by E. F. Benson
“I shall be perfectly calm and ladylike whatever happens,” thought Lucia, and concentrating all her power on this genteel feat she passed through the hall and went out to the garden-room. But before entering, she paused, for in her reverence for Art, she felt she could not interrupt so superb a performance: Olga had never sung so gloriously as now when she was singing to Georgie all alone. . . . She perched on the final note pianissimo. She held it with gradual crescendo till she was singing fortissimo. She ceased, and it was as if a great white flame had been blown out.
Lucia opened the door. Georgie was sitting in the window: his piece of needle-work had dropped from his hand, and he was gazing at the singer. “Too marvellous,” he began, thinking that Grosvenor was coming in with drinks. Then, by some sixth sense, he knew it wasn’t Grosvenor, and turning, he saw his wife.
In that moment he went through a selection of emotions that fully equalled hers. The first was blank consternation. A sense of baffled gallantry succeeded, and was followed by an overwhelming thankfulness that it was baffled. All evening he had been imagining himself delightfully in love with Olga, but had been tormented by the uneasy thought that any man of spirit would make some slight allusion to her magnetic charm. That would be a most perilous proceeding. He revelled in the feeling that he was in love with her, but to inform her of that might be supposed to lead to some small practical demonstration of his passion, and the thought made him feel cold with apprehension. She might respond (it was not likely but it was possible, for he had lately been reading a book by a very clever writer, which showed how lightly ladies in artistic professions, take an adorer’s caresses), and he was quite convinced that he was no good at that sort of thing. On the other hand she might snub him, and that would wound his tenderest sensibilities. Whatever happened, in fact, it would entirely mar their lovely evening. Taking it all in all, he had never been so glad to see Lucia.
Having pierced him with her eye, she turned her head calmly and gracefully towards Olga.
“Such a surprise!” she said. “A delightful one, of course. And you, no doubt, are equally surprised to see me.”
Lucia was being such a perfect lady that Olga quaked and quivered with suppressed laughter.
“Georgie, explain at once,” she said. “It’s the most wonderful muddle that ever happened.”
“Well, it’s like this,” said Georgie carefully. “As I telephoned you this morning, we were all invited to go to Poppy’s for the night. Then she was taken ill after lunch and put us off. So I rang up in order to tell you that I was coming back here and bringing Olga. You told her to propose herself whenever she felt inclined, and just start—”
Lucia bestowed a polite bow on Olga.
“Quite true,” she said. “But I never received that message. Oh—”
“I know you didn’t,” said Georgie. “I couldn’t get any answer. But I knew you would be delighted to see her, and when we got here not long before dinner, Grosvenor said you’d gone to dine and sleep at Poppy’s. Why didn’t you answer my telephone? And why didn’t you tell us you were going away? In fact, what about you?”
During this brief but convincing narrative, the thwarted Muse of Tragedy picked up her skirts and fled. Lucia gave a little trill of happy laughter.
“Too extraordinary,” she said. “A comedy of errors. Georgie, you told me this morning, very distinctly, that Poppy had invited the Mayor of Tilling. Very well. I found that there was nothing that required my pretence at the Council meeting, and I rang up Sheffield Cattle to say I could manage to get away. I was told that I was expected. Then just as I was starting there came a message that poor Poppy was ill and the party was off.”
Lucia paused a moment to review her facts as already rehearsed, and resumed in her superior, drawling voice.
“I felt a little uneasy about her,” she said, “and as I had no further engagement this afternoon, I suggested that though the party was off, I would run over — the motor was actually at the door — and stay the night. She said she would be so happy to see me. She gave me such a pleasant welcome, but evidently she was far from well, and I saw she was not up to entertaining me. So I just had tea; she insisted on that, and she took me round the Castle and made me snap a quantity of photographs. Herself, her bedroom, the gallery, that noble oriel window in the hall. I must remember to send her prints. A delicious hour or two, and then I left her. I think my visit had done her good. She seemed brighter. Then a snack at the Ambermere Arms; I saw your house was dark, dear Olga, or I should have popped in. And here we are. That lovely prayer from Lucrezia to welcome me. I waited entranced on the doorstep till it was over.”
