A few minutes before Lucia and Pepino drove off next morning from
Brompton Square, Marcia observed Lucia’s announcement in the _Morning
Post_. She was a good-natured woman, but she had been goaded, and now
that Lucia could goad her no more for the present, she saw no objection
to asking her to her ball. She thought of telephoning, but there was the
chance that Lucia had not yet started, so she sent her a card instead,
directing it to 25 Brompton Square, saying that she was At Home,
dancing, to have the honour to meet a string of exalted personages. If
she had telephoned, no one knows what would have happened, whether Daisy
would have had any lunch that day or Georgie any dinner that night, and
what excuse Lucia would have made to them.... Adele and Tony Limpsfield,
the most adept of all the Luciaphils, subsequently argued the matter out
with much heat, but never arrived at a solution that they felt was
satisfactory. But then Marcia did not telephone....
The news that the two were coming down was, of course, all over
Riseholme a few minutes after Lucia had rung Georgie up. He was in his
study when the telephone bell rang, in the fawn-coloured Oxford
trousers, which had been cut down from their monstrous proportions and
fitted quite nicely, though there had been a sad waste of stuff. Robert
Quantock, the wag who had danced a hornpipe when Georgie had appeared in
the original voluminousness, was waggish again, when he saw the
abbreviated garments, and _à propos_ of nothing in particular had said
“Home is the sailor, home from sea,” and that was the epitaph on the
Oxford trousers.
Georgie had been busy indoors this afternoon, for he had been attending
to his hair, and it was not quite dry yet, and the smell of the auburn
mixture still clung to it. But the telephone was a trunk-call, and,
whether his hair was dry or not, it must be attended to. Since Lucia had
disappeared after that week-end party, he had had a line from her once
or twice, saying that they must really settle when he would come and
spend a few days in London, but she had never descended to the sordid
mention of dates.
A trunk-call, as far as he knew, could only be Lucia or Olga, and one
would be interesting and the other delightful. It proved to be the
interesting one, and though rather difficult to understand because of
the aforesaid mixture of baby-talk and Italian, it certainly conveyed
the gist of the originator’s intention.
“Me so tired,” Lucia said, “and it will be divine to get to Riseholme
again. So come to ’ickle quiet din-din with me and Pepino to-morrow,
Georgino. Shall want to hear all novelle----”
“What?” said Georgie.
“All the news,” said Lucia.
Georgie sat in the draught--it was very hot to-day--until the auburn
mixture dried. He knew that Daisy Quantock and Robert were playing
clock-golf on the other side of his garden paling, for their voices had
been very audible. Daisy had not been weeding much lately but had taken
to golf, and since all the authorities said that matches were entirely
won or lost on the putting-green, she with her usual wisdom devoted
herself to the winning factor in the game. Presently she would learn to
drive and approach and niblick and that sort of thing, and then they
would see.... She wondered how good Miss Wethered really was.
Georgie, now dry, tripped out into the garden and shouted “May I come
in?” That meant, of course, might he look over the garden paling and
talk.
Daisy missed a very short putt, owing to the interruption.
“Yes, do,” she said icily. “I supposed you would give me that, Robert.”
“You supposed wrong,” said Robert, who was now two up.
Georgie stepped on a beautiful pansy.
“Lucia’s coming down to-morrow,” he said.
Daisy dropped her putter.
“No!” she exclaimed.
“And Pepino,” went on Georgie. “She says she’s very tired.”
“All those duchesses,” said Daisy. Robert Alton’s cartoon had been
reproduced in an illustrated weekly, but Riseholme up to this moment had
been absolutely silent about it. It was beneath notice.
“And she’s asked me to dinner to-morrow,” said Georgie.
“So she’s not bringing down a party?” said Daisy.
“I don’t know,” remarked Robert, “if you are going on putting, or if you
give me the match.”
“Pouf!” said Daisy, just like that. “But tired, Georgie? What does that
mean?”
“I don’t know,” said Georgie, “but that’s what she said.”
“It means something else,” said Daisy, “I can’t tell you what, but it
doesn’t mean that. I suppose you’ve said you’re engaged.”
“No I haven’t,” said Georgie.
