by E. F. Benson
“Me too,” said Georgie, waving his leg. “But I don’t think Lucia will do that. It did occur to me—”
“The house in London, you mean,” said Daisy, swiftly interrupting. “Of course if they kept both houses open, with a staff in each, so that they could run up and down as they chose, that would make a big hole in it. Lucia has always said that she couldn’t live in London, but she may manage it if she’s got a house there.”
“I’m dining with her to-night,” said Georgie. “Perhaps she’ll say something.”
Mrs. Quantock was very thirsty with her gardening, and the tea was very hot. She poured it into her saucer and blew on it.
“Lucia would be wise not to waste any time,” she said, “if she intends to have any fun out of it, for, you know, Georgie, we’re beginning to get old. I’m fifty-two. How old are you?”
Georgie disliked that barbarous sort of question. He had been the young man of Riseholme so long that the habit was ingrained, and he hardly believed that he was forty-eight.
“Forty-three,” he said, “but what does it matter how old we are, as long as we’re busy and amused? And I’m sure Lucia has got all the energy and life she ever had. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if she made a start in London, and went in for all that. Then, of course, there’s Pepino, but he only cares for writing his poetry and looking through his telescope.”
“I hate that telescope,” said Daisy. “He took me up on to the roof the other night and showed me what he said was Mars, and I’ll take my oath he said that the same one was Venus only a week before. But as I couldn’t see anything either time, it didn’t make much difference.”
The door opened, and Mr. Quantock came in. Robert was like a little round brown sarcastic beetle. Georgie got up to greet him, and stood in the full blaze of the light. Robert certainly saw his trousers, for his eyes seemed unable to quit the spreading folds that lay round Georgie’s ankles: he looked at them as if he was Cortez and they some new planet. Then without a word he folded his arms and danced a few steps of what was clearly meant to be a sailor’s hornpipe.
“Heave-ho, Georgie,” he said. “Belay there and avast.”
“What is he talking about?” said Daisy.
Georgie, quite apart from his general good-nature, always strove to propitiate Mr. Quantock. He was far the most sarcastic person in Riseholme and could say sharp things straight off, whereas Georgie had to think a long time before he got a nasty edge to any remark, and then his good-nature generally forbade him to slash with it.
“He’s talking about my new clothes,” he said, “and he’s being very naughty. 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.
“So you’ve been calculating too?” said Mr. Quantock.
“Might have a sweepstake for the one who gets nearest. I say three thousand a year.”
“Not so much,” said Georgie and Daisy again simultaneously.
“All right. But that’s no reason why I shouldn’t have a lump of sugar in my tea.”
“Dear me, no,” said Daisy genially. “But how do you make it up to three thousand?”
“By addition,” said this annoying man. “There’ll be every penny of that. I was at the lending library after lunch, and those who could add made it all that.”
Daisy turned to Georgie.
“You’ll be alone with Lucia then to-night,” she said.
“Oh, I knew that,” said Georgie. “She told me Pepino had gone. I expect he’s sleeping in that house to-night.”
Mr. Quantock produced his calculations, and the argument waxed hot. It was still raging when Georgie left in order to get a little rest before going on to dinner, and to practise the Mozart duet. He and Lucia hadn’t tried it before, so it was as well to practise both parts, and let her choose which she liked. Foljambe had come back from her afternoon out, and told him that there had been a trunk call for him while he was at tea, but she could make nothing of it.
“Somebody in a great hurry, sir,” she said, “and kept asking if I was—excuse me, sir, if I was Georgie—I kept saying I wasn’t, but I’d fetch you. That wouldn’t do, and she said she’d telegraph.”
“But who was it?” asked Georgie.
“Couldn’t say, sir. She never gave a name, but only kept asking.”
“She?” asked Georgie.
“Sounded like one!” said Foljambe.
“Most mysterious,” said Georgie. It couldn’t be either of his sisters, for they sounded not like a she but a he. So he lay down on his sofa to rest a little before he took a turn at the Mozart.
