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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Queen Lucia, by E. F. Benson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Queen Lucia
+
+Author: E. F. Benson
+
+Posting Date: November 10, 2011 [EBook #6840]
+Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6840]
+[This file was first posted on January 31, 2003]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUEEN LUCIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Queen Lucia
+
+by E. F. Benson
+
+
+
+
+Chapter ONE
+
+
+Though the sun was hot on this July morning Mrs Lucas preferred to
+cover the half-mile that lay between the station and her house on her
+own brisk feet, and sent on her maid and her luggage in the fly that
+her husband had ordered to meet her. After those four hours in the
+train a short walk would be pleasant, but, though she veiled it from
+her conscious mind, another motive, sub-consciously engineered,
+prompted her action. It would, of course, be universally known to all
+her friends in Riseholme that she was arriving today by the 12.26, and
+at that hour the village street would be sure to be full of them. They
+would see the fly with luggage draw up at the door of The Hurst, and
+nobody except her maid would get out.
+
+That would be an interesting thing for them: it would cause one of
+those little thrills of pleasant excitement and conjectural exercise
+which supplied Riseholme with its emotional daily bread. They would all
+wonder what had happened to her, whether she had been taken ill at the
+very last moment before leaving town and with her well-known fortitude
+and consideration for the feelings of others, had sent her maid on to
+assure her husband that he need not be anxious. That would clearly be
+Mrs Quantock's suggestion, for Mrs Quantock's mind, devoted as it was
+now to the study of Christian Science, and the determination to deny
+the existence of pain, disease and death as regards herself, was always
+full of the gloomiest views as regards her friends, and on the
+slightest excuse, pictured that they, poor blind things, were suffering
+from false claims. Indeed, given that the fly had already arrived at
+The Hurst, and that its arrival had at this moment been seen by or
+reported to Daisy Quantock, the chances were vastly in favour of that
+lady's having already started in to give Mrs Lucas absent treatment.
+Very likely Georgie Pillson had also seen the anticlimax of the fly's
+arrival, but he would hazard a much more probable though erroneous
+solution of her absence. He would certainly guess that she had sent on
+her maid with her luggage to the station in order to take a seat for
+her, while she herself, oblivious of the passage of time, was spending
+her last half hour in contemplation of the Italian masterpieces at the
+National Gallery, or the Greek bronzes at the British Museum. Certainly
+she would not be at the Royal Academy, for the culture of Riseholme,
+led by herself, rejected as valueless all artistic efforts later than
+the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and a great deal of what went before.
+Her husband with his firm grasp of the obvious, on the other hand,
+would be disappointingly capable even before her maid confirmed his
+conjecture, of concluding that she had merely walked from the station.
+
+The motive, then, that made her send her cab on, though subconsciously
+generated, soon penetrated into her consciousness, and these guesses at
+what other people would think when they saw it arrive without her,
+sprang from the dramatic element that formed so large a part of her
+mentality, and made her always take, as by right divine, the leading
+part in the histrionic entertainments with which the cultured of
+Riseholme beguiled or rather strenuously occupied such moments as could
+be spared from their studies of art and literature, and their social
+engagements. Indeed she did not usually stop at taking the leading
+part, but, if possible, doubled another character with it, as well as
+being stage-manager and adapter, if not designer of scenery. Whatever
+she did--and really she did an incredible deal--she did it with all the
+might of her dramatic perception, did it in fact with such earnestness
+that she had no time to have an eye to the gallery at all, she simply
+contemplated herself and her own vigorous accomplishment. When she
+played the piano as she frequently did, (reserving an hour for practice
+every day), she cared not in the smallest degree for what anybody who
+passed down the road outside her house might be thinking of the
+roulades that poured from her open window: she was simply Emmeline
+Lucas, absorbed in glorious Bach or dainty Scarletti, or noble
+Beethoven. The latter perhaps was her favorite composer, and many were
+the evenings when with lights quenched and only the soft effulgence of
+the moon pouring in through the uncurtained windows, she sat with her
+profile, cameo-like (or like perhaps to the head on a postage stamp)
+against the dark oak walls of her music-room, and entranced herself and
+her listeners, if there were people to dinner, with the exquisite
+pathos of the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata. Devotedly as she
+worshipped the Master, whose picture hung above her Steinway Grand, she
+could never bring herself to believe that the two succeeding movements
+were on the same sublime level as the first, and besides they "went"
+very much faster. But she had seriously thought, as she came down in
+the train today and planned her fresh activities at home of trying to
+master them, so that she could get through their intricacies with
+tolerable accuracy. Until then, she would assuredly stop at the end of
+the first movement in these moonlit seances, and say that the other two
+were more like morning and afternoon. Then with a sigh she would softly
+shut the piano lid, and perhaps wiping a little genuine moisture from
+her eyes, would turn on the electric light and taking up a book from
+the table, in which a paper-knife marked the extent of her penetration,
+say:
+
+"Georgie, you must really promise me to read this life of Antonino
+Caporelli the moment I have finished it. I never understood the rise of
+the Venetian School before. As I read I can smell the salt tide
+creeping up over the lagoon, and see the campanile of dear Torcello."
+
+And Georgie would put down the tambour on which he was working his copy
+of an Italian cope and sigh too.
+
+"You are too wonderful!" he would say. "How do you find time for
+everything?"
+
+She rejoined with the apophthegm that made the rounds of Riseholme next
+day.
+
+"My dear, it is just busy people that have time for everything."
+
+It might be thought that even such activities as have here been
+indicated would be enough to occupy anyone so busily that he would
+positively not have time for more, but such was far from being the case
+with Mrs Lucas. Just as the painter Rubens amused himself with being
+the ambassador to the Court of St. James--a sufficient career in itself
+for most busy men--so Mrs Lucas amused herself, in the intervals of her
+pursuit of Art for Art's sake, with being not only an ambassador but a
+monarch. Riseholme might perhaps according to the crude materialism of
+maps, be included in the kingdom of Great Britain, but in a more real
+and inward sense it formed a complete kingdom of its own, and its queen
+was undoubtedly Mrs Lucas, who ruled it with a secure autocracy
+pleasant to contemplate at a time when thrones were toppling, and
+imperial crowns whirling like dead leaves down the autumn winds. The
+ruler of Riseholme, happier than he of Russia, had no need to fear the
+finger of Bolshevism writing on the wall, for there was not in the
+whole of that vat which seethed so pleasantly with culture, one bubble
+of revolutionary ferment. Here there was neither poverty nor discontent
+nor muttered menace of any upheaval: Mrs Lucas, busy and serene, worked
+harder than any of her subjects, and exercised an autocratic control
+over a nominal democracy.
+
+Something of the consciousness of her sovereignty was in her mind, as
+she turned the last hot corner of the road and came in sight of the
+village street that constituted her kingdom. Indeed it belonged to her,
+as treasure trove belongs to the Crown, for it was she who had been the
+first to begin the transformation of this remote Elizabethan village
+into the palace of culture that was now reared on the spot where ten
+years ago an agricultural population had led bovine and unilluminated
+lives in their cottages of grey stone or brick and timber. Before that,
+while her husband was amassing a fortune, comfortable in amount and
+respectable in origin, at the Bar, she had merely held up a small dim
+lamp of culture in Onslow Gardens. But both her ambition and his had
+been to bask and be busy in artistic realms of their own when the
+materialistic needs were provided for by sound investments, and so when
+there were the requisite thousands of pounds in secure securities she
+had easily persuaded him to buy three of these cottages that stood
+together in a low two-storied block. Then, by judicious removal of
+partition-walls, she had, with the aid of a sympathetic architect,
+transmuted them into a most comfortable dwelling, subsequently building
+on to them a new wing, that ran at right angles at the back, which was,
+if anything, a shade more inexorably Elizabethan than the stem onto
+which it was grafted, for here was situated the famous smoking-parlour,
+with rushes on the floor, and a dresser ranged with pewter tankards,
+and leaded lattice-windows of glass so antique that it was practically
+impossible to see out of them. It had a huge open fireplace framed in
+oak-beams with a seat on each side of the iron-backed hearth within the
+chimney, and a genuine spit hung over the middle of the fire. Here,
+though in the rest of the house she had for the sake of convenience
+allowed the installation of electric light, there was no such
+concession made, and sconces on the walls held dim iron lamps, so that
+only those of the most acute vision were able to read. Even then
+reading was difficult, for the book-stand on the table contained
+nothing but a few crabbed black-letter volumes dating from not later
+than the early seventeenth century, and you had to be in a frantically
+Elizabethan frame of mind to be at ease there. But Mrs Lucas often
+spent some of her rare leisure moments in the smoking-parlour, playing
+on the virginal that stood in the window, or kippering herself in the
+fumes of the wood-fire as with streaming eyes she deciphered an Elzevir
+Horace rather late for inclusion under the rule, but an undoubted
+bargain.
+
+The house stood at the end of the village that was nearest the station,
+and thus, when the panorama of her kingdom opened before her, she had
+but a few steps further to go. A yew-hedge, bought entire from a
+neighboring farm, and transplanted with solid lumps of earth and
+indignant snails around its roots, separated the small oblong of garden
+from the road, and cast monstrous shadows of the shapes into which it
+was cut, across the little lawns inside. Here, as was only right and
+proper, there was not a flower to be found save such as were mentioned
+in the plays of Shakespeare; indeed it was called Shakespeare's garden,
+and the bed that ran below the windows of the dining room was Ophelia's
+border, for it consisted solely of those flowers which that distraught
+maiden distributed to her friends when she should have been in a
+lunatic asylum. Mrs Lucas often reflected how lucky it was that such
+institutions were unknown in Elizabeth's day, or that, if known,
+Shakespeare artistically ignored their existence. Pansies, naturally,
+formed the chief decoration--though there were some very flourishing
+plants of rue. Mrs Lucas always wore a little bunch of them when in
+flower, to inspire her thoughts, and found them wonderfully
+efficacious. Round the sundial, which was set in the middle of one of
+the squares of grass between which a path of broken paving-stone led to
+the front door, was a circular border, now, in July, sadly vacant, for
+it harboured only the spring-flowers enumerated by Perdita. But the
+first day every year when Perdita's border put forth its earliest
+blossom was a delicious anniversary, and the news of it spread like
+wild-fire through Mrs Lucas's kingdom, and her subjects were very
+joyful, and came to salute the violet or daffodil, or whatever it was.
+
+The three cottages dexterously transformed into The Hurst, presented a
+charmingly irregular and picturesque front. Two were of the grey stone
+of the district and the middle one, to the door of which led the paved
+path, of brick and timber; latticed windows with stone mullions gave
+little light to the room within, and certain new windows had been
+added; these could be detected by the observant eye for they had a
+markedly older appearance than the rest. The front-door, similarly,
+seemed as if it must have been made years before the house, the fact
+being that the one which Mrs Lucas had found there was too dilapidated
+to be of the slightest service in keeping out wind or wet or undesired
+callers. She had therefore caused to be constructed an even older one
+made from the oak-planks of a dismantled barn, and had it studded with
+large iron nails of antique pattern made by the village blacksmith. He
+had arranged some of them to look as if they spelled A.D. 1603. Over
+the door hung an inn-sign, and into the space where once the sign had
+swung was now inserted a lantern, in which was ensconced, well hidden
+from view by its patinated glass sides, an electric light. This was one
+of the necessary concessions to modern convenience, for no lamp
+nurtured on oil would pierce those genuinely opaque panes, and
+illuminate the path to the gate. Better to have an electric light than
+cause your guests to plunge into Perdita's border. By the side of this
+fortress-door hung a heavy iron bell-pull, ending in a mermaid. When
+first Mrs Lucas had that installed, it was a bell-pull in the sense
+that an extremely athletic man could, if he used both hands and planted
+his feet firmly, cause it to move, so that a huge bronze bell swung in
+the servants' passage and eventually gave tongue (if the athlete
+continued pulling) with vibrations so sonorous that the white-wash from
+the ceiling fell down in flakes. She had therefore made another
+concession to the frailty of the present generation and the
+inconveniences of having whitewash falling into salads and puddings on
+their way to the dining room, and now at the back of the mermaid's tail
+was a potent little bone button, coloured black and practically
+invisible, and thus the bell-pull had been converted into an electric
+bell-push. In this way visitors could make their advent known without
+violent exertion, the mermaid lost no visible whit of her Elizabethan
+virginity, and the spirit of Shakespeare wandering in his garden would
+not notice any anachronism. He could not in fact, for there was none to
+notice.
+
+Though Mrs Lucas's parents had bestowed the name of Emmeline on her, it
+was not to be wondered at that she was always known among the more
+intimate of her subjects as Lucia, pronounced, of course, in the
+Italian mode--La Lucia, the wife of Lucas; and it was as "Lucia mia"
+that her husband hailed her as he met her at the door of The Hurst.
+
+He had been watching for her arrival from the panes of the parlour
+while he meditated upon one of the little prose poems which formed so
+delectable a contribution to the culture of Riseholme, for though, as
+had been hinted, he had in practical life a firm grasp of the obvious,
+there were windows in his soul which looked out onto vague and ethereal
+prospects which so far from being obvious were only dimly intelligible.
+In form these odes were cast in the loose rhythms of Walt Whitman, but
+their smooth suavity and their contents bore no resemblance whatever to
+the productions of that barbaric bard, whose works were quite unknown
+in Riseholme. Already a couple of volumes of these prose-poems had been
+published, not of course in the hard business-like establishment of
+London, but at "Ye Sign of ye Daffodil," on the village green, where
+type was set up by hand, and very little, but that of the best, was
+printed. The press had only been recently started at Mr Lucas's
+expense, but it had put forth a reprint of Shakespeare's sonnets
+already, as well as his own poems. They were printed in blunt type on
+thick yellowish paper, the edges of which seemed as if they had been
+cut by the forefinger of an impatient reader, so ragged and irregular
+were they, and they were bound in vellum, the titles of these two slim
+flowers of poetry, "Flotsam" and "Jetsam," were printed in black letter
+type and the covers were further adorned with a sort of embossed seal
+and with antique looking tapes so that you could tie it all up with two
+bows when you had finished with Mr Lucas's "Flotsam" for the time
+being, and turned to untie the "Jetsam."
+
+Today the prose-poem of "Loneliness" had not been getting on very well,
+and Philip Lucas was glad to hear the click of the garden-gate, which
+showed that his loneliness was over for the present, and looking up he
+saw his wife's figure waveringly presented to his eyes through the
+twisted and knotty glass of the parlour window, which had taken so long
+to collect, but which now completely replaced the plain, commonplace
+unrefracting stuff which was there before. He jumped up with an
+alacrity remarkable in so solid and well-furnished a person, and had
+thrown open the nail-studded front-door before Lucia had traversed the
+path of broken paving-stones, for she had lingered for a sad moment at
+Perdita's empty border.
+
+"_Lucia mia_!" he exclaimed. "_Ben arrivata_! So you walked
+from the station?"
+
+"_Si, Peppino, mio caro_," she said. "_Sta bene_?"
+
+He kissed her and relapsed into Shakespeare's tongue, for their
+Italian, though firm and perfect as far as it went, could not be
+considered as going far, and was useless for conversational purposes,
+unless they merely wanted to greet each other, or to know the time. But
+it was interesting to talk Italian, however little way it went.
+
+"_Molto bene_," said he, "and it's delightful to have you home
+again. And how was London?" he asked in the sort of tone in which he
+might have enquired after the health of a poor relation, who was not
+likely to recover. She smiled rather sadly.
+
+"Terrifically busy about nothing," she said. "All this fortnight I have
+scarcely had a moment to myself. Lunches, dinners, parties of all
+kinds; I could not go to half the gatherings I was bidden to. Dear good
+South Kensington! Chelsea too!"
+
+"_Carissima_, when London does manage to catch you, it is no
+wonder it makes the most of you," he said. "You mustn't blame London
+for that."
+
+"No, dear, I don't. Everyone was tremendously kind and hospitable; they
+all did their best. If I blame anyone, I blame myself. But I think this
+Riseholme life with its finish and its exquisiteness spoils one for
+other places. London is like a railway-junction: it has no true life of
+its own. There is no delicacy, no appreciation of fine shades.
+Individualism has no existence there; everyone gabbles together,
+gabbles and gobbles: am not I naughty? If there is a concert in a
+private house--you know my views about music and the impossibility of
+hearing music at all if you are stuck in the middle of a row of
+people--even then, the moment it is over you are whisked away to supper,
+or somebody wants to have a few words. There is always a crowd, there is
+always food, you cannot be alone, and it is only in loneliness, as
+Goethe says, that your perceptions put forth their flowers. No one in
+London has time to listen: they are all thinking about who is there and
+who isn't there, and what is the next thing. The exquisite present, as
+you put it in one of your poems, has no existence there: it is always
+the feverish future."
+
+"Delicious phrase! I should have stolen that gem for my poor poems, if
+you had discovered it before."
+
+She was too much used to this incense to do more than sniff it in
+unconsciously, and she went on with her tremendous indictment.
+
+"It isn't that I find fault with London for being so busy," she said
+with strict impartiality, "for if being busy was a crime, I am sure
+there are few of us here who would escape hanging. But take my life
+here, or yours for that matter. Well, mine if you like. Often and often
+I am alone from breakfast till lunch-time, but in those hours I get
+through more that is worth doing than London gets through in a day and
+a night. I have an hour at my music not looking about and wondering who
+my neighbours are, but learning, studying, drinking in divine melody.
+Then I have my letters to write, and you know what that means, and I
+still have time for an hour's reading so that when you come to tell me
+lunch is ready, you will find that I have been wandering through
+Venetian churches or sitting in that little dark room at Weimar, or was
+it Leipsic? How would those same hours have passed in London?
+
+"Sitting perhaps for half an hour in the Park, with dearest Aggie
+pointing out to me, with thrills of breathless excitement, a woman who
+was in the divorce court, or a coroneted bankrupt. Then she would drag
+me off to some terrible private view full of the same people all
+staring at and gabbling to each other, or looking at pictures that made
+poor me gasp and shudder. No, I am thankful to be back at my own sweet
+Riseholme again. I can work and think here."
+
+She looked round the panelled entrance-hall with a glow of warm content
+at being at home again that quite eclipsed the mere physical heat
+produced by her walk from the station. Wherever her eyes fell, those
+sharp dark eyes that resembled buttons covered with shiny American
+cloth, they saw nothing that jarred, as so much in London jarred. There
+were bright brass jugs on the window sill, a bowl of pot-pourri on the
+black table in the centre, an oak settee by the open fireplace, a
+couple of Persian rugs on the polished floor. The room had its
+quaintness, too, such as she had alluded to in her memorable essay read
+before the Riseholme Literary Society, called "Humour in Furniture,"
+and a brass milkcan served as a receptacle for sticks and umbrellas.
+Equally quaint was the dish of highly realistic stone fruit that stood
+beside the pot-pourri and the furry Japanese spider that sprawled in a
+silk web over the window.
+
+Such was the fearful verisimilitude of this that Lucia's new housemaid
+had once fled from her duties in the early morning, to seek the
+assistance of the gardener in killing it. The dish of stone fruit had
+scored a similar success, for once she had said to Georgie Pillson,
+"Ah, my gardener has sent in some early apples and pears, won't you
+take one home with you?" It was not till the weight of the pear (he
+swiftly selected the largest) betrayed the joke that he had any notion
+that they were not real ones. But then Georgie had had his revenge, for
+waiting his opportunity he had inserted a real pear among those stony
+specimens and again passing through with Lucia, he picked it out, and
+with lips drawn back had snapped at it with all the force of his jaws.
