Poor Pepino’s cold next day, instead of being better, was a good deal
worse. He had aches and pains, and felt feverish, and sent for the
doctor, who peremptorily ordered him to go to bed. There was nothing in
the least to cause alarm, but it would be the height of folly to go to
any week-end party at all. Bed.
Pepino telegraphed to Lady Brixton with many regrets for the
unavoidable, and rang up Lucia. The state of his voice made it difficult
to catch what he said, but she quite understood that there was nothing
to be anxious about, and that he hoped she would go to Adele’s without
him. Her voice on the other hand was marvellously distinct, and he heard
a great deal about the misfortunes which had come to so brilliant a
conclusion last night. There followed a string of seven christian names,
and Lucia said a flashlight photograph had been permitted during supper.
She thought she was in it, though rather in the background.
Lucia was very sorry for Pepino’s indisposition, but, as ordered, had no
anxiety about him. She felt too, that he wouldn’t personally miss very
much by being prevented from coming to Adele’s party, for it was to be a
very large party, and Pepino--bless him--occasionally got a little dazed
at these brilliant gatherings. He did not grasp who people were with the
speed and certainty which were needful, and he had been known to grasp
the hand of an eminent author and tell him how much he had admired his
fine picture at the Academy. (Lucia constantly did that sort of thing
herself, but then she got herself out of the holes she had herself
digged with so brilliant a manœuvre that it didn’t matter, whereas
Pepino was only dazed the more by his misfortunes.) Moreover she knew
that Pepino’s presence somehow hampered her style: she could not be the
brilliant mondaine, when his patient but proud eye was on her, with
quite the dash that was hers when he was not there. There was always the
sense that he knew her best in her Riseholme incarnation, in her duets
with Georgie, and her rendering of the slow movement of the Moonlight
Sonata, and her grabbing of all Daisy’s little stunts. She electrified
him as the superb butterfly, but the electrification was accompanied by
slight shocks and surprises. When she referred by her christian name to
some woman with whom her only bond was that she had refused to dine at
Brompton Square, that puzzled Pepino.... In the autumn she must be a
little more serious, have some quiet dinner parties of ordinary people,
for really up till now there had scarcely been an “ordinary” person at
Brompton Square at all, such noble lions of every species had been
entrapped there. And Adele’s party was to be of a very leonine kind; the
smart world was to be there, and some highbrows and some politicians,
and she was aware that she herself would have to do her very best, and
be allusive, and pretend to know what she didn’t know, and seem to swim
in very distinguished currents. Dear Pepino wasn’t up to that sort of
thing, he couldn’t grapple with it, and she grappled with it best
without him.... At the moment of that vainglorious thought it is
probable that Nemesis fixed her inexorable eye on Lucia.
Lucia unconscious of this deadly scrutiny turned to her immediate
affairs. Her engagement-book pleasantly informed her that she had many
things to do on the day when the need for complete rest overtook her,
and now she heralded through the telephone the glad tidings that she
could lunch here and drop in there, and dine with Aggie. All went well
with these restorations, and the day would be full, and to-morrow also,
down to the hour of her departure for Adele’s. Having despatched this
agreeable business, she was on the point of ringing up Stephen, to fit
him in for the spare three-quarters of an hour that was left, when she
was rung up and it was Stephen’s voice that greeted her.
“_Stephano mio_,” she said. “How did you guess I was back?”
“Because I rang up Riseholme first,” said he, “and heard you had gone to
town. Were you there last night?”
There was no cause to ask where “there” was. There had only been one
place in London last night.
“Yes; delicious dance,” said Lucia. “I was just going to ring you up and
see if you could come round for a chat at 4.45, I am free till 5.30.
Such fun it was. A flashlight photograph.”
“No!” said Stephen in the Riseholme manner. “I long to hear about it.
And were there really seven of them?”
“Quite,” said Lucia magnificently.
“Wonderful! But 4.45 is no use for me. Can’t you give me another time?”
“My dear, impossible,” said Lucia. “You know what London is in these
last days. Such a scrimmage.”
“Well, we shall meet to-morrow then,” said he.
“But, alas, I go to Adele’s to-morrow,” she said.
“Yes, but so do I,” said Stephen. “She asked me this morning. I was
wondering if you would drive me down, if you’re going in your car. Would
there be room for you and Pepino and me?”
