought that she had come to his room (indeed she had)
when the house was quiet, on the sinister errand of love, and though,
when he had repudiated her, she had followed suit, she saw the
recoiling indignation of her lover. If only, just now, she had kept her
head, if only she had said at once, “I beg your pardon, I mistook my
room,” all might have been well, but how nerve herself to say it
afterward? And in spite of the entire integrity of her moral nature,
which was puritanical to the verge of prudishness, she had not liked (no
woman could) his unfeigned horror at her irruption.

Stephen next door was in little better plight. He had had a severe
shock. For weeks Lucia had encouraged him to play the lover, and had (so
he awfully asked himself) this pleasant public stunt become a reality to
her, a need of her nature? She had made it appear, when he so rightly
repulsed her, that she had come to his room by mistake, but was that
pretence? Had she really come with a terrible motive? It was her
business, anyhow, to explain, and insist on her innocence, if she was
innocent, and he would only be too thankful to believe her. But at
present and without that, the idea of resuming the public loverlike
demeanour was frankly beyond him. She might be encouraged again....
Though now he was safe with locked and bolted doors, he knew he would
not be able to sleep, and he took a large dose of aspirin.

Lucia was far more thorough: she never shelved difficulties, but faced
them. She still sat on the edge of her bed, long after Stephen’s nerves
were quieted, and as she herself calmed down, thought it all out. For
the present, loverlike relations in public were impossible, and it was
lucky that in a couple of days more she would be interned at Riseholme.
Then with a flash of genius there occurred to her the interesting
attitude to adopt in the interval. She would give the impression that
there had been a lovers’ quarrel. The more she thought of that, the more
it commended itself to her. People would notice it, and wonder what it
was all about, and their curiosity would never be gratified, for Lucia
felt sure, from the horror depicted on Stephen’s face, that he as well
as she would be for ever dumb on the subject of that midnight encounter.
She must not look unhappy: she must on the other hand be more vivid and
eager than ever, and just completely ignore Stephen. But there would be
no lift for him in her car back to London: he would have to go by train.

       *       *       *       *       *

The ex-lovers both came down very late next day, for fear of meeting
each other alone, and thus they sat in adjoining rooms half the morning.
Stephen had some Hermione-work on hand, for this party would run to
several paragraphs, but, however many it ran to, Hermione was utterly
determined not to mention Lucia in any of them. Hermione knew, however,
that Mr. Stephen Merriall was there, and said so.... By one of those
malignant strokes which are rained on those whom Nemesis desires to
chastise, they came out of their rooms at precisely the same moment, and
had to walk downstairs together, coldly congratulating each other on the
beauty of the morning. Luckily there were people on the terrace, among
whom was Marcia. She thought this was an excellent opportunity for
beginning her flirtation with Stephen, and instantly carried him off to
the kitchen garden, for unless she ate gooseberries on Sunday morning
she died. Lucia seemed sublimely unaware of their departure, and joined
a select little group round the Prime Minister. Between a discussion of
the housing problem with him, a stroll with Lord Tony, who begged her to
drop the “lord,” and a little more Stravinski alone with Greatorex, the
short morning passed very agreeably. But she saw when she went into
lunch rather late that Marcia and Stephen had not returned from their
gooseberrying. There was a gap of just three places at the table, and it
thus became a certainty that Stephen would sit next her.

Lunch was fully half over before they appeared, Marcia profusely
apologetic.

“Wretchedly rude of me, dear Adele,” she said, “but we had no idea it
was so late, did we, Mr. Merriall? We went to the gooseberries, and--and
I suppose we must have stopped there. Your fault, Mr. Merriall; you men
have no idea of time.”

“Who could, Duchess, when he was with you?” said Stephen most adroitly.

“Sweet of you,” said she. “Now do go on. You were in the middle of
telling me something quite thrilling. And please, Adele, let nobody wait
for us. I see you are all at the end of lunch, and I haven’t begun, and
gooseberries, as usual, have given me an enormous appetite. Yes, Mr.
Merriall?”

Adele looked in vain, when throughout the afternoon Marcia continued in
possession of Lucia’s lover, for the smallest sign of resentment or
uneasiness on her part. There was simply none; it was impossible to
detect a thing that had no existence. Lucia seemed completely
unconscious of any annexation, or indeed of Stephen’s existence. There
she sat, just now with Tony and herself, talking of Marcia’s ball, and
the last volume of risky memoirs, of which she had read a review in the
Sunday paper, and Sophy’s black room and Alf: never had she been more
equipped at all points, more prosperously central. Marcia, thought
Adele, was being wonderfully worsted, if she imagined she could produce
any sign of emotion on Lucia’s part. The lovers understood each other
too well.... Or, she suddenly conjectured, had they quarrelled? It
really looked rather like it. Though she and Tony were having a good
Luciaphil meeting, she almost wanted Lucia to go away, in order to go
into committee over this entrancing possibility. And how naturally she
Tony’d him: she must have been practising on her maid.

Somewhere in the house a telephone bell rang, and a footman came out on
to the terrace.

“Lucia, I know that’s for you,” said Adele. “Where-ever you are,
somebody wants you on the telephone. If you were in the middle of the
Sahara, a telephone would ring for you from the sands of the desert.
Yes? Who is it for?” she said to the footman.

“Mrs. Lucas, my lady,” he said.

Lucia got up, quite delighted.

“You’re always chaffing me, Adele,” she said. “What a nuisance the
telephone is. One never gets a rest from it. But I won’t be a moment.”

She tripped off.

“Tony, there’s a great deal to talk about,” said Adele quickly. “Now
what’s the situation between the lovers? Perfect understanding or a
quarrel? And who has been ringing her up? What would you bet that it
was----”

“Alf,” said Tony.

“I wonder. Tony, about the lovers. There’s something. I never saw such
superb indifference. How I shall laugh at Marcia. She’s producing no
effect at all. Lucia doesn’t take the slightest notice. I knew she would
be great. Last night we had a wonderful talk in Marcia’s room, till
Aggie was an ass. There she is again. Now we shall know.”

Lucia came quickly along the terrace.

“Adele dear,” she said. “Would it be dreadful of me if I left this
afternoon? They’ve rung me up from Riseholme. Georgie rang me up. My
Pepino is very far from well. Nothing really anxious, but he’s in bed
and he’s alone. I think I had better go.”

“Oh my dear,” said Adele, “of course you shall do precisely as you wish.
I’m dreadfully sorry: so shall we all be if you go. But if you feel you
would be easier in your mind----”

Lucia looked round on all the brilliant little groups. She was leaving
the most wonderful party: it was the highest perch she had reached yet.
On the other hand she was leaving her lover, which was a compensation.
But she truly didn’t think of any of these things.

“My poor old Pepino,” she said. “I must go, Adele.”




CHAPTER X


To-day, the last of August, Pepino had been allowed for the first time
to go out and have a half-hour’s quiet strolling in the garden and sit
in the sun. His illness which had caused Lucia to recall herself had
been serious, and for a few days he had been dangerously ill with
pneumonia. After turning a bad corner he had made satisfactory progress.

Lucia, who for these weeks had been wholly admirable, would have gone
out with him now, but the doctor, after his visit, had said he wanted to
have a talk with her, and for twenty minutes or so they had held
colloquy in the music-room. Then, on his departure, she sat there a few
minutes more, arranged her ideas, and went out to join Pepino.

“Such a good cheering talk, _caro_,” she said. “There never was such a
perfect convalescer--my dear, what a word--as you. You’re a
prize-patient. All you’ve got to do is to go on exactly as you’re going,
doing a little more, and a little more every day, and in a month’s time
you’ll be ever so strong again. Such a good constitution.”

“And no sea-voyage?” asked Pepino. The dread prospect had been dangled
before him at one time.

“Not unless they think a month or two on the Riviera in the winter might
be advisable. Then the sea voyage from Dover to Calais, but no more than
that. Now I know what you’re thinking about. You told me that we
couldn’t manage Aix this August because of expense, so how are we to
manage two months of Cannes?”

Lucia paused a moment.

“That delicious story of dear Marcia’s,” she said, “about those cousins
of hers who had to retrench. After talking everything over they decided
that all the retrenchment they could possibly make was to have no coffee
after lunch. But we can manage better than that....”

Lucia paused again. Pepino had had enough of movement under his own
steam, and they had seated themselves in the sunny little arbour by the
sundial, which had so many appropriate mottoes carved on it.

“The doctor told me too that it would be most unwise of you to attempt
to live in London for any solid period,” she said. “Fogs, sunlessness,
damp darkness: all bad. And I know again what’s in your kind head. You
think I adore London, and can spend a month or two there in the autumn,
and in the spring, coming down here for week-ends. But I haven’t the
slightest intention of doing anything of the kind. I’m not going to be
up there alone. Besides, where are the dibs, as that sweet little Alf
said, where are the dibs to come from for our Riviera?”

“Let the house for the winter then?” said Pepino.

