The miserable Lucia started a run of extreme bad luck about this time,
of which the adventure or misadventure of the Guru seemed to be the
prelude, or perhaps the news of her want of recognition of the August
moon, which Georgie had so carefully saluted, may have arrived at that
satellite by October. For she had simply "cut" the August moon....
There was the fiasco about Olga coming to the tableaux, which was the
cause of her sending that very tart reply, via Miss Lyall, to Lady
Ambermere's impertinence, and the very next morning, Lady Ambermere,
coming again into Riseholme, perhaps for that very purpose, had behaved
to Lucia as Lucia had behaved to the moon, and cut her. That was
irritating, but the counter-irritant to it had been that Lady Ambermere
had then gone to Olga's, and been told that she was not at home, though
she was very audibly practising in her music-room at the time. Upon
which Lady Ambermere had said "Home" to her people, and got in with
such unconcern of the material world that she sat down on Pug.
Mrs Quantock had heard both "Home" and Pug, and told the cut Lucia, who
was a hundred yards away about it. She also told her about the
engagement of Atkinson and Elizabeth, which was all she knew about
events in those houses. On which Lucia with a kind smile had said,
"Dear Daisy, what slaves some people are to their servants. I am sure
Mrs Weston and Colonel Boucher will be quite miserable, poor things.
Now I must run home. How I wish I could stop and chat on the green!"
And she gave her silvery laugh, for she felt much better now that she
knew Olga had said she was out to Lady Ambermere, when she was so
audibly in.
Then came a second piece of bad luck. Lucia had not gone more than a
hundred yards past Georgie's house, when he came out in a tremendous
hurry. He rapidly measured the distance between himself and Lucia, and
himself and Mrs Quantock, and made a bee-line for Mrs Quantock, since
she was the nearest. Olga had just telephoned to him....
"Good morning," he said breathlessly, determined to cap anything she
said. "Any news?"
"Yes, indeed," she said. "Haven't you heard?"
Georgie had one moment of heart-sink.
"What?" he said.
"Atkinson and Eliz----" she began.
"Oh, that," said he scornfully. "And talking of them, of course you've
heard the rest. _Haven't_ you? Why, Mrs Weston and Colonel Boucher
are going to follow their example, unless they set it themselves, and
get married first."
"No!" said Mrs Quantock in the loudest possible Riseholme voice of
surprise.
"Oh, yes. I really knew it last night. I was dining at Old Place and
they were there. Olga and I both settled there would be something to
talk in the morning. Shall we stroll on the green a few minutes?"
Georgie had a lovely time. He hurried from person to person, leaving
Mrs Quantock to pick up a few further gleanings. Everyone was there
except Lucia, and she, but for the accident of her being further off
than Mrs Quantock, would have been the first to know.
When this tour was finished Georgie sat to enjoy the warm comforting
glow of envy that surrounded him. Nowadays the meeting place at the
Green had insensibly transferred itself to just opposite Old Place, and
it was extremely interesting to hear Olga practising as she always did
in the morning. Interesting though it was, Riseholme had at first been
a little disappointed about it, for everyone had thought that she would
sing Brunnhilde's part or Salome's part through every day, or some
trifle of that kind. Instead she would perform an upwards scale in
gradual _crescendo,_ and on the highest most magnificent note
would enunciate at the top of her voice, "Yawning York!" Then starting
soft again she would descend in _crescendo_ to a superb low note
and enunciate "Love's Lilies Lonely." Then after a dozen repetitions of
this, she would start off with full voice, and get softer and softer
until she just whispered that York was yawning, and do the same with
Love's Lilies. But you never could tell what she might not sing, and
some mornings there would be long trills and leapings onto high notes:
long notes and leaping onto trills, and occasionally she sang a real
song. That was worth waiting for, and Georgie did not hesitate to let
drop that she had sung four last night to his accompaniment. And hardly
had he repeated that the third time, when she appeared at her window,
and before all Riseholme called out "Georgie!" with a trill at the end,
like a bird shaking its wings. Before all Riseholme!
So in he went. Had Lucia known that, it would quite have wiped the gilt
off Lady Ambermere's being refused admittance. In point of fact it did
wipe the gilt off when, about an hour afterwards, Georgie went to lunch
because he told her. And if there had been any gilt left about
anywhere, that would have vanished, too, when in answer to some rather
damaging remark she made about poor Daisy's interests in the
love-affairs of other people's servants, she learned that it was of
the love-affairs of their superiors that all Riseholme had been talking
for at least an hour by now.