Lucia rapidly reviewed the situation. It was perfectly clear to her that
Adele had asked Stephen, at the last moment, to fill Pepino’s place. But
naturally she had not told him that, and Lucia determined not to do so
either. It would spoil his pleasure (at least it would have spoiled
hers) to know that.... And what a wonderful entry it would make for
her--rather daring--to drive down alone with her lover. She could tell
him about Pepino’s indisposition to-morrow, as if it had just occurred.
“Yes, Stephano, heaps of room,” she said. “Delighted. I’ll call for you,
shall I, on my way down, soon after three.”
“Angelic,” he said. “What fun we shall have.”
And it is probable that Nemesis at that precise moment licked her dry
lips. “Fun!” thought Nemesis.
* * * * *
Marcia Whitby was of the party. She went down in the morning, and
lunched alone with Adele. Their main topic of conversation was obvious.
“I saw her announcement in the _Morning Post_,” said the infuriated
Marcia, “that she had gone for a few days’ complete rest into the
country, and naturally I thought I was safe. I was determined she
shouldn’t come to my ball, and when I saw that, I thought she couldn’t.
So out of sheer good nature I sent her a card, so that she could tell
everybody she had been asked. Never did I dream that there was a
possibility of her coming. Instead of which, she made the most
conspicuous entry that she could have made. I believe she timed it: I
believe she waited on the stairs till she saw we were going down to
supper.”
“I wonder!” said Adele. “Genius, if it was that. She curtseyed seven
times, too. I can’t do that without loud cracks from my aged knees.”
“And she stopped till the very end,” said Marcia. “She was positively
the last to go. I shall never do a kind thing again.”
“You’re horrid about her,” said Adele. “Besides, what has she done? You
asked her and she came. You don’t rave at your guests for coming when
they’re asked. You wouldn’t like it if none of them came.”
“That’s different,” said Marcia. “I shouldn’t wonder if she announced
she was ordered complete rest in order that I should fall into her
trap.”
Adele sighed, but shook her head.
“Oh, my dear, that _would_ have been magnificent,” she said. “But I’m
afraid I can’t hope to believe that. I daresay she went into the country
because you hadn’t asked her, and that was pretty good. But the other:
no. However, we’ll ask Tony what he thinks.”
“What’s Tony got to do with it?” said Marcia.
“Why, he’s even more wrapped up in her than I am,” said Adele. “He
thinks of nothing else.”
Marcia was silent a moment. Then a sort of softer gleam came into her
angry eye.
“Tell me some more about her,” she said.
Adele clapped her hands.
“Ah, that’s splendid,” she said. “You’re beginning to feel kinder. What
we would do without our Lucia I can’t imagine. I don’t know what there
would be to talk about.”
“She’s ridiculous!” said Marcia relapsing a little.
“No, you mustn’t feel that,” said Adele. “You mustn’t laugh at her ever.
You must just richly enjoy her.”
“She’s a snob!” said Marcia, as if this was a tremendous discovery.
“So am I: so are you: so are we all,” said Adele. “We all run after
distinguished people like--like Alf and Marcelle. The difference between
you and Lucia is entirely in her favour, for you pretend you’re not a
snob, and she is perfectly frank and open about it. Besides, what is a
duchess like you for except to give pleasure to snobs? That’s your work
in the world, darling; that’s why you were sent here. Don’t shirk it, or
when you’re old you will suffer agonies of remorse. And you’re a snob
too. You like having seven--or was it seventy?--Royals at your dance.”
“Well, tell me some more about Lucia,” said Marcia, rather struck by
this ingenious presentation of the case.
“Indeed I will: I long for your conversion to Luciaphilism. Now to-day
there are going to be marvellous happenings. You see Lucia has got a
lover----”
“Quite absolutely impossible!” said Marcia firmly.
“Oh, don’t interrupt. Of course he is only an official lover, a public
lover, and his name is Stephen Merriall. A perfect lady. Now Pepino,
Lucia’s husband, was coming down with her to-day, but he’s got a very
bad cold and has put me off. I’m rather glad: Lucia has got more--more
dash when he’s not there. So I’ve asked her lover instead----”
“No!” said Marcia. “Go on.”
“My dear, they are much better than any play I have ever seen. They do
it beautifully: they give each other little glances and smiles, and then
begin to talk hurriedly to someone else. Of course, they’re both as
chaste as snow, chaster if possible. I think poor Babs’s case put it
into Lucia’s head that in this naughty world it gave a _cachet_ to a
woman to have the reputation of having a lover. So safe too: there’s
nothing to expose. They only behave like lovers strictly in public. I
was terrified when it began that Mr. Merriall would think she meant
something, and try to kiss her when they were alone, and so rub the
delicate bloom completely off, but I’m sure he’s tumbled to it.”
