by E. F. Benson
“Buona notte,” said he.
CHAPTER II
Major Benjy was in church with his wife next morning: this was weighty evidence as regards her influence over him, for never yet had he been known to spend a fine Sunday morning except on the golf links. He sat with her among the auxiliary choir sharing her hymn-book and making an underground sort of noise during the hymns. The Padre preached a long sermon in Scotch about early Christianity in Ireland which was somehow confusing to the geographical sense. After service Lucia walked away a little ahead of the Mapp-Flints, so that they certainly saw her ring the bell at Mallards Cottage and be admitted, and Elizabeth did not fail to remember that Georgie had said only yesterday afternoon that he was not up to seeing anybody. Lucia smiled and waved her hand as she went in to make sure Elizabeth saw, and Elizabeth gave a singularly mirthless smile in answer. As it was Sunday, she tried to feel pleased that he must be better this morning, but with only partial success. However, she would sit in the window of the garden-room and see how long Lucia stayed.
Georgie was not yet down and Lucia had a few minutes alone in his sitting-room among the tokens of his handiwork. There were dozens of his water-colour sketches on the walls, the sofa was covered with a charming piece of gros-point from his nimble needle, and his new piece in petit point, not yet finished, lay on one of the numerous little tables. One window looked on to the street, the other on to a tiny square of flower garden with a patch of crazy pavement surrounding a brick pillar on the top of which stood a replica of the Neapolitan Narcissus. Georgie had once told Lucia that he had just that figure when he was a boy, and with her usual tact she had assured him he had it still. There were large soft cushions in all the chairs, there was a copy of Vogue, a work-basket containing wools, a feather brush for dusting, a screen to shut off all draughts from the door, and a glass case containing his bibelots, including a rather naughty enamelled snuff-box: two young people—Then she heard his slippered tread on the stairs and in he came.
He had on his new blue suit: round his neck was a pink silk scarf with an amethyst pin to keep it in place, and above the scarf his face, a shade plumper than Narcissus’s, thatched by his luxuriant auburn hair and decorated with an auburn moustache turned up at the ends, was now framed in a short grey, almost white beard.
“My dear, it’s too dreadful,” he said. “I know I’m perfectly hidjus, but I shan’t be able to shave for weeks to come, and I couldn’t bear being alone any longer. I tried to shave yesterday. Agonies!”
Dialectic encouragement was clearly the first thing to administer.
“Georgino! ‘Oo vewy naughty boy not to send for me before,” said Lucia. “If I’d been growing a barba—my dear, not at all disfiguring: rather dignified—do you think I should have said I wouldn’t see you? But tell me all about it. I know nothing.”
“Shingles on my face and neck,” said Georgie. “Blisters. Bandages. Ointments. Aspirin. Don’t tell anybody. So degrading!”
“Povero! But I’m sure you’ve borne it wonderfully. And you’re over the attack?”
“So they say. But it will be weeks before I can shave, and I can’t go about before I do that. Tell me the news. Elizabeth rang me up yesterday, and offered to come and sit with me after dinner.”
“I know. I was there playing Bridge and you, or Foljambe rather, said you weren’t up to seeing people. But she saw me come in this morning.”
“No!” said Georgie. “She’ll hate that.”
Lucia sighed.
“An unhappy nature, I’m afraid,” she said. “I waggled my hand and smiled at her as I stepped in, and she smiled back—how shall I say it?—as if she had been lunching on soused mackerel and pickles instead of going to church. And all those n’est ce pas-s as I told you yesterday.”
“But what about her and Benjy?” asked Georgie. “Who wears the trousers?”
“Georgie: it’s difficult to say: I felt a man’s eye was needed. It looked to me as if they wore one trouser each. He’s got the garden-room as his sitting-room: horns and savage aprons on the wall and bald tiger-skins on the floor. On the other hand he had tea instead of whisky and soda at tea-time in an enormous cup, and he was in church this morning. They dab at each other about equally.”
“How disgusting!” said Georgie. “You don’t know how you cheer me up.”
