by E. F. Benson
Georgie popped in that afternoon about teatime. The afternoon was rather chilly, and Lucia had a fire lit in the grate of the music-room, which, now that the spit had been removed, burned beautifully. Pepino, drowsy with his cold, sat by it, while the other two played duets. Already Lucia had taken down Sigismund’s portrait and installed Georgie’s water-colours again by the piano. They had had a fine tussle over the Mozart duet, and Georgie had promised to practise it, and Lucia had promised to practise it, and she had called him an idle boy, and he had called her a lazy girl, quite in the old style, while Pepino dozed. Just then the evening post came in, with the evening paper, and Lucia picked up the latter to see what Hermione had said about her departure from London. Even as she turned back the page her eye fell on two or three letters which had been forwarded from Brompton Square. The top one was a large square envelope, the sort of fine thick envelope that contained a rich card of invitation, and she opened it. Next moment she sprang from her seat.
“Pepino, dear,” she cried. “Marcia! Her ball. Marcia’s ball to-night!”
Pepino roused himself a little.
“Ball? What ball?” he said. “No ball. Riseholme.”
Lucia pushed by Georgie on the treble music stool, without seeming to notice that he was there.
“No dear, of course you won’t go,” she said. “But do you know, I think I shall go up and pop in for an hour. Georgie will come to dine with you, won’t you, Georgie, and you’ll go to bed early. Half past six! Yes, I can be in town by ten. That will be heaps of time. I shall dress at Brompton Square. Just a sandwich to take with me and eat it in the car.”
She wheeled round to Georgie, pressing the bell in her circumvolution.
“Marcia Whitby,” she said. “Winding up the season. So easy to pop up there, and dear Marcia would be hurt if I didn’t come. Let me see, shall I come back to-morrow, Pepino? Perhaps it would be simpler if I stayed up there and sent the car back. Then you could come up in comfort next day, and we would go on to Adele’s together. I have a host of things to do in London to-morrow. That party at Aggie’s. I will telephone to Aggie to say that I can come after all. My maid, my chauffeur,” she said to the butler, rather in the style of Shylock. “I want my maid and my chauffeur and my car. Let him have his dinner quickly—no, he can get his dinner at Brompton Square. Tell him to come round at once.”
Georgie sat positively aghast, for Lucia ran on like a thing demented. Mozart, ouija, putting, the Elizabethan spit, all the simple joys of Riseholme fizzled out like damp fireworks. Gone, too, utterly gone was her need of complete rest; she had never been so full of raw, blatant, savage vitality.
“Dear Marcia,” she said. “I felt it must be an oversight from the first, but naturally, Georgie, though she and I are such friends, I could not dream of reminding her. What a blessing that my delicious day at Riseholme has so rested me: I feel I could go to fifty balls without fatigue. Such a wonderful house, Georgie; when you come up to stay with us in the autumn, I must take you there. Pepino, is it not lucky that I only brought down here just enough for a couple of nights, and left everything in London to pick up as we came through to go to Adele’s? What a sight it will be, all the Royal Family almost I believe, and the whole of the Diplomatic corps: my Gioconda, I know, is going. Not a large ball though at all: not one of those great promiscuous affairs, which I hate so. How dear Marcia was besieged for invitations! how vulgar people are and how pushing! Goody-bye, mind you practise your Mozart, Georgie. Oh, and tell Daisy that I shan’t be able to have another of those delicious puttings with her to-morrow. Back on Tuesday after the week-end at Adele’s, and then weeks and weeks of dear Riseholme. How long they are! I will just go and hurry my maid up.”
Georgie tripped off, as soon as she had gone, to see Daisy, and narrated to her open-mouthed disgust this amazing scene.
“And the question is,” he said, “about the complete rest that was ordered her. I don’t believe she was ordered any rest at all. I believe—”
Daisy gave a triumphant crow: inductive reasoning had led her to precisely the same point at precisely the same moment.
“Why, of course!” she said. “I always felt there was something behind that complete rest. I told you it meant something different. She wasn’t asked, and so—”
“And so she came down here for rest,” said Georgie in a loud voice. He was determined to bring that out first. “Because she wasn’t asked—”
“And the moment she was asked she flew,” said Daisy. “Nothing could be plainer. No more rest, thank you.”
