The mystery of that Friday evening in the last week in June became
portentous on the ensuing Saturday morning....
A cab had certainly driven from the station to The Hurst late on Friday
evening, but owing to the darkness it was not known who got out of it.
Previously the windows of The Hurst had been very diligently cleaned all
Friday afternoon. Of course the latter might be accounted for by the
mere fact that they needed cleaning, but if it had been Pepino or Lucia
herself who had arrived by the cab (if both of them, they would almost
certainly have come by their motor), surely some sign of their presence
would have manifested itself either to Riseholme’s collective eye, or to
Riseholme’s ear. But the piano, Daisy felt certain, had not been heard,
nor had the telephone tinkled for anybody. Also, when she looked out
about half-past ten in the evening, and again when she went upstairs to
bed, there were no lights in the house. But somebody had come, and as
the servants’ rooms looked out on to the back, it was probably a servant
or servants. Daisy had felt so terribly interested in this that she came
restlessly down, and had a quarter of an hour’s weedjing to see if Abfou
could tell her. She had been quite unable to form any satisfactory
conjecture herself, and Abfou, after writing “Museum” once or twice, had
relapsed into rapid and unintelligible Arabic. She did not ring up
Georgie to ask help in solving this conundrum, because she hoped to
solve it unaided and be able to tell him the answer.
She went upstairs again, and after a little deep breathing and bathing
her feet in alternate applications of hot and cold water in order to
produce somnolence, found herself more widely awake than ever. Her
well-trained mind cantered about on scents that led nowhere, and she was
unable to find any that seemed likely to lead anywhere. Of Lucia nothing
whatever was known except what was accessible to anybody who spent a
penny on the _Evening Gazette_. She had written to nobody, she had given
no sign of any sort, and, but for the _Evening Gazette_, she might, as
far as Riseholme was concerned, be dead. But the _Evening Gazette_
showed that she was alive, painfully alive in fact, if Hermione could be
trusted. She had been seen here, there, and everywhere in London:
Hermione had observed her chatting in the Park with friends, sitting
with friends in her box at the opera, shopping in Bond Street, watching
polo (why, she did not know a horse from a cow!) at Hurlingham, and even
in a punt at Henley. She had been entertaining in her own house too:
there had been dinner-parties and musical parties, and she had dined at
so many houses that Daisy had added them all up, hoping to prove that
she had spent more evenings than there had been evenings to spend, but
to her great regret they came out exactly right. Now she was having her
portrait painted by Sigismund, and not a word had she written, not a
glimpse of herself had she vouchsafed, to Riseholme.... Of course
Georgie had seen her, when he went up to stay with Olga, but his account
of her had been far from reassuring. She had said that she did not care
how tired she got while Pepino was enjoying London so tremendously. Why
then, thought Daisy with a sense of incredulous indignation, had Pepino
come down a few Sundays ago, all by himself, and looking a perfect
wreck?... “Very odd, _I_ call it,” muttered Daisy, turning over to her
other side.
It was odd, and Pepino had been odd. He had dined with Georgie one
night, and, on the other, Georgie had dined with him, but he had said
nothing about Lucia that Hermione had not trumpeted to the world.
Otherwise, Pepino had not been seen at all on that Sunday except when
Mrs. Antrobus, not feeling very well in the middle of the Psalms on
Sunday morning, had come out, and observed him standing on tip-toe and
peering into the window of the Museum that looked on to the Roman
Antiquities. Mrs. Antrobus (feeling much better as soon as she got into
the air) had come quite close up to him before he perceived her, and
then with only the curtest word of greeting, just as if she was the
Museum Committee, he had walked away so fast that she could not but
conclude that he wished to be alone. It was odd too, and scarcely
honourable, that he should have looked into the window like that, and
clearly it was for that purpose that he had absented himself from
church, thinking that he would be unobserved. Daisy had not the smallest
doubt that he was spying for Lucia, and had been told merely to collect
information and to say nothing, for though he knew that Georgie was on
the committee, he had carefully kept off the subject of the Museum on
both their tête-à-tête dinners. Probably he had begun his spying the
moment church began, and if Mrs. Antrobus had not so providentially felt
faint, no one would have known anything about it. As it was, it was
quite likely that he had looked into every window by the time she saw
him, and knew all that the Museum contained. Since then, the Museum had
been formally opened by Lady Ambermere, who had lent (not presented)
some mittens which she said belonged to Queen Charlotte (it was
impossible to prove that they hadn’t), and the committee had put up some
very baffling casement curtains which would make an end to spying for
ever.
Now this degrading espionage had happened three weeks ago (come
Sunday), and therefore for three weeks (come Monday), Lucia must have
known all about the Museum. But not a word had she transmitted on that
or any other subject; she had not demanded a place on the committee, nor
presented the Elizabethan spit which so often made the chimney of her
music-room to smoke, nor written to say that they must arrange it all
quite differently. That she had a plan, a policy about the Museum, no
one who knew Lucia could possibly doubt, but her policy (which thus at
present was wrapped in mystery) might be her complete and eternal
ignoring of it. It would indeed be dreadful if she intended to remain
unaware of it, but Daisy doubted if anyone in her position and of her
domineering character could be capable of such inhuman self-control. No:
she meant to do something when she came back, but nobody could guess
what it was, or when she was coming.