+For the moment she had felt quite faint at the thought of his teeth
+crashing into fragments.... These humorous touches were altered from
+time to time; the spider for instance might be taken down and replaced
+by a china canary in a Chippendale cage, and the selection of the
+entrance hall for those whimsicalities was intentional, for guests
+found something to smile at, as they took off their cloaks and entered
+the drawing room with a topic on their lips, something light, something
+amusing about what they had seen. For the gong similarly was sometimes
+substituted a set of bells that had once decked the collar of the
+leading horse in a waggoner's team somewhere in Flanders; in fact when
+Lucia was at home there was often a new little quaintness for quite a
+sequence of days, and she had held out hopes to the Literary Society
+that perhaps some day, when she was not so rushed, she would jot down
+material for a sequel to her essay, or write another covering a rather
+larger field on "The Gambits of Conversation Derived from Furniture."
+
+On the table there was a pile of letters waiting for Mrs Lucas, for
+yesterday's post had not been forwarded her, for fear of its missing
+her--London postmen were probably very careless and untrustworthy--and
+she gave a little cry of dismay as she saw the volume of her
+correspondence.
+
+"But I shall be very naughty," she said "and not look at one of them
+till after lunch. Take them away, _Caro_, and promise me to lock
+them up till then, and not give them me however much I beg. Then I will
+get into the saddle again, such a dear saddle, too, and tackle them. I
+shall have a stroll in the garden till the bell rings. What is it that
+Nietzsche says about the necessity to _mediterranizer_ yourself
+every now and then? I must _Riseholme_ myself."
+
+Peppino remembered the quotation, which had occurred in a review of some
+work of that celebrated author, where Lucia had also seen it, and went
+back, with the force of contrast to aid him, to his prose-poem of
+"Loneliness," while his wife went through the smoking-parlour into the
+garden, in order to soak herself once more in the cultured atmosphere.
+
+In this garden behind the house there was no attempt to construct a
+Shakespearian plot, for, as she so rightly observed, Shakespeare, who
+loved flowers so well, would wish her to enjoy every conceivable
+horticultural treasure. But furniture played a prominent part in the
+place, and there were statues and sundials and stone-seats scattered
+about with almost too profuse a hand. Mottos also were in great
+evidence, and while a sundial reminded you that "_Tempus fugit,_"
+an enticing resting-place somewhat bewilderingly bade you to "Bide a
+wee." But then again the rustic seat in the pleached alley of laburnums
+had carved on its back, "Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,"
+so that, meditating on Keats, you could bide a wee with a clear
+conscience. Indeed so copious was the wealth of familiar and
+stimulating quotations that one of her subjects had once said that to
+stroll in Lucia's garden was not only to enjoy her lovely flowers, but
+to spend a simultaneous half hour with the best authors. There was a
+dovecote of course, but since the cats always killed the doves, Mrs
+Lucas had put up round the desecrated home several pigeons of
+Copenhagen china, which were both imperishable as regards cats, and
+also carried out the suggestion of humour in furniture. The humour had
+attained the highest point of felicity when Peppino concealed a
+mechanical nightingale in a bush, which sang "Jug-jug" in the most
+realistic manner when you pulled a string. Georgie had not yet seen the
+Copenhagen pigeons, or being rather short-sighted thought they were
+real. Then, oh then, Peppino pulled the string, and for quite a long
+time Georgie listened entranced to their melodious cooings. That served
+him out for his "trap" about the real pear introduced among the stone
+specimens. For in spite of the rarefied atmosphere of culture at
+Riseholme, Riseholme knew how to "_desipere in loco_," and its
+strenuous culture was often refreshed by these light refined touches.
+
+Mrs Lucas walked quickly and decisively up and down the paths as she
+waited for the summons to lunch, for the activity of her mind reacted
+on her body, making her brisk in movement. On each side of her forehead
+were hard neat undulations of black hair that concealed the tips of her
+ears. She had laid aside her London hat, and carried a red cotton
+Contadina's umbrella, which threw a rosy glow onto the oval of her thin
+face and its colourless complexion. She bore the weight of her forty
+years extremely lightly, and but for the droop of skin at the corners
+of her mouth, she might have passed as a much younger woman. Her face
+was otherwise unlined and bore no trace of the ravages of emotional
+living, which both ages and softens. Certainly there was nothing soft
+about her, and very little of the signs of age, and it would have been
+reasonable to conjecture that twenty years later she would look but
+little older than she did today. For such emotions as she was victim of
+were the sterile and ageless emotions of art; such desires as beset her
+were not connected with her affections, but her ambitions. Dynasty she
+had none, for she was childless, and thus her ambitions were limited to
+the permanence and security of her own throne as queen of Riseholme. She
+really asked nothing more of life than the continuance of such harvests
+as she had so plenteously reaped for these last ten years. As long as
+she directed the life of Riseholme, took the lead in its culture and
+entertainment, and was the undisputed fountain-head of all its
+inspirations, and from time to time refreshed her memory as to the
+utter inferiority of London she wanted nothing more. But to secure
+that she dedicated all that she had of ease, leisure and income.
+Being practically indefatigable the loss of ease and leisure troubled
+her but little and being in extremely comfortable circumstances, she
+had no need to economise in her hospitalities. She might easily look
+forward to enjoying an unchanging middle-aged activity, while
+generations of youth withered round her, and no star, remotely rising,
+had as yet threatened to dim her unrivalled effulgence. Though
+essentially autocratic, her subjects were allowed and even encouraged
+to develop their own minds on their own lines, provided always that
+those lines met at the junction where she was station-master. With
+regard to religion finally, it may be briefly said that she believed
+in God in much the same way as she believed in Australia, for she had
+no doubt whatever as to the existence of either, and she went to church
+on Sunday in much the same spirit as she would look at a kangaroo in the
+Zoological Gardens, for kangaroos come from Australia.
+
+A low wall separated the far end of her garden from the meadow outside;
+beyond that lay the stream which flowed into the Avon, and it often
+seemed wonderful to her that the water which wimpled by would (unless a
+cow happened to drink it) soon be stealing along past the church at
+Stratford where Shakespeare lay. Peppino had written a very moving
+little prose-poem about it, for she had royally presented him with the
+idea, and had suggested a beautiful analogy between the earthly dew
+that refreshed the grasses, and was drawn up into the fire of the Sun,
+and Thought the spiritual dew that refreshed the mind and thereafter,
+rather vaguely, was drawn up into the Full-Orbed Soul of the World.
+
+At that moment Lucia's eye was attracted by an apparition on the road
+which lay adjacent to the further side of the happy stream which flowed
+into the Avon. There was no mistaking the identity of the stout figure
+of Mrs Quantock with its short steps and its gesticulations, but why in
+the name of wonder should that Christian Scientist be walking with the
+draped and turbaned figure of a man with a tropical complexion and a
+black beard? His robe of saffron yellow with a violently green girdle
+was hitched up for ease in walking, and unless he had chocolate
+coloured stockings on, Mrs Lucas saw human legs of the same shade. Next
+moment that debatable point was set at rest for she caught sight of
+short pink socks in red slippers. Even as she looked Mrs Quantock saw
+her (for owing to Christian Science she had recaptured the quick vision
+of youth) and waggled her hand and kissed it, and evidently called her
+companion's attention, for the next moment he was salaaming to her in
+some stately Oriental manner. There was nothing to be done for the
+moment except return these salutations, as she could not yell an aside
+to Mrs Quantock, screaming out "Who is that Indian"? for if Mrs
+Quantock heard the Indian would hear too, but as soon as she could, she
+turned back towards the house again, and when once the lilac bushes
+were between her and the road she walked with more than her usual
+speed, in order to learn with the shortest possible delay from Peppino
+who this fresh subject of hers could be. She knew there were some
+Indian princes in London; perhaps it was one of them, in which case it
+would be necessary to read up Benares or Delhi in the Encyclopaedia
+without loss of time.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter TWO
+
+
+As she traversed the smoking-parlour the cheerful sounds that had once
+tinkled from the collar of a Flemish horse chimed through the house,
+and simultaneously she became aware that there would be _macaroni au
+gratin_ for lunch, which was very dear and remembering of Peppino.
+But before setting fork to her piled-up plate, she had to question him,
+for her mental craving for information was far keener than her appetite
+for food.
+
+"_Caro_, who is an Indian," she said, "whom I saw just now with
+Daisy Quantock? They were the other side of il piccolo Avon."
+
+Peppino had already begun his macaroni and must pause to shovel the
+outlying strings of it into his mouth. But the haste with which he did
+so was sufficient guaranty for his eagerness to reply as soon as it was
+humanly possible to do so.
+
+"Indian, my dear?" he asked with the greatest interest.
+
+"Yes; turban and burnous and calves and slippers," she said rather
+impatiently, for what was the good of Peppino having remained in
+Riseholme if he could not give her precise and certain information on
+local news when she returned. His prose-poems were all very well, but
+as prince-consort he had other duties of state which must not be
+neglected for the calls of Art.
+
+This slight asperity on her part seemed to sharpen his wits.
+
+"Really, I don't know for certain, Lucia," he said, "for I have not set
+my eyes on him. But putting two and two together, I might make a
+guess."
+
+"Two and two make four," she said with that irony for which she was
+feared and famous. "Now for your guess. I hope it is equally accurate."
+
+"Well, as I told you in one of my letters," said he, "Mrs Quantock
+showed signs of being a little off with Christian Science. She had a
+cold, and though she recited the True Statement of Being just as
+frequently as before, her cold got no better. But when I saw her on
+Tuesday last, unless it was Wednesday, no, it couldn't have been
+Wednesday, so it must have been Tuesday--"
+
+"Whenever it was then," interrupted his wife, brilliantly summing up
+his indecision.
+
+"Yes; whenever it was, as you say, on that occasion Mrs Quantock was
+very full of some Indian philosophy which made you quite well at once.
+What did she call it now? Yoga! Yes, that was it!"
+
+"And then?" asked Lucia.
+
+"Well, it appears you must have a teacher in Yoga or else you may
+injure yourself. You have to breathe deeply and say 'Om'----"
+
+"Say what?"
+
+"Om. I understand the ejaculation to be Om. And there are very curious
+physical exercises; you have to hold your ear with one hand and your
+toes with the other, and you may strain yourself unless you do it
+properly. That was the general gist of it."
+
+"And shall we come to the Indian soon?" said Lucia.
+
+"_Carissima_, you have come to him already. I suggest that Mrs
+Quantock has applied for a teacher and got him. _Ecco!_"
+
+Mrs Lucas wore a heavily corrugated forehead at this news. Peppino had
+a wonderful _flair_ in explaining unusual circumstances in the
+life of Riseholme and his conjectures were generally correct. But if he
+was right in this instance, it struck Lucia as being a very irregular
+thing that anyone should have imported a mystical Indian into Riseholme
+without consulting her. It is true that she had been away, but still
+there was the medium of the post.
+
+"_Ecco_ indeed!" she said. "It puts me in rather a difficult
+position, for I must send out my invitations to my garden-party today,
+and I really don't know whether I ought to be officially aware of this
+man's existence or not. I can't write to Daisy Quantock and say 'Pray
+bring your black friend Om or whatever his name proves to be, and on
+the other hand, if he is the sort of person whom one would be sorry to
+miss, I should not like to have passed over him."
+
+"After all, my dear, you have only been back in Riseholme half an
+hour," said her husband. "It would have been difficult for Mrs
+Quantock to have told you yet."
+
+Her face cleared.
+
+"Perhaps Daisy has written to me about him," she said. "I may find a
+full account of it all when I open my letters."
+
+"Depend upon it you will. She would hardly have been so wanting in
+proper feeling as not to have told you. I think, too, that her visitor
+must only have just arrived, or I should have been sure to see him
+about somewhere."
+
+She rose.
+
+"Well, we will see," she said. "Now I shall be very busy all afternoon,
+but by tea-time I shall be ready to see anyone who calls. Give me my
+letters, _Caro_, and I will find out if Daisy has written to me."
+
+She turned them over as she went to her room, and there among them was
+a bulky envelope addressed in Mrs Quantock's great sprawling hand,
+which looked at first sight so large and legible, but on closer
+examination turned out to be so baffling. You had to hold it at some
+distance off to make anything out of it, and look at it in an abstracted
+general manner much as you would look at a view. Treated thus, scattered
+words began to leap into being, and when you had got a sufficiency of
+these, like glimpses of the country seen by flashes of lightning, you
+could hope to get a collective idea of it all. The procedure led to the
+most promising results as Mrs Lucas sat with the sheets at arm's length,
+occasionally altering the range to try the effect of a different focus.
+"Benares" blinked at her, also "Brahmin"; also "highest caste";
+"extraordinary sanctity," and "Guru." And when the meaning of this
+latter was ascertained from the article on "Yoga" in her Encyclopaedia,
+she progressed very swiftly towards a complete comprehension of the
+letter.
+
+When fully pieced together it was certainly enough to rivet her whole
+attention, and make her leave unopened the rest of the correspondence,
+for such a prelude to adventure had seldom sounded in Riseholme. It
+appeared, even as her husband had told her at lunch, that Mrs Quantock
+found her cold too obstinate for all the precepts of Mrs Eddy; the
+True Statement of Being, however often repeated, only seemed to inflame
+it further, and one day, when confined to the house, she had taken a
+book "quite at random" from the shelves in her library, under, she
+supposed, the influence of some interior compulsion. This then was
+clearly a "leading."
+
+Mrs Lucas paused a moment as she pieced together these first sentences.
+She seemed to remember that Mrs Quantock had experienced a similar
+leading when first she took up Christian Science. It was a leading from
+the sight of a new church off Sloane Street that day; Mrs Quantock had
+entered (she scarcely knew why) and had found herself in a Testimony
+Meeting, where witness after witness declared the miraculous healings
+they had experienced. One had had a cough, another cancer, another a
+fractured bone, but all had been cured by the blessed truths conveyed
+in the Gospel according to Mrs Eddy. However, her memories on this
+subject were not to the point now; she burned to arrive at the story of
+the new leading.
+
+Well, the book that Mrs Quantock had taken down in obedience to the
+last leading proved to be a little handbook of Oriental Philosophies,
+and it opened, "all of its own accord," at a chapter called Yoga.
+Instantly she perceived, as by the unclosing of an inward eye, that Yoga
+was what she wanted and she instantly wrote to the address from which
+this book was issued asking for any guidance on the subject. She had
+read in "Oriental Philosophies" that for the successful practice of
+Yoga, it was necessary to have a teacher, and did they know of any
+teacher who could give her instruction? A wonderful answer came to that,
+for two days afterwards her maid came to her and said that an Indian
+gentleman would like to see her. He was ushered in, and with a profound
+obeisance said: "Beloved lady, I am the teacher you asked for; I am your
+Guru. Peace be to this house! Om!"
+
+Mrs Lucas had by this time got her view of Mrs Quantock's letter into
+perfect focus, and she read on without missing a word. "Is it not
+wonderful, dearest Lucia," it ran, "that my desire for light should
+have been so instantly answered? And yet my Guru tells me that it
+always happens so. I was sent to him, and he was sent to me, just like
+that! He had been expecting some call when my letter asking for
+guidance came, and he started at once because he knew he was sent.
+Fancy! I don't even know his name, and his religion forbids him to tell
+it me. He is just my Guru, my guide, and he is going to be with me as
+long as he knows I need him to show me the True Path. He has the spare
+bedroom and the little room adjoining where he meditates and does
+Postures and Pranyama which is breathing. If you persevere in them
+under instruction, you have perfect health and youth, and my cold is
+gone already. He is a Brahmin of the very highest caste, indeed caste
+means nothing to him any longer, just as a Baronet and an Honourable
+must seem about the same thing to the King. He comes from Benares where
+he used to meditate all day by the Ganges, and I can see for myself
+that he is a person of the most extraordinary sanctity. But he can
+meditate just as well in my little room, for he says he was never in
+any house that had such a wonderful atmosphere. He has no money at all
+which is so beautiful of him, and looked so pained and disappointed
+when I asked him if I might not give him some. He doesn't even know how
+he got here from London; he doesn't think he came by train, so perhaps
+he was wafted here in some astral manner. He looked so bewildered too
+when I said the word 'money,' and evidently he had to think what it
+was, because it is so long since it has meant anything to him. So if he
+wants anything, I have told him to go into any shop and ask that it
+shall be put down to me. He has often been without food or sleep for
+days together when he is meditating. Just think!
+
+"Shall I bring him to see you, or will you come here? He wants to meet
+you, because he feels you have a beautiful soul and may help him in
+that way, as well as his helping you. I am helping him too he says,
+which seems more wonderful than I can believe. Send me a line as soon
+as you get back. _Tante salute_!
+
+                     "Your own,
+                           "DAISY."
+
+The voluminous sheets had taken long in reading and Mrs Lucas folded
+them up slowly and thoughtfully. She felt that she had to make a swift
+decision that called into play all her mental powers. On the one hand
+it was "up to her" to return a frigid reply, conveying, without making
+any bones about the matter, that she had no interest in nameless Gurus
+who might or might not be Brahmins from Benares and presented
+themselves at Daisy's doors in a penniless condition without clear
+knowledge whether they had come by train or not. In favour of such
+prudent measures was the truly Athenian character of Daisy's mind, for
+she was always enquiring into "some new thing," which was the secret of
+life when first discovered, and got speedily relegated to the
+dust-heap. But against such a course was the undoubted fact that Daisy
+did occasionally get hold of somebody who subsequently proved to be of
+interest, and Lucia would never forget to her dying day the advent in
+Riseholme of a little Welsh attorney, in whom Daisy had discovered a
+wonderful mentality. Lucia had refused to extend her queenly
+hospitality to him, or to recognise his existence in any way during the
+fortnight when he stayed with Daisy, and she was naturally very much
+annoyed to find him in a prominent position in the Government not many
+years later. Indeed she had snubbed him so markedly on his first
+appearance at Riseholme that he had refused on subsequent visits to
+come to her house at all, though he several times visited Mrs Quantock
+again, and told her all sorts of political secrets (so she said) which
+she would not divulge for anything in the world. There must never be a
+repetition of so fatal an error.
+
+Another thing inclined the wavering balance. She distinctly wanted some
+fresh element at her court, that should make Riseholme know that she
+was in residence again. August would soon be here with its languors and
+absence of stimulus, when it was really rather difficult in the drowsy
+windless weather to keep the flag of culture flying strongly from her
+own palace. The Guru had already said that he felt sure she had a
+beautiful soul, and-- The outline of the scheme flashed upon her. She
+would have Yoga evenings in the hot August weather, at which, as the
+heat of the day abated, graceful groups should assemble among the
+mottos in the garden and listen to high talk on spiritual subjects.
+They would adjourn to delicious moonlit suppers in the pergola, or if
+the moon was indisposed--she could not be expected to regulate the
+affairs of the moon as well as of Riseholme--there would be dim seances
+and sandwiches in the smoking-parlour. The humorous furniture should be
+put in cupboards, and as they drifted towards the front hall again,
+when the clocks struck an unexpectedly late hour, little whispered
+colloquies of "How wonderful he was tonight" would be heard, and there
+would be faraway looks and sighs, and the notings down of the titles of
+books that conducted the pilgrim on the Way. Perhaps as they softly
+assembled for departure, a little music would be suggested to round off
+the evening, and she saw herself putting down the soft pedal as people
+rustled into their places, for the first movement of the "Moonlight
+Sonata." Then at the end there would be silence, and she would get up
+with a sigh, and someone would say "Lucia mia"! and somebody else
+"Heavenly Music," and perhaps the Guru would say "Beloved lady," as he
+had _apparently_ said to poor Daisy Quantock. Flowers, music,
+addresses from the Guru, soft partings, sense of refreshment.... With
+the memory of the Welsh attorney in her mind, it seemed clearly wiser
+to annex rather than to repudiate the Guru. She seized a pen and drew a
+pile of postcards towards her, on the top of which was printed her name
+and address.
