LUCIA IN LONDON
_BY E. F. BENSON_
PHARISEES AND PUBLICANS
MEZZANINE
VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE
DODO
DODO WONDERS
ROBIN LINNET
QUEEN LUCIA
MISS MAPP
COLIN
COLIN II
REX
ALAN
DAVID BLAIZE OF KING’S
PETER
LOVERS AND FRIENDS
ACROSS THE STREAM
UP AND DOWN
AN AUTUMN SOWING
THE TORTOISE
DAVID BLAIZE
DAVID BLAIZE AND THE BLUE DOOR
MICHAEL
THE OAKLEYITES
ARUNDEL
OUR FAMILY AFFAIRS
_Lucia in London_
_A Novel by_ : : : _E. F. Benson_
[Illustration]
DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC.
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
1928
COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY GEORGE H. DORAN
COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED
IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY
LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK.
LUCIA IN LONDON
CHAPTER I
Considering that Philip Lucas’s aunt who died early in April was no less
than eighty-three years old, and had spent the last seven of them
bedridden in a private lunatic asylum, it had been generally and perhaps
reasonably hoped among his friends and those of his wife that the
bereavement would not be regarded by either of them as an intolerable
tragedy. Mrs. Quantock, in fact, who, like everybody else at Riseholme,
had sent a neat little note of condolence to Mrs. Lucas, had, without
using the actual words “happy release,” certainly implied it or its
close equivalent.
She was hoping that there would be a reply to it, for though she had
said in her note that her dear Lucia mustn’t dream of answering it, that
was a mere figure of speech, and she had instructed her parlour-maid who
took it across to “The Hurst” immediately after lunch to say that she
didn’t know if there was an answer, and would wait to see, for Mrs.
Lucas might perhaps give a little hint ever so vaguely about what the
expectations were concerning which everybody was dying to get
information....
While she waited for this, Daisy Quantock was busy, like everybody else
in the village on this beautiful afternoon of spring, with her garden,
hacking about with a small but destructive fork in her flower-beds. She
was a gardener of the ruthless type, and went for any small green thing
that incautiously showed a timid spike above the earth, suspecting it of
being a weed. She had had a slight difference with the professional
gardener who had hitherto worked for her on three afternoons during the
week, and had told him that his services were no longer required. She
meant to do her gardening herself this year, and was confident that a
profusion of beautiful flowers and a plethora of delicious vegetables
would be the result. At the end of her garden path was a barrow of rich
manure, which she proposed, when she had finished the slaughter of the
innocents, to dig into the depopulated beds. On the other side of her
paling her neighbour Georgie Pillson was rolling his strip of lawn, on
which during the summer he often played croquet on a small scale.
Occasionally they shouted remarks to each other, but as they got more
and more out of breath with their exertions the remarks got fewer. Mrs.
Quantock’s last question had been “What do you do with slugs, Georgie?”
and George had panted out, “Pretend you don’t see them.”
Mrs. Quantock had lately grown rather stout owing to a diet of sour
milk, which with plenty of sugar was not palatable; but sour milk and
pyramids of raw vegetables had quite stopped all the symptoms of
consumption which the study of a small but lurid medical manual had
induced. To-day she had eaten a large but normal lunch in order to test
the merits of her new cook, who certainly was a success, for her husband
had gobbled up his food with great avidity instead of turning it over
and over with his fork as if it was hay. In consequence stoutness,
surfeit, and so much stooping had made her feel rather giddy, and she
was standing up to recover, wondering if this giddiness was a symptom of
something dire, when de Vere, for such was the incredible name of her
parlour-maid, came down the steps from the dining-room with a note in
her hand. So Mrs. Quantock hastily took off her gardening gloves of
stout leather, and opened it.
There was a sentence of formal thanks for her sympathy which Mrs. Lucas
immensely prized, and then followed these ridiculous words:
It has been a terrible blow to my poor Pepino and myself. We
trusted that Auntie Amy might have been spared us for a few years
yet.
Ever, dear Daisy, your sad
LUCIA.
And not a word about expectations!... Lucia’s dear Daisy crumpled up the
absurd note, and said “Rubbish,” so loud that Georgie Pillson in the
next garden thought he was being addressed.
“What’s that?” he said.
“Georgie, come to the fence a minute,” said Mrs. Quantock. “I want to
speak to you.”
Georgie, longing for a little gossip, let go of the handle of his
roller, which, suddenly released, gave a loud squeak and rapped him
smartly on the elbow.
“Tarsome thing!” said Georgie.
He went to the fence and, being tall, could look over it. There was Mrs.
Quantock angrily poking Lucia’s note into the flower-bed she had been
weeding.
“What is it?” said Georgie. “Shall I like it?”
His face red and moist with exertion, appearing just over the top of the
fence, looked like the sun about to set below the flat gray horizon of
the sea.
“I don’t know if you’ll like it,” said Daisy, “but it’s your Lucia. I
sent her a little note of condolence about the aunt, and she says it has
been a terrible blow to Pepino and herself. They hoped that the old lady
might have been spared them a few years yet.”
“No!” said Georgie, wiping the moisture off his forehead with the back
of one of his beautiful pearl-gray gloves.
“But she did,” said the infuriated Daisy, “they were her very words. I
could show you if I hadn’t dug it in. Such a pack of nonsense! I hope
that long before I’ve been bedridden for seven years, somebody will
strangle me with a bootlace, or anything handy. Why does Lucia pretend
to be sorry? What does it all mean?”