“How perfect!” said Marcia.
“Isn’t it? Aren’t you feeling more Luciaphil? I’m sure you are. You must
enjoy her: it shows such a want of humour to be annoyed with her. And
really I’ve taken a great deal of trouble to get people she will revel
in. There’s the Prime Minister, there’s you, there’s Greatorex the
pianist who’s the only person who can play Stravinski, there’s Professor
Bonstetter the psycho-analyst, there’s the Italian Ambassador, there’s
her lover, there’s Tony.... I can’t go on. Oh, and I must remember to
tell her that Archie Singleton is Babs’s brother, or she may say
something dreadful. And then there are lots who will revel in Lucia, and
I the foremost. I’m devoted to her; I am really, Marcia. She’s got
character, she’s got an iron will, and I like strong talkative women so
much better than strong silent men.”
“Yes, she’s got will,” said Marcia. “She determined to come to my ball,
and she came. I allow I gave her the chance.”
“Those are the chances that come to gifted people,” said Adele. “They
don’t come to ordinary people.”
“Suppose I flirted violently with her lover?” said Marcia.
Adele’s eyes grew bright with thought.
“I can’t imagine what she would do,” she said. “But I’m sure she would
do something that scored. Otherwise she wouldn’t be Lucia. But you
mustn’t do it.”
“Just one evening,” said Marcia. “Just for an hour or two. It’s not
poaching, you see, because her lover isn’t her lover. He’s just a
stunt.”
Adele wavered.
“It would be wonderful to know what she would do,” she said. “And it’s
true that he’s only a stunt.... Perhaps for an hour or two to-morrow,
and then give him back.”
* * * * *
Adele did not expect any of her guests till tea-time, and Marcia and she
both retired for after-lunch siestas. Adele had been down here for the
last four or five days, driving up to Marcia’s ball and back in the very
early morning, and had three days before settled everything in
connection with her party, assigning rooms, discussing questions of high
importance with her chef, and arranging to meet as many trains as
possible. It so happened, therefore, that Stephen Merriall, since the
house was full, was to occupy the spacious dressingroom, furnished as a
bedroom, next Lucia’s room, which had been originally allotted to
Pepino. Adele had told her butler that Mr. Lucas was not coming, but
that his room would be occupied by Mr. Merriall, thought no more about
it, and omitted to substitute a new card on his door. These two rooms
were half way down a long corridor of bedrooms and bathrooms that ran
the whole length of the house, a spacious oak-boarded corridor, rather
dark, with the broad staircase coming up at the end of it. Below was the
suite of public rooms, a library at the end, a big music-room, a long
gallery of a drawing-room, and the dining-room. These all opened on to a
paved terrace overlooking the gardens and tennis courts, and it was
here, with the shadow of the house lying coolly across it, that her
guests began to assemble. In ones and twos they gathered, some motoring
down from London, others arriving by train, and it was not till there
were some dozen of them, among whom were the most fervent Luciaphils,
that the object of their devotion, attended by her lover, made her
appearance, evidently at the top of her form.
“Dearest Adele,” she said. “How delicious to get into the cool country
again. Marcia dear! Such adventures I had on my way up to your ball: two
burst tyres; I thought I should never get there. How are you, your
Excellency? I saw you at the Duchess’s, but couldn’t get a word with
you. Aggie darling! Ah, Lord Tony! Yes, a cup of tea would be delicious;
no sugar, Stephen, thanks.”
Lucia had not noticed quite everybody. There were one or two people
rather retired from the tea-table, but they did not seem to be of much
importance, and certainly the Prime Minister was not among them. Stephen
hovered, loverlike, just behind her chair, and she turned to the Italian
Ambassador.
“I was afraid of a motor accident all the way down,” she said, “because
last night I dreamed I broke a looking-glass. Quaint things dreams are,
though really the psycho-analysts who interpret them are quainter. I
went to a meeting at Sophy’s, dear Sophy Alingsby, the other day--your
Excellency I am sure knows Sophy Alingsby--and heard a lecture on it.
Let me see: boiled rabbit, if you dream of boiled rabbit----”
Lucia suddenly became aware of a sort of tension. Just a tension. She
looked quickly round, and recognized one of the men she had not paid
much attention to. She sprang from her chair.
“Professor Bonstetter,” she said. “How are you? I know you won’t
remember me, but I did have the honour of shaking hands with you after
your enthralling lecture the other day. Do come and tell his Excellency
and me a little more about it. There were so many questions I longed to
ask you.”
