E. F. Benson

“ His last words had given her an admirable opening.
“I wonder!” she said. “Perhaps Pepino might feel inclined to go, if there really was no party. It doesn’t do to brood: you are right, I mustn’t let him brood. Selfish of me not to think of that. Who would there be, Georgie?”
“That’s really for you to settle,” he said.
“You?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Georgie, thinking it unnecessary to add that Olga was dining with him on Sunday, and that he would be at lunch and dinner on Sunday. “Yes: she asked me to come.”
“Well, then, what if you asked poor Daisy and her husband?” said Lucia. ”

“ Lucas, my lady,” he said.
Lucia got up, quite delighted.
“You’re always chaffing me, Adele,” she said. “What a nuisance the telephone is. One never gets a rest from it. But I won’t be a moment.”
She tripped off.
“Tony, there’s a great deal to talk about,” said Adele quickly. “Now what’s the situation between the lovers? Perfect understanding or a quarrel? And who has been ringing her up? What would you bet that it was——”
“Alf,” said Tony.
“I wonder. Tony, about the lovers. There’s something. I never saw such superb indifference. How I shall laugh at Marcia. She’s producing no effect at all. ”

“ Lucia had certainly determined to make a second home in London, for she had distinctly said, “my music room” when she referred to the house in Brompton Square. Also it was easy to see the significance of her deigning to touch Stravinski with even the tip of one finger. She was visualizing herself in the modern world, she was going to be up-to-date: the music-room in Brompton Square was not only to echo with the first movement of the Moonlight.... “It’s too thrilling,” said Georgie, as, warmed with this mental activity, he quite forgot to put on his fur tippet. ”

“ That’s what we all ought to be, with a thousand things to do that seem immensely important and which are important because they seem so. You want a certain touch to give importance to things, which dear Daisy hasn’t got. Whatever poor Daisy does seems trivial. But they shall see that I’ve come home. What does it matter to me whether it’s Marcia’s ball, or playing Alf’s accompaniments, or playing golf with Daisy, or playing duets with poor dear Georgie, whose fingers have all become thumbs, so long as I find it thrilling? If I find it dull, caro, I shall be, as Adele once said, a bloody fool. ”

“ Dear Olga was there: she is singing to-morrow, is she not? And you are assuming that Babs is guilty. How glad I am, Adele, that you are not on the jury! I take quite the other view: a woman with a wretched home like that must have a man with whom she is friends. I think it was a pure and beautiful affection between Babs and Woof-dog, such as any woman, even if she was happily married, might be proud to enjoy. There can be no doubt of Lord Middlesex’s devotion to her, and really—I hope this does not shock you—what their relations were concerns nobody but them. ”

“ Sigismund, you know, he’s the greatest rage in London just now. Everybody is crazy to be painted by him.”
“And they look crazy when they are. It’s a mad world, my masters,” said Mr. Merriall.
“Naughty,” said Lucia. “Is it not wonderful, Georgie?”
“Yes. I expect it’s very clever,” said Georgie. “Very clever indeed.”
“I should so like to show it dearest Olga,” said Lucia, “and I’m sure the Princess would be interested in it. She was talking about modern art the other day when I dined with Olga. I wonder if they would look in at tea-time, or indeed any other time.” ”

“ I think poor Babs’s case put it into Lucia’s head that in this naughty world it gave a cachet to a woman to have the reputation of having a lover. So safe too: there’s nothing to expose. They only behave like lovers strictly in public. I was terrified when it began that Mr. Merriall would think she meant something, and try to kiss her when they were alone, and so rub the delicate bloom completely off, but I’m sure he’s tumbled to it. ”

“ The sight of these antique fragments disgusted Daisy; they littered the path, and she could not imagine them built up into a rockery that should have the smallest claim to be an attractive object. How could the juxtaposition of a stone mullion, a drain-pipe and an ammonite present a pleasant appearance? Besides, who was to juxtapose them? She could not keep pace with the other needs of the garden, let alone a rockery, and where, after all, was the rockery to stand? The asparagus-bed seemed the only place, and she preferred asparagus. ”

“ What she had to know about with the utmost detail was exactly everything that had happened at Riseholme since she had left it a year ago.
“Good heavens!” she said. “To think that I once thought that it was a quiet back-watery place where I could rest and do nothing but study. But it’s a whirl! There’s always something wildly exciting going on. Oh, what fools people are not to take an interest in what they call little things. Now go on about Lucia. It’s his aunt, isn’t it, and mad?”
“Yes, and Pepino’s been left her house in Brompton Square,” began Georgie. ”