De Vere came out from the house. In this dry weather her heels made no
indentations on the lawn.
“Trunk-call, ma’am,” she said to Daisy.
“These tiresome interruptions,” said Daisy, hurrying indoors with great
alacrity.
Georgie lingered. He longed to know what the trunk-call was, and was
determined to remain with his head on the top of the paling till Daisy
came back. So he made conversation.
“Your lawn is better than mine,” he said pleasantly to Robert.
Robert was cross at this delay.
“That’s not saying much,” he observed.
“I can’t say any more,” said Georgie, rather nettled. “And there’s the
leather-jacket grub I see has begun on yours. I daresay there won’t be a
blade of grass left presently.”
Robert changed the conversation: there were bare patches. “The Museum
insurance,” he said. “I got the fire-policy this morning. The contents
are the property of the four trustees, me and you and Daisy and Mrs.
Boucher. The building is Colonel Boucher’s, and that’s insured
separately. If you had a spark of enterprise about you, you would take a
match, set light to the mittens, and hope for the best.”
“You’re very tarsome and cross,” said Georgie. “I should like to take a
match and set light to you.”
Georgie hated rude conversations like this, but when Robert was in such
a mood, it was best to be playful. He did not mean, in any case, to
cease leaning over the garden paling till Daisy came back from her
trunk-call.
“Beyond the mittens,” began Robert, “and, of course, those three
sketches of yours, which I daresay are masterpieces----”
Daisy bowled out of the dining-room and came with such speed down the
steps that she nearly fell into the circular bed where the broccoli had
been. (The mignonette there was poorish.)
“At half-past one or two,” said she, bursting with the news and at the
same time unable to suppress her gift for withering sarcasm. “Lunch
to-morrow. Just a picnic, you know, as soon as she happens to arrive.
So kind of her. More notice than she took of me last time.”
“Lucia?” asked Georgie.
“Yes. Let me see, I was putting, wasn’t I?”
“If you call it putting,” said Robert. He was not often two up and he
made the most of it.
“So I suppose you said you were engaged,” said Georgie.
Daisy did not trouble to reply at all. She merely went on putting. That
was the way to deal with inquisitive questions.
This news, therefore, was very soon all over Riseholme, and next morning
it was supplemented by the amazing announcement in the _Times_, _Morning
Post_, _Daily Telegraph_, and _Daily Mail_ that Mrs. Philip Lucas had
left London for two or three days’ complete rest. It sounded incredible
to Riseholme, but of course it might be true and, as Daisy had said,
that the duchesses had been too much for her. (This was nearer the mark
than the sarcastic Daisy had known, for it was absolutely and literally
true that one duchess had been too much for her....) In any case, Lucia
was coming back to them again, and though Riseholme was still a little
dignified and reticent, Georgie’s acceptance of his dinner-invitation,
and Daisy’s of her lunch invitation, were symptomatic of Riseholme’s
feelings. Lucia had foully deserted them, she had been down here only
once since that fatal accession to fortune, and on that occasion had
evidently intended to see nothing of her old friends while that Yahoo
party (“Yahoo” was the only word for Mrs. Alingsby) was with her; she
had laughed at their Museum, she had courted the vulgar publicity of the
press to record her movements in London, but Riseholme was really
perfectly willing to forget and forgive if she behaved properly now.
For, though no one would have confessed it, they missed her more and
more. In spite of all her bullying monarchical ways, she had
initiative, and though the excitement of the Museum and the Sagas from
Abfou had kept them going for a while, it was really in relation to
Lucia that these enterprises had been interesting. Since then, too,
Abfou had been full of vain repetitions, and no one could go on being
excited by his denunciation of Lucia as a snob, indefinitely. Lucia had
personality, and if she had been here and had taken to golf Riseholme
would have been thrilled at her skill, and have exulted over her want of
it, whereas Daisy’s wonderful scores at clock-golf (she was off her game
to-day) produced no real interest. Degrading, too, as were the records
of Lucia’s movements in the columns of Hermione, Riseholme had been
thrilled (though disgusted) by them, because they were about Lucia, and
though she was coming down now for complete rest (whatever that might
mean), the mere fact of her being here would make things hum. This time
too she had behaved properly (perhaps she had learned wisdom) and had
announced her coming, and asked old friends in.