+
+"Too wonderful," she wrote, "pray bring him yourself to my little
+garden-party on Friday. There will be only a few. Let me know if he
+wants a quiet room ready for him."
+
+All this had taken time, and she had but scribbled a dozen postcards to
+friends bidding them come to her garden party on Friday, when tea was
+announced. These invitations had the mystic word "Hightum" written at
+the bottom left hand corner, which conveyed to the enlightened recipient
+what sort of party it was to be, and denoted the standard of dress. For
+one of Lucia's quaint ideas was to divide dresses into three classes,
+"Hightum," "Tightum" and "Scrub." "Hightum" was your very best dress,
+the smartest and newest of all, and when "Hightum" was written on a
+card of invitation, it implied that the party was a very resplendent
+one. "Tightum" similarly indicated a moderately smart party, "Scrub"
+carried its own significance on the surface. These terms applied to
+men's dress as well and as regards evening parties: a dinner party
+"Hightum" would indicate a white tie and a tail coat; a dinner party
+"Tightum" a black tie and a short coat, and a dinner "Scrub" would mean
+morning clothes.
+
+With tea was announced also the advent of Georgie Pillson who was her
+gentleman-in-waiting when she was at home, and her watch-dog when she
+was not. In order to save subsequent disappointment, it may be at once
+stated that there never has been, was, or ever would be the smallest
+approach to a flirtation between them. Neither of them, she with her
+forty respectable years and he with his blameless forty-five years, had
+ever flirted, with anybody at all. But it was one of the polite and
+pleasant fictions of Riseholme that Georgie was passionately attached
+to her and that it was for her sake that he had settled in Riseholme
+now some seven years ago, and that for her sake he remained still
+unmarried. She never, to do her justice, had affirmed anything of the
+sort, but it is a fact that sometimes when Georgie's name came up in
+conversation, her eyes wore that "far-away" look that only the
+masterpieces of art could otherwise call up, and she would sigh and
+murmur "Dear Georgie"! and change the subject, with the tact that
+characterized her. In fact their mutual relations were among the most
+Beautiful Things of Riseholme, and hardly less beautiful was Peppino's
+attitude towards it all. That large hearted man trusted them both, and
+his trust was perfectly justified. Georgie was in and out of the house
+all day, chiefly in; and not only did scandal never rear its hissing
+head, but it positively had not a head to hiss with, or a foot to stand
+on. On his side again Georgie had never said that he was in love with
+her (nor would it have been true if he had), but by his complete
+silence on the subject coupled with his constancy he seemed to admit
+the truth of this bloodless idyll. They talked and walked and read the
+masterpieces of literature and played duets on the piano together.
+Sometimes (for he was the more brilliant performer, though as he said
+"terribly lazy about practising," for which she scolded him) he would
+gently slap the back of her hand, if she played a wrong note, and say
+"Naughty!" And she would reply in baby language "Me vewy sowwy! Oo
+naughty too to hurt Lucia!" That was the utmost extent of their carnal
+familiarities, and with bright eyes fixed on the music they would break
+into peals of girlish laughter, until the beauty of the music sobered
+them again.
+
+Georgie (he was Georgie or Mr Georgie, never Pillson to the whole of
+Riseholme) was not an obtrusively masculine sort of person. Such
+masculinity as he was possessed of was boyish rather than adult, and
+the most important ingredients in his nature were womanish. He had, in
+common with the rest of Riseholme, strong artistic tastes, and in
+addition to playing the piano, made charming little water-colour
+sketches, many of which he framed at his own expense and gave to
+friends, with slightly sentimental titles, neatly printed in gilt
+letters on the mount. "Golden Autumn Woodland," "Bleak December,"
+"Yellow Daffodils," "Roses of Summer" were perhaps his most notable
+series, and these he had given to Lucia, on the occasion of four
+successive birthdays. He did portraits as well in pastel; these were of
+two types, elderly ladies in lace caps with a row of pearls, and boys
+in cricket shirts with their sleeves rolled up. He was not very good at
+eyes, so his sitters always were looking down, but he was excellent at
+smiles, and the old ladies smiled patiently and sweetly, and the boys
+gaily. But his finest accomplishment was needlework and his house was
+full of the creations of his needle, wool-work curtains, petit-point
+chair seats, and silk embroideries framed and glazed. Next to Lucia he
+was the hardest worked inhabitant of Riseholme but not being so strong
+as the Queen, he had often to go away for little rests by the sea-side.
+Travelling by train fussed him a good deal, for he might not be able to
+get a corner seat, or somebody with a pipe or a baby might get into his
+carriage, or the porter might be rough with his luggage, so he always
+went in his car to some neighbouring watering-place where they knew
+him. Dicky, his handsome young chauffeur, drove him, and by Dicky's
+side sat Foljambe, his very pretty parlour-maid who valetted him. If
+Dicky took the wrong turn his master called "Naughty boy" through the
+tube, and Foljambe smiled respectfully. For the month of August, his
+two plain strapping sisters (Hermione and Ursula alas!) always came to
+stay with him. They liked pigs and dogs and otter-hunting and
+mutton-chops, and were rather a discordant element in Riseholme. But
+Georgie had a kind heart, and never even debated whether he should ask
+Hermy and Ursy or not, though he had to do a great deal of tidying up
+after they had gone.
+
+There was always a playful touch between the meetings of these two when
+either of them had been away from Riseholme that very prettily
+concealed the depth of Georgie's supposed devotion, and when she came
+out into the garden where her Cavalier and her husband were waiting for
+their tea under the pergola, Georgie jumped up very nimbly and took a
+few chassee-ing steps towards her with both hands outstretched in
+welcome. She caught at his humour, made him a curtsey, and next moment
+they were treading a little improvised minuet together with hands held
+high, and pointed toes. Georgie had very small feet, and it was a
+really elegant toe that he pointed, encased in cloth-topped boots. He
+had on a suit of fresh white flannels and over his shoulders, for fear
+of the evening air being chilly after this hot day, he had a little
+cape of a military cut, like those in which young ladies at music-halls
+enact the part of colonels. He had a straw-hat on, with a blue riband,
+a pink shirt and a red tie, rather loose and billowy. His face was pink
+and round, with blue eyes, a short nose and very red lips. An almost
+complete absence of eyebrow was made up for by a firm little brown
+moustache clipped very short, and brushed upwards at its extremities.
+Contrary to expectation he was quite tall and fitted very neatly into
+his clothes.
+
+The dance came to an end with a low curtsey on Lucia's part, an
+obeisance hat in hand from Georgie (this exposure shewing a crop of
+hair grown on one side of his head and brushed smoothly over the top
+until it joined the hair on the other side) and a clapping of the hands
+from Peppino.
+
+"Bravo, bravo," he cried from the tea-table. "Capital!"
+
+Mrs Lucas blew him a kiss in acknowledgment of this compliment and
+smiled on her partner. "_Amico!_" she said. "It is nice to see you
+again. How goes it?"
+
+"_Va bene_," said Georgie to show he could talk Italian too.
+"_Va_ very _bene_ now that you've come back."
+
+"_Grazie!_ Now tell us all the news. We'll have a good gossip."
+
+Georgie's face beamed with a "solemn gladness" at the word, like a
+drunkard's when brandy is mentioned.
+
+"Where shall we begin?" he said. "Such a lot to tell you. I think we
+must begin with a great bit of news. Something really mysterious."
+
+Lucia smiled inwardly. She felt that she knew for dead certain what the
+mysterious news was, and also that she knew far more about it than
+Georgie. This superiority she completely concealed. Nobody could have
+guessed it.
+
+"_Presto, presto!_" she said. "You excite me."
+
+"Yesterday morning I was in Rush's," said Georgie, "seeing about some
+_Creme de menthe_, which ought to have been sent the day before.
+Rush is very negligent sometimes--and I was just saying a sharp word
+about it, when suddenly I saw that Rush was not attending at all, but
+was looking at something behind my back, and so I looked round. Guess!"
+
+"Don't be tantalising, _amico_," said she. "How can I guess? A
+pink elephant with blue spots!"
+
+"No, guess again!"
+
+"A red Indian in full war paint."
+
+"Certainly not! Guess again," said Georgie, with a little sigh of
+relief. (It would have been awful if she had guessed.) At this moment
+Peppino suddenly became aware that Lucia had guessed and was up to some
+game.
+
+"Give me your hand, Georgie," she said, "and look at me. I'm going to
+read your thoughts. Think of what you saw when you turned round."
+
+She took his hand and pressed it to her forehead, closing her eyes.
+
+"But I do seem to see an Indian," she said. "Ah, not red Indian, other
+Indian. And--and he has slippers on and brown stockings--no, not brown
+stockings; it's legs. And there's a beard, and a turban."
+
+She gave a sigh.
+
+"That's all I can see," she said.
+
+"My dear, you're marvellous," said he. "You're quite right."
+
+A slight bubbling sound came from Peppino, and Georgie began to
+suspect.
+
+"I believe you've seen him!" he said. "How tarsome you are...."
+
+When they had all laughed a great deal, and Georgie had been assured
+that Lucia really, word of honour, had no idea what happened next, the
+narrative was resumed.
+
+"So there stood the Indian, bowing and salaaming most politely and when
+Rush had promised me he would send my _Creme de menthe_ that very
+morning, I just looked through a wine list for a moment, and the Indian
+with quantities more bows came up to the counter and said, 'If you will
+have the great goodness to give me a little brandy bottle.' So Rush
+gave it him, and instead of paying for it, what do you think he said?
+Guess."
+
+Mrs Lucas rose with the air of Lady Macbeth and pointed her finger at
+Georgie.
+
+"He said 'Put it down to Mrs Quantock's account,'" she hissed.
+
+Of course the explanation came now, and Lucia told the two men the
+contents of Mrs Quantock's letter. With that her cards were on the
+table, and though the fact of the Brahmin from Benares was news to
+Georgie, he had got many interesting things to tell her, for his house
+adjoined Mrs Quantock's and there were plenty of things which Mrs
+Quantock had not mentioned in her letter, so that Georgie was soon in
+the position of informant again. His windows overlooked Mrs Quantock's
+garden, and since he could not keep his eyes shut all day, it followed
+that the happenings there were quite common property. Indeed that was a
+general rule in Riseholme: anyone in an adjoining property could say,
+"What an exciting game of lawn-tennis you had this afternoon!" having
+followed it from his bedroom. That was part of the charm of Riseholme;
+it was as if it contained just one happy family with common interests
+and pursuits. What happened in the house was a more private matter, and
+Mrs Quantock, for instance, would never look from the rising ground at
+the end of her garden into Georgie's dining-room or, if she did she
+would never tell anyone how many places were laid at table on that
+particular day when she had asked if he could give her lunch, and he
+had replied that to his great regret his table was full. But nobody
+could help seeing into gardens from back windows: the "view" belonged
+to everybody.
+
+Georgie had had wonderful views.
+
+"That very day," he said, "soon after lunch, I was looking for a letter
+I thought I had left in my bedroom, and happening to glance out, I saw
+the Indian sitting under Mrs Quantock's pear-tree. He was swaying a
+little backwards and forwards."
+
+"The brandy!" said Lucia excitedly. "He has his meals in his own room."
+
+"No, _amica_, it was not the brandy. In fact I don't suppose the
+brandy had gone to Mrs Quantock's then, for he did not take it from
+Rush's, but asked that it should be sent...." He paused a moment--"Or
+did he take it away? I declare I can't remember. But anyhow when he
+swayed backwards and forwards, he wasn't drunk, for presently he stood
+on one leg, and crooked the other behind it, and remained there with
+his hands up, as if he was praying, for quite a long time without
+swaying at all. So he couldn't have been tipsy. And then he sat down
+again, and took off his slippers, and held his toes with one hand,
+while his legs were quite straight out, and put his other hand round
+behind his head, and grasped his other ear with it. I tried to do it on
+my bedroom floor, but I couldn't get near it. Then he sat up again and
+called 'Chela! Chela!' and Mrs Quantock came running out."
+
+"Why did he say 'Chela'?" asked Lucia.
+
+"I wondered too. But I knew I had some clue to it, so I looked through
+some books by Rudyard Kipling, and found that Chela meant 'Disciple.'
+What you have told me just now about 'Guru' being 'teacher,' seems to
+piece the whole thing together."
+
+"And what did Daisy do?" asked Mrs Lucas breathlessly.
+
+"She sat down too, and put her legs out straight in front of her like
+the Guru, and tried to hold the toe of her shoe in her fingers, and
+naturally she couldn't get within yards of it. I got nearer than she
+did. And he said, 'Beloved lady, not too far at first.'"
+
+"So you could hear too," said Lucia.
+
+"Naturally, for my window was open, and as you know Mrs Quantock's
+pear-tree is quite close to the house. And then he told her to stop up
+one nostril with her finger and inhale through the other, and then hold
+her breath, while he counted six. Then she breathed it all out again,
+and started with the other side. She repeated that several times and he
+was very much pleased with her. Then she said, 'It is quite wonderful;
+I feel so light and vigorous.'"
+
+"It would be very wonderful indeed if dear Daisy felt light," remarked
+Lucia. "What next?"
+
+"Then they sat and swayed backwards and forwards again and muttered
+something that sounded like Pom!"
+
+"That would be 'Om', and then?"
+
+"I couldn't wait any longer for I had some letters to write."
+
+She smiled at him.
+
+"I shall give you another cup of tea to reward you for your report,"
+she said. "It has all been most interesting. Tell me again about the
+breathing in and holding your breath."
+
+Georgie did so, and illustrated in his own person what had happened.
+Next moment Lucia was imitating him, and Peppino came round in order to
+get a better view of what Georgie was doing. Then they all sat,
+inhaling through one nostril, holding their breath, and then expelling
+it again.
+
+"Very interesting," said Lucia at the end. "Upon my word, it does give
+one a sort of feeling of vigour and lightness. I wonder if there is
+something in it."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter THREE
+
+
+Though "The Hurst" was, as befitted its Chatelaine, the most
+Elizabethanly complete abode in Riseholme, the rest of the village in
+its due degree, fell very little short of perfection. It had but its
+one street some half mile in length but that street was a gem of
+mediaeval domestic architecture. For the most part the houses that
+lined it were blocks of contiguous cottages, which had been converted
+either singly or by twos and threes into dwellings containing the
+comforts demanded by the twentieth century, but externally they
+preserved the antiquity which, though it might be restored or
+supplemented by bathrooms or other conveniences, presented a truly
+Elizabethan appearance. There were, of course, accretions such as old
+inn signs above front-doors and old bell-pulls at their sides, but the
+doors were uniformly of inconveniently low stature, roofs were of stone
+slabs or old brick, in which a suspiciously abundant crop of
+antirrhinums and stone crops had anchored themselves, and there was
+hardly a garden that did not contain a path of old paving-stones, a
+mulberry-tree and some yews cut into shape.
+
+Nothing in the place was more blatantly mediaeval than the village
+green, across which Georgie took his tripping steps after leaving the
+presence of his queen. Round it stood a row of great elms, and in its
+centre was the ducking-pond, according to Riseholme tradition, though
+perhaps in less classical villages it might have passed merely for a
+duck-pond. But in Riseholme it would have been rank heresy to dream,
+even in the most pessimistic moments, of its being anything but a
+ducking-pond. Close by it stood a pair of stocks, about which there was
+no doubt whatever, for Mr Lucas had purchased them from a neighbouring
+iconoclastic village, where they were going to be broken up, and, after
+having them repaired, had presented them to the village-green, and
+chosen their site close to the ducking pond. Round the green were
+grouped the shops of the village, slightly apart from the residential
+street, and at the far end of it was that undoubtedly Elizabethan
+hostelry, the Ambermere Arms, full to overflowing of ancient tables and
+bible-boxes, and fire-dogs and fire-backs, and bottles and chests and
+settles. These were purchased in large quantities by the American
+tourists who swarmed there during the summer months, at a high profit
+to the nimble proprietor, who thereupon purchased fresh antiquities to
+take their places. The Ambermere Arms in fact was the antique furniture
+shop of the place, and did a thriving trade, for it was much more
+interesting to buy objects out of a real old Elizabethan inn, than out
+of a shop.
+
+Georgie had put his smart military cape over his arm for his walk, and
+at intervals applied his slim forefinger to one nostril, while he
+breathed in through the other, continuing the practice which he had
+observed going on in Mrs Quantock's garden. Though it made him a little
+dizzy, it certainly produced a sort of lightness, but soon he
+remembered the letter from Mrs Quantock which Lucia had read out,
+warning her that these exercises ought to be taken under instruction,
+and so desisted. He was going to deliver Lucia's answer at Mrs
+Quantock's house, and with a view to possibly meeting the Guru, and
+being introduced to him, he said over to himself "Guru, Guru, Guru"
+instead of doing deep breathing, in order to accustom himself to the
+unusual syllables.
+
+It would, of course, have been very strange and un-Riseholme-like to
+have gone to a friend's door, even though the errand was so impersonal
+a one as bearing somebody else's note, without enquiring whether the
+friend was in, and being instantly admitted if she was, and as a matter
+of fact, Georgie caught a glimpse, when the knocker was answered (Mrs
+Quantock did not have a bell at all), through the open door of the
+hall, of Mrs Quantock standing in the middle of the lawn on one leg.
+Naturally, therefore, he ran out into the garden without any further
+formality. She looked like a little round fat stork, whose legs had not
+grown, but who preserved the habits of her kind.
+
+"Dear lady, I've brought a note for you," he said, "it's from Lucia."
+
+The other leg went down, and she turned on him the wide firm smile that
+she had learned in the vanished days of Christian Science.
+
+"Om," said Mrs Quantock, expelling the remainder of her breath. "Thank
+you, my dear Georgie. It's extraordinary what Yoga has done for me
+already. Cold quite gone. If ever you feel out of sorts, or depressed
+or cross you can cure yourself at once. I've got a visitor staying with
+me."
+
+"Have you indeed?" asked Georgie, without alluding to the thrilling
+excitements which had trodden so close on each other's heels since
+yesterday morning when he had seen the Guru in Rush's shop.
+
+"Yes; and as you've just come from dear Lucia's perhaps she may have
+said something to you about him, for I wrote to her about him. He's a
+Guru of extraordinary sanctity from Benares, and he's teaching me the
+Way. You shall see him too, unless he's meditating. I will call to him;
+if he's meditating he won't hear me, so we shan't be interrupting him.
+He wouldn't hear a railway accident if he was meditating."
+
+She turned round towards the house.
+
+"Guru, dear!" she called.
+
+There was a moment's pause, and the Indian's face appeared at a window.
+
+"Beloved lady!" he said.
+
+"Guru dear, I want to introduce a friend of mine to you," she said.
+"This is Mr Pillson, and when you know him a little better you will
+call him Georgie."
+
+"Beloved lady, I know him very well indeed. I see into his clear white
+soul. Peace be unto you, my friend."
+
+"Isn't he marvellous? Fancy!" said Mrs Quantock, in an aside.
+
+Georgie raised his hat very politely.