The evening had turned chilly, and he put on his blue cape with the velvet collar to trot across to Lucia’s house. The parlour-maid received him with a faint haggard smile of recognition, and then grew funereal again, and preceding him, not at her usual brisk pace, but sadly and slowly, opened the door of the music-room and pronounced his name in a mournful whisper. It was a gay cheerful room, in the ordinary way; now only one light was burning, and from the deepest of the shadows, there came a rustling, and Lucia rose to meet him.
“Georgie, dear,” she said. “Good of you.”
Georgie held her hand a moment longer than was usual, and gave it a little extra pressure for the conveyance of sympathy. Lucia, to acknowledge that, pressed a little more, and Georgie tightened his grip again to show that he understood, until their respective finger-nails grew white with the conveyance and reception of sympathy. It was rather agonising, because a bit of skin on his little finger had got caught between two of the rings on his third finger, and he was glad when they quite understood each other.
Of course it was not to be expected that in these first moments Lucia should notice his trousers. She herself was dressed in deep mourning, and Georgie thought he recognised the little cap she wore as being that which had faintly expressed her grief over the death of Queen Victoria. But black suited her, and she certainly looked very well. Dinner was announced immediately, and she took Georgie’s arm, and with faltering steps they went into the dining-room.
Georgie had determined that his role was to be sympathetic, but bracing. Lucia must rally from this blow, and her suggestion that he should bring the Mozart duet was hopeful. And though her voice was low and unsteady, she did say, as they sat down, “Any news?”
“I’ve hardly been outside my house and garden all day,” said Georgie. “Rolling the lawn. And Daisy Quantock—did you know?—has had a row with her gardener, and is going to do it all herself. So there she was next door with a fork and a wheelbarrow full of manure.”
Lucia gave a wan smile.
“Dear Daisy!” she said. “What a garden it will be! Anything else?”
“Yes, I had tea with them, and while I was out, there was a trunk-call for me. So tarsome. Whoever it was couldn’t make any way, and she’s going to telegraph. I can’t imagine who it was.”
“I wonder!” said Lucia in an interested voice. Then she recollected herself again. “I had a sort of presentiment, Georgie, when I saw that telegram for Pepino on the table, two days ago, that it was bad news.”
“Curious,” said Georgie. “And what delicious fish! How do you always manage to get better things than any of us? It tastes of the sea. And I am so hungry after all my work.”
Lucia went firmly on.
“I took it to poor Pepino,” she said, “and he got quite white. And then—so like him—he thought of me. ‘It’s bad news, darling,’ he said, ‘and we’ve got to help each other to bear it!’”
“So like Pepino,” said Georgie. “Mr. Quantock saw
him going to the station. Where is he going to sleep to-night?”
Lucia took a little more fish.
“In Auntie’s house in Brompton Square,” she said.
“So that’s where it is!” thought Georgie. If there was a light anywhere in Daisy’s house, except in the attics, he would have to go in for a minute, on his return home, and communicate the news.
“Oh, she had a house there, had she?” he said.
“Yes, a charming house,” said Lucia, “and full, of course, of dear old memories to Pepino. It will be very trying for him, for he used to go there when he was a boy to see Auntie.”
“And has she left it him?” asked Georgie, trying to make his voice sound unconcerned.
“Yes, and it’s a freehold,” said Lucia. “That makes it easier to dispose of if Pepino settles to sell it. And beautiful Queen Anne furniture.”
“My dear, how delicious!” said Georgie. “Probably worth a fortune.”
Lucia was certainly rallying from the terrible blow, but she did not allow herself to rally too far, and shook her head sadly.
“Pepino would hate to have to part with Auntie’s things,” she said. “So many memories. He can recollect her sitting at the walnut bureau (one of those tall ones, you know, which let down in front, and the handles of the drawers all original), doing her accounts in the morning. And a picture of her with her pearls over the fireplace by Sargent; quite an early one. Some fine Chinese Chippendale chairs in the dining-room. We must try to keep some of the things.”