Forgiveness, therefore, and excitement were the prevalent emotions in
the morning parliament on the Green next day. Mrs. Boucher alone
expressed grave doubts on the situation.
“I don’t believe she’s ill,” she said. “If she’s ill, I shall be very
sorry, but I don’t believe it. If she is, Mr. Georgie, I’m all for
accepting her gift of the spit to the Museum, for it would be unkind not
to. You can write and say that the Committee have reconsidered it and
would be very glad to have it. But let’s wait to see if she’s ill first.
In fact, wait to see if she’s coming at all, first.”
Piggy came whizzing up with news, while Goosie shouted into her mother’s
ear-trumpet. Before Piggy could come out with it, Goosie’s announcement
was audible everywhere.
“A cab from the station has arrived at The Hurst, Mamma,” she yelled,
“with the cook and the housemaid, and a quantity of luggage.”
“O, Mrs. Boucher, have you heard the news?” panted Piggy.
“Yes, my dear, I’ve just heard it,” said Mrs. Boucher, “and it looks as
if they were coming. That’s all I can say. And if the cook’s come by
half-past eleven, I don’t see why you shouldn’t get a proper lunch,
Daisy. No need for a cup of strong soup or a sandwich which I should
have recommended if there had been no further news since you were asked
to a picnic lunch. But if the cook’s here now....”
Daisy was too excited to go home and have any serious putting and went
off to the Museum. Mr. Rushbold, the Vicar, had just presented his
unique collection of walking-sticks to it, and though the Committee felt
it would be unkind not to accept them, it was difficult to know how to
deal with them. They could not all be stacked together in one immense
stick-stand, for then they could not be appreciated. The handles of many
were curiously carved, some with gargoyle-heads of monsters putting out
their tongues and leering, some with images of birds and fish, and there
was one rather indelicate one, of a young man and a girl passionately
embracing.... On the other hand, if they were spaced and leaned against
the wall, some slight disturbance upset the equilibrium of one and it
fell against the next, and the whole lot went down like ninepins. In
fact, the boy at the turnstile said his entire time was occupied with
picking them up. Daisy had a scheme of stretching an old lawn-tennis net
against the wall, and tastefully entangling them in its meshes....
Riseholme lingered on the Green that morning long after one o’clock,
which was its usual lunch-time, and at precisely twenty-five minutes
past they were rewarded. Out of the motor stepped Pepino in a very
thick coat and a large muffler. He sneezed twice as he held out his arm
to assist Lucia to alight. She clung to it, and leaning heavily on it
went with faltering steps past Perdita’s garden into the house. So she
was ill.
Ten minutes later, Daisy and Robert Quantock were seated at lunch with
them. Lucia certainly looked very well and she ate her lunch very
properly, but she spoke in a slightly faded voice, as befitted one who
had come here for complete rest. “But Riseholme, dear Riseholme will
soon put me all right again,” she said. “Such a joy to be here! Any
news, Daisy?”
Really there was very little. Daisy ran through such topics as had
interested Riseholme during those last weeks, and felt that the only
thing which had attracted true, feverish, Riseholme-attention was the
record of Lucia’s own movements. Apart from this there was only her own
putting, and the embarrassing gift of walking-sticks to the Museum....
But then she remembered that the Committee had authorized the acceptance
of the Elizabethan spit, if Lucia seemed ill, and she rather
precipitately decided that she was ill enough.
“Well, we’ve been busy over the Museum,” she began.
“Ah, the dear Museum,” said Lucia wistfully.
That quite settled it.
“We should so like to accept the Elizabethan spit, if we may,” said
Daisy. “It would be a great acquisition.”
“Of course; delighted,” said Lucia. “I will have it sent over. Any other
gifts?”
