The Complete Mapp & Lucia

by E. F. Benson

  Vigorous reflections like these came in fits and spurts from Mrs. Boucher as her husband wheeled her home for lunch.

  “And as for the pearls, Jacob,” she said, as she got out, hot with indignation, “if you asked me, actually asked me what I think about the pearls, I should have to tell you that I don’t believe in the pearls. There may be half a dozen seed pearls in an old pill-box: I don’t say there are not, but that’s all the pearls we shall see. Pearls!”

  CHAPTER III

  Georgie had only just come down to breakfast and had not yet opened his Times, one morning at the end of this hectic week, when the telephone bell rang. Lucia had not been seen at all the day before and he had a distinct premonition, though he had not time to write it down, that this was she. It was: and her voice sounded very brisk and playful.

  “Is that Georgino?” she said. “Zat oo, Georgie?”

  Georgie had another premonition, stronger than the first.

  “Yes, it’s me,” he said.

  “Georgie, is oo coming round to say Ta-ta to poor Lucia and Pepino?” she said.

  (‘I knew it,’ thought Georgie.) “What, are you going away?” he asked.

  “Yes, I told you the other night,” said Lucia in a great hurry, “when you were doing cross-words, you and Pepino. Sure I did. Perhaps you weren’t attending. But—”

  “No, you never told me,” said Georgie firmly.

  “How cwoss oo sounds. But come round, Georgie, about eleven and have ‘ickle chat. We’re going to be very stravvy and motor up, and perhaps keep the motor for a day or two.”

  “And when are you coming back?” asked Georgie.

  “Not quite settled,” said Lucia brightly. “There’s a lot of bizz-bizz for poor Pepino. Can’t quite tell how long it will take. Eleven, then?”

  Georgie had hardly replaced the receiver when there came a series of bangs and rings at his front door, and Foljambe coming from the kitchen with his dish of bacon in one hand, turned to open it. It was only de Vere with a copy of the Times in her hand.

  “With Mrs. Quantock’s compliments,” said de Vere, “and would Mr. Pillson look at the paragraph she has marked, and send it back? Mrs. Quantock will see him whenever he comes round.”

  “That all?” said Foljambe rather crossly. “What did you want to knock the house down for then?”

  De Vere vouchsafed no reply, but turned slowly in her high-heeled shoes and regarded the prospect.

  Georgie also had come into the hall at this battering summons, and Foljambe gave him the paper. There were a large blue pencil mark and several notes of exclamation opposite a short paragraph.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas will arrive to-day from The Hurst, Riseholme, at 25 Brompton Square.”

  “No!” said Georgie. “Tell Mrs. Quantock I’ll look in after breakfast,” and he hurried back, and opened his copy of the Times to see if it were the same there. It was: there was no misprint, nor could any other interpretation be attached to it. Though he knew the fact already, print seemed to bring it home. Print also disclosed the further fact that Lucia must have settled everything at least before the morning post yesterday, or this paragraph could never have appeared to-day. He gobbled up his breakfast, burning his tongue terribly with his tea…

  “It isn’t only deception,” said Daisy the moment he appeared without even greeting him, “for that we knew already, but it’s funk as well. She didn’t dare tell us.”

  “She’s going to motor up,” said Georgie, “starting soon after eleven. She’s just asked me to come and say goodbye.”

  “That’s more deception then,” said Daisy, “for naturally, having read that, we should have imagined she was going up by the afternoon train, and gone round to say goodbye after lunch, and found her gone. If I were you, I shouldn’t dream of going to say goodbye to her after this. She’s shaking the dust of Riseholme off her London shoes… But we’ll have no May Day revels if I’ve got anything to do with it.”

  “Nor me,” said Georgie. “But it’s no use being cross with her. Besides, it’s so terribly interesting. I shouldn’t wonder if she was writing some invitations on the cards you saw—”

  “No, I never saw the cards,” said Daisy, scrupulously. “Only the plate.”

