Georgie's Christmas party had just taken its seats at his round
rosewood table without a cloth, and he hoped that Foljambe would be
quick with the champagne, because there had been rather a long wait
before dinner, owing to Lucia and Peppino being late, and conversation
had been a little jerky. Lucia, as usual, had sailed into the room,
without a word of apology, for she was accustomed to come last when she
went out to dinner, and on her arrival dinner was always announced
immediately. The few seconds that intervened were employed by her in
saying just one kind word to everybody. Tonight, however, these
gratifying utterances had not been received with the gratified
responses to which she was accustomed: there was a different atmosphere
abroad, and it was as if she were no more than one-eighth of the entire
party.... But it would never do to hurry Foljambe, who was a little
upset already by the fact of there being eight to dinner, which was two
more than she approved of.
Lucia was on Georgie's right, Mrs Colonel as she had decided to call
herself, on his left. Next her was Peppino, then Mrs Quantock, then
the Colonel, then Mrs Rumbold (who resembled a grey hungry mouse), and
Mr Quantock completed the circle round to Lucia again. Everyone had a
small bunch of violets in the napkin, but Lucia had the largest. She
had also a footstool.
"Capital good soup," remarked Mr Quantock. "Can't get soup like this at
home."
There was dead silence. Why was there never a silence when Olga was
there, wondered Georgie. It wasn't because she talked, she somehow
caused other people to talk.
"Tommy Luton hasn't got measles," said Mrs Weston. "I always said he
hadn't, though there are measles about. He came to work as usual this
morning, and is going to sing in the carols tonight."
She suddenly stopped.
Georgie gave an imploring glance at Foljambe, and looked at the
champagne glasses. She took no notice. Lucia turned to Georgie, with an
elbow on the table between her and Mr Quantock.
"And what news, Georgie?" she said. "Peppino and I have been so busy
that we haven't seen a soul all day. What have you been doing? Any
planchette?"
She looked brightly at Mrs Quantock.
"Yes, dear Daisy, I needn't ask you what you've been doing.
Table-turning, I expect. I know how interested you are in psychical
matters. I should be, too, if only I could be certain that I was not
dealing with fraudulent people."
Georgie felt inclined to give a hollow groan and sink under the table
when this awful polemical rhetoric began. To his unbounded surprise Mrs
Quantock answered most cordially.
"You are quite right, dear Lucia," she said. "Would it not be terrible
to find that a medium, some dear friend perhaps, whom one implicitly
trusted, was exposed as fraudulent? One sees such exposures in the
paper sometimes. I should be miserable if I thought I had ever sat with
a medium who was not honest. They fine the wretches well, though, if
they are caught, and they deserve it."
Georgie observed, and couldn't the least understand, a sudden blank
expression cross Robert's face. For the moment he looked as if he were
dead but had been beautifully stuffed. But Georgie gave but a cursory
thought to that, for the amazing supposition dawned on him that Lucia
had not been polemical at all, but was burying instead of chopping with
the hatchet. It was instantly confirmed, for Lucia took her elbow off
the table, and turned to Robert.
"You and dear Daisy have been very lucky in your spiritualistic
experiences," she said. "I hear on all sides what a charming medium you
had. Georgie quite lost his heart to her."
"'Pon my word; she was delightful," said Robert.
"Of course she was a dear friend of Daisy's, but one has to be very
careful when one hears of the dreadful exposures, as my wife said, that
occur sometimes. Fancy finding that a medium whom you believed to be
perfectly honest had yards and yards of muslin and a false nose or two
concealed about her. It would sicken me of the whole business."
A loud pop announced that Foljambe had allowed them all some champagne
at last, but Georgie hardly heard it, for glancing up at Daisy
Quantock, he observed that the same dead and stuffed look had come over
her face which he had just now noticed on her husband's countenance.
Then they both looked up at each other with a glance that to him
bristled with significance. An agonised questioning, an imploring
petition for silence seemed to inspire it; it was as if each had made
unwittingly some hopeless _faux pas_. Then they instantly looked
away from each other again; their necks seemed to crack with the
rapidity with which they turned them right and left, and they burst
into torrents of speech to the grey hungry mouse and the Colonel
respectively.