Georgie had long been devoted henchman to Lucia (Mrs. Lucas, wife of
Philip Lucas, and so Lucia), and though he could criticize her in his
mind, when he was alone in his bed or his bath, he always championed her
in the face of the criticism of others. Whereas Daisy criticized
everybody everywhere....
“Perhaps it means what it says,” he observed with the delicate sarcasm
that never had any effect on his neighbour.
“It can’t possibly do that,” said Mrs. Quantock. “Neither Lucia nor
Pepino has set eyes on his aunt for years, nor spoken of her. Last time
Pepino went to see her she bit him. Sling for a week afterwards, don’t
you remember, and he was terrified of blood-poisoning. How can her death
be a blow, and as for her being spared----”
Mrs. Quantock suddenly broke off, remembering that de Vere was still
standing there and drinking it all in.
“That’s all, de Vere,” she said.
“Thank you, ma’am,” said de Vere, striding back toward the house. She
had high-heeled shoes on, and each time she lifted her foot, the heel
which had been embedded by her weight in the soft lawn came out with the
sound of a cork being drawn. Then Daisy came closer to the fence, with
the light of inductive reasoning, which was much cultivated at
Riseholme, veiling the fury of her eye.
“Georgie, I’ve got it,” she said. “I’ve guessed what it means.”
Now though Georgie was devoted to his Lucia, he was just as devoted to
inductive reasoning, and Daisy Quantock was, with the exception of
himself, far the most powerful logician in the place.
“What is it, then?” he asked.
“Stupid of me not to have thought of it at once,” said Daisy. “Why,
don’t you see? Pepino is Auntie’s heir, for she was unmarried, and he’s
the only nephew, and probably he has been left piles and piles. So
naturally they say it’s a terrible blow. Wouldn’t do to be exultant.
They must say it’s a terrible blow, to show they don’t care about the
money. The more they’re left, the sadder it is. So natural. I blame
myself for not having thought of it at once. Have you seen her since?”
“Not for a quiet talk,” said Georgie. “Pepino was there, and a man who,
I think, was Pepino’s lawyer. He was frightfully deferential.”
“That proves it,” said Daisy. “And nothing said of any kind?”
Georgie’s face screwed itself up in the effort to remember.
“Yes, there was something,” he said, “but I was talking to Lucia, and
the others were talking rather low. But I did hear the lawyer say
something to Pepino about pearls. I do remember the word ‘pearls.’
Perhaps it was the old lady’s pearls.”
Mrs. Quantock gave a short laugh.
“It couldn’t have been Pepino’s,” she said. “He has one in a tie-pin.
It’s called pear-shaped, but there’s little shape about it. When do
wills come out?”
“Oh, ages,” said Georgie. “Months. And there’s a house in London, I
know.”
“Whereabouts?” asked Daisy greedily.
Georgie’s face assumed a look of intense concentration.
“I couldn’t tell you for certain,” he said, “but I know Pepino went up
to town not long ago to see about some repairs to his aunt’s house, and
I think it was the roof.”
“It doesn’t matter where the repairs were,” said Daisy impatiently. “I
want to know where the house was.”
“You interrupt me,” said Georgie. “I was telling you. I know he went to
Harrod’s afterward and walked there, because he and Lucia were dining
with me and he said so. So the house must have been close to Harrod’s,
quite close I mean, because it was raining, and if it had been any
reasonable distance he would have had a taxi. So it might be
Knightsbridge.”
Mrs. Quantock put on her gardening-gloves again.
“How frightfully secretive people are,” she said. “Fancy his never
having told you where his aunt’s house was.”
“But they never spoke of her,” said Georgie. “She’s been in that
nursing-home so many years.”
“You may call it a nursing-home,” observed Mrs. Quantock, “or, if you
choose, you may call it a post office. But it was an asylum. And they’re
just as secretive about the property.”
“But you never talk about the property till after the funeral,” said
Georgie. “I believe it’s to-morrow.”
Mrs. Quantock gave a prodigious sniff.
“They would have, if there hadn’t been any,” she said.
“How horrid you are,” said Georgie. “How----”
His speech was cut off by several loud sneezes. However beautiful the
sleeve-links, it wasn’t wise to stand without a coat after being in such
a heat.
“How what?” asked Mrs. Quantock, when the sneezing was over.
“I’ve forgotten now. I shall get back to my rolling. A little chilly.
I’ve done half the lawn.”
A telephone-bell had been ringing for the last few seconds, and Mrs.
Quantock localized it as being in his house, not hers. Georgie was
rather deaf, however much he pretended not to be.
“Your telephone bell’s ringing, Georgie,” she said.
“I thought it was,” said Georgie, who had not heard it at all.
“And come in presently for a cup of tea,” shouted Mrs. Quantock.
“Should love to. But I must have a bath first.”
Georgie hurried indoors, for a telephone call usually meant a little
gossip with a friend. A very familiar voice, though a little husky and
broken, asked if it was he.
“Yes, it’s me, Lucia,” he said in soft firm tones of sympathy. “How are
you?”
Lucia sighed. It was a long, very audible, intentional sigh. Georgie
could visualize her putting her mouth quite close to the telephone, so
as to make sure it carried.