  “It’s the same thing. She may be writing invitations now, to post in London.”

  “Go a little before eleven then, and see,” said Daisy. “Even if she’s not writing them then, there’ll be envelopes lying about perhaps.”

  “Come too,” said Georgie.

  “Certainly not,” said Daisy. “If Lucia doesn’t choose to tell me she’s going away, the only dignified thing to do is to behave as if I knew nothing whatever about it. I’m sure I hope she’ll have a very pleasant drive. That’s all I can say about it; I take no further interest in her movements. Besides, I’m very busy: I’ve got to finish weeding my garden, for I’ve not been able to touch it these last days, and then my Planchette arrived this morning. And a Ouija board.”

  “What’s that?” said Georgie.

  “A sort of Planchette, but much more—much more powerful. Only it takes longer, as it points at letters instead of writing,” said Daisy. “I shall begin with Planchette and take it up seriously, because I know I’m very psychic, and there’ll be a little time for it now that we shan’t be trapesing round all day in ruffs and stomachers over those May-Day revels. Perhaps there’ll be May-Day revels in Brompton Square for a change. I shouldn’t wonder: nothing would surprise me about Lucia now. And it’s my opinion we shall get on very well without her.”

  Georgie felt he must stick up for her: she was catching it so frightfully hot all round.

  “After all, it isn’t criminal to spend a few weeks in London,” he observed.

  “Whoever said it was?” said Daisy. “I’m all for everybody doing exactly as they like. I just shrug my shoulders.”

  She heaved up her round little shoulders with an effort.

  “Georgie, how do you think she’ll begin up there?” she said. “There’s that cousin of hers with whom she stayed sometimes, Aggie Sandeman, and then, of course, there’s Olga Bracely. Will she just pick up acquaintances, and pick up more from them, like one of those charity snowballs? Will she be presented? Not that I take the slightest interest in it.”

  Georgie looked at his watch and rose.

  “I do,” he said. “I’m thrilled about it. I expect she’ll manage. After all, we none of us wanted to have May Day revels last year but she got us to. She’s got drive.”

  “I should call it push,” said Daisy. “Come back and tell me exactly what’s happened.”

  “Any message?” asked Georgie.

  “Certainly not,” said Daisy again, and began untying the string of the parcel that held the instruments of divination.

  Georgie went quickly down the road (for he saw Lucia’s motor already at the door) and up the paved walk that led past the sundial, round which was the circular flower-border known as Perdita’s border, for it contained only the flowers that Perdita gathered. To-day it was all a-bloom with daffodils and violets and primroses, and it was strange to think that Lucia would not go gassing on about Perdita’s border, as she always did at this time of the year, but would have to be content with whatever flowers there happened to be in Brompton Square: a few sooty crocuses perhaps and a periwinkle… She was waiting for him, kissed her hand through the window, and opened the door.

  “Now for little chat,” she said, adjusting a very smart hat, which Georgie was sure he had never seen before. There was no trace of mourning about it: it looked in the highest spirits. So, too, did Lucia.

  “Sit down, Georgie,” she said, “and cheer me up. Poor Lucia feels ever so sad at going away.”

  “It is rather sudden,” he said. “Nobody dreamed you were off to-day, at least until they saw The Times this morning.”

  Lucia gave a little sigh.

  “I know,” she said, “but Pepino thought that was the best plan. He said that if Riseholme knew when I
was going, you’d all have had little dinners and lunches for us, and I should have been completely worn out with your kindness and hospitality. And there was so much to do, and we weren’t feeling much like gaiety. Seen anybody this morning? Any news?”

  “I saw Daisy,” said Georgie.

  “And told her?”

  “No, it was she who saw it in The Times first, and sent it round to me,” said Georgie. “She’s got a Ouija board, by the way. It came this morning.”

