The Second E. F. Benson Megapack

by E. F. Benson

  He had brought a pretty piece of embroidery with him to occupy himself with, for his work had fallen into sad arrears during August, and he settled himself comfortably down close to the light, so that at the cost of very little eye-strain, he need not put on his spectacles.

  “Any news?” he asked, according to the invariable formula. Mrs Weston caught the Colonel’s eye. She was not proposing to bring out her tremendous interrogation just yet.

  “Poor Mrs Antrobus. Toothache!” she said. “I was in the chemist’s this morning and who should come in but Miss Piggy, and she wanted a drop of laudanum and had to say what it was for, and even then she had to sign a paper. Very unpleasant, I call it, to be obliged to let a chemist know that your mother has a toothache. But there it was, tell him she had to, or go away without any laudanum. I don’t know whether Mr Doubleday wasn’t asking more than he should, just out of inquisitiveness, for I don’t see what business it is of his. I know what I should have said: ‘Oh, Mr Doubleday, I want it to make laudanum tartlets, we are all so fond of laudanum tartlets.’ Something sharp and sarcastic like that, to show him his place. But I expect it did Mrs Antrobus good, for there she was on the green in the afternoon, and her face wasn’t swollen for I had a good look at her. Oh, and there was something I wanted to ask you, Mr Georgie, and I had it on the tip of my tongue a moment ago. We talked about it at dinner, the Colonel and I, while we were eating our bit of partridge, and I thought ‘Mr Georgie will be sure to be able to tell us,’ and if you didn’t ring up on the telephone immediately afterwards! That seemed just Providential, but what’s the use of that, if I can’t remember what it was that I wanted to ask you.”

  This seemed a good opening for his startling news, but Georgie rejected it, as it was too early yet. “I wonder what it could have been,” he said.

  “Well, it will come back to me presently, and here’s our coffee, and I see Elizabeth hasn’t forgotten to bring a drop of something good for you two gentlemen. And I don’t say that I won’t join you, if Elizabeth will bring another glass. What with a glass of Burgundy at my dinner, and a drop of brandy now, I shall be quite tipsy unless I take care. The Guru now, Mr Georgie, no, that’s not what I wanted to ask you about—but has there been any news of the Guru?”

  For a moment in this juxtaposition of the topics of brandy and Guru, Georgie was afraid that something might have leaked out about the contents of the cupboard in Othello. But it was evidently a chance combination, for Mrs Weston went straight on without waiting for an answer.

  “What a day that was,” she said, “when he and Miss Olga Bracely were both at Mrs Lucas’ garden-party. Ah, now I’ve got it; now I know what I wanted to ask. When will Miss Olga Bracely come to live at Old Place? Quite soon now, I suppose.”

  If Georgie had not put down his embroidery with great expedition, he would undoubtedly have pricked his finger.

  “But how on earth did you know she was coming at all?” he said. “I was just going to tell you that she was coming, as a great bit of news. How tarsome! It’s spoiled all my pleasure.”

  “Haw, hum, not a very gallant speech, when you’re talking to Mrs Weston,” said the Colonel, who hated Georgie’s embroidery.

  Luckily the pleasure in the punitive part of the expedition remained and Georgie recovered himself. He had some news too; he could answer Mrs Weston’s question.

  “But it was to have been such a secret until the whole thing was ready,” he said. “I knew all along; I have known since the day of the garden-party. No one but me, not even her husband.”

  He was well rewarded for the recovery of his temper. Mrs Weston put down her glass of something good untasted.

  “What?” she said. “Is she going to live here alone in hiding from him? Have they quarrelled so soon?”

  Georgie had to disappoint her about this, and gave the authentic version.

  “And she’s coming next week, Monday probably,” he said.

  They were all now extremely happy, for Mrs Weston felt convinced that nobody else had put two and two together with the same brilliant result as herself, and Georgie was in the even superior position of having known the result without having to do any addition at all, and Colonel Boucher enjoyed the first fruits of it all. When they parted, having thoroughly discussed it, the chief preoccupation in the minds of all was the number of Riseholmites that each of them would be the first to pass on the news to, Mrs Weston could tell Elizabeth that night, and Colonel Boucher his bull-dogs, but the first blood was really drawn by Georgie, who seeing a light in Mrs Quantock’s drawing room when he returned, dropped in for a moment and scored a right and left by telling Robert who let him in, before going upstairs, and Mrs Quantock when he got there. It was impossible to do any more that night.

  Lucia was always very busy of a morning in polishing the sword and shield of Art, in order to present herself daily to her subjects in shining armour, and keep a little ahead of them all in culture, and thus did not as a rule take part in the parliament on the Green. Moreover Georgie usually dropped in before lunch, and her casual interrogation “Any news?” as they sat down to the piano, elicited from him, as in a neat little jug, the cream of the morning’s milkings. Today she was attired in her Teacher’s Robe, for the elementary class, though not always now in full conclave, gathered at her house on Tuesdays and Fridays. There had been signs of late that the interest of her pupils was on the wane, for Colonel Boucher had not appeared for two meetings, nor had Mrs Weston come to the last, but it was part of Lucia’s policy to let Guruism die a natural death without herself facilitating its happy release, and she meant to be ready for her class at the appointed times as long as anybody turned up. Besides the Teacher’s Robe was singularly becoming and she often wore it when there was no question of teaching at all.