Again there was ill-luck about the tableaux on Saturday, for in the
Brunnhilde scene, Peppino in his agitation, turned the lamp that was to
be a sunrise, completely out, and Brunnhilde had to hail the midnight,
or at any rate a very obscure twilight. Georgie, it is true, with
wonderful presence of mind, turned on an electric light when he had
finished playing, but it was more like a flash of lightning than a
slow, wonderful dawn. The tableaux were over well before 10.45, and
though Lucia in answer to the usual pressings, said she would "see
about" doing them again, she felt that Mrs Weston and Colonel Boucher,
who made their first public appearance as the happy pair, attracted
more than their proper share of attention. The only consolation was that
the romps that followed at poor Daisy's were a complete fiasco. It was
in vain, too, at supper, that she went from table to table, and helped
people to lobster salad and champagne, and had not enough chairs, and
generally imitated all that had apparently made Olga's party so supreme
a success. But on this occasion the recipe for the dish and not the
dish itself was served up, and the hunting of the slipper produced no
exhilaration in the chase....
But far more untoward events followed. Olga came back on the next
Monday, and immediately after Lucia received a card for an evening "At
Home," with "Music" in the bottom left-hand corner. It happened to be
wet that afternoon, and seeing Olga's shut motor coming from the
station with four men inside, she leaped to the conclusion that these
were four musicians for the music. A second motor followed with
luggage, and she quite distinctly saw the unmistakable shape of a
'cello against the window. After that no more guessing was necessary,
for it was clear that poor Olga had hired the awful string-quartet from
Brinton, that played in the lounge at the Royal Hotel after dinner. The
Brinton string-quartet! She had heard them once at a distance and that
was quite enough. Lucia shuddered as she thought of those doleful
fiddlers. It was indeed strange that Olga with all the opportunities
she had had for hearing good music, should hire the Brinton
string-quartet, but, after all, that was entirely of a piece with her
views about the gramophone. Perhaps the gramophone would have its share
in this musical evening. But she had said she would go: it would be very
unkind to Olga to stop away now, for Olga must know by this time her
passion for music, so she went. She sincerely hoped that she would not
be conducted to the seat of honour, and be obliged to say a few
encouraging words to the string-quartet afterwards.
Once again she came rather late, for the music had begun. It had only
just begun, for she recognised--who should recognise if not she?--the
early bars of a Beethoven quartet. She laid her hand on Peppino's arm.
"Brinton: Beethoven," she said limply.
She slipped into a chair next Daisy Quantock, and sat in her well-known
position when listening to music, with her head forward, her chin
resting on her hand, and the far-away look in her eyes. Nothing of
course could wholly take away the splendour of that glorious
composition, and she was pleased that there was no applause between the
movements, for she had rather expected that Olga would clap, and
interrupt the unity of it all. Occasionally, too, she was agreeably
surprised by the Brinton string-quartet: they seemed to have some
inklings, though not many. Once she winced very much when a string
broke.
Olga (she was rather a restless hostess) came up to her when it was
over.
"So glad you could come," she said. "Aren't they divine?"
Lucia gave her most indulgent smile.
"Perfect music! Glorious!" she said. "And they really played it very
creditably. But I am a little spoiled, you know, for the last time I
heard that it was performed by the Spanish Quartet. I know one ought
never to compare, but have you ever heard the Spanish Quartet, Miss
Bracely?"
Olga looked at her in surprise.
"But they are the Spanish Quartet!" she said pointing to the players.
Lucia had raised her voice rather as she spoke, for when she spoke on
music she spoke for everybody to hear. And a great many people
undoubtedly did hear, among whom, of course, was Daisy Quantock. She
gave one shrill squeal of laughter, like a slate-pencil, and from that
moment granted plenary absolution to _poor dear Lucia_ for all her
greed and grabbing with regard to the Guru.
But instantly all Olga's good-nature awoke: unwittingly (for her remark
that this _was_ the Spanish Quartet had been a mere surprised
exclamation), she had made a guest of hers uncomfortable, and must at
once do all she could to remedy that.
"It's a shocking room for echoes, this," she said. "Do all of you come
up a little nearer, and you will be able to hear the playing so much
better. You lose all shade, all fineness here. I came here on purpose
to ask you to move up, Mrs Lucas: there are half a dozen chairs
unoccupied near the platform."
