“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 fewintimes, 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 mostchicinformality 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 acrossto 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 quicklyremedied, 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 theTimes, 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. Bybuona fortunaI 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 walkingshoes. 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 howwonderfully 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 thelawn, 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 wordof 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 thinkshejoined 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 Olgais 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 tohave 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 theEvening 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. Somethingandante, adagioalmost. 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 visualizeher 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 theEvening Gazettehad 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.
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 theEvening Gazette. She had written to nobody, she had given no sign of any sort, and, but for theEvening Gazette, she might, as far as Riseholme was concerned, be dead. But theEvening Gazetteshowed 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,Icall 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 threeweeks 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. Thesmall 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 ofattendant 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 (perhapswithout 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, andstood 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 anotherword 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-agedman 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 threeforlunch. 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 hesprang 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 towhat 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 theGreen, 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 seeher.”
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 mostpompous 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 ofadagio. 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 Idon’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 littleintimedinner 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,” saidshe. “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 theEvening 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.