Daisy tossed and turned as she revolved these knotty points. She was
sure Lucia would punish them all for making a museum while she was away,
and not asking her advice and begging her to be president, and she would
be ill with chagrin when she learned how successful it was proving. The
tourist season, when char-a-bancs passed through Riseholme in endless
procession, had begun, and whole parties after lunching at the Ambermere
Arms went to see it. In the first week alone there had been a hundred
and twenty-six visitors, and that meant a corresponding tale of
shillings without reckoning sixpenny catalogues. Even the committee paid
their shillings when they went in to look at their own exhibits, and
there had been quite a scene when Lady Ambermere with a party from the
Hall tried to get in without paying for any of them on the ground that
she had lent the Museum Queen Charlotte’s mittens. Georgie, who was
hanging up another picture of his, had heard it all and hidden behind a
curtain. The small boy in charge of the turnstile (bought from a
bankrupt circus for a mere song) had, though trembling with fright,
absolutely refused to let the turnstile turn until the requisite number
of shillings had been paid, and didn’t care whose mittens they were
which Lady Ambermere had lent, and when, snatching up a catalogue
without paying for it, she had threatened to report him to the
committee, this intrepid lad had followed her, continuing to say
“Sixpence, please, my lady,” till one of the party, in order to save
brawling in a public place, had produced the insignificant sum. And if
Lucia tried to get in without paying, on the ground that she and Pepino
had given the stocks to the Parish Council, which had lent them to the
Museum, she would find her mistake. At length, in the effort to
calculate what would be the total receipts of the year if a hundred and
twenty-six people per week paid their shillings, Daisy lapsed into an
uneasy arithmetical slumber.
Next morning (Saturday), the mystery of that arrival at The Hurst the
evening before grew infinitely more intense. It was believed that only
one person had come, and yet there was no doubt that several pounds of
salmon, dozens (“Literally dozens,” said Mrs. Boucher, “for I saw the
basket”) of eggs, two chickens, a leg of lamb, as well as countless
other provisions unidentified were delivered at the back door of The
Hurst; a positive frieze of tradesmen’s boys was strung across the
Green. Even if the mysterious arrival was Lucia herself, she could not,
unless the whirl and worldliness of her London life had strangely
increased her appetite, eat all that before Monday. And besides, why had
she not rung up Georgie, or somebody, or opened her bedroom window on
this hot morning? Or could it be Pepino again, sent down here for a
rest-cure and a stuffing of his emaciated frame? But then he would not
have come down without some sort of attendant to look after him....
Riseholme was completely baffled; never had its powers of inductive
reasoning been so nonplussed, for though so much went into The Hurst,
nobody but the tradesmen’s boys with empty baskets came out. Georgie and
Daisy stared at each other in blankness over the garden paling, and
when, in despair of arriving at any solution, they sought the oracles of
Abfou, he would give them nothing but hesitating Arabic.
“Which shows,” said Daisy, as she put the planchette away in disgust,
“that even he doesn’t know, or doesn’t wish to tell us.” Lunch time
arrived, and there were very poor appetites in Riseholme (with the
exception of that Gargantuan of whom nothing was known). But as for
going to The Hurst and ringing the bell and asking if Mrs. Lucas was at
home all Riseholme would sooner have died lingering and painful deaths,
rather than let Lucia know that they took the smallest interest in
anything she had done, was doing, or would do.
About three o’clock Georgie was sitting on the Green opposite his house,
finishing his sketch, which the affairs of the Museum had caused him
sadly to neglect. He had got it upside down on his easel and was washing
some more blue into the sky, when he heard the hoot of a motor. He just
looked up, and what he saw caused his hand to twitch so violently that
he put a large dab of cobalt on the middle of his red-brick house. For
the motor had stopped at The Hurst, not a hundred yards away, and out of
it got Lucia and Pepino. She gave some orders to her chauffeur, and then
without noticing him (_perhaps_ without seeing him) she followed Pepino
into the house. Hardly waiting to wash the worst of the cobalt off his
house, Georgie hurried into Daisy’s, and told her exactly what had
happened.
“No!” said Daisy, and out they came again, and stood in the shadow of
her mulberry tree to see what would happen next. The mulberry tree had
recovered from the pruning of its roots (so it wasn’t it which Abfou had
said was dead), and gave them good shelter.
Nothing happened next.
“But it’s impossible,” said Daisy, speaking in a sort of conspiratorial
whisper. “It’s queer enough her coming without telling any of us, but
now she’s here, she surely must ring somebody up.”
Georgie was thinking intently.
“The next thing that will happen,” he said, “will be that servants and
luggage will arrive from the station. They’ll be here any minute; I
heard the 3.20 whistle just now. She and Pepino have driven down.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Daisy. “But even now, what about the chickens
and all those eggs? Georgie, it must have been her cook who came last
night--she and Pepino were dining out in London--and ordered all those
provisions this morning. But there were enough to last them a week. And
three pints of cream, so I’ve heard since, and enough ice for a skating
rink and----”
It was then that Georgie had the flash of intuition that was for ever
memorable. It soared above inductive reasoning.
“She’s having a week-end party of some of her smart friends from
London,” he said slowly. “And she doesn’t want any of us.”
Daisy blinked at this amazing light. Then she cast one withering glance
in the direction of The Hurst.
“She!” she said. “And her shingles. And her seed-pearls! That’s all.”
A minute afterward the station cab arrived pyramidal with luggage. Four
figures disembarked, three female and one male.
“The major-domo,” said Daisy, and without another word marched back
into her house to ask Abfou about it all. He came through at once, and
wrote “Snob” all over the paper.
There was no reason why Georgie should not finish his sketch, and he sat
down again and began by taking out the rest of the misplaced cobalt. He
felt so certain of the truth of his prophecy that he just let it alone
to fulfil itself, and for the next hour he never worked with more
absorbed attention. He knew that Daisy came out of her house, walking
very fast, and he supposed she was on her way to spread the news and
forecast the sequel. But beyond the fact that he was perfectly sure that
a party from London was coming down for the week-end, he could form no
idea of what would be the result of that. It might be that Lucia would
ask him or Daisy, or some of her old friends to dine, but if she had
intended to do that she would probably have done it already. The only
alternative seemed to be that she meant to ignore Riseholme altogether.
But shortly before the arrival of the fast train from London at 4.30,
his prophetical calm began (for he was but human) to be violently
agitated, and he took his tea in the window of his drawing-room, which
commanded a good view of the front garden of The Hurst, and put his
opera-glasses ready to hand. The window was a big bow, and he distinctly
saw the end of Robert’s brass telescope projecting from the
corresponding window next door.