Adele wanted to applaud, but she had to be content with catching
Marcia’s eye. Was Lucia great, or was she not? Stephen too: how exactly
right she was to hand him her empty cup when she had finished with it,
without a word, and how perfectly he took it! “More?” he said, and Lucia
just shook her head without withdrawing her attention from Professor
Bonstetter. Then the Prime Minister arrived, and she said how lovely
Chequers must be looking. She did not annex him, she just hovered and
hinted, and made no direct suggestion, and sure enough, within five
minutes he had asked her if she knew Chequers. Of course she did, but
only as a tourist--and so one thing led to another. It would be a nice
break in her long drive down to Riseholme on Tuesday to lunch at
Chequers, and not more than forty miles out of her way.
People dispersed and strolled on the terrace, and gathered again, and
some went off to their rooms. Lucia had one little turn up and down
with the Ambassador, and spoke with great tact of Mussolini, and another
with Lord Tony, and not for a long time did she let Stephen join her.
But then they wandered off into the garden, and were seen standing very
close together and arguing publicly about a flower, and Lucia seeing
they were observed, called to Adele to know if it wasn’t Dropmore
Borage. They came back very soon, and Stephen went up to his room while
Lucia remained downstairs. Adele showed her the library and the
music-room, and the long drawing-room, and then vanished. Lucia
gravitated to the music-room, opened the piano, and began the slow
movement of the Moonlight Sonata.
About half way through it, she became aware that somebody had come into
the room. But her eyes were fixed dreamily on the usual point at the
edge of the ceiling, and her fingers faultlessly doled out the slow
triplets. She gave a little sigh when she had finished, pressed her
fingers to her eyes, and slowly awoke, as from some melodious
anæsthetic.
It was a man who had come in and who had seated himself not far from the
key-board.
“Charming!” he said. “Thank you.”
Lucia didn’t remember seeing him on the terrace: perhaps he had only
just arrived. She had a vague idea, however, that whether on the terrace
or elsewhere, she had seen him before. She gave a pretty little start.
“Ah, had no idea I had an audience,” she said. “I should never have
ventured to go on playing. So dreadfully out of practice.”
“Please have a little more practice then,” said the polite stranger.
She ran her hands, butterfly fashion, over the keys.
“A little morsel of Stravinski?” she said.
It was in the middle of the morsel that Adele came in and found Lucia
playing Stravinski to Mr. Greatorex. The position seemed to be away,
away beyond her orbit altogether, and she merely waited with
undiminished faith in Lucia, to see what would happen when Lucia became
aware to whom she was playing.... It was a longish morsel, too: more
like a meal than a morsel, and it was also remarkably like a muddle.
Finally, Lucia made an optimistic attempt at the double chromatic scale
in divergent directions which brought it to an end, and laughed gaily.
“My poor fingers,” she said. “Delicious piano, dear Adele. I love a
Bechstein; that was a little morsel of Stravinski. Hectic perhaps, do
you think? But so true to the modern idea: little feverish excursions:
little bits of tunes, and nothing worked out. But I always say that
there is something in Stravinski, if you study him. How I worked at that
little piece, and I’m afraid it’s far from perfect yet.”
Lucia played one more little run with her right hand, while she
cudgelled her brain to remember where she had seen this man before, and
turned round on the music-stool. She felt sure he was an artist of some
kind, and she did not want to ask Adele to introduce him, for that would
look as if she did not know everybody. She tried pictures next.
“In Art I always think that the Stravinski school is represented by the
Post-Cubists,” she said. “They give us pattern in lines, just as
Stravinski gives us patterns in notes, and the modern poet patterns in
words. At Sophy Alingsby’s the other night we had a feast of patterns.
Dear Sophy--what a curious mixture of tastes! She cares only for the
ultra-primitive in music, and the ultra-modern in Art. Just before you
came in, Adele, I was trying to remember the first movement of
Beethoven’s Moonlight, those triplets though they look easy have to be
kept so level. And yet Sophy considers Beethoven a positive decadent. I
ought to have taken her to Diva’s little concert--Diva Dalrymple--for I
assure you really that Stravinski sounded classical compared to the rest
of the programme. It was very creditably played, too. Mr.”--what was his
name?--“Mr. Greatorex.”
She had actually said the word before her brain made the connection. She
gave her little peal of laughter.
“Ah, you wicked people,” she cried. “A plot: clearly a plot. Mr.