“So glad, Georgie. That’s what I’m here for. And now I’ve got a plan. No, it isn’t a plan, it’s an order. I’m not going to leave you here alone. You’re coming to stay with me at Grebe. You needn’t see anybody but me and me only when you feel inclined. It’s ridiculous your being cooped up here with no one to talk to. Have your lunch and tell Foljambe to pack your bags and order your car.”
Georgie required very little persuasion. It was a daring proceeding to stay all alone with Lucia but that was not in its disfavour. He was the professional jeune premier in social circles at Tilling, smart and beautifully dressed and going to more tea-parties than anybody else, and it was not at all amiss that he should imperil his reputation and hers by these gay audacities. Very possibly Tilling would never know, as the plan was that he should be quite invisible till his clandestine beard was removed, but if Tilling did then or later find out, he had no objection. Besides, it would make an excellent opportunity for his cook to have her holiday, and she should go off to-morrow morning, leaving the house shut up. Foljambe would come up every other day or so to open windows and air it.
So Lucia paid no long visit, but soon left Georgie to make domestic arrangements. There was Elizabeth sitting at the window of the garden-room, and she threw it open with another soused mackerel smile as Lucia passed below.
“And how is our poor malade?” she asked. “Better, I trust, since he is up to seeing friends again. I must pop in to see him after lunch.”
Lucia hesitated. If Elizabeth knew that he was moving to Grebe this afternoon, she would think it very extraordinary that she was not allowed to see him, but the secret of the beard must be inviolate.
“He’s not very well,” she said. “I doubt if he would see anybody else to-day.”
“And what’s the matter exactly, chérie?” asked Elizabeth, oozing with the tenderest curiosity. Major Benjy, Lucia saw, had crept up to the window too. Lucia could not of course tell her that it was shingles, for shingles and beard were wrapped up together in one confidence.
“A nervous upset,” she said firmly. “Very much pulled down. But no cause for anxiety.”
Lucia went on her way, and Elizabeth closed the window.
“There’s something mysterious going on, Benjy,” she said. “Poor dear Lucia’s face had that guileless look which always means she’s playing hokey-pokey. We shall have to find out what really is the matter with Mr. Georgie. But let’s get on with the crossword till luncheon: read out the next.”
By one of those strange coincidences, which admit of no explanation, Benjy read out: “No. 3 down. A disease, often seen on the seashore.”
Georgie’s move to Grebe was effected early that afternoon without detection, for on Sunday, during the hour succeeding lunch, the streets of Tilling were like a city of the dead. With his head well muffled up, so that not a hair of his beard could be seen, he sat on the front seat to avoid draughts, and, since it was not worth while packing all his belongings for so short a transit, Foljambe sitting opposite him, was half buried under a loose moraine of coats, sticks, paint-boxes, music, umbrellas, dressing-gown, hot-water bottle and work-basket.
Hardly had they gone when Elizabeth, having solved the crossword except No. 3 down, which continued to baffle her, set about solving the mystery which, her trained sense assured her, existed, and she rang up Mallards Cottage with the intention of congratulating Georgie on being better, and of proposing to come in and read to him. Georgie’s cook, who was going on holiday next day and had been bidden to give nothing away, answered the call. The personal pronouns in this conversation were rather mixed as in the correspondences between Queen Victoria and her Ministers of State.
&n
bsp; “Could Mrs. Mapp-Flint speak to Mr. Pillson?”
“No, ma’am, she couldn’t. Impossible just now.”
“Is Mrs. Mapp-Flint speaking to Foljambe?”
“No, ma’am, it’s me. Foljambe is out.”
“Mrs. Mapp-Flint will call on Mr. Pillson about 4.30.”
“Very good, ma’am, but I’m afraid Mr. Pillson won’t be able to see her.”
The royal use of the third person was not producing much effect, so Elizabeth changed her tactics, and became a commoner. She was usually an adept at worming news out of cooks and parlourmaids.
“Oh, I recognise your voice, cook,” she said effusively. “Good afternoon. No anxiety, I hope, about dear Mr. Georgie?”
“No, ma’am, not that I’m aware of.”
“I suppose he’s having a little nap after his lunch.”
“I couldn’t say, ma’am.”