Once more a motor-horn sounded, and the Lucases’ car drew up at the gate
of The Hurst. There stepped out Mrs. Garroby-Ashton, followed by the
weird bright thing which had called to take Lucia to the private view of
the Post-Cubists. Georgie had not time for the moment to rack his brain
as to the name he had forgotten, for observation was his primary
concern, and next he saw Lord Limpsfield, whom he had met at Olga’s
party. Finally there emerged a tall, slim, middle-aged man in Oxford
trousers, for whom Georgie instantly conceived a deep distrust. He had
thick auburn hair, for he wore no hat, and he waved his hands about in a
silly manner as he talked. Over his shoulder was a little cape. Then
Lucia came tripping out of the house with her short skirts and her
shingles, and they all chattered together, and kissed and squealed, and
pointed in different directions, and moved up the garden into the house.
The door was shut, and the end of Robert’s brass telescope withdrawn.
* * * * *
Hardly had these shameful events occurred when Georgie’s telephone bell
rang. It might be Daisy wanting to compare notes, but it might be Lucia
asking him to tea. He felt torn in half at the idea; carnal curiosity
urged him with clamour to go, dignity dissuaded him. Still halting
between two opinions, he went toward the instrument, which continued
ringing. He felt sure now that it was Lucia, and what on earth was he to
say? He stood there so long that Foljambe came hurrying into the room,
in case he had gone out.
“See who it is, Foljambe,” he said.
Foljambe with amazing calm took off the receiver.
“Trunk call,” she said.
He glued himself to the instrument, and soon there came a voice he knew.
“No! Is it you?” he asked. “What is it?”
“I’m motoring down to-morrow morning,” said Olga, “and Princess Isabel
is probably coming with me, though she is not absolutely certain. But
expect her, unless I telephone to-morrow. Be a darling and give us
lunch, as we shall be late, and come and dine. Terrible hurry:
good-bye.”
“No, you must wait a minute,” screamed Georgie. “Of course I’ll do that,
but I must tell you, Lucia’s just come with a party from London and
hasn’t asked any of us.”
“No!” said Olga. “Then don’t tell her I’m coming. She’s become such a
bore. She asks me to lunch and dinner every day. How thrilling though,
Georgie! Whom has she got?”
Suddenly the name of the weird bright female came back to Georgie.
“Mrs. Alingsby,” he said.
“Lor!” said Olga. “Who else?”
“Mrs. Garroby-Ashton----”
“What?”
“Garr-o-by Ash-ton,” said Georgie very distinctly; “and Lord Limpsfield.
And a tall man in Oxford trousers with auburn hair.”
“It sounds like your double, Georgie,” said Olga. “And a little cape
like yours?”
“Yes,” said Georgie rather coldly.
“I think it must be Stephen Merriall,” said Olga after a pause.
“And who’s that?” asked he.
“Lucia’s lover,” said Olga quite distinctly.
“No!” said Georgie.
“Of course he isn’t. I only meant he was always there. But I believe
he’s Hermione. I’m not sure, but I think so. Georgie, we shall have a
hectic Sunday. Good-bye, to-morrow about two or three for lunch, and two
or three _for_ lunch. What a gossip you are.”
He heard that delicious laugh, and the click of her receiver.
Georgie was far too thrilled to gasp. He sat quite quiet, breathing
gently. For the honour of Riseholme he was glad that a princess was
perhaps coming to lunch with him, but apart from that he would really
have much preferred that Olga should be alone. The “affaire Lucia” was
so much more thrilling than anything else, but Princess Isabel might
feel no interest in it, and instead they would talk about all sorts of
dull things like kings and courts.... Then suddenly he sprang from his
chair: there was a leg of lamb for Sunday lunch, and an apple tart, and
nothing else at all. What was to be done? The shops by now would be
shut.
He rang for Foljambe.
“Miss Olga’s coming to lunch and possibly--possibly a friend of hers,”
he said. “What are we to do?”
“A leg of lamb and an apple tart’s good enough for anybody, isn’t it?”
said Foljambe severely.
This really seemed true as soon as it was pointed out, and Georgie made
an effort to dismiss the matter from his mind. But he could not stop
still: it was all so exciting, and after having changed his Oxford
trousers in order to minimize the likeness between him and that odious
Mr. Merriall, he went out for a constitutional, round the Green from all
points of which he could see any important development at The Hurst.
Riseholme generally was doing the same, and his stroll was interrupted
by many agreeable stoppages. It was already known that Lucia and Pepino
had arrived, and that servants and luggage had come by the 3.20, and
that Lucia’s motor had met the 4.30 and returned laden with exciting
people. Georgie therefore was in high demand, for he might supply the
names of the exciting people, and he had the further information to
divulge that Olga was arriving to-morrow, and was lunching with him and
dining at her own house. He said nothing about a possible princess: she
might not come, and in that case he knew that there would be a faint
suspicion in everybody’s mind that he had invented it; whereas if she
did, she would no doubt sign his visitors’ book for everyone to see.
Feeling ran stormy high against Lucia, and as usual when Riseholme felt
a thing deeply there was little said by way of public comment, though
couples might have been observed with set and angry faces and gabbling
mouths. But higher yet ran curiosity and surmise as to what Lucia would
do, and what Olga would do. Not a sign had come from anyone from The
Hurst, not a soul had been asked to lunch, dinner, or even tea, and if
Lucia seemed to be ashamed of Riseholme society before her grand
friends, there was no doubt that Riseholme society was ashamed of
Lucia....
And then suddenly a deadly hush fell on these discussions, and even
those who were walking fastest in their indignation came to a halt, for
out of the front door of The Hurst streamed the “exciting people” and
their hosts. There was Lucia, hatless and shingled and short-skirted,
and the Bird-of-Paradise and Mrs. Garroby-Ashton, and Pepino and Lord
Limpsfield and Mr. Merriall all talking shrilly together, with shrieks
of hollow laughter. They came slowly across the Green toward the little
pond round which Riseholme stood, and passed within fifty yards of it,
and if Lucia had been the Gorgon, Riseholme could not more effectually
have been turned into stone. She too, appeared not to notice them, so
absorbed was she in conversation, and on they went straight toward the
Museum. Just as they passed Colonel Boucher’s house, Mrs. Boucher came
out in her bath-chair, and without pause was wheeled straight through
the middle of them. She then drew up by the side of the Green below the
large elm.
