by E. F. Benson
A moment’s mental debate was sufficient to determine Robert not to tell his wife. It was true that she had produced Popoffski, but then he had praised and applauded her for that; he, no less than she, had been convinced of Popoffski’s integrity, high rank and marvellous psychic powers, and together they had soared to a pinnacle of unexampled greatness in the Riseholme world. Besides poor Daisy would be simply flattened out if she knew that Popoffski was no better than the Guru. He glanced at the pile of papers, and at the fire place….
It had been a cold morning, clear and frosty, and a good blaze prospered in the grate. Out of each copy, of “Todd’s News” he tore the page on which were printed the police reports, and fed the fire with them. Page after page he put upon it; never had so much paper been devoted to one grate. Up the chimney they flew in sheets of flame; sometimes he was afraid he had set it on fire, and he had to pause, shielding his scorched face, until the hollow rumbling had died down. With the page from two copies of the “Daily Mirror” the holocaust was over, and he unlocked the door again. No one in Riseholme knew but he, and no one should ever know. Riseholme had been electrified by spiritualism, and even now the seances had been cheap at the price.
The debris of all these papers he caused to be removed by the housemaid, and this was hardly done when his wife came in from the Green.
“I thought there was a chimney on fire, Robert,” she said. “You would have liked it to be the kitchen-chimney as you said the other day.”
“Stuff and nonsense, my dear,” said he. “Lunch-time, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Ah, there’s the post. None for me, and two for you.”
She looked at him narrowly as he took his letters. Perhaps their subconscious minds (according to her dear friend’s theory) held communication, but only the faintest unintelligible ripple of that appeared on the surface.
“I haven’t heard from my Princess since she went away,” she remarked.
Robert gave a slight start; he was a little off his guard from the reaction after his anxiety.
“Indeed!” he said. “Have you written to her?”
She appeared to try to remember.
“Well, I really don’t believe I have,” she said. “That is remiss of me. I must send her a long budget one of these days.”
This time he looked narrowly at her. Had she a secret, he wondered, as well as he? What could it be?…
Georgie found his mission none too easy, and it was only the thought that it was a labour of love, or something very like it, that enabled him to persevere. Even then for the first few minutes he thought it might prove love’s labour’s lost, so bright and unreal was Lucia.
He had half crossed Shakespeare’s garden, and had clearly seen her standing at the window of the music-room, when she stole away, and next moment the strains of some slow movement, played very loud, drowned the bell on the mermaid’s tail so completely that he wondered whether it had rung at all. As a matter of fact, Lucia and Peppino were in the midst of a most serious conversation when Georgie came through the gate, which was concerned with deciding what was to be done. A party at The Hurst sometime during Christmas week was as regular as the festival itself, but this year everything was so unusual. Who were to be asked in the first place? Certainly not Mrs Weston, for she had talked Italian to Lucia in a manner impossible to misinterpret, and probably, so said Lucia with great acidity, she would be playing children’s games with her promesso. It was equally impossible to ask Miss Bracely and her husband, for relations were already severed on account of the Spanish quartette and Signer Cortese, and as for the Quantocks, did Peppino expect Lucia to ask Mrs Quantock again ever? Then there was Georgie, who had become so different and strange, and … Well here was Georgie. Hastily she sat down at the piano, and Peppino closed his eyes for the slow movement.
The opening of the door was lost on Lucia, and Peppino’s eyes were closed. Consequently Georgie sat down on the nearest chair, and waited. At the end Peppino sighed, and he sighed too.
“Who is that?” said Lucia sharply. “Why is it you, Georgie? What a stranger. Aren’t you? Any news?”
This was all delivered in the coldest of tones, and Lucia snatched a morsel of wax off Eb.
“I’ve heard none,” said Georgie in great discomfort. “I just dropped in.”
Lucia fixed Peppino with a glance. If she had shouted at the top of her voice she could not have conveyed more unmistakably that she was going to manage this situation.
“Ah, that is very pleasant,” she said. “Peppino and I have been so busy lately that we have seen nobody. We are quite country-cousins, and so the town-mouse must spare us a little cheese. How is dear Miss Bracely now?”