“Excellent idea, if we could be certain of letting it. But we can’t be
certain of letting it, and all the time a stream of rates and taxes, and
caretakers. It would be wretched to be always anxious about it, and
always counting the dibs. I’ve been going into what we spent there this
summer, _caro_, and it staggered me. What I vote for, is to sell it. I’m
not going to use it without you, and you’re not going to use it at all.
You know how I looked forward to being there for your sake, your club,
the Reading Room at the British Museum, the Astronomer Royal, but now
that’s all kaput, as Tony says. We’ll bring down here anything that’s
particularly connected with dear Auntie: her portrait by Sargent, of
course, though Sargents are fetching immense prices; or the walnut
bureau, or the Chippendale chairs or that little worsted rug in her
bedroom; but I vote for selling it all, freehold, furniture, everything.
As if I couldn’t go up to Claridge’s now and then, when I want to have a
luncheon-party or two of all our friends! And then we shall have no more
anxieties, and if they say you must get away from the cold and the damp,
we shall know we’re doing nothing on the margin of our means. That would
be hateful: we mustn’t do that.”

“But you’ll never be able to be content with Riseholme again,” said
Pepino. “After your balls and your parties and all that, what will you
find to do here?”

Lucia turned her gimlet-eye on him.

“I shall be a great fool if I don’t find something to do,” she said.
“Was I so idle and unoccupied before we went to London? Good gracious, I
was always worked to death here. Don’t you bother your head about that,
Pepino, for if you do it will show you don’t understand me at all. And
our dear Riseholme, let me tell you, has got very slack and inert in our
absence, and I feel very guilty about that. There’s nothing going on:
there’s none of the old fizz and bubble and Excelsior there used to be.
They’re vegetating, they’re dry-rotting, and Georgie’s getting fat.
There’s never any news. All that happens is that Daisy slashes a
golf-ball about the Green for practice in the morning, and then goes
down to the links in the afternoon, and positively the only news next
day is whether she has been round under a thousand strokes, whatever
that means.”

Lucia gave a little indulgent sigh.

“Dear Daisy has ideas sometimes,” she said, “and I don’t deny that. She
had the idea of ouija, she had the idea of the Museum, and though she
said that came from Abfou, she had the idea of Abfou. Also she had the
idea of golf. But she doesn’t carry her ideas out in a vivid manner
that excites interest and keeps people on the boil. On the boil! That’s
what we all ought to be, with a thousand things to do that seem
immensely important and which are important because they seem so. You
want a certain touch to give importance to things, which dear Daisy
hasn’t got. Whatever poor Daisy does seems trivial. But they shall see
that I’ve come home. What does it matter to me whether it’s Marcia’s
ball, or playing Alf’s accompaniments, or playing golf with Daisy, or
playing duets with poor dear Georgie, whose fingers have all become
thumbs, so long as I find it thrilling? If I find it dull, _caro_, I
shall be, as Adele once said, a bloody fool. Dear Adele, she has always
that little vein of coarseness.”

Lucia encountered more opposition from Pepino than she anticipated, for
he had taken a huge pride in her triumphant summer campaign in London,
and though at times he had felt bewildered and buffeted in this high
gale of social activity, and had, so to speak, to close his streaming
eyes and hold his hat on, he gloried in the incessant and tireless
blowing of it, which stripped the choicest fruits from the trees. He
thought they could manage, without encroaching on financial margins, to
keep the house open for another year yet, anyhow: he acknowledged that
he had been unduly pessimistic about going to Aix, he even alluded to
the memories of Aunt Amy which were twined about 25 Brompton Square, and
which he would be so sorry to sever. But Lucia, in that talk with his
doctor, had made up her mind: she rejected at once the idea of pursuing
her victorious career in London if all the time she would have to be
careful and thrifty, and if, far more importantly, she would be leaving
Pepino down at Riseholme. That was not to be thought of: affection no
less than decency made it impossible, and so having made up her mind,
she set about the attainment of her object with all her usual energy.
She knew, too, the value of incessant attack: smash little Alf, for
instance, when he had landed a useful blow on his opponent’s face, did
not wait for him to recover, but instantly followed it up with another
and yet another till his victim collapsed and was counted out. Lucia
behaved in precisely the same way with Pepino: she produced rows of
figures to show they were living beyond their means: she quoted (or
invented) something the Prime Minister had said about the probability of
an increase in income-tax: she assumed that they would go to the Riviera
for certain, and was appalled at the price of tickets in the Blue Train,
and of the tariff at hotels.

“And with all our friends in London, Pepino,” she said in the decisive
round of these combats, “who are longing to come down to Riseholme and
spend a week with us, our expenses here will go up. You mustn’t forget
that. We shall be having a succession of visitors in October, and indeed
till we go south. Then there’s the meadow at the bottom of the garden:
you’ve not bought that yet, and on that I really have set my heart. A
spring garden there. A profusion of daffodils, and a paved walk. You
promised me that. I described what it would be like to Tony, and he is
wildly jealous. I’m sure I don’t wonder. Your new telescope too. I
insist on that telescope, and I’m sure I don’t know where the money’s to
come from. My dear old piano also: it’s on its very last legs, and won’t
last much longer, and I know you don’t expect me to live, literally keep
alive, without a good piano in the house.”

Pepino was weakening. Even when he was perfectly well and strong he was
no match for her, and this rain of blows was visibly staggering him.

“I don’t want to urge you, _caro_,” she continued. “You know I never
urge you to do what you don’t feel is best.”

“But you are urging me,” said Pepino.

“Only to do what you feel is best. As for the memories of Aunt Amy in
Brompton Square, you must not allow false sentiment to come in. You
never saw her there since you were a boy, and if you brought down here
her portrait, and the wool-work rug which you remember her putting over
her knees, I should say, without urging you, mind, that that was
ample.... What a sweet morning! Come to the end of the garden and
imagine what the meadow will look like with a paved walk and a blaze of
daffodils.... The Chippendale chairs, I think I should sell.”

Lucia did not really want Aunt Amy’s portrait either, for she was aware
she had said a good deal from time to time about Aunt Amy’s pearls,
which were there, a little collar of very little seeds, faultlessly
portrayed. But then Georgie had seen them on the night at the Opera, and
Lucia felt that she knew Riseholme very poorly if it was not perfectly
acquainted by now with the nature and minuteness of Aunt Amy’s pearls.
The pearls had better be sold too, and also, she thought, her own
portrait by Sigismund, for the post-cubists were not making much of a
mark.

The determining factor in her mind, over this abandonment of her London
career, to which in a few days, by incessant battering, she had got
Pepino to consent, was Pepino himself. He could not be with her in
London, and she could not leave him week after week (for nothing less
than that, if you were to make any solid progress in London, was any
good) alone in Riseholme. But a large factor, also, was the discovery of
how little at present she counted for in Riseholme, and that could not
be tolerated. Riseholme had deposed her, Riseholme was not intending to
be managed by her from Brompton Square. The throne was vacant, for poor
Daisy, and for the matter of that poor Georgie, were not the sort of
people who could occupy thrones at all. She longed to queen it there
again, and though she was aware that her utmost energies would be
required, what were energies for except to get you what you wanted?

Just now she was nothing in Riseholme: they had been sorry for her
because Pepino had been so ill, but as his steady convalescence
proceeded, and she began to ring people up, and pop in, and make plans
for them, she became aware that she mattered no more than Piggy and
Goosie.... There on the Green, as she saw from the window of her hall,
was Daisy, whirling her arms madly, and hitting a ball with a stick
which had a steel blade at the end, and Georgie, she was rather
horrified to observe, was there too, trying to do the same. Was Daisy
reaping the reward of her persistence, and getting somebody interested
in golf? And, good heavens, there were Piggy and Goosie also smacking
away. Riseholme was clearly devoting itself to golf.

“I shall have to take to golf,” thought Lucia. “What a bore! Such a
foolish game.”

At this moment a small white ball bounded over her yew-hedge, and tapped
smartly against the front door.

“What an immense distance to have hit a ball,” she thought. “I wonder
which of them did that?”

It was soon clear, for Daisy came tripping through the garden after it,
and Lucia, all smiles, went out to meet her.

“Good morning, dear Daisy,” she said. “Did you hit that ball that
immense distance? How wonderful! No harm done at all. But what a
splendid player you must be!”

“So sorry,” panted Daisy, “but I thought I would have a hit with a
driver. Very wrong of me; I had no idea it would go so far or so
crooked.”

“A marvellous shot,” said Lucia. “I remember how beautifully you putted.
And this is all part of golf too? Do let me see you do it again.”

Daisy could not reproduce that particular masterpiece, but she sent the
ball high in the air, or skimming along the ground, and explained that
one was a lofted shot, and the other a wind-cheater.

“I like the wind-cheater best,” said Lucia. “Do let me see if I can do
that.”

She missed the ball once or twice, and then made a lovely wind-cheater,
only this time Daisy called it a top. Daisy had three clubs, two of
which she put down when she used the third, and then forgot about them,
so that they had to go back for them.... And up came Georgie, who was
making wind-cheaters too.