“ Another point that had struck her, both in the trial itself and in the torrents of talk that for the last few days had been poured out over the case, was the warm sympathy of the world in general with Babs, whether guilty or innocent. “The world always loves a lover,” thought Lucia, and Woof-dog thumping his tail on the rug by her bedroom fire was a beautiful image.{171}
Her thoughts took a more personal turn. The idea of having a real lover was, of course, absolutely abhorrent to her whole nature, and besides, she did not know whom she could get. ”

“ Olga at all times was good-natured. Her eye met Georgie’s for a moment.
“O, but come in,” she said. “Do come in. It isn’t a party: it’s just anybody. Georgie, be a dear, and help to carry all those flowers in. How nice of you to come across, Mrs. Lucas! I know you’ll excuse my running on ahead, because all—at least I hope all—my guests have come, and there’s no one to look after them.”
Lucia, following closely in her wake, and taking no further notice of Georgie, slipped into the little front drawing-room behind her. ”

“ My music-room looks out at the back.”
Lucia rose.
“Well, Georgie, you will be very busy this morning,” she said, “getting all the guests for Sunday, and I mustn’t keep you. But I should like to play you a morsel of Stravinski which I have been trying over. Terribly modern, of course, and it may sound hideous to you at first, and at best it’s a mere little tinkle if you compare it with the immortals. But there is something about it, and one mustn’t condemn all modern work unheard. There was a time no doubt when even Beethoven’s greatest sonatas were thought to be modern and revolutionary.” ”

“ Nothing could have been more unfortunate. Adele could have hurled the entire six rows of the Whitby pearls at Aggie’s face. Lucia had no lover, but only the wraith of a lover, on whom direct light must never be flashed. ”

“ There was simply none; it was impossible to detect a thing that had no existence. Lucia seemed completely unconscious of any annexation, or indeed of Stephen’s existence. There she sat, just now with Tony and herself, talking of Marcia’s ball, and the last volume of risky memoirs, of which she had read a review in the Sunday paper, and Sophy’s black room and Alf: never had she been more equipped at all points, more prosperously central. Marcia, thought Adele, was being wonderfully worsted, if she imagined she could produce any sign of emotion on Lucia’s part. ”

“ There was a splendour in the ruthlessness with which Lucia bowled over, like ninepins, every article of her own Riseholme creed, which saw Bolshevism in all modern art, inanity in crossword puzzles and Bridge, and aimless vacuity in London.... Immediately after the fresh tune on the wireless began, and most unfortunately, they came in for the Funeral March of a Marionette. A spasm of pain crossed Lucia’s face, and Olga abruptly turned off this sad reminder of unavailing woe. ”

“ Vecchia means—let me see; yes, of course, it means ‘old woman.’ ‘A dog, and an old woman who is angry.’ O Georgie, you did that! You were thinking about Pug and Lady Ambermere.”
“I swear I wasn’t,” said Georgie. “It never entered my head. Let’s see what else. ‘And Vittoria comes to tell you of fire and water, of fire and water. The strong elements that burn and soak. Fire and water and moonlight.’”
“O Georgie, what gibberish,” said Lucia. “It’s as silly as Abfou. What does it mean? Moonlight! I suppose you would say I pushed and was thinking of the Moonlight Sonata.” ”

“ It was that year that the Roman camp outside the village had been put under the plough and Riseholme had followed it like a bevy of rooks, and Georgie had got several trays full of fragments of iridescent glass, and Colonel Boucher had collected bits of Samian ware, and Mrs. Antrobus had found a bronze fibula or safety-pin. Daisy had got some chunks of Roman brickwork, and a section of Roman drainpipe, which now figured among the materials for her rockery; and she had bought, for about their weight in gold, quite a dozen bronze coins. ”

“ Your fault, Mr. Merriall; you men have no idea of time.”
“Who could, Duchess, when he was with you?” said Stephen most adroitly.
“Sweet of you,” said she. “Now do go on. You were in the middle of telling me something quite thrilling. And please, Adele, let nobody wait for us. I see you are all at the end of lunch, and I haven’t begun, and gooseberries, as usual, have given me an enormous appetite. Yes, Mr. Merriall?”
Adele looked in vain, when throughout the afternoon Marcia continued in possession of Lucia’s lover, for the smallest sign of resentment or uneasiness on her part. ”

