Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “And so it was broccoli,” she said. “I was afraid it was going to be phlox after all. You’re an angel, Georgie, for getting me through my bad hour. I’ll give you anything you like for the Museum. Wait for me afterwards at the stage door. We’ll drive back together.”

  From the moment Olga appeared, the success of the opera was secure. Cortese, who was conducting, had made his music well; it thoroughly suited her, and she was singing and looking and acting her best. Again and again after the first act the curtain had to go up, and not until the house was satisfied could Georgie turn his glances this way and that to observe the audience. Then in the twilight of a small box on the second tier he espied a woman who was kissing her hand somewhere in his direction, and a man waving a programme, and then he suddenly focused them and saw who they were. He ran upstairs to visit them, and there was Lucia in an extraordinarily short skirt with her hair shingled, and round her neck three short rows of seed pearls.

  “Georgino mio!” she cried. “This is a surprise! You came up to see our dear Olga’s triumph. I do call that loyalty. Why did you not tell me you were coming?”

  “I thought I would call to-morrow,” said Georgie, with his eyes still going backwards and forwards between the shingle and the pearls and the legs.

  “Ah, you are staying the night in town?” she asked. “Not going back by the midnight train? The dear old midnight train, and waking in Riseholme! At your club?”

  “No, I’m staying with Olga,” said Georgie.

  Lucia seemed to become slightly cataleptic for a moment, but recovered.

  “No! Are you really?” she said. “I think that is unkind of you, Georgie. You might have told me you were coming.”

  “But you said that the house wasn’t ready,” said he. “And she asked me.”

  Lucia put on a bright smile.

  “Well, you’re forgiven,” she said. “We’re all at sixes and sevens yet. And we’ve seen nothing of dearest Olga — or Mrs. Shuttleworth, I should say, for that’s on the bills. Of course we’ll drive you home, and you must come in for a chat, before Mrs. Shuttleworth gets home, and then no doubt she will be very tired and want to go to bed.”

  Lucia as she spoke had been surveying the house with occasional little smiles and wagglings of her hand in vague directions.

  “Ah, there’s Elsie Garroby-Ashton,” she said, “and who is that with her, Pepino? Lord Shrivenham, surely. So come back with me and have ‘ickle talk, Georgie. Oh, there’s the Italian Ambassadress. Dearest Gioconda! Such a sweet. And look at the Royal box. What a gathering! That’s the Royal Box, Georgie, away to the left — that large one — in the tier below. Too near the stage for my taste: so little illusion—”

  Lucia suddenly rose and made a profound curtsey.

  “I think she saw us, Pepino,” she said, “perhaps you had better bow. No, she’s looking somewhere else now: you did not bow quick enough. And what a party in dearest Aggie’s box. Who can that be? Oh yes, it’s Toby Limpsfield. We met him at Aggie’s, do you remember, on the first night we were up. So join us at the grand entrance, Georgie, and drive back with us. We shall be giving a lift to somebody else, I’ll be bound, but if you have your motor, it is so ill-natured not to pick up friends. I always do it: they will be calling us the ‘Lifts of London,’ as Marcia Whitby said.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” said Georgie. “I’m waiting for Olga, and she’s having a little party, I believe.”

  “No! Is she really?” asked Lucia, with all the old Riseholme vivacity. “Who is coming?”

  “Cortese, I believe,” said Georgie, thinking it might be too much for Lucia if he mentioned a princess, “and one or two of the singers.”

  Lucia’s mouth watered, and she swallowed rapidly. That was the kind of party she longed to be asked to, for it would be so wonderful and glorious to be able casually to allude to Olga’s tiny, tiny little party after the first night of the opera, not a party at all really, just a few intimes, herself and Cortese and so on. How could she manage it, she wondered? Could she pretend not to know that there was a party, and just drop in for a moment in neighbourly fashion with enthusiastic congratulations? Or should she pretend her motor had not come, and hang about the stage-door with Georgie — Pepino could go home in the motor — and get a lift? Or should she hint very violently to Georgie how she would like to come in just for a minute. Or should she, now that she knew there was to be a party, merely assert that she had been to it? Perhaps a hint to Georgie was the best plan. . . .