+
+"How do you do?" he said. (After his quiet practice he would have said
+"How do you do Guru?" but it rhymed in a ridiculous manner and his red
+lips could not frame the word.)
+
+"I am always well," said the Guru, "I am always young and well because
+I follow the Way."
+
+"Sixty at least he tells me," said Mrs Quantock in a hissing aside,
+probably audible across the channel, "and he thinks more, but the years
+make no difference to him. He is like a boy. Call him 'Guru.'"
+
+"Guru,--" began Georgie.
+
+"Yes, my friend."
+
+"I am very glad you are well," said Georgie wildly. He was greatly
+impressed, but much embarrassed. Also it was so hard to talk at a
+second-story window with any sense of ease, especially when you had to
+address a total stranger of extraordinary sanctity from Benares.
+
+Luckily Mrs Quantock came to the assistance of his embarrassment.
+
+"Guru dear, are you coming down to see us?" she asked.
+
+"Beloved lady, no!" said the level voice. "It is laid on me to wait
+here. It is the time of calm and prayer when it is good to be alone. I
+will come down when the guides bid me. But teach our dear friend what I
+have taught you. Surely before long I will grasp his earthly hand, but
+not now. Peace! Peace! and Light!"
+
+"Have you got some Guides as well?" asked Georgie when the Guru
+disappeared from the window. "And are they Indians too?"
+
+"Oh, those are his spiritual guides," said Mrs Quantock, "He sees them
+and talks to them, but they are not in the body."
+
+She gave a happy sigh.
+
+"I never have felt anything like it," she said. "He has brought such an
+atmosphere into the house that even Robert feels it, and doesn't mind
+being turned out of his dressing-room. There, he has shut the window.
+Isn't it all marvellous?"
+
+Georgie had not seen anything particularly marvellous yet, except the
+phenomenon of Mrs Quantock standing on one leg in the middle of the
+lawn, but presumably her emotion communicated itself to him by the
+subtle infection of the spirit.
+
+"And what does he do?" he asked.
+
+"My dear, it is not what he does, but what he is," said she. "Why, even
+my little bald account of him to Lucia has made her ask him to her
+garden-party. Of course I can't tell whether he will go or not. He
+seems so very much--how shall I say it?--so very much sent to Me. But I
+shall of course ask him whether he will consent. Trances and meditation
+all day! And in the intervals such serenity and sweetness. You know,
+for instance, how tiresome Robert is about his food. Well, last night
+the mutton, I am bound to say, was a little underdone, and Robert was
+beginning to throw it about his plate in the way he has. Well, my Guru
+got up and just said, 'Show me the way to kitchen'--he leaves out
+little words sometimes, because they don't matter--and I took him down,
+and he said 'Peace!' He told me to leave him there, and in ten minutes
+he was up again with a little plate of curry and rice and what had been
+underdone mutton, and you never ate anything so good. Robert had most
+of it and I had the rest, and my Guru was so pleased at seeing Robert
+pleased. He said Robert had a pure white soul, just like you, only I
+wasn't to tell him, because for him the Way ordained that he must find
+it out for himself. And today before lunch again, the Guru went down in
+the kitchen, and my cook told me he only took a pinch of pepper and a
+tomato and a little bit of mutton fat and a sardine and a bit of
+cheese, and he brought up a dish that you never saw equalled.
+Delicious! I shouldn't a bit wonder if Robert began breathing-exercises
+soon. There is one that makes you lean and young and exercises the
+liver."
+
+This sounded very entrancing.
+
+"Can't you teach me that?" asked Georgie eagerly. He had been rather
+distressed about his increasing plumpness for a year past, and about
+his increasing age for longer than that. As for his liver he always had
+to be careful.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"You cannot practise it except under tuition from an expert," she said.
+
+Georgie rapidly considered what Hermy's and Ursy's comments would be
+if, when they arrived tomorrow, he was found doing exercises under the
+tuition of a Guru. Hermy, when she was not otter-hunting, could be very
+sarcastic, and he had a clear month of Hermy in front of him, without
+any otter-hunting, which, so she had informed him, was not possible in
+August. This was mysterious to Georgie, because it did not seem likely
+that all otters died in August, and a fresh brood came in like
+caterpillars. If Hermy was here in October, she would otter-hunt all
+morning and snore all afternoon, and be in the best of tempers, but the
+August visit required more careful steering. Yet the prospect of being
+lean and young and internally untroubled was wonderfully tempting.
+
+"But couldn't he be my Guru as well?" he asked.
+
+Quite suddenly and by some demoniac possession, a desire that had been
+only intermittently present in Mrs Quantock's consciousness took full
+possession of her, a red revolutionary insurgence hoisted its banner.
+Why with this stupendous novelty in the shape of a Guru shouldn't she
+lead and direct Riseholme instead of Lucia? She had long wondered why
+darling Lucia should be Queen of Riseholme, and had, by momentary
+illumination, seen herself thus equipped as far more capable of
+exercising supremacy. After all, everybody in Riseholme knew Lucia's
+old tune by now, and was in his secret consciousness quite aware that
+she did not play the second and third movements of the Moonlight
+Sonata, simply because they "went faster," however much she might cloak
+the omission by saying that they resembled eleven o'clock in the
+morning and 3 p.m. And Mrs Quantock had often suspected that she did
+not read one quarter of the books she talked about, and that she got up
+subjects in the Encyclopaedia, in order to make a brave show that
+covered essential ignorance. Certainly she spent a good deal of money
+over entertaining, but Robert had lately made twenty times daily what
+Lucia spent annually, over Roumanian oils. As for her acting, had she
+not completely forgotten her words as Lady Macbeth in the middle of the
+sleep-walking scene?
+
+But here was Lucia, as proved by her note, and her A. D. C. Georgie,
+wildly interested in the Guru. Mrs Quantock conjectured that Lucia's
+plan was to launch the Guru at her August parties, as her own
+discovery. He would be a novelty, and it would be Lucia who gave
+Om-parties and breathing-parties and standing-on-one-leg parties, while
+she herself, Daisy Quantock, would be bidden to these as a humble
+guest, and Lucia would get all the credit, and, as likely as not,
+invite the discoverer, the inventress, just now and then. Mrs
+Quantock's Guru would become Lucia's Guru and all Riseholme would flock
+hungrily for light and leading to The Hurst. She had written to Lucia
+in all sincerity, hoping that she would extend the hospitality of her
+garden-parties to the Guru, but now the very warmth of Lucia's reply
+caused her to suspect this ulterior motive. She had been too
+precipitate, too rash, too ill-advised, too sudden, as Lucia would say.
+She ought to have known that Lucia, with her August parties coming on,
+would have jumped at a Guru, and withheld him for her own parties,
+taking the wind out of Lucia's August sails. Lucia had already suborned
+Georgie to leave this note, and begin to filch the Guru away. Mrs
+Quantock saw it all now, and clearly this was not to be borne. Before
+she answered, she steeled herself with the triumph she had once scored
+in the matter of the Welsh attorney.
+
+"Dear Georgie," she said, "no one would be more delighted than I if my
+Guru consented to take you as a pupil. But you can't tell what he will
+do, as he said to me today, apropos of myself, 'I cannot come unless
+I'm sent.' Was not that wonderful? He knew at once he had been sent to
+me."
+
+By this time Georgie was quite determined to have the Guru. The measure
+of his determination may be gauged from the fact that he forgot all
+about Lucia's garden-party.
+
+"But he called me his friend," he said. "He told me I had a clean white
+soul."
+
+"Yes; but that is his attitude towards everybody," said Mrs Quantock.
+"His religion makes it impossible for him to think ill of anybody."
+
+"But he didn't say that to Rush," cried Georgie, "when he asked for
+some brandy, to be put down to you."
+
+Mrs Quantock's expression changed for a moment, but that moment was too
+short for Georgie to notice it. Her face instantly cleared again.
+
+"Naturally he cannot go about saying that sort of thing," she observed.
+"Common people--he is of the highest caste--would not understand him."
+
+Georgie made the direct appeal.
+
+"Please ask him to teach me," he said.
+
+For a moment Mrs Quantock did not answer, but cocked her head sideways
+in the direction of the pear-tree where a thrush was singing. It fluted
+a couple of repeated phrases and then was silent again.
+
+Mrs Quantock gave a great smile to the pear-tree.
+
+"Thank you, little brother," she said.
+
+She turned to Georgie again.
+
+"That comes out of St. Francis," she said, "but Yoga embraces all that
+is true in every religion. Well, I will ask my Guru whether he will
+take you as a pupil, but I can't answer for what he will say."
+
+"What does he--what does he charge for his lesson?" asked Georgie.
+
+The Christian Science smile illuminated her face again.
+
+"The word 'money' never passes his lips," she said. "I don't think he
+really knows what it means. He proposed to sit on the green with a
+beggar's bowl but of course I would not permit that, and for the
+present I just give him all he wants. No doubt when he goes away, which
+I hope will not be for many weeks yet, though no one can tell when he
+will have another call, I shall slip something suitably generous into
+his hand, but I don't think about that. Must you be going? Good night,
+dear Georgie. Peace! Om!"
+
+His last backward glance as he went out of the front door revealed her
+standing on one leg again, just as he had seen her first. He remembered
+a print of a fakir at Benares, standing in that attitude; and if the
+stream that flowed into the Avon could be combined with the Ganges, and
+the garden into the burning ghaut, and the swooping swallows into the
+kites, and the neat parlour-maid who showed him out, into a Brahmin,
+and the Chinese gong that was so prominent an object in the hall into a
+piece of Benares brassware, he could almost have fancied himself as
+standing on the brink of the sacred river. The marigolds in the garden
+required no transmutation....
+
+Georgie had quite "to pull himself together," as he stepped round Mrs
+Quantock's mulberry tree, and ten paces later round his own, before he
+could recapture his normal evening mood, on those occasions when he was
+going to dine alone. Usually these evenings were very pleasant and much
+occupied, for they did not occur very often in this whirl of Riseholme
+life, and it was not more than once a week that he spent a solitary
+evening, and then, if he got tired of his own company, there were half
+a dozen houses, easy of access where he could betake himself in his
+military cloak, and spend a post-prandial hour. But oftener than not
+when these occasions occurred, he would be quite busy at home, dusting
+a little china, and rearranging ornaments on his shelves, and, after
+putting his rings and handkerchief in the candle-bracket of the piano,
+spending a serious hour (with the soft pedal down, for fear of
+irritating Robert) in reading his share of such duets as he would be
+likely to be called upon to play with Lucia during the next day or two.
+Though he read music much better than she did, he used to "go over" the
+part alone first, and let it be understood that he had not seen it
+before. But then he was sure that she had done precisely the same, so
+they started fair. Such things whiled away very pleasantly the hours
+till eleven, when he went to bed, and it was seldom that he had to set
+out Patience-cards to tide him over the slow minutes.
+
+But every now and then--and tonight was one of those occasions--there
+occurred evenings when he never went out to dinner even if he was
+asked, because he "was busy indoors." They occurred about once a month
+(these evenings that he was "busy indoors")--and even an invitation
+from Lucia would not succeed in disturbing them. Ages ago Riseholme had
+decided what made Georgie "busy indoors" once a month, and so none of
+his friends chatted about the nature of his engagements to anyone else,
+simply because everybody else knew. His business indoors, in fact, was
+a perfect secret, from having been public property for so long.
+
+June had been a very busy time, not "indoors," but with other
+engagements, and as Georgie went up to his bedroom, having been told by
+Foljambe that the hair-dresser was waiting for him, and had been
+waiting "this last ten minutes," he glanced at his hair in the
+Cromwellian mirror that hung on the stairs, and was quite aware that it
+was time he submitted himself to Mr Holroyd's ministrations. There was
+certainly an undergrowth of grey hair visible beneath his chestnut
+crop, that should have been attended to at least a fortnight ago. Also
+there was a growing thinness in the locks that crossed his head; Mr
+Holroyd had attended to that before, and had suggested a certain
+remedy, not in the least inconvenient, unless Georgie proposed to be
+athletic without a cap, in a high wind, and even then not necessarily
+so. But as he had no intention of being athletic anywhere, with or
+without a cap, he determined as he went up the stairs that he would
+follow Mr Holroyd's advice. Mr Holroyd's procedure, without this added
+formula, entailed sitting "till it dried," and after that he would have
+dinner, and then Mr Holroyd would begin again. He was a very clever
+person with regard to the face and the hands and the feet. Georgie had
+been conscious of walking a little lamely lately; he had been even more
+conscious of the need of hot towels on his face and the "tap-tap" of Mr
+Holroyd's fingers, and the stretchings of Mr Holroyd's thumb across
+rather slack surfaces of cheek and chin. In the interval between the
+hair and the face, Mr Holroyd should have a good supper downstairs with
+Foljambe and the cook. And tomorrow morning, when he met Hermy and
+Ursy, Georgie would be just as spick and span and young as ever, if not
+more so.
+
+Georgie (happy innocent!) was completely unaware that the whole of
+Riseholme knew that the smooth chestnut locks which covered the top of
+his head, were trained like the tendrils of a grapevine from the roots,
+and flowed like a river over a bare head, and consequently when Mr
+Holroyd explained the proposed innovation, a little central wig, the
+edges of which would mingle in the most natural manner with his own
+hair, it seemed to Georgie that nobody would know the difference. In
+addition he would be spared those risky moments when he had to take off
+his hat to a friend in a high wind, for there was always the danger of
+his hair blowing away from the top of his head, and hanging down, like
+the tresses of a Rhine-maiden over one shoulder. So Mr Holroyd was
+commissioned to put that little affair in hand at once, and when the
+greyness had been attended to, and Georgie had had his dinner, there
+came hot towels and tappings on his face, and other ministrations. All
+was done about half past ten, and when he came downstairs again for a
+short practice at the bass part of Beethoven's fifth symphony,
+ingeniously arranged for two performers on the piano, he looked with
+sincere satisfaction at his rosy face in the Cromwellian mirror, and
+his shoes felt quite comfortable again, and his nails shone like pink
+stars, as his hands dashed wildly about the piano in the quicker
+passages. But all the time the thought of the Guru next door, under
+whose tuition he might be able to regain his youth without recourse to
+those expensive subterfuges (for the price of the undetectable
+_toupet_ astonished him) rang in his head with a melody more
+haunting than Beethoven's. What he would have liked best of all would
+have been to have the Guru all to himself, so that he should remain
+perpetually young, while all the rest of Riseholme, including Hermy and
+Ursy, grew old. Then, indeed, he would be king of the place, instead of
+serving the interests of its queen.
+
+He rose with a little sigh, and after adjusting the strip of flannel
+over the keys, shut his piano and busied himself for a little with a
+soft duster over his cabinet of bibelots which not even Foljambe was
+allowed to touch. It was generally understood that he had inherited
+them, though the inheritance had chiefly passed to him through the
+medium of curiosity shops, and there were several pieces of
+considerable value among them. There were a gold Louis XVI snuff box, a
+miniature by Karl Huth, a silver toy porringer of the time of Queen
+Anne, a piece of Bow china, an enamelled cigarette case by Faberge. But
+tonight his handling of them was not so dainty and delicate as usual,
+and he actually dropped the porringer on the floor as he was dusting
+it, for his mind still occupied itself with the Guru and the practices
+that led to permanent youth. How quick Lucia had been to snap him up
+for her garden-party. Yet perhaps she would not get him, for he might
+say he was not sent. But surely he would be sent to Georgie, whom he
+knew, the moment he set eyes on him to have a clean white soul....
+
+The clock struck eleven, and, as usual on warm nights Georgie opened
+the glass door into his garden and drew in a breath of the night air.
+There was a slip of moon in the sky which he most punctiliously
+saluted, wondering (though he did not seriously believe in its
+superstition) how Lucia could be so foolhardy as to cut the new moon.
+She had seen it yesterday, she told him, in London, and had taken no
+notice whatever of it.... The heavens were quickly peppered with pretty
+stars, which Georgie after his busy interesting day enjoyed looking at,
+though if he had had the arrangement of them, he would certainly have
+put them into more definite patterns. Among them was a very red planet,
+and Georgie with recollections of his classical education, easily
+remembered that Mars, the God of War, was symbolized in the heavens by
+a red star. Could that mean anything to peaceful Riseholme? Was
+internal warfare, were revolutionary movements possible in so serene a
+realm?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter FOUR
+
+
+Pink irascible Robert, prone to throw his food about his plate, if it
+did not commend itself to him, felt in an extremely good natured mood
+that same night after dinner, for the Guru had again made a visit to
+the kitchen with the result that instead of a slab of pale dead codfish
+being put before him after he had eaten some tepid soup, there appeared
+a delicious little fish-curry. The Guru had behaved with great tact; he
+had seen the storm gathering on poor Robert's face, as he sipped the
+cool effete concoction and put down his spoon again with a splash in
+his soup plate, and thereupon had bowed and smiled and scurried away to
+the kitchen to intercept the next abomination. Then returning with the
+little curry he explained that it was entirely for Robert, since those
+who sought the Way did not indulge in hot sharp foods, and so he had
+gobbled it up to the very last morsel.
+
+In consequence when the Guru salaamed very humbly, and said that with
+gracious permission of beloved lady and kind master he would go and
+meditate in his room, and had shambled away in his red slippers, the
+discussion which Robert had felt himself obliged to open with his wife,
+on the subject of having an unknown Indian staying with them for an
+indefinite period, was opened in a much more amicable key than it would
+have been on a slice of codfish.
+
+"Well, now, about this Golliwog--haha--I should say Guru, my dear," he
+began, "what's going to happen?"
+
+Daisy Quantock drew in her breath sharply and winced at this
+irreverence, but quickly remembered that she must always be sending out
+messages of love, north, east, south, and west. So she sent a rather
+spiky one in the direction of her husband who was sitting due east, so
+that it probably got to him at once, and smiled the particular hard
+firm smile which was an heirloom inherited from her last rule of life.
+
+"No one knows," she said brightly. "Even the Guides can't tell where
+and when a Guru may be called."
+
+"Then do you propose he should stop here till he's called somewhere
+else?"
+
+She continued smiling.
+
+"I don't propose anything," she said. "It's not in my hands."
+
+Under the calming influence of the fish curry, Robert remained still
+placid.
+
+"He's a first-rate cook anyhow," he said. "Can't you engage him as
+that? Call to the kitchen, you know."
+
+"Darling!" said Mrs Quantock, sending out more love. But she had a
+quick temper, and indeed the two were outpoured together, like hot and
+cold taps turned on in a bath. The pellucid stream of love served to
+keep her temper moderately cool.
+
+"Well, ask him," suggested Mr Quantock, "as you say, you never can tell
+where a Guru may be called. Give him forty pounds a year and beer
+money."
+
+"Beer!" began Mrs Quantock, when she suddenly remembered Georgie's
+story about Rush and the Guru and the brandy-bottle, and stopped.
+
+"Yes, dear, I said 'beer,'" remarked Robert a little irritably, "and in
+any case I insist that you dismiss your present cook. You only took her
+because she was a Christian Scientist, and you've left that little
+sheep-fold now. You used to talk about false claims I remember. Well
+her claim to be a cook is the falsest I ever heard of. I'd sooner take
+my chance with an itinerant organ grinder. But that fish-curry tonight
+and that other thing last night, that's what I mean by good eating."
+
+The thought even of good food always calmed Robert's savage breast; it
+blew upon him as the wind on an AEolian harp hung in the trees, evoking
+faint sweet sounds.