“Quite well,” she said. “And so is my Pepino, thank heaven. Bearing up
wonderfully. He’s just gone.”
Georgie was on the point of asking where, but guessed in time.
“I see,” he said. “And you didn’t go. I’m very glad. So wise.”
“I felt I couldn’t,” she said, “and he urged me not. It’s to-morrow. He
sleeps in London to-night----”
(Again Georgie longed to say “where?” for it was impossible not to
wonder if he would sleep in the house of unknown locality near
Harrod’s.)
“And he’ll be back to-morrow evening,” said Lucia without pause. “I
wonder if you would take pity on me and come and dine. Just something to
eat, you know; the house is so upset. Don’t dress.”
“Delighted,” said Georgie, though he had ordered oysters. But they could
be scolloped for to-morrow.... “Love to come.”
“Eight o’clock then? Nobody else of course. If you care to bring our
Mozart duet.”
“Rather,” said Georgie. “Good for you to be occupied, Lucia. We’ll have
a good go at it.”
“Dear Georgie,” said Lucia faintly. He heard her sigh, again, not quite
so successfully, and replace the ear-piece with a click.
Georgie moved away from the telephone, feeling immensely busy: there was
so much to think about and to do. The first thing was to speak about the
oysters, and, his parlour-maid being out, he called down the
kitchen-stairs. The absence of Foljambe made it necessary for him to get
his bath ready himself, and he turned the hot water tap half on, so that
he could run downstairs again and out into the garden (for there was not
time to finish the lawn if he was to have a bath and change before tea)
in order to put the roller back in the shed. Then he had to get his
clothes out, and select something which would do for tea and also for
dinner, as Lucia had told him not to dress. There was a new suit which
he had not worn yet, rather daring, for the trousers, dark fawn, were
distinctly of Oxford cut, and he felt quite boyish as he looked at them.
He had ordered them in a moment of reckless sartorial courage, and a
quiet tea with Daisy Quantock, followed by a quiet dinner with Lucia,
was just the way to make a beginning with them, far better than wearing
them for the first time at church on Sunday, when the whole of Riseholme
simultaneously would see them. The coat and waistcoat were very dark
blue: they would look blue at tea and black at dinner; and there were
some gray silk socks, rather silvery, and a tie to match them. These
took some time to find, and his search was interrupted by volumes of
steam pouring into his bedroom from his bathroom; he ran in to find the
bath full nearly to the brim of boiling water. It had been little more
than lukewarm yesterday, and his cook had evidently taken to heart his
too-sharp words after breakfast this morning. So he had to pull up the
plug of his bath to let the boiling contents subside, and fill up with
cold.
He went back to his bedroom and began undressing. All this news about
Lucia and Pepino, with Daisy Quantock’s penetrating comments, was
intensely interesting. Old Miss Lucas had been in this nursing-home or
private asylum for years, and Georgie didn’t suppose that the inclusive
charges could be less than fifteen pounds a week, and fifteen times
fifty-two was a large sum. There was income too, and say it was at five
per cent., the capital it represented was considerable. Then there was
that house in London. If it was freehold, that meant a great deal more
capital: if it was on lease it meant a great deal more income. Then
there were rates and taxes, and the wages of a caretaker, and no doubt a
margin. And there were the pearls.
Georgie took a half-sheet of paper from the drawer in a writing-table
where he kept half-sheets and pieces of string untied from parcels, and
began to calculate. There was necessarily a good deal of guesswork about
it, and the pearls had to be omitted altogether, since nobody could say
what “pearls” were worth without knowing their quantity or quality. But
even omitting these, and putting quite a low figure on the possible rent
of the house near Harrod’s, he was astounded at the capital which these
annual outgoings appeared to represent.
“I don’t put it at a penny less than fifty thousand pounds,” he said to
himself, “and the income at two thousand six hundred.”
He had got a little chilly as he sat at his figures, and with a
luxurious foretaste of a beautiful hot bath, he hurried into his
bathroom. The whole of the boiling water had run out.
“How tarsome! Damn!” said Georgie, putting in the plug and turning on
both taps simultaneously.
His calculations, of course, had only been the materials on which his
imagination built, and as he dressed it was hard at work, between
glances at his trousers as reflected in the full-length mirror which
stood in his window. What would Lucia and Pepino do with this vast
increase of fortune? Lucia already had the biggest house in Riseholme
and the most Elizabethan decor, and a motor, and as many new clothes as
she chose. She did not spend much on them because her lofty mind
despised clothes, but Georgie permitted himself to indulge cynical
reflections that the pearls might make her dressier. Then she already
entertained as much as she felt disposed; and more money would not make
her wish to give more dinners. And she went up to London whenever there
was anything in the way of pictures or plays or music which she felt
held the seed of culture. Society (so-called) she despised as thoroughly
as she despised clothes, and always said she came back to Riseholme
feeling intellectually starved. Perhaps she would endow a permanent fund
for holding May-day revels on the village green, for Lucia had said she
meant to have May-day revels every year. They had been a great success
last year, though fatiguing, for everybody dressed up in
sixteenth-century costume, and danced Morris dances till they all
hobbled home dead lame at the merciful sunset. It had all been
wonderfully Elizabethan, and Georgie’s jerkin had hurt him very much.
Lucia was a wonderful character, thought Georgie, and she would find a
way to spend two or three thousand a year more in an edifying and
cultured manner. (Were Oxford trousers meant to turn up at the bottom?