Greatorex, how could you? Adele told you to come in here when she heard
me begin my little strummings, and told you to sit down and encourage
me. Don’t deny it, Adele! I know it was like that. I shall tell
everybody how unkind you’ve been, unless Mr. Greatorex sits down
instantly and magically restores to life what I have just murdered.”
Adele denied nothing. In fact there was no time to deny anything, for
Lucia positively thrust Mr. Greatorex on to the music stool, and
instantly put on her rapt musical face, chin in hand, and eyes looking
dreamily upward. There was Nemesis, you would have thought, dealing
thrusts at her, but Nemesis was no match for her amazing quickness. She
parried and thrust again, and here--what richness of future
reminiscence--was Mr. Greatorex playing Stravinski to her, before no
audience but herself and Adele who really didn’t count, for the only
tune she liked was “Land of Hope and Glory”.... Great was Lucia!
Adele left the two, warning them that it was getting on for dressing
time, but there was some more Stravinski first, for Lucia’s sole ear.
Adele had told her the direction of her room, and said her name was on
the door, and Lucia found it at once. A beautiful room it was, with a
bathroom on one side, and a magnificent Charles II bed draped at the
back with wool-work tapestry. It was a little late for Lucia’s
Elizabethan taste, and she noticed that the big wardrobe was
Chippendale, which was later still. There was a Chinese paper on the
wall, and fine Persian rugs on the floor, and though she could have
criticized it was easy to admire. And there for herself was a very smart
dress, and for decoration Aunt Amy’s pearls, and the Beethoven brooch.
But she decided to avoid all possible chance of competition, and put the
pearls back into her jewel-case. The Beethoven brooch, she was sure,
need fear no rival.
Lucia felt that dinner, as far as she went, was a huge success. Stephen
was seated just opposite her, and now and then she exchanged little
distant smiles with him. Next her on one side was Lord Tony, who adored
her story about Stravinski and Greatorex. She told him also what the
Italian Ambassador had said about Mussolini, and the Prime Minister
about Chequers: she was going to pop in to lunch on her way down to
Riseholme after this delicious party. Then conversation shifted, and she
turned left, and talked to the only man whose identity she had not
grasped. But, as matter of public knowledge, she began about poor Babs,
and her own admiration of her demeanour at that wicked trial, which had
ended so disastrously. And once again there was slight tension.
Bridge and Mah-Jong followed, and rich allusive conversation and the
sense, so dear to Lucia, of being in the very centre of everything that
was distinguished. When the women went upstairs she hurried to her room,
made a swift change into greater simplicity, and, by invitation, sought
out Marcia’s room, at the far end of the passage, for a chat. Adele was
there, and dear (rather common) Aggie was there, and Aggie was being
just a shade sycophantic over the six rows of Whitby pearls. Lucia was
glad she had limited her splendours to the Beethoven brooch.
“But why didn’t you wear your pearls, Lucia?” asked Adele. “I was hoping
to see them.” (She had heard talk of Aunt Amy’s pearls, but had not
noticed them on the night of Marcia’s ball.)
“My little seedlings!” said Lucia. “Just seedlings, compared to Marcia’s
marbles. Little trumperies!”
Aggie had seen them, and she knew Lucia did not overstate their
minuteness. Like a true Luciaphil, she changed a subject that might
prove embarrassing.
“Take away your baubles, Marcia,” said Aggie. “They are only diseases of
a common shell fish which you eat when it’s healthy and wear when it’s
got a tumour.... How wretched it is to think that all of us aren’t going
to meet day after day as we have been doing! There’s Adele going to
America, and there’s Marcia going to Scotland--what a foul spot, Marcia,
come to Marienbad instead with me. And what are you going to do, Lucia?”
“Oh, my dear, how I wanted to go to Aix or Marienbad,” she said. “But my
Pepino says it’s impossible. We’ve got to stop quiet at Riseholme.
Shekels, tiresome shekels.”
“There she goes, talking about Riseholme as if it was some dreadful
penance to go there,” said Adele. “You adore Riseholme, Lucia, at least
if you don’t you ought to. Olga raves about it. She says she’s never
really happy away from it. When are you going to ask me there?”
“Adele, as if you didn’t know that you weren’t always welcome,” said
Lucia.
“Me, too,” said Marcia.
“A standing invitation to both of you always,” said Lucia. “Dear Marcia,
how sweet of you to want to come! I go there on Tuesday, and there I
remain. But it’s true, I do adore it. No balls, no parties, and such
dear Arcadians. You couldn’t believe in them without seeing them. Life
at its very simplest, dears.”
