by E. F. Benson
And Lucia always got what she wanted. There was a force about her he supposed (so different from poor Daisy’s violent yappings and scufflings), which caused things to happen in the way she wished. He had fallen in with all her plans with a zest which it was only reasonable she should interpret favourably: only an hour or two ago he had solemnly affirmed that he must take Mallards Cottage, and the thing already was as good as done, for they were to breakfast to-morrow morning at eight, in order to be at the house-agents’ (Woggle & Pipsqueak, was it? He had forgotten again), as soon as it opened. Things happened like that for her: she got what she wanted. ‘But never, never,’ thought Georgie, ‘shall she get me. I couldn’t possibly marry her, and I won’t. I want to live quietly and do my sewing and my sketching, and see lots of Lucia, and play any amount of duets with her, but not marry her. Pray God, she doesn’t want me to!’
Lucia was lying awake, too, next door, and if either of them could have known what the other was thinking about, they would both instantly have fallen into a refreshing sleep, instead of tossing and turning as they were doing. She, too, knew that for years she and Georgie had let it be taken for granted that they were mutually devoted, and had both about equally encouraged that impression. There had been an interlude, it is true, when that wonderful Olga Bracely had shone (like evening stars singing) over Riseholme, but she was to be absent from England for a year; besides she was married, and even if she had not been would certainly not have married Georgie. ‘So we needn’t consider Olga,’ thought Lucia. ‘It’s all about Georgie and me. Dear Georgie: he was so terribly glad when I began to be myself again, and how he jumped at the plan of coming to Tilling and spending the night here! And how he froze on to the idea of taking Mallards Cottage as soon as he knew I had got Mallards! I’m afraid I’ve been encouraging him to hope. He knows that my year of widowhood is almost over, and on the very eve of its accomplishment, I take him off on this solitary expedition with me. Dear me: it looks as if I was positively asking for it. How perfectly horrible!’
Though it was quite dark, Lucia felt herself blushing.
‘What on earth am I to do?’ continued these disconcerting reflections. ‘If he asks me to marry him, I must certainly refuse, for I couldn’t do so: quite impossible. And then when I say no, he has every right to turn on me, and say I’ve been leading him on. I’ve been taking moonlight walks with him, I’m at this moment staying alone with him in an hotel. Oh dear! Oh dear!’
Lucia sat up in bed and listened. She longed to hear sounds of snoring from the next room, for that would show that the thought of the fulfilment of his long devotion was not keeping him awake, but there was no sound of any kind.
‘I must do something about it to-morrow,’ she said to herself, ‘for if I allow things to go on like this, these two months here with him will be one series of agitating apprehensions. I must make it quite clear that I won’t before he asks me. I can’t bear to think of hurting Georgie, but it will hurt him less if I show him beforehand he’s got no chance. Something about the beauty of a friendship untroubled with passion. Something about the tranquillity that comes with age… There’s that eternal old church clock striking three. Surely it must be fast.’
Lucia lay down again: at last she was getting sleepy.
‘Mallards,’ she said to herself. ‘Quaint Irene… Woffles and… Georgie will know. Certainly Tilling is fascinating… Intriguing, too… characters of strong individuality to be dealt with… A great variety, but I think I can manage them… And what about Miss Mapp?… Those wide grins… We shall see about that…’
Lucia awoke herself from a doze by giving a loud snore, and for one agonized moment thought it was Georgie, whom she had hoped to hear snoring, in alarming proximity to herself. That nightmare-spasm was quickly over, and she recognized that it was she that had done it. After all her trouble in not letting a sound of any sort penetrate through that door!
Georgie heard it. He was getting sleepy, too, in spite of his uneasy musings, but he was just wide-awake enough to realize where that noise had come from.
‘And if she snores as well…’ he thought, and dozed off.
CHAPTER 3
It was hardly nine o’clock in the morning when they set out for the house-agents’, and the upper circles of Tilling were not yet fully astir. But there was a town-crier in a blue frock-coat ringing a bell in the High Street and proclaiming that the water-supply would be cut off that day from twelve noon till three in the afternoon. It was difficult to get to the house-agents’, for the street where it was situated was being extensively excavated and they had chosen the wrong side of the road, and though they saw it opposite them when halfway down the street, a long detour must be made to reach it.