He thought not: and how small these voluminous folds made your feet
look.) Georgie knew what he himself would do with two or three thousand
a year more: indeed he had often considered whether he would not try to
do it without. He wanted, ever so much, to have a little flat in London
(or a couple of rooms would serve), just for a dip every now and then
in the life which Lucia found so vapid. But he knew he wasn’t a strong,
serious character like Lucia, whose only frivolities were artistic or
Elizabethan.
His eye fell on a large photograph on the table by his bedside in a
silver frame, representing Brunnhilde. It was signed “Olga to beloved
Georgie,” and his waistcoat felt quite tight as, drawing in a long
breath, he recalled that wonderful six months when Olga Bracely, the
prima donna, had bought Old Place, and lived here, and had altered all
the values of everything. Georgie believed himself to have been
desperately in love with her, but it had been a very exciting time for
more reasons than that. Old values had gone: she had thought Riseholme
the most splendid joke that had ever been made; she loved them all and
laughed at them all, and nobody minded a bit, but followed her whims as
if she had been a Pied Piper. All but Lucia, that is to say, whose
throne had, quite unintentionally on Olga’s part, been pulled smartly
from under her, and her sceptre flew in one direction, and her crown in
another. Then Olga had gone off for an operatic tour in America, and,
after six triumphant months there, had gone on to Australia. But she
would be back in England by now, for she was singing in London this
season, and her house at Riseholme, so long closed, would be open
again.... And the coat buttoned beautifully, just the last button,
leaving the rest negligently wide and a little loose. Georgie put an
amethyst tie-pin in his gray tie, which gave a pretty touch of colour,
brushed his hair back from his forehead, so that the toupé was quite
indistinguishable from his own hair, and hurried downstairs to go out to
tea with Daisy Quantock.
Daisy was seated at her writing-table when he entered, very busy with a
pencil and piece of paper and counting something up on her fingers. Her
gardening-fork lay in the grate with the fire-irons, on the carpet there
were one or two little sausages of garden-mould, which no doubt had
peeled off from her boots, and her gardening gloves were on the floor by
her side. Georgie instantly registered the conclusion that something
important must have occurred, and that she had come indoors in a great
hurry, because the carpet was nearly new, and she always made a great
fuss if the smallest atom of cigarette ash dropped on it.
“Thirty-seven, forty-seven, fifty-two, and carry five,” she muttered, as
Georgie stood in front of the fire, so that the entire new suit should
be seen at once. “Wait a moment, Georgie--and seventeen and five’s
twenty-three--no, twenty-two, and that’s put me out: I must begin again.
That can’t be right. Help yourself, if de Vere has brought in tea, and
if not ring---- Oh, I left out the four, and altogether it’s two
thousand five hundred pounds.”
Georgie had thought at first that Daisy was merely doing some belated
household accounts, but the moment she said “two thousand five hundred
pounds” he guessed, and did not even go through the formality of asking
what was two thousand five hundred pounds.
“I made it two thousand six hundred,” he said. “But we’re pretty well
agreed.”
Naturally Daisy understood that he understood.
“Perhaps you reckoned the pearls as capital,” she said, “and added the
interest.”
“No I didn’t,” he said. “How could I tell how much they were worth? I
didn’t reckon them in at all.”
“Well, it’s a lot of money,” said Daisy. “Let’s have tea. What will she
do with it?”
She seemed quite blind to the Oxford trousers, and Georgie wondered
whether that was from mere feebleness of vision. Daisy was
short-sighted, though she steadily refused to recognize that, and would
never wear spectacles. In fact, Lucia had made an unkind little epigram
about it at a time when there was a slight coolness between the two, and
had said “Dear Daisy is too short-sighted to see how short-sighted she
is.” Of course it was unkind, but very brilliant, and Georgie had read
through “The Importance of Being Earnest” which Lucia had gone up to
town to see, in the hopes of discovering it.... Or was Daisy’s
unconsciousness of his trousers merely due to her preoccupation with
Lucia’s probable income?... Or were the trousers, after all, not so
daring as he had thought them?
He sat down with one leg thrown carelessly over the arm of his chair, so
that Daisy could hardly fail to see it. Then he took a piece of
tea-cake.
“Yes, do tell me what you think she will do with it?” he asked. “I’ve
been puzzling over it too.”
“I can’t imagine,” said Daisy. “She’s got everything she wants now.
Perhaps they’ll just hoard it, in order that when Pepino dies we may all
see how much richer he was than we ever imagined. That’s too posthumous
for me. Give me what I want now, and a pauper’s funeral afterward.”
“Me too,” said Georgie, waving his leg. “But I don’t think Lucia will do
that. It did occur to me----”
“The house in London, you mean,” said Daisy, swiftly interrupting. “Of
course if they kept both houses open, with a staff in each, so that they
could run up and down as they chose, that would make a big hole in it.
Lucia has always said that she couldn’t live in London, but she may
manage it if she’s got a house there.”
“I’m dining with her to-night,” said Georgie. “Perhaps she’ll say
something.”
Mrs. Quantock was very thirsty with her gardening, and the tea was very
hot. She poured it into her saucer and blew on it.
“Lucia would be wise not to waste any time,” she said, “if she intends
to have any fun out of it, for, you know, Georgie, we’re beginning to
get old. I’m fifty-two. How old are you?”