  Her momentary indecision was put an end to by the appearance of Cortese threading his way among the orchestra, and the lowering of the lights. Georgie, without giving her any further opportunity, hurried back to his stall, feeling that he had had an escape, for Lucia’s beady eye had been fixing him, just in the way it always used to do when she wanted something and, in consequence, meant to get it. He felt he had been quite wrong in ever supposing that Lucia had changed. She was just precisely the same, translated into a larger sphere. She had expanded: strange though it seemed, she had only been in bud at Riseholme. “I wonder what she’ll do?” thought Georgie as he settled himself into his stall. “She wants dreadfully to come.”

  The opera came to an end in a blaze of bouquets and triumph and recalls, and curtseys. It was something of an occasion, for it was the first night of the opera, and the first performance of “Lucrezia” in London, and it was late when Olga came florally out. The party, which was originally meant to be no party at all, but just a little supper with Cortese and one or two of the singers, had marvellously increased during the evening, for friends had sent round messages and congratulations, and Olga had asked them to drop in, and when she and Georgie arrived at Brompton Square, the whole of the curve at the top was packed with motors.

  “Heavens, what a lot of people I seem to have asked,” she said, “but it will be great fun. There won’t be nearly enough chairs, but we’ll sit on the floor, and there won’t be nearly enough supper, but I know there’s a ham, and what can be better than a ham? Oh, Georgie, I am happy.”

  Now from opposite, across the narrow space of the square, Lucia had seen the arrival of all these cars. In order to see them better she had gone on to the balcony of her drawing-room, and noted their occupants with her opera-glasses. There was Lord Limpsfield, and the Italian Ambassadress, and Mr. Garroby-Ashton, and Cortese, and some woman to whom Mr. Garroby-Ashton bowed and Mrs. Garroby-Ashton curtsied. Up they streamed. And there was the Duchess of Whitby, (Marcia, for Lucia had heard her called that) coming up the steps, and curtseying too, but as yet Olga and Georgie quite certainly had not come. It seemed strange that so many brilliant guests should arrive before their hostess, but Lucia saw at once that this was the most chic informality that it was possible to conceive. No doubt Mr. Shuttleworth was there to receive them, but how wonderful it all was! . . . And then the thought occurred to her that Olga would arrive, and with her would be Georgie, and she felt herself turning bright green all over with impotent jealousy. Georgie in that crowd! It was impossible that Georgie should be there, and not she, but that was certainly what would happen unless she thought of something. Georgie would go back to Riseholme and describe this gathering, and he would say that Lucia was not there: he supposed she had not been asked.

  Lucia thought of something; she hurried downstairs and let herself out. Motors were still arriving, but perhaps she was not too late. She took up her stand in the central shadow of a gas-lamp close to Olga’s door and waited.

  Up the square came yet another car, and she could see it was full of flowers. Olga stepped out, and she darted forward.

  “O Mrs. Shuttleworth,” she said. “Splendid! Glorious! Marvellous! If only Beethoven was alive! I could not think of going to bed, without just popping across to thank you for a revelation! Georgie, dear! Just to shake your hand: that is all. All! I won’t detain you. I see you have a party! You wonderful Queen of Song.”

  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. It was crammed, and it was such a little room. Why had she not foreseen this, why had she not sent a note across to Olga earlier in the day, asking her to treat Lucia’s house precisely as her own, and have her party in the spacious music-room? It would have been only neighbourly. But the bitterness of such regrets soon vanished in the extraordinary sweetness of the present, and she was soon in conversation with Mrs. Garroby-Ashton, and distributing little smiles and nods to all the folk with whom she had the slightest acquaintance. By the fireplace was standing the Royal lady, and that for the moment was the only chagrin, for Lucia had not the vaguest idea who she was. Then Georgie came in, looking like a flower-stall, and then came a slight second chagrin, for Olga led him up to the Royal lady, and introduced him. But that would be all right, for she could easily get Georgie to tell her who she was, without exactly asking him, and then poor Georgie made a very awkward sort of bow, and dropped a large quantity of flowers, and said ‘tarsome.’

