Lucia Victrix

by E. F. Benson

  ‘Well, you have got your work cut out for you, dear Daisy,’ she said, giving a surreptitious tug at the knotted tape of Pepino’s poems. ‘What fun you will have, and, dear me, how far away it all seems!’

  Daisy wrenched her mind away from the thought of the fête.

  ‘It won’t always, dear,’ she said, making a sympathetic little dab at Lucia’s wrist. ‘Your joy in life will revive again. I see you’ve got Pepino’s poems there. Won’t you read me one?’

  Lucia responded to this gesture with another dab.

  ‘Do you remember the last one he wrote?’ she said. ‘He called it “Loneliness”. I was away in London at the time. Beginning:

  The spavined storm-clouds limp down the ruinous sky,

  While I sit alone.

  Thick through the acid air the dumb leaves fly …

  But I won’t read it you now. Another time.’

  Daisy gave one more sympathetic poke at her wrist, and rose to go.

  ‘Must be off,’ she said. ‘Won’t you come round and dine quietly to-night?’

  ‘I can’t, many thanks. Georgie is dining with me. Any news in Riseholme this morning?’

  Daisy reflected for a moment.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Mrs Arbuthnot’s got a wonderful new apparatus. Not an ear-trumpet at all. She just bites on a small leather pad, and hears everything perfectly. Then she takes it out of her mouth and answers you, and puts it back again to listen.’

  ‘No!’ said Lucia excitedly. ‘All wet?’

  ‘Quite dry. Just between her teeth. No wetter anyhow than a pen you put in your mouth, I assure you.’

  Daisy hurried away to do some more exercises and drink pints and pints of hot water before lunch. She felt that she had emerged safely from a situation which might easily have become menacing, for without question Lucia, in spite of her sighs and her wistful stroking of the covers of Pepino’s poems, and her great crêpe bow, was beginning to show signs of her old animation. She had given Daisy a glance or two from that beady eye which had the qualities of a gimlet about it, she had shown eager interest in such topics as the roasting of the sheep and Mrs Arbuthnot’s gadget, which a few weeks ago would not have aroused the slightest response from her stricken mind, and it was lucky, Daisy thought, that Lucia had given her the definite assurance that even the part of Drake’s wife in the fête would be too much for her. For goodness only knew, when once Lucia settled to be on the mend, how swift her recuperation might be, or what mental horse-power in the way of schemings and domination she might not develop after this fallow period of quiescence. There was a new atmosphere about her to-day: she was like some spring morning when, though winds might still be chilly and the sun still of tepid and watery beams, the air was pregnant with the imminent birth of new life. But evidently she meant to take no hand in the fête, which at present completely filled Daisy’s horizon. ‘She may do what she likes afterwards,’ thought Daisy, breaking into a trot, ‘but I will be Queen Elizabeth.’

  Her house, with its mulberry-tree in front and its garden at the back, stood next Georgie Pillson’s on the edge of the green, and as she passed through it and out on to the lawn behind, she heard from the other side of the paling that tap-tap of croquet-mallet and ball which now almost without cessation punctuated the hours of any fine morning. Georgie had developed a craze for solitary croquet: he spent half the day practising all by himself, to the great neglect of his water-colour painting and his piano-playing. He seemed indeed, apart from croquet, to be losing his zest for life; he took none of his old interest in the thrilling top’s of Riseholme. He had not been a bit excited at Daisy’s description of Mrs Arbuthnot’s new apparatus, and the prospect of impersonating Francis Drake at the forthcoming fête aroused only the most tepid enthusiasm in him. A book of Elizabethan costumes, full of sumptuous coloured plates, had roused him for a while from his lethargy, and he had chosen a white satin tunic with puffed sleeves slashed with crimson, and a cloak of rose-coloured silk, on the reproduction of which his peerless parlourmaid Foljambe was at work, but he didn’t seem to have any keenness about him. Of course he had had some rather cruel blows of Fate to contend against lately: Miss Olga Bracely the prima donna to whom he had been so devoted had left Riseholme a month ago for a year’s operatic tour in the United States and Australia, and that was a desolate bereavement for him, while Lucia’s determination not to do any of all these things which she had once enjoyed so much had deprived him of all the duets they used to play together. Moreover, it was believed in Riseholme (though only whispered at present) that Foljambe, that paragon of parlourmaids, in whom the smoothness and comfort of his domestic life was centred, was walking out with Cadman, Lucia’s chauffeur. It might not mean anything, but if it did, if Foljambe and he intended to get married and Foljambe left Georgie, and if Georgie had got wind of this, then indeed there would be good cause for that lack of zest, that air of gloom and apprehension which was now so often noticeable in him. All these causes, the blows Fate had already rained on him, and the anxiety concerning this possible catastrophe in the future, probably contributed to the eclipsed condition of his energies.