Georgie longed to ask a hundred questions, but it would not be wise, for Lucia was so evidently enjoying letting these sumptuous details leak out mingled with memories. He was beginning to feel sure that Daisy’s cynical suggestion was correct, and that the stricken desolation of Pepino and Lucia cloaked a very substantial inheritance. Bits of exultation kept peeping out, and Lucia kept poking them back.
“But where will you put all those lovely things, if you sell the house?” he asked. “Your house here is so perfect already.”
“Nothing is settled yet,” said Lucia. “Neither he nor I can think of anything but dear Auntie. Such a keen intelligent mind she had when Pepino first remembered her. Very good-looking still in the Sargent picture. And it was all so sudden, when Pepino saw her last she was so full of vigour.”
(“That was the time she bit him,” thought Georgie.) Aloud he said: “Of course you must feel it dreadfully. What is the Sargent? A kit-cat or a full length?”
“Full length, I believe,” said Lucia. “I don’t know where we could put it here. And a William III whatnot. But of course it is not possible to think about that yet. A glass of port?”
“I’m going to give you one,” said Georgie, “it’s just what you want after all your worries and griefs.”
Lucia pushed her glass towards him.
“Just half a glass,” she said. “You are so dear and understanding, Georgie; I couldn’t talk to anyone but you, and perhaps it does me good to talk. There is some wonderful port in Auntie’s cellar, Pepino says.”
She rose.
“Let us go into the music-room,” she said. “We will talk a little more, and then play our Mozart if I feel up to it.”
“That’ll do you good too,” said Georgie.
Lucia felt equal to having more illumination than there had been when she rose out of the shadows before dinner, and they established themselves quite cosily by the fire.
“There will be a terrible lot of business for Pepino,” she said. “Luckily his lawyer is the same firm as Auntie’s, and quite a family friend. Whatever Auntie had, so he told us, goes to Pepino, though we haven’t really any idea what it is. But with death duties and succession duties, I know we shall have to be prepared to be very poor until they are paid off, and the duties increase so iniquitously in proportion to the inheritance. Then everything in Brompton Square has to be valued, and we have to pay on the entire contents, the very carpets and rugs are priced, and some are beautiful Persians. And then there’s the valuer to pay, and all the lawyer’s charges. And when all that has been paid and finished, there is the higher super-tax.”
“But there’s a bigger income,” said Georgie.
“Yes, that’s one way of looking at it,” said Lucia. “But Pepino says that the charges will be enormous. And there’s a beautiful music-room.”
Lucia gave him one of her rather gimlet-like looks.
“Georgino, I suppose everybody in Riseholme is all agog to know what Pepino has been left. That is so dreadfully vulgar, but I suppose it’s natural. Is everybody talking about it?”
“Well, I have heard it mentioned,” said Georgie. “But I don’t see why it’s vulgar. I’m interested in it myself. It concerns you and Pepino, and what concerns one’s friends must be of interest to one.”
“Caro, I know that,” said Lucia. “But so much more than the actual money is the responsibility it brings. Pepino and I have all we want for our quiet little needs, and now this great increase of wealth is coming to us—great, that is, compared to our modest little income now—and, as I say, it brings its responsibilities. We shall have to use wisely and without extravagance whatever is left after all these immense expenses have been paid. That meadow at the bottom of the garden, of course, we shall buy at once, so that there will no longer be any fear of its being built over and spoiling the garden. And then perhaps a new telescope for Pepino. But what do I want in Riseholme beyond what I’ve got? Music and friends, and the power to entertain them, my books and my flowers. Perhaps a library, built on at the end of the wing, where Pepino can be undisturbed, and perhaps every now and then a string quartette down from London. That will give a great deal of pleasure, and music is more than pleasure, isn’t it?”
Again she turned the gimlet-look onto Georgie.
“And then there’s the house in Brompton Square,” she said, “where Auntie was born. Are we to sell that?”