“Perhaps you’d be so very kind as just to peep, oh, so quietly, into his sitting-room and give him my message, if he’s not asleep.”
“He’s not in his sitting-room, ma’am.”
Elizabeth rang off. She was more convinced than ever that some mystery was afoot, and her curiosity passed from tender oozings to acute inflammation. Her visit at 4.30 brought her no nearer the solution, for Georgie’s substantial cook blocked the doorway, and said he was at home to nobody. Benjy on his way back from golf met with no better luck, nor did Diva on her way to evening church. All these kind enquiries were telephoned to Georgie at Grebe: Tilling was evidently beginning to seethe, and it must continue to do so.
Lucia’s household had been sworn to secrecy, and the two passed a very pleasant evening. They had a grand duet on the piano, and discussed the amazing romance of Dame Catherine Winterglass who had become enshrined in Lucia’s mind as a shining example of a conscientious woman of middle-age determined to make the world a better place.
“Really, Georgie,” she said, “I’m ashamed of having spent so many years getting gradually a little richer without being a proper steward of my money. Money is a power, and I have been letting it lie idle, instead of increasing it by leaps and bounds like that wonderful Dame Catherine. Think of the good she did!”
“You might decrease it by leaps and bounds if you mean to speculate,” observed Georgie. “It’s supposed to be the quickest short-cut to the workhouse, isn’t it?”
“Speculation?” said Lucia. “I abhor it. What I mean is studying the markets, working at finance as I work at Aristophanes, using one’s brains, going carefully into all those prospectuses that are sent one. For instance, yesterday there was a strong recommendation in the evening paper to buy shares in a West African mine called Siriami, and this morning the City Editor of a Sunday paper gave the same advice. I collate those facts, Georgie. I reason that there are two very shrewd men recommending the same thing. Naturally I shall be very cautious at first, till I know the ropes, so to speak, and shall rely largely on my broker’s advice. But I shall telegraph to him first thing to-morrow to buy me five hundred Siriami. Say they go up only a shilling—I’ve worked it all out—I shall be twenty-five pounds to the good.”
“My dear, how beautiful!” said Georgie. “What will you do with it all?”
“Put it into something else, or put more into Siriami. Dame Catherine used to say that an intelligent and hard-working woman can make money every day of her life. She was often a bear. I must find out about being a bear.”
“I know what that means,” said Georgie. “You sell shares you haven’t got in order to buy them cheaper afterwards.”
Lucia looked startled.
“Are you sure about that? I must tell my broker to be certain that the man he buys my Siriami shares from has got them. I shall insist on that: no dealings with bears.”
Georgie regarded his needlework. It was a French design for a chair back: a slim shepherdess in a green dress was standing among her sheep. The sheep were quite unmistakable but she insisted on looking like a stick of asparagus. He stroked the side of his beard which was unaffected by shingles.
“Tarsome of her,” he said. “I must give her a hat or rip her clothes off and make her pink.”
“And if they went up two shillings I should make fifty pounds,” said Lucia absently.
“Oh, those shares: how marvellous!” said Georgie. “But isn’t there the risk of their going down instead?”
“My dear, the whole of life is a series of risks,” said Lucia sententiously.
“Yes, but why increase them? I like to be comfortable, but as long as I have all I want, I don’t want anything more. Of course I hope you’ll make tons of money, but I can’t think what you’ll do with it.”
“Aspett’un po’, Georgino,” said she. “Why it’s half-past ten. The invalid must go to bed.”
“Half-past ten: is it really?” said Georgie. “Why, I’ve been going to bed at nine, because I was so bored with myself.”
Next morning Tilling seethed furiously. Georgie’s cook had left before the world was a-stir, and Elizabeth, setting out with her basket about half-past ten to do her marketing in the High Street observed that the red blinds in his sitting-room were still down. That was very odd: Foljambe was usually there at eight, but evidently she had not come yet: possibly she was ill, too. That distressing (but interesting) doubt was soon set at rest, for there was Foljambe in the High Street looking very well. Something might be found out from her, and Elizabeth put on her most seductive smile.
“Good morning, Foljambe,” she said. “And how is poor Mr. Georgie to-day?”