“ Lucia fumbled for a moment at the brooch containing Beethoven’s hair. She had a feeling that the pin had come undone. “Dear Miss Olga,” she said, “how good of you to take an interest, you with your great mission of melody in the world, in our little affairs! I am encouraged. Well, Pepino and I feel—don’t we, sposo mio?—that now that this opportunity has come to us, of perhaps having a little salon in London, we ought to take it. There are modern movements in the world we really know nothing about. We want to educate ourselves. We want to know what the cosmopolitan mind is thinking about. ”

“ But it did not miss the new shingled Lucia, the one who had come down with a party of fresh friends, and had laughed at the Museum, and had neglected her old friends altogether, till she found out that Olga and a Princess were in the place: the less seen of her the better. It was considered also that she had remained down here this extra day in order to propitiate those whom she had treated as pariahs, and condescend to take notice of them again, and if there was one thing that Riseholme could not stand, and did not mean to stand from anybody, it was condescension. ”

“ But Lucia, in that talk with his doctor, had made up her mind: she rejected at once the idea of pursuing her victorious career in London if all the time she would have to be careful and thrifty, and if, far more importantly, she would be leaving Pepino down at Riseholme. That was not to be thought of: affection no less than decency made it impossible, and so having made up her mind, she set about the attainment of her object with all her usual energy. ”

“ Any news?”
“Any news?” was the general gambit of conversation in Riseholme. It could not have been bettered, for there always was news. And there was now.
“Yes, Pepino’s gone to the station,” said Mr. Quantock. “Just like a large black crow. Waved a black hand. Bah! Why not call a release a release and have done with it? And if you don’t know—why, I’ll tell you. It’s because they’re rolling in riches. Why, I’ve calculated——”
“Yes?” said Daisy and Georgie simultaneously. ”

“ But it was strange to the true Riseholmite to hear the arch-priestess of Beethoven and the foe of all modern music, which she used to account sheer Bolshevism, producing these scrannel staccato tinklings that had so often made her wince. And yet it all fitted in with her approbation of the wireless and her borrowing of Georgie’s manual on Auction Bridge. It was not the morsel of Stravinski alone that Lucia was practising (the performance though really improved might still be called practice) : it was modern life, modern ideas on which she was engaged preparatory to her descent on London. ”

“ Even as she delivered these icy sentiments, Lucia got up rather hastily and passed behind him. Something white on the music-rest of the piano had caught her eye.
“Don’t move, Georgie,” she said, “sit and warm yourself and light your cigarette. Anything else?”
She walked up the room to the far end where the piano stood, and Georgie, though he was a little deaf, quite distinctly heard the rustle of paper. The most elementary rudiments of politeness forbade him to look round. ”

“ Lucia had accepted that with the frankest good-nature: she had made quite a gay little lament about it, when she was asked what she was going to do in August. “Ah, all you lucky rich people with money to throw about; we’ve got to go and live quietly at home,” she used to say. “But I shall love it, though I shall miss you all dreadfully. Riseholme, dear Riseholme, you know, adorable, and all the delicious funny friends down there who spoil me so dreadfully. ”

“ How curious that if you dreamed about boiled rabbit, it meant that sometime in early childhood you had been kissed by a poacher in a railway-carriage, and had forgotten all about it! What a magnificent subject for excited research psycho-analysis would have been in those keen intellectual days at Riseholme.... She thought of them now with a vague yearning for their simplicity and absorbing earnestness; of the hours she had spent with Georgie over piano-duets, of Daisy Quantock’s ouija-board and planchette, of the Museum with its mittens. ”

“ The wretch has done two caricatures of Pepino and me. I feel as if I was to be flayed in the sight of all London. Au revoir, then, dear Adele, if you’re so tired of us. And then the opera in the evening: I shall hardly dare to show my face. Your motor’s here, is it? Ring, Stephen, will you? Such a short visit, and I expect Olga will pop in presently. All sorts of messages to her, I suppose. Look in again, Adele: propose yourself.”
On the doorstep Adele met Tony Limpsfield. She hurried him into her motor, and told the chauffeur not to drive on.
“News!” she said. “Lucia’s going to have a lover.” ”

“ Lucia felt perfectly certain in her own mind that Abfou had been saying things about her. But perhaps, as it was Daisy who had been operating, it was better not to ask what they were. Ignorance was not bliss, but knowledge might be even less blissful. And Georgie was not thawing: he was polite, he was reserved, but so far from chatting, he was talking with great care. She must get him in a more confidential mood.
“That reminds me,” she said. “Pepino and I haven’t given you anything for the Museum yet. I must send you the Elizabethan spit from my music-room. ”