“Good morning, Lucia,” he said. “It’s so tarsome not to be able to hit
the ball, but it’s great fun if you do. Have you put down your
clock-golf yet? There, didn’t that go?”

Lucia had forgotten all about the clock-golf. It was somewhere in what
was called the “game-cupboard,” which contained bowls (as being
Elizabethan) and some old tennis rackets, and a cricket bat Pepino had
used at school.

“I’ll put it down this afternoon,” she said. “Come in after lunch,
Georgie, and play a game with me. You too, Daisy.”

“Thanks, but Georgie and I were going to have a real round on the
links,” said Daisy, in a rather superior manner.

“What fun!” said Lucia sycophantically. “I shall walk down and look at
you. I think I must learn. I never saw anything so interesting as golf.”

This was gratifying: Daisy was by no means reluctant to show Lucia the
way to do anything, but behind that, she was not quite sure whether she
liked this sudden interest in golf. Now that practically the whole of
Riseholme was taking to it, and she herself could beat them all, having
had a good start, she was hoping that Lucia would despise it, and find
herself left quite alone on these lovely afternoons. Everybody went
down to the little nine-hole course now after lunch, the Vicar (Mr.
Rushbold) and his wife, the curate, Colonel Boucher, Georgie, Mrs.
Antrobus (who discarded her ear-trumpet for these athletics and never
could hear you call “Fore”), and Piggy and Goosie, and often Mrs.
Boucher was wheeled down in her bath-chair, and applauded the beautiful
putts made on the last green. Indeed, Daisy had started instruction
classes in her garden, and Riseholme stood in rows and practised
swinging and keeping its eye on a particular blade of grass: golf in
fact promised to make Riseholme busy and happy again just as the
establishment of the Museum had done. Of course, if Lucia was wanting to
learn (and not learn too much) Daisy would be very happy to instruct
her, but at the back of Daisy’s mind was a strange uneasiness. She
consoled herself, however, by supposing that Lucia would go back to
London again in the autumn, and by giving Georgie an awful drubbing.

Lucia did not accompany them far on their round, but turned back to the
little shed of a club-house, where she gathered information about the
club. It was quite new, having been started only last spring by the
tradesmen and townspeople of Riseholme and the neighbouring little town
of Blitton. She then entered into pleasant conversation with the
landlord of the Ambermere Arms, who had just finished his round and said
how pleased they all were that the gentry had taken to golf.

“There’s Mrs. Quantock, ma’am,” said he. “She comes down every afternoon
and practises on the Green every morning. Walking over the Green now of
a morning, is to take your life in your hand. Such keenness I never saw,
and she’ll never be able to hit the ball at all.”

“Oh, but you mustn’t discourage us, Mr. Stratton,” said Lucia. “I’m
going to devote myself to golf this autumn.”

“You’ll make a better hand at it, I’ll be bound,” said Mr. Stratton
obsequiously. “They say Mrs. Quantock putts very nicely when she gets
near the hole, but it takes her so many strokes to get there. She’s lost
the hole, in a manner of speaking, before she has a chance of winning
it.”

Lucia thought hard for a minute.

“I must see about joining at once,” she said. “Who--who are the
Committee?”

“Well, we are going to reconstitute it next October,” he said, “seeing
that the ladies and gentlemen of Riseholme are joining. We should like
to have one of you ladies as President, and one of the gentlemen on the
Committee.”

Lucia made no hesitation about this.

“I should be delighted,” she said, “if the present Committee did me the
honour to ask me. And how about Mr. Pillson? I would sound him if you
like. But we must say nothing about it, till your Committee meets.”

That was beautifully settled then; Mr. Stratton knew how gratified the
Committee would be, and Lucia, long before Georgie and Daisy returned,
had bought four clubs, and was having a lesson from a small wiry caddie.

Every morning while Daisy was swanking away on the Green, teaching
Georgie and Piggy and Goosie how to play, Lucia went surreptitiously
down the hill and learned, while after tea she humbly took her place in
Daisy’s class and observed Daisy doing everything all wrong. She putted
away at her clock-golf, she bought a beautiful book with pictures and
studied them, and all the time she said nothing whatever about it. In
her heart she utterly despised golf, but golf just now was the stunt,
and she had to get hold of Riseholme again....

Georgie popped in one morning after she had come back from her lesson,
and found her in the act of holing out from the very longest of the
stations.

“My dear, what a beautiful putt!” he said. “I believe you’re getting
quite keen on it.”

“Indeed I am,” said she. “It’s great fun. I go down sometimes to the
links and knock the ball about. Be very kind to me this afternoon and
come round with me.”

Georgie readily promised to do so.

“Of course I will,” he said, “and I should be delighted to give you a
hint or two, if I can. I won two holes from Daisy yesterday.”

“How clever of you, Georgie! Any news?”

Georgie said the sound that is spelt “Tut.”

“I quite forgot,” he said. “I came round to tell you. Neither Mrs.
Boucher nor Daisy nor I know _what_ to do.”

(“That’s the Museum Committee,” thought Lucia.)

“What is it, Georgie?” she said. “See if poor Lucia can help.”

“Well,” said Georgie, “You know Pug?”

“That mangy little thing of Lady Ambermere’s?” asked Lucia.

“Yes. Pug died, I don’t know what of----”

“Cream, I should think,” said Lucia. “And cake.”

“Well, it may have been. Anyhow, Lady Ambermere had him stuffed, and
while I was out this morning, she left him in a glass case at my house,
as a present for the Museum. There he is lying on a blue cushion, with
one ear cocked, and a great watery eye, and the end of his horrid tongue
between his lips.”

“No!” said Lucia.

“I assure you. And we don’t know what to do. We can’t put him in the
Museum, can we? And we’re afraid she’ll take the mittens away if we
don’t. But, how can we refuse? She wrote me a note about ‘her precious
Pug.’”

Lucia remembered how they had refused an Elizabethan spit, though they
had subsequently accepted it. But she was not going to remind Georgie of
that. She wanted to get a better footing in the Museum than an
Elizabethan spit had given her.

“What a dreadful thing!” she said. “And so you came to see if your poor
old Lucia could help you.”

“Well, we all wondered if you might be able to think of something,” said
he.

Lucia enjoyed this: the Museum was wanting her.... She fixed Georgie
with her eye.

“Perhaps I can get you out of your hole,” she said. “What I imagine is,
Georgie, that you want _me_ to take that awful Pug back to her. I see
what’s happened. She had him stuffed, and then found he was too dreadful
an object to keep, and so thought she’d be generous to the Museum. We--I
should say ‘you,’ for I’ve got nothing to do with it--you don’t care
about the Museum being made a dump for all the rubbish that people don’t
want in their houses. Do you?”

“No, certainly not,” said Georgie. (Did Lucia mean anything by that?
Apparently she did.) She became brisk and voluble.

“Of course, if you asked my opinion,” said Lucia, “I should say that
there has been a little too much dumping done already. But that is not
the point, is it? And it’s not my business either. Anyhow, you don’t
want any more rubbish to be dumped. As for withdrawing the mittens--only
lent, are they?--she won’t do anything of the kind. She likes taking
people over and showing them. Yes, Georgie, I’ll help you: tell Mrs.
Boucher and Daisy that I’ll help you. I’ll drive over this
afternoon--no, I won’t, for I’m going to have a lovely game of golf with
you--I’ll drive over to-morrow and take Pug back, with the Committee’s
regrets that they are not taxidermists. Or, if you like, I’ll do it on
my own authority. How odd to be afraid of poor old Lady Ambermere! Never
mind: I’m not. How all you people bully me into doing just what you
want! I always was Riseholme’s slave. Put Pug’s case in a nice piece of
brown paper, Georgie, for I don’t want to see the horrid little
abortion, and don’t think anything more about it. Now let’s have a good
little putting match till lunch-time.”

Georgie was nowhere in the good little putting-match, and he was even
less anywhere when it came to their game in the afternoon. Lucia made
magnificent swipes from the tee, the least of which, if she happened to
hit it, must have gone well over a hundred yards, whereas Daisy
considered eighty yards from the tee a most respectable shot, and was
positively pleased if she went into a bunker at a greater distance than
that, and said the bunker ought to be put further off for the sake of
the longer hitters. And when Lucia came near the green, she gave a smart
little dig with her mashie, and, when this remarkable stroke came off,
though she certainly hit the ground, the ball went beautifully, whereas
when Daisy hit the ground the ball didn’t go at all. All the time she
was light-hearted and talkative, and even up to the moment of striking,
would be saying “Now oo naughty ickle ball: Lucia’s going to give you
such a spank!” whereas when Daisy was playing, her opponent and the
caddies had all to be dumb and turned to stone, while she drew a long
breath and waved her club with a pendulum-like movement over the ball.