It was only by strong and sustained effort that Olga restrained herself from howling with laughter. She hadn’t been singing the prayer from Lucrezia this time, but Les feux magiques, by Berlioz; Lucia seemed quite unable — though of course she had been an agitated listener — to recognise the prayer when she heard it. But she was really a wonderful woman. Who but she would have had the genius to take advantage of Poppy’s delusion that Georgie was the Mayor of Tilling? Then what about Lucia’s swift return from the Castle? Without doubt Poppy had sent her away when she saw her female, beardless guest, and the clever creature had made out that it was she who had withdrawn as Poppy was so unwell, with a gallery of photographs to prove she had been there. Then she recalled Lucia’s face when she entered the garden-room a few minutes ago, the face of a perfect lady who, unexpectedly returns home to find a wanton woman, bent on seduction, alone with her husband. Or was Georgie’s evident relief at her advent funnier still? Impossible to decide, but she must not laugh till she could bury her face in her pillow. Lucia had a few sandwiches to refresh her after her drive, and they went up to bed. The two women kissed each other affectionately. Nobody kissed Georgie.
Tilling next morning, unaware of Lucia’s return, soon began to sprout with a crop of conjectures which, like mushrooms, sprang up all over the High Street. Before doing any shopping at all, Elizabeth rushed into Diva’s tea-shop to obtain confirmation that Diva had actually seen Lucia driving away with Foljambe and luggage on the previous afternoon en route for Sheffield Castle.
“Certainly I did,” said Diva. “Why?”
Elizabeth contracted her brows in a spasm of moral anguish.
“I wish I could believe,” she said, “that it was all a blind, and that Worship didn’t go to Sheffield Castle at all, but only wanted to make us think so, and returned home after a short drive by another route. Deceitful though that would be, it would be far, far better than what I fear may have happened.”
“I suppose you’re nosing out some false scent as usual,” said Diva. “Get on.”
Elizabeth made a feint of walking towards the door at this rude speech, but gave it up.
“It’s too terrible, Diva,” she said. “Yesterday evening, it might have been about half-past six, I was walking up the street towards Mallards. A motor passed me, laden with luggage, and it stopped there.”
“So I suppose you stopped, too,” said Diva.
“ — and out of it got Mr. Georgie and a big, handsome — yes, she was very handsome — woman, though, oh, so common. She stood on the doorstep a minute looking round, and sang out, ‘Georgino! How divino!’ Such a screech! I judge so much by voice. In they went, and the luggage was taken in after them, and the door shut. Bang. And Worship, you tell me, had gone away.”
“Gracious me!” said Diva.
“You may well say that. And you may well say that I stopped. I did, for I was rooted to the spot. It was enough to root anybody. At that moment the Padre had come round the corner, and he was rooted too. As I didn’t know then for certain whether Worship had actually gone — it might only have been one of her grand plans of which one hears no more — I said nothing to him, because it is so wicked to start any breath of scandal, until one has one’s facts. It looks to me very black, and I shouldn’t have thought it of Mr. Georgie. Whatever his faults — we all have faults — I did think he was a
man of clean life. I still hope it may be so, for he has always conducted himself with propriety, as far as I know, to the ladies of Tilling, but I don’t see how it possibly can.”
Diva gave a hoarse laugh.
“Not much temptation,” she said, “from us old hags. But it is queer that he brought a woman of that sort to stay at Mallards on the very night Lucia was away. And then there’s another thing. She told us all that he was going to stay at Poppy’s last night—”
“I can’t undertake to explain all that Worship tells us,” said Elizabeth. “That is asking too much of me.”
“ — but he was here,” said Diva. “Yet I shouldn’t wonder if you’d got hold of the wrong end of the stick somehow. Habit of yours, Elizabeth. After all, the woman may have been a friend of Lucia’s—”
“ — and so Mr. Georgie brought her when Lucia was away. I see,” said Elizabeth.
Her pensive gaze wandered to the window, and she stiffened like a pointing setter, for down the street from Mallards was coming Georgie with the common, handsome, screeching woman. Elizabeth said nothing to Diva, for something might be done in the way of original research, and she rose.