‘But so characteristic, so charming,’ said Lucia. ‘Naturally there is a town-crier in Tilling, and naturally the streets are up. Do not be so impatient, Georgie. Ah, we can cross here.’
There was a further period of suspense.
‘The occupier of Mallards Cottage,’ said Mr Woolgar (or it might have been Mr Pipstow), ‘is wanting to let for three months, July, August and September. I’m not so sure that she would entertain—’
‘Then will you please ring her up,’ interrupted Georgie, ‘and say you’ve had a firm offer for two months.’
Mr Woolgar turned round a crank like that used for starting rather old-fashioned motor-cars, and when a bell rang, he gave a number, and got into communication with the brown bungalow without proper plumbing.
‘Very sorry, sir,’ he said, ‘but Miss Poppit has gone out for her sun-bath among the sand-dunes. She usually takes about three hours if fine.’
‘But we’re leaving again this morning,’ said Georgie. ‘Can’t her servant, or whoever it is, search the sand-dunes and ask her?’
‘I’ll inquire, sir,’ said Mr Woolgar sympathetically. ‘But there are about two miles of sand-dunes, and she may be anywhere.’
‘Please inquire,’ said Georgie.
There was an awful period, during which Mr Woolgar kept on saying ‘Quite’, ‘Just so’, ‘I see’, ‘Yes, dear’, with the most tedious monotony, in answer to unintelligible quacking noises from the other end.
‘Quite impossible, I am afraid,’ he said at length. ‘Miss Poppit only keeps one servant, and she’s got to look after the house. Besides, Miss Poppit likes… likes to be private when she’s enjoying the sun.’
‘But how tarsome,’ said Georgie. ‘What am I to do?’
‘Well, sir, there’s Miss Poppit’s mother you might get hold of. She is Mrs Wyse now. Lately married. A beautiful wedding. The house you want is her property.’
‘I know,’ broke in Lucia. ‘Sables and a Rolls-Royce. Mr Wyse has a monocle.’
‘Ah, if you know the lady, madam, that will be all right, and I can give you her address. Starling Cottage, Porpoise Street. I will write it down for you.’
‘Georgie, Porpoise Street!’ whispered Lucia in an entranced aside. ‘Com’ e bello e molto characteristuoso!’
While this was being done, Diva suddenly blew in, beginning to speak before she was wholly inside the office. A short tempestuous interlude ensued.
‘—morning, Mr Woolgar,’ said Diva, ‘and I’ve let Wasters, so you can cross it off your books: such a fine morning.’
‘Indeed, madam,’ said Mr Woolgar. ‘Very satisfactory. And I hope your dear little canary is better.’
‘Still alive and in less pain, thank you, pip,’ said Diva, and plunged through the excavations outside sooner than waste time in going round.
Mr Woolgar apparently understood that ‘pip’ was not a salutation but a disease of canaries, and did not say ‘So long’ or ‘Pip pip’. Calm returned again.
‘I’ll ring up Mrs Wyse to say you will call, madam,’ he said. ‘Let me see: what name? It has escaped me for the moment.’
As he had never known it, it was difficult to see how it could have escaped.
‘Mrs Lucas and Mr Pillson,’ said Lucia. ‘Where is Porpoise St
reet?’
‘Two minutes’ walk from here, madam. As if you were going up to Mallards, but first turning to the right just short of it.’
‘Many thanks,’ said Lucia, ‘I know Mallards.’
‘The best house in Tilling, madam,’ said Mr Woolgar, ‘if you were wanting something larger than Mallards Cottage. It is on our books, too.’
The pride of proprietorship tempted Lucia for a moment to say ‘I’ve got it already,’ but she refrained. The complications which might have ensued, had she asked the price of it, were endless…
‘A great many houses to let in Tilling,’ she said.
‘Yes, madam, a rare lot of letting goes on about this time of year,’ said Mr Woolgar, ‘but they’re all snapped up very quickly. Many ladies in Tilling like a little change in the summer.’