It was a kindly intention that prompted the speech, but for all real
Riseholme practical purposes, quite barren, for many people had heard
Lucia's remarks, and Peppino also had already been wincing at the
Brinton quartet. In that fell moment the Bolshevists laid bony fingers
on the sceptre of her musical autocracy.... But who would have guessed
that Olga would get the Spanish Quartet from London to come down to
Riseholme?
Staggering from these blows, she had to undergo an even shrewder stroke
yet. Already, in the intelligence department, she had been sadly
behind-hand in news, her tableaux-party had been anything but a
success, this one little remark of Olga's had shaken her musically, but
at any rate up till this moment she had shewn herself mistress of the
Italian tongue, while to strengthen that she was being very diligent
with her dictionary, grammar and Dante's Paradiso. Then as by a bolt
out of a clear sky that temple, too, was completely demolished, in the
most tragic fashion.
A few days after the disaster of the Spanish-Brinton Quartet, Olga
received a letter from Signor Cortese, the eminent Italian composer, to
herald the completion of his opera, "Lucretia." Might he come down to
Riseholme for a couple of nights, and, figuratively, lay it at her
feet, in the hope that she would raise it up, and usher it into the
world? All the time he had been writing it, as she knew, he had
thought of her in the name part and he would come down today, tomorrow,
at a moment's notice by day or night to submit it to her. Olga was
delighted and sent an effusive telegram of many sheets, full of
congratulation and welcome, for she wanted above all things to "create"
the part. So would Signor Cortese come down that very day?
She ran upstairs with the news to her husband.
"My dear, 'Lucretia' is finished," she said, "and that angel
practically offers it me. Now what are we to do about dinner tonight?
Jacob and Jane are coming, and neither you nor they, I suppose, speak
one word of Italian, and you know what mine is, firm and intelligible
and operatic but not conversational. What are we to do? He hates
talking English.... Oh, I know, if I can only get Mrs Lucas. They
always talk Italian, I believe, at home. I wonder if she can come.
She's musical, too, and I shall ask her husband, I think: that'll be a
man over, but it will be another Italiano----"
Olga wrote at once to Lucia, mentioning that Cortese was staying with
them, but, quite naturally, saying nothing about the usefulness of
Peppino and her being able to engage the musician in his own tongue,
for that she took for granted. An eager affirmative (such a great
pleasure) came back to her, and for the rest of the day, Lucia and
Peppino made up neat little sentences to let off to the dazzled
Cortese, at the moment when they said "good-night," to shew that they
could have talked Italian all the time, had there been any occasion for
doing so.
Mrs Weston and Colonel Boucher had already arrived when Lucia and her
husband entered, and Lucia had quite a shock to see on what intimate
terms they were with their hostess. They actually called each other
Olga and Jacob and Jane, which was most surprising and almost painful.
Lucia (perhaps because she had not known about it soon enough) had been
a little satirical about the engagement, rather as if it was a slight
on her that Jacob had not been content with celibacy and Jane with her
friendship, but she was sure she wished them both "nothing but well."
Indeed the moment she got over the shock of seeing them so intimate
with Olga, she could not have been surpassed in cordiality.
"We see but little of our old friends now," she said to Olga and Jane
jointly, "but we must excuse their desire for solitude in their first
glow of their happiness. Peppino and I remember that sweet time, oh,
ever so long ago."
This might have been tact, or it might have been cat. That Peppino and
she sympathised as they remembered their beautiful time was tact, that
it was so long ago was cat. Altogether it might be described as a cat
chewing tact. But there was a slight air of patronage about it, and if
there was one thing Mrs Weston would not, and could not and did not
even intend to stand, it was that. Besides it had reached her ears that
Mrs Lucas had said something about there being no difficulty in finding
bridesmaids younger than the bride.
"Fancy! How clever of you to remember so long ago," she said. "But,
then, you have the most marvellous memory, dear, and keep it
wonderfully!"
Olga intervened.
"How kind of you and Mr Lucas to come at such short notice," she said.
"Cortese hates talking English, so I shall put him between you and me,
and you'll talk to him all the time, won't you? And you won't laugh at
me, will you, when I join in with my atrocious attempts? And I shall
buttress myself on the other side with your husband, who will firmly
talk across me to him."
Lucia had to say something. A further exposure was at hand, quite
inevitably. It was no use for her and Peppino to recollect a previous
engagement.
