Lucia Rising

by E. F. Benson

  Suddenly he heard his name called in the familiar alto, and there was Lucia in Shakespeare's garden.

  ‘Georgino! Georgino mio!’ she cried. ‘Gino!’

  Out of mere habit, Georgie got down from his stile, and tripped up the road towards her. The manly seething of his soul's insurrection rebuked him, but unfortunately his legs and his voice surrendered.

  ‘Amica!’ he answered. ‘Here's Gino!’ (‘And why do I say it in Italian?’ he vainly asked himself.)

  ‘Geordie, come and have ickle talk,’ she said, relapsing into baby-speech. ‘Me want ’oo wise man to advise ickle Lucia.’

  ‘What 'oo want?’ asked Georgie, now quite quelled for the moment.

  ‘Lots-things. Here's pwetty flower for buttonholie. Now tell me about black man. Him no snakes have? Why Mrs Quantock say she thinks he no come to poo’ Lucia's party-garden?’

  ‘Oh, did she?’ asked Georgie, relapsing into the vernacular.

  ‘Yes, oh, and by the way, there's a parcel come which I think must be the Mozart trio. Will you come over to-morrow morning and read it with me? Yes? Half-past eleven, then. But never mind that.’

  She fixed him with her beady, birdy eye.

  ‘Daisy asked me to ask the Guru,’ she said, ‘and so to oblige poor Daisy I did. And now she says she doesn't know if he'll come. What does that mean? Is it possible that she wants to keep him to herself? She has done that sort of thing before, you know.’

  This probably represented Lucia's statement of the sad case about the Scotch attorney, and Georgie, taking it as such, felt rather embarrassed. Also that bird-like eye seemed to gimlet its way into him, and divine the secret disloyalty that he had been contemplating. If she had continued to bore into him, he might not only have confessed to the gloomiest suspicions about Mrs Quantock, but have let go of his secret about Olga Bracely also, and suggested the possibility of her and her husband being brought to the garden-party. But the eye at this moment unscrewed itself from his again and travelled up the road.

  ‘There's the Guru!’ she said. ‘Now we will see!’

  Georgie, faint with emotion, peered out between the forms of the peacock and the pine-apple on the yew-hedge, and saw what followed. Lucia went straight up to the Guru, bowed and smiled and clearly introduced herself. In another moment he was showing his white teeth and salaaming, and together they walked back to The Hurst, where Georgie palpitated behind the yew-hedge. Together they entered, and Lucia's eye wore its benignest aspect.

  ‘I want to introduce to you, Guru,’ she said, without a stumble, a great friend of mine. This is Mr Pillson, Guru. Guru, Mr Pillson. The Guru is coming to tiffin with me, Georgie. Cannot I persuade you to stop?’

  ‘Delighted!’ said Georgie. ‘We met before in a sort of way, didn't we?’

  ‘Yes indeed. So pleased,’ said the Guru.

  ‘Let us go in,’ said Lucia. ‘It is close on lunch-time.’

  Georgie followed, after a great many bowings and politenesses from the Guru. He was not sure if he had the makings of a Bolshevik.

  5

  One of Lucia's greatnesses lay in the fact that when she found anybody out in some act of atrocious meanness, she never indulged in any idle threats of revenge: it was sufficient that she knew, and would take suitable steps on the earliest occasion. Consequently when it appeared, from the artless conversation of the Guru at lunch, that the perfidious Mrs Quantock had not even asked him whether he would like to go to Lucia's garden-party or not (pending her own decision as to what she was meaning to do with him), Lucia received the information with the utmost good-humour, merely saying: ‘No doubt dear Mrs Quantock forgot to tell you,’ and did not announce acts of reprisal, such as striking Daisy off the list of her habitual guests for a week or two, just to give her a lesson. She even, before they sat down to lunch, telephoned over to that thwarted woman to say that she had met the Guru in the street, and had felt that there was some bond of sympathy between them, and he had come back with her, and they were just sitting down to tiffin. She was pleased with the word ‘tiffin’, and also liked explaining to Daisy what it meant.