The party passed into the Museum. The windows were open, and from inside
there came shrieks of laughter. This continued for about ten minutes,
and then ... they all came out again. Several of them carried
catalogues, and Mr. Merriall was reading out of one in a loud voice.
“Pair of worsted mittens,” he announced, “belonging to Queen Charlotte
and presented by the Lady Ambermere.”
“Don’t,” said Lucia. “Don’t make fun of our dear little Museum,
Stephen.”
As they retraced their way along the edge of the Green, movement came
back to Riseholme again. Lucia’s policy with regard to the Museum had
declared itself. Georgie strolled up to Mrs. Boucher’s bath-chair. Mrs.
Boucher was extremely red in the face, and her hands were trembling.
“Good evening, Mr. Georgie,” she said. “Another party of strangers, I
see, visiting the Museum. They looked very odd people, and I hope we
sha’n’t find anything missing. Any news?”
That was a very dignified way of taking it, and Georgie responded in the
same spirit.
“Not a scrap that I know of,” he said, “except that Olga’s coming down
to-morrow.”
“That will be nice,” said Mrs. Boucher. “Riseholme is always glad to see
_her_.”
Daisy joined them.
“Good evening, Mrs. Quantock,” said Mrs. Boucher. “Any news?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Daisy rather breathlessly. “Didn’t you see them?
Lucia and her party?”
“No,” said Mrs. Boucher firmly. “She is in London surely. Anything
else?”
Daisy took the cue. Complete ignorance that Lucia was in Riseholme at
all was a noble manœuvre.
“It must have been my mistake,” she said. “Oh, my mulberry tree has
quite come round.”
“No!” said Mrs. Boucher in the Riseholme voice. “I am pleased. I daresay
the pruning did it good. And Mr. Georgie’s just told me that our dear
Olga, or I should say Mrs. Shuttleworth, is coming down to-morrow, but
he hasn’t told me what time yet.”
“Two or three, she said,” answered Georgie. “She’s motoring down, and is
going to have lunch with me whenever she gets here.”
“Indeed! Then I should advise you to have something cold that won’t
spoil by waiting. A bit of cold lamb, for instance. Nothing so good on a
hot day.”
“What an excellent idea!” said Georgie. “I was thinking of hot lamb. But
the other’s much better. I’ll have it cooked to-night.”
“And a nice tomato salad,” said Mrs. Boucher, “and if you haven’t got
any, I can give you some. Send your Foljambe round, and she’ll come back
with half a dozen ripe tomatoes.”
Georgie hurried off to see to these new arrangements, and Colonel
Boucher having strolled away with Piggy, his wife could talk freely to
Mrs. Quantock.... She did.
* * * * *
Lucia waking rather early next morning found she had rather an uneasy
conscience as her bedfellow, and she used what seemed very reasonable
arguments to quiet it. There would have been no point in writing to
Georgie or any of them to say that she was bringing down some friends
for the week-end and would be occupied with them all Sunday. She could
not with all these guests play duets with Georgie, or get poor Daisy to
give an exhibition of ouija, or have Mrs. Boucher in her bath-chair to
tea, for she would give them all long histories of purely local
interest, which could not conceivably amuse people like Lord Limpsfield
or weird Sophy. She had been quite wise to keep Riseholme and Brompton
Square apart, for they would not mix. Besides, her guests would go away
on Monday morning, and she had determined to stop over till Tuesday and
be extremely kind, and not the least condescending. She would have one
or two of them to lunch, and one or two more to dinner, and give Georgie
a full hour of duets as well. Naturally if Olga had been here, she would
have asked Olga on Sunday but Olga had been singing last night at the
opera. Lucia had talked a good deal about her at dinner, and given the
impression that they were never out of each other’s houses either in
town or here, and had lamented her absence.
“Such a pity,” she had said. “For dearest Olga loves singing in my
music-room. I shall never forget how she dropped in for some little
garden-party and sang the awakening of Brunnhilde. Even you, dear Sophy,
with your passion for the primitive, would have enjoyed that. She sang
‘Lucrezia’ here, too, before anyone had heard it. Cortese brought the
score down the moment he had finished it--ah, I think that was in her
house--there was just Pepino and me, and perhaps one or two others. We
would have had dearest Olga here all day to-morrow if only she had been
here....”
So Lucia felt fairly easy, having planned these treats for Riseholme on
Monday, as to her aloofness to-day, and then her conscience brought up
the question of the Museum. Here she stoutly defended herself: she knew
nothing about the Museum (except what Pepino had seen through the window
a few Sundays before); she had not been consulted about the Museum, she
was not on the committee, and it was perfectly proper for her to take
her party to see it. She could not prevent them bursting into shrieks of
laughter at Queen Charlotte’s mittens and Daisy’s drain-pipes, nor could
she possibly prevent herself from joining in those shrieks of laughter
herself, for surely this was the most ridiculous collection of rubbish
ever brought together. A glass case for Queen Charlotte’s mittens, a
heap of fossils such as she had chipped out by the score from the old
quarry, some fragments of glass (Georgie ought to have known better),
some quilts, a dozen coins, lent, only lent, by poor Daisy! In fact the
only object of the slightest interest was the pair of stocks which she
and Pepino had bought and set up on the village green. She would see
about that when she came down in August, and back they should go on to
the village green. Then there was the catalogue: who could help laughing
at the catalogue which described in most pompous language the contents
of this dust-bin? There was nothing to be uneasy about over that. And as
for Mrs. Boucher having driven right through her party without a glance
of recognition, what did that matter? On her own side also, Lucia had
given no glance of recognition to Mrs. Boucher: if she had, Mrs. Boucher
would have told them all about her asparagus or how her Elizabeth had
broken a plate. It was odd, perhaps, that Mrs. Boucher hadn’t stopped
... and was it rather odd also that, though from the corner of her eye
she had seen all Riseholme standing about on the Green, no one had made
the smallest sign of welcome? It was true that she had practically cut
them (if a process conducted at the distance of fifty yards can be
called a cut), but she was not quite sure that she enjoyed the same
process herself. Probably it meant nothing; they saw she was engaged
with her friends, and very properly had not thrust themselves forward.