Georgie disliked that barbarous sort of question. He had been the young
man of Riseholme so long that the habit was ingrained, and he hardly
believed that he was forty-eight.
“Forty-three,” he said, “but what does it matter how old we are, as long
as we’re busy and amused? And I’m sure Lucia has got all the energy and
life she ever had. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if she made a start in
London, and went in for all that. Then of course, there’s Pepino, but he
only cares for writing his poetry and looking through his telescope.”
“I hate that telescope,” said Daisy. “He took me up on to the roof the
other night and showed me what he said was Mars, and I’ll take my oath
he said that the same one was Venus only a week before. But as I
couldn’t see anything either time, it didn’t make much difference.”
The door opened, and Mr. Quantock came in. Robert was like a little
round brown sarcastic beetle. Georgie got up to greet him, and stood in
the full blaze of the light. Robert certainly saw his trousers, for his
eyes seemed unable to quit the spreading folds that lay round Georgie’s
ankles: he looked at them as if he was Cortez and they some new planet.
Then without a word he folded his arms and danced a few steps of what
was clearly meant to be a sailor’s hornpipe.
“Heave-ho, Georgie,” he said. “Belay there and avast.”
“What is he talking about?” said Daisy.
Georgie, quite apart from his general good-nature, always strove to
propitiate Mr. Quantock. He was far the most sarcastic person in
Riseholme and could say sharp things straight off, whereas Georgie had
to think a long time before he got a nasty edge to any remark, and then
his good-nature generally forbade him to slash with it.
“He’s talking about my new clothes,” he said, “and he’s being very
naughty. Any news?”
“Any news?” was the general gambit of conversation in Riseholme. It
could not have been bettered, for there always was news. And there was
now.
“Yes, Pepino’s gone to the station,” said Mr. Quantock. “Just like a
large black crow. Waved a black hand. Bah! Why not call a release a
release and have done with it? And if you don’t know--why, I’ll tell
you. It’s because they’re rolling in riches. Why, I’ve calculated----”
“Yes?” said Daisy and Georgie simultaneously.
“So you’ve been calculating too?” said Mr. Quantock. “Might have a
sweepstake for the one who gets nearest. I say three thousand a year.”
“Not so much,” said Georgie and Daisy again simultaneously.
“All right. But that’s no reason why I shouldn’t have a lump of sugar in
my tea.”
“Dear me, no,” said Daisy genially. “But how do you make it up to three
thousand?”
“By addition,” said this annoying man. “There’ll be every penny of that.
I was at the lending library after lunch, and those who could add made
it all that.”
Daisy turned to Georgie.
“You’ll be alone with Lucia then to-night,” she said.
“Oh, I knew that,” said Georgie. “She told me Pepino had gone. I expect
he’s sleeping in that house to-night.”
Mr. Quantock produced his calculations, and the argument waxed hot. It
was still raging when Georgie left in order to get a little rest before
going on to dinner, and to practise the Mozart duet. He and Lucia hadn’t
tried it before, so it was as well to practise both parts, and let her
choose which she liked. Foljambe had come back from her afternoon out,
and told him that there had been a trunk call for him while he was at
tea, but she could make nothing of it.
“Somebody in a great hurry, sir,” she said, “and kept asking if I
was--excuse me, sir, if I was Georgie--I kept saying I wasn’t, but I’d
fetch you. That wouldn’t do, and she said she’d telegraph.”
“But who was it?” asked Georgie.
“Couldn’t say, sir. She never gave a name, but only kept asking.”
“She?” asked Georgie.
“Sounded like one!” said Foljambe.
“Most mysterious,” said Georgie. It couldn’t be either of his sisters,
for they sounded not like a she but a he. So he lay down on his sofa to
rest a little before he took a turn at the Mozart.
* * * * *
The evening had turned chilly, and he put on his blue cape with the
velvet collar to trot across to Lucia’s house. The parlour-maid received
him with a faint haggard smile of recognition, and then grew funereal
again, and preceding him, not at her usual brisk pace, but sadly and
slowly, opened the door of the music-room and pronounced his name in a
mournful whisper. It was a gay cheerful room, in the ordinary way; now
only one light was burning, and from the deepest of the shadows, there
came a rustling, and Lucia rose to meet him.
“Georgie, dear,” she said. “Good of you.”
Georgie held her hand a moment longer than was usual, and gave it a
little extra pressure for the conveyance of sympathy. Lucia, to
acknowledge that, pressed a little more, and Georgie tightened his grip
again to show that he understood, until their respective finger-nails
grew white with the conveyance and reception of sympathy. It was rather
agonizing, because a bit of skin on his little finger had got caught
between two of the rings on his third finger, and he was glad when they
quite understood each other.
Of course it was not to be expected that in these first moments Lucia
should notice his trousers. She herself was dressed in deep mourning,
and Georgie thought he recognized the little cap she wore as being that
which had faintly expressed her grief over the death of Queen Victoria.
But black suited her, and she certainly looked very well. Dinner was
announced immediately, and she took Georgie’s arm, and with faltering
steps they went into the dining-room.
Georgie had determined that his rôle was to be sympathetic, but bracing.
Lucia must rally from this blow, and her suggestion that he should bring
the Mozart duet was hopeful. And though her voice was low and unsteady,
she did say, as they sat down,
“Any news?”
“I’ve hardly been outside my house and garden all day,” said Georgie.