“She’s wonderful,” said Georgie. “Too interesting!”
Lucia sped through the summer evening on this errand of her own reprieve, too excited to eat, and too happy to wonder how it had happened like this. How wise, too, she had been to hold her tongue and give way to no passionate laments at her exclusion from the paradise towards which she was now hastening. Not one word of abuse had she uttered against Marcia: she had asked nobody to intercede: she had joined in all the talk about the ball as if she was going, and finally had made it impossible for herself to go by announcing that she had been ordered a few days of complete rest. She could (and would) explain her appearance perfectly: she had felt much better—doctors were such fussers—and at the last moment had made just a little effort, and here she was.
A loud explosion interrupted these agreeable reflections and the car drew up. A tyre had burst, but they carried an extra wheel, and though the delay seemed terribly long they were soon on their way again. They traversed another ten miles, and now in the north-east the smouldering glow of London reddened the toneless hue of the summer night. The stars burned bright, and she pictured Pepino at his telescope—no, Pepino had a really bad cold, and would not be at his telescope. Then there came another explosion—was it those disgusting stars in their courses that were fighting against her?—and again the car drew up by the side of the empty road.
“What has happened?” asked Lucia in a strangled voice.
“Another tyre gone, ma’am,” said the chauffeur. “Never knew such a thing.”
Lucia looked at her clock. It was ten already, and she ought now to be in Brompton Square. There was no further wheel that could be put on, and the tyre had to be taken off and mended. The minutes passed like seconds… Lucia, outwardly composed, sat on a rug at the edge of the road, and tried unsuccessfully not to curse Almighty Providence. The moon rose, like a gelatine lozenge.
She began to count the hours that intervened between the tragic present and, say, four o’clock in the morning, and she determined that whatever further disasters might befall, she would go to Whitby House, even if it was in a dustman’s cart, so long as there was a chance of a single guest being left there. She would go…
And all the time, if she had only known it, the stars were fighting not against her but for her. The tyre was mended, and she got to Brompton Square at exactly a quarter past eleven. Cupboards were torn open, drawers ransacked, her goaded maid burst into tears. Aunt Amy’s pearls were clasped round her neck, Pepino’s hair in the shrine of gold sausage that had once been Beethoven’s was pinned on, and at five minutes past twelve she hurried up the great stairs at Whitby House. Precisely as she came to the door of the ballroom there emerged the head of the procession going down to supper. Marcia for a moment stared at her as if she was a ghost, but Lucia was so busy curtseying that she gave no thought to that. Seven times in rapid succession did she curtsey. It almost became a habit, and she nearly curtsied to Adele who (so like Adele) followed immediately after.
“Just up from Riseholme, dearest Adele,” she said. “I felt quite rested—How are you, Lord Tony?—and so I made a little effort. Pepino urged me to come. How nice to see your Excellency! Millie! Dearest Olga! What a lot of friends! How is poor Princess Isabel? Marcia looked so handsome. Brilliant! Such a delicious drive: I felt I had to pop in…”
CHAPTER IX
Poor Pepino’s cold next day, instead of being better, was a good deal worse.
He had aches and pains, and felt feverish, and sent for the doctor, who peremptorily ordered him to go to bed. There was nothing in the least to cause alarm, but it would be the height of folly to go to any week-end party at all. Bed.
Pepino telegraphed to Lady Brixton with many regrets for the unavoidable, and rang up Lucia. The state of his voice made it difficult to catch what he said, but she quite understood that there was nothing to be anxious about, and that he hoped she would go to Adele’s without him. Her voice on the other hand was marvellously distinct, and he heard a great deal about the misfortunes which had come to so brilliant a conclusion last night. There followed a string of seven Christian names, and Lucia said a flashlight photograph had been permitted during supper. She thought she was in it, though rather in the background.