  But today, though she would not have been surprised at the complete absence of pupils, she was still in consultation with her cook over the commissariat of the day, when a succession of tinklings from the mermaid’s tail, announced that a full meeting was assembling. Her maid in fact had announced to her without pause except to go to the door and back, though it still wanted a few minutes to eleven, that Colonel Boucher, Mrs Weston, Mrs Antrobus and Piggy were all assembled in the smoking-parlour. Even as she passed through the hall on her way there, Georgie came hurrying across Shakespeare’s garden, his figure distorted through the wavy glass of the windows, and she opened the door to him herself.

  “Georgino mio,” she said, “oo not angry with Lucia for saying she was busy last night? And now I’m just going to take my Yoga-class. They all came rather early and I haven’t seen any of them yet. Any news?”

  Georgie heaved a sigh; all Riseholme knew by this time, and he was going to score one more by telling Lucia.

  “My dear, haven’t you heard yet?” he asked. “I was going to tell you last night.”

  “The tenant of Old Place?” asked Lucia unerringly.

  “Yes. Guess!” said Georgie tantalizingly. This was his last revelation and he wanted to spin it out.

  Lucia decided on a great stroke, involving risks but magnificent if it came off. In a flash she guessed why all the Yoga-class had come so super-punctually; each of them she felt convinced wanted to have the joy of telling her, after everybody else knew, who the new tenant was. On the top of this bitterness was the added acrimony of Georgie, whose clear duty it was to have informed her the moment he knew, wanting to make the same revelation to her, last of all Riseholme. She had already had her suspicions, for she had not forgotten the fact that Olga Bracely and Georgie had played croquet all afternoon when they should have been at her garden-party, and she determined to risk all for the sake of spoiling Georgie’s pleasure in telling her. She gave her silvery laugh, that started, so she had ascertained, on A flat above the treble clef.

  “Georgino, did all my questions as to who it was really take you in?” she asked. “Just as if I hadn’t known all along! Why, Miss Olga Bracely, of course!”

  Georgie’s fallen
face shewed her how completely she had spoiled his pleasure.

  “Who told you?” he asked.

  She rattled her tassels.

  “Little bird!” she said. “I must run away to my class, or they will scold me.”

  Once again before they settled down to high philosophies, Lucia had the pleasure of disappointing the ambitions of her class to surprise, inform and astonish her.

  “Good morning to you all,” she said, “and before we settle down I’ll give you a little bit of news now that at last I’m allowed to. Dear Miss Olga Bracely, whom I think you all met here, is coming to live at Old Place. Will she not be a great addition to our musical parties? Now, please.”

  But this splendid bravado was but a scintillation, on a hard and highly polished surface, and had Georgie been able to penetrate into Lucia’s heart he would have found complete healing for his recent severe mortification. He did not really believe that Lucia had known all along, like himself, who the new tenant was, for her enquiries had seemed to be pointed with the most piercing curiosity, but, after all, Lucia (when she did not forget her part) was a fine actress, and perhaps all the time he thought he had been punishing her, she had been fooling him. And, in any ease, he certainly had not had the joy of telling her; whether she had guessed or really knew, it was she who had told him, and there was no getting over it. He went back straight home and drew a caricature of her.

  But if Georgie was sitting with a clouded brow, Lucia was troubled by nothing less than a raging tornado of agitated thought. Though Olga would undoubtedly be a great addition to the musical talent of Riseholme, would she fall into line, and, for instance, “bring her music” and sing after dinner when Lucia asked her? As regards music, it was possible that she might be almost too great an addition, and cause the rest of the gifted amateurs to sink into comparative insignificance. At present Lucia was high-priestess at every altar of Art, and she could not think with equanimity of seeing anybody in charge of the ritual at any. Again to so eminent an opera-singer there must be conceded a certain dramatic knowledge, and indeed Georgie had often spoken to Lucia of that superb moment when Brunnhilde woke and hailed the sun. Must Lucia give up the direction of dramatic art as well as of music?

  Point by point pricked themselves out of the general gloom, and hoisted danger signals; then suddenly the whole was in blaze together. What if Olga took the lead, not in this particular or in that, but attempted to constitute herself supreme in the affairs of Riseholme? It was all very well for her to be a brilliant bird of passage just for a couple of days, and drop so to speak, “a moulted feather, a eagle’s feather” on Lucia’s party, thereby causing it to shine out from all previous festivities, making it the Hightumest affair that had ever happened, but it was a totally different matter to contemplate her permanent residence here. It seemed possible that then she might keep her feathers to line her own eyrie. She thought of Belshazzar’s feast, and the writing of doom on the wall which she was Daniel enough to interpret herself, “Thy kingdom is divided” it said, “and given to the Bracelys or the Shuttleworths.”