  Lucia glided away from Mrs. Garroby-Ashton and stood near the Duchess of Whitby. Marcia did not seem to recognise her at first, but that was quickly remedied, and after a little pleasant talk, Lucia asked her to lunch to meet Olga, and fixed in her mind that she must ask Olga to lunch on the same day to meet the Duchess of Whitby. Then edging a little nearer to the centre of attraction, she secured Lord Limpsfield by angling for him with the bait of dearest Aggie, to whom she must remember to telephone early next morning, to ask her to come and meet Lord Limpsfield.

  That would do for the present, and Lucia abandoned herself to the joys of the moment. A move was made downstairs to supper, and Lucia, sticking like a limpet to Lord Limpsfield, was wafted in azure to Olga’s little tiny dining-room, and saw at once that there were not nearly enough seats for everybody. There were two small round tables, and that was absolutely all: the rest would have to stand and forage at the narrow buffet which ran along the wall.

  “It’s musical chairs,” said Olga cheerfully, “those who are quick get seats, and the others don’t. Tony, go and sit next the Princess, and Cortese, you go the other side. We shall all get something to eat sometime. Georgie, go and stand by the buffet, there’s a dear, and make yourself wonderfully useful, and oh, rush upstairs first, and bring the cigarettes; they stay the pangs of hunger. Now we’re getting on beautifully. Darling Marcia, there’s just one chair let. Slip into it.”

  Lucia had lingered for a moment at the door to ask Olga to lunch the day after to-morrow, and Olga said she would be delighted, so there was a wonderful little party arranged for. To complete her content it was only needful to be presented to the hitherto anonymous Princess and learn her name. By dexterously picking up her fan for her and much admiring it, as she made a low curtsey, she secured a few precious words with her, but the name was still denied her. To ask anybody what it was would faintly indicate that she didn’t know it, and that was not to be thought of.

  Georgie popped in, as they all said at Riseholme, to see Lucia next morning when Olga had gone to a rehearsal at Covent Garden, and found her in her music-room, busy over Stravinski. Olga’s party had not been in The Times, which was annoying, and Lucia was still unaware what the Princess’s name was. Though the previous evening had been far the most rewarding she had yet spent, it was wiser to let Georgie suppose that such an affair was a very ordinary occurrence, and not to allude to it for some time.

  “Ah, Georgino!” she said. “How nice of you to pop in. By buona fortuna I have got a spare hour this morning, before Sophy Alingsby — dear Sophy, such a brain — fetches me to go to some private view or other, so we can have a good chat. Yes, this is the music-room, and before you go, I must trot you round to see the rest of our little establishment. Not a bad room — those are the famous Chippendale chairs — as soon as we get a little more settled, I shall give an evening party or two with some music. You must come.”

  “Should love to,” said Georgie.

  “Such a whirl it has been, and it gets worse every day,” went on Lucia. “Sometimes Pepino and I go out together, but often he dines at one house and I at another — they do that in London, you know — and sometimes I hardly set eyes on him all day. I haven’t seen him this morning, but just now they told me he had gone out. He enjoys it so much that I do not mind how tired I get. Ah! that telephone, it never ceases ringing. Sometimes I think I will have it taken out of the house altogether, for I get no peace. Somebody always seems to be wanting Pepino or me.”

  She hurried, all the same, with considerable alacrity to the machine, and really there was no thought in her mind of having the telephone taken out, for it had only just been installed. The call, however, was rather a disappointment, for it only concerned a pair of walking shoes. There was no need, however, to tell Georgie that, and pressing her finger to her forehead she said, “Yes, I can manage 3.30,” (which meant nothing) and quickly rang off.

  “Not a moment’s peace,” said Lucia. “Ting-a-ting-a-ting from morning till night. Now tell me all about Riseholme, Georgie; that will give me such a delicious feeling of tranquillity. Dear me, who is this coming to interrupt us now?”