“Very dark clouds,” she said, “but we must pray that they will break. I’ve done no shopping yet. I suppose Worship will be back some time to-day with a basket of strawberry leaves, if Poppy can spare her. Otherwise, the municipal life of Tilling will be suspended. Not that it matters two straws whether she’s here or not. Quite a cypher in the Council.”
“Now that’s not fair,” shouted Diva angrily after her. “You can’t have it both ways. Why she ever made you Mayoress—” but Elizabeth had shut the door.
Diva went down to her kitchen with an involuntary glow of admiration for Georgie, which was a positive shock to her moral principles. He and his petit point, and his little cape, and his old-maidish ways — was it possible that these cloaked a passionate temperament? Who could this handsome, common female be? Where had he picked her up? Perhaps in the hotel when he and Lucia had stayed in London, for Diva seemed to have heard that voluptuous assignations were sometimes made in the most respectable places. What a rogue! And how frightful for Lucia, if she got to know about it. “I’m sure I hope she won’t,” thought Diva, “but it wouldn’t be bad for her to be taken down a peg or two, though I should pity her at the same time. However, one mustn’t rush to conclusions. But it’s shocking that I’ve got a greater respect for Mr. Georgie than I ever had before. Can’t make it out.”
Diva got to work with her pastry-making, but some odd undercurrent of thought went trickling on. What a starvation diet for a man of ardent temperament, as Georgie now appeared, must his life in Tilling have been, where all the women were so very undecorative. If there had only been a woman with a bit of brilliance about her, whom he could admire and flirt with just a little, all this might have been averted. She left Janet to finish the shortbread, and went out to cull developments.
Elizabeth meantime had sighted her prey immediately, and from close at hand observed the guilty pair entering the photographer’s. Were the shameless creatures, she wondered, going to be photographed together? That was the sort of bemused folly that sinning couples often committed, and bitterly rued it afterwards. She glided in after them, but Georgie was only giving the shopman a roll of negatives to be developed and printed and sent up to Mallards as soon as possible. He took off his hat to her very politely, but left the shop without introducing her to his companion which was only natural and showed good feeling. Certainly she was remarkably handsome. Beautifully dressed. A row of pearls so large that they could not be real. Hatless with waved hair. Rouge. Lipstick. . . . She went in pursuit again. They passed the Padre and his wife, who turned completely round to look at them; they passed Susan in her Royce (she had given up tricycling in this hot weather) who held her head out of the window till foot passengers blocked her view of them, and Diva, standing on her doorstep with her market basket, was rooted to the spot as firmly as Elizabeth had been the night before. The woman was a dream of beauty with her brilliant colouring and her high, arched eyebrows. Recovering her powers of locomotion, Diva went into the hairdressing and toilet saloon.
Elizabeth bought some parsnips at Twistevant’s, deep in thought. Bitter moralist though she was, she could not withhold her admiration for the anonymous female. Diva had rudely alluded to the ladies of Tilling as old hags, and was there not a grain of truth in it? They did not make the best of themselves. What brilliance that skilfully applied rouge and lipstick gave a face! Without it the anonymous might have looked ten years older and far less attractive. “Hair, too,” thought Elizabeth, “that soft brown, so like a natural tint. But fingernails, dripping with bright arterial blood: never!”
She went straight to the hair-dressing and toilet establishment. Diva was just coming out of the shop carrying a small packet.
“Little titivations, dear?” asked Elizabeth, reading her own thoughts unerringly.
“Tooth-powder,” said Diva without hesitation, and scooted across the road to where Susan was still leaning out of the window of her Royce and beckoning to her.
“I’ve seen her,” she said (there was no need to ask who ‘she’ was). “And I recognised her at once from her picture in the Tatler. You’d never guess.”
“No, I know I shouldn’t,” said Diva impatiently. “Who?”
“The great prima donna. Dear me, I’ve forgotten her name. But the one Lucia went to hear sing in London,” said Susan. “Bracelet, wasn’t it?”
“Bracely? Olga Bracely?” cried Diva. “Are you quite sure?”
“Positive. Quite lovely, and such hair.”