  Tiffin was a great success and there was no need for the Guru to visit the kitchen in order to make something that could be eaten without struggle. He talked quite freely about his mission here, and Lucia and Georgie and Pepino, who had come in rather late for he had been obliged to go back to the market-gardener's about the bulbs, listened entranced.

  ‘Yes, it was when I went to my friend in London who keeps the book-shop,’ he said, ‘that I heard there was English lady who wanted Guru, and I knew I was called to her. No luggage, no anything at all: as I am. Such a kind lady, too, and she will get on well, but she will find some of the postures difficult, for she is what you call globe, round.’

  ‘Was that postures when I saw her standing on one leg in the garden?’ asked Georgie, ‘and when she sat down and tried to hold her toes?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, quite so, and difficult for globe. But she has white soul.’

  He looked round with a smile.

  ‘I see many white souls here,’ he said. ‘It is happy place, when there are white souls, for to those I am sent.’

  This was sufficient: in another minute Lucia, Georgie and Pepino were all accepted as pupils, and presently they went out into the garden, where the Guru sat on the ground in a most complicated attitude, which was obviously quite out of reach of Mrs Quantock.

  ‘One foot on one thigh, other foot on other thigh,’ he explained. ‘And the head and back straight: it is good to meditate so.’

  Lucia tried to imagine meditating so, but felt that any meditation so would certainly be on the subject of broken bones.

  ‘Shall I be able to do that?’ she asked. ‘And what will be the effect?’

  ‘You will be light and active, dear lady, and ah – here is the other dear lady come to join us.’

  Mrs Quantock had certainly made one of her diplomatic errors on this occasion. She had acquiesced on the telephone in her Guru going to lunch with Lucia, but about the middle of her lunch she had been unable to resist the desire to know what was happening at The Hurst. She could not bear the thought that Lucia and her Guru were together now, and her own note saying that it was uncertain whether the Guru would come to the garden-party or not filled her with the most uneasy apprehensions. She would sooner have acquiesced in her Guru going to fifty garden-parties – all was public, and she could keep an eye and a control on him – rather than that Lucia should have ‘enticed him in – that was her phrase – to lunch like this. The only consolation was that her own lunch had been practically inedible, and Robert had languished lamentably for the Guru to return and save his stomach. She had left him glowering over a little mud and water, called coffee. Robert, at any rate, would welcome the return of the Guru.

  She waddled across the lawn to where this harmonious party was sitting, and at that moment Lucia began to feel vindictive. The calm of victory, which had permeated her when she brought the Guru in to lunch, without any bother at all, was troubled and broken up, and darling Daisy's note containing the outrageous falsity that the Guru would not for certain accept an invitation which had never been permitted to reach him at all, assumed a more sinister aspect. Clearly Daisy had intended to keep him to herself, and had made a hostile invasion.

  ‘Guru, dear, you naughty thing,’ said Mrs Quantock playfully, after the usual salutations had passed. ‘Why did you not tell chela you would not be home for tiffin?’

  The Guru had unwound his legs, and stood up.

  ‘But, see, beloved lady,’ he said, ‘how pleasant we all are! Take not too much thought, when it is only white souls who are together.’

  Mrs Quantock patted his shoulder.

  ‘It is all good and kind, Om,’ she said. ‘Send out my message of love. There!’

  It was necessary to descend from these high altitudes, and Lucia proceeded to do so, as in a parachute that dropped swiftly at first, and then floated in still air.

&nb
sp; ‘And we're making such a lovely plan, dear Daisy,’ she said. ‘The Guru is going to teach us all. Classes! Aren't you?’

  He held his hands up to his head, palms outwards, and closed his eyes.

  ‘I seem to feel call,’ he said. ‘I am sent. Surely the Guides tell me there is a sending of me. What you call classes? Yes? I teach: you learn. We all learn… I leave all to you. I will walk a little way off to arbour, and meditate, and then when you have arranged, you will tell Guru, who is your servant. Salaam! Om!’

  With the Guru in her own house, and with every intention to annex him, it was no wonder that Lucia took the part of chairman in this meeting that was to settle the details of the esoteric brotherhood now actually being formed in Riseholme. Had not Mrs Quantock been present, Lucia, in revenge for her perfidious conduct about the garden-party invitation, would probably have left her out of the classes altogether, but with her sitting firm and square in a basket-chair, that creaked querulously as she moved, she could not be completely ignored. But Lucia took the lead throughout, and suggested straight away that the smoking-parlour would be the most convenient place to hold the classes in.