Daisy went on to the walking-sticks, omitting all mention of the
indelicate one in the presence of gentlemen, and described the
difficulty of placing them satisfactorily. They were eighty-one
(including the indelicacy) and a lawn-tennis net would barely hold
them. The invalid took but a wan interest in this, and Daisy’s putting
did not rouse much keener enthusiasm. But soon she recovered a greater
animation and was more herself. Indeed, before the end of lunch it had
struck Daisy that Pepino was really the invalid of the two. He certainly
had a prodigious cold, and spoke in a throaty wheeze that was scarcely
audible. She wondered if she had been a little hasty about accepting the
spit, for that gave Lucia a sort of footing in the Museum.
* * * * *
Lucia recovered still further when her guests had gone, and her habitual
energy began to assert itself. She had made her impressive invalid entry
into Riseholme, which justified the announcement in the papers, and now,
quietly, she must be on the move again. She might begin by getting rid,
without delay, of that tiresome spit.
“I think I shall go out for a little drive, Pepino,” she said, “though
if I were you I would nurse my cold and get it all right before Saturday
when we go to Adele’s. The gardener, I think, could take the spit out of
the chimney for me, and put it in the motor, and I would drop it at the
Museum. I thought they would want it before long.... And that clock-golf
of Daisy’s; it sounds amusing; the sort of thing for Sunday afternoon if
we have guests with us. I think she said that you could get the
apparatus at the Stores. Little tournaments might be rather fun.”
The spit was easily removed, and Lucia, having written to the Stores for
a set of clock-golf, had it loaded up on the motor, and conveyed to the
Museum. So that was done. She waved and fluttered a hand of greeting to
Piggy and Goosie who were gambolling on the Green, and set forth into
the country, satisfied that she had behaved wisely in leaving London
rather than being left out in London. Apart from that, too, it had been
politic to come down to Riseholme again like this, to give them a taste
of her quality before she resumed, in August, as she entirely meant to
do, her ancient sway. She guessed from the paucity of news which that
arch-gossip, dear Daisy, had to give, that things had been remarkably
dull in her absence, and though she had made a sad mistake over her
week-end party, a little propitiation would soon put that right. And
Daisy had had nothing to say about Abfou: they seemed to have got a
little tired of Abfou. But Abfou might be revived: clock-golf and a
revival of ouija would start August very pleasantly. She would have
liked Aix better, but Pepino was quite clear about that....
Georgie was agreeably surprised to find her so much herself when he came
over for dinner. Pepino, whose cold was still extremely heavy, went to
bed very soon after, and he and Lucia settled themselves in the music
room.
“First a little chat, Georgie,” she said, “and then I insist on our
having some music. I’ve played nothing lately, you will find me terribly
out of practice, but you mustn’t scold me. Yes, the spit has gone: dear
Daisy said the Museum was most anxious to get it, and I took it across
myself this afternoon. I must see what else I can find worthy of it.”
This was all rather splendid. Lucia had a glorious way of completely
disregarding the past, and pushing on ahead into the future.
“And have you been playing much lately?” she asked.
“Hardly a note,” said Georgie, “there is nobody to play with. Piggy
wanted to do some duets, but I said ‘No, thanks.’”
“Georgie, you’ve been lazy,” she said, “there’s been nobody to keep you
up to the mark. And Olga? Has Olga been down?”
“Not since--not since that Sunday when you were both down together,”
said he.
“Very wrong of her to have deserted Riseholme. But just as wrong of me,
you will say. But now we must put our heads together and make great
plans for August. I shall be here to bully you all August. Just one
visit, which Pepino and I are paying to dear Adele Brixton on Saturday,
and then you will have me here solidly. London? Yes, it has been great
fun, though you and I never managed to arrange a date for your stay with
us. That must come in the autumn when we go up in November. But, oh, how
tired I was when we settled to leave town yesterday. Not a kick left in
me. Lots of engagements, too, and I just scrapped them. But people must
be kind to me and forgive me. And sometimes I feel that I’ve been
wasting time terribly. I’ve done nothing but see people, people, people.
All sorts, from Alf Watson the pugilist----”
“No!” said Georgie, beginning to feel the thrill of Lucia again.
“Yes, he came to dine with me, such a little duck, and brought his
flute. There was a great deal of talk about my party for Alf, and how
the women buzzed round him!”
“Who else?” said Georgie greedily.