Georgie was utterly mystified: his Riseholme instinct told him that
there was something below all this, but his Riseholme instinct could
not supply the faintest clue as to what it was. Both of the Quantocks,
it seemed clear, knew something perilous about the Princess, but surely
if Daisy had read in the paper that the Princess had been exposed and
fined, she would not have touched on so dangerous a subject. Then the
curious incident about "Todd's News" inevitably occurred to him, but
that would not fit the case, since it was Robert and not Daisy who had
bought that inexplicable number of the yellow print. And then Robert
had hinted at the discovery of yards and yards of muslin and a false
nose. Why had he done that unless he had discovered them, or unless ...
Georgie's eyes grew round with the excitement of the chase ... unless
Robert had some other reason to suspect the integrity of the dear
friend, and had said this at hap-hazard. In that case what was Robert's
reason for suspicion? Had _he_, not Daisy, read in the paper of
some damaging disclosures, and had Daisy (also having reason to suspect
the Princess) alluded to the damaging exposures in the paper by pure
hap-hazard? Anyhow they had both looked dead and stuffed when the other
alluded to mediumistic frauds, and both had said how lucky their own
experiences had been. "Oh!"--Georgie almost said it aloud--What if
Robert had seen a damaging exposure in "Todd's News," and therefore
bought up every copy that was to be had? Then, indeed, he would look
dead and stuffed, when Daisy alluded to damaging exposures in the
paper. Had a stray copy escaped him, and did Daisy know? What did
Robert know? Had they exquisite secrets from each other?
Lucia was being talked to across him by Mrs Weston, who had also pinned
down the attention of Peppino on the other side of her. At that precise
moment the flood of Mrs Quantock's spate of conversation to the Colonel
dried up, and Robert could find nothing more to say to the hungry
mouse. Georgie in this backwater of his own thoughts was whirled into
the current again. But before he sank he caught Mrs Quantock's eye and
put a question that arose from his exciting backwater.
"Have you heard from the Princess lately?" he asked.
Robert's head went round with the same alacrity as he had turned it
away.
"Oh, yes," said she. "Two days ago was it, Robert?"
"I heard yesterday," said Robert firmly.
Mrs Quantock looked at her husband with an eager encouraging
earnestness.
"So you did!" she said. "I'm getting jealous. Interesting, dear?"
"Yes, dear, haw, haw," said Robert, and again their eyes met.
This time Georgie had no doubts at all. They were playing the same game
now: they smiled and smirked at each other. They had not been playing
the same game before. Now they recognised that there was a conspiracy
between them.... But he was host, his business for the moment was to
make his guests comfortable, and not pry into their inmost bosoms. So
before Mrs Weston realised that she had the whole table attending to
her, he said:
"I shall get it out of Robert after dinner. And I'll tell you, Mrs
Quantock."
"Before Atkinson came to the Colonel," said Mrs Weston, going on
precisely where she had left off, "and that was five years before
Elizabeth came to me--let me see--was it five or was it four and a
half?--four and a half we'll say, he had another servant whose name was
Ahab Crowe."
"No!" said Georgie.
"Yes!" said Mrs Weston, hastily finishing her champagne, for she saw
Foljambe coming near--"Yes, Ahab Crowe. He married, too, just like
Atkinson is going to, and that's an odd coincidence in itself. I tell
the Colonel that if Ahab Crowe hadn't married, he would be with him
still, and who can say that he'd have fancied Elizabeth? And if he
hadn't, I don't believe that the Colonel and I would ever have--well,
I'll leave that alone, and spare my blushes. But that's not what I was
saying. Whom do you think Ahab Crowe married? You can have ten guesses
each, and you would never come right, for it can't be a common name. It
was Miss Jackdaw. Crowe: Jackdaw. I never heard anything like that, and
if you ask the Colonel about it, he'll confirm every word I've said.
Boucher, Weston, why that's quite commonplace in comparison, and I'm
sure that's an event enough for me."
Lucia gave her silvery laugh.
"Dear Mrs Weston," she said, "you must really tell me at once when the
happy day will be. Peppino and I are thinking of going to the
Riviera----"
Georgie broke in.
"You shan't do anything of the kind," he said. "What's to happen to us?
'Oo very selfish, Lucia."