  ‘I should not think of invading your house, dear Daisy,’ she said, ‘and here is the smoking-parlour, which no one ever sits in, so quiet and peaceful. Yes. Shall we consider that settled then?’

  She turned briskly to Mrs Quantock.

  ‘And now, where shall the Guru stay?’ she said. ‘It would be too bad, dear Daisy, if we are all to profit by his classes, that you should have all the trouble and expense of entertaining him, for in your sweet little house he must be a great inconvenience, and I think you said that your husband had given up his dressing-room to him.’

  Mrs Quantock made a desperate effort to retain her property.

  ‘No inconvenience at all,’ she said. ‘Quite the contrary, in fact, dear. It is delightful having him, and Robert regards him as a most desirable inmate.’

  Lucia pressed her hand feelingly.

  ‘You and your husband are too unselfish,’ she said. ‘Often have I said, “Daisy and dear Mr Robert are the most unselfish people I know,” haven't I, Georgino? But we can't permit you to be so over-crowded. Your only spare-room, you know, and your husband's dressing-room. Georgie, I know you agree with me: we must not permit dear Daisy to be so unselfish.’

  The bird-like eye produced its compelling effect on Georgie. So short a time ago he had indulged in revolutionary ideas, and had contemplated having the Guru and Olga Bracely to dinner, without even asking Lucia: now the faint stirrings of revolt faded like snow in summer. He knew quite well what Lucia's next proposition would be: he knew, too, that he would agree to it.

  ‘No, that would never do,’ he said. ‘It is simply trespassing on Mrs Quantock's good nature, if she is to board and lodge the Guru while he teaches all of us. I wish I could take him in, but with Hermy and Ursy coming to-night, I have as little room as Mrs Quantock.’

  ‘He shall come here,’ said Lucia brightly, as if she had just that moment thought of it. ‘There are “Hamlet” and “Othello” vacant’ – all her rooms were named after Shakespearian plays – ‘and it will not be the least inconvenient. Will it, Pepino? I shall really like having him here. Shall we consider that settled then?’

  Daisy made a perfectly futile effort to send forth a message of love to all quarters of the compass. Bitterly she repented of having ever mentioned her Guru to Lucia: it had never occurred to her that she would annex him like this. While she was cudgelling her brains as to how she could arrest this powerful offensive, Lucia went sublimely on.

  ‘Then there is the question of what we shall pay him,’ she said. ‘Dear Daisy tells us that he scarcely knows what money is, but I, for one, could never dream of profiting by his wisdom if I was to pay nothing for it. The labourer is worthy of his hire, and so I suppose the teacher is. What if we pay him five shillings each a lesson: that will make a pound a lesson? Dear me! I shall be busy this August. Now how many classes shall we ask him to give us? I should say six to begin with, if everybody agrees. One every day for the next week except Sunday. That is what you all wish? Yes? Then shall we consider that settled?’

  Mrs Quantock, still impotently rebelling, resorted to the most dire weapon in her armoury, namely sarcasm.

  ‘Perhaps, darling Lucia,’ she said, ‘it would be well to ask my Guru if he has anything to say to your settlings. England is a free country still, even if you happen to have come from India!’

  Lucia had a deadlier weapon than sarcasm, which was the apparent unconsciousness of there having been any. For it is no use plunging a dagger into your enemy's heart if it produces no effect whatever on him. She clapped her hands together, and gave her peal of silvery laughter.

  ‘What a good idea,’ she said. ‘Then you would like me to go and tell him what we propose? Just as you like. I will trot away, shall I, and see if he agrees? Don't think of stirring, dear Daisy: I know how you feel the heat. Sit quiet in the shade. As you know, I am a real salamander, the sun is never troppo caldo for me.’

  She tripped off to where the Guru was sitting in that wonderful position. She had read the article in the Encyclopaedia about Yoga right through again this morning, and had quite made up her mind, as, indeed, her proceedings had just shown, that Yoga was, to put it irreverently, to be her August stunt. He was still so deep in meditation that he could only look dreamily in her direction as she approached, but then, with a long sigh, he got up.