Her guests mostly breakfasted upstairs, but by the middle of the morning
they had all straggled down. Lucia had brought with her yesterday her
portrait by Sigismund, which Sophy declared was a masterpiece of
_adagio_. She was advising her to clear all other pictures out of the
music-room and hang it there alone, like a wonderful slow movement, when
Mr. Merriall came in with the Sunday paper.
“Ah, the paper has come,” said Lucia. “Is not that Riseholmish of us? We
never get the Sunday paper till midday.”
“Better late than never,” said Mr. Merriall, who was rather addicted to
quoting proverbial sayings. “I see that Mrs. Shuttleworth’s coming down
here to-day. Do ask her to dine and perhaps she’ll sing to us.”
Lucia paused for a single second, then clapped her hands.
“Oh, what fun that would be!” she said. “But I don’t think it can be
true. Dearest Olga popped in--or did I pop in--yesterday morning in
town, and she said nothing about it. No doubt she had not made up her
mind then whether she was coming or not. Of course I’ll ring her up at
once and scold her for not telling me.”
Lucia found from Olga’s caretaker that she and a friend were expected,
but she knew they couldn’t come to lunch with her, as they were lunching
with Mr. Pillson. She “couldn’t say, I’m sure” who the friend was, but
promised to give the message that Mrs. Lucas hoped they would both come
and dine.... The next thing was to ring up Georgie and be wonderfully
cordial.
“Georgino mio, is it ’oo?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Georgie. He did not have to ask who it was, nor did he feel
inclined for baby-talk.
“Georgino, I never caught a glimpse of you yesterday,” she said. “Why
didn’t ’oo come round and see me?”
“Because you never asked me,” said Georgie firmly, “and because you
never told me you were coming.”
“Me so sorry,” said Lucia. “But me was so fussed and busy in town.
Delicious to be in Riseholme again.”
“Delicious,” said Georgie.
Lucia paused a moment.
“Is Georgino cross with me?” she asked.
“Not a bit,” said Georgie brightly. “Why?”
“I didn’t know. And I hear my Olga and a friend are lunching with you. I
am hoping they will come and dine with me to-night. And do come in
afterward. We shall be eight already, or of course I should ask you.”
“Thanks so much, but I’m dining with her,” said Georgie.
A pause.
“Well, all of you come and dine here,” said Lucia. “Such amusing people,
and I’ll squeeze you in.”
“I’m afraid I can’t accept for Olga,” said Georgie. “And I’m dining with
her, you see.”
“Well, will you come across after lunch and bring them?” said Lucia. “Or
tea?”
“I don’t know what they will feel inclined to do,” said Georgie. “But
I’ll tell them.”
“Do, and I’ll ring up at lunch-time again, and have ickle talk to my
Olga. Who is her friend?”
Georgie hesitated: he thought he would not give that away just yet.
Lucia would know in heaps of time.
“Oh, just somebody whom she’s possibly bringing down,” he said, and rang
off.
Lucia began to suspect a slight mystery, and she disliked mysteries,
except when she made them herself. Olga’s caretaker was “sure she
couldn’t say,” and Georgie (Lucia was sure) wouldn’t. So she went back
to her guests, and very prudently said that Olga had not arrived at
present, and then gave them a wonderful account of her little _intime_
dinner with Olga and Princess Isabel. Such a delightful amusing woman:
they must all come and meet Princess Isabel some day soon in town.
Lucia and her guests, with the exception of Sophy Alingsby who continued
to play primitive tunes with one finger on the piano, went for a stroll
on the Green before lunch. Mrs. Quantock hurried by with averted face,
and naturally everybody wanted to know how the Red Queen from Alice in
Wonderland was. Lucia amused them by a bright version of poor Daisy’s
ouija-board and the story of the mulberry tree.
“Such dears they all are,” she said. “But too killing. And then she
planted broccoli instead of phlox. It’s only in Riseholme that such
things happen. You must all come and stay with me in August, and we’ll
enter into the life of the place. I adore it, simply adore it. We are
always wildly excited about something.... And next door is Georgie
Pillson’s house. A lamb! I’m devoted to him. He does embroidery, and
gave those broken bits of glass to the Museum. And that’s dear Olga’s
house at the end of the road....”
Just as Lucia was kissing her hand to Olga’s house, her eagle eye had
seen a motor approaching, and it drew up at Georgie’s house. Two women
got out, and there was no doubt whatever who either of them were. They
went in at the gate, and he came out of his front door like the cuckoo
out of a clock and made a low bow. All this Lucia saw, and though for
the moment petrified, she quickly recovered, and turned sharply round.
“Well, we must be getting home again,” she said, in a rather strangled
voice. “It is lunch-time.”
Mr. Merriall did not turn so quickly, but watched the three figures at
Georgie’s door.
“Appearances are deceptive,” he said. “But isn’t that Olga Shuttleworth
and Princess Isabel?”
“No! Where?” said Lucia looking in the opposite direction.
“Just gone into that house; Georgie Pillson’s, didn’t you say?”
“No, really?” said Lucia. “How stupid of me not to have seen them. Shall
I pop in now? No, I think I will ring them up presently, unless we find
that they have already rung me up.”
Lucia was putting a brave face on it, but she was far from easy. It
looked like a plot: it did indeed, for Olga had never told her she was
coming to Riseholme, and Georgie had never told her that Princess Isabel
was the friend she was bringing with her. However, there was lunch-time
in which to think over what was to be done. But though she talked
incessantly and rather satirically about Riseholme, she said no more
about the prima donna and the princess....