The conversation broke up again into duets and trios, and Lucia could
have a private conversation with her host. But half-an-hour ago, so
Georgie reflected, they had all been walking round each other like dogs
going on tiptoe with their tails very tightly curled, and growling
gently to themselves, aware that a hasty snap, or the breach of the
smallest observance of etiquette, might lead to a general quarrel. But
now they all had the reward of their icy politenesses: there was no
more ice, except on their plates, and the politeness was not a matter
of etiquette. At present, they might be considered a republic, but no
one knew what was going to happen after dinner. Not a word had been
said about the tableaux.
Lucia dropped her voice as she spoke to him, and put in a good deal of
Italian for fear she might be overheard.
"_Non cognosce_ anybody?" she asked. "I _tablieri_, I mean.
And are we all to sit in the _aula_, while the _salone_ is
being got ready?"
"_Si_," said Georgie. "There's a fire. When you go out, keep them
there. I _domestichi_ are making _salone_ ready."
"_Molto bene_. Then Peppino and you and I just steal away. _La
lampa_ is acting beautifully. We tried it over several times."
"Everybody's tummin'," said Georgie, varying the cipher.
"Me so _nervosa!_" said Lucia. "Fancy me doing Brunnhilde before
singing Brunnhilde. Me can't bear it."
Georgie knew that Lucia had been thrilled and delighted to know that
Olga so much wanted to come in after dinner and see the tableaux, so he
found it quite easy to induce Lucia to nerve herself up to an ordeal so
passionately desired. Indeed he himself was hardly less excited at the
thought of being King Cophetua.
At that moment, even as the crackers were being handed round, the sound
of the carol-singers was heard from outside, and Lucia had to wince, as
"Good King Wenceslas" looked out. When the Page and the King sang their
speeches, the other voices grew piano, so that the effect was of a solo
voice accompanied. When the Page sang, Lucia shuddered.
"That's the small red-haired boy who nearly deafens me in church," she
whispered to Georgie. "Don't you hope his voice will crack soon?"
She said this very discreetly, so as not to hurt Mrs Rumbold's
feelings, for she trained the choir. Everyone knew that the king was Mr
Rumbold, and said "Charming" to each other, after he had sung.
"I liked that boy's voice, too," said Mrs Weston. "Tommy Luton used to
have a lovely voice, but this one's struck me as better-trained even
than Tommy Luton's. Great credit to you, Mrs Rumbold."
The grey hungry mouse suddenly gave a shrill cackle of a laugh, quite
inexplicable. Then Georgie guessed.
He got up.
"Now nobody must move," he said, "because we haven't drunk 'absent
friends' yet. I'm just going out to see that they have a bit of supper
in the kitchen before they go on."
His trembling legs would scarcely carry him to the door, and he ran
out. There were half a dozen little choir boys, four men and one tall
cloaked woman....
"Divine!" he said to Olga. "Aunt Jane thought your voice very well
trained. Come in soon, won't you?"
"Yes: all flourishing?"
"Swimming," said Georgie. "Lucia hoped your voice would crack soon. But
it's all being lovely."
He explained about food in the kitchen and hurried back to his guests.
There was the riddle of the Quantocks to solve: there were the tableaux
vivants imminent: there was the little red-haired boy coming in soon.
What a Christmas night!
Soon after Georgie's hall began to fill up with guests, and yet not a
word was said about tableaux. It grew so full that nobody could have
said for certain whether Lucia and Peppino were there or not. Olga
certainly was: there was no mistaking that fact. And then Foljambe
opened the drawing-room door and sounded a gong.
The lamp behaved perfectly and an hour later one Brunnhilde was being
extremely kind to the other, as they sat together. "If you really want
to know my view, dear Miss Bracely," said Lucia, "it's just that. You
must be Brunnhilde for the time being. Singing, of course, as you say,
helps it out: you can express so much by singing. You are so lucky
there. I am bound to say I had qualms when Peppino--or was it
Georgie--suggested we should do Brunnhilde-Siegfried. I said it would
be so terribly difficult. Slow: it has to be slow, and to keep gestures
slow when you cannot make them mere illustrations of what you are
singing--well, I am sure, it is very kind of you to be so flattering
about it--but it is difficult to do that."