“My dear, who _not_ else? Marcelle--Marcelle Periscope came another
night, Adele, Sophy Alingsby, Bertie Alton, Aggie--I must ask dear Aggie
down here; Tony--Tony Limpsfield; a thousand others. And then of course
dear Marcia Whitby often. She is giving a ball to-morrow night. I should
like to have been there, but I was just _finito_. Ah, and your friend
Princess Isabel. Very bad influenza. You should ring up her house,
Georgie, and ask how she is. I called there yesterday. So sad! But let
us talk of more cheerful things. Daisy’s clock-golf: I must pop in and
see her at it to-morrow. She is wonderful, I suppose. I have ordered a
set from the Stores, and we will have great games.”
“She’s been doing nothing else for weeks,” said Georgie. “I daresay
she’s very good, but nobody takes any interest in it. She’s rather a
bore about it----”
“Georgie, don’t be unkind about poor Daisy,” said Lucia. “We must start
little competitions, with prizes. Do you have partners? You and I will
be partners at mixed putting. And what about Abfou?”
It seemed to Georgie that this was just the old Lucia, and so no doubt
it was. She was intending to bag any employments that happened to be
going about and claim them as her own. It was larceny, intellectual and
physical larceny, no doubt, but Lucia breathed life into those dead
bones and made them interesting. It was weary work to watch Daisy
dabbing away with her putter and then trying to beat her score without
caring the least whether you beat it or not. And Daisy even telephoned
her more marvellous feats, and nobody cared how marvellous they were.
But it would be altogether different if Lucia was the goddess of
putting....
“I haven’t Abfou’d for ages,” said Georgie. “I fancy she has dropped
it.”
“Well, we must pick everything up again,” said Lucia briskly, “and you
sha’n’t be lazy any more, Georgie. Come and play duets. My dear piano!
What shall we do?”
They did quantities of things, and then Lucia played the slow movement
of the Moonlight Sonata, and Georgie sighed as usual, and eventually
Lucia let him out and walked with him to the garden gate. There were
quantities of stars, and as usual she quoted “See how the floor of
heaven is thick inlaid ...” and said she must ring him up in the
morning, after a good night’s rest.
There was a light in Daisy’s drawing-room, and just as he came opposite
it she heard his step, for which she had long been listening, and looked
out.
“Is it Georgie?” she said, knowing perfectly well that it must be.
“Yes,” said Georgie. “How late you are.”
“And how is Lucia?” asked Daisy.
Georgie quite forgot for the moment that Lucia was having complete rest.
“Excellent form,” he said. “Such a talk, and such a music.”
“There you are, then!” said Daisy. “There’s nothing the matter with her.
She doesn’t want rest any more--than the moon. What does it mean,
Georgie? Mark my words: it means something.”
* * * * *
Lucia, indeed, seemed in no need whatever of complete rest the next day.
She popped into Daisy’s very soon after breakfast, and asked to be
taught how to put. Daisy gave her a demonstration, and told her how to
hold the putter and where to place her feet, and said it was absolutely
essential to stand like a rock and to concentrate. Nobody could put if
anyone spoke. Eventually Lucia was allowed to try, and she stood all
wrong and grasped her putter like an umbrella, and holed out of the
longest of puts in the middle of an uninterrupted sentence. Then they
had a match, Daisy proposing to give her four strokes in the round,
which Lucia refused, and Daisy, dithering with excitement and
superiority, couldn’t put at all. Lucia won easily, with Robert looking
on, and she praised Daisy’s putter, and said it was beautifully
balanced, though where she picked that up Daisy couldn’t imagine.
“And now I must fly,” said Lucia, “and we must have a return match
sometime. So amusing! I have sent for a set, and you will have to give
me lessons. Good-bye, dear Daisy. I’m away for the Sunday at dear Adele
Brixton’s, but after that how lovely to settle down at Riseholme again!
You must show me your ouija-board too. I feel quite rested this morning.
Shall I help you with the walking-sticks later on?”
Daisy went uneasily back to her putting: it was too awful that Lucia in
that amateurish manner should have beaten a serious exponent of the art,
and already, in dark anticipation, she saw Lucia as the impresario of
clock-golf, popularizing it in Riseholme. She herself would have to
learn to drive and approach without delay, and make Riseholme take up
real golf, instead of merely putting.