  It was only Pepino. He seemed leisurely enough, and rather unnecessarily explained that he had only been out to get a tooth-brush from the chemist’s in Brompton Road. This he carried in a small paper parcel.

  “And there’s the man coming about the telephone this morning, Lucia,” he said. “You want the extension to your bedroom, don’t you?”

  “Yes, dear, as we have got it in the house we may as well have it conveniently placed,” she said. “I’m sure the miles I walk up and down stairs, as I was telling Georgie—”

  Pepino chuckled.

  “She woke them up, Georgie,” he said. “None of their leisurely London ways for Lucia. She had the telephone put into the house in record time. Gave them no peace till she got it done.”

  “Very wise,” said Georgie tactfully. “That’s the way to get things. Well, about Riseholme. We’ve really been very busy indeed.”

  “Dear old place!” said Lucia. “Tell me all about it.”

  Georgie rapidly considered with himself whether he should mention the Museum. He decided against it, for, put it as you might, the museum, apart from the convenience of getting rid of interesting rubbish, was of a conspiratorial nature, a policy of revenge against Lucia for her desertion, and a demonstration of how wonderfully well and truly they all got on without her. It was then, the mark of a highly injudicious conspirator to give information to her against whom this plot was directed.

  “Well, Daisy has been having some most remarkable experiences,” he said. “She got a ouija board and a planchette — we use the planchette most — and very soon it was quite clear that messages were coming through from a guide.”

  Lucia laughed with a shrill metallic note of rather hostile timbre.

  “Dear Daisy,” she said. “If only she would take commonsense as her guide. I suppose the guide is a Chaldean astrologer or King Nebuchadnezzar.”

  “Not at all,” said Georgie. “It’s an Egyptian called Abfou.”

  A momentary pang of envy shot through Lucia. She could well imagine the quality of excitement which thrilled Riseholme, how Georgie would have popped in to tell her about it, and how she would have got a ouija-board too, and obtained twice as many messages as Daisy. She hated the thought of Daisy having Abfou all her own way, and gave another little shrill laugh.

  “Daisy is priceless,” she said. “And what has Abfou told her?”

  “Well, it was very odd,” said Georgie. “The mo
rning I got your letter Abfou wrote ‘L from L,’ and if that doesn’t mean ‘Letter from Lucia,’ I don’t know what else it could be.”

  “It might just as well mean ‘Lozenges from Leamington,’” said Lucia witheringly. “And what else?”

  Georgie felt the conversation was beginning to border rather dangerously on the Museum, and tried a light-hearted sortie into another subject.

  “Oh, just things of that sort,” he said. “And then she had a terrible time over her garden. She dismissed Simkinson for doing cross-word puzzles instead of the lawn, and determined to do it all herself. She sowed sprouts in that round bed under the dining-room window.”

  “No!” said Pepino, who was listening with qualms of home-sickness to these chronicles.

  “Yes, and the phlox in the kitchen garden,” said Georgie.

  He looked at Lucia, and became aware that her gimlet-eye was on him, and was afraid he had made the transition from Abfou to horticulture rather too eagerly. He went volubly on.

  “And she dug up all the seeds that Simkinson had planted, and pruned the roots of her mulberry tree and probably killed it,” he said. “Then in that warm weather last week, no, the week before, I got out my painting things again, and am doing a sketch of my house from the green. Foljambe is very well, and, and . . .” he could think of nothing else except the Museum.

  Lucia waited till he had quite run down.

  “And what more did Abfou say?” she asked. “His message of ‘L to L’ would not have made you busy for very long.”

  Georgie had to reconsider the wisdom of silence. Lucia clearly suspected something, and when she came down for her week-end, and found the affairs of the Museum entirely engrossing the whole of Riseholme, his reticence, if he persisted in it, would wear a very suspicious aspect.

  “Oh yes, the museum,” he said with feigned lightness. “Abfou told us to start a museum, and it’s getting on splendidly. That tithe-barn of Colonel Boucher’s. And Daisy’s given all the things she was going to make into a rockery, and I’m giving my Roman glass and two sketches, and Colonel Boucher his Samian ware and an ordnance map, and there are lots of fossils and some coins.”