“Very well,” said Georgie. “I saw her this morning.”
Lucia gave a sigh of relief.
“That is good,” she said. “Peppino, do you hear? Miss Bracely is quite well. Not overtired with practising that new opera? Lucy Grecian, was it? Oh, how silly I am! Lucretia; that was it, by that extraordinary Neapolitan. Yes. And what next? Our good Mrs Weston, now! Still thinking about her nice young man? Making orange-flower wreaths, and choosing bridesmaids? How naughty I am! Yes. And then dear Daisy? How is she? Still entertaining princesses? I look in the Court Circular every morning to see if Princess Pop — Pop — Popoff isn’t it? if Princess Popoff has popped off to see her cousin the Czar again. Dear me!”
The amount of malice, envy and all uncharitableness which Lucia managed to put into this quite unrehearsed speech was positively amazing. She had not thought it over beforehand for a moment; it came out with the august spontaneity of lightning leaping from a cloud. Not till that moment had Georgie guessed at a tithe of all that Olga had felt so certain about, and a double emotion took hold of him. He was immensely sorry for Lucia, never having conjectured how she must have suffered before she attained to so superb a sourness, and he adored the intuition that had guessed it and wanted to sweeten it.
The outburst was not quite over yet, though Lucia felt distinctly better.
“And you, Georgie,” she said, “though I’m sure we are such strangers that I ought to call you Mr Pillson, what have you been doing? Playing Miss Bracely’s accompaniments, and sewing wedding-dresses all day, and raising spooks all night? Yes.”
Lucia had caught this “Yes” from Lady Ambermere, having found it peculiarly obnoxious. You laid down a proposition, or asked a question, and then confirmed it yourself.
“And Mr Cortese,” she said, “is he still roaring out his marvellous English and Italian? Yes. What a full life you lead, Georgie. I suppose you have no time for your painting now.”
This was not a bow drawn at a venture, for she had seen Georgie come out of Old Place with his paint-box and drawing-board, but this direct attack on him did not lessen the power of the “sweet charity” which had sent him here. He blew the bugle to rally all the good-nature for which he was capable.
“No, I have been painting lately,” he said, “at least I have been trying to. I’m doing a little sketch of Miss Bracely at her piano, which I want to give her on Christmas Day. But it’s so difficult. I wish I had brought it round to ask your advice, but you would only have screamed with laughter at it. It’s a dreadful failure: much worse than those I gave you for your birthdays. Fancy your keeping them still in your lovely music-room. Send them to the pantry, and I’ll do something better for you next.”
Lucia, try as she might, could not help being rather touched by that. There they all were: “Golden Autumn Woodland,” “Bleak December,” “Yellow Daffodils,” and “Roses of Summer.”…
“Or have them blacked over by the boot-boy,” she said. “Take them down, Georgie, and let me send them to be blacked.”
This was much better: there was playfulness behind the sarcasm now, which peeped out from it. He made the most of that.
“We’ll do that presently,” he said. “Just now I want to engage you and Peppino to dine with me on Christmas Day. Now don’t be tarsome and say you’re engaged. But
one can never tell with you.”
“A party?” asked Lucia suspiciously.
“Well, I thought we would have just one of our old evenings together again,” said Georgie, feeling himself remarkably clever. “We’ll have the Quantocks, shan’t we, and Colonel and Mrs Colonel, and you and Peppino, and me, and Mrs Rumbold? That’ll make eight, which is more than Foljambe likes, but she must lump it. Mr Rumbold is always singing carols all Christmas evening with the choir, and she will be alone.”
“Ah, those carols” said Lucia, wincing.
“I know: I will provide you with little wads of cotton-wool. Do come and we’ll have just a party of eight. I’ve asked no one yet and perhaps nobody will come. I want you and Peppino, and the rest may come or stop away. Do say you approve.”
Lucia could not yield at once. She had to press her fingers to her forehead.