Lucia visited the Museum next, and arranged the spit in an empty and
prominent place between Daisy’s fossils and Colonel Boucher’s fragments
of Samian ware. She attended the morning parliament on the Green, and
walked beside Mrs. Boucher’s bath-chair. She shouted into Mrs.
Antrobus’s ear-trumpet, she dallied with Piggy and Goosie, and never so
much as mentioned a duchess. All her thoughts seemed wrapped up in
Riseholme; just one tiresome visit lay in front of her, and then, oh,
the joy of settling down here again! Even Mrs. Boucher felt disarmed;
little as she would have thought it, there was something in Lucia beyond
mere snobbery.
Georgie popped in that afternoon about tea time. The afternoon was
rather chilly, and Lucia had a fire lit in the grate of the music room,
which, now that the spit had been removed, burned beautifully. Pepino,
drowsy with his cold, sat by it, while the other two played duets.
Already Lucia had taken down Sigismund’s portrait and installed
Georgie’s water-colours again by the piano. They had had a fine tussle
over the Mozart duet, and Georgie had promised to practise it, and Lucia
had promised to practise it, and she had called him an idle boy, and he
had called her a lazy girl, quite in the old style, while Pepino dozed.
Just then the evening post came in, with the evening paper, and Lucia
picked up the latter to see what Hermione had said about her departure
from London. Even as she turned back the page her eye fell on two or
three letters which had been forwarded from Brompton Square. The top one
was a large square envelope, the sort of fine thick envelope that
contained a rich card of invitation, and she opened it. Next moment she
sprang from her seat.
“Pepino, dear,” she cried. “Marcia! Her ball. Marcia’s ball to-night!”
Pepino roused himself a little.
“Ball? What ball?” he said. “No ball. Riseholme.”
Lucia pushed by Georgie on the treble music stool, without seeming to
notice that he was there.
“No dear, of course you won’t go,” she said. “But do you know, I think I
shall go up and pop in for an hour. Georgie will come to dine with you,
won’t you, Georgie, and you’ll go to bed early. Half past six! Yes, I
can be in town by ten. That will be heaps of time. I shall dress at
Brompton Square. Just a sandwich to take with me and eat it in the car.”
She wheeled round to Georgie, pressing the bell in her circumvolution.
“Marcia Whitby,” she said. “Winding up the season. So easy to pop up
there, and dear Marcia would be hurt if I didn’t come. Let me see, shall
I come back to-morrow, Pepino? Perhaps it would be simpler if I stayed
up there and sent the car back. Then you could come up in comfort next
day, and we would go on to Adele’s together. I have a host of things to
do in London to-morrow. That party at Aggie’s. I will telephone to Aggie
to say that I can come after all. My maid, my chauffeur,” she said to
the butler, rather in the style of Shylock. “I want my maid and my
chauffeur and my car. Let him have his dinner quickly--no, he can get
his dinner at Brompton Square. Tell him to come round at once.”
Georgie sat positively aghast, for Lucia ran on like a thing demented.
Mozart, ouija, putting, the Elizabethan spit, all the simple joys of
Riseholme fizzle out like damp fireworks. Gone, too, utterly gone was
her need of complete rest; she had never been so full of raw, blatant,
savage vitality.
“Dear Marcia,” she said. “I felt it must be an oversight from the first,
but naturally, Georgie, though she and I are such friends, I could not
dream of reminding her. What a blessing that my delicious day at
Riseholme has so rested me: I feel I could go to fifty balls without
fatigue. Such a wonderful house, Georgie; when you come up to stay with
us in the autumn, I must take you there. Pepino, is it not lucky that I
only brought down here just enough for a couple of nights, and left
everything in London to pick up as we came through to go to Adele’s?
What a sight it will be, all the Royal Family almost I believe, and the
whole of the Diplomatic corps: my Gioconda, I know, is going. Not a
large ball though at all: not one of those great promiscuous affairs,
which I hate so. How dear Marcia was besieged for invitations! how
vulgar people are and how pushing! Good-bye, mind you practise your
Mozart, Georgie. Oh, and tell Daisy that I sha’n’t be able to have
another of those delicious puttings with her to-morrow. Back on Tuesday
after the week-end at Adele’s, and then weeks and weeks of dear
Riseholme. How long they are! I will just go and hurry my maid up.”