+
+"I'm sure, my dear," he said, "that I shall be willing to fall in with
+any pleasant arrangement about your Guru, but it really isn't
+unreasonable in me to ask what sort of arrangement you propose. I
+haven't a word to say against him, especially when he goes to the
+kitchen; I only want to know if he is going to stop here a night or two
+or a year or two. Talk to him about it tomorrow with my love. I wonder
+if he can make bisque soup."
+
+Daisy Quantock carried quite a quantity of material for reflection
+upstairs with her, then she went to bed, pausing a moment opposite the
+Guru's door, from inside of which came sounds of breathing so deep that
+it sounded almost like snoring. But she seemed to detect a timbre of
+spirituality about it which convinced her that he was holding high
+communion with the Guides. It was round him that her thoughts centred,
+he was the tree through the branches of which they scampered
+chattering.
+
+Her first and main interest in him was sheer Guruism, for she was one
+of those intensely happy people who pass through life in ecstatic
+pursuit of some idea which those who do not share it call a fad. Well
+might poor Robert remember the devastation of his home when Daisy,
+after the perusal of a little pamphlet which she picked up on a
+book-stall called "The Uric Acid Monthly," came to the shattering
+conclusion that her buxom frame consisted almost entirely of
+waste-products which must be eliminated. For a greedy man the situation
+was frankly intolerable, for when he continued his ordinary diet (this
+was before the cursed advent of the Christian Science cook) she kept
+pointing to his well-furnished plate, and told him that every atom of
+that beef or mutton and potatoes, turned from the moment he swallowed it
+into chromogens and toxins, and that his apparent appetite was merely the
+result of fermentation. For herself her platter was an abominable mess
+of cheese and protein-powder and apples and salad-oil, while round her,
+like saucers of specimen seeds were ranged little piles of nuts and
+pine-branches, which supplied body-building material, and which she
+weighed out with scrupulous accuracy, in accordance with the directions
+of the "Uric Acid Monthly." Tea and coffee were taboo, since they
+flooded the blood with purins, and the kitchen boiler rumbled day and
+night to supply the rivers of boiling water with which (taken in sips)
+she inundated her system. Strange gaunt females used to come down from
+London, with small parcels full of tough food that tasted of
+travelling-bags and contained so much nutrition that a port-manteau
+full of it would furnish the daily rations of any army. Luckily even
+her iron constitution could not stand the strain of such ideal living
+for long, and her growing anaemia threatened to undermine a
+constitution seriously impaired by the precepts of perfect health. A
+course of beef-steaks and other substantial viands loaded with uric
+acid restored her to her former vigour.
+
+Thus reinforced, she plunged with the same energy as she had devoted to
+repelling uric acid into the embrace of Christian Science. The
+inhumanity of that sect towards both herself and others took complete
+possession of her, and when her husband complained on a bitter January
+morning that his smoking-room was like an icehouse, because the
+housemaid had forgotten to light the fire, she had no touch of pity for
+him, since she knew that there was no such thing as cold or heat or
+pain, and therefore you could not feel cold. But now, since, according
+to the new creed, such things as uric acid, chromogens and purins had
+no existence, she could safely indulge in decent viands again. But her
+unhappy husband was not a real gainer in this respect, for while he
+ate, she tirelessly discoursed to him on the new creed, and asked him
+to recite with her the True Statement of Being. And on the top of that
+she dismissed the admirable cook, and engaged the miscreant from whom
+he suffered still, though Christian Science, which had allowed her cold
+to make so long a false claim on her, had followed the uric-acid fad
+into the limbo of her discarded beliefs.
+
+But now once more she had temporarily discovered the secret of life in
+the teachings of the Guru, and it was, as has been mentioned, sheer
+Guruism that constituted the main attraction of the new creed. That
+then being taken for granted, she turned her mind to certain
+side-issues, which to a true Riseholmite were of entrancing interest.
+She felt a strong suspicion that Lucia contemplated annexing her Guru
+altogether, for otherwise she would not have returned so enthusiastic a
+response to her note, nor have sent Georgie to deliver it, nor have
+professed so violent an interest in the Guru. What then was the
+correctly diabolical policy to pursue? Should Daisy Quantock refuse to
+take him to Mrs Lucas altogether, with a message of regret that he did
+not feel himself sent? Even if she did this, did she feel herself
+strong enough to throw down the gauntlet (in the shape of the Guru)
+and, using him as the attraction, challenge darling Lucia to mutual
+combat, in order to decide who should be the leader of all that was
+advanced and cultured in Riseholme society? Still following that
+ramification of this policy, should she bribe Georgie over to her own
+revolutionary camp, by promising him instruction from the Guru? Or
+following a less dashing line, should she take darling Lucia and
+Georgie into the charmed circle, and while retaining her own right of
+treasure trove, yet share it with them in some inner ring, dispensing
+the Guru to them, if they were good, in small doses?
+
+Mrs Quantock's mind resembled in its workings the manoeuvres of a moth
+distracted by the glory of several bright lights. It dashed at one, got
+slightly singed, and forgetting all about that turned its attention to
+the second, and the third, taking headers into each in turn, without
+deciding which, on the whole, was the most enchanting of those
+luminaries. So, in order to curb the exuberance of these frenzied
+excursions she got a half sheet of paper, and noted down the
+alternatives that she must choose from.
+
+"(I) Shall I keep him entirely to myself?
+
+"(II) Shall I run him for all he is worth, and leave out L?
+
+"(III) Shall I get G on my side?
+
+"(IV) Shall I give L and G bits?"
+
+She paused a moment: then remembering that he had voluntarily helped
+her very pretty housemaid to make the beds that morning, saying that
+his business (like the Prince of Wales's) was to serve, she added:
+
+"(V) Shall I ask him to be my cook?"
+
+For a few seconds the brightness of her eager interest was dimmed as
+the unworthy suspicion occurred to her that perhaps the prettiness of
+her housemaid had something to do with his usefulness in the bedrooms,
+but she instantly dismissed it. There was the bottle of brandy, too,
+which he had ordered from Rush's. When she had begged him to order
+anything he wanted and cause it to be put down to her account, she had
+not actually contemplated brandy. Then remembering that one of the most
+necessary conditions for progress in Yoga, was that the disciple should
+have complete confidence in the Guru, she chased that also out of her
+mind. But still, even when the lines of all possible policies were
+written down, she could come to no decision, and putting her paper by
+her bed, decided to sleep over it. The rhythmical sounds of hallowed
+breathing came steadily from next door, and she murmured "Om, Om," in
+time with them.
+
+The hours of the morning between breakfast and lunch were the time
+which the inhabitants of Riseholme chiefly devoted to spying on each
+other. They went about from shop to shop on household businesses,
+occasionally making purchases which they carried away with them in
+little paper parcels with convenient loops of string, but the real
+object of these excursions was to see what everybody else was doing,
+and learn what fresh interests had sprung up like mushrooms during the
+night. Georgie would be matching silks at the draper's, and very
+naturally he would carry them from the obscurity of the interior to the
+door in order to be certain about the shades, and keep his eye on the
+comings and goings in the street, and very naturally Mr Lucas on his
+way to the market gardener's to enquire whether he had yet received the
+bulbs from Holland, would tell him that Lucia had received the
+piano-arrangement of the Mozart trio. Georgie for his part would mention
+that Hermy and Ursy were expected that evening, and Peppino enriched by
+this item would "toddle on," as his phrase went, to meet and exchange
+confidences with the next spy. He had noticed incidentally that Georgie
+carried a small oblong box with hard corners, which, perfectly
+correctly, he conjectured to be cigarettes for Hermy and Ursy, since
+Georgie never smoked.
+
+"Well, I must be toddling on," he said, after identifying Georgie's box
+of cigarettes, and being rather puzzled by a bulge in Georgie's pocket.
+"You'll be looking in some time this morning, perhaps."
+
+Georgie had not been quite sure that he would (for he was very busy
+owing to the arrival of his sisters, and the necessity of going to Mr
+Holroyd's, in order that that artist might accurately match the shade
+of his hair with a view to the expensive toupet), but the mention of
+the arrival of the Mozart now decided him. He intended anyhow before he
+went home for lunch to stroll past The Hurst, and see if he did not
+hear--to adopt a mixed metaphor--the sound of the diligent practice of
+that classical morsel going on inside. Probably the soft pedal would be
+down, but he had marvellously acute hearing, and he would be very much
+surprised if he did not hear the recognisable chords, and even more
+surprised if, when they came to practise the piece together, Lucia did
+not give him to understand that she was reading it for the first time.
+He had already got a copy, and had practised his part last night, but
+then he was in the superior position of not having a husband who would
+inadvertently tell on him! Meantime it was of the first importance to
+get that particular shade of purple silk that had none of that
+"tarsome" magenta-tint in it. Meantime also, it was of even greater
+importance to observe the movements of Riseholme.
+
+Just opposite was the village green, and as nobody was quite close to
+him Georgie put on his spectacles, which he could whisk off in a
+moment. It was these which formed that bulge in his pocket which
+Peppino had noticed, but the fact of his using spectacles at all was a
+secret that would have to be profoundly kept for several years yet. But
+as there was no one at all near him, he stealthily adjusted them on his
+small straight nose. The morning train from town had evidently come in,
+for there was a bustle of cabs about the door of the Ambermere Arms,
+and a thing that thrilled him to the marrow was the fact that Lady
+Ambermere's motor was undoubtedly among them. That must surely mean
+that Lady Ambermere herself was here, for when poor thin Miss Lyall,
+her companion, came in to Riseholme to do shopping, or transact such
+business as the majestic life at The Hall required, she always came on
+foot, or in very inclement weather in a small two-wheeled cart like a
+hip-bath. At this moment, steeped in conjecture, who should appear,
+walking stiffly, with her nose in the air, as if suspecting, and not
+choosing to verify, some faint unpleasant odour, but Lady Ambermere
+herself, coming from the direction of The Hurst.... Clearly she must
+have got there after Peppino had left, or he would surely have
+mentioned the fact that Lady Ambermere had been at The Hurst, if she
+_had_ been at The Hurst. It is true that she was only coming from
+the direction of The Hurst, but Georgie put into practice, in his
+mental processes Darwin's principle, that in order to observe usefully,
+you must have a theory. Georgie's theory was that Lady Ambermere had
+been at The Hurst just for a minute or two, and hastily put his
+spectacles in his pocket. With the precision of a trained mind he also
+formed the theory that some business had brought Lady Ambermere into
+Riseholme, and that taking advantage of her presence there, she had
+probably returned a verbal answer to Lucia's invitation to her
+garden-party, which she would have received by the first post this
+morning. He was quite ready to put his theory to the test when Lady
+Ambermere had arrived at the suitable distance for his conveniently
+observing her, and for taking off his hat. She always treated him like
+a boy, which he liked. The usual salutation passed.
+
+"I don't know where my people are," said Lady Ambermere majestically.
+"Have you seen my motor?"
+
+"Yes, dear lady, it's in at your own arms," said Georgie brightly.
+"Happy motor!"
+
+If Lady Ambermere unbent to anybody, she unbent to Georgie. He was of
+quite good family, because his mother had been a Bartlett and a second
+cousin of her deceased husband. Sometimes when she talked to Georgie
+she said "we," implying thereby his connection with the aristocracy,
+and this gratified Georgie nearly as much as did her treatment of him
+as being quite a boy still. It was to him, as a boy still, that she
+answered.
+
+"Well, the happy motor, you little rascal, must come to my arms instead
+of being at them," she said with the quick wit for which Riseholme
+pronounced her famous. "Fancy being able to see my motor at that
+distance. Young eyes!"
+
+It was really young spectacles, but Georgie did not mind that. In fact,
+he would not have corrected the mistake for the world.
+
+"Shall I run across and fetch it for you?" he asked.
+
+"In a minute. Or whistle on your fingers like a vulgar street boy,"
+said Lady Ambermere. "I'm sure you know how to."
+
+Georgie had not the slightest idea, but with the courage of youth,
+presuming, with the prudence of middle-age, that he would not really be
+called upon to perform so unimaginable a feat, he put two fingers up to
+his mouth.
+
+"Here goes then!" he said, greatly daring. (He knew perfectly well that
+the dignity of Lady Ambermere would not permit rude vulgar whistling,
+of which he was hopelessly incapable, to summon her motor. She made a
+feint of stopping her ears with her hands.)
+
+"Don't do anything of the kind," she said. "In a minute you shall walk
+with me across to the Arms, but tell me this first. I have just been to
+say to our good Mrs Lucas that very likely I will look in at her
+garden-party on Friday, if I have nothing else to do. But who is this
+wonderful creature she is expecting? Is it an Indian conjurer? If so, I
+should like to see him, because when Ambermere was in Madras I remember
+one coming to the Residency who had cobras and that sort of thing. I
+told her I didn't like snakes, and she said there shouldn't be any. In
+fact, it was all rather mysterious, and she didn't at present know if
+he was coming or not. I only said, 'No snakes: I insist on no snakes.'"
+
+Georgie relieved her mind about the chance of there being snakes, and
+gave a short _precis_ of the ascertained habits of the Guru,
+laying special stress on his high-caste.
+
+"Yes, some of these Brahmins are of very decent family," admitted Lady
+Ambermere. "I was always against lumping all dark-skinned people
+together and calling them niggers. When we were at Madras I was famed
+for my discrimination."
+
+They were walking across the green as Lady Ambermere gave vent to these
+liberal sentiments, and Georgie even without the need of his spectacles
+could see Peppino, who had spied Lady Ambermere from the door of the
+market-gardener's, hurrying down the street, in order to get a word
+with her before "her people" drove her back to The Hall.
+
+"I came into Riseholme today to get rooms at the Arms for Olga
+Bracely," she observed.
+
+"The prima-donna?" asked Georgie breathless with excitement.
+
+"Yes; she is coming to stay at the Arms for two nights with Mr
+Shuttleworth."
+
+"Surely--" began Georgie.
+
+"No, it is all right, he is her husband, they were married last week,"
+said Lady Ambermere. "I should have thought that Shuttleworth was a
+good enough name, as the Shuttleworths are cousins of the late lord,
+but she prefers to call herself Miss Bracely. I don't dispute her right
+to call herself what she pleases: far from it, though who the Bracelys
+were, I have never been able to discover. But when George Shuttleworth
+wrote to me saying that he and his wife were intending to stay here for
+a couple of days, and proposing to come over to The Hall to see me, I
+thought I would just look in at the Arms myself, and see that they were
+promised proper accommodation. They will dine with me tomorrow. I have
+a few people staying, and no doubt Miss Bracely will sing afterwards.
+My Broadwood was always considered a remarkably fine instrument. It was
+very proper of George Shuttleworth to say that he would be in the
+neighbourhood, and I daresay she is a very decent sort of woman."
+
+They had come to the motor by this time--the rich, the noble motor, as
+Mr Pepys would have described it--and there was poor Miss Lyall hung
+with parcels, and wearing a faint sycophantic smile. This miserable
+spinster, of age so obvious as to be called not the least uncertain,
+was Lady Ambermere's companion, and shared with her the glories of The
+Hall, which had been left to Lady Ambermere for life. She was provided
+with food and lodging and the use of the cart like a hip-bath when Lady
+Ambermere had errands for her to do in Riseholme, so what could a woman
+want more? In return for these bounties, her only duty was to devote
+herself body and mind to her patroness, to read the paper aloud, to set
+Lady Ambermere's patterns for needlework, to carry the little Chinese
+dog under her arm, and wash him once a week, to accompany Lady
+Ambermere to church, and never to have a fire in her bedroom. She had a
+melancholy wistful little face: her head was inclined with a backward
+slope on her neck, and her mouth was invariably a little open shewing
+long front teeth, so that she looked rather like a roast hare sent up
+to table with its head on. Georgie always had a joke ready for Miss
+Lyall, of the sort that made her say, "Oh, Mr Pillson!" and caused her
+to blush. She thought him remarkably pleasant.
+
+Georgie had his joke ready on this occasion.
+
+"Why, here's Miss Lyall!" he said. "And what has Miss Lyall been doing
+while her ladyship and I have been talking? Better not ask, perhaps."
+
+"Oh, Mr Pillson!" said Miss Lyall, as punctually as a cuckoo clock when
+the hands point to the hour.
+
+Lady Ambermere put half her weight onto the step of the motor, causing
+it to creak and sway.
+
+"Call on the Shuttleworths, Georgie," she said. "Say I told you to.
+Home!"
+
+Miss Lyall effaced herself on the front seat of the motor, like a mouse
+hiding in a corner, after Lady Ambermere had got in, and the footman
+mounted onto the box. At that moment Peppino with his bag of bulbs, a
+little out of breath, squeezed his way between two cabs by the side of
+the motor. He was just too late, and the motor moved off. It was very
+improbable that Lady Ambermere saw him at all.
+
+Georgie felt very much like a dog with a bone in his mouth, who only
+wants to get away from all the other dogs and discuss it quietly. It is
+safe to say that never in twenty-four hours had so many exciting things
+happened to him. He had ordered a toupet, he had been looked on with
+favour by a Guru, all Riseholme knew that he had had quite a long
+conversation with Lady Ambermere and nobody in Riseholme, except
+himself, knew that Olga Bracely was going to spend two nights here.
+Well he remembered her marvellous appearance last year at Covent Garden
+in the part of Brunnhilde. He had gone to town for a rejuvenating visit
+to his dentist, and the tarsomeness of being betwixt and between had
+been quite forgotten by him when he saw her awake to Siegfried's line
+on the mountain-top. "_Das ist keine mann_," Siegfried had said,
+and, to be sure, that was very clever of him, for she looked like some
+slim beardless boy, and not in the least like those great fat Fraus at
+Baireuth, whom nobody could have mistaken for a man as they bulged and
+heaved even before the strings of the breastplate were uncut by his
+sword. And then she sat up and hailed the sun, and Georgie felt for a
+moment that he had quite taken the wrong turn in life, when he settled
+to spend his years in this boyish, maidenly manner with his embroidery
+and his china-dusting at Riseholme. He ought to have been Siegfried....
+He had brought a photograph of her in her cuirass and helmet, and often
+looked at it when he was not too busy with something else. He had even
+championed his goddess against Lucia, when she pronounced that Wagner
+was totally lacking in knowledge of dramatic effects. To be sure she
+had never seen any Wagner opera, but she had heard the overture to
+Tristram performed at the Queen's Hall, and if that was Wagner,
+well----
+
+Already, though Lady Ambermere's motor had not yet completely vanished
+up the street, Riseholme was gently closing in round him, in order to
+discover by discreet questions (as in the game of Clumps) what he and
+she had been talking about. There was Colonel Boucher with his two
+snorting bull-dogs closing in from one side, and Mrs Weston in her
+bath-chair being wheeled relentlessly towards him from another, and the
+two Miss Antrobuses sitting playfully in the stocks, on the third, and
+Peppino at close range on the fourth. Everyone knew, too, that he did
+not lunch till half past one, and there was really no reason why he
+should not stop and chat as usual. But with the eye of the true
+general, he saw that he could most easily break the surrounding cordon
+by going off in the direction of Colonel Boucher, because Colonel
+Boucher always said "Haw, hum, by Jove," before he descended into
+coherent speech, and thus Georgie could forestall him with "Good
+morning, Colonel," and pass on before he got to business. He did not
+like passing close to those slobbering bull-dogs, but something had to
+be done ... Next moment he was clear and saw that the other spies by
+their original impetus were still converging on each other and walked
+briskly down towards Lucia's house, to listen for any familiar noises
+out of the Mozart trio. The noises were there, and the soft pedal was
+down just as he expected, so, that business being off his mind, he
+continued his walk for a few hundred yards more, meaning to make a
+short circuit through fields, cross the bridge, over the happy stream
+that flowed into the Avon, and regain his house by the door at the
+bottom of the garden. Then he would sit and think ... the Guru, Olga
+Bracely ... What if he asked Olga Bracely and her husband to dine, and
+persuaded Mrs Quantock to let the Guru come? That would be three men
+and one woman, and Hermy and Ursy would make all square. Six for dinner
+was the utmost that Foljambe permitted.