"And you thought them all out for yourself?" said Olga. "Marvellous!"
"Ah, if I had ever seen you do it," said Lucia, "I am sure I should
have picked up some hints! And King Cophetua! Won't you give me a
little word for our dear King Cophetua? I was so glad after the strain
of Brunnhilde to have my back to the audience. Even then there is the
difficulty of keeping quite still, but I am sure you know that quite as
well as I do, from having played Brunnhilde yourself. Georgie was very
much impressed by your performance of it. And Mary Queen of Scots now!
The shrinking of the flesh, and the resignation of the spirit! That is
what I tried to express. You must come and help me next time I attempt
this sort of thing again. That will not be quite soon, I am afraid, for
Peppino and I am thinking of going to the Riviera for a little
holiday."
"Oh, but how selfish!" said Olga. "You mustn't do that."
Lucia gave the silvery laugh.
"You are all very tiresome about my going to the Riviera," she said.
"But I don't promise that I shall give it up yet. We shall see!
Gracious! How late it is. We must have sat very late over dinner. Why
were you not asked to dinner, I wonder! I shall scold Georgie for not
asking you. Ah, there is dear Mrs Weston going away. I must say
good-night to her. She would think it very strange if I did not.
Colonel Boucher, too! Oh, they are coming this way to save us the
trouble of moving."
A general move was certainly taking place, not in the direction of the
door, but to where Olga and Lucia were sitting.
"It's snowing," said Piggy excitedly to Olga. "Will you mark my
footsteps well, my page?"
"Piggy, you--you Goosie," said Olga hurriedly. "Goosie, weren't the
tableaux lovely?"
"And the carols," said Goosie. "I adored the carols. I guessed. Did you
guess, Mrs Lucas?"
Olga resorted to the mean trick of treading on Goosie's foot and
apologising. That was cowardly because it was sure to come out
sometime. And Goosie again trod on dangerous ground by saying that if
the Page had trod like that, there was no need for any footsteps to be
marked for him.
It was snowing fast, and Mrs Weston's wheels left a deep track, but in
spite of that, Daisy and Robert had not gone fifty yards from the door
when they came to a full stop.
"Now, what is it?" said Daisy. "Out with it. Why did you talk about the
discovery of muslin?"
"I only said that we were fortunate in a medium whom after all you
picked up at a vegetarian restaurant," said he. "I suppose I may
indulge in general conversation. If it comes to that, why did you talk
about exposure in the papers?"
"General conversation," said Mrs Quantock all in one word. "So that's
all, is it?"
"Yes," said Robert, "you may know something, and--"
"Now don't put it all on me," said Daisy. "If you want to know what I
think, it is that you've got some secret."
"And if you want to know what I think," he retorted, "it is that I know
you have."
Daisy hesitated a moment, the snow was white on her shoulder and she
shook her cloak.
"I hate concealment," she said. "I found yards and yards of muslin and
a pair of Amadeo's eyebrows in that woman's bedroom the very day she
went away."
"And she was fined last Thursday for holding a seance at which a
detective was present," said Robert. "15 Gerard Street. He seized
Amadeo or Cardinal Newman by the throat, and it was that woman."
She looked hastily round.
"When you thought that the chimney was on fire, I was burning muslin,"
she said.
"When you thought the chimney was on fire, I was burning every copy of
'Todd's News,'" said he. "Also a copy of the 'Daily Mirror,' which
contained the case. It belonged to the Colonel. I stole it."
She put her hand through his arm.
"Let's get home," she said. "We must talk it over. No one knows one
word except you and me?"
"Not one, my dear," said Robert cordially. "But there are suspicions.
Georgie suspects, for instance. He saw me buy all the copies of 'Todd's
News,' at least he was hanging about. Tonight he was clearly on the
track of something, though he gave us a very tolerable dinner."
They went into Robert's study: it was cold, but neither felt it, for
they glowed with excitement and enterprise.
"That was a wonderful stroke of yours, Robert," said she. "It was
masterly: it saved the situation. The 'Daily Mirror,' too: how right
you were to steal it. A horrid paper I always thought. Yes, Georgie
suspects something, but luckily he doesn't know what he suspects."