Georgie tripped off, as soon as she had gone, to see Daisy, and narrated
to her open-mouthed disgust this amazing scene.
“And the question is,” he said, “about the complete rest that was
ordered her. I don’t believe she was ordered any rest at all. I
believe----”
Daisy gave a triumphant crow: inductive reasoning had led her to
precisely the same point at precisely the same moment.
“Why, of course!” she said. “I always felt there was something behind
that complete rest. I told you it meant something different. She wasn’t
asked, and so----”
“And so she came down here for rest,” said Georgie in a loud voice. He
was determined to bring that out first. “Because she wasn’t asked----”
“And the moment she was asked she flew,” said Daisy. “Nothing could be
plainer. No more rest, thank you.”
“She’s wonderful,” said Georgie. “Too interesting!”
* * * * *
Lucia sped through the summer evening on this errand of her own
reprieve, too excited to eat, and too happy to wonder how it had
happened like this. How wise, too, she had been to hold her tongue and
give way to no passionate laments at her exclusion from the paradise
toward which she was now hastening. Not one word of abuse had she
uttered against Marcia: she had asked nobody to intercede: she had
joined in all the talk about the ball as if she was going, and finally
had made it impossible for herself to go by announcing that she had been
ordered a few days of complete rest. She could (and would) explain her
appearance perfectly: she had felt much better--doctors were such
fussers--and at the last moment had made just a little effort, and here
she was.
A loud explosion interrupted these agreeable reflections and the car
drew up. A tyre had burst, but they carried an extra wheel, and though
the delay seemed terribly long they were soon on their way again. They
traversed another ten miles, and now in the north-east the smouldering
glow of London reddened the toneless hue of the summer night. The stars
burned bright, and she pictured Pepino at his telescope--no, Pepino had
a really bad cold, and would not be at his telescope. Then there came
another explosion--was it those disgusting stars in their courses that
were fighting against her?--and again the car drew up by the side of the
empty road.
“What has happened?” asked Lucia in a strangled voice.
“Another tyre gone, ma’am,” said the chauffeur. “Never knew such a
thing.”
Lucia looked at her clock. It was ten already, and she ought now to be
in Brompton Square. There was no further wheel that could be put on, and
the tyre had to be taken off and mended. The minutes passed like
seconds.... Lucia, outwardly composed, sat on a rug at the edge of the
road, and tried unsuccessfully not to curse Almighty Providence. The
moon rose, like a gelatine lozenge.
She began to count the hours that intervened between the tragic present
and, say, four o’clock in the morning, and she determined that whatever
further disasters might befall, she would go to Whitby House, even if it
was in a dustman’s cart, so long as there was a chance of a single guest
being left there. She would go....
And all the time, if she had only known it, the stars were fighting not
against her but for her. The tyre was mended, and she got to Brompton
Square at exactly a quarter past eleven. Cupboards were torn open,
drawers ransacked, her goaded maid burst into tears. Aunt Amy’s pearls
were clasped round her neck, Pepino’s hair in the shrine of gold sausage
that had once been Beethoven’s was pinned on, and at five minutes past
twelve she hurried up the great stairs at Whitby House. Precisely as she
came to the door of the ballroom there emerged the head of the
procession going down to supper. Marcia for a moment stared at her as
if she was a ghost, but Lucia was so busy curtseying that she gave no
thought to that. Seven times in rapid succession did she curtsey. It
almost became a habit, and she nearly curtseyed to Adele who (so like
Adele) followed immediately after.
“Just up from Riseholme, dearest Adele,” she said. “I felt quite
rested---- How are you, Lord Tony?---- and so I made a little effort.
Pepino urged me to come. How nice to see your Excellency! Millie!
Dearest Olga! What a lot of friends! How is poor Princess Isabel? Marcia
looked so handsome. Brilliant! Such a delicious drive: I felt I had to
pop in....”