"Oh, my Italian is terribly rusty," she said, knowing that Mrs Weston's
eye was on her.... Why had she not sent Mrs Weston a handsome
wedding-present that morning?
"Rusty? We will ask Cortese about that when you've had a good talk to
him. Ah, here he is!"
Cortese came into the room, florid and loquacious, pouring out a stream
of apology for his lateness to Olga, none of which was the least
intelligible to Lucia. She guessed what he was saying, and next moment
Olga, who apparently understood him perfectly, and told him with an
enviable fluency that he was not late at all, was introducing him to
her, and explaining that "la Signora" (Lucia understood this) and her
husband talked Italian. She did not need to reply to some torrent of
amiable words from him, addressed to her, for he was taken on and
introduced to Mrs Weston, and the Colonel. But he instantly whirled
round to her again, and asked her something. Not knowing the least what
he meant, she replied:
"Si: tante grazie."
He looked puzzled for a moment and then repeated his question in
English.
"In what deestrict of Italy 'ave you voyaged most?"
Lucia understood that: so did Mrs Weston, and Lucia pulled herself
together.
"In Rome," she said. "_Che bella citta! Adoro Roma, e il mio marito.
Non e vere, Peppino?_"
Peppino cordially assented: the familiar ring of this fine intelligible
Italian restored his confidence, and he asked Cortese whether he was
not very fond of music....
Dinner seemed interminable to Lucia. She kept a watchful eye on
Cortese, and if she saw he was about to speak to her, she turned
hastily to Colonel Boucher, who sat on her other side, and asked him
something about his _cari cani_, which she translated to him.
While he answered she made up another sentence in Italian about the
blue sky or Venice, or very meanly said her husband had been there,
hoping to direct the torrent of Italian eloquence to him. But she knew
that, as an Italian conversationalist, neither she nor Peppino had a
rag of reputation left them, and she dismally regretted that they had
not chosen French, of which they both knew about as much, instead of
Italian, for the vehicle of their linguistic distinction.
Olga meantime continued to understand all that Cortese said, and to
reply to it with odious fluency, and at the last, Cortese having said
something to her which made her laugh, he turned to Lucia.
"I've said to Meesis Shottlewort" ... and he proceeded to explain his
joke in English.
"Molto bene," said Lucia with a dying flicker. "Molto divertente. Non e
vero, Peppino."
"Si, si," said Peppino miserably.
And then the final disgrace came, and it was something of a relief to
have it over. Cortese, in excellent spirits with his dinner and his
wine and the prospect of Olga taking the part of Lucretia, turned
beamingly to Lucia again.
"Now we will all spick English," he said. "This is one very pleasant
evening. I enjoy me very much. Ecco!"
Just once more Lucia shot up into flame.
"Parlate Inglese molto bene," she said, and except when Cortese spoke
to Olga, there was no more Italian that night.
Even the unique excitement of hearing Olga "try over" the great scene
in the last act could not quite absorb Lucia's attention after this
awful fiasco, and though she sat leaning forward with her chin in her
hand, and the far-away look in her eyes, her mind was furiously busy as
to how to make anything whatever out of so bad a job. Everyone present
knew that her Italian, as a medium for conversation, had suffered a
complete break-down, and it was no longer any real use, when Olga
did not quite catch the rhythm of a passage, to murmur "_Uno_,
_due_, _tre_" unconsciously to herself; she might just as well
have said "one, two, three" for any effect it had on Mrs Weston.
The story would be all over Riseholme next day, and she felt sure that
Mrs Weston, that excellent observer and superb reporter, had not failed
to take it all in, and would not fail to do justice to it. Blow after
blow had been rained upon her palace door, it was little wonder that
the whole building was a-quiver. She had thought of starting a
Dante-class this winter, for printed Italian, if you had a dictionary
and a translation in order to prepare for the class, could be easily
interpreted: it was the spoken word which you had to understand without
any preparation at all, and not in the least knowing what was coming,
that had presented such insurmountable difficulties. And yet who, when
the story of this evening was known, would seek instruction from a
teacher of that sort? Would Mrs Weston come to her Dante-class? Would
she? Would she? No, she would not.