"That's why we both said we had just heard from that woman," said
Robert.
"Of course. You haven't got a copy of 'Todd's News,' have you?"
"No: at least I burned every page of the police reports," said he. "It
was safer."
"Quite so. I cannot show you Amadeo's eyebrows for the same reason. Nor
the muslin. Lovely muslin, my dear: yards of it. Now what we must do is
this: we must continue to be interested in psychical things; we mustn't
drop them, or seem to be put off them. I wish now I had taken you into
my confidence at the beginning and told you about Amadeo's eyebrows."
"My dear, you acted for the best," said he. "So did I when I didn't
tell you about 'Todd's News.' Secrecy even from each other was more
prudent, until it became impossible. And I think we should be wise to
let it be understood that we hear from the Princess now and then.
Perhaps in a few months she might even visit us again. It--it would be
humorous to be behind the scenes, so to speak, and observe the
credulity of the others."
Daisy broke into a broad grin.
"I will certainly ask dear Lucia to a seance, if we do," she said.
"Dear me! How late it is: there was such a long wait between the
tableaux. But we must keep our eyes on Georgie, and be careful how we
answer his impertinent questions. He is sure to ask some. About getting
that woman down again, Robert. It might be fool-hardy, for we've had an
escape, and shouldn't put our heads into the same noose again. On the
other hand, it would disarm suspicion for ever, if, after a few months,
I asked her to spend a few days of holiday here. You said it was a fine
only, not imprisonment?"
The week was a busy one: Georgie in particular never had a moment to
himself. The Hurst, so lately a desert, suddenly began to rejoice with
joy and singing and broke out into all manner of edifying gaieties.
Lucia, capricious queen, quite forgot all the vitriolic things she had
said to him, and gave him to understand that he was just as high in
favour as ever before, and he was as busy with his duties as ever he
had been. Whether he would have fallen into his old place so readily if
he had been a free agent, was a question that did not arise, for though
it was Lucia who employed him, it was Olga who drove him there. But he
had his consolation, for Lucia's noble forgiveness of all the
disloyalties against her, included Olga's as well, and out of all the
dinners and music parties, and recitations from Peppino's new book of
prose poems which was already in proof, and was read to select
audiences from end to end, there was none to which Olga was not bidden,
and none at which she failed to appear. Lucia even overlooked the fact
that she had sung in the carols on Christmas night, though she had
herself declared that it was the voice of the red-haired boy which was
so peculiarly painful to her. Georgie's picture of her (she never knew
that Olga had really commissioned it) hung at the side of the piano in
the music room, where the print of Beethoven had hung before, and it
gave her the acutest gratification. It represented her sitting, with
eyes cast down at her piano, and was indeed much on the same scheme as
the yet unfinished one of Olga, which had been postponed in its favour,
but there was no time for Georgie to think out another position, and
his hand was in with regard to the perspective of pianos. So there it
hung with its title, "The Moonlight Sonata," painted in gilt letters on
its frame, and Lucia, though she continued to say that he had made her
far, far too young, could not but consider that he had caught her
expression exactly....
So Riseholme flocked back to The Hurst like sheep that have been
astray, for it was certain to find Olga there, even as it had turned
there, deeply breathing, to the classes of the Guru. It had to sit
through the prose-poems of Peppino, it had to listen to the old, old
tunes and sigh at the end, but Olga mingled her sighs with theirs, and
often after a suitable pause Lucia would say winningly to Olga:
"One little song, Miss Bracely. Just a stanza? Or am I trespassing too
much on your good-nature? Where is your accompanist? I declare I am
jealous of him: I shall pop into his place some day! Georgino, Miss
Bracely is going to sing us something. Is not that a treat? Sh-sh,
please, ladies and gentlemen."
And she rustled to her place, and sat with the farthest-away expression
ever seen on mortal face, while she trespassed on Miss Bracely's
good-nature.
Then Georgie had the other picture to finish, which he hoped to get
ready in time to be a New Year's present, since Olga had insisted on
Lucia's being done first. He had certainly secured an admirable
likeness of her, and there was in it just all that his stippled, fussy
representation of Lucia lacked. "Bleak December" and "Yellow Daffodils"
and the rest of the series lacked it, too: for once he had done
something in the doing of which he had forgotten himself. It was by no
means a work of genius, for Georgie was not possessed of one grain of
that, and the talent it displayed was by no means of a high order, but
it had something of the naturalness of a flower that grew from the
earth which nourished it.