* * * * *
Lucia might have been gratified (or again she might not) if she had
known how vivacious a subject of conversation she afforded at Georgie’s
select little luncheon party. Princess Isabel (with her mouth now full
of Mrs. Boucher’s tomatoes) had been subjected during this last week to
an incessant bombardment from Lucia, and had heard on quite good
authority that she alluded to her as “Isabel, dear Princess Isabel.”
“And I will not go to her house,” she said. “It is a free country, and I
do not choose to go to her kind house. No doubt she is a very good
woman. But I want to hear more of her, for she thrills me. So does your
Riseholme. You were talking of the Museum.”
“Georgie, go on about the Museum,” said Olga.
“Well,” said Georgie, “there it was. They all went in, and then they all
came out again, and one of them was reading my catalogue--I made
it--aloud, and they all screamed with laughter.”
“But I daresay it was a very funny catalogue, Georgie,” said Olga.
“I don’t think so. Mr. Merriall read out about Queen Charlotte’s mittens
presented by Lady Ambermere.”
“No!” said Olga.
“Most interesting!” said the Princess. “She was my aunt, big-aunt, is
it? No, great-aunt--that is it. Afterward we will go to the Museum and
see her mittens. Also, I must see the lady who kills mulberry trees.
Olga, can’t you ask her to bring her planchette and prophesy?”
“Georgie, ring up Daisy, and ask her to come to tea with me,” said Olga.
“We must have a weedj.”
“And I must go for a drive, and I must walk on the Green, and I must
have some more delicious apple pie,” began the Princess.
Georgie had just risen to ring up Daisy, when Foljambe entered with the
news that Mrs. Lucas was on the telephone and would like to speak to
Olga.
“Oh, say we’re still at lunch, please, Foljambe,” said she. “Can she
send a message? And you say Stephen Merriall is there, Georgie?”
“No, you said he was there,” said Georgie. “I only described him.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure it is he, but you will have to go sometime this
afternoon and find out. If it is, he’s Hermione, who’s always writing
about Lucia in the _Evening Gazette_. Priceless! So you must go across
for a few minutes, Georgie, and make certain.”
Foljambe came back to ask if Mrs. Lucas might pop in to pay her respects
to Princess Isabel.
“So kind of her, but she must not dream of troubling herself,” said the
Princess.
Foljambe retired and appeared for the third time with a faint, firm
smile.
“Mrs. Lucas will ring up Mrs. Shuttleworth in a quarter of an hour,” she
said.
* * * * *
The Princess finished her apple-tart.
“And now let us go and see the Museum,” she said.
Georgie remained behind to ring up Daisy, to explain when Lucia
telephoned next that Olga had gone out, and to pay his visit to The
Hurst. To pretend that he did not enjoy that, would be to misunderstand
him altogether. Lucia had come down here with her smart party and had
taken no notice of Riseholme, and now two people a million times smarter
had by a clearly providential dealing come down at the same time and
were taking no notice of her. Instead they were hobnobbing with people
like himself and Daisy whom Lucia had slighted. Then she had laughed at
the Museum, and especially at the catalogue and the mittens, and now the
great-niece of the owner of the mittens had gone to see them. That was a
stinger, in fact it was all a stinger, and well Lucia deserved it.
He was shown into the music-room, and he had just time to observe that
there was a printed envelope on the writing-table addressed to the
_Evening Gazette_, when Lucia and Mr. Merriall came hurrying in.
“Georgino mio,” said Lucia effusively. “How nice of you to come in. But
you’ve not brought your ladies? Oh, this is Mr. Merriall.”
(Hermione, of the _Evening Gazette_, it’s proved, thought Georgie.)
“They thought they wouldn’t add to your big party,” said Georgie
sumptuously. (That was another stinger.)
“And was it Princess Isabel I saw at your door?” asked Mr. Merriall with
an involuntary glance at the writing-table. (Lucia had not mentioned her
since.)
“Oh yes. They just motored down and took potluck with me.”
“What did you give them?” asked Lucia, forgetting her anxieties for a
moment.
“Oh, just cold lamb and apple tart,” said Georgie.
“No!” said Lucia. “You ought to have brought them to lunch here. O
Georgie, my picture, look. By Sigismund.”
“Oh yes,” said Georgie. “What’s it of?”
“_Cattivo!_” said Lucia. “Why, it’s a portrait of me. Sigismund, you
know, he’s the greatest rage in London just now. Everybody is crazy to
be painted by him.”
“And they look crazy when they are. It’s a mad world, my masters,” said
Mr. Merriall.
“Naughty,” said Lucia. “Is it not wonderful, Georgie?”
“Yes. I expect it’s very clever,” said Georgie. “Very clever indeed.”
“I should so like to show it dearest Olga,” said Lucia, “and I’m sure
the Princess would be interested in it. She was talking about modern art
the other day when I dined with Olga. I wonder if they would look in at
tea-time, or indeed any other time.”
“Not very likely, I’m afraid,” said Georgie, “for Daisy Quantock’s
coming to tea, I know. We’re going to weedj. And they’re going out for a
drive sometime.”
“And where are they now?” asked Lucia. It was terrible to have to get
news of her intimate friends from Georgie, but how else was she to find
out?
“They went across to see the Museum,” said he. “They were most
interested in it.”
Mr. Merriall waved his hands, just in the same way as Georgie did.
“Ah, that Museum!” he said. “Those mittens! Shall I ever get over those
mittens? Lucia said she would give it the next shoe-lace she broke.”
“Yes,” said Georgie. “The Princess wanted to see those mittens. Queen
Charlotte was her great-aunt. I told them how amused you all were at the
mittens.”
Lucia had been pressing her finger to her forehead, a sign of
concentration. She rose as if going back to her other guests.
“Coming into the garden presently?” she asked, and glided from the room.
“And so you’re going to have a sitting with the ouija-board,” said Mr.