It was impossible (since time was so precious, and Georgie so feverishly apprehensive, after this warning, that somebody else would secure Mallards Cottage before him, although the owner was safe in the sand-dunes for the present) to walk round the excavations in the street, and like Diva they made an intrepid short cut among gas-pipes and water-mains and braziers and bricks to the other side. A sad splash of mud hurled itself against Georgie’s fawn-coloured trousers as he stepped in a puddle, which was very tarsome, but it was useless to attempt to brush it off till it was dry. As they went up the now familiar street towards Mallards they saw quaint Irene leaning out of the upper window of a small house, trying to take down a board that hung outside it which advertised that this house, too, was to let: the fact of her removing it seemed to indicate that from this moment it was to let no longer. Just as they passed, the board, which was painted in the most amazing colours, slipped from her hand and crashed on to the pavement, narrowly missing Diva who simultaneously popped out of the front door. It broke into splinters at her feet, and she gave a shrill cry of dismay. Then perceiving Irene she called up, ‘No harm done, dear,’ and Irene, in a voice of fury, cried, ‘No harm? My beautiful board’s broken to smithereens. Why didn’t you catch it, silly?’
A snort of infinite contempt was the only proper reply, and Diva trundled swiftly away into the High Street again.
‘But it’s like a game of general post, Georgie,’ said Lucia excitedly, ‘and we’re playing too. Are they all letting their houses to each other? Is that it?’
‘I don’t care whom they’re letting them to,’ said Georgie, ‘so long as I get Mallards Cottage. Look at this tarsome mud on my trousers, and I daren’t try to brush it off. What will Mrs Wyse think? Here’s Porpoise Street anyhow, and there’s Starling Cottage. Elizabethan again.’
The door was of old oak, without a handle, but with a bobbin in the strictest style, and there was a thickly patinated green bronze chain hanging close by, which Georgie rightly guessed to be the bell-pull, and so he pulled it. A large bronze bell, which he had not perceived, hanging close to his head, thereupon broke into a clamour that might have been heard not only in the house but all over Tilling, and startled him terribly. Then bobbins and gadgets were manipulated from within and they were shown into a room in which two very diverse tastes were clearly exhibited. Oak beams crossed the ceiling, oak beams made a criss-cross on the walls: there was a large open fireplace of grey Dutch bricks, and on each side of the grate an ingle-nook with a section of another oak beam to sit down upon. The windows were latticed and had antique levers for their control: there was a refectory-table and a spice-chest and some pewter mugs and a Bible-box and a coffin-stool. All this was one taste, and then came in another, for the room was full of beautiful objects of a very different sort. The refectory-table was covered with photographs in silver frames: one was of a man in uniform and many decorations signed ‘Cecco Faraglione’, another of a lady in Court dress with a quantity of plumes on her head signed ‘Amelia Faraglione’. Another was of the King of Italy, another of a man in a frock-coat signed ‘Wyse’. In front of these, rather prominent, was an open purple morocco box in which reposed the riband and cross of a Member of the Order of the British Empire. There was a cabinet of china in one corner with a malachite vase above it: there was an occasional table with a marble mosaic top: there was a satinwood piano draped with a piece of embroidery: a palm-tree: a green velvet sofa over the end of which lay a sable coat, and all these things spoke of post-Elizabethan refinements.
Long before Lucia had time to admire them all, there came a jingling from a door over which hung a curtain of reeds and beads, and Mrs Wyse entered.
‘So sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs Lucas,’ she said, ‘but they thought I was in the garden, and I was in my boudoir all the time. And you must excuse my deshabille, just my shopping-frock. And Mr Pillson, isn’t it? So pleased. Pray be seated.’
She heaved the sable coat off the end of the sofa on to the window-seat.
‘We’ve just been to see the house-agent,’ said Georgie in a great hurry, as he turned his muddied leg away from the light, ‘and he told us that you might help me.’
‘Most happy I am sure, if I can. Pray tell me,’ said Mrs Wyse, in apparent unconsciousness of what she could possibly help him about.
‘Mallards Cottage,’ said Georgie. ‘There seems to be no chance of getting hold of Miss Poppit and we’ve got to leave before she comes back from her sun-bath. I so much want to take it for August and September.’
Mrs Wyse made a little cooing sound.