+
+He had come to the stile that led into the fields, and sat there for a
+moment. Lucia's tentative melodies were still faintly audible, but soon
+they stopped, and he guessed that she was looking out of the window.
+She was too great to take part in the morning spying that went on round
+about the Green, but she often saw a good deal from her window. He
+wondered what Mrs Quantock was meaning to do. Apparently she had not
+promised the Guru for the garden-party, or else Lady Ambermere would
+not have said that Lucia did not know whether he was coming or not.
+Perhaps Mrs Quantock was going to run him herself, and grant him
+neither to Lucia nor Georgie. In that case he would certainly ask Olga
+Bracely and her husband to dine, and should he or should he not ask
+Lucia?
+
+The red star had risen in Riseholme: Bolshevism was treading in its
+peaceful air, and if Mrs Quantock was going to secrete her Guru, and
+set up her own standard on the strength of him, Georgie felt much
+inclined to ask Olga Bracely to dinner, without saying anything
+whatever to Lucia about it, and just see what would happen next.
+Georgie was a Bartlett on his mother's side, and he played the piano
+better than Lucia, and he had twenty-four hours' leisure every day,
+which he could devote to being king of Riseholme.... His nature flared
+up, burning with a red revolutionary flame, that was fed by his secret
+knowledge about Olga Bracely. Why should Lucia rule everyone with her
+rod of iron? Why, and again why?
+
+Suddenly he heard his name called in the familiar alto, and there was
+Lucia in her Shakespeare's garden.
+
+"Georgino! Georgino mio!" she cried. "Gino!"
+
+Out of mere habit Georgie got down from his stile, and tripped up the
+road towards her. The manly seething of his soul's insurrection rebuked
+him, but unfortunately his legs and his voice surrendered. Habit was
+strong....
+
+"Amica!" he answered. "Buon Giorno." ("And why do I say it in Italian?"
+he vainly asked himself.)
+
+"Geordie, come and have ickle talk," she said. "Me want 'oo wise man to
+advise ickle Lucia."
+
+"What 'oo want?" asked Georgie, now quite quelled for the moment.
+
+"Lots-things. Here's pwetty flower for button-holie. Now tell me about
+black man. Him no snakes have? Why Mrs Quantock say she thinks he no
+come to poo' Lucia's party-garden?"
+
+"Oh, did she?" asked Georgie relapsing into the vernacular.
+
+"Yes, oh, and by the way there's a parcel come which I think must be
+the Mozart trio. Will you come over tomorrow morning and read it with
+me? Yes? About half-past eleven, then. But never mind that."
+
+She fixed him with her ready, birdy eye.
+
+"Daisy asked me to ask him," she said, "and so to oblige poor Daisy I
+did. And now she says she doesn't know if he'll come. What does that
+mean? Is it possible that she wants to keep him to herself? She has
+done that sort of thing before, you know."
+
+This probably represented Lucia's statement of the said case about the
+Welsh attorney, and Georgie taking it as such felt rather embarrassed.
+Also that bird-like eye seemed to gimlet its way into his very soul,
+and divine the secret disloyalty that he had been contemplating. If she
+had continued to look into him, he might not only have confessed to the
+gloomiest suspicions about Mrs Quantock, but have let go of his secret
+about Olga Bracely also, and suggested the possibility of her and her
+husband being brought to the garden-party. But the eye at this moment
+unscrewed itself from him again and travelled up the road.
+
+"There's the Guru," she said. "Now we will see!"
+
+Georgie, faint with emotion, peered out between the form of the peacock
+and the pine-apple on the yew-hedge, and saw what followed. Lucia went
+straight up to the Guru, bowed and smiled and clearly introduced
+herself. In another moment he was showing his white teeth and
+salaaming, and together they walked back to The Hurst, where Georgie
+palpitated behind the yew-hedge. Together they entered and Lucia's eye
+wore its most benignant aspect.
+
+"I want to introduce to you, Guru," she said without a stumble, "a
+great friend of mine. This is Mr Pillson, Guru; Guru, Mr Pillson. The
+Guru is coming to tiffin with me, Georgie. Cannot I persuade you to
+stop?"
+
+"Delighted!" said Georgie. "We met before in a sort of way, didn't we?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. So pleased," said the Guru.
+
+"Let us go in," said Lucia, "It is close on lunch-time."
+
+Georgie followed, after a great many bowings and politenesses from the
+Guru. He was not sure if he had the makings of a Bolshevist. Lucia was
+so marvellously efficient.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter FIVE
+
+
+One of Lucia's greatnesses lay in the fact that when she found anybody
+out in some act of atrocious meanness, she never indulged in any idle
+threats of revenge: it was sufficient that she knew, and would take
+suitable steps on the earliest occasion. Consequently when it appeared,
+from the artless conversation of the Guru at lunch that the perfidious
+Mrs Quantock had not even asked him whether he would like to go to
+Lucia's garden party or not (pending her own decision as to what she
+was meaning to do with him) Lucia received the information with the
+utmost good-humour, merely saying, "No doubt dear Mrs Quantock forgot
+to tell you," and did not announce acts of reprisal, such as striking
+Daisy off the list of her habitual guests for a week or two, just to
+give her a lesson. She even, before they sat down to lunch, telephoned
+over to that thwarted woman to say that she had met the Guru in the
+street, and they had both felt that there was some wonderful bond of
+sympathy between them, so he had come back with her, and they were just
+sitting down to tiffin. She was pleased with the word "tiffin," and
+also liked explaining to Daisy what it meant.
+
+Tiffin was a great success, and there was no need for the Guru to visit
+the kitchen in order to make something that could be eaten without
+struggle. He talked quite freely about his mission here, and Lucia and
+Georgie and Peppino who had come in rather late, for he had been
+obliged to go back to the market-gardener's about the bulbs, listened
+entranced.
+
+"Yes, it was when I went to my friend who keeps the book-shop," he
+said, "that I knew there was English lady who wanted Guru, and I knew I
+was called to her. No luggage, no anything at all: as I am. Such a kind
+lady, too, and she will get on well, but she will find some of the
+postures difficult, for she is what you call globe, round."
+
+"Was that postures when I saw her standing on one leg in the garden?"
+asked Georgie, "and when she sat down and tried to hold her toes?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, quite so, and difficult for globe. But she has white
+soul."
+
+He looked round with a smile.
+
+"I see many white souls here," he said. "It is happy place, when there
+are white souls, for to them I am sent."
+
+This was sufficient: in another minute Lucia, Georgie and Peppino were
+all accepted as pupils, and presently they went out into the garden,
+where the Guru sat on the ground in a most complicated attitude which
+was obviously quite out of reach of Mrs Quantock.
+
+"One foot on one thigh, other foot on other thigh," he explained. "And
+the head and back straight: it is good to meditate so."
+
+Lucia tried to imagine meditating so, but felt that any meditation so
+would certainly be on the subject of broken bones.
+
+"Shall I be able to do that?" she asked. "And what will be the effect?"
+
+"You will be light and active, dear lady, and ah--here is other dear
+lady come to join us."
+
+Mrs Quantock had certainly made one of her diplomatic errors on this
+occasion. She had acquiesced on the telephone in her Guru going to
+tiffin with Lucia, but about the middle of her lunch, she had been
+unable to resist the desire to know what was happening at The Hurst.
+She could not bear the thought that Lucia and her Guru were together
+now, and her own note, saying that it was uncertain whether the Guru
+would come to the garden party or not filled her with the most uneasy
+apprehensions. She would sooner have acquiesced in her Guru going to
+fifty garden-parties, where all was public, and she could keep an eye
+and a control on him, rather than that Lucia should have "enticed him
+in,"--that was her phrase--like this to tiffin. The only consolation
+was that her own lunch had been practically inedible, and Robert had
+languished lamentably for the Guru to return, and save his stomach. She
+had left him glowering over a little mud and water called coffee.
+Robert, at any rate, would welcome the return of the Guru.
+
+She waddled across the lawn to where this harmonious party was sitting,
+and at that moment Lucia began to feel vindictive. The calm of victory
+which had permeated her when she brought the Guru in to lunch, without
+any bother at all, was troubled and broken up, and darling Daisy's
+note, containing the outrageous falsity that the Guru would not
+certainly accept an invitation which had never been permitted to reach
+him at all, assumed a more sinister aspect. Clearly now Daisy had
+intended to keep him to herself, a fact that she already suspected and
+had made a hostile invasion.
+
+"Guru, dear, you naughty thing," said Mrs Quantock playfully, after the
+usual salutations had passed, "why did you not tell your Chela you
+would not be home for tiffin?"
+
+The Guru had unwound his legs, and stood up.
+
+"But see, beloved lady," he said, "how pleasant we all are! Take not
+too much thought, when it is only white souls who are together."
+
+Mrs Quantock patted his shoulder.
+
+"It is all good and kind Om," she said. "I send out my message of love.
+There!"
+
+It was necessary to descend from these high altitudes, and Lucia
+proceeded to do so, as in a parachute that dropped swiftly at first,
+and then floated in still air.
+
+"And we're making such a lovely plan, dear Daisy," she said. "The Guru
+is going to teach us all. Classes! Aren't you?"
+
+He held his hands up to his head, palms outwards, and closed his eyes.
+
+"I seem to feel call," he said. "I am sent. Surely the Guides tell me
+there is a sending of me. What you call classes? Yes? I teach: you
+learn. We all learn.... I leave all to you. I will walk a little way
+off to arbour, and meditate, and then when you have arranged, you will
+tell Guru, who is your servant. Salaam! Om!"
+
+With the Guru in her own house, and with every intention to annex him,
+it was no wonder that Lucia took the part of chairman in this meeting
+that was to settle the details of the esoteric brotherhood that was to
+be formed in Riseholme. Had not Mrs Quantock been actually present, Lucia
+in revenge for her outrageous conduct about the garden-party invitation
+would probably have left her out of the classes altogether, but with her
+sitting firm and square in a basket chair, that creaked querulously as
+she moved, she could not be completely ignored. But Lucia took the lead
+throughout, and suggested straightaway that the smoking-parlour would be
+the most convenient place to hold the classes in.
+
+"I should not think of invading your house, dear Daisy," she said, "and
+here is the smoking-parlour which no one ever sits in, so quiet and
+peaceful. Yes. Shall we consider that settled, then?"
+
+She turned briskly to Mrs Quantock.
+
+"And now where shall the Guru stay?" she said. "It would be too bad,
+dear Daisy, if we are all to profit by his classes, that you should
+have all the trouble and expense of entertaining him, for in your sweet
+little house he must be a great inconvenience, and I think you said
+that your husband had given up his dressing room to him."
+
+Mrs Quantock made a desperate effort to retain her property.
+
+"No inconvenience at all," she said, "quite the contrary in fact, dear.
+It is delightful having him, and Robert regards him as a most desirable
+inmate."
+
+Lucia pressed her hand feelingly.
+
+"You and your husband are too unselfish," she said. "Often have I said,
+'Daisy and Mr Robert are the most unselfish people I know.' Haven't I,
+Georgie? But we can't permit you to be so crowded. Your only spare
+room, you know, _and_ your husband's dressing room! Georgie, I
+know you agree with me; we must not permit dear Daisy to be so
+unselfish."
+
+The bird-like eye produced its compelling effect on Georgie. So short a
+time ago he had indulged in revolutionary ideas, and had contemplated
+having the Guru and Olga Bracely to dinner, without even asking Lucia:
+now the faint stirrings of revolt faded like snow in summer. He knew
+quite well what Lucia's next proposition would be: he knew, too, that
+he would agree to it.
+
+"No, that would never do," he said. "It is simply trespassing on Mrs
+Quantock's good-nature, if she is to board and lodge him, while he
+teaches all of us. I wish I could take him in, but with Hermy and Ursy
+coming tonight, I have as little room as Mrs Quantock."
+
+"He shall come here," said Lucia brightly, as if she had just that
+moment thought of it. "There are Hamlet and Othello vacant"--all her
+rooms were named after Shakespearian plays--"and it will not be the
+least inconvenient. Will it, Peppino? I shall really like having him
+here. Shall we consider that settled, then?"
+
+Daisy made a perfectly futile effort to send forth a message of love to
+all quarters of the compass. Bitterly she repented of having ever
+mentioned her Guru to Lucia: it had never occurred to her that she
+would annex him like this. While she was cudgelling her brains as to
+how she could arrest this powerful offensive, Lucia went sublimely on.
+
+"Then there's the question of what we shall pay him," she said. "Dear
+Daisy tells us that he scarcely knows what money is, but I for one
+could never dream of profiting by his wisdom, if I was to pay nothing
+for it. The labourer is worthy of his hire, and so I suppose the
+teacher is. What if we pay him five shillings each a lesson: that will
+make a pound a lesson. Dear me! I shall be busy this August. Now how
+many classes shall we ask him to give us? I should say six to begin
+with, if everybody agrees. One every day for the next week except
+Sunday. That is what you all wish? Yes? Then shall we consider that
+settled?"
+
+Mrs Quantock, still impotently rebelling, resorted to the most dire
+weapon in her armoury, namely, sarcasm.
+
+"Perhaps, darling Lucia," she said, "it would be well to ask my Guru if
+he has anything to say to your settlings. England is a free country
+still, even if you happen to have come from India."
+
+Lucia had a deadlier weapon than sarcasm, which was the apparent
+unconsciousness of there having been any. For it is no use plunging a
+dagger into your enemy's heart, if it produces no effect whatever on
+him. She clapped her hands together, and gave her peal of silvery
+laughter.
+
+"What a good idea!" she said. "Then you would like me to go and tell
+him what we propose? Just as you like. I will trot away, shall I, and
+see if he agrees. Don't think of stirring, dear Daisy, I know how you
+feel the heat. Sit quiet in the shade. As you know, I am a real
+salamander, the sun is never _troppo caldo_ for me."
+
+She tripped off to where the Guru was sitting in that wonderful
+position. She had read the article in the encyclopaedia about Yoga
+right through again this morning, and had quite made up her mind, as
+indeed her proceedings had just shown, that Yoga was, to put it
+irreverently, to be her August stunt. He was still so deep in
+meditation that he could only look dreamily in her direction as she
+approached, but then with a long sigh he got up.
+
+"This is beautiful place," he said. "It is full of sweet influences and
+I have had high talk with Guides."
+
+Lucia felt thrilled.
+
+"Ah, do tell me what they said to you," she exclaimed.
+
+"They told me to follow where I was led: they said they would settle
+everything for me in wisdom and love."
+
+This was most encouraging, for decidedly Lucia had been settling for
+him, and the opinion of the Guides was thus a direct personal
+testimonial. Any faint twitchings of conscience (they were of the very
+faintest) that she had grabbed dear Daisy's property were once and for
+ever quieted, and she proceeded confidently to unfold the settlements
+of wisdom and love, which met with the Guru's entire approval. He shut
+his eyes a moment and breathed deeply.
+
+"They give peace and blessing," he said. "It is they who ordered that
+it should be so. Om!"
+
+He seemed to sink into profound depths of meditation, and Lucia hurried
+back to the group she had left.
+
+"It is all too wonderful," she said. "The Guides have told him that
+they were settling everything for him in wisdom and love, so we may be
+sure we were right in our plans. How lovely to think that we have been
+guided by them! Dear Daisy, how wonderful he is! I will send across for
+his things, shall I, and I will have Hamlet and Othello made ready for
+him!"
+
+Bitter though it was to part with her Guru, it was impious to rebel
+against the ordinances of the Guides, but there was a trace of human
+resentment in Daisy's answer.
+
+"Things!" she exclaimed. "He hasn't got a thing in the world. Every
+material possession chains us down to earth. You will soon come to
+that, darling Lucia."
+
+It occurred to Georgie that the Guru had certainly got a bottle of
+brandy, but there was no use in introducing a topic that might lead to
+discord, and indeed, even as Lucia went indoors to see about Hamlet and
+Othello, the Guru himself having emerged from meditation, joined them
+and sat down by Mrs Quantock.
+
+"Beloved lady," he said, "all is peace and happiness. The Guides have
+spoken to me so lovingly of you, and they say it is best your Guru
+should come here. Perhaps I shall return later to your kind house. They
+smiled when I asked that. But just now they send me here: there is more
+need of me here, for already you have so much light."
+
+Certainly the Guides were very tactful people, for nothing could have
+soothed Mrs Quantock so effectually as a message of that kind, which
+she would certainly report to Lucia when she returned from seeing about
+Hamlet and Othello.
+
+"Oh, do they say I have much light already, Guru, dear?" she asked.
+"That is nice of them."
+
+"Surely they said it, and now I shall go back to your house, and leave
+sweet thoughts there for you. And shall I send sweet thoughts to the
+home of the kind gentleman next door?"
+
+Georgie eagerly welcomed this proposition, for with Hermy and Ursy
+coming that evening, he felt that he would have plenty of use for sweet
+thoughts. He even forebore to complete in his own mind the conjecture
+that was forming itself there, namely, that though the Guru would be
+leaving sweet thoughts for Mrs Quantock, he would probably be taking
+away the brandy bottle for himself. But Georgie knew he was only too
+apt to indulge in secret cynicisms and perhaps there was no brandy to
+take away by this time ... and lo and behold, he was being cynical
+again.
+
+The sun was still hot when, half an hour afterwards, he got into the
+open cab which he had ordered to take him to the station to meet Hermy
+and Ursy, and he put up his umbrella with its white linen cover, to
+shield him from it. He did not take the motor, because either Hermy or
+Ursy would have insisted on driving it, and he did not choose to put
+himself in their charge. In all the years that he had lived at
+Riseholme, he never remembered a time when social events--"work," he
+called it--had been so exciting and varied. There were Hermy and Ursy
+coming this evening, and Olga Bracely and her husband (Olga Bracely and
+Mr Shuttleworth sounded vaguely improper: Georgie rather liked that)
+were coming tomorrow, and there was Lucia's garden-party the day after,
+and every day there was to be a lesson from the Guru, so that God alone
+knew when Georgie would have a moment to himself for his embroidery or
+to practise the Mozart trio. But with his hair chestnut-coloured to the
+very roots, and his shining nails, and his comfortable boots, he felt
+extremely young and fit for anything. Soon, under the influence of the
+new creed with its postures and breathings, he would feel younger and
+more vigorous yet.
+
+But he wished that it had been he who had found this pamphlet on
+Eastern philosophies, which had led Mrs Quantock to make the inquiries
+that had resulted in the epiphany of the Guru. Of course when once
+Lucia had heard about it, she was certain to constitute herself head
+and leader of the movement, and it was really remarkable how completely
+she had done that. In that meeting in the garden just now she had just
+sailed through Mrs Quantock as calmly as a steamer cuts through the
+waters of the sea, throwing her off from her penetrating bows like a
+spent wave. But baffled though she was for the moment, Georgie had been
+aware that Mrs Quantock seethed with revolutionary ideas: she deeply
+resented this confiscation of what was certainly her property, though
+she was impotent to stop it, and Georgie knew just what she felt. It
+was all very well to say that Lucia's schemes were entirely in accord
+with the purposes of the Guides. That might be so, but Mrs Quantock
+would not cease to think that she had been robbed....