“So kind of you, Georgie,” she said, “but I must think. Are we doing anything on Christmas night, carrissimo? Where’s your engagement-book? Go and consult it.”
This was a grand manoeuvre, for hardly had Peppino left the room when she started up with a little scream and ran after him.
“Me so stupid,” she cried. “Me put it in smoking-room, and poor caro will look for it ever so long. Back in minute, Georgino.”
Naturally this was perfectly clear to Georgie. She wanted to have a short private consultation with Peppino, and he waited rather hopefully for their return, for Peppino, he felt sure, was bored with this Achilles-attitude of sitting sulking in the tent. They came back wreathed in smiles, and instantly embarked on the question of what to do after dinner. No romps: certainly not, but why not the tableaux again? The question was still under debate when they went in to lunch. It was settled affirmatively during the macaroni, and Lucia said that they all wanted to work her to death, and so get rid of her. They had thought — she and Peppino — of having a little holiday on the Riviera, but anyhow they would put if off till after Christmas. Georgie’s mouth was full of crashing toast at the moment, and he could only shake his head. But as soon as the toast could be swallowed, he made the usual reply with great fervour.
Georgie was hardly at all complacent when he walked home afterwards, and thought how extremely good-natured he had been, for he could not but feel that this marvellous forbearance was a sort of mistletoe growth on him, quite foreign really to his nature. Never before had Lucia showed so shrewish and venomous a temper; he had not thought her capable of it. For the gracious queen, there was substituted a snarling fish-wife, but then as Georgie calmly pursued the pacific mission of comfort to which Olga had ordained him, how the fish-wife’s wrinkles had been smoothed out, and the asps withered from her tongue. Had his imagination ever pictured Lucia saying such things to him, it would have supplied him with no sequel but a complete severance of relations between them. Instead of that he had consulted her and truckled to her: truckled: yes, he had truckled, and he was astonished at himself. Why had he truckled? And the beautiful mouth and kindly eyes of Olga supplied the answer. Certainly he must drop in at once, and tell her the result of the mission. Perhaps she would reward him by calling him a darling again. Really he deserved that she should say something nice to him.
It was a day of surprises for Georgie. He found Olga at home, and recounted, without loving any of the substance, the sarcasms of Lucia, and his own amazing tact and forbearance. He did not comment, he just narrated the facts in the vivid Riseholme manner, and waited for his reward.
Olga looked at him a moment in silence: then she deliberately wiped her eyes.
“Oh, poor Mrs Lucas” she said. “She must have been miserable to have behaved like that! I am so sorry. Now what else can you do, Georgie, to make her feel better?”
“I think I’ve done everything that could have been required of me,” said Georgie. “It was all I could do to keep my temper at all. I will give my party at Christmas, because I promised you I would.”
“Oh, but it’s ten days to Christmas yet,” said Olga. “Can’t you paint her portrait, and give it her for a present. Oh, I think you could, playing the Moonlight-Sonata.”
Georgie felt terribly inclined to be offended and tell Olga that she was tired of him: or to be dignified and say he was unusually busy. Never had he shown such forbearance towards downright rudeness as he had shown to Lucia, and though he had shown that for Olga’s sake, she seemed to be without a single spark of gratitude, but continued to urge her request.
“Do paint a little picture of her,” she repeated. “She would love it, and make it young and interesting. Think over it, anyhow: perhaps you’ll think of something better than that. And now won’t you go and secure all your guests for Christmas at once?”
Georgie turned to leave the room, but just as he got to the door she spoke again:
“I think you’re a brick,” she said.
Somehow this undemonstrative expression of approval began to glow in Georgie’s heart as he walked home. Apparently she took it for granted that he was going to behave with all the perfect tact and good-temper that he had shown. It did not surprise her in the least, she had almost forgotten to indicate that she had noticed it at all. And that, as he thought about it, seemed a far deeper compliment than if she had told him how wonderful he was. She took it for granted, no more nor less, that he would be kind and pleasant, whatever Lucia said. He had not fallen short of her standard….