“But you’re marvellous,” said Georgie as, three down, he stood on the
fourth tee, and watched Lucia’s ball sail away over a sheep that looked
quite small in the distance. “It’s only three weeks or so since you
began to play at all. You are clever! I believe you’d nearly beat
Daisy.”

“Georgie, I’m afraid you’re a flatterer,” said Lucia. “Now give your
ball a good bang, and then there’s something I want to talk to you
about.”

“Let’s see; it’s slow back, isn’t it?” said Georgie. “Or is it quick
back? I believe Daisy says sometimes one and sometimes the other.”

Daisy and Piggy, starting before them, were playing in a parallel and
opposite direction. Daisy had no luck with her first shot, and very
little with her second. Lucia just got out of the way of her third and
Daisy hurried by them.

“Such a slice!” she said. “How are you getting on, Lucia? How many have
you played to get there?”

“One at present, dear,” said Lucia. “But isn’t it difficult?”

Daisy’s face fell.

“One?” she said.

Lucia kissed her hand.

“That’s all,” she said. “And has Georgie told you that I’ll manage about
Pug for you?”

Daisy looked round severely. She had begun to address her ball and
nobody must talk.

Lucia watched Daisy do it again, and rejoined Georgie who was in a
“tarsome” place, and tufts of grass flew in the air.

“Georgie, I had a little talk with Mr. Stratton the other day,” she
said. “There’s a new golf-committee being elected in October, and they
would so like to have you on it. Now be good-natured and say you will.”

Georgie had no intention of saying anything else.

“And they want poor little me to be President,” said Lucia. “So shall I
send Mr. Stratton a line and say we will? It would be kind, Georgie. Oh,
by the way, do come and dine to-night. Pepino--so much better,
thanks--Pepino told me to ask you. He would enjoy it. Just one of our
dear little evenings again.”

Lucia, in fact, was bringing her batteries into action, and Georgie was
the immediate though not the ultimate objective. He longed to be on the
golf-committee, he was intensely grateful for the promised removal of
Pug, and it was much more amusing to play golf with Lucia than to be
dragooned round by Daisy who told him after every stroke what he ought
to have done and could never do it herself. A game should not be a
lecture.

Lucia thought it was time to confide in him about the abandoning of
Brompton Square. Georgie would love knowing what nobody else knew yet.
She waited till he had failed to hole a short putt, and gave him the
subsequent one, which Daisy never did.

“I hope we shall have many of our little evenings, Georgie,” she said.
“We shall be here till Christmas. No, no more London for us, though it’s
a secret at present.”

“What?” said Georgie.

“Wait a moment,” said Lucia, teeing up for the last hole. “Now ickle
ballie, fly away home. There!...” and ickle ballie flew at about
right-angles to home, but ever such a long way.

She walked with him to cover-point, where he had gone too.

“Pepino must never live in London again,” she said. “All going to be
sold, Georgie. The house and the furniture and the pearls. You must put
up with your poor old Lucia at Riseholme again. Nobody knows yet but
you, but now it is all settled. Am I sorry? Yes, Georgie, course I am.
So many dear friends in London. But then there are dear friends in
Riseholme. Oh, what a beautiful bang, Georgie. You nearly hit Daisy.
Call ‘Five!’ isn’t that what they do?”

Lucia was feeling much surer of her ground. Georgie, bribed by a place
on the golf-committee and by her admiration of his golf, and by her
nobility with regard to Pug, was trotting back quick to her, and that
was something. Next morning she had a hectic interview with Lady
Ambermere....

Lady Ambermere was said to be not at home, though Lucia had seen her
majestic face at the window of the pink saloon. So she asked for Miss
Lyall, the downtrodden companion, and waited in the hall. Her chauffeur
had deposited the large brown-paper parcel with Pug inside on the
much-admired tessellated pavement.

“Oh, Miss Lyall,” said Lucia. “So sad that dear Lady Ambermere is out,
for I wanted to convey the grateful thanks of the Museum Committee to
her for her beautiful gift of poor Pug. But they feel they can’t....
Yes, that’s Pug in the brown-paper parcel. So sweet. But will you, on
Lady Ambermere’s return, make it quite clear?”

Miss Lyall, looking like a mouse, considered what her duty was in this
difficult situation. She felt that Lady Ambermere ought to know Lucia’s
mission and deal with it in person.

“I’ll see if Lady Ambermere has come in, Mrs. Lucas,” she said. “She may
have come in. Just out in the garden, you know. Might like to know what
you’ve brought. O dear me!”

Poor Miss Lyall scuttled away, and presently the door of the pink saloon
was thrown open. After an impressive pause Lady Ambermere appeared,
looking vexed. The purport of this astounding mission had evidently been
conveyed to her.

“Mrs. Lucas, I believe,” she said, just as if she wasn’t sure.

Now Lucia after all her Duchesses was not going to stand that. Lady
Ambermere might have a Roman nose, but she hadn’t any manners.

“Lady Ambermere, I presume,” she retorted. So there they were.

Lady Ambermere glared at her in a way that should have turned her to
stone. It made no impression.

“You have come, I believe, with a message from the Committee of your
little Museum at Riseholme, which I may have misunderstood.”

Lucia knew she was doing what neither Mrs. Boucher nor Daisy in their
most courageous moments would have dared to do. As for Georgie....

“No, Lady Ambermere,” she said. “I don’t think you’ve misunderstood it.
A stuffed dog on a cushion. They felt that the Museum was not quite the
place for it. I have brought it back to you with their thanks and
regrets. So kind of you and--and so sorry of them. This is the parcel.
That is all, I think.”

It wasn’t quite all....

“Are you aware, Mrs. Lucas,” said Lady Ambermere, “that the mittens of
the late Queen Charlotte are my loan to your little Museum?”

Lucia put her finger to her forehead.

“Mittens?” she said. “Yes, I believe there are some mittens. I think I
have seen them. No doubt those are the ones. Yes?”

That was brilliant: it implied complete indifference on the part of the
Committee (to which Lucia felt sure she would presently belong) as to
what Lady Ambermere might think fit to do about mittens.

“The Committee shall hear from me,” said Lady Ambermere, and walked
majestically back to the pink saloon.

Lucia felt sorry for Miss Lyall: Miss Lyall would probably not have a
very pleasant day, but she had no real apprehensions, so she explained
to the Committee, who were anxiously awaiting her return on the Green,
about the withdrawal of these worsted relics.

“Bluff, just bluff,” she said. “And even if it wasn’t---- Surely, dear
Daisy, it’s better to have no mittens and no Pug than both. Pug--I
caught a peep of him through a hole in the brown paper--Pug would have
made your Museum a laughing-stock.”

“Was she very dreadful?” asked Georgie.

Lucia gave her little silvery laugh.

“Yes, dear Georgie, quite dreadful. You would have collapsed if she had
said to you ‘Mr. Pillson, I believe.’ Wouldn’t you, Georgie? Don’t
pretend to be braver than you are.”

“Well, I think we ought all to be much obliged to you, Mrs. Lucas,” said
Mrs. Boucher. “And I’m sure we are. I should never have stood up to her
like that! And if she takes the mittens away, I should be much inclined
to put another pair in the case, for the case belongs to us and not to
her, with just the label ‘These Mittens did not belong to Queen
Charlotte, and were not presented by Lady Ambermere.’ That would serve
her out.”

Lucia laughed gaily again.

“So glad to have been of use,” she said. “And now, dear Daisy, will you
be as kind to me as Georgie was yesterday and give me a little game of
golf this afternoon? Not much fun for you, but so good for me.”

Daisy had observed some of Lucia’s powerful strokes yesterday, and she
was rather dreading this invitation for fear it should not be, as Lucia
said, much fun for her. Luckily, she and Georgie had already arranged to
play to-day, and she had, in anticipation of the dread event, engaged
Piggy, Goosie, Mrs. Antrobus, and Colonel Boucher to play with her on
all the remaining days of that week. She meant to practise like anything
in the interval. And then, like a raven croaking disaster, the infamous
Georgie let her down.

“I’d sooner not play this afternoon,” he said. “I’d sooner just stroll
out with you.”

“Sure, Georgie?” said Lucia. “That will be nice then. Oh, how nervous I
shall be.”

Daisy made one final effort to avert her downfall, by offering, as they
went out that afternoon, to give Lucia a stroke a hole. Lucia said she
knew she could do it, but might they, just for fun, play level? And as
the round proceeded, Lucia’s kindness was almost intolerable. She could
see, she said, that Daisy was completely off her game, when Daisy wasn’t
in the least off her game: she said, “Oh, that was bad luck!” when Daisy
missed short putts: she begged her to pick her ball out of bushes and
not count it.... At half past four Riseholme knew that Daisy had halved
four holes and lost the other five. Her short reign as Queen of Golf had
come to an end.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Museum Committee met after tea at Mrs. Boucher’s (Daisy did not hold
her golfing-class in the garden that day) and tact, Georgie felt, seemed
to indicate that Lucia’s name should not be suggested as a new member of
the Committee so swiftly on the heels of Daisy’s disaster. Mrs. Boucher,
privately consulted, concurred, though with some rather stinging remarks
as to Daisy’s having deceived them all about her golf, and the business
of the meeting was chiefly concerned with the proposed closing down of
the Museum for the winter. The tourist season was over, no char-a-bancs
came any more with visitors, and for three days not a soul had passed
the turnstile.