Lucia lay long awake that night, tossing and turning in her bed in that
delightful apartment in "Midsummer Night's Dream," and reviewing the
fell array of these unlucky affairs. As she eyed them, black shapes
against the glow of her firelight, it struck her that the same
malevolent influence inspired them all. For what had caused the failure
and flatness of her tableaux (omitting the unfortunate incident about
the lamp) but the absence of Olga? Who was it who had occasioned her
unfortunate remark about the Spanish Quartet but Olga, whose clear duty
it had been, when she sent the invitation for the musical party, to
state (so that there could be no mistake about it) that those eminent
performers were to entrance them? Who could have guessed that she would
have gone to the staggering expense of having them down from London?
The Brinton quartet was the utmost that any sane imagination could have
pictured, and Lucia's extremely sane imagination had pictured just
that, with such extreme vividness that it had never occurred to her
that it could be anybody else. Certainly Olga should have put "Spanish
Quartet" in the bottom left-hand corner instead of "Music" and then
Lucia would have known all about it, and have been speechless with
emotion when they had finished the Beethoven, and wiped her eyes, and
pulled herself together again. It really looked as if Olga had laid a
trap for her....
Even more like a trap were the horrid events of this evening. Trap was
not at all too strong a word for them. To ask her to the house, and
then suddenly spring upon her the fact that she was expected to talk
Italian.... Was that an open, an honourable proceeding? What if Lucia
had actually told Olga (and she seemed to recollect it) that she and
Peppino often talked Italian at home? That was no reason why she should
be expected, off-hand like that, to talk Italian anywhere else. She
should have been told what was expected of her, so as to give her the
chance of having a previous engagement. Lucia hated underhand ways,
and they were particularly odious in one whom she had been willing to
educate and refine up to the highest standards of Riseholme. Indeed it
looked as if Olga's nature was actually incapable of receiving
cultivation. She went on her own rough independent lines, giving a romp
one night, and not coming to the tableaux on another, and getting the
Spanish Quartet without consultation on a third, and springing this
dreadful Pentecostal party on them on a fourth. Olga clearly meant
mischief: she wanted to set herself up as leader of Art and Culture in
Riseholme. Her conduct admitted of no other explanation.
Lucia's benevolent scheme of educating and refining vanished like
morning mists, and through her drooping eyelids, the firelight seemed
strangely red.... She had been too kind, too encouraging: now she must
collect her forces round her and be stern. As she dozed off to sleep,
she reminded herself to ask Georgie to lunch next day. He and Peppino
and she must have a serious talk. She had seen Georgie comparatively
little just lately, and she drowsily and uneasily wondered how that
was.
Georgie by this time had quite got over the desolation of the moment
when standing in the road opposite Mrs Quantock's mulberry-tree he had
given vent to that bitter cry of "More misery: more unhappiness!" His
nerves on that occasion had been worn to fiddlestrings with all the
fuss and fiasco of planning the tableaux, and thus fancying himself in
love had been just the last straw. But the fact that he had been Olga's
chosen confidant in her wonderful scheme of causing Mrs Weston and the
Colonel to get engaged, and the distinction of being singled out by
Olga to this friendly intimacy, had proved a great tonic. It was quite
clear that the existence of Mr Shuttleworth constituted a hopeless bar
to the fruition of his passion, and, if he was completely honest with
himself, he was aware that he did not really hate Mr Shuttleworth for
standing in his path. Georgie was gentle in all his ways, and his
manner of falling in love was very gentle, too. He admired Olga
immensely, he found her stimulating and amusing, and since it was out
of the question really to be her lover, he would have enjoyed next best
to that, being her brother, and such little pangs of jealousy as he
might experience from time to time, were rather in the nature of small
electric shocks voluntarily received. He was devoted to her with a
warmth that his supposed devotion to Lucia had never kindled in him; he
even went so far as to dream about her in an agitated though respectful
manner. Without being conscious of any unreality about his sentiments,
he really wanted to dress up as a lover rather than to be one, for he
could form no notion at present of what it felt to be absorbed in
anyone else. Life was so full as it was: there really was no room for
anything else, especially if that something else must be of the quality
which rendered everything else colourless.
This state of mind, this quality of emotion was wholly pleasurable and
quite exciting, and instead of crying out "More misery! more
unhappiness!" he could now, as he passed the mulberry, say to himself
"More pleasures! more happiness!"