‘Dear Isabel!’ she said. ‘My daughter. Out in the sand-dunes all morning! What if a tramp came along? I say to her. But no use: she calls it the Browning Society, and she must not miss a meeting. So quick and clever! Browning, not the poet but the action of the sun.’
‘Most amusing!’ said Georgie. ‘With regard to Mallards Cottage—’
‘The little house is mine, as no doubt Mr Woolgar told you,’ said Mrs Wyse, forgetting she had been in complete ignorance of these manoeuvres, ‘but you must certainly come and see over it, before anything is settled… Ah, here is Mr Wyse. Algernon: Mrs Lucas and Mr Pillson. Mr Pillson wants to take Mallards Cottage.’
Lucia thought she had never seen anyone so perfectly correct and polite as Mr Wyse. He gave little bows and smiles to each as he spoke to them, and that in no condescending manner, nor yet cringingly, but as one consorting with his high-bred equals.
‘From your beautiful Riseholme, I understand,’ he said to Lucia (bowing to Riseholme as well). ‘And we are all encouraging ourselves to hope that for two months at the least the charm of our picturesque—do you not find it so?—little Tilling will give Susan and myself the inestimable pleasure of being your neighbours. We shall look forward to August with keen anticipation. Remind me, dear Susan, to tell Amelia what is in store for us.’ He bowed to August, Susan and Amelia and continued—’And now I hear that Mr Pillson’ (he bowed to Georgie and observed the drying spot of mud) ‘is “after” as they say, after Mallards Cottage. This will indeed be a summer for Tilling.’
Georgie, during this pretty speech which Mr Wyse delivered in the most finished manner, was taking notes of his costume and appearance. His clean-shaven face, with abundant grey hair brushed back from his forehead, was that of an actor who has seen his best days, but who has given command performances at Windsor. He wore a brown velveteen coat, a Byronic collar and a tie strictured with a cameo-ring: he wore brown knickerbockers and stockings to match, he wore neat golfing shoes. He looked as if he might be going to play golf, but somehow it didn’t seem likely…
Georgie and Lucia made polite deprecating murmurs.
‘I was telling Mr Pillson he must certainly see over it first,’ said Mrs Wyse. ‘There are the keys of the cottage in my boudoir, if you’ll kindly fetch them, Algernon. And the Royce is at the door, I see, so if Mrs Lucas will allow us, we will all drive up there together, and show her and Mr Pillson what there is.’
While Algernon was gone, Mrs Wyse picked up the photograph signed Amelia Faraglione.
‘You recognize, no doubt, the family likeness,’ she said to Lucia. ‘My husband’s si
ster Amelia who married the Conte di Faraglione, of the old Neapolitan nobility. That is he.’
‘Charming,’ said Lucia. ‘And so like Mr Wyse. And that Order? What is that?’
Mrs Wyse hastily shut the morocco box.
‘So like servants to leave that about,’ she said. ‘But they seem proud of it. Graciously bestowed upon me. Member of the British Empire. Ah, here is Algernon with the keys. I was showing Mrs Lucas, dear, the photograph of Amelia. She recognized the likeness at once. Now let us all pack in. A warm morning, is it not? I don’t think I shall need my furs.’
The total distance to be traversed was not more than a hundred yards, but Porpoise Street was very steep, and the cobbles which must be crossed very unpleasant to walk on, so Mrs Wyse explained. They had to wait some little while at the corner, twenty yards away from where they started, for a van was coming down the street from the direction of Mallards, and the Royce could not possibly pass it, and then they came under fire of the windows of Miss Mapp’s garden-room. As usual at this hour she was sitting there with the morning paper in her hand in which she could immerse herself if anybody passed whom she did not wish to see, but was otherwise intent on the movements of the street.
Diva Plaistow had looked in with the news that she had seen Lucia and Georgie at the house-agents’, and that her canary still lived. Miss Mapp professed her delight to hear about the canary, but was secretly distrustful of whether Diva had seen the visitors or not. Diva was so imaginative; to have seen a man and a woman who were strangers was quite enough to make her believe she had seen Them. Then the Royce heaved into sight round the corner below, and Miss Mapp became much excited.