Georgie guessed exactly what was in her mind. It had been in his too, ever since Lucia had alluded to the beautiful music-room. Her voice had lingered over the beautiful music-room: she had seemed to underline it, to caress it, to appropriate it.
“I believe you are thinking of keeping the house and partly living there,” he said.
Lucia looked round, as if a hundred eavesdroppers had entered unaware.
“Hush, Georgie,” she said, “not a word must be said about that. But it has occurred to both Pepino and me.”
“But I thought you hated London,” he said. “You’re always so glad to get back, you find it so common and garish.”
“It is, compared to the exquisite peace and seriousness of our Riseholme,” she said, “where there never is a jarring note, at least hardly ever. But there is in London a certain stir and movement which we lack here. In the swim, Georgie, in the middle of things! Perhaps we get too sensitive here where everything is full of harmony and culture, perhaps we are too much sheltered. If I followed my inclination I would never leave our dear Riseholme for a single day. Oh, how easy everything would be if one only followed one’s inclination! A morning with my books, an afternoon in my garden, my piano after tea, and a friend like you to come in to dine with my Pepino and me and scold me well, as you’ll soon be doing for being so bungling over Mozartino.”
Lucia twirled round the Elizabethan spit that hung in the wide chimney, and again fixed him rather in the style of the Ancient Mariner. Georgie could not choose but hear… Lucia’s eloquent well-ordered sentences had nothing impromptu about them; what she said was evidently all thought out and probably talked out. If she and Pepino had been talking of nothing else since the terrible blow had shattered them, she could not have been more lucid and crystal-clear.
“Georgie, I feel like a leisurely old horse who has been turned out to grass being suddenly bridled and harnessed again. But there is work and energy in me yet, though I thought that I should be permitted to grow old in the delicious peace and leisure of our dear quiet humdrum Riseholme. But I feel that perha
ps that is not to be. My conscience is cracking the whip at me, and saying ‘You’ve got to trot again, you lazy old thing.’ And I’ve got to think of Pepino. Dear, contented Pepino would never complain if I refused to budge. He would read his paper, and potter in the garden, and write his dear little poems—such a sweet one, ‘Bereavement,’ he began it yesterday, a sonnet—and look at the stars. But is it a life for a man?”
Georgie made an uneasy movement in his chair, and Lucia hastened to correct the implied criticism.
“You’re different, my dear,” she said. “You’ve got that wonderful power of being interested in everything. Everything. But think what London would give Pepino! His club: the Astronomer-Royal is a member, his other club, political, and politics have lately been quite an obsession with him. The reading-room at the British Museum. No, I should be very selfish if I did not see all that. I must and I do think of Pepino. I mustn’t be selfish, Georgie.”
This idea of Lucia’s leaving Riseholme was a live bomb. At the moment of its explosion, Georgie seemed to see Riseholme fly into a thousand disintegrated fragments. And then, faintly, through the smoke he seemed to see Riseholme still intact. Somebody, of course, would have to fill the vacant throne and direct its affairs. And the thought of Beau Nash at Bath flitted across the distant horizon of his mind. It was a naughty thought, but its vagueness absolved it from treason. He shook it off.
“But how on earth are we to get on without you?” he asked.
“Sweet of you to say that, Georgie,” said she, giving another twirl to the spit. (There had been a leg of mutton roasted on it last May-day, while they all sat round in jerkins and stomachers and hose, and all the perfumes of Arabia had hardly sufficed to quell the odour of roast meat which had pervaded the room for weeks afterwards.) “Sweet of you to say that, but you mustn’t think that I am deserting Riseholme. We should be in London perhaps (though, as I say, nothing is settled) for two or three months in the summer, and always come here for weekends, and perhaps from November till Christmas, and a little while in the spring. And then Riseholme would always be coming up to us. Five spare bedrooms, I believe, and one of them quite a little suite with a bathroom and sitting-room attached. No, dear Georgie, I would never desert my dear Riseholme. If it was a choice between London and Riseholme, I should not hesitate in my choice.”