  ‘This is beautiful place,’ he said. ‘It is full of sweet influences, and I have had high talk with Guides.’

  Lucia felt thrilled.

  ‘Oh, do tell me what they said to you!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘They told me to follow where I was led: they said they would settle everything for me in wisdom and love.’

  This was most encouraging, for decidedly Lucia had been settling for him, and the opinion of the Guides was thus a direct personal testimony. Any faint twitchings of conscience (they were of the very faintest) that she had grabbed dear Daisy's property were once and for ever quieted, and she proceeded confidently to unfold the settlements of wisdom and love, which met with the Guru's entire approval. He shut his eyes a moment and breathed deeply.

  ‘They give peace and blessing,’ he said. ‘It is they who ordered that it should be so. Om!’

  He seemed to sink into profound depths of meditation, and Lucia hurried back to the group she had left.

  ‘It is all too wonderful,’ she said. ‘The Guides have told him that they were settling everything for him in wisdom and love, so we may be sure we were right in our plans. How lovely to think that we have been guided by them! Dear Daisy, how wonderful he is! I will send across for his things, shall I? and I will have “Hamlet” and “Othello” made ready for him!’

  Bitter though it was to part with her Guru, it was impious to rebel against the ordinances of the Guides, but there was a trace of human resentment in Daisy's answer.

  ‘Things!’ she exclaimed. ‘He hasn't got a thing in the world. Every possession chains us down to earth. You will soon come to that, darling Lucia.’

  It occurred to Georgie that the Guru had certainly got a bottle of brandy, but there was no use in introducing a topic that might lead to discord, and, indeed, even as Lucia went indoors to see about ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Othello’, the Guru himself, having emerged from meditation, joined them, and sat down by Mrs Quantock.

  ‘Beloved lady,’ he said, ‘all is peace and happiness. The Guides have spoken to me so lovingly of you, and they say it is best your Guru should come here. Perhaps I shall return to your kind house. They smiled when I asked that. But just now they send me here: there is more need of me here for already you have so much light.’

  Certainly the Guides were very tactful people, for nothing would have soothed Mrs Quantock so effectually as a message of that kind, which she would certainly report to Lucia when she returned from seeing about ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Othello’.

  ‘Oh, do t
hey say I have much light already, Guru dear?’ she asked. ‘That is nice of them.’

  ‘Surely they said it, and now I shall go back to your house, and leave sweet thoughts there for you. And shall I send sweet thoughts to the house of the kind gentleman next door?’

  Georgie eagerly welcomed this proposition, for with Hermy and Ursy coming that evening he felt that he would have plenty of use for sweet thoughts. He even forbore to complete in his own mind the conjecture that was forming itself there, namely that though the Guru would be leaving sweet thoughts for Mrs Quantock, he would probably be taking away the brandy-bottle for himself. But Georgie knew that he was only too apt to indulge in secret cynicisms, and perhaps there was no brandy to take away by this time… and, lo and behold, he was being cynical again.

  The sun was still hot when, half an hour afterwards, he got into the cab which he had ordered to take him to the station to meet Hermy and Ursy, and he put up his umbrella with its white linen cover to shield him from it. He did not take the motor, because either Hermy or Ursy would have insisted on driving it, and he did not choose to trust himself in their charge. In all the years that he had lived at Riseholme, he never remembered even in winter, when social events – ‘work’ he called it – were most numerous, so exciting and varied a week. There were Hermy and Ursy coming this evening, and Olga Bracely and her husband (Olga Bracely and Mr Shuttleworth sounded vaguely improper: Georgie rather liked that) coming to-morrow, and Lucia's garden-party the day after, and every day there was to be a lesson from the Guru, so that God alone knew when Georgie would have a moment to himself for his embroidery or to practise the Mozart trio. But with his hair chestnut-coloured to the very roots, and his shining nails, and his comfortable boots, he felt extremely young and fit for anything. Soon, under the influence of the new creed with its postures and breathings, he would feel younger and more vigorous yet.