“It can’t be simpler than Scotland,” said Marcia. “In Scotland you kill
birds and fish all day, and eat them at night. That’s all.”
Lucia through these months of strenuous effort had never perhaps felt
herself so amply rewarded as she was at this moment. All evening she had
talked in an effortless deshabille of mind to the great ones of the
country, the noble, the distinguished, the accomplished, and now here
she was in a duchess’s bedroom having a good-night talk. This was nearer
Nirvana than even Marcia’s ball. And the three women there seemed to be
grouped round her: they waited--there was no mistaking it--listening for
something from her, just as Riseholme used to wait for her lead. She
felt that she was truly attaining, and put her chin in her hand and
looked a little upward.
“I shall get tremendously put in my place when I go back to Riseholme
again,” she said. “I’m sure Riseholme thinks I have been wasting my time
in idle frivolities. It sees perhaps in an evening paper that I have
been to Aggie’s party, or Adele’s house or Marcia’s ball, and I assure
you it will be very suspicious of me. Just as if I didn’t know that all
these delightful things were symbols.”
Adele had got the cataleptic look of a figure in a stained glass window,
so rapt she was. But she wanted to grasp this with full appreciation.
“Lucia, don’t be so dreadfully clever,” she said. “You’re talking high
over my head: you’re like the whirr of an aëroplane. Explain what you
mean by symbols.”
“My dear, you know,” she said. “All our runnings-about, all our gaieties
are symbols of affection: we love to see each other because we partake
of each other. Interesting people, distinguished people, obscure people,
ordinary people, we long to bring them all into our lives in order to
widen our horizons. We learn, or we try to learn of other interests
besides our own. I shall have to make Riseholme understand that dear
little Alf, playing the flute at my house, or half a dozen princes
eating quails at Marcia’s mansion, it’s all the same, isn’t it? We get
to know the point of view of prize-fighters and princes. And it seems to
me, it seems to me----”
Lucia’s gaze grew a shade more lost and aloof.
“It seems to me that we extend our very souls,” she said, “by letting
them flow into other lives. How badly I put it! But when Eric
Greatorex--so charming of him--played those delicious pieces of
Stravinski to me before dinner, I felt I was stepping over some sort of
frontier _into_ Stravinski. Eric made out my passport. A multiplication
of experience: I think that is what I mean.”
None of those present could have said with any precision what Lucia had
meant, but the general drift seemed to be that an hour with a burglar or
a cannibal was valuable for the amplification of the soul.
“Odd types too,” she said. “How good for one to be put into touch with
something quite remote. Marcelle--Marcelle Periscope--you met him at my
house, didn’t you, Aggie----”
“Why wasn’t I asked?” said Marcia.
Lucia gave a little quick smile, as at some sweet child’s interruption.
“Darling Marcia, why didn’t you propose yourself? Surely you know me
well enough to do that. Yes, Marcelle, a cinema-artist. A fresh horizon,
a fresh attitude toward life. So good for me: it helps me not to be
narrow. _Dio mio!_ how I pray I shall never be narrow. To be shocked,
too! How shocking to be shocked. If you all had fifty lovers apiece, I
should merely think it a privilege to know about them all.”
Marcia longed, with almost the imperativeness of a longing to sneeze, to
allude directly to Stephen. She raised her eyes for a half second to
Adele, the priestess of this cult in which she knew she was rapidly
becoming a worshipper, but if ever an emphatic negative was wordlessly
bawled at a tentative enquirer, it was bawled now. If Lucia chose to
say anything about Stephen it would indeed be manna, but to ask--never!
Aggie, seated sideways to them, had not seen this telegraphy, and spoke
unwisely with her lips.
“If an ordinary good-looking woman,” she said, “tells me that she hasn’t
got a lover or a man who wants to be her lover, I always say ‘You lie!’
So she does. You shall begin, Lucia, about your lovers.”
Nothing could have been more unfortunate. Adele could have hurled the
entire six rows of the Whitby pearls at Aggie’s face. Lucia had no
lover, but only the wraith of a lover, on whom direct light must never
be flashed. Such a little reflection should have shown Aggie that. The
effect of her carelessness was that Lucia became visibly embarrassed,
looked at the clock, and got up in a violent hurry.
“Good gracious me!” she said. “What a time of night! Who could have
thought that our little chat had lasted so long? Yes, dear Adele, I know
my room, on the left with my name on the door. Don’t dream of coming to
show it me.”