  Daisy sat down on a garden-bench, and began to do a little deep-breathing, which was a relic of the days when she had studied Yoga. It was important to concentrate (otherwise the deep-breathing did no good at all), or rather to attain a complete blankness of mind and exclude from it all mundane interests which were Maya, or illusion. But this morning she found it difficult: regiments of topics grew up like mushrooms. Now she congratulated herself on having made certain that Lucia was not intending to butt into the fête, now she began to have doubts – these were disconcerting mushrooms – as to whether that was so certain, for Lucia was much brisker to-day than she had been since Pepino’s death, and if that continued, her reawakened interest in life would surely seek for some outlet. Then the thought of her own speech to her troops at Tilbury began to leak into her mind: would she ever get it so thoroughly by heart that she could feel sure that no attack of nervousness or movement on the part of her palfrey would put it out of her head? Above all there was that disturbing tap-tap going on from Georgie’s garden, and however much she tried to attain blankness of mind, she found herself listening for the next tap … It was no use and she got up.

  ‘Georgie, are you there?’ she called out.

  ‘Yes,’ came his voice, trembling with excitement. ‘Wait a minute. I’ve gone through nine hoops and – Oh, how tarsome, I missed quite an easy one. What is it? I rather wish you hadn’t called me just then.’

  Georgie was tall, and he could look over the paling. Daisy pulled her chair up to it, and mounted on it, so that they could converse with level heads.

  ‘So sorry, Georgie,’ she said, ‘I didn’t know you were making such a break. Fancy! Nine! I wanted to tell you I’ve been to see Lucia.’

  ‘Is that all? I knew that because I saw you,’ said Georgie. ‘I was polishing my bibelots in the drawing-room. And you sat in Perdita’s garden.’

  ‘And there’s a change,’ continued Daisy, who had kept her mouth open, in order to go on again as soon as Georgie stopped. ‘She’s better. Distinctly. More interested, and not so faint and die-away. Sarcastic about the roast sheep for instance.’

  ‘What? Did she talk about the fête again?’ asked Georgie. ‘That is an improvement.’

  ‘That was what I went to talk about. I asked her if she wouldn’t make an effort to be Drake’s wife. But she said it would be too great a strain.’

  ‘My dear, you didn’t ask her to be Drake’s wife?’ said Georgie incredulously. ‘You might as well have asked her to be a confused noise within. What can you have been thinking of?’

  ‘Anyhow, she said she couldn’t be anything at all,’ said Daisy. ‘I have her word for that. But if she is recovering, and I’m sure she is, her head will be full of plans again. I’m not quite happy about it.’

  ‘What you mean is that you’re afraid she may want to be the Queen,’ observed Georgie
acutely.

  ‘I won’t give it up,’ said Daisy very firmly, not troubling to confirm so obvious an interpretation. ‘I’ve had all the trouble of it, and very nearly learnt the speech to the troops, and made my ruff and bought a rope of pearls. It wouldn’t be fair, Georgie. So don’t encourage her, will you? I know you’re dining with her to-night.’

  ‘No, I won’t encourage her,’ said he. ‘But you know what Lucia is, when she’s in working order. If she wants a thing, she gets it somehow. It happens. That’s all you can say about it.’

  ‘Well, this one shan’t happen,’ said Daisy, dismounting from her basket-chair which was beginning to sag. ‘It would be too mean. And I wish you would come across now and let us practise that scene where I knight you. We must get it very slick.’

  ‘Not this morning,’ said Georgie. ‘I know my bit: I’ve only got to kneel down. You can practise on the end of a sofa. Besides, if Lucia is really waking up, I shall take some duets across this evening, and I must have a go at some of them. I’ve not touched my piano for weeks. And my shoulder’s sore where you knighted me so hard the other day. Quite a bruise.’

