Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  This time poor Daisy was much too early. She got to the Golden Hind long before the cooks and the chorus were ready for her. But there was a murmur of applause when Mrs Drake (so soon to be Lady Drake) ran forward and threw herself at the Queen’s feet in an ecstasy of loyalty, and having kissed her hand walked backwards from the Presence with head bent low, as if in adoration.

  ‘Now step to the Queen’s left, Georgie,’ said Lucia, ‘and take her left hand, holding it high and lead her to the banquet. Daisy dear, you must mind your train. Piggy and Goosie will lay it down as you reach the deck, and then you must look after it yourself. If you’re not careful you’ll tread on it and fall into the Thames. You’ve got to move so that it follows you when you turn round.’

  ‘May I kick it?’ asked Daisy.

  ‘No, it can be done without. You must practise that.’

  The whole company now, sailors, soldiers, courtiers and all were eager as dogs are to be taken out for a walk by their mistress, and Lucia reluctantly consented to come and look at the scene of the review at Tilbury. Possibly some little idea, she diffidently said, might occur to her; fresh eyes sometimes saw something, and if they all really wanted her she was at their disposal. So off they went to the rendezvous in front of the Ambermere Arms, and the fresh eyes perceived that according to the present grouping of soldiers and populace no spectator would see anything of the Queen at all. So that was rectified, and the mob was drilled to run into its proper places with due eagerness, and Lucia sat where the front row of spectators would be to hear the great speech. When it was over she warmly congratulated the Queen.

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad you liked it,’ said the Queen. ‘Is there anything that strikes you?’

  Lucia sat for a while in pensive silence.

  ‘Just one or two little tiny things, dear,’ she said, thoughtfully. ‘I couldn’t hear very well. I wondered sometimes what the mob was cheering about. And would it perhaps be safer to read the speech? There was a good deal of prompting that was quite audible. Of course there are disadvantages in reading it. It won’t seem so spontaneous and inspiring if you consult a paper all the time. Still, I dare say you’ll get it quite by heart before the time comes. Indeed, the only real criticism I have to make is about your gestures, your movements. Not quite, quite majestic enough, not inspiring enough. Too much as if you were whisking flies away. More breadth!’

  Lucia sighed, she appeared to be lost in meditation.

  ‘What kind of breadth?’ asked Daisy.

  ‘So difficult to explain,’ said Lucia. ‘You must get more variety, more force, both in your gestures and your voice. You must be fierce sometimes, the great foe of Spain, you must be tender, the mother of your people. You must be a Tudor. The daughter of that glorious cad, King Hal. Coarse and kingly. Shall I show you for a moment the sort of thing I mean? So much easier to show than to explain.’

  Daisy’s heart sank: she was full of vague apprehensions. But having asked for help, she could hardly refuse this generous granting of it, for indeed Lucia was giving up her whole morning.

  ‘Very good of you,’ she said.

  ‘Lend me your copy of the speech, then,’ said Lucia, ‘and might I borrow your ruff, just to encourage myself. Now let me read through the speech to myself. Yes . . . yes . . . crescendo, and flare up then . . . pause again; a touch of tenderness . . . Well, as you insist on it I’ll try to show you what I mean. Terribly nervous, though.’

  Lucia advanced and spoke in the most ingratiating tones to her army and the mob.

  ‘Please have patience with me, ladies and gentlemen,’ she said, ‘while I go through the speech once more. Wonderful words, aren’t they? I know I shan’t do them justice. Let me see: the palfrey with the Queen will come out from the garden of the Ambermere Arms, will it not? Then will the whole mob, please, hurry into the garden and then come out romping and cheering and that sort of thing in front of me. When I get to where the table is, that is to say, where the palfrey will stand as I make my speech, some of the mob must fall back, and the rest sit on the grass, so that the spectators may see. Now, please.’

  Lucia stalked in from the garden, joining the mob now and then to show them how to gambol, and nimbly vaulted (thanks to callisthenics) on to the table on which was the chair where she sat on horseback.

  Then with a great sweep of her arm she began to speak. The copy of the speech which she carried flew out of her hand, but that made no difference, for she had it all by heart, and without pause, except for the bursts of cheering from the mob, when she pointed at them, she declaimed it all, her voice now rising, now falling, now full of fire, now tender and motherly. Then she got down from the table, and passed along the line of her troops, beckoned to the mob — which in the previous scene had been cooks and sailors and all sorts of things — to close up behind her with shouts and cheers and gambollings, and went off down the garden path again.