+
+Yet nothing mattered if all the class found themselves getting young
+and active and loving and excellent under this tuition. It was that
+notion which had taken such entire command of them all, and for his
+part Georgie did not really care who owned the Guru, so to speak, if
+only he got the benefit of his teachings. For social purposes Lucia had
+annexed him, and doubtless with him in the house she could get little
+instructions and hints that would not count as a lesson, but after all,
+Georgie had still got Olga Bracely to himself, for he had not breathed
+a word of her advent to Lucia. He felt rather like one who, when
+revolutionary ideas are in the air, had concealed a revolver in his
+pocket. He did not formulate to himself precisely what he was going to
+do with it, but it gave him a sense of power to know it was there.
+
+The train came in, but he looked in vain for his sisters. They had
+distinctly said they were arriving by it, but in a couple of minutes it
+was perfectly clear that they had done nothing of the kind, for the
+only person who got out was Mrs Weston's cook, who as all the world
+knew went into Brinton every Wednesday to buy fish. At the rear of the
+train, however, was an immense quantity of luggage being taken out,
+which could not all be Mrs Weston's fish, and indeed, even at that
+distance there was something familiar to Georgie about a very large
+green hold-all which was dumped there. Perhaps Hermy and Ursy had
+travelled in the van, because "it was such a lark," or for some other
+tomboy reason, and he went down the platform to investigate. There were
+bags of golf clubs, and a dog, and portmanteaux, and even as the
+conviction dawned on him that he had seen some of these objects before,
+the guard, to whom Georgie always gave half-a-crown when he travelled
+by this train, presented him with a note scrawled in pencil. It ran--
+
+  "Dearest Georgie,
+
+  "It was such a lovely day that when we got to Paddington Ursy and I
+  decided to bicycle down instead, so for a lark we sent our things on,
+  and we may arrive tonight, but probably tomorrow. Take care of
+  Tiptree: and give him plenty of jam. He loves it.
+
+                              "Yours,
+                                    "HERMY.
+
+    "P.S.--Tipsipoozie doesn't really bite: it's only his fun."
+
+Georgie crumpled up this odious epistle, and became aware that
+Tipsipoozie, a lean Irish terrier, was regarding him with peculiar
+disfavour, and shewing all his teeth, probably in fun. In pursuance of
+this humorous idea, he then darted towards Georgie, and would have been
+extremely funny, if he had not been handicapped by the bag of golf-clubs
+to which he was tethered. As it was, he pursued him down the platform,
+towing the clubs after him, till he got entangled in them and fell down.
+
+Georgie hated dogs at any time, though he had never hated one so much
+as Tipsipoozie, and the problems of life became more complicated than
+ever. Certainly he was not going to drive back with Tipsipoozie in his
+cab, and it became necessary to hire another for that abominable hound
+and the rest of the luggage. And what on earth was to happen when he
+arrived home, if Tipsipoozie did not drop his fun and become serious?
+Foljambe, it is true, liked dogs, so perhaps dogs liked her ... "But it
+is most tarsome of Hermy!" thought Georgie bitterly. "I wonder what the
+Guru would do." There ensued a very trying ten minutes, in which the
+station-master, the porters, Georgie and Mrs Weston's maid all called
+Tipsipoozie a good dog as he lay on the ground snapping promiscuously
+at those who praised him. Eventually a valiant porter picked up the bag
+of clubs, and by holding them out in front of him at the extreme length
+of his arms, in the manner of a fishing rod, with Tipsipoozie on a
+short chain at the other end of the bag, like a savage fish, cursing
+and swearing, managed to propel him into the cab, and there was another
+half-crown gone. Georgie thereupon got into his cab and sped homewards
+in order to arrive there first, and consult with Foljambe. Foljambe
+usually thought of something.
+
+Foljambe came out at the noise of the arriving wheels and Georgie
+explained the absence of his sisters and the advent of an atrocious
+dog.
+
+"He's very fierce," he said, "but he likes jam."
+
+Foljambe gave that supreme smile which sometimes Georgie resented. Now
+he hailed it, as if it was "an angel-face's smile."
+
+"I'll see to him, sir," she said. "I've brought up your tea."
+
+"But you'll take care, Foljambe won't you?" he asked.
+
+"I expect he'd better take care," returned the intrepid woman.
+
+Georgie, as he often said, trusted Foljambe completely, which must
+explain why he went into his drawing-room, shut the door, and looked
+out of the window when the second cab arrived. She opened the door, put
+her arms inside, and next moment emerged again with Tipsipoozie on the
+end of the chain, making extravagant exhibitions of delight. Then to
+Georgie's horror, the drawing-room door opened, and in came Tipsipoozie
+without any chain at all. Rapidly sending a message of love in all
+directions like a S. O. S. call, Georgie put a small chair in front of
+him, to shield his legs. Tipsipoozie evidently thought it was a game,
+and hid behind the sofa to rush out again from ambush.
+
+"Just got snappy being tied to those golf-clubs," remarked Foljambe.
+
+But Georgie, as he put some jam into his saucer, could not help
+wondering whether the message of love had not done it.
+
+He dined alone, for Hermy and Ursy did not appear, and had a great
+polishing of his knick-knacks afterwards, while waiting for them. No
+one ever felt anxious at the non-arrival of those sisters, for they
+always turned up from their otter-hunting or their golf sooner or
+later, chiefly later, in the highest spirits at the larks they had had,
+with amazingly dirty hands and prodigious appetite. But when twelve
+o'clock struck, he decided to give up all idea of their appearance that
+night, and having given Tipsipoozie some more jam and a comfortable bed
+in the woodshed, he went upstairs to his room. Though he knew it was
+still possible that he might be roused by wild "Cooees!" and showers of
+gravel at his window, and have to come down and minister to their gross
+appetites, the prospect seemed improbable and he soon went to sleep.
+
+Georgie awoke with a start some hours later, wondering what had
+disturbed him. There was no gravel rattling on his window, no violent
+ringing of bicycle bells, nor loud genial shouts outraging the decorous
+calm of Riseholme, but certainly he had heard something. Next moment,
+the repeated noise sent his heart leaping into his throat, for quite
+distinctly he heard a muffled sound in the room below, which he
+instantly diagnosed with fatal certainty as burglars. The first emotion
+that mingled itself with the sheer terror, was a passionate regret that
+Hermy and Ursy had not come. They would have thought it tremendous
+larks, and would have invented some wonderful offensive with fire-irons
+and golf-clubs and dumb-bells. Even Tipsipoozie, the lately-abhorred,
+would have been a succour in this crisis, and why, oh why, had not
+Georgie had him to sleep in his bedroom instead of making him cosy in
+the woodshed? He would have let Tipsipoozie sleep on his lovely blue
+quilt for the remainder of his days, if only Tipsipoozie could have
+been with him now, ready to have fun with the burglar below. As it was,
+the servants were in the attics at the top of the house, Dicky slept
+out, and Georgie was all alone, with the prospect of having to defend
+his property at risk of his life. Even at this moment, as he sat up in
+bed, blanched with terror, these miscreants might be putting his
+treasure into their pockets. The thought of the Faberge cigarette case,
+and the Louis XVI snuff box, and the Queen Anne toy-porringer which he
+had inherited all these years, made even life seem cheap, for life
+would be intolerable without them, and he sprang out of bed, groped for
+his slippers, since until he had made a plan it was wiser not to shew a
+light, and shuffled noiselessly towards the door.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter SIX
+
+
+The door-handle felt icy to fingers already frozen with fright, but he
+stood firmly grasping it, ready to turn it noiselessly when he had
+quite made up his mind what to do. The first expedient that suggested
+itself with an overpowering sweetness of relief, was that of locking
+his door, going back to bed again, and pretending that he had heard
+nothing. But apart from the sheer cowardice of that, which he did not
+mind so much, as nobody else would ever know his guilt, the thought of
+the burglar going off quite unmolested with his property was
+intolerable. Even if he could not summon up enough courage to get
+downstairs with his life and a poker in his hand, he must at least give
+them a good fright. They had frightened him, and so he would frighten
+them. They should not have it all their own way, and if he decided not
+to attack them (or him) single-handed, he could at least thump on the
+floor, and call out "Burglars!" at the top of his voice, or shout
+"Charles! Henry! Thomas!" as if summoning a bevy of stalwart footmen.
+The objection to this course, however, would be that Foljambe or
+somebody else might hear him, and in this case, if he did not then go
+downstairs to mortal combat, the knowledge of his cowardice would be
+the property of others beside himself.... And all the time he
+hesitated, they were probably filling their pockets with his dearest
+possessions.
+
+He tried to send out a message of love, but he was totally unable to do
+so.
+
+Then the little clock in his mantelpiece struck two, which was a
+miserable hour, sundered so far from dawn.
+
+Though he had lived through years of agony since he got out of bed, the
+actual passage of time, as he stood frozen to the door-handle, was but
+the duration of a few brief seconds, and then making a tremendous call
+on his courage he felt his way to his fireplace, and picked up the
+poker. The tongs and shovel rattled treacherously, and he hoped that
+had not been heard, for the essence of his plan (though he had yet no
+idea what that plan was) must be silence till some awful surprise broke
+upon them. If only he could summon the police, he could come rushing
+downstairs with his poker, as the professional supporters of the law
+gained an entrance to his house, but unfortunately the telephone was
+downstairs, and he could not reasonably hope to carry on a conversation
+with the police station without being overheard by the burglars.
+
+He opened his door with so masterly a movement that there was no sound
+either from the hinges nor from the handle as he turned it, and peered
+out. The hall below was dark, but a long pencil of light came from the
+drawing room, which showed where the reckless brutes must be, and
+there, too, alas! was his case of treasures. Then suddenly he heard the
+sound of a voice, speaking very low, and another voice answered it. At
+that Georgie's heart sank, for this proved that there must be at least
+two burglars, and the odds against him were desperate. After that came
+a low, cruel laugh, the unmistakable sound of the rattle of knives and
+forks, and the explosive uncorking of a bottle. At that his heart sank
+even lower yet, for he had read that cool habitual burglars always had
+supper before they got to work, and therefore he was about to deal with
+a gang of professionals. Also that explosive uncorking clearly
+indicated champagne, and he knew that they were feasting on his best.
+And how wicked of them to take their unhallowed meal in his
+drawing-room, for there was no proper table there, and they
+would be making a dreadful mess over everything.
+
+A current of cool night air swept up the stairs, and Georgie saw the
+panel of light from the open drawing-room door diminish in width, and
+presently the door shut with a soft thud, leaving him in the dark. At
+that his desperation seemed pressed and concentrated into a moment of
+fictitious courage, for he unerringly reasoned that they had left the
+drawing-room window open, and that perhaps in a few moments now they
+would have finished their meal and with bulging pockets would step
+forth unchallenged into the night. Why had he never had bolts put on
+his shutters, like Mrs Weston, who lived in nightly terror of burglars?
+But it was too late to think of that now, for it was impossible to ask
+them to step out till he had put bolts up, and then when he was ready
+begin again.
+
+He could not let them go gorged with his champagne and laden with his
+treasures without reprisals of some sort, and keeping his thoughts
+steadily away from revolvers and clubs and sandbags, walked straight
+downstairs, threw open the drawing-room door, and with his poker
+grasped in his shaking hand, cried out in a faint, thin voice:
+
+"If you move I shall fire."
+
+There was a moment of dead silence, and a little dazzled with the light
+he saw what faced him.
+
+At opposite ends of his Chippendale sofa sat Hermy and Ursy. Hermy had
+her mouth open and held a bun in her dirty hands. Ursy had her mouth
+shut and her cheeks were bulging. Between them was a ham and a loaf of
+bread, and a pot of marmalade and a Stilton cheese, and on the floor
+was the bottle of champagne with two brimming bubbling tea cups full of
+wine. The cork and the wire and the tin-foil they had, with some show
+of decency, thrown into the fireplace.
+
+Hermy put down her bun, and gave a great shout of laughter; Ursy's
+mouth was disgustingly full and she exploded. Then they lay back
+against the arms of the sofa and howled.
+
+Georgie was very much vexed.
+
+"Upon my word, Hermy!" he said, and then found it was not nearly a
+strong enough expression. And in a moment of ungovernable irritation he
+said:
+
+"Damn it all!"
+
+Hermy showed signs of recovery first, and as Georgie came back after
+shutting the window, could find her voice, while Ursy collected small
+fragments of ham and bread which she had partially chewed.
+
+"Lord! What a lark!" she said. "Georgie, it's _the_ most ripping
+lark."
+
+Ursy pointed to the poker.
+
+"He'll fire if we move," she cried. "Or poke the fire, was it?"
+
+"Ask another!" screamed Hermy. "Oh, dear, he thought we were burglars,
+and came down with a poker, brave boy! It's positively the limit. Have
+a drink, Georgie."
+
+Suddenly her eyes grew round and awestruck, and pointing with her
+finger to Georgie's shoulder, she went off into another yell of
+laughter.
+
+"Ursy! His hair!" she said, and buried her face in a soft cushion.
+
+Naturally Georgie had not put his hair in order when he came
+downstairs, for nobody thinks about things like that when he is going
+to encounter burglars single-handed, and there was his bald pate and
+his long tresses hanging down one side.
+
+It was most annoying, but when an irremediable annoyance has absolutely
+occurred, the only possible thing for a decent person to do is to take
+it as lightly as possible. Georgie rose gallantly to the occasion, gave
+a little squeal and ran from the room.
+
+"Down again presently," he called out, and had a heavy fall on the
+stairs, as he went up to his bedroom. There he had a short argument
+with himself. It was possible to slam his door, go to bed, and be very
+polite in the morning. But that would never do: Hermy and Ursy would
+have a joke against him forever. It was really much better to share in
+the joke, identifying himself with it. So he brushed his hair in the
+orthodox fashion, put on a very smart dressing-gown, and came tripping
+downstairs again.
+
+"My dears, what fun!" he said. "Let's all have supper. But let's move
+into the dining-room, where there's a table, and I'll get another
+bottle of wine, and some glasses, and we'll bring Tipsipoozie in. You
+naughty girls, fancy arriving at a time like this. I suppose your plan
+was to go very quietly to bed, and come down to breakfast in the
+morning, and give me a fine surprise. Tell me about it now."
+
+So presently Tipsipoozie was having his marmalade, which did just as
+well as jam, and they were all eating slices off the ham, and stuffing
+them into split buns.
+
+"Yes, we thought we might as well do it all in one go," said Hermy,
+"and it's a hundred and twenty miles, if it's a yard. And then it was
+so late when we got here, we thought we wouldn't disturb you, specially
+as the drawing-room window wasn't bolted."
+
+"Bicycles outside," said Ursy, "they'll just have to be out at grass
+till morning. Oh, Tipsi-ipsi-poozie-woozy, how is you? Hope he behaved
+like the good little Tiptree that he is, Georgie?"
+
+"O yes, we made great friends," said Georgie sketchily. "He was wee bit
+upset at the station, but then he had a good tea with his Uncle Georgie
+and played hide and seek."
+
+Rather rashly, Georgie made a face at Tiptree, the sort of face which
+amuses children. But it didn't amuse Tiptree, who made another face, in
+which teeth played a prominent part.
+
+"Fool-dog," said Hermy, carelessly smacking him across the nose.
+"Always hit him if he shows his teeth, Georgie. Pass the fizz."
+
+"Well, so we got through the drawing-room window," continued Ursy, "and
+golly, we were hungry. So we foraged, and there we were! Jolly plucky
+of you, Georgie, to come down and beard us."
+
+"Real sport," said Hermy. "And how's old Fol-de-rol-de-ray? Why didn't
+she come down and fight us, too?"
+
+Georgie guessed that Hermy was making a humourous allusion to Foljambe,
+who was the one person in Riseholme whom his two sisters seemed to hold
+in respect. Ursy had once set a booby-trap for Georgie, but the mixed
+biscuits and Brazil nuts had descended on Foljambe instead. On that
+occasion Foljambe, girt about in impenetrable calm, had behaved as if
+nothing had happened and trod on biscuits and Brazil nuts without a
+smile, unaware to all appearance that there was anything whatever
+crunching and exploding beneath her feet. That had somehow quelled the
+two, who, as soon as she left the room again, swept up the mess, and
+put the uninjured Brazil nuts back into the dessert dish.... It would
+never do if Foljambe lost her prestige and was alluded to by some
+outrageously slangy name.
+
+"If you mean Foljambe," said Georgie icily, "it was because I didn't
+think it worth while to disturb her."
+
+In spite of their ride, the indefatigable sisters were up early next
+morning, and the first thing Georgie saw out of his bathroom window was
+the pair of them practising lifting shots over the ducking pond on the
+green till breakfast was ready. He had given a short account of last
+night's adventure to Foljambe when she called him, omitting the episode
+about his hair, and her disapproval was strongly indicated by her
+silence then, and the studied contempt of her manner to the sisters
+when they came in to breakfast.
+
+"Hullo, Foljambe," said Hermy. "We had a rare lark last night."
+
+"So I understand, miss," said Foljambe.
+
+"Got in through the drawing-room window," said Hermy, hoping to make
+her smile.
+
+"Indeed, miss," said Foljambe. "Have you any orders for the car, sir?"
+
+"Oh, Georgie, may we run over to the links this morning?" asked Hermy.
+"Mayn't Dickie-bird take us there?"
+
+She glanced at Foljambe to see whether this brilliant wit afforded her
+any amusement. Apparently it didn't.
+
+"Tell Dicky to be round at half-past ten," said Georgie.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Hurrah!" said Ursy. "Come, too, Foljambe, and we'll have a three-ball
+match."
+
+"No, thank you, miss," said Foljambe, and sailed from the room, looking
+down her nose.
+
+"Golly, what an iceberg!" said Hermy when the door was quite shut.
+
+Georgie was not sorry to have the morning to himself, for he wanted to
+have a little quiet practice at the Mozart trio, before he went over to
+Lucia's at half-past eleven, the hour when she had arranged to run
+through it for the first time. He would also have time to do a few
+posturing exercises before the first Yoga-class, which was to take
+place in Lucia's smoking-parlour at half-past twelve. That would make a
+pretty busy morning, and as for the afternoon, there would be sure to
+be some callers, since the arrival of his sisters had been expected,
+and after that he had to go to the Ambermere Arms for his visit to Olga
+Bracely.... And what was he to do about her with regard to Lucia?
+Already he had been guilty of disloyalty, for Lady Ambermere had warned
+him of the prima-donna's arrival yesterday, and he had not instantly
+communicated that really great piece of news to Lucia. Should he make
+such amends as were in his power for that omission, or, greatly daring,
+should he keep her to himself, as Mrs Quantock so fervently wished that
+she had done with regard to the Guru? After the adventure of last
+night, he felt he ought to be able to look any situation in the face,
+but he found himself utterly unable to conceive himself manly and erect
+before the bird-like eyes of the Queen, if she found out that Olga
+Bracely had been at Riseholme for the day of her garden-party, and that
+Georgie, knowing it and having gone to see her, had not informed the
+Court of that fact.
+
+The spirit of Bolshevism, the desire to throw off all authority and act
+independently, which had assailed him yesterday returned now with
+redoubled force. If he had been perfectly certain that he would not be
+found out, there is no doubt he would have kept it from her, and yet,
+after all, what was the glory of going to see Olga Bracely (and perhaps
+even entertaining her here) if all Riseholme did not turn green with
+jealousy? Moreover there was every chance of being found out, for Lady
+Ambermere would be at the garden party tomorrow, and she would be sure
+to wonder why Lucia had not asked Olga. Then it would come out that
+Lucia didn't know of that eminent presence, and Lady Ambermere would be
+astonished that Georgie had not told her. Thus he would be in the
+situation which his imagination was unable to face, although he had
+thrown the drawing room door open in the middle of the night, and
+announced that he would fire with his poker.