  Daisy suddenly remembered something more.

  ‘And Lucia repeated me several lines out of one of Pepino’s last poems,’ she said. ‘She couldn’t possibly have done that a month ago without breaking down. And I believe she would have read one to me when I asked her to, but I’m pretty sure she couldn’t undo one of those tapes that the book is tied up with. A hard knot. She was picking at it …’

  ‘Oh, she must be better,’ said he. ‘Ever so much.’

  So Georgie went in to practise some of the old duets in case Lucia felt equal to evoking the memories of happier days at the piano, and Daisy hit the end of her sofa some half-dozen times with her umbrella bidding it rise Sir Francis Drake. She still wondered if Lucia had some foul scheme in her head, but though there had ticked by some minutes, directly after their talk in Perdita’s garden, which might have proved exceedingly dangerous to her own chance of being the Queen, these, by the time that she was knighting the sofa, had passed. For Lucia, still meditating whether she should not lay plots for ousting Daisy, had, in default of getting that knotted tape undone, turned to her unread Times, and scanned its columns with a rather absent eye. There was no news that could interest anybody, and her glance wandered up and down the lists of situations vacant and wanted, of the sailings of steamers, and finally of houses to be let for summer months. There was a picture of one with a plain pleasant Queen Anne front looking on to a cobbled street. It was highly attractive, and below it she read that Miss Mapp sought a tenant for her house in Tilling, called Mallards, for the months of August and September. Seven bedrooms, four sitting-rooms, h. & c. and an old-world garden. At that precise psychological moment Daisy’s prospects of being Queen Elizabeth became vastly rosier, for this house to let started an idea in Lucia’s mind which instantly took precedence of other schemes. She must talk to Georgie about it this evening: till then it should simmer. Surely also the name of Miss Mapp aroused faint echoes of memory in her mind: she seemed to remember a large woman with a wide smile who had stayed at the Ambermere Arms a few years ago, and had been very agreeable but slightly superior. Georgie would probably remember her … But the sun had become extremely powerful, and Lucia picked up her Times and her book of poems and went indoors to the cool lattice-paned parlour where her piano stood. By it was a book-case with volumes of bound-up music, and she drew from it one which contained the duets over which Georgie and she used to be so gay and so industrious. These were Mozart quartettes arranged for four hands, delicious, rippling airs: it was months since she had touched them, or since the music-room had resounded to anything but the most sombre and pensive strains. Now she opened the book and put it on the music-rest. ‘Uno, due, tre,’ she said to herself and began practising the treble part which was the more amusing to play.

  Georgie saw the difference in her at once when he arrived for dinner that evening. She was sitting outside in Perdita’s garden and for the first time hailed him as of old in brilliant Italian.

  ‘Buona sera, caro,’ she said. ‘Come sta?’

  ‘Molto bene,’ he answered, ‘and what a caldo day. I’ve brought a little music across with me in case you felt inclined. Mozartino.’

  ‘What a good idea! We will have un po’ di musica afterwards, but I’ve got tanto, tanto to talk to you about. Come in: dinner will be ready. Any news?’

  ‘Let me think,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t think there’s much. I’ve got rather a bruised shoulder where Daisy knighted me the other day –’

  ‘Dear Daisy!’ said Lucia. ‘A little heavy-handed sometimes, don’t you find? Not a light touch. She was in here this morning talking about the fête. She urged me to take part in it. What part do you think she suggested, Georgie? You’ll never guess.’

  ‘I never should have, if she hadn’t told me,’ he said. ‘The most ludicrous thing I ever heard.’

  Lucia sighed.

  ‘I’m afraid not much more ludicrous than her being Queen Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘Daisy on a palfrey addressing her troops! Georgie dear, think of it! It sounds like that rather vulgar game called “Consequences”. Daisy, I am afraid, has got tipsy with excitement at the thought of being a queen. She is running amok, and she will make a deplorable exhibition of herself, and Riseholme will become the laughing-stock of all those American tourists who come here in August to see our lovely Elizabethan village. The village will be all right, but what of Elizabeth? Tacete un momento, Georgie. Le domestiche.’