  “That’s nice,” said Lucia. “I shall think of Riseholme as being ever so busy. And everybody must come up and stay with me, and you first of all. When will you be able to come?”

  “Whenever you ask me,” said Georgie.

  “Then you must give me a day or two to settle down, and I’ll write to you. You’ll be popping across though every moment of the day to see Olga.”

  “She’s in Paris,” said Georgie.

  “No! What a disappointment! I had already written her a card, asking her to dine with us the day after tomorrow, which I was taking up to London to post there.”

  “She may be back by then,” said Georgie.

  Lucia rose and went to her writing table, on which, as Georgie was thrilled to observe, was a whole pile of stamped and directed envelopes.

  “I think I won’t chance it,” said Lucia, “for I had enclosed another card for Signor Cortese which I wanted her to forward, asking him for the same night. He composed ‘Lucrezia’ you know, which I see is coming out in London in the first week of the Opera Season, with her, of course, in the name-part. But it will be safer to ask them when I know she is back.”

  Georgie longed to know to whom all the other invitations were addressed. He saw that the top one was directed to an M. P., and guessed that it was for the member for the Riseholme district, who had lunched at The Hurst during the last election.

  “And what are you going to do to-night?” he asked.

  “Dining with dear Aggie Sandeman. I threw myself on her mercy, for the servants won’t have settled in, and I hoped we should have just a little quiet evening with her. But it seems that she’s got a large dinner-party on. Not what I should have chosen, but there’s no help for it now. Oh, Georgie, to think of you in dear old quiet Riseholme and poor Pepino and me gabbling and gobbling at a huge dinner-party.”

  She looked wistfully round the room.

  “Goodbye, dear music-room,” she said, kissing her hand in all directions. “How glad I shall be to get back! Oh, Georgie, your Manual on Auction Bridge got packed by mistake. So sorry. I’ll send it back. Come in and play the piano sometimes, and then it won’t feel lonely. We must be off, or Pepino will get fussing. Say goodbye to everyone for us, and explain. And Perdita’s border! Will sweet Perdita forgive me for leaving all her lovely flowers and running away to London? After all, Georgie, Shakespeare wrote ‘The Winter’s Tale’ in London, did he not? Lovely daffies! And violets dim. Let me give you ‘ickle violet, Georgie, to remind you of poor Lucia tramping about in long unlovely streets, as Tennyson said.”

  Lucia, so Georgie felt, wanted no more comments or questions about her departure, and went on drivelling like this till she was safely in the motor. She had expected Pepino to be waiting for her and beginning to fuss, but so far from his fussing he was not there at all. So she got in a fuss instead.

  “Georgino, will you run back and shout for Pepino?” she said. “We shall be so late, and tell him that I am sitting in the motor waiting. Ah, there he is! Pepino, where have you been? Do get in and let us start, for there are Piggie and Goosie running across the green, and we shall never get off if we have to begin kissing everybody. Give them my love, Georgie, and say how sorry we were just to miss them. Shut the door quickly, Pepino, and tell him to drive on.”

  The motor purred and started. Lucia was gone. “She had a bad conscience too,” thought Georgie, as Piggy and Goosie gambolled up rather out of breath with pretty playful cries, “and I’m sure I don’t wonder.”