Foljambe’s face grew stony, as if she had seen the Gorgon.
“Getting on nicely, ma’am,” she said.
“Oh, so glad! I was almost afraid you were ill, too, as his sitting-room blinds were down.”
“Indeed, ma’am,” said Foljambe, getting even more flintily petrified.
“And will you tell him I shall ring him up soon to see if he’d like me to look in?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Foljambe.
Elizabeth watched her go along the street, and noticed she did not turn up in the direction of Mallards Cottage, but kept straight on. Very mysterious: where could she be going? Elizabeth thought of following her, but her attention was diverted by seeing Diva pop out of the hairdresser’s establishment in that scarlet beret and frock which made her look so like a round pillar-box. She had taken the plunge at last after tortures of indecision, and had had her hair cropped quite close. The right and scathing thing to do, thought Elizabeth, was to seem not to notice any change in her appearance.
“Such a lovely morning, isn’t it, dear Diva, for January,” she said. “Si doux. Any news?”
Diva felt there was enough news on her own head to satisfy anybody for one morning, and she wheeled so that Elizabeth should get a back view of it, where the change was most remarkable. “I’ve heard none,” she said. “Oh, there’s Major Benjy. Going to catch the tram, I suppose.”
It was Elizabeth’s turn to wheel. There had been a coolness this morning, for he had come down very late to breakfast, and had ordered fresh tea and bacon with a grumpy air. She would punish him by being unaware of him… Then that wouldn’t do, because gossipy Diva would tell everybody they had had a quarrel, and back she wheeled again.
“Quick, Benjy-boy,” she called out to him, “or you’ll miss the tram. Play beautifully, darling. All those lovely mashies.”
Lucia’s motor drew up close to them opposite the post office. She had a telegraph form in her hand, and dropped it as she got out. It bowed and fluttered in the breeze, and fell at Elizabeth’s feet. Her glance at it, as she picked it up, revealing the cryptic sentence: “Buy five hundred Siriami shares,” was involuntary or nearly so.
“Here you are, dear,” she said. “En route to see poor Mr. Georgie?”
Lucia’s eye fell on Diva’s cropped head.
“Dear Diva, I like it immensely!” she said. “Ten years younger.”
Elizabeth remained profoundly unconscious.
“Well, I must be trotting,” she said. “Such a lot of commissions for my Benjy. So like a man, bless him, to go off and play golf, leaving wifie to do all his jobs. Such a scolding I shall get if I forget any.”
She plunged into the grocer’s, and for the next half-hour, the ladies of Tilling, popping in and out of shops, kept meeting on doorsteps with small collision of their baskets, and hurried glances at their contents. Susan Wyse alone did not take part in this ladies’ chain, but remained in the Royce, and butcher and baker and greengrocer and fishmonger had to come out and take her orders through the window. Elizabeth felt bitterly about this, for, in view of the traffic, which would otherwise have become congested, tradesmen ran out of their shops, leaving other customers to wait, so that Susan’s Royce might not be delayed. Elizabeth had addressed a formal complaint about it to the Town Council, and that conscientious body sent a reliable timekeeper in plain clothes down to the High Street on three consecutive mornings, to ascertain how long, on the average, Mrs. Wyse’s car stopped at each shop. As the period worked out at a trifle over twenty seconds they took the view that as the road was made for vehicular traffic, she was making a legitimate use of it. She could hardly be expected to send the Royce to the parking place by the Town Hall each time she stopped, for it would not nearly have got there by the time she was ready for it again. The rest of the ladies, not being so busy as Elizabeth, did not mind these delays, for Susan made such sumptuous orders that it gave you an appetite to hear them: she had been known, even when she and Algernon had been quite alone to command a hen-lobster, a pheasant, and a pâté de foie gras….
Elizabeth soon finished her shopping (Benjy-boy had only asked her to order him some shaving soap), and just as she reached her door, she was astonished to see Diva coming rapidly towards her house from the direction of Mallards Cottage, thirty yards away, and making signs to her. After the severity with which she had ignored the Eton crop, it was clear that Diva must have something to say which overscored her natural resentment.