Yet as he ran down the road to lunch with Lucia he was conscious that
she was likely to stand, an angel perhaps, but certainly one with a
flaming sword, between him and all the interests of the new life which
was undoubtedly beginning to bubble in Riseholme, and to which Georgie
found it so pleasant to take his little mug, and have it filled with
exhilarating liquid. And if Lucia proved to be standing in his path,
forbidding his approach, he, too, was armed for combat, with a
revolutionary weapon, consisting of a rolled-up copy of some of
Debussy's music for the piano--Olga had lent it him a few days,--and he
had been very busy over "Poissons d'or." He was further armed by the
complete knowledge of the Italian debacle of last night, which, from
his knowledge of Lucia, he judged must constitute a crisis. Something
would have to happen.... Several times lately Olga had, so to speak,
run full-tilt into Lucia, and had passed on leaving a staggering form
behind her. And in each case, so Georgie clearly perceived, Olga had
not intended to butt into or stagger anybody. Each time, she had
knocked Lucia down purely by accident, but if these accidents occurred
with such awful frequency, it was to be expected that Lucia would find
another name for them: they would have to be christened. With all his
Riseholme appetite for complications and events Georgie guessed that he
was not likely to go empty away from this lunch. In addition there were
other topics of extraordinary interest, for really there had been very
odd experiences at Mrs Quantock's last night, when the Italian debacle
was going on, a little way up the road. But he was not going to bring
that out at once.
Lucia hailed him with her most cordial manner, and with a superb
effrontery began to talk Italian just as usual, though she must have
guessed that Georgie knew all about last night.
"Bon arrivato, amico mio," she said. "Why, it must be three days since
we met. Che la falto il signorino? And what have you got there?"
Georgie, having escaped being caught over Italian, had made up his mind
not to talk any more ever.
"Oh, they are some little things by Debussy," he said. "I want to play
one of them to you afterwards. I've just been glancing through it."
"Bene, molto bene!" said she. "Come in to lunch. But I can't promise to
like it, Georgino. Isn't Debussy the man who always makes me want to
howl like a dog at the sound of the gong? Where did you get these
from?"
"Olga lent me them," said Georgie negligently. He really did call her
Olga to her face now, by request.
Lucia's bugles began to sound.
"Yes, I should think Miss Bracely would admire that sort of music," she
said. "I suppose I am too old-fashioned, though I will not condemn your
little pieces of Debussy before I have heard them. Old-fashioned! Yes!
I was certainly too old-fashioned for the music she gave us last night.
Dio mi!"
"Oh, didn't you enjoy it?" asked he.
Lucia sat down, without waiting for Peppino.
"Poor Miss Bracely!" she said. "It was very kind of her in intention to
ask me, but she would have been kinder to have asked Mrs Antrobus
instead, and have told her not to bring her ear-trumpet. To hear that
lovely voice, for I do her justice, and there are lovely notes in her
voice, _lovely_, to hear that voice shrieking and screaming away,
in what she called the great scene, was simply pitiful. There was no
melody, and above all there was no form. A musical composition is like
an architectural building; it must be built up and constructed. How
often have I said that! You must have colour, and you must have line,
otherwise I cannot concede you the right to say you have music."
Lucia finished her egg in a hurry, and put her elbows on the table.
"I hope I am not hide-bound and limited," she said, "and I think you
will acknowledge, Georgie, that I am not. Even in the divinest music of
all, I am not blind to defects, if there are defects. The Moonlight
Sonata, for instance. You have often heard me say that the two last
movements do not approach the first in perfection of form. And if I am
permitted to criticise Beethoven, I hope I may be allowed to suggest
that Mr Cortese has not produced an opera which will render Fidelio
ridiculous. But really I am chiefly sorry for Miss Bracely. I should
have thought it worth her while to render herself not unworthy to
interpret Fidelio, whatever time and trouble that cost her, rather than
to seek notoriety by helping to foist on to the world a fresh
combination of engine-whistles and grunts. _Non e vero_, Peppino?
How late you are."
Lucia had not determined on this declaration of war without anxious
consideration. But it was quite obvious to her that the enemy was daily
gaining strength, and therefore the sooner she came to open hostilities
the better, for it was equally obvious to her mind that Olga was a
pretender to the throne she had occupied for so long. It was time to
mobilise, and she had first to state her views and her plan of campaign
to the chief of her staff.