Lucia was very sorry for Pepino’s indisposition, but, as ordered, had no anxiety about him. She felt too, that he wouldn’t personally miss very much by being prevented from coming to Adele’s party, for it was to be a very large party, and Pepino—bless him—occasionally got a little dazed at these brilliant gatherings. He did not grasp who people were with the speed and certainty which were needful, and he had been known to grasp the hand of an eminent author and tell him how much he had admired his fine picture at the Academy. (Lucia constantly did that sort of thing herself, but then she got herself out of the holes she had herself digged with so brilliant a manœuvre that it didn’t matter, whereas Pepino was only dazed the more by his misfortunes.) Moreover she knew that Pepino’s presence somehow hampered her style: she could not be the brilliant mondaine, when his patient but proud eye was on her, with quite the dash that was hers when he was not there. There was always the sense that he knew her best in her Riseholme incarnation, in her duets with Georgie, and her rendering of the slow movement of the Moonlight Sonata, and her grabbing of all Daisy’s little stunts. She electrified him as the superb butterfly, but the electrification was accompanied by slight shocks and surprises. When she referred by her Christian name to some woman with whom her only bond was that she had refused to dine at Brompton Square, that puzzled Pepino… In the autumn she must be a little more serious, have some quiet dinner parties of ordinary people, for really up till now there had scarcely been an ‘ordinary’ person at Brompton Square at all, such noble lions of every species had been entrapped there. And Adele’s party was to be of a very leonine kind; the smart world was to be there, and some highbrows and some politicians, and she was aware that she herself would have to do her very best, and be allusive, and pretend to know what she didn’t know, and seem to swim in very distinguished currents. Dear Pepino wasn’t up to that sort of thing, he couldn’t grapple with it, and she grappled with it best without him… At the moment of that vainglorious thought, it is probable that Nemesis fixed her inexorable eye on Lucia.
Lucia unconscious of this deadly scrutiny turned to her immediate affairs. Her engagement-book pleasantly informed her that she had many things to do on the day when the need for complete rest overtook her, and now she heralded through the telephone the glad tidings that she could lunch here and drop in there, and dine with Aggie. All went well with these restorations, and the day would be full, and to-morrow also, down to the hour of her departure for Adele’s. Having despatched this agreeable business, she was on the point of ringing up Stephen, to fit him in for the spare three-quarters of an hour that was left, when she was rung up and it was Stephen’s voice that greeted her.
“Stephano mio,” she said. “How did you guess I was back?”
“Because I rang up Riseholme first,” said he, “and heard you had gone to town. Were you there last night?”
There was no cause to ask where “there” was. There had only been one place in London last night.
“Yes; delicious dance,” said Lucia. “I was just going to ring you up and see if you could come round for a chat at 4.45, I am free till 5.30. Such fun it was. A flashlight photograph.”
“No!” said Stephen in the Riseholme manner. “I long to hear about it. And were there really seven of them?”
“Quite,” said Lucia magnificently.
“Wonderful! But 4.45 is no use for me. Can’t you give me another time?”
“My dear, impossible,” said Lucia. “You know what London is in these last days. Such a scrimmage.”
“Well, we shall meet to-morrow then,” said he.
“But, alas, I go to Adele’s to-morrow,” she said.
“Yes, but so do I,” said Stephen. “She asked me this morning. I was wondering if you would drive me down, if you’re going in your car. Would there be room for you and Pepino and me?”
Lucia rapidly reviewed the situation. It was perfectly clear to her that Adele had asked Stephen, at the last moment, to fill Pepino’s place. But naturally she had not told him that, and Lucia determined not to do so either. It would spoil his pleasure (at least it would have spoiled hers) to know that… . And what a wonderful entry it would make for her—rather daring—to drive down alone with her lover. She could tell him about Pepino’s indisposition to-morrow, as if it had just occurred.
“Yes, Stephano, heaps of room,” she said. “Delighted. I’ll call for you, shall I, on my way down, soon after three.”
“Angelic,” he said. “What fun we shall have.”
And it is probable that Nemesis at that precise moment licked her dry lips. ‘Fun!’ thought Nemesis.
Marcia Whitby was of the party. She went down in the morning, and lunched alone with Adele. Their main topic of conversation was obvious.