  ‘That sort of thing, dear Daisy, don’t you think?’ she said to the Queen, returning her ruff. ‘So crude and awkwardly done I know, but perhaps that may be the way to put a little life into it. Ah, there’s your copy of the speech. Quite familiar to me, I found. I dare say I learned it when I was at school. Now, I really must be off. I wish I could think that I had been any use.’

  Next morning Lucia was too busy to superintend the rehearsal: she was sure that Daisy would manage it beautifully, and she was indeed very busy watching through a field-glass in the music-room the muddled and anaemic performance. The halberdiers strolled along with their hands in their pockets. Piggy and Goosie sat down on the grass, and Daisy knew less of her speech than ever. The collective consciousness of Riseholme began to be aware that nothing could be done without Lucia, and conspiratorial groups conferred stealthily, dispersing or dropping their voices as Queen Elizabeth approached and forming again when she had gone by. The choir which had sung so convincingly when Lucia was there with her loud ‘Hey nonny nonny’, never bothered about the high G at all, but simply left it out; the young Elizabethans who had gambolled like intoxicated lambkins under her stimulating eye sat down and chewed daisies; the cooks never attempted to baste the bolster; and the Queen’s speech to her troops was received with the most respectful tranquillity.

  Georgie, in Drake’s shoes which were becoming less agonizing with use, lunched with Colonel and Mrs Boucher. Mrs Boucher was practically the only Riseholmite who was taking no part in the fête, because her locomotion was confined to the wheels of a bath-chair. But she attended every rehearsal and had views which were as strong as her voice.

  ‘You may like it or not,’ she said very emphatically, ‘but the only person who can pull you through is Lucia.’

  ‘Nobody can pull poor Daisy through,’ said Georgie. ‘Hopeless!’

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ said she. ‘If Lucia isn’t the Queen, I say give it all up. Poor Daisy’s bitten off, if you won’t misunderstand me, as we’re all such friends of hers, more than she can chew. My kitchen-cat, and I don’t care who knows it, would make a better Queen.’

  ‘But Lucia’s going off to Tilling, next week,’ said Georgie. ‘She won’t be here even.’

  ‘Well, beg and implore her not to desert Riseholme,’ said Mrs Boucher. ‘Why, everybody was muttering about it this morning, army and navy and all. It was like a revolution. There was Mrs Antrobus; she said to me, “Oh dear, oh dear, it will never do at all,” and there was poor Daisy standing close beside her; and we all turned red. Most awkward. And it’s up to you, Georgie, to go down on your knees to Lucia and say “Save Riseholme!” There!’

  ‘But she refused to have anything to do with it, after Daisy asked her to be my wife,’ said Georgie Drake.

  ‘Naturally she would be most indignant. An insult. But you and Daisy must implore her. Perhaps she could go to Tilling and settle herself in and then come back for the fête, for she doesn’t need any rehearsals. She could act every part herself if she could be a crowd.’

  ‘Marvellous woman!’ said Colonel Boucher. ‘Eve
ry word of the Queen’s speech by heart, singing with the choir, basting with the cooks, dancing with the sailors. That’s what I call instinct, eh? You’d have thought she had been studying it all the time. I agree with my wife, Georgie. The difficulty is Daisy. Would she give it up?’

  Georgie brightened.

  ‘She did say that she felt inclined to chuck the whole thing, a few days ago,’ he said.

  ‘There you are, then,’ said Mrs Boucher. ‘Remind her of what she said. You and she go to Lucia before you waste time over another rehearsal without her, and implore her. Implore! I shouldn’t a bit wonder if she said yes. Indeed, if you ask me, I believe that she’s been keeping out of it all until you saw you couldn’t do without her. Then she came to help at a rehearsal, and you all saw what you could do when she was there. Why, I burst out cheering myself when she said she had the heart of a Prince. Then she retires again as she did this morning, and more than ever you see you can’t do without her. I say she’s waiting to be asked. It would be like her, you know.’

  That was an illuminating thought; it certainly seemed tremendously like Lucia at her very best.