Merriall. “I am intensely interested in ouija. Very odd phenomena
certainly occur. Strange but true.”
A fresh idea had come into Georgie’s head. Lucia certainly had not
appeared outside the window that looked into the garden, and so he
walked across to the other one which commanded a view of the Green.
There she was heading straight for the Museum.
“It is marvellous,” he said to Mr. Merriall. “We have had some curious
results here, too.”
Mr. Merriall was moving daintily about the room, and Georgie wondered if
it would be possible to convert Oxford trousers into an ordinary pair.
It was dreadful to think that Olga, even in fun, had suggested that such
a man was his double. There was the little cape as well.
“I have quite fallen in love with your Riseholme,” said Mr. Merriall.
“We all adore it,” said Georgie, not attending very much because his
whole mind was fixed on the progress of Lucia across the Green. Would
she catch them in the Museum, or had they already gone? Smaller and
smaller grew her figure and her twinkling legs, and at last she crossed
the road and vanished behind the belt of shrubs in front of the
tithe-barn.
“All so homey and intimate. ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ in fact,” said Mr.
Merriall. “We have been hearing how Mrs. Shuttleworth loves singing in
this room.”
Georgie was instantly on his guard again. It was quite right and proper
that Lucia should be punished, and of course Riseholme would know all
about it, for indeed Riseholme was administering the punishment. But it
was a very different thing to let her down before those who were not
Riseholme.
“Oh yes, she sings here constantly,” he said. “We are all in and out of
each other’s houses. But I must be getting back to mine now.”
Mr. Merriall longed to be asked to this little ouija party at Olga’s,
and at present his hostess had been quite unsuccessful in capturing
either of the two great stars. There was no harm in trying....
“You couldn’t perhaps take me to Mrs. Shuttleworth’s for tea?” he asked.
“No, I’m afraid I could hardly do that,” said Georgie. “Good-bye. I hope
we shall meet again.”
* * * * *
Nemesis meantime had been dogging Lucia’s footsteps, with more success
than Lucia was having in dogging Olga’s. She had arrived, as Georgie had
seen, at the Museum, and again paid a shilling to enter that despised
exhibition. It was rather full, for visitors who had lunched at the
Ambermere Arms had come in, and there was quite a crowd round Queen
Charlotte’s mittens, among whom was Lady Ambermere herself who had
driven over from the Hall with two depressed guests whom she had forced
to come with her. She put up her glasses and stared at Lucia.
“Ah, Mrs. Lucas!” she said with the singular directness for which she
was famous. “For the moment I did not recognize you with your hair like
that. It is a fashion that does not commend itself to me. You have come
in, of course, to look at Her late Majesty’s mittens, for really there
is very little else to see.”
As a rule, Lucia shamelessly truckled to Lady Ambermere, and schemed to
get her to lunch or dinner. But to-day she didn’t care two straws about
her, and while these rather severe remarks were being addressed to her,
her eyes darted eagerly round the room in search of those for whom she
would have dropped Lady Ambermere without the smallest hesitation.
“Yes, dear Lady Ambermere,” she said. “So interesting to think that
Queen Charlotte wore them. Most good of you to have presented them to
our little Museum.”
“Lent,” said Lady Ambermere. “They are heirlooms in my family. But I am
glad to let others enjoy the sight of them. And by a remarkable
coincidence I have just had the priviledge of showing them to a relative
of their late owner. Princess Isabel. I offered to have the case opened
for her, and let her try them on. She said, most graciously, that it was
not necessary.”
“Yes, dear Princess Isabel,” said Lucia, “I heard she had come down. Is
she here still?”
“No. She and Mrs. Shuttleworth have just gone. A motor drive, I
understand, before tea. I suggested, of course, a visit to the Hall,
where I would have been delighted to entertain them. Where did they
lunch?”
“At Georgie Pillson’s,” said Lucia bitterly.
“Indeed. I wonder why Mr. Pillson did not let me know. Did you lunch
there too?”
“No. I have a party in my own house. Some friends from London, Lord
Limpsfield, Mrs. Garroby-Ashton----”
“Indeed!” said Lady Ambermere. “I had meant to return to the Hall for
tea, but I will change my plans and have a cup of tea with you, Mrs.
Lucas. Perhaps you would ask Mrs. Shuttleworth and her distinguished
guest to drop in. I will present you to her. You have a pretty little
garden, I remember. Quaint. You are at liberty to say that I am taking
tea with you. But stay! If they have gone out for a drive, they will not
be back quite yet. It does not matter: we will sit in your garden.”
Now in the ordinary way this would have been a most honourable event,
but to-day, though Lady Ambermere had not changed, her value had. If
only Olga had not come down bringing her whom Lucia could almost refer
to as that infernal Princess, it would have been rich, it would have
been glorious, to have Lady Ambermere dropping in to tea. Even now she
would be better than nothing, thought Lucia, and after inspecting the
visitors’ book of the Museum, where Olga and the Princess had inscribed
their names, and where now Lady Ambermere wrote hers, very close to the
last one, so as to convey the impression that they were one party, they
left the place.
Outside was drawn up Lady Ambermere’s car, with her companion, the meek
Miss Lyall, sitting on the front seat nursing Lady Ambermere’s
stertorous pug.
“Let me see,” said she. “How had we best arrange? A walk would be good
for Pug before he has his tea. Pug takes lukewarm milk with a biscuit
broken up into it. Please put Pug on his leash, Miss Lyall, and we will
all walk across the Green to Mrs. Lucas’s little house. The motor shall
go round by the road and wait for us there. That is Mrs. Shuttleworth’s
little house, is it not? So you might kindly step in there, Mrs. Lucas,
and leave a message for them about tea, stating that I shall be there.
We will walk slowly and you will soon catch us up.”
The speech was thoroughly Ambermerian: everybody in Riseholme had a
“little house” compared with the Hall: everybody had a “little garden.”