+
+No; he would have to tell Lucia, when he went to read the Mozart trio
+with her for the first time, and very likely she would call on Olga
+Bracely herself, though nobody had asked her to, and take all the wind
+out of Georgie's sails. Sickening though that would be, he could not
+face the alternative, and he opened his copy of the Mozart trio with a
+sigh. Lucia _did_ push and shove, and have everything her own way.
+Anyhow he would _not_ tell her that Olga and her husband were
+dining at The Hall tonight; he would not even tell her that her
+husband's name was Shuttleworth, and Lucia might make a dreadful
+mistake, and ask Mr and Mrs Bracely. That would be jam for Georgie,
+and he could easily imagine himself saying to Lucia, "My dear, I thought
+you must have known that she had married Mr Shuttleworth and kept her
+maiden name! How tarsome for you! They are so touchy about that sort of
+thing."
+
+Georgie heard the tinkle of the treble part of the Mozart trio (Lucia
+always took the treble, because it had more tune in it, though she
+pretended that she had not Georgie's fine touch, which made the bass
+effective) as he let himself in to Shakespeare's garden a few minutes
+before the appointed time. Lucia must have seen him from the window,
+for the subdued noise of the piano ceased even before he had got as far
+as Perdita's garden round the sundial, and she opened the door to him.
+The far-away look was in her eyes, and the black undulations of hair
+had encroached a little on her forehead, but, after all, others besides
+Lucia had trouble with their hair, and Georgie only sympathized.
+
+"Georgino mio!" she said. "It is all being so wonderful. There seems a
+new atmosphere about the house since my Guru came. Something holy and
+peaceful; do you not notice it?"
+
+"Delicious!" said Georgie, inhaling the pot-pourri. "What is he doing
+now?"
+
+"Meditating, and preparing for our class. I do hope dear Daisy will not
+bring in discordant elements."
+
+"Oh, but that's not likely, is it?" said Georgie. "I thought he said
+she had so much light."
+
+"Yes, he did. But now he is a little troubled about her, I think. She
+did not want him to go away from her house, and she sent over here for
+some silk pyjamas belonging to her husband, which he thought she had
+given him. But Robert didn't think so at all. The Guru brought them
+across yesterday after he had left good thoughts for her in her house.
+But it was the Guides who wished him to come here; they told him so
+distinctly. It would have been very wrong of me not to do as they
+said."
+
+She gave a great sigh.
+
+"Let us have an hour with Mozart," she said "and repel all thought of
+discord. My Guru says that music and flowers are good influences for
+those who are walkers on the Way. He says that my love for both of them
+which I have had all my life will help me very much."
+
+For one moment the mundane world obtruded itself into the calm peace.
+
+"Any news in particular?" she asked. "I saw you drive back from the
+station yesterday afternoon, for I happened to be looking out of the
+window, in a little moment of leisure--the Guru says I work too hard,
+by the way--and your sisters were not with you. And yet there were two
+cabs, and a quantity of luggage. Did they not come?"
+
+Georgie gave a respectably accurate account of all that had happened,
+omitting the fact of his terror when first he awoke, for that was not
+really a happening, and had had no effect on his subsequent
+proceedings. He also omitted the adventure about his hair, for that was
+quite extraneous, and said what fun they had all had over their supper
+at half past two this morning.
+
+"I think you were marvellously brave, Georgie," said she, "and most
+good natured. You must have been sending out love, and so were full of
+it yourself, and that casts out fear."
+
+She spread the music open.
+
+"Anything else?" she asked.
+
+Georgie took his seat and put his rings on the candle-bracket.
+
+"Oh yes," he said, "Olga Bracely, the prima-donna, you know, and her
+husband are arriving at the Ambermere Arms this afternoon for a couple
+of days."
+
+The old fire kindled.
+
+"No!" exclaimed Lucia. "Then they'll be here for my party tomorrow.
+Fancy if she would come and sing for us! I shall certainly leave cards
+today, and write later in the evening, asking her."
+
+"I have been asked to go and see her," said Georgie, not proudly.
+
+The music rest fell down with a loud slap, but Lucia paid no attention.
+
+"Let us go together then," she said. "Who asked you to call on her?"
+
+"Lady Ambermere," said he.
+
+"When she was in here yesterday? She never mentioned it to me. But she
+would certainly think it very odd of me not to call on friends of hers,
+and be polite to them. What time shall we go?"
+
+Georgie made up his mind that wild horses should not drag from him the
+fact that Olga's husband's name was Shuttleworth, for here was Lucia
+grabbing at his discovery, just as she had grabbed at Daisy's discovery
+who was now "her Guru." She should call him Mr Bracely then.
+
+"Somewhere about six, do you think?" said he, inwardly raging.
+
+He looked up and distinctly saw that sharp foxy expression cross
+Lucia's face, which from long knowledge of her he knew to betoken that
+she had thought of some new plan. But she did not choose to reveal it
+and re-erected the music-rest.
+
+"That will do beautifully," she said. "And now for our heavenly Mozart.
+You must be patient with me, Georgie, for you know how badly I read.
+_Caro!_ How difficult it looks. I am frightened! Lucia never saw
+such a dwefful thing to read!"
+
+And it had been those very bars, which Georgie had heard through the
+open window just now.
+
+"Georgie's is much more dwefful!" he said, remembering the double sharp
+that came in the second bar. "Georgie fwightened too at reading it.
+O-o-h," and he gave a little scream. "Cattivo Mozart to wite anything
+so dwefful diffy!"
+
+It was quite clear at the class this morning that though the pupils
+were quite interested in the abstract messages of love which they were
+to shoot out in all directions, and in the atmosphere of peace with
+which they were to surround themselves, the branch of the subject which
+thrilled them to the marrow was the breathing exercises and contortions
+which, if persevered in, would give them youth and activity, faultless
+digestions and indefatigable energy. They all sat on the floor, and
+stopped up alternate nostrils, and held their breath till Mrs Quantock
+got purple in the face, and Georgie and Lucia red, and expelled their
+breath again with sudden puffs that set the rushes on the floor
+quivering, or with long quiet exhalations. Then there were certain
+postures to be learned, in one of which, entailing the bending of the
+body backwards, two of Georgie's trouser-buttons came off with a sharp
+snap and he felt the corresponding member of his braces, thus violently
+released, spring up to his shoulder. Various other embarrassing noises
+issued from Lucia and Daisy that sounded like the bursting of strings
+and tapes, but everybody pretended to hear nothing at all, or covered
+up the report of those explosions with coughings and clearings of the
+throat. But apart from these discordances, everything was fairly
+harmonious indeed, so far from Daisy introducing discords, she wore a
+fixed smile, which it would have been purely cynical to call superior,
+when Lucia asked some amazingly simple question with regard to Om. She
+sighed too, at intervals, but these sighs were expressive of nothing
+but patience and resignation, till Lucia's ignorance of the most
+elementary doctrines was enlightened, and though she rather pointedly
+looked in any direction but hers, and appeared completely unaware of
+her presence, she had not, after all, come here to look at Lucia, but
+to listen to her own (whatever Lucia might say) Guru.
+
+At the end Lucia, with her far-away look, emerged, you might say, in a
+dazed condition from hearing about the fastness of Thibet, where the
+Guru had been in commune with the Guides, whose wisdom he interpreted
+to them.
+
+"I feel such a difference already," she said dreamily. "I feel as if I
+could never be hasty or worried any more at all. Don't you experience
+that, dear Daisy?"
+
+"Yes, dear," said she. "I went through all that at my first lesson.
+Didn't I, Guru dear?"
+
+"I felt it too," said Georgie, unwilling not to share in these
+benefits, and surreptitiously tightening his trouser-strap to
+compensate for the loss of buttons. "And am I to do that swaying
+exercise before every meal?"
+
+"Yes, Georgie," said Lucia, saving her Guru from the trouble of
+answering. "Five times to the right and five times to the left and then
+five times backwards and forwards. I felt so young and light just now
+when we did it that I thought I was rising into the air. Didn't you,
+Daisy?"
+
+Daisy smiled kindly.
+
+"No, dear, that is levitation," she said, "and comes a very long way
+on."
+
+She turned briskly towards her Guru.
+
+"Will you tell them about that time when you levitated at Paddington
+Station?" she said. "Or will you keep that for when Mrs Lucas gets
+rather further on? You must be patient, dear Lucia; we all have to go
+through the early stages, before we get to that."
+
+Mrs Quantock spoke as if she was in the habit of levitating herself,
+and it was but reasonable, in spite of the love that was swirling about
+them all, that Lucia should protest against such an attitude. Humility,
+after all, was the first essential to progress on the Way.
+
+"Yes, dear," she said. "We will tread these early stages together, and
+encourage each other."
+
+Georgie went home, feeling also unusually light and hungry, for he had
+paid special attention to the exercise that enabled him to have his
+liver and digestive organs in complete control, but that did not
+prevent him from devoting his mind to arriving at that which had made
+Lucia look so sharp and foxy during their conversation about Olga
+Bracely. He felt sure that she was meaning to steal a march on him, and
+she was planning to draw first blood with the prima-donna, and, as
+likely as not, claim her for her own, with the same odious greed as she
+was already exhibiting with regard to the Guru. All these years Georgie
+had been her faithful servant and coadjutor; now for the first time the
+spirit of independence had begun to seethe within him. The scales were
+falling from his eyes, and just as he turned into shelter of his
+mulberry-tree, he put on his spectacles to see how Riseholme was
+getting on without him to assist at the morning parliament. His absence
+and Mrs Quantock's would be sure to evoke comment, and since the Yoga
+classes were always to take place at half-past twelve, the fact that
+they would never be there, would soon rise to the level of a
+first-class mystery. It would, of course, begin to leak out that
+they and Lucia were having a course of Eastern philosophy that made
+its pupils young and light and energetic, and there was a sensation!
+
+Like all great discoveries, the solution of Lucia's foxy look broke on
+him with the suddenness of a lightning-flash, and since it had been
+settled that she should call for him at six, he stationed himself in
+the window of his bathroom, which commanded a perfect view of the
+village green and the entrance to the Ambermere Arms at five. He had
+brought up with him a pair of opera-glasses, with the intention of
+taking them to bits, so he had informed Foljambe, and washing their
+lenses, but he did not at once proceed about this, merely holding them
+ready to hand for use. Hermy and Ursy had gone back to their golf again
+after lunch, and so callers would be told that they were all out. Thus
+he could wash the lenses, when he chose to do so, uninterrupted.
+
+The minutes passed on pleasantly enough, for there was plenty going on.
+The two Miss Antrobuses frisked about the green, jumping over the
+stocks in their playful way, and running round the duck-pond in the
+eternal hope of attracting Colonel Boucher's attention to their pretty
+nimble movements. For many years past, they had tried to gain Georgie's
+serious attention, without any result, and lately they had turned to
+Colonel Boucher. There was Mrs Antrobus there, too, with her ham-like
+face and her ear-trumpet, and Mrs Weston was being pushed round and
+round the asphalt path below the elms in her bath-chair. She hated
+going slow, and her gardener and his boy took turns with her during her
+hour's carriage exercise, and propelled her, amid streams of
+perspiration, at a steady four miles an hour. As she passed Mrs
+Antrobus she shouted something at her, and Mrs Antrobus returned her
+reply, when next she came round.
+
+Suddenly all these interesting objects vanished completely from
+Georgie's ken, for his dark suspicions were confirmed, and there was
+Lucia in her "Hightum" hat and her "Hightum" gown making her gracious
+way across the green. She had distinctly been wearing one of the
+"Scrub" this morning at the class, so she must have changed after
+lunch, which was an unheard of thing to do for a mere stroll on the
+green. Georgie knew well that this was no mere stroll; she was on her
+way to pay a call of the most formal and magnificent kind. She did not
+deviate a hair-breadth from her straight course to the door of the
+Arms, she just waggled her hand to Mrs Antrobus, blew a kiss to her
+sprightly daughters, made a gracious bow to Colonel Boucher, who stood
+up and took his hat off, and went on with the inexorability of the
+march of destiny, or of fate knocking at the door in the immortal fifth
+symphony. And in her hand she carried a note. Through his glasses
+Georgie could see it quite plainly, and it was not a little folded-up
+sheet, such as she commonly used, but a square thick envelope. She
+disappeared in the Arms and Georgie began thinking feverishly. A great
+deal depended on how long she stopped there.
+
+A few little happenings beguiled the period of waiting. Mrs Weston
+desisted from her wild career, and came to anchor on the path just
+opposite the door into the Arms, while the gardener's boy sank
+exhausted on to the grass. It was quite easy to guess that she proposed
+to have a chat with Lucia when she came out. Similarly the Miss
+Antrobuses who had paid no attention to her at all before, ceased from
+their pretty gambolings, and ran up to talk to her, so they wanted a
+word too. Colonel Boucher, a little less obviously, began throwing
+sticks into the ducking-pond for his bull-dog (for Lucia would be
+obliged to pass the ducking-pond) and Mrs Antrobus examined the stocks
+very carefully, as if she had never seen them before.
+
+And then, before a couple of minutes had elapsed Lucia came out. She
+had no longer the note in her hand, and Georgie began taking his
+opera-glasses to bits, in order to wash the lenses. For the present
+they had served their purpose. "She has left a note on Olga Bracely,"
+said Georgie quite aloud, so powerful was the current of his thoughts.
+Then as a corollary came the further proposition which might be
+considered as proved, "But she had not seen her."
+
+The justice of this conclusion was soon proved, for Lucia had hardly
+disengaged herself from the group of her subjects, and traversed the
+green on her way back to her house, when a motor passed Georgie's
+bathroom window, closely followed by a second; both drew up at the
+entrance to the Ambermere Arms. With the speed of a practised optician
+Georgie put his opera glass together again, and after looking through
+the wrong end of it in his agitation was in time to see a man get out
+of the second car, and hold the carriage-door open for the occupants of
+the first. A lady got out first, tall and slight in figure, who stood
+there unwinding her motor veil, then she turned round again, and with a
+thump of his heart that surprised Georgie with its violence, he beheld
+the well-remembered features of his Brunnhilde.
+
+Swiftly he passed into his bedroom next door, and arrayed himself in
+his summer Hightums; a fresh (almost pearly) suit of white duck, a
+mauve tie with an amethyst pin in it, socks, tightly braced up, of
+precisely the same colour as the tie, so that an imaginative beholder
+might have conjectured that on this warm day the end of his tie had
+melted and run down his legs; buckskin shoes with tall slim heels and a
+straw hat completed this pretty Hightum. He had meant to wear it for
+the first time at Lucia's party tomorrow, but now, after her meanness,
+she deserved to be punished. All Riseholme should see it before she
+did.
+
+The group round Mrs Weston's chair was still engaged in conversation
+when Georgie came up, and he casually let slip what a bore it was to
+pay calls on such a lovely day, but he had promised to visit Miss Olga
+Bracely, who had just arrived. So there was another nasty one for
+Lucia, since now all Riseholme would know of her actual arrival before
+Lucia did.
+
+"And who, Mr Georgie," asked Mrs Antrobus presenting her trumpet to him
+in the manner in which an elephant presents its trunk to receive a
+bun, "who was that with her?"
+
+"Oh, her husband, Mr Shuttleworth," said Georgie. "They have just been
+married, and are on their honeymoon." And if that was not another
+staggerer for Lucia, it is diffy, as Georgie would say, to know what a
+staggerer is. For Lucia would be last of all to know that this was not
+Mr Bracely.
+
+"And will they be at Mrs Lucas's party tomorrow?" asked Mrs Weston.
+
+"Oh, does she know them?" asked Georgie.
+
+"Haw, haw, by Jove!" began Colonel Boucher. "Very handsome woman. Envy
+you, my boy. Pity it's their honeymoon. Haw!"
+
+Mrs Antrobus's trumpet was turned in his direction at this moment, and
+she heard these daring remarks.
+
+"Naughty!" she said, and Georgie, the envied, passed in into the inn.
+
+He sent in his card, on which he had thought it prudent to write "From
+Lady Ambermere," and was presently led through into the garden behind
+the building. There she was, tall and lovely and welcoming, and held
+out a most cordial hand.
+
+"How kind of you to come and see us," she said. "Georgie, this is Mr
+Pillson. My husband."
+
+"How do you do, Mr Shuttleworth," said Georgie to shew he knew, though
+his own Christian name had given him quite a start. For the moment he
+had almost thought she was speaking to him.
+
+"And so Lady Ambermere asked you to come and see us?" Olga went on. "I
+think that was much kinder of her than to ask us to dinner. I hate
+going out to dinner in the country almost as much as I hate not going
+out to dinner in town. Besides with that great hook nose of hers, I'm
+always afraid that in an absent moment I might scratch her on the head
+and say 'Pretty Polly.' Is she a great friend of yours, Mr Pillson? I
+hope so, because everyone likes his best friends being laughed at."
+
+Up till that moment Georgie was prepared to indicate that Lady
+Ambermere was the hand and he the glove. But evidently that would not
+impress Olga in the least. He laughed in a most irreverent manner
+instead.
+
+"Don't let us go," she went on. "Georgie, can't you send a telegram
+saying that we have just discovered a subsequent engagement and then
+we'll ask Mr Pillson to show us round this utterly adorable place, and
+dine with us afterwards. That would be so much nicer. Fancy living
+here! Oh, and do tell me something, Mr Pillson. I found a note when I
+arrived half an hour ago, from Mrs Lucas asking me and Mr Shuttleworth
+to go to a garden-party tomorrow. She said she didn't even hope that I
+should remember her, but would we come. Who is she? Really I don't
+think she can remember me very well, if she thinks I am Mrs Bracely.
+Georgie says I must have been married before, and that I have caused
+him to commit bigamy. That's pleasant conversation for a honeymoon,
+isn't it? Who is she?"
+
+"Oh, she's quite an old friend of mine," said Georgie, "though I never
+knew she had met you before; I'm devoted to her."
+
+"Extremely proper. But now tell me this, and look straight in my face,
+so that I shall know if you're speaking the truth. Should I enjoy
+myself more wandering about this heavenly place than at her garden
+party?"
+
+Georgie felt that poor Lucia was really punished enough by this time.
+
+"You will give her a great deal of pleasure if you go," he began.
+
+"Ah, that's not fair; it is hitting below the belt to appeal to
+unselfish motives. I have come here simply to enjoy myself. Go on; eyes
+front."
+
+The candour and friendliness of that beautiful face gave Georgie an
+impulse of courage. Besides, though no doubt in fun, she had already
+suggested that it would be much nicer to wander about with him and dine
+together than spend the evening among the splendours of The Hall.
+
+"I've got a suggestion," he said. "Will you come and lunch with me
+first, and we'll stroll about, and then we can go to the garden-party,
+and if you don't like it I'll take you away again?"
+
+"Done!" she said. "Now don't you try to get out of it, because my
+husband is a witness. Georgie, give me a cigarette."
+
+In a moment Riseholme-Georgie had his cigarette-case open.
+
+"Do take one of mine," he said, "I'm Georgie too."
+
+"You don't say so! Let's send it to the Psychical Research, or whoever
+those people are who collect coincidences and say it's spooks. And a
+match please, one of you Georgies. Oh, how I should like never to see
+the inside of an Opera