On the last day of the year he was putting a few final touches to it,
little high reflected lights on the black keys, little blacknesses of
shadow in the moulding of the panel behind his hand. He had finished
with her altogether, and now she sat in the window-seat, looking out,
and playing with the blind-tassel. He had been so much absorbed in his
work that he had scarcely noticed that she had been rather unusually
silent.
"I've got a piece of news for you," she said at length.
Georgie held his breath, as he drew a very thin line of body-colour
along the edge of Ab.
"No! What is it?" he said. "Is it about the Princess?"
Olga seemed to hail this as a diversion.
"Ah, let's talk about that for a minute," she said. "What you ought to
have done was to order another copy of 'Todd's News' at once."
"I know I ought, but I couldn't get one when I thought of it
afterwards. That was tarsome. But I feel sure there was something about
her in it."
"And you can't get anything out of the Quantocks?"
"No, though I've laid plenty of traps for them. There's an
understanding between them now. They both know something. When I lay a
trap, it isn't any use: they look at the trap, and then they look at
each other afterwards."
"What sort of traps?"
"Oh, anything. I say suddenly, 'What a bore it is that there are so
many frauds among mediums, especially paid ones.' You see, I don't
believe for a moment that these seances were held for nothing, though
we didn't pay for going to them. And then Robert says that he would
never trust a paid medium, and she looks at him approvingly, and says
'Dear Princess'! The other day--it was a very good trap--I said, 'Is it
true that the Princess is coming to stay with Lady Ambermere?' It
wasn't a lie: I only asked."
"And then?" said Olga.
"Robert gave an awful twitch, not a jump exactly, but a twitch. But she
was on the spot and said, 'Ah, that would be nice. I wonder if it's
true. The Princess didn't mention it in her last letter.' And then he
looked at her approvingly. There is something there, no one shall
convince me otherwise."
Olga suddenly burst out laughing.
"What's the matter?" asked Georgie.
"Oh, it's all so delicious!" she said. "I never knew before how
terribly interesting little things were. It's all wildly exciting, and
there are fifty things going on just as exciting. Is it all of you who
take such a tremendous interest in them that makes them so absorbing,
or is it that they are absorbing in themselves, and ordinary dull
people, not Riseholmites, don't see how exciting they are? Tommy
Luton's measles: the Quantocks' secret: Elizabeth's lover! And to think
that I believed I was coming to a backwater."
Georgie held up his picture and half closed his eyes. "I believe it's
finished," he said. "I shall have it framed, and put it in my
drawing-room."
This was a trap, and Olga fell into it.
"Yes, it will look nice there," she said. "Really, Georgie, it is very
clever of you."
He began washing his brushes.
"And what was your news?" he said.
She got up from her seat.
"I forgot all about it, with talking of the Quantocks' secret," she
said. "That just shows you: I completely forgot, Georgie. I've just
accepted an offer to sing in America, a four months' engagement, at
fifty thousand million pounds a night. A penny less, and I wouldn't
have gone. But I really can't refuse. It's all been very sudden, but
they want to produce Lucretia there before it appears in England. Then
I come back, and sing in London all the summer. Oh, me!"
There was dead silence, while Georgie dried his brushes.
"When do you go?" he asked.
"In about a fortnight."
"Oh," said he.
She moved down the room to the piano and shut it without speaking,
while he folded the paper round his finished picture.
"Why don't you come, too?" she said at length. "It would do you no end
of good, for you would get out of this darling two-penny place which
will all go inside a nut-shell. There are big things in the world,
Georgie: seas, continents, people, movements, emotions. I told my
Georgie I was going to ask you, and he thoroughly approves. We both
like you, you know. It would be lovely if you would come. Come for a
couple of months, anyhow: of course you'll be our guest, please."
The world, at that moment, had grown absolutely black to him, and it
was by that that he knew who, for him, was the light of it. He shook
his head.
"Why can't you come?" she said.
He looked at her straight in the face.
"Because I adore you," he said.