  The news that she had gone of course now spread rapidly, and by lunch time Riseholme had made up its mind what to do, and that was hermetically to close its lips for ever on the subject of Lucia. You might think what you pleased, for it was a free country, but silence was best. But this counsel of perfection was not easy to practice next day when the evening paper came. There, for all the world to read were two quite long paragraphs, in “Five o’clock Chit-Chat,” over the renowned signature of Hermione, entirely about Lucia and 25 Brompton Square, and there for all the world to see was the reproduction of one of her most elegant photographs, in which she gazed dreamily outwards and a little upwards, with her fingers still pressed on the last chord of (probably) the Moonlight Sonata… She had come up, so Hermione told countless readers, from her Elizabethan country seat at Riseholme (where she was a neighbour of Miss Olga Bracely) and was settling for the season in the beautiful little house in Brompton Square, which was the freehold property of her husband, and had just come to him on the death of his aunt. It was a veritable treasure house of exquisite furniture, with a charming music-room where Lucia had given Hermione a cup of tea from her marvellous Worcester tea service… (At this point Daisy, whose hands were trembling with passion, exclaimed in a loud and injured voice, “The very day she arrived!”) Mrs. Lucas (one of the Warwickshire Smythes by birth) was, as all the world knew, a most accomplished musician and Shakespearean scholar, and had made Riseholme a centre of culture and art. But nobody would suspect the blue stocking in the brilliant, beautiful and witty hostess whose presence would lend an added gaiety to the London season.

  Daisy was beginning to feel physically unwell. She hurried over the few remaining lines, and then ejaculating “Witty! Beautiful!” sent de Vere across to Georgie’s with the paper, bidding him to return it, as she hadn’t finished with it. But she thought he ought to know… Georgie read it through, and with admirable self restraint, sent Foljambe back with it and a message of thanks—nothing more—to Mrs. Quantock for the loan of it. Daisy, by this time feeling better, memorised the whole of it.

  Life under the new conditions was not easy, for a mere glance at the paper might send any true Riseholmite into a paroxysm of chattering rage or a deep disgusted melancholy. The Times again recorded the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas had arrived at 25 Brompton Square, there was another terrible paragraph headed ‘Dinner,’ stating that Mrs. Sandeman entertained the following to dinner. There was an Ambassador, a Marquis, a Countess (dowager), two Viscounts with wives, a Baronet, a quantity of Honourables and Knights, and Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas. Every single person except Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas had a title. The list was too much for Mrs. Boucher, who, reading it at breakfast, suddenly exclaimed: “I didn’t think it of them. And it’s a poor consolation to know that they must have gone in last.”

  Then she hermetically sealed her lips again on this painful subject, and when she had finished her breakfast (her appetite had quite gone) she looked up every member of that degrading party in Colonel Boucher’s “Who’s Who.”

  The announcement that Mr. and Mrs. Philip Lucas had arrived at 25 Brompton Square was repeated once more, in case anybody had missed it (Riseholme had not), and Robert Quantock observed that at this rate the three thousand pounds a year would soon be gone, with nothing to show for it except a few press-cuttings. That was very clever and very withering, but anyone could be withering over such a subject. It roused, it is true, a faint and unexpressed hope that the arrival of Lucia in London had not spontaneously produced the desired effect, or why should she cause it to be repeated so often? But that brought no real comfort, and a few days afterwards, there fell a further staggering blow. There was a Court, and Mrs. Agnes Sandeman presented Mrs. Philip Lucas. Worse yet, her gown was minutely described, and her ornaments were diamonds and pearls.

  The vow of silence could no longer be observed: human nature was human nature, and Riseholme would have burst unless it had spoken, Georgie sitting in his little back parlour overlooking the garden, and lost in exasp
erated meditation, was roused by his name being loudly called from Daisy’s garden next door, and looking out, saw the unprecedented sight of Mrs. Boucher’s bath-chair planted on Daisy’s lawn.

  “She must have come in along the gravel path by the back-door,” he thought to himself. “I shouldn’t have thought it was wide enough.” He looked to see if his tie was straight, and then leaned out to answer.

  “Georgie, come round a minute,” called Daisy. “Have you seen it?”

  “Yes,” said Georgie, “I have. And I’ll come.”

  Mrs. Boucher was talking in her loud emphatic voice, when he arrived.

  “As for pearls,” she said, “I can’t say anything about them, not having seen them. But as for diamonds, the only diamonds she ever had was two or three little chips on the back of her wrist-watch. That I’ll swear to.”

  The two ladies took no notice of him: Daisy referred to the description of Lucia’s dress again.