* * * * *
Lucia distributed little pressures and kisses and clingings, and holding
her very smart pale blue wrapper close about her, slid noiselessly out
in her slippers into the corridor. It was late, the house was quite
quiet, for a quarter of an hour they had heard the creaking of men’s
footsteps going to their rooms. The main lights had been put out, only
here and there down the long silent aisle there burned a single small
illumination. Past half a dozen doors Lucia tiptoed, until she came to
one on which she could just see the name Philip Lucas preceded by a dim
hieroglyph which of course was “Mrs.” She turned the handle and went in.
Two yards in front of her, by the side of the bed, was standing Stephen,
voluptuous in honey-coloured pyjamas. For one awful second--for she felt
sure this was her room (_and so did he_)--they stared at each other in
dead silence.
“How dare you?” said Stephen, so agitated that he could scarcely form
the syllables.
“And how dare _you_?” hissed Lucia. “Go out of my room instantly.”
“Get out of mine!” said Stephen.
Lucia’s indignant eye left his horror-stricken face and swept round the
room. There was no Chinese paper on the wall, but a pretty Morris paper:
there was no Charles II bed with tapestry, but a brass-testered couch;
there was no Chippendale wardrobe, but something useful from Tottenham
Court Road. She gave one little squeal, of a pitch between the music of
the slate-pencil and of the bat, and closed his door again. She
staggered on to the next room where again the legend “Philip Lucas” was
legible, popped in, and locked the door. She hurried to the door of
communication between this and the fatal chamber next it, and as she
locked that also she heard from the other side of it the bolt violently
pulled forward.
She sat down on her bed in a state of painful agitation. Her excursion
into the fatal chamber had been an awful, a hideous mistake: none knew
that better than herself, but how was she to explain that to her lover?
For weeks they had been advertising the guilt of their blameless
relationship, and now it seemed to her impossible ever to resume it.
Every time she gave Stephen one of those little smiles or glances, at
which she had become so perfect an adept, there would start into her
mind that moment of speechless horror, and her smile would turn to a
tragic grimace, and her sick glance recoil from him. Worse than that,
how was she ever to speak of it to him, or passionately protest her
innocence? He had thought that she had come to his room (indeed she had)
when the house was quiet, on the sinister errand of love, and though,
when he had repudiated her, she had followed suit, she saw the
recoiling indignation of her lover. If only, just now, she had kept her
head, if only she had said at once, “I beg your pardon, I mistook my
room,” all might have been well, but how nerve herself to say it
afterward? And in spite of the entire integrity of her moral nature,
which was puritanical to the verge of prudishness, she had not liked (no
woman could) his unfeigned horror at her irruption.
Stephen next door was in little better plight. He had had a severe
shock. For weeks Lucia had encouraged him to play the lover, and had (so
he awfully asked himself) this pleasant public stunt become a reality to
her, a need of her nature? She had made it appear, when he so rightly
repulsed her, that she had come to his room by mistake, but was that
pretence? Had she really come with a terrible motive? It was her
business, anyhow, to explain, and insist on her innocence, if she was
innocent, and he would only be too thankful to believe her. But at
present and without that, the idea of resuming the public loverlike
demeanour was frankly beyond him. She might be encouraged again....
Though now he was safe with locked and bolted doors, he knew he would
not be able to sleep, and he took a large dose of aspirin.
Lucia was far more thorough: she never shelved difficulties, but faced
them. She still sat on the edge of her bed, long after Stephen’s nerves
were quieted, and as she herself calmed down, thought it all out. For
the present, loverlike relations in public were impossible, and it was
lucky that in a couple of days more she would be interned at Riseholme.
Then with a flash of genius there occurred to her the interesting
attitude to adopt in the interval. She would give the impression that
there had been a lovers’ quarrel. The more she thought of that, the more
it commended itself to her. People would notice it, and wonder what it
was all about, and their curiosity would never be gratified, for Lucia
felt sure, from the horror depicted on Stephen’s face, that he as well
as she would be for ever dumb on the subject of that midnight encounter.
She must not look unhappy: she must on the other hand be more vivid and
eager than ever, and just completely ignore Stephen. But there would be
no lift for him in her car back to London: he would have to go by train.
* * * * *
The ex-lovers both came down very late next day, for fear of meeting
each other alone, and thus they sat in adjoining rooms half the morning.