  ‘I believe you’re right. She’s cleverer than all of us put together,’ said Georgie. ‘I shall go over to Daisy at once and sound her. Thank God, my shoes are better.’

  It was a gloomy queen that Georgie found, a Queen of Sheba with no spirit left in her, but only a calmness of despair.

  ‘It went worse than ever this morning,’ she remarked. ‘And I dare say we’ve not touched bottom yet. Georgie, what is to be done?’

  It was more delicate to give Daisy the chance of abdicating herself.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ said he. ‘But something’s got to be done. I wish I could think what.’

  Daisy was rent with pangs of jealousy and of consciousness of her supreme impotence. She took half a glass of port, which her regime told her was deadly poison.

  ‘Georgie! Do you think there’s the slightest chance of getting Lucia to be the Queen and managing the whole affair?’ she asked quaveringly.

  ‘We might try,’ said Georgie. ‘The Bouchers are for it, and everybody else as well, I think.’

  ‘Well, come quick then, or I may repent,’ said Daisy.

  Lucia had seen them coming, and sat down at her piano. She had not time to open her music, and so began the first movement of the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata.

  ‘Ah, how nice!’ she said. ‘Georgie, I’m going to practise all afternoon. Poor fingers so rusty! And did you have a lovely rehearsal this morning? Speech going well, Daisy? I’m sure it is.’

  ‘Couldn’t remember a word,’ said Daisy. ‘Lucia, we all want to turn the whole thing over to you, Queen and all. Will you—’

  ‘Please, Lucia,’ said Georgie.

  Lucia looked from one to the other in amazement.

  ‘But, dear things, how can I?’ she said. ‘I shan’t be here to begin with, I shall be at Tilling. And then all the trouble you’ve been taking, Daisy. I couldn’t. Impossible. Cruel.’

  ‘We can’t do it at all without you,’ said Daisy firmly. ‘So that’s impossible too. Please, Lucia.’

  Lucia seemed quite bewildered by these earnest entreaties.

  ‘Can’t you come back for the fête?’ said Georgie. ‘Rehearse all day, every day, till the end of the month. Then go to Tilling, and you and I will return just for the week of the fête.’

  Lucia seemed to be experiencing a dreadful struggle with herself.

  ‘Dear Georgie, dear Daisy, you’re asking a great sacrifice of me,’ she said. ‘I had planned my days here so carefully. My music, my Dante: all my lessons! I shall have to give them all up, you know, if I’m to get this fête into any sort of shape. No time for anything else.’

  A miserable two-part fugue of ‘Please, Lucia. It’s the only chance. We can’t do it unless you’re Queen,’ suddenly burst into the happy strains of ‘It is good of you. Oh, thank you, Lucia,’ and the day was won.

  Instantly she became extremely business-like.

  ‘No time to waste then,’ she said. ‘Let us have a full rehearsal at three, and after that I’ll take the Morris-dancers and the halberdiers. You and Georgie must be my lieutenants, dear Daisy. We shall all have to pull together. By the way, what will you be now?’

  ‘Whatever you like,’ said Daisy recklessly.

  Lucia looked at her fixedly with that gimlet eye, as if appraising, at their highest, her possibilities.

  ‘Then let us see, dear Daisy,’ she said, ‘what you can make of Drake’s wife. Quite a short part, I know, but so important. You have to get into that one moment all the loyalty, all the devotion of the women of England to the Queen.’

  She rose.

  ‘Let us begin working at once,’ she said. ‘This is the Golden Hind: I have just stepped on to it. Now go behind the piano, and then come tripping out, full of awe, full of reverence . . . Oh, dear me, that will never do. Shall I act it for you once more? . . .

  CHAPTER 4.