“So where’s the use,” asked Mrs. Boucher, “of paying a boy to let people
into the Museum when nobody wants to be let in? I call it throwing money
away. Far better close it till the spring, and have no more expense,
except to pay him a shilling a week to open the windows and air it, say
on Tuesday and Friday, or Wednesday and Saturday.”

“I should suggest Monday and Thursday,” said Daisy, very decisively. If
she couldn’t have it all her own way on the links, she could make
herself felt on committees.

“Very well, Monday and Thursday,” said Mrs. Boucher. “And then there’s
another thing. It’s getting so damp in there, that if you wanted a cold
bath, you might undress and stand there. The water’s pouring off the
walls. A couple of oil-stoves, I suggest, every day except when it’s
being aired. The boy will attend to them, and make it half a crown
instead of a shilling. I’m going to Blitton to-morrow, and if that’s
your wish I’ll order them. No: I’ll bring them back with me, and I’ll
have them lit to-morrow morning. But unless you want to have nothing to
show next spring but mildew, don’t let us delay about it. A crop of
mildew won’t be sufficient attraction to visitors, and there’ll be
nothing else.”

Georgie rapped the table.

“And I vote we take the manuscript of ‘Lucrezia’ out, and that one of us
keeps it till we open again,” he said.

“I should be happy to keep it,” said Daisy.

Georgie wanted it himself, but it was better not to thwart Daisy to-day.
Besides, he was in a hurry, as Lucia had asked him to bring round his
planchette and see if Abfou would not like a little attention. Nobody
had talked to Abfou for weeks.

“Very well,” he said, “and if that’s all----”

“I’m not sure I shouldn’t feel happier if it was at the bank,” said Mrs.
Boucher. “Supposing it was stolen.”

Georgie magnanimously took Daisy’s side: he knew how Daisy was feeling.
Mrs. Boucher was outvoted, and he got up.

“If that’s all then, I’ll be off,” he said.

Daisy had a sort of conviction that he was going to do something with
Lucia, perhaps have a lesson at golf.

“Come in presently?” she said.

“I can’t, I’m afraid,” he said. “I’m busy till dinner.”

And of course, on her way home, she saw him hurrying across to The Hurst
with his planchette.




CHAPTER XI


Lucia made no allusion whatever to her athletic triumph in the afternoon
when Georgie appeared. That was not her way: she just triumphed, and
left other people to talk about it. But her principles did not prevent
her speaking about golf in the abstract.

“We must get more businesslike when you and I are on the Committee,
Georgie,” she said. “We must have competitions and handicaps, and I will
give a small silver cup, the President’s cup, to be competed for.
There’s no organization at present, you see: great fun, but no
organization. We shall have to put our heads together over that. And
foursomes: I have been reading about foursomes, when two people on one
side hit the ball in turn. Pepino, I’m sure, would give a little cup for
foursomes, the Lucas cup.... And you’ve brought the planchette? You must
teach me how to use it. What a good employment for winter evenings,
Georgie. And we must have some bridge tournaments. Wet afternoons, you
know, and then tea, and then some more bridge. But we will talk about
all that presently, only I warn you I shall expect you to get up all
sorts of diversions for Pepino.”

Lucia gave a little sigh.

“Pepino adored London,” she said, “and we must cheer him up, Georgie,
and not let him feel dull. You must think of lots of little diversions:
little pleasant bustling things for these long evenings: music, and
bridge, and some planchette. Then I shall get up some Shakespeare
readings, selections from plays, with a small part for Pepino and
another for poor Daisy. I foresee already that I shall have a very busy
autumn. But you must all be very kind and come here for our little
entertainments. Madness for Pepino to go out after sunset. Now let us
get to our planchette. How I do chatter, Georgie!”

Georgie explained the technique of planchette, how important it was not
to push, but on the other hand not to resist its independent motions. As
he spoke Lucia glanced over the directions for planchette which he had
brought with him.

“We may not get anything,” he said. “Abfou was very disappointing
sometimes. We can go on talking: indeed, it is better not to attend to
what it does.”

“I see,” said Lucia, “let us go on talking then. How late you are,
Georgie. I expected you half an hour ago. Oh, you said you might be
detained by a Museum Committee meeting.”

“Yes, we settled to shut the Museum up for the winter,” he said. “Just
an oil-stove or two to keep it dry. I wanted--and so did Mrs. Boucher, I
know--to ask you----”

He stopped, for Planchette had already begun to throb in a very
extraordinary manner.

“I believe something is going to happen,” he said.

“No! How interesting!” said Lucia. “What do we do?”

“Nothing,” said Georgie. “Just let it do what it likes. Let’s
concentrate: that means thinking of nothing at all.”

Georgie of course had noticed and inwardly applauded the lofty reticence
which Lucia had shown about Daisy’s disaster this afternoon. But he had
the strongest suspicion of her wish to weedj, and he fully expected that
if Abfou “came through” and talked anything but Arabic, he would express
his scorn of Daisy’s golf. There would be scathing remarks,
corresponding to “snob” and those rude things about Lucia’s shingling
of her hair, and then he would feel that Lucia had pushed. She might say
she hadn’t, just as Daisy said she hadn’t, but it would be very
unconvincing if Abfou talked about golf. He hoped it wouldn’t happen,
for the very appositeness of Abfou’s remarks before had strangely shaken
his faith in Abfou. He had been willing to believe that it was Daisy’s
subconscious self that had inspired Abfou--or at any rate he tried to
believe it--but it had been impossible to dissociate the complete Daisy
from these violent criticisms.

Planchette began to move.

“Probably it’s Arabic,” said Georgie. “You never quite know. Empty your
mind of everything, Lucia.”

She did not answer, and he looked up at her. She had that far-away
expression which he associated with renderings of the Moonlight Sonata.
Then her eyes closed.

Planchette was moving quietly and steadily along. When it came near the
edge of the paper, it ran back and began again, and Georgie felt quite
sure he wasn’t pushing: he only wanted it not to waste its energy on the
tablecloth. Once he felt almost certain that it traced out the word
“drive,” but one couldn’t be sure. And was that “committee”? His heart
rather sank: it would be such a pity if Abfou was only talking about the
golf club which no doubt was filling Lucia’s subconscious as well as
conscious mind.... Then suddenly he got rather alarmed, for Lucia’s head
was sunk forward, and she breathed with strange rapidity.

“Lucia!” he said sharply.

Lucia lifted her head, and Planchette stopped.

“Dear me, I felt quite dreamy,” she said. “Let us go on talking,
Georgie. Lady Ambermere this morning: I wish you could have seen her.”

“Planchette has been writing,” said Georgie.

“No!” said Lucia. “Has it? May we look?”

Georgie lifted the machine. There was no Arabic at all, nor was it
Abfou’s writing, which in quaint little ways resembled Daisy’s when he
wrote quickly.

“Vittoria,” he read. “I am Vittoria.”

“Georgie, how silly,” said Lucia, “or is it the Queen?”

“Let’s see what she says,” said Georgie. “I am Vittoria. I come to
Riseholme. For proof, there is a dog and a Vecchia----”

“That’s Italian,” said Lucia excitedly. “You see, Vittoria is Italian.
Vecchia means--let me see; yes, of course, it means ‘old woman.’ ‘A dog,
and an old woman who is angry.’ O Georgie, you did that! You were
thinking about Pug and Lady Ambermere.”

“I swear I wasn’t,” said Georgie. “It never entered my head. Let’s see
what else. ‘And Vittoria comes to tell you of fire and water, of fire
and water. The strong elements that burn and soak. Fire and water and
moonlight.’”

“O Georgie, what gibberish,” said Lucia. “It’s as silly as Abfou. What
does it mean? Moonlight! I suppose you would say I pushed and was
thinking of the Moonlight Sonata.”

That base thought had occurred to Georgie’s mind, but where did fire and
water come in? Suddenly a stupendous interpretation struck him.

“It’s most extraordinary!” he said. “We had a Museum Committee meeting
just now, and Mrs. Boucher said the place was streaming wet. We settled
to get some oil-stoves to keep it dry. There’s fire and water for you!”
Georgie had mentioned this fact about the Museum Committee, but so
casually that he had quite forgotten he had done so. Lucia did not
remind him of it.

“Well, I do call that remarkable!” she said. “But I daresay it’s only a
coincidence.”

“I don’t think so at all,” said Georgie. “I think it’s most curious, for
I wasn’t thinking about that a bit. What else does it say? ‘Vittoria
bids you keep love and loyalty alive in your hearts. Vittoria has
suffered, and bids you be kind to the suffering.’”