  Georgie’s Italian was rusty after so much disuse, but he managed to translate this sentence to himself, and unerringly inferred that Lucia did not want to pursue the subject while Grosvenor, the parlourmaid, and her colleague were in the room.

  ‘Sicuro,’ he said, and made haste to help himself to his fish. The domestiche thereupon left the room again, to be summoned back by the stroke of a silver bell in the shape of a pomander which nestled among pepper- and mustard-pots beside Lucia. Almost before the door had closed on their exit, Lucia began to speak again.

  ‘Of course after poor Daisy’s suggestion I shall take no part myself in this fête,’ she said; ‘and even if she besought me on her knees to play Queen Elizabeth, I could not dream of doing so. She cannot deprive me of what I may call a proper pride, and since she has thought good to offer me the role of Drake’s wife, who, she hastened to explain, only came on for one moment and curtsied to her, and then retired into the ranks of men-at-arms and ladies-in-waiting again, my sense of dignity, of which I have still some small fragments left, would naturally prevent me from taking any part in the performance, even at the end of a barge-pole. But I am sorry for Daisy, since she knows her own deficiencies so little, and I shall mourn for Riseholme if the poor thing makes such a mess of the whole affair as she most indubitably will if she is left to organize it herself. That’s all.’

  It appeared, however, that there was a little more, for Lucia quickly finished her fish, and continued at once.

  ‘So after what she said to me this morning, I cannot myself offer to help her, but if you like to do so, Georgie, you can tell her – not from me, mind, but from your own impression – that you think I should be perfectly willing to coach her and make the best I can of her as the embodiment of great Queen Bess. Something might be done with her. She is short, but so was the Queen. She has rather bad teeth, but that doesn’t matter, for the Queen had the same. Again she is not quite a lady, but the Queen also had a marked strain of vulgarity and bourgeoisie. There was a coarse fibre in the Tudors, as I have always maintained. All this, dear Georgie, is to the good. If dear Daisy will only not try to look tall, and if she will smile a good deal, and behave naturally these are advantages, real advantages. But in spite of them Daisy will merely make herself and Riseholme silly if she does not manage to get hold of some semblance of dignity and queenship. Little gestures, little turnings of the head, little graciousnesses; all that acting means. I t
hought it out in those dear old days when we began to plan it, and, as I say, I shall be happy to give poor Daisy all the hints I can, if she will come and ask me to do so. But mind, Georgie, the suggestion must not come from me. You are at liberty to say that you think I possibly might help her, but nothing more than that. Capite?’

  This Italian word, not understanded of the people, came rather late, for already Lucia had struck the bell, as, unconsciously, she was emphasizing her generous proposal, and Grosvenor and her satellite had been in the room quite a long time. Concealment from le domestiche was therefore no longer possible. In fact both Georgie and Lucia had forgotten about the domestiche altogether.

  ‘That’s most kind of you, Lucia,’ said Georgie. ‘But you know what Daisy is. As obstinate as –’

  ‘As a palfrey,’ interrupted Lucia.

  ‘Yes, quite. Certainly I’ll tell her what you say, or rather suggest what you might say if she asked you to coach her, but I don’t believe it will be any use. The whole fête has become an awful bore. There are six weeks yet before it’s held, and she wants to practise knighting me every day, and has processions up and down her garden, and she gets all the tradesmen in the place to walk before her as halberdiers and sea-captains, when they ought to be attending to their businesses and chopping meat and milking cows. Everyone’s sick of it. I wish you would take it over, and be Queen yourself. Oh, I forgot, I promised Daisy I wouldn’t encourage you. Dear me, how awful!’

  Lucia laughed, positively laughed. This was an enormous improvement on the pensive smiles.

  ‘Not awful at all, Georgino mio,’ she said. ‘I can well imagine poor Daisy’s feverish fear that I should try to save her from being ridiculous. She loves being ridiculous, dear thing; it’s a complex with her – that wonderful new book of Freud’s which I must read – and subconsciously she pines to be ridiculous on as large a scale as possible. But as for my taking it over, that’s quite out of the question. To begin with, I don’t suppose I shall be here. Twelfth of August isn’t it? Grouse-shooting opens in Scotland and bear-baiting at Riseholme.’