“I saw her announcement in the Morning Post,” said the infuriated Marcia, “that she had gone for a few days complete rest into the country, and naturally I thought I was safe. I was determined she shouldn’t come to my ball, and when I saw that, I thought she couldn’t. So out of sheer good nature I sent her a card, so that she could tell everybody she had been asked. Never did I dream that there was a possibility of her coming. Instead of which, she made the most conspicuous entry that she could have made. I believe she timed it: I believe she waited on the stairs till she saw we were going down to supper.”
“I wonder!” said Adele. “Genius, if it was that. She curtsied seven times, too. I can’t do that without loud cracks from my aged knees.”
“And she stopped till the very end,” said Marcia. “She was positively the last to go. I shall never do a kind thing again.”
“You’re horrid about her,” said Adele. “Besides, what has she done? You asked her and she came. You don’t rave at your guests for coming when they’re asked. You wouldn’t like it if none of them came.”
“That’s different,” said Marcia. “I shouldn’t wonder if she announced she was ordered complete rest in order that I should fall into her trap.”
Adele sighed, but shook her head.
“Oh, my dear, that would have been magnificent,” she said. “But I’m afraid I can’t hope to believe that. I daresay she went into the country because you hadn’t asked her, and that was pretty good. But the other: no. However, we’ll ask Tony what he thinks.”
“What’s Tony got to do with it?” said Marcia.
“Why, he’s even more wrapped up in her than I am,” said Adele. “He thinks of nothing else.”
Marcia was silent a moment. Then a sort of softer gleam came into her angry eye.
“Tell me some more about her,” she said.
Adele clapped her hands.
“Ah, that’s splendid,” she said. “You’re beginning to feel kinder. What we would do without our Lucia I can’t imagine. I don’t know what there would be to talk about.”
“She’s ridiculous!” said Marcia relapsing a little.
“No, you mustn’t feel that,” said Adele. “You mustn’t laugh at her ever. You must just richly enjoy her.”
“She’s a snob!” said Marcia, as if this was a tremendous discovery.
“So am I: so are you: so are we all,” said Adele. “We all run after distinguished people like—like Alf and Marcelle. The d
ifference between you and Lucia is entirely in her favour, for you pretend you’re not a snob, and she is perfectly frank and open about it. Besides, what is a duchess like you for except to give pleasure to snobs? That’s your work in the world, darling; that’s why you were sent here. Don’t shirk it, or when you’re old you will suffer agonies of remorse. And you’re a snob too. You liked having seven—or was it seventy?—Royals at your dance.”
“Well, tell me some more about Lucia,” said Marcia, rather struck by this ingenious presentation of the case.
“Indeed I will: I long for your conversion to Luciaphilism. Now to-day there are going to be marvellous happenings. You see Lucia has got a lover—”
“Quite absolutely impossible!” said Marcia firmly.
“Oh, don’t interrupt. Of course he is only an official lover, a public lover, and his name is Stephen Merriall. A perfect lady. Now Pepino, Lucia’s husband, was coming down with her to-day, but he’s got a very bad cold and has put me off. I’m rather glad: Lucia has got more—more dash when he’s not there. So I’ve asked her lover instead—”
“No!” said Marcia. “Go on.”
“My dear, they are much better than any play I have ever seen. They do it beautifully: they give each other little glances and smiles, and then begin to talk hurriedly to someone else. Of course, they’re both as chaste as snow, chaster if possible. 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.”
“How perfect!” said Marcia.
“Isn’t it? Aren’t you feeling more Luciaphil? I’m sure you are. You must enjoy her: it shows such a want of humour to be annoyed with her. And really I’ve taken a great deal of trouble to get people she will revel in. There’s the Prime Minister, there’s you, there’s Greatorex the pianist who’s the only person who can play Stravinski, there’s Professor Bonstetter the psycho-analyst, there’s the Italian Ambassador, there’s her lover, there’s Tony… I can’t go on. Oh, and I must remember to tell her that Archie Singleton is Babs’s brother, or she may say something dreadful. And then there are lots who will revel in Lucia, and I the foremost. I’m devoted to her; I am really, Marcia. She’s got character, she’s got an iron will, and I like strong talkative women so much better than strong silent men.”