“That’s curious!” said Lucia. “That might apply to Pepino, mightn’t
it?... O Georgie, why, of course, that was in both of our minds: we had
just been talking about it. I don’t say you pushed intentionally, and
you mustn’t say I did, but that might easily have come from us.”

“I think it’s very strange,” said Georgie. “And then, what came over
you, Lucia? You looked only half conscious. I believe it was what the
planchette directions call light hypnosis.”

“No!” said Lucia. “Light hypnosis, that means half-asleep, doesn’t it? I
did feel drowsy.”

“It’s a condition of trance,” said Georgie. “Let’s try again.”

Lucia seemed reluctant.

“I think I won’t, Georgie,” she said. “It is so strange. I’m not sure
that I like it.”

“It can’t hurt you if you approach it in the right spirit,” said
Georgie, quoting from the directions.

“Not again this evening, Georgie,” she said. “To-morrow perhaps. It is
interesting, it is curious, and somehow I don’t think Vittoria would
hurt us. She seemed kind. There’s something noble, indeed, about her
message.”

“Much nobler than Abfou,” said Georgie, “and much more powerful. Why,
she came through at once, without pages of scribbles first! I never felt
quite certain that Abfou’s scribbles were Arabic.”

Lucia gave a little indulgent smile.

“There didn’t seem much evidence for it from what you told me,” she
said. “All you could be certain of was that they weren’t English.”

Georgie left his planchette with Lucia, in case she would consent to sit
again to-morrow, and hurried back, it is unnecessary to state, not to
his own house, but to Daisy’s. Vittoria was worth two of Abfou, he
thought ... that communication about fire and water, that kindness to
the suffering, and, hardly less, the keeping of loyalty alive. That made
him feel rather guilty, for certainly loyalty to Lucia had flickered
somewhat in consequence of her behaviour during the summer.

He gave a short account of these remarkable proceedings (omitting the
loyalty) to Daisy, who took a superior and scornful attitude.

“Vittoria, indeed!” she said, “and Vecchia. Isn’t that Lucia all over,
lugging in easy Italian like that? And Pug and the angry old lady.
Glorifying herself, I call it. Why, that wasn’t even subconscious: her
mind was full of it.”

“But how about the fire and water?” asked Georgie. “It does apply to the
damp in the Museum and the oil-stoves.”

Daisy knew that her position as priestess of Abfou was tottering. It was
true that she had not celebrated the mysteries of late, for Riseholme
(and she) had got rather tired of Abfou, but it was gall and wormwood to
think that Lucia should steal (steal was the word) her invention and
bring it out under the patronage of Vittoria as something quite new.

“A pure fluke,” said Daisy. “If she’d written mutton and music, you
would have found some interpretation for it. Such far-fetched nonsense!”

Georgie was getting rather heated. He remembered how when Abfou had
written “death” it was held to apply to the mulberry-tree which Daisy
believed she had killed by amateur root-pruning, so if it came to
talking about far-fetched nonsense, he could have something to say.
Besides, the mulberry-tree hadn’t died at all, so that if Abfou meant
that he was wrong. But there was no good in indulging in recriminations
with Daisy, not only for the sake of peace and quietness, but because
Georgie could guess very well all she was feeling.

“But she didn’t write about mutton and music,” he observed, “so we
needn’t discuss that. Then there was moonlight. I don’t know what that
means.”

“I should call it moonshine,” said Daisy brightly.

“Well, it wrote moonlight,” said Georgie. “Of course there’s the
Moonlight Sonata which might have been in Lucia’s mind, but it’s all
curious. And I believe Lucia was in a condition of light hypnosis----”

“Light fiddlesticks!” said Daisy.... (Why hadn’t she thought of going
into a condition of light hypnosis when she was Abfouing? So much more
impressive!) “We can all shut our eyes and droop our heads.”

“Well, I think it was light hypnosis,” said Georgie firmly. “It was very
curious to see. I hope she’ll consent to sit again. She didn’t much want
to.”

Daisy profoundly hoped that Lucia would not consent to sit again, for
she felt Abfouism slipping out of her fingers. In any case, she would
instantly resuscitate Abfou, for Vittoria shouldn’t have it all her own
way. She got up.

“Georgie, why shouldn’t we see if Abfou has anything to say about it?”
she asked. “After all, Abfou told us to make a museum, and that hasn’t
turned out so badly. Abfou was practical; what he suggested led to
something.”

Though the notion that Daisy had thought of the Museum and pushed
flitted through Georgie’s mind, there was something in what she said,
for certainly Abfou had written museum (if it wasn’t “mouse”) and there
was the Museum which had turned out so profitably for the Committee.

“We might try,” he said.

Daisy instantly got out her planchette, which sadly wanted dusting, and
it began to move almost as soon as they laid their hands on it: Abfou
was in a rather inartistic hurry. And it really wasn’t very wise of
Daisy to close her eyes and snort: it was indeed light fiddlesticks to
do that. It was a sheer unconvincing plagiarism from Lucia, and his
distrust of Daisy and of Abfou immeasurably deepened. Furiously the
pencil scribbled, going off the paper occasionally and writing on the
table till Georgie could insert the paper under it: it was evident that
Abfou was very indignant about something, and there was no need to
inquire what that was. For some time the writing seemed to feel to
Georgie like Arabic, but presently the pencil slowed down, and he
thought some English was coming through. Finally Abfou gave a great
scrawl, as he usually did when the message was complete, and Daisy
looked dreamily up.

“Anything?” she said.

“It’s been writing hard,” said Georgie.

They examined the script. It began, as he had expected, with quantities
of Arabic, and then (as he had expected) dropped into English, which was
quite legible.

“Beware of charlatans,” wrote Abfou, “beware of Southern charlatans. All
spirits are not true and faithful like Abfou, who instituted your
Museum. False guides deceive. A warning from Abfou.”

“Well, if that isn’t convincing, I don’t know what is,” said Daisy.

Georgie thought it convincing too.

The din of battle began to rise. It was known that very evening, for
Colonel and Mrs. Boucher dined with Georgie, that he and Lucia (for
Georgie did not give all the credit to Lucia) had received that
remarkable message from Vittoria about fire and water and the dog and
the angry old woman, and it was agreed that Abfou cut a very poor
figure, and had a jealous temper. Why hadn’t Abfou done something
better than merely warn them against Southern Charlatans?

“If it comes to that,” said Mrs. Boucher, “Egypt is in the south, and
charlatans can come from Egypt as much as from Italy. Fire and water!
Very remarkable. There’s the water there now, plenty of it, and the fire
will be there to-morrow. I must get out my planchette again, for I put
it away. I got sick of writing nothing but Arabic, even if it was
Arabic. I call it very strange. And not a word about golf from Vittoria.
I consider that’s most important. If Lucia had been pushing, she’d have
written about her golf with Daisy. Abfou and Vittoria! I wonder which
will win.”

That summed it up pretty well, for it was felt that Abfou and Vittoria
could not both direct the affairs of Riseholme from the other world,
unless they acted jointly; and Abfou’s remarks about the Southern
charlatan and false spirits put the idea of a coalition out of the
question. All the time, firm in the consciousness of Riseholme, but
never under any circumstances spoken of, was the feeling that Abfou and
Vittoria (as well as standing for themselves) were pseudonyms: they
stood also for Daisy and Lucia. And how much finer and bigger, how much
more gifted of the two in every way was Vittoria-Lucia. Lucia quickly
got over her disinclination to weedj, and messages, not very definite,
but of high moral significance, came from this exalted spirit. There was
never a word about golf, and there was never a word about Abfou, nor any
ravings concerning inferior and untrustworthy spirits. Vittoria was
clearly above all that (indeed, she was probably in some sphere miles
away above Abfou), whereas Abfou’s pages (Daisy sat with her planchette
morning after morning and obtained sheets of the most voluble English)
were blistered with denunciations of low and earth-born intelligences
and dark with awful warnings for those who trusted them.

Riseholme, in fact, had never been at a higher pitch of excited
activity; even the arrival of the _Evening Gazette_ during those weeks
when Hermione had recorded so much about Mrs. Philip Lucas hadn’t roused
such emotions as the reception of a new message from Abfou or Vittoria.
And it was Lucia again who was the cause of it all: No one for months
had cared what Abfou said, till Lucia became the recipient of Vittoria’s
messages. She had invested planchette with the interest that attached to
all she did. On the other hand it was felt that Abfou (though certainly
he lowered himself by these pointed recriminations) had done something.
Abfou-Daisy had invented the Museum, whereas Vittoria-Lucia, apart from
giving utterance to high moral sentiments, had invented nothing (high
moral sentiments couldn’t count as an invention). To be sure there was
the remarkable piece about Pug and angry Lady Ambermere, but the facts
of that were already known to Lucia, and as for the communication about
fire, water, and moonlight, though there were new oil-stoves in the damp
Museum, that was not as remarkable as inventing the Museum, and
moonlight unless it meant the Sonata was quite unexplained. Over this
cavilling objection, rather timidly put forward by Georgie, who longed
for some striking vindication of Vittoria, Lucia was superb.