  Lucia had come back to Tilling last night from the fêteful week at Riseholme, and she was sitting next morning after breakfast at the window of the garden-room in Miss Mapp’s house. It was a magic casement to anyone who was interested in life, as Lucia certainly was, and there was a tide every morning in the affairs of Tilling which must be taken at the flood. Mrs Wyse’s Royce had lurched down the street, Diva had come out with her market-basket from quaint Irene’s house, of which she was now the tenant, Miss Mapp’s (she was already by special request ‘Elizabeth’) gardener had wheeled off to the greengrocer his daily barrowful of garden-produce. Elizabeth had popped in to welcome her on her return from Riseholme and congratulate her on the fête of which the daily illustrated papers had been so full, and, strolling about the garden with her, had absently picked a few roses (Diva’s had green fly); the Padre passing by the magic casement had wished her good morrow, Mistress Lucas, and finally Major Benjy had come out of his house on the way to catch the tram to the golf-links. Lucia called ‘Quai-hai’ to him in silvery tones, for they had made great friends in the days she had already spent at Tilling, and reminded him that he was dining with her that night. With great gallantry he had taken off his cap, and bawled out that this wasn’t the sort of engagement he was in any danger of forgetting, au reservoir.

  The tide had ebbed now, and Lucia left the window. There was so much to think about that she hardly knew where to begin. First her eyes fell on the piano which was no longer the remarkable Blumenfelt belonging to Elizabeth on which she had been granted the privilege to play, but one which she had hired from Brighton. No doubt it was quite true that, as Elizabeth had said, her Blumenfelt had been considered a very fine instrument, but nobody, for the last twenty years or so, could have considered it anything but a remarkable curiosity. Some notes sounded like the chirping of canaries (Diva’s canary was quite well again after its pip), others did not sound at all, and the sostenuto pedal was a thing of naught. So Lucia had hired a new piano, and had put the canary-piano in the little telephone-room off the hall. It filled it up, but it was still possible to telephone if you went in sideways. Elizabeth had shown traces of acidity about this when she discovered the substitution, and had rather pensively remarked that her piano had belonged to her dearest mamma, and she hoped the telephone-room wasn’t damp. It seemed highly probable that it had been her mother’s if not her grandmother’s, but after all Lucia had not promised to play on it.

  So much for the piano. There lay on it now a china bowl full of press-cuttings, and Lucia glanced at a few, recalling the triumphs of the past week. The fête, favoured by brilliant weather and special trains from Worcester and Gloucester and Birmingham, had been a colossal success. The procession had been cinematographed, so too had the scene on the Golden Hind and the click of cameras throughout the whole performance had been like the noise of cicadas in the south. The Hurst had been the target for innumerable lenses (Lucia was most indulgent) and she was photographed at her piano and in Perdita’s garden
and musing in an arbour, as Queen Elizabeth and as herself, and (she had got one of those artists to take, rather reluctantly) a special photograph of Drake’s poor wife. That had not been a success, for Daisy had moved, but Lucia’s intention was of the kindest. And throughout, to photographers and interviewers alike, Lucia (knowing that nobody would believe it) had insisted that all the credit was due to Drake’s wife, who had planned everything (or nearly) and had done all the spade-work.

  There had nearly been one dreadful disaster. In fact there had been the disaster, but the amazing Lucia, quite impromptu, had wrung a fresh personal triumph out of it. It was on the last day of the fête, when the green would hardly contain the influx of visitors, and another tier of benches had been put up round the pond where the Golden Hind lay, that this excruciating moment had occurred. Queen Elizabeth had just left the deck where she had feasted on a plateful of kippered cinders, and the procession was escorting her away, when the whole of the stern of the Golden Hind, on which was the fire and the previously roasted sheep and a mast, streaming with ancients and the crowd of cheering cooks, broke off, and with a fearful splash and hiss fell into the water. Before anyone could laugh, Lucia (remembering that the water was only three feet deep at the most and so there was no danger of anyone drowning) broke into a ringing cry. ‘Zounds and Zooks,’ she shouted. ‘Thus will I serve the damned galleons of Spain,’ and with a magnificent gesture of disdain at the cooks standing waist-high in the water, she swept on with her procession. The reporters singled out for special notice this wonderful piece of symbolism. A few of the most highbrow deemed it not quite legitimate business, but none questioned the superb dramatic effect of the device, for it led on with such perfect fitness to the next topic, namely the coming of the Armada. The cooks waded ashore, rushed home to change their clothes, and were in time to take their places in the mob that escorted her white palfrey. Who would mind a ducking in the service of such a resourceful Queen? Of all Lucia’s triumphs during the week that inspired moment was the crown, and she could not help wondering what poor Daisy would have done, if she had been on the throne that day. Probably she would have said: ‘Oh dear, oh dear, they’ve all fallen into the water. We must stop.’