“Rolling the lawn. And Daisy Quantock--did you know?--has had a row with
her gardener, and is going to do it all herself. So there she was next
door with a fork and a wheelbarrow full of manure.”
Lucia gave a wan smile.
“Dear Daisy!” she said. “What a garden it will be! Anything else?”
“Yes, I had tea with them, and while I was out, there was a trunk-call
for me. So tarsome. Whoever it was couldn’t make any way, and she’s
going to telegraph. I can’t imagine who it was.”
“I wonder!” said Lucia in an interested voice. Then she recollected
herself again. “I had a sort of presentiment, Georgie, when I saw that
telegram for Pepino on the table, two days ago, that it was bad news.”
“Curious,” said Georgie. “And what delicious fish! How do you always
manage to get better things than any of us? It tastes of the sea. And I
am so hungry after all my work.”
Lucia went firmly on.
“I took it to poor Pepino,” she said, “and he got quite white. And
then--so like him--he thought of me. ‘It’s bad news, darling,’ he said,
‘and we’ve got to help each other to bear it!’”
“So like Pepino,” said Georgie. “Mr. Quantock saw him going to the
station. Where is he going to sleep to-night?”
Lucia took a little more fish.
“In Auntie’s house in Brompton Square,” she said.
“So _that’s_ where it is!” thought Georgie. If there was a light
anywhere in Daisy’s house, except in the attics, he would have to go in
for a minute, on his return home, and communicate the news.
“Oh, she had a house there, had she?” he said.
“Yes, a charming house,” said Lucia, “and full, of course, of dear old
memories to Pepino. It will be very trying for him, for he used to go
there when he was a boy to see Auntie.”
“And has she left it him?” asked Georgie, trying to make his voice sound
unconcerned.
“Yes, and it’s a freehold,” said Lucia. “That makes it easier to dispose
of if Pepino settles to sell it. And beautiful Queen Anne furniture.”
“My dear, how delicious!” said Georgie. “Probably worth a fortune.”
Lucia was certainly rallying from the terrible blow, but she did not
allow herself to rally too far, and shook her head sadly.
“Pepino would hate to have to part with Auntie’s things,” she said. “So
many memories. He can recollect her sitting at the walnut bureau (one of
those tall ones, you know, which let down in front, and the handles of
the drawers all original), doing her accounts in the morning. And a
picture of her with her pearls over the fireplace by Sargent; quite an
early one. Some fine Chinese Chippendale chairs in the dining-room. We
must try to keep some of the things.”
Georgie longed to ask a hundred questions, but it would not be wise, for
Lucia was so evidently enjoying letting these sumptuous details leak out
mingled with memories. He was beginning to feel sure that Daisy’s
cynical suggestion was correct, and that the stricken desolation of
Pepino and Lucia cloaked a very substantial inheritance. Bits of
exultation kept peeping out, and Lucia kept poking them back.
“But where will you put all those lovely things, if you sell the house?”
he asked. “Your house here is so perfect already.”
“Nothing is settled yet,” said Lucia. “Neither he nor I can think of
anything but dear Auntie. Such a keen intelligent mind she had when
Pepino first remembered her. Very good-looking still in the Sargent
picture. And it was all so sudden, when Pepino saw her last she was so
full of vigour.”
(“That was the time she bit him,” thought Georgie.) Aloud he said:
“Of course you must feel it dreadfully. What is the Sargent? A kit-cat
or a full length?”
“Full length, I believe,” said Lucia. “I don’t know where we could put
it here. And a William III whatnot. But of course it is not possible to
think about that yet. A glass of port?”
“I’m going to give you one,” said Georgie, “it’s just what you want
after all your worries and griefs.”
Lucia pushed her glass toward him.
“Just half a glass,” she said. “You are so dear and understanding,
Georgie; I couldn’t talk to anyone but you, and perhaps it does me good
to talk. There is some wonderful port in Auntie’s cellar, Pepino says.”
She rose.
“Let us go into the music-room,” she said. “We will talk a little more,
and then play our Mozart if I feel up to it.”
“That’ll do you good too,” said Georgie.
Lucia felt equal to having more illumination than there had been when
she rose out of the shadows before dinner, and they established
themselves quite cosily by the fire.
“There will be a terrible lot of business for Pepino,” she said.
“Luckily his lawyer is the same firm as Auntie’s, and quite a family
friend. Whatever Auntie had, so he told us, goes to Pepino, though we
haven’t really any idea what it is. But with death duties and succession
duties, I know we shall have to be prepared to be very poor until they
are paid off, and the duties increase so iniquitously in proportion to
the inheritance. Then everything in Brompton Square has to be valued,
and we have to pay on the entire contents, the very carpets and rugs are
priced, and some are beautiful Persians. And then there’s the valuer to
pay, and all the lawyer’s charges. And when all that has been paid and
finished, there is the higher super-tax.”
“But there’s a bigger income,” said Georgie.
“Yes, that’s one way of looking at it,” said Lucia. “But Pepino says
that the charges will be enormous. And there’s a beautiful music-room.”
Lucia gave him one of her rather gimlet-like looks.
“Georgino, I suppose everybody in Riseholme is all agog to know what
Pepino has been left. That is so dreadfully vulgar, but I suppose it’s
natural. Is everybody talking about it?”
“Well, I have heard it mentioned,” said Georgie. “But I don’t see why
it’s vulgar. I’m interested in it myself. It concerns you and Pepino,
and what concerns one’s friends must be of interest to one.”
“_Caro_, I know that,” said Lucia. “But so much more than the actual
money is the responsibility it brings. Pepino and I have all we want
for our quiet little needs, and now this great increase of wealth is
coming to us--great, that is, compared to our modest little income
now--and, as I say, it brings its responsibilities. We shall have to use
wisely and without extravagance whatever is left after all these immense
expenses have been paid. That meadow at the bottom of the garden, of
course, we shall buy at once, so that there will no longer be any fear
of its being built over and spoiling the garden. And then perhaps a new
telescope for Pepino. But what do I want in Riseholme beyond what I’ve
got? Music and friends, and the power to entertain them, my books and my
flowers. Perhaps a library, built on at the end of the wing, where
Pepino can be undisturbed, and perhaps every now and then a string
quartette down from London. That will give a great deal of pleasure, and
music is more than pleasure, isn’t it?”
Again she turned the gimlet-look onto Georgie.
“And then there’s the house in Brompton Square,” she said, “where Auntie
was born. Are we to sell that?”
Georgie guessed exactly what was in her mind. It had been in his too,
ever since Lucia had alluded to the beautiful music-room. Her voice had
lingered over the beautiful music-room: she had seemed to underline it,
to caress it, to appropriate it.
“I believe you are thinking of keeping the house and partly living
there,” he said.
Lucia looked round, as if a hundred eavesdroppers had entered unaware.
“Hush, Georgie,” she said, “not a word must be said about that. But it
has occurred to both Pepino and me.”
“But I thought you hated London,” he said. “You’re always so glad to get
back, you find it so common and garish.”
“It is, compared to the exquisite peace and seriousness of our
Riseholme,” she said, “where there never is a jarring note, at least
hardly ever. But there is in London a certain stir and movement which we
lack here. In the swim, Georgie, in the middle of things! Perhaps we get
too sensitive here where everything is full of harmony and culture,
perhaps we are too much sheltered. If I followed my inclination I would
never leave our dear Riseholme for a single day. Oh, how easy everything
would be if one only followed one’s inclination! A morning with my
books, an afternoon in my garden, my piano after tea, and a friend like
you to come in to dine with my Pepino and me and scold me well, as
you’ll soon be doing for being so bungling over Mozartino.”
Lucia twirled round the Elizabethan spit that hung in the wide chimney,
and again fixed him rather in the style of the Ancient Mariner. Georgie
could not choose but hear ... Lucia’s eloquent well-ordered sentences
had nothing impromptu about them; what she said was evidently all
thought out and probably talked out. If she and Pepino had been talking
of nothing else since the terrible blow had shattered them, she could
not have been more lucid and crystal-clear.
“Georgie, I feel like a leisurely old horse who has been turned out to
grass being suddenly bridled and harnessed again. But there is work and
energy in me yet, though I thought that I should be permitted to grow
old in the delicious peace and leisure of our dear quiet humdrum
Riseholme. But I feel that perhaps that is not to be. My conscience is
cracking the whip at me, and saying ‘You’ve got to trot again, you lazy
old thing.’ And I’ve got to think of Pepino. Dear, contented Pepino
would never complain if I refused to budge. He would read his paper, and
potter in the garden, and write his dear little poems--such a sweet one,
‘Bereavement,’ he began it yesterday, a sonnet--and look at the stars.
But is it a life for a man?”
Georgie made an uneasy movement in his chair, and Lucia hastened to
correct the implied criticism.
“You’re different, my dear,” she said. “You’ve got that wonderful power
of being interested in everything. Everything. But think what London
would give Pepino! His club: the Astronomer-Royal is a member, his other
club, political, and politics have lately been quite an obsession with
him. The reading-room at the British Museum. No, I should be very
selfish if I did not see all that. I must and I do think of Pepino. I
mustn’t be selfish, Georgie.”
This idea of Lucia’s leaving Riseholme was a live bomb. At the moment of
its explosion, Georgie seemed to see Riseholme fly into a thousand
disintegrated fragments. And then, faintly, through the smoke he seemed
to see Riseholme still intact. Somebody, of course, would have to fill
the vacant throne and direct its affairs. And the thought of Beau Nash
at Bath flitted across the distant horizon of his mind. It was a naughty
thought, but its vagueness absolved it from treason. He shook it off.
“But how on earth are we to get on without you?” he asked.
“Sweet of you to say that, Georgie,” said she, giving another twirl to
the spit. (There had been a leg of mutton roasted on it last May-day,
while they all sat round in jerkins and stomachers and hose, and all the
perfumes of Arabia had hardly sufficed to quell the odour of roast meat
which had pervaded the room for weeks afterward.) “Sweet of you to say
that, but you mustn’t think that I am deserting Riseholme. We should be
in London perhaps (though, as I say, nothing is settled) for two or
three months in the summer, and always come here for week-ends, and
perhaps from November till Christmas, and a little while in the spring.
And then Riseholme would always be coming up to us. Five spare bedrooms,
I believe, and one of them quite a little suite with a bathroom and
sitting-room attached. No, dear Georgie, I would never desert my dear
Riseholme. If it was a choice between London and Riseholme, I should not
hesitate in my choice.”
“Then would you keep both houses open?” asked Georgie, thrilled to the
marrow.