“Yes, Georgie, I can’t tell you what it means,” she said. “I am only the
humble scribe. It is quite mysterious to me. For myself, I am content to
be Vittoria’s medium. I feel it a high honour. Perhaps some day it will
be explained, and we shall see.”

They saw.

Meanwhile, since no one can live entirely on messages from the unseen,
other interests were not neglected. There were bridge parties at The
Hurst, there was much music, there was a reading of Hamlet at which
Lucia doubled several of the principal parts and Daisy declined to be
the Ghost. The new Committee of the golf club was formed, and at the
first meeting Lucia announced her gift of the President’s Cup, and
Pepino’s of the Lucas Cup for foursomes. Notice of these was duly put up
in the Club-house, and Daisy’s face was of such a grimness when she read
them that something very savage from Abfou might be confidently
expected. She went out for a round soon after with Colonel Boucher, who
wore a scared and worried look when he returned. Daisy had got into a
bunker, and had simply hewed her ball to pieces.... Pepino’s
convalescence proceeded well; Lucia laid down the law a good deal at
auction bridge, and the oil stoves at the Museum were satisfactory. They
were certainly making headway against the large patches of damp on the
walls, and Daisy, one evening, recollecting that she had not made a
personal inspection of them, went in just before dinner to look at them.
The boy in charge of them had put them out, for they only burned during
the day, and certainly they were doing their work well. Daisy felt she
would not be able to bring forward any objection to them at the next
Committee meeting, as she had rather hoped to do. In order to hurry on
the drying process, she filled them both up and lit them so that they
should burn all night. She spilt a little paraffin, but that would soon
evaporate. Georgie was tripping back across the Green from a visit to
Mrs. Boucher, and they walked homeward together.

       *       *       *       *       *

Georgie had dined at home that night, and working at a cross-word puzzle
was amazed to see how late it was. He had pored long over a map of South
America, trying to find a river of seven letters with P T in the middle,
but he determined to do no more at it to-night.

“The tarsome thing,” he said, “if I could get that, I’m sure it would
give me thirty-one across.”

He strolled to the window and pushed aside the blind. It was a moonlight
night with a high wind and a few scudding clouds. Just as he was about
to let the blind drop again he saw a reddish light in the sky,
immediately above his tall yew-hedge, and wondered what it was. His
curiosity combined with the fact that a breath of air was always
pleasant before going to bed, led him to open the front door and look
out. He gave a wild gasp of dismay and horror.

The windows of the Museum were vividly illuminated by a red glow. Smoke
poured out of one which apparently was broken, and across the smoke shot
tongues of flame. He bounded to his telephone, and with great presence
of mind rang up the fire-station at Blitton. “Riseholme,” he called.
“House on fire: send engine at once.” He ran into his garden again, and
seeing a light still in the drawing-room next door (Daisy was getting
some sulphurous expressions from Abfou) tapped at the pane. “The
Museum’s burning,” he cried, and set off across the Green to the scene
of the fire.

By this time others had seen it too, and were coming out of their
houses, looking like little black ants on a red table-cloth. The fire
had evidently caught strong hold, and now a piece of the roof fell in,
and the flames roared upward. In the building itself there was no
apparatus for extinguishing fire, nor, if there had been, could any one
have reached it. A hose was fetched from the Ambermere Arms, but that
was not long enough, and there was nothing to be done except wait for
the arrival of the fire-engine from Blitton. Luckily the Museum stood
well apart from other houses, and there seemed little danger of the fire
spreading.

Soon the bell of the approaching engine was heard, but already it was
clear that nothing could be saved. The rest of the roof crashed in, a
wall tottered and fell. The longer hose was adjusted, and the stream of
water directed through the windows, now here, now there, where the fire
was fiercest, and clouds of steam mingled with the smoke. But all
efforts to save anything were absolutely vain: all that could be done,
as the fire burned itself out, was to quench the glowing embers of the
conflagration.... As he watched, three words suddenly repeated
themselves in Georgie’s mind. “Fire, water, moonlight,” he said aloud in
an awed tone.... Victorious Vittoria!

The Committee, of course, met next morning, and Robert as financial
adviser was specially asked to attend. Georgie arrived at Mrs. Boucher’s
house where the meeting was held before Daisy and Robert got there, and
Mrs. Boucher could hardly greet him, so excited was she.

“I call it most remarkable,” she said. “Dog and angry old woman never
convinced me, but this is beyond anything. Fire, water, moonlight! It’s
prophecy, nothing less than prophecy. I shall believe anything Vittoria
says, for the future. As for Abfou--well----”

She tactfully broke off at Daisy’s and Robert’s entrance.

“Good morning,” she said. “And good morning, Mr. Robert. This is a
disaster, indeed. All Mr. Georgie’s sketches, and the walking-sticks,
and the mittens and the spit. Nothing left at all.”

Robert seemed amazingly cheerful.

“I don’t see it as such a disaster,” he said. “Lucky I had those
insurances executed. We get two thousand pounds from the Company, of
which five hundred goes to Colonel Boucher for his barn--I mean the
Museum.”

“Well, that’s something,” said Mrs. Boucher. “And the rest? I never
could understand about insurances. They’ve always been a sealed book to
me.”

“Well, the rest belongs to those who put the money up to equip the
Museum,” he said. “In proportion, of course, to the sums they advanced.
Altogether four hundred and fifty pounds was put up, you and Daisy and
Georgie each put in fifty. The rest; well, I advanced the rest.”

There were some rapid and silent calculations made. It seemed rather
hard that Robert should get such a lot. Business always seemed to favour
the rich. But Robert didn’t seem the least ashamed of that. He treated
it as a perfect matter of course.

“The--the treasures in the Museum almost all belonged to the Committee,”
he went on. “They were given to the Museum, which was the property of
the Committee. Quite simple. If it had been a loan collection now--well,
we shouldn’t be finding quite such a bright lining to our cloud. I’ll
manage the insurance business for you, and pay you pleasant little
cheques all round. The Company, no doubt, will ask a few questions as to
the origin of the fire.”

“Ah, there’s a mystery for you,” said Mrs. Boucher. “The oil stoves were
always put out in the evening, after burning all day, and how a fire
broke out in the middle of the night beats me.”

Daisy’s mouth twitched. Then she pulled herself together.

“Most mysterious,” she said, and looked carelessly out of the window to
where the debris of the Museum was still steaming. Simultaneously,
Georgie gave a little start, and instantly changed the subject, rapping
on the table.

“There’s one thing we’ve forgotten,” said he. “It wasn’t entirely our
property. Queen Charlotte’s mittens were only a loan.”

The faces of the Committee fell slightly.

“A shilling or two,” said Mrs. Boucher hopefully. “I’m only glad we
didn’t have Pug as well. Lucia got us out of that!”

Instantly the words of Vittoria about the dog and the angry old woman,
and fire and water and moonlight occurred to everybody. Most of all
they occurred to Daisy, and there was a slight pause, which might have
become awkward if it had continued. It was broken by the entry of Mrs.
Boucher’s parlour-maid, who carried a letter in a large square envelope
with a deep mourning border, and a huge coronet on the flap.

“Addressed to the Museum Committee, ma’am,” she said.

Mrs. Boucher opened it, and her face flushed.

“Well, she’s lost no time,” she said. “Lady Ambermere. I think I had
better read it.”

“Please,” said everybody in rather strained voices. Mrs. Boucher read:

          LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE OF RISEHOLME
                               MUSEUM--


     Your little Museum, I hear, has been totally destroyed with all its
     contents by fire. I have to remind you therefore that the mittens
     of her late Majesty Queen Charlotte were there on loan, as lent by
     me. No equivalent in money can really make up for the loss of so
     irreplaceable a relic, but I should be glad to know, as soon as
     possible, what compensation you propose to offer me.

     The figure that has been suggested to me is £50, and an early
     cheque would oblige.

                                          Faithfully yours,
                                                    CORNELIA AMBERMERE.

A dead silence succeeded, broken by Mrs. Boucher as soon as her
indignation allowed her to speak.

“I would sooner,” she said, “go to law about it, and appeal if it went
against us, and carry it up to the House of Lords, than pay £50 for
those rubbishy things. Why the whole contents of the Museum weren’t
worth more than--well, leave it at that.”

The figure at which the contents of the Museum had been insured floated
into everybody’s mind, and it was more dignified to “leave it at that,”
and not let the imagination play over the probable end of Mrs. Boucher’s
sentence.

The meeting entirely concurred, but nobody, not even Robert, knew what
to do next.

“I propose offering her £10,” said Georgie at last, “and I call that
handsome.”

“Five,” said Daisy, like an auction reversed.

Robert rubbed the top of his head, as was his custom in perplexity.

“Difficult to know what to do,” he said. “I don’t know of any standard
of valuation for the old clothes of deceased queens.”