"No, we did not quite like our evening, Peppino and I, did we,
_caro_?" she went on. "And Mr Cortese! His appearance! He is like
a huge hairdresser. His touch on the piano. If you can imagine a wild
bull butting at the keys, you will have some idea of it. And above all,
his Italian! I gathered that he was a Neapolitan, and we all know what
Neapolitan dialect is like. Tuscans and Romans, who between them I
believe--Lingua Toscano in Bocca Romana, you remember--know how to
speak their own tongue, find Neapolitans totally unintelligible. For
myself, and I speak for mio sposo as well, I do not want to understand
what Romans do not understand. La bella lingua is sufficient for me."
"I hear that Olga could understand him quite well," said Georgie
betraying his complete knowledge of all that had happened.
"That may be so," said Lucia. "I hope she understood his English too,
and his music. He had not an 'h' when he spoke English, and I have not
the slightest doubt in my own mind that his Italian was equally
illiterate. It does not matter; I do not see that Mr Cortese's
linguistic accomplishments concern us. But his music does, if poor Miss
Bracely, with her lovely notes, is going to study it, and appear as
Lucretia. I am sorry if that is so. Any news?"
Really it was rather magnificent, and it was war as well; of that there
could not be the slightest doubt. All Riseholme, by this time, knew
that Lucia and Peppino had not been able to understand a word of what
Cortese had said, and here was the answer to the back-biting
suggestion, vividly put forward by Mrs Weston on the green that
morning, that the explanation was that Lucia and Peppino did not know
Italian. They could not reasonably be expected to know Neapolitan
dialect; the language of Dante satisfied their humble needs. They found
it difficult to understand Cortese when he spoke English, but that did
not imply that they did not know English. Dante's tongue and
Shakespeare's tongue sufficed them....
"And what were the words of the libretto like?" asked Georgie.
Lucia fixed him with her beady eyes, ready and eager to show how
delighted she was to bestow approbation wherever it was deserved.
"Wonderful!" she said. "I felt, and so did Peppino, that the words were
as utterly wasted on that formless music as was poor Miss Bracely's
voice. How did it go, Peppino? Let me think!"
Lucia raised her head again with the far-away look.
"Amore misterio!" she said. "Amore profondo! Amore profondo del vasto
mar." "Ah, there was our poor bella lingua again. I wonder who wrote the
libretto."
"Mr Cortese wrote the libretto," said Georgie.
Lucia did not hesitate for a moment, but gave her silvery laugh.
"Oh, dear me, no," she said. "If you had heard him talk you would know
he could not have. Well, have we not had enough of Mr Cortese and his
works? Any news? What did you do last night, when Peppino and I were in
our purgatorio?"
Georgie was almost equally glad to get off the subject of Italian. The
less said in or of Italian the better.
"I was dining with Mrs Quantock," he said. "She had a very interesting
Russian woman staying with her, Princess Popoffski."
Lucia laughed again.
"Dear Daisy!" she said. "Tell me about the Russian princess. Was she a
Guru? Dear me, how easily some people are taken in! The Guru! Well, we
were all in the same boat there. We took the Guru on poor Daisy's
valuation, and I still believe he had very remarkable gifts, curry-cook
or not. But Princess Popoffski now----"
"We had a seance," said Georgie.
"Indeed! And Princess Popoffski was the medium?"
Georgie grew a little dignified.
"It is no use adopting that tone, cara," he said, relapsing into
Italian. "You were not there; you were having your purgatory at Olga's.
It was very remarkable. We touched hands all round the table; there was
no possibility of fraud."
Lucia's views on psychic phenomena were clearly known to Riseholme;
those who produced them were fraudulent, those who were taken in by
them were dupes. Consequently there was irony in the baby-talk of her
reply.
"Me dood!" she said. "Me very dood, and listen carefully. Tell Lucia!"
Georgie recounted the experiences. The table had rocked and tapped out
names. The table had whirled round, though it was a very heavy table.
Georgie had been told that he had two sisters, one of whom in Latin was
a bear.
"How did the table know that?" he asked. "Ursa, a bear, you know. And
then, while we were sitting there, the Princess went off into a trance.
She said there was a beautiful spirit present, who blessed us all. She
called Mrs Quantock Margarita, which, as you may know, is the Italian
for Daisy."
Lucia smiled.
"Thank you for explaining, Georgino," she said.
There was no mistaking the irony of that, and Georgie thought he would
be ironical too.
"I didn't know if you knew," he said. "I thought it might be Neapolitan
dialect."
"Pray, go on!" said Lucia, breathing through her nose.