Stephen had some Hermione-work on hand, for this party would run to
several paragraphs, but, however many it ran to, Hermione was utterly
determined not to mention Lucia in any of them. Hermione knew, however,
that Mr. Stephen Merriall was there, and said so.... By one of those
malignant strokes which are rained on those whom Nemesis desires to
chastise, they came out of their rooms at precisely the same moment, and
had to walk downstairs together, coldly congratulating each other on the
beauty of the morning. Luckily there were people on the terrace, among
whom was Marcia. She thought this was an excellent opportunity for
beginning her flirtation with Stephen, and instantly carried him off to
the kitchen garden, for unless she ate gooseberries on Sunday morning
she died. Lucia seemed sublimely unaware of their departure, and joined
a select little group round the Prime Minister. Between a discussion of
the housing problem with him, a stroll with Lord Tony, who begged her to
drop the “lord,” and a little more Stravinski alone with Greatorex, the
short morning passed very agreeably. But she saw when she went into
lunch rather late that Marcia and Stephen had not returned from their
gooseberrying. There was a gap of just three places at the table, and it
thus became a certainty that Stephen would sit next her.
Lunch was fully half over before they appeared, Marcia profusely
apologetic.
“Wretchedly rude of me, dear Adele,” she said, “but we had no idea it
was so late, did we, Mr. Merriall? We went to the gooseberries, and--and
I suppose we must have stopped there. Your fault, Mr. Merriall; you men
have no idea of time.”
“Who could, Duchess, when he was with you?” said Stephen most adroitly.
“Sweet of you,” said she. “Now do go on. You were in the middle of
telling me something quite thrilling. And please, Adele, let nobody wait
for us. I see you are all at the end of lunch, and I haven’t begun, and
gooseberries, as usual, have given me an enormous appetite. Yes, Mr.
Merriall?”
Adele looked in vain, when throughout the afternoon Marcia continued in
possession of Lucia’s lover, for the smallest sign of resentment or
uneasiness on her part. There was simply none; it was impossible to
detect a thing that had no existence. Lucia seemed completely
unconscious of any annexation, or indeed of Stephen’s existence. There
she sat, just now with Tony and herself, talking of Marcia’s ball, and
the last volume of risky memoirs, of which she had read a review in the
Sunday paper, and Sophy’s black room and Alf: never had she been more
equipped at all points, more prosperously central. Marcia, thought
Adele, was being wonderfully worsted, if she imagined she could produce
any sign of emotion on Lucia’s part. The lovers understood each other
too well.... Or, she suddenly conjectured, had they quarrelled? It
really looked rather like it. Though she and Tony were having a good
Luciaphil meeting, she almost wanted Lucia to go away, in order to go
into committee over this entrancing possibility. And how naturally she
Tony’d him: she must have been practising on her maid.
Somewhere in the house a telephone bell rang, and a footman came out on
to the terrace.
“Lucia, I know that’s for you,” said Adele. “Where-ever you are,
somebody wants you on the telephone. If you were in the middle of the
Sahara, a telephone would ring for you from the sands of the desert.
Yes? Who is it for?” she said to the footman.
“Mrs. Lucas, my lady,” he said.
Lucia got up, quite delighted.
“You’re always chaffing me, Adele,” she said. “What a nuisance the
telephone is. One never gets a rest from it. But I won’t be a moment.”
She tripped off.
“Tony, there’s a great deal to talk about,” said Adele quickly. “Now
what’s the situation between the lovers? Perfect understanding or a
quarrel? And who has been ringing her up? What would you bet that it
was----”
“Alf,” said Tony.
“I wonder. Tony, about the lovers. There’s something. I never saw such
superb indifference. How I shall laugh at Marcia. She’s producing no
effect at all. Lucia doesn’t take the slightest notice. I knew she would
be great. Last night we had a wonderful talk in Marcia’s room, till
Aggie was an ass. There she is again. Now we shall know.”
Lucia came quickly along the terrace.
“Adele dear,” she said. “Would it be dreadful of me if I left this
afternoon? They’ve rung me up from Riseholme. Georgie rang me up. My
Pepino is very far from well. Nothing really anxious, but he’s in bed
and he’s alone. I think I had better go.”
“Oh my dear,” said Adele, “of course you shall do precisely as you wish.
I’m dreadfully sorry: so shall we all be if you go. But if you feel you
would be easier in your mind----”
Lucia looked round on all the brilliant little groups. She was leaving
the most wonderful party: it was the highest perch she had reached yet.
On the other hand she was leaving her lover, which was a compensation.
But she truly didn’t think of any of these things.
“My poor old Pepino,” she said. “I must go, Adele.”