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
Georgie’s Christmas party had just taken its seats at his round rosewood table without a cloth, and he hoped that Foljambe would be quick with the champagne, because there had been rather a long wait before dinner, owing to Lucia and Peppino being late, and conversation had been a little jerky. Lucia, as usual, had sailed into the room, without a word of apology, for she was accustomed to come last when she went out to dinner, and on her arrival dinner was always announced immediately. The few seconds that intervened were employed by her in saying just one kind word to everybody. Tonight, however, these gratifying utterances had not been received with the gratified responses to which she was accustomed: there was a different atmosphere abroad, and it was as if she were no more than one-eighth of the entire party…. But it would never do to hurry Foljambe, who was a little upset already by the fact of there being eight to dinner, which was two more than she approved of.
Lucia was on Georgie’s right, Mrs Colonel as she had decided to call herself, on his left. Next her was Peppino, then Mrs Quantock, then the Colonel, then Mrs Rumbold (who resembled a grey hungry mouse), and Mr Quantock completed the circle round to Lucia again. Everyone had a small bunch of violets in the napkin, but Lucia had the largest. She had also a footstool.
“Capital good soup,” remarked Mr Quantock. “Can’t get soup like this at home.”
There was dead silence. Why was there never a silence when Olga was there, wondered Georgie. It wasn’t because she talked, she somehow caused other people to talk.
“Tommy Luton hasn’t got measles,” said Mrs Weston. “I always said he hadn’t, though there are measles about. He came to work as usual this morning, and is going to sing in the carols tonight.”
She suddenly stopped.
Georgie gave an imploring glance at Foljambe, and looked at the champagne glasses. She took no notice. Lucia turned to Georgie, with an elbow on the table between her and Mr Quantock.
“And what news, Georgie?” she said. “Peppino and I have been so busy that we haven’t seen a soul all day. What have you been doing? Any planchette?”
She looked brightly at Mrs Quantock.
“Yes, dear Daisy, I needn’t ask you what you’ve been doing. Table-turning, I expect. I know how interested you are in psychical matters. I should be, too, if only I could be certain that I was not dealing with fraudulent people.”
Georgie felt inclined to give a hollow groan and sink under the table when this awful polemical rhetoric began. To his unbounded surprise Mrs Quantock answered most cordially.
“You are quite right, dear Luci
a,” she said. “Would it not be terrible to find that a medium, some dear friend perhaps, whom one implicitly trusted, was exposed as fraudulent? One sees such exposures in the paper sometimes. I should be miserable if I thought I had ever sat with a medium who was not honest. They fine the wretches well, though, if they are caught, and they deserve it.”
Georgie observed, and couldn’t the least understand, a sudden blank expression cross Robert’s face. For the moment he looked as if he were dead but had been beautifully stuffed. But Georgie gave but a cursory thought to that, for the amazing supposition dawned on him that Lucia had not been polemical at all, but was burying instead of chopping with the hatchet. It was instantly confirmed, for Lucia took her elbow off the table, and turned to Robert.
“You and dear Daisy have been very lucky in your spiritualistic experiences,” she said. “I hear on all sides what a charming medium you had. Georgie quite lost his heart to her.”
“‘Pon my word; she was delightful,” said Robert.
“Of course she was a dear friend of Daisy’s, but one has to be very careful when one hears of the dreadful exposures, as my wife said, that occur sometimes. Fancy finding that a medium whom you believed to be perfectly honest had yards and yards of muslin and a false nose or two concealed about her. It would sicken me of the whole business.”
A loud pop announced that Foljambe had allowed them all some champagne at last, but Georgie hardly heard it, for glancing up at Daisy Quantock, he observed that the same dead and stuffed look had come over her face which he had just now noticed on her husband’s countenance. Then they both looked up at each other with a glance that to him bristled with significance. An agonised questioning, an imploring petition for silence seemed to inspire it; it was as if each had made unwittingly some hopeless faux pas. Then they instantly looked away from each other again; their necks seemed to crack with the rapidity with which they turned them right and left, and they burst into torrents of speech to the grey hungry mouse and the Colonel respectively.