That was enough, and Diva twinkled back across the road to intercept Elizabeth who was just coming out of the hair-dressing and toilet shop with a pink packet in her hand, which she instantly concealed below the parsnips.
“Such a screechy voice, didn’t you say, Elizabeth?” she asked.
“Yes, frightful. It went right through me like a railway whistle. Why?”
“It’s the prima donna, Olga Bracely. That’s all,” said Diva. “Voice must have gone. Sad for her. Glad to have told you who she is.”
Very soon all Tilling knew who was the lovely maquillée woman with the pearls, who had stayed the night alone with Georgie at Mallards. Lucia had not been seen at all this morning, and it was taken for granted that she was still away on that snobbish expedition for which she had thrown over her Council meeting. Though Olga (so she said) was a dear friend, it would certainly be a surprise to her, when she returned to find her dear friend staying with her husband at her own house, when she had told Tilling that both Georgie and Olga were staying that night at Poppy’s Castle. Or would Olga leave Tilling again before Lucia returned? Endless interpretations could be put on this absorbing incident, but Tilling was too dazzled with the prima donna herself, her pearls, her beauty, her reputation as the Queen of Song to sit in judgment on her.
What a dream of charm and loveliness she was with her delicately rouged cheeks and vermilion mouth, and that air of joyous and unrepentant paganism! For Evie her blood-red nails had a peculiar attraction, and she too went to the hair-dressing and toilet establishment, and met Susan just coming out.
Lucia meantime had spent a municipal morning in the garden-room without showing herself even for a moment at the window. Her departmental boxes were grouped round her, but she gave them very little attention. She was completely satisfied with the explanation of the strange adventures which had led to the staggering discovery of Olga and Georgie alone in her house the night before, and was wondering whether Tilling need ever know how very brief her visit to Poppy had been. It certainly was not her business to tell her friends that a cup of tea had been the only hospitality she had received. Then her photographs (if they came out) would be ready by to-morrow, and if she gave a party in the evening she would leave her scrap-book open on the piano. She would not call attention to it, but there it would be, furnishing unshakable ocular evidence of h
er visit . . .
After lunch, accordingly, she rang up all her more intimate circle, and, without definitely stating that she had this moment returned to Tilling from Sheffield Castle, let it be understood that such was the case. It had been such a lovely morning: she had enjoyed her drive so much: she had found a mass of arrears waiting for her, and she asked them all to dine next night at eight. She apologized for such short notice, but her dear friend Olga Bracely, who was here on a short visit, would be leaving the day after — a gala night at the opera — and it would give her such pleasure to meet them all. But, as she and Olga went up to dress next evening, she told Olga that dinner would be at eightish: say ten minutes past eight. There was a subtle reason for this, for the photographs of Sheffield Castle had arrived and she had pasted them into her scrap-book. Tilling would thus have time to admire and envy before Olga appeared: Lucia felt that her friends would not take much interest in them if she was there.
Never had any party in Tilling worn so brilliant and unexpected an appearance as that which assembled in the garden-room the following night. Evie and the Padre arrived first: Evie’s finger nails looked as if she had pinched them all, except one, in the door, causing the blood to flow freely underneath each. She had forgotten about that one, and it looked frost-bitten. Elizabeth and Benjy came next: Elizabeth’s cheeks were like the petals of wild roses, but she had not the nerve to incarnadine her mouth, which, by contrast, appeared to be afflicted with the cyanosis which precedes death. Diva, on the other hand, had been terrified at the aspect of blooming youth which rouge gave her, and she had wiped it off at the last moment, retaining the Cupid’s bow of a vermilion mouth, and two thin arched eyebrows in charcoal. Susan, wearing the Order of the British Empire, had had her grey hair waved, and it resembled corrugated tin roofing: Mr. Wyse and Georgie wore their velvet suits. It took them all a few minutes to get used to each other, for they were like butterflies which had previously only known each other in the caterpillar or chrysalis stage, and they smiled and simpered like new acquaintances in the most polite circles, instead of old and censorious friends. Olga had not yet appeared, and so they had time to study Lucia’s album of snap-shots which lay open on the piano, and she explained in a casual manner what the latest additions were.