  She rallied her forces. If Olga meant to show herself that sort of woman, she should soon know with whom she had to deal. Not but what Lucia would give her the chance first of behaving with suitable loyalty and obedience; she would even condescend to cooperate with her so long as it was perfectly clear that she aimed at no supremacy. But there was only one lawgiver in Riseholme, one court of appeal, one dispenser of destiny.

  Her own firmness of soul calmed and invigorated her, and changing her Teacher’s Robe for a walking dress, she went out up the road that led by Old Place, to see what could be observed of the interior from outside.

  CHAPTER TEN

  One morning about the middle of October, Lucia was seated at breakfast and frowning over a note she had just received. It began without any formality and was written in pencil.

  “Do look in about half-past nine on Saturday and be silly for an hour or two. We’ll play games and dance, shall we? Bring your husband of course, and don’t bother to reply.

  “O.B.”

  “An invitation,” she said icily, as she passed it to her husband. “Rather short notice.”

  “We’re not doing anything, are we?” he asked.

  Peppino was a little imperceptive sometimes.

  “No, it wasn’t that I meant,” she said. “But there’s a little more informality about it than one would expect.”

  “Probably it’s an informal party,” said he.

  “It certainly seems most informal. I am not accustomed to be asked quite like that.”

  Peppino began to be aware of the true nature of the situation.

  “I see what you mean, cara,” he said. “So don’t let us go. Then she will take the hint perhaps.”

  Lucia thought this over for a moment and found that she rather wanted to go. But a certain resentment that had been slowly accumulating in her mind for some days past began to leak out first, before she consented to overlook Olga’s informality.

  “It is a fortnight since I called on her,” she said, “and she has not even returned the call. I daresay they behave like that in London in certain circles, but I don’t know that London is any better for it.”

  “She has been away twice since she came,” said Peppino. “She has hardly been here for a couple of days together yet.”

  “I may be wrong,” said Lucia. “No doubt I am wrong. But I should have thought that she might have spared half-an-hour out of these days by returning my call. However, she thought not.”

  Peppino suddenly recollected a thrilling piece of news which most unaccountably he had forgotten to tell Lucia.

  “Dear me, something slipped my memory,” he said. “I met Mrs Weston yesterday afternoon, who told me that half an hour ago Miss Bracely had seen her in her bath-chair and had taken the handles from Tommy Luton, and pushed her twice round the green, positively running.”

  “That does not seem to me of very prime importance,” said Lucia, though she was thrilled to the marrow. “I do not wonder it slipped your memory, caro.”

  “Carissima, wait a minute. That is not all. She told Mrs Weston that she would have returned her call, but that she hadn’t got any calling cards.”

  “Impossible!” cried Lucia. “They could have printed them at ‘Ye olde Booke Shop’ in an afternoon.”

  “That may be so, indeed, if you say so, it is,” said Peppino. “Anyhow she said she hadn’t got any calling cards, and I don’t see why she should lie about it.”

  “No, it is not the confession one would be likely to make,” said she, “unless it was true. Or even if it was,” she added.

  “Anyhow it explains why she has not been here,” said Peppino. “She would naturally like to do everything in order, when she called on you, carissima. It would have been embarrassing if you were out, and she could not hand in her card.”

  “And about Mr Shuttleworth?” asked she in an absent voice, as if she had no real interest in her question.

  “He has not been seen yet at all, as far as I can gather.”

  “Then shall we have no host, if we drop in tomorrow night?”

  “Let us go and see, cara,” said he gaily.

  Apart from this matter of her call not being returned, Lucia had not as yet had any reason to suspect Olga of revolutionary designs on the throne. She had done odd things, pushing Mrs Weston’s chair round the green was one of them, smoking a cigarette as she came back from church on Sunday was another, but these she set down to the Bohemianism and want of polish which might be expected from her upbringing, if you could call an orphan school at Brixton an upbringing at all. This terrific fact Georgie had let slip in his stern determination to know twice as much about Olga as anybody else, and Lucia had treasured it. She had in the last fortnight labelled Olga as “rather common,” retaining, however, a certain respect for her professional career, given that that professional career was to be thrown down as a carpet for her own feet. But, after all, if Olga was
a bit Bohemian in her way of life, as exhibited by the absence of calling cards, Lucia was perfectly ready to overlook that (confident in the refining influence of Riseholme), and to go to the informal party next day, if she felt so disposed, for no direct answer was asked for.

  There was a considerable illumination in the windows of Old Place when she and Peppino set out after dinner next night to go to the “silly” party, kindly overlooking the informality and the absence of a return visit to her call. It had been a sloppy day of rain, and, as was natural, Lucia carried some very smart indoor shoes in a paper-parcel and Peppino had his Russian goloshes on. These were immense snow-boots, in which his evening shoes were completely encased, but Lucia preferred not to disfigure her feet to that extent, and was clad in neat walking-boots which she could exchange for her smart satin footwear in the cloak-room. The resumption of walking-boots when the evening was over was rather a feature among the ladies and was called “The cobbler’s at-home.” The two started rather late, for it was fitting that Lucia should be the last to arrive.