“Two,” said Mrs. Boucher, continuing the auction, “and that’s a fancy
price. What would Pug have been, I wonder, if we’re asked fifty pounds
for two old mittens. A pound each, I say, and that’s a monstrous price.
And if you want to know who suggested to Lady Ambermere to ask fifty, I
can tell you, and her name was Cornelia Ambermere.”

This proposal of Lady Ambermere’s rather damped the secret exaltation of
the Committee, though it stirred a pleasant feeling of rage. Fifty
pounds was a paltry sum compared to what they would receive from the
Insurance Company, but the sense of the attempt to impose on them caused
laudable resentment. They broke up, to consider separately what was to
be done, and to poke about the ashes of the Museum, all feeling very
rich. The rest of Riseholme were there, of course, also poking about,
Piggy and Goosie skipping over smouldering heaps of ash, and Mrs.
Antrobus, and the Vicar and the Curate, and Mr. Stratton. Only Lucia was
absent, and Georgie, after satisfying himself that nothing whatever
remained of his sketches, popped in to The Hurst.

Lucia was in the music room reading the paper. She had heard, of course,
about the total destruction of the Museum, that ridiculous invention of
Daisy and Abfou, but not a shadow of exultation betrayed itself.

“My dear, too sad about the Museum,” she said. “All your beautiful
things. Poor Daisy, too, her idea.”

Georgie explained about the silver lining to the cloud.

“But what’s so marvellous,” he said, “is Vittoria. Fire, water,
moonlight. I never heard of anything so extraordinary, and I thought it
only meant the damp on the walls, and the new oil stoves. It was
prophetical, Lucia, and Mrs. Boucher thinks so too.”

Lucia still showed no elation. Oddly enough, she had thought it meant
damp and oil stoves, too, for she did remember what Georgie had
forgotten that he had told her just before the epiphany of Vittoria. But
now this stupendous fulfilment of Vittoria’s communication of which she
had never dreamed, had happened. As for Abfou, it was a mere waste of
time to give another thought to poor dear malicious Abfou. She sighed.

“Yes, Georgie, it was strange,” she said. “That was our first sitting,
wasn’t it? When I got so drowsy and felt so queer. Very strange indeed:
convincing, I think. But whether I shall go on sitting now, I hardly
know.”

“Oh, but you must,” said Georgie. “After all the rubbish----”

Lucia held up her finger.

“Now, Georgie, don’t be unkind,” she said. “Let us say, ‘Poor Daisy,’
and leave it there. That’s all. Any other news?”

Georgie retailed the monstrous demand of Lady Ambermere.

“And, as Robert says, it’s so hard to know what to offer her,” he
concluded.

Lucia gave the gayest of laughs.

“Georgie, what would poor Riseholme do without me?” she said. “I seem to
be made to pull you all out of difficulties. That mismanaged
golf-club-Pug, and now there’s this. Well, shall I be kind and help you
once more?”

She turned over the leaves of her paper.

“Ah, that’s it,” she said. “Listen, Georgie. Sale at Pemberton’s
auction-rooms in Knightsbridge yesterday. Various items. Autograph of
Crippen the murderer. Dear me, what horrid minds people have!
Mother-of-pearl brooch belonging to the wife of the poet Mr. Robert
Montgomery; a pair of razors belonging to Carlyle, all odds and ends of
trumpery, you see.... Ah yes, here it is. Pair of riding gaiters, in
good condition, belonging to His Majesty King George the Fourth. That
seems a sort of guide, doesn’t it, to the value of Queen Charlotte’s
mittens. And what do you think they fetched? A terrific sum, Georgie;
fifty pounds is nowhere near it. They fetched ten shillings and
sixpence.”

“No!” said Georgie. “And Lady Ambermere asked fifty pounds!”

Lucia laughed again.

“Well, Georgie, I suppose I must be good-natured,” she said. “I’ll draft
a little letter for your committee to Lady Ambermere. How you all bully
me and work me to death! Why, only yesterday I said to Pepino that those
months we spent in London seemed a holiday compared to what I have to do
here. Dear old Riseholme! I’m sure I’m very glad to help it out of its
little holes.”

Georgie gave a gasp of admiration. It was but a month or two ago that
all Riseholme rejoiced when Abfou called her a snob, and now here they
all were again (with the exception of Daisy) going to her for help and
guidance in all those employments and excitements in which Riseholme
revelled. Golf-competitions and bridge tournament, and duets, and real
séances, and deliverance from Lady Ambermere, and above all, the
excitement supplied by her personality.

“You’re too wonderful,” he said, “indeed, I don’t know what we should do
without you.”

Lucia got up.

“Well, I’ll scribble a little letter for you,” she said, “bringing in
the price of George the Fourth’s gaiters in good condition. What shall
we--I mean what shall you offer? I think you must be generous, Georgie,
and not calculate the exact difference between the value of a pair of
gaiters in good condition belonging to a king, and that of a pair of
moth-eaten mittens belonging to a queen consort. Offer her the same; in
fact, I think I should enclose a treasury note for ten shillings and six
stamps. That will be more than generous, it will be munificent.”

Lucia sat down at her writing-table, and after a few minutes’ thought,
scribbled a couple of sides of notepaper in that neat handwriting that
bore no resemblance to Vittoria’s. She read them through, and approved.

“I think that will settle it,” she said. “If there is any further bother
with the Vecchia, let me know. There’s one more thing, Georgie, and then
let us have a little music. How do you think the fire broke out?”

Georgie felt her penetrating eye was on him. She had not asked that
question quite idly. He tried to answer it quite idly.

“It’s most mysterious,” he said. “The oil stoves are always put out
quite early in the evening, and lit again next morning. The boy says he
put them out as usual.”

Lucia’s eye was still on him.

“Georgie, how do you think the fire broke out?” she repeated.

This time Georgie felt thoroughly uncomfortable. Had Lucia the power of
divination?...

“I don’t know,” he said. “Have you any idea about it?”

“Yes,” said Lucia. “And so have you. I’ll tell you my idea if you like.
I saw our poor misguided Daisy coming out of the Museum close on seven
o’clock last night.”

“So did I,” said Georgie in a whisper.

“Well, the oil stoves must have been put out long before that,” said
Lucia. “Mustn’t they?”

“Yes,” said Georgie.

“Then how was it that there was a light coming out of the Museum
windows? Not much of a light, but a little light, I saw it. What do you
make of that?”

“I don’t know,” said Georgie.

Lucia held up a censuring finger.

“Georgie, you must be very dull this morning,” she said. “What I make of
it is that our poor Daisy lit the oil stoves again. And then probably in
her fumbling way, she spilt some oil. Something of the sort, anyhow. In
fact, I’m afraid Daisy burned down the Museum.”

There was a terrible pause.

“What are we to do?” said Georgie.

Lucia laughed.

“Do?” she said. “Nothing, except never know anything about it. We know
quite well that poor Daisy didn’t do it on purpose. She hasn’t got the
pluck or the invention to be an incendiary. It was only her muddling,
meddling ways.”

“But the insurance money?” said Georgie.

“What about it? The fire was an accident, whether Daisy confessed what
she had done or not. Poor Daisy! We must be nice to Daisy, Georgie. Her
golf, her Abfou! Such disappointments. I think I will ask her to be my
partner in the foursome for the Lucas Cup. And perhaps if there was
another place on the golf committee, we might propose her for it.”

Lucia sighed, smiling wistfully.

“A pity she is not a little wiser,” she said.

Lucia sat looking wistful for a moment. Then to Georgie’s immense
surprise she burst out into peals of laughter.

“My dear, what is the matter?” said Georgie.

Lucia was helpless for a little, but she gasped and recovered and wiped
her eyes.

“Georgie, you _are_ dull this morning!” she said. “Don’t you see? Poor
Daisy’s meddling has made the reputation of Vittoria and crumpled up
Abfou. Fire, water, moonlight: Vittoria’s prophecy. Vittoria owes it all
to poor dear Daisy!”

Georgie’s laughter set Lucia off again, and Pepino coming in found both
at it.

“Good morning, Georgie,” he said. “Terrible about the Museum. A sad
loss. What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing, _caro_,” said Lucia. “Just a little joke of Daisy’s. Not worth
repeating, but it amused Georgie and me. Come, Georgie, half an hour’s
good practice of celestial Mozartino. We have been lazy lately.”


THE END


Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

his beside=> his bedside {pg 11}

Riseholm was quite=> Riseholme was quite {pg 30}

whose pre-ence=> whose presence {pg 64}

Mouse or Risehome=> Mouse or Riseholme {pg 74}

not the silghtest=> not the slightest {pg 145}

she askd for=> she asked for {pg 178}

creditably placed=> creditably played {pg 221}

a wanderful talk=> a wonderful talk {pg 231}

Abfou’s scribbes=> Abfou’s scribbles {pg 257}

contining the auction=> continuing the auction {pg 268}

to ask fify=> to ask fifty {pg 268}









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