"And she said I was Georgie," said Georgie, "but that there was another
Georgie not far off. That was odd, because Olga's house, with Mr
Shuttleworth, were so close. And then the Princess went into very deep
trance, and the spirit that was there took possession of her."
"And who was that?" asked Lucia.
"His name was Amadeo. She spoke in Amadeo's voice, indeed it was Amadeo
who was speaking. He was a Florentine and knew Dante quite well. He
materialised; I saw him."
A bright glorious vision flashed upon Lucia. The Dante-class might not,
even though it was clearly understood that Cortese spoke unintelligible
Neapolitan, be a complete success, if the only attraction was that she
herself taught Dante, but it would be quite a different proposition if
Princess Popoffski, controlled by Amadeo, Dante's friend, was present.
They might read a Canto first, and then hold a seance of which
Amadeo--via Princess Popoffski--would take charge. While this was
simmering in her mind, it was important to drop all irony and be
extremely sympathetic.
"Georgino! How wonderful!" she said. "As you know, I am sceptical by
nature, and want all evidence carefully sifted. I daresay I am too
critical, and that is a fault. But fancy getting in touch with a friend
of Dante's! What would one not give? Tell me: what is this Princess
like? Is she the sort of person one could ask to dinner?"
Georgie was still sore over the irony to which he had been treated.
He had, moreover, the solid fact behind him that Daisy Quantock
(Margarita) had declared that in no circumstances would she permit
Lucia to annex her Princess. She had forgiven Lucia for annexing the
Guru (and considering that she had only annexed a curry-cook, it was
not so difficult) but she was quite determined to run her Princess
herself.
"Yes, you might ask her," he said. If irony was going about, there was
no reason why he should not have a share.
Lucia bounced from her seat, as if it had been a spring cushion.
"We will have a little party," she said. "We three, and dear Daisy and
her husband and the Princess. I think that will be enough; psychics
hate a crowd, because it disturbs the influences. Mind! I do not say I
believe in her power yet, but I am quite open-minded; I should like to
be convinced. Let me see! We are doing nothing tomorrow. Let us have
our little dinner tomorrow. I will send a line to dear Daisy at once,
and say how enormously your account of the seance has interested me. I
should like dear Daisy to have something to console her for that
terrible fiasco about her Guru. And then, Georgino mio, I will listen
to your Debussy. Do not expect anything; if it seems to me formless, I
shall say so. But if it seems to me promising, I shall be equally
frank. Perhaps it is great; I cannot tell you about that till I have
heard it. Let me write my note first."
That was soon done, and Lucia, having sent it by hand, came into the
music-room, and drew down the blinds over the window through which the
autumn sun was streaming. Very little art, as she had once said, would
"stand" daylight; only Shakespeare or Dante or Beethoven and perhaps
Bach, could compete with the sun.
Georgie, for his part, would have liked rather more light, but after
all Debussy wrote such very odd chords and sequences that it was not
necessary to wear his spectacles.
Lucia sat in a high chair near the piano, with her chin in her hand,
tremendously erect.
Georgie took off his rings and laid them on the candle-bracket, and ran
his hands nimbly over the piano.
"_Poissons d'or_," he said. "Goldfish!"
"Yes; Pesci d'oro," said Lucia, explaining it to Peppino.
Lucia's face changed as the elusive music proceeded. The far-away look
died away, and became puzzled; her chin came out of her hand, and the
hand it came out of covered her eyes.
Before Georgie had got to the end the answer to her note came, and she
sat with it in her hand, which, released from covering her eyes, tried
to beat time. On the last note she got up with a regretful sigh.
"Is it finished?" she asked. "And yet I feel inclined to say 'When is
it going to begin?' I haven't been fed; I haven't drank in anything.
Yes, I warned you I should be quite candid. And there's my verdict. I
am sorry. Me vewy sowwy! But you played it, I am sure, beautifully,
Georgino; you were a _buono avvocato_; you said all that could be
said for your client. Shall I open this note before we discuss it more
fully? Give Georgino a cigarette, Peppino! I am sure he deserves one,
after all those accidentals."
She pulled up the blind again in order to read her note and as she read
her face clouded.
"Ah! I am sorry for that," she said. "Peppino, the Princess does not go
out in the evening; they always have a seance there. I daresay Daisy
means to ask us some evening soon. We will keep an evening or two open.
It is a long time since I have seen dear Daisy; I will pop round this
afternoon."