Equally Ambermerian was her complete confidence that her wish was
everybody else’s pleasure, and Lucia dismally reflected that she, for
her part, had never failed to indicate that it was. But just now, though
Lady Ambermere was so conspicuously second-best, and though she was like
a small luggage-engine with a Roman nose and a fat dog, the wretched
Lucia badly wanted somebody to “drop in,” and by so doing give her some
sort of status--alas, that one so lately the Queen of Riseholme should
desire it--in the sight of her guests. She could say what a bore Lady
Ambermere was the moment she had gone.
Wretched also was her errand: she knew that Olga and the infernal
Princess were to have a ouija with Daisy and Georgie, and that her
invitation would be futile, and as for that foolish old woman’s
suggestion that her presence at The Hurst would prove an attraction to
Olga, she was aware that if anything was needful to make Olga refuse to
come, it would be that Lady Ambermere was there. Olga had dined at The
Hall once, and had been induced to sing, while her hostess played
Patience and talked to Pug.
Lucia had a thought: not a very bright one, but comparatively so. She
might write her name in the Princess’s book: that would be something.
So, when her ring was answered, and she ascertained, as she already
knew, that Olga was out, and left the hopeless invitation that she and
her guest would come to tea, where they would meet Lady Ambermere, she
asked for the Princess’s book.
Olga’s parlour-maid looked puzzled.
“Would that be the book of cross-word puzzles, ma’am?” she asked. “I
don’t think her Highness brought any other book, and that she’s taken
with her for her drive.”
Lucia trudged sadly away. Half way across the Green she saw Georgie and
Daisy Quantock with a large sort of drawing-board under arm coming
briskly in her direction. She knew where they were going, and she pulled
her shattered forces together.
“Dearest Daisy, not set eyes on you!” she said. “A few friends from
London, how it ties one! But I shall pop in to-morrow, for I stop till
Tuesday. Going to have a ouija party with dear Piggy and Goosie? Wish I
could come, but Lady Ambermere has quartered herself on me for tea, and
I must run on and catch her up. Just been to your delicious Museum.
Wonderful mittens! Wonderful everything. Pepino and I will look out
something for it!”
“Very kind,” said Daisy. It was as if the North Pole had spoken.
Pug and Miss Lyall and Lady Ambermere and her two depressed guests had
been admitted to The Hurst before Lucia caught them up, and she found
them all seated stonily in the music-room, where Stephen Merriall had
been finishing his official correspondence. Well Lucia knew what he had
been writing about: there might perhaps be a line or two about The
Hurst, and the party week-ending there, but that, she was afraid, would
form a mere little postscript to more exalted paragraphs. She hastily
introduced him to Lady Ambermere and Miss Lyall, but she had no idea who
Lady Ambermere’s guests were, and suspected they were poor relations,
for Lady Ambermere introduced them to nobody.
Pug gave a series of wheezy barks.
“Clever little man,” said Lady Ambermere. “He is asking for his tea. He
barks four times like that for his tea.”
“And he shall have it,” said Lucia. “Where are the others, Stephen?”
Mr. Merriall exerted himself a little on hearing Lady Ambermere’s name:
he would put in a sentence about her....
“Lord Limpsfield and Mrs. Garroby-Ashton have gone to play golf,” he
said. “Barbarously energetic of them, is it not, Lady Ambermere? What a
sweet little dog.”
“Pug does not like strangers,” said Lady Ambermere. “And I am
disappointed not to see Lord Limpsfield. Do we expect Mrs. Shuttleworth
and the Princess?”
“I left the message,” said Lucia.
Lady Ambermere’s eyes finished looking at Mr. Merriall and proceeded
slowly round the room.
“What is that curious picture?” she said. “I am completely puzzled.”
Lucia gave her bright laugh: it was being an awful afternoon, but she
had to keep her flag flying.
“Striking, is it not?” she said. “Dear Benjy Sigismund insisted on
painting me. Such a lot of sittings.”
Lady Ambermere looked from one to the other.
“I do not see any resemblance,” she said. “It appears to me to resemble
nothing. Ah, here is tea. A little lukewarm milk for Pug, Miss Lyall.
Mix a little hot water with it, it does not suit him to have it quite
cold. And I should like to see Mr. Georgie Pillson. No doubt he could be
told that I am here.”
This was really rather desperate: Lucia could not produce Olga or the
Princess, or Lord Limpsfield or Mrs. Garroby-Ashton for Lady Ambermere,
and she knew she could not produce Georgie, for by that time he would be
at Olga’s. All that was left for her was to be able to tell Lord
Limpsfield and Mrs. Garroby-Ashton when they returned that they had
missed Lady Ambermere. As for Riseholme ... but it was better not to
think how she stood with regard to Riseholme, which, yesterday, she had
settled to be of no account at all. If only, before coming down, she had
asked them all to lunch and tea and dinner....
The message came back that Mr. Pillson had gone to tea with Mrs.
Shuttleworth. Five minutes later came regrets from Olga that she had
friends with her, and could not come to tea. Lady Ambermere ate seed
cake in silence. Mrs. Alingsby meantime had been spending the afternoon
in her bedroom, and she now appeared in a chintz wrapper and morocco
slippers. Her hair fell over her eyes like that of an Aberdeen terrier,
and she gave a shrill scream when she saw Pug.
“I can’t bear dogs,” she said. “Take that dog away, dear Lucia. Burn it,
drown it! You told me you hadn’t got any dogs.”
Lady Ambermere turned on her a face that should have instantly petrified
her, if she had had any proper feeling. Never had Pug been so
blasphemed. She rose as she swallowed the last mouthful of seed cake.
“We are inconveniencing your guests, Mrs. Lucas,” she said. “Pug and I
will be off. Miss Lyall, Pug’s leash. We must be getting back to the
Hall. I shall look in at Mrs. Shuttleworth’s, and sign my name in the
Princess’s book. Good-bye, Mrs. Lucas. Thank you for my tea.”
She pointedly ignored Mrs. Alingsby, and headed the gloomy frieze that
defiled through the door. The sole bright spot was that she would find
only a book of cross-word puzzles to write her name in.