“Pepino thought we could manage it,” she said, utterly erasing the
impression of the shattered nephew. “He was calculating it out last
night, and with board wages at the other house, if you understand, and
vegetables from the country, he thought that with care we could live
well within our means. He got quite excited about it, and I heard him
walking about long after I had gone to bed. Pepino has such a head for
detail. He intends to keep a complete set of things, clothes and sponge
and everything in London, so that he will have no luggage. Such a saving
of tips and small expenses, in which as he so truly says, money leaks
away. Then there will be no garage expenses in London: we shall leave
the motor here, and rough it with tubes and taxis in town.”
Georgie was fully as excited as Pepino, and could not be discreet any
longer.
“Tell me,” he said, “how much do you think it will all come to? The
money he’ll come into, I mean.”
Lucia also threw discretion to the winds, and forgot all about the fact
that they were to be so terribly poor for a long time.
“About three thousand a year, Pepino imagines, when everything is paid.
Our income will be doubled, in fact.”
Georgie gave a sigh of pure satisfaction. So much was revealed, not only
of the future, but of the past, for no one hitherto had known what their
income was. And how clever of Robert Quantock to have made so accurate a
guess!
“It’s too wonderful for you,” he said. “And I know you’ll spend it
beautifully. I had been thinking over it this afternoon, but I never
thought it would be as much as that. And then there are the pearls. I do
congratulate you.”
Lucia suddenly felt that she had shown too much of the silver (or was it
gold?) lining to the cloud of affliction that had overshadowed her.
“Poor Auntie!” she said. “We don’t forget her through it all. We hoped
she might have been spared us a little longer.”
That came out of her note to Daisy Quantock (and perhaps to others as
well), but Lucia could not have known that Georgie had already been told
about that.
“Now, I’ve come here to take your mind off these sad things,” he said.
“You mustn’t dwell on them any longer.”
She rose briskly.
“You’ve been ever so good to me,” she said. “I should just have moped if
I had been alone.”
She lapsed into the baby-language which they sometimes spoke, varying it
with easy Italian.
“Ickle music, Georgie?” she said. “And you must be kindy-kindy to me. No
practice all these days. You brought Mozart? Which part is easiest?
Lucia wants to take easiest part.”
“Lucia shall take which ever part she likes,” said Georgie who had had a
good practise at both.
“Treble then,” said Lucia. “But oh, how diffy it looks! Hundreds of
ickle notes. And me so tupid at reading! Come on then. You begin, Uno,
due, tre.”
The light by the piano was not very good, but Georgie did not want to
put on his spectacles unless he was obliged, for he did not think Lucia
knew that he wore them, and somehow spectacles did not seem to “go” with
Oxford trousers. But it was no good, and after having made a miserable
hash of the first page, he surrendered.
“Me must put on speckies,” he said. “Me a blind old man.”
Then he had an immense surprise.
“And me a blind old woman,” said Lucia. “I’ve just got speckies too. Oh,
Georgie, aren’t we getting vecchio? Now we’ll start again. Uno, due----”
The Mozart went beautifully after that, and each of them inwardly
wondered at the accuracy of the other’s reading. Lucia suspected that
Georgie had been having a try at it, but then, after all, she had had
the choice of which part she would take, and if Georgie had practised
already, he would have been almost certain to have practised the treble;
it never entered her head that he had been so thorough as to practise
both. Then they played it through again, changing parts, and again it
went excellently. It was late now, and soon Georgie rose to go.
“And what shall I say if anybody who knows I’ve been dining with you,
asks if you’ve told me anything?” he asked.
Lucia closed the piano and concentrated.
“Say nothing of our plans about the house in Brompton Square,” she said,
“but there’s no reason why people shouldn’t know that there is a house
there. I hate secretiveness, and after all, when the will comes out,
everyone will know. So say there is a house there, full of beautiful
things. And similarly they will know about the money. So say what Pepino
thinks it will come to.”
“I see,” said Georgie.
She came with him to the door, and strolled out into the little garden
in front where the daffodils were in flower. The night was clear, but
moonless, and the company of stars burned brightly.
“Aldebaran!” said Lucia, pointing inclusively to the spangled arch of
the sky. “That bright one. Oh, Georgie, how restful it is to look at
Aldebaran if one is worried and sad. It lifts one’s mind above petty
cares and personal sorrows. The patens of bright gold! Wonderful
Shakespeare! Look in to-morrow afternoon, won’t you, and tell me if
there is any news. Naturally, I sha’n’t go out.”
“Oh, come and have lunch,” said Georgie.
“No, dear Georgie: the funeral is at two. Putney Vale. _Buona notte._”
“_Buona notte_, dear Lucia,” he said.
* * * * *
Georgie hurried back to his house, and was disappointed to see that
there were no lights in Daisy’s drawing-room nor in Robert Quantock’s
study. But when he got up to his bedroom, where Foljambe had forgotten
to pull down the blinds, he saw a light in Daisy’s bedroom. Even as he
looked the curtains there were drawn back, and he saw her amply clad in
a dressing-gown, opening windows at top and bottom, for just now the
first principle of health consisted in sleeping in a gale. She too must
have seen his room was lit, and his face at the window, for she made
violent signs to him, and threw open the casement.
“Well?” she said.
“In Brompton Square,” said George. “And three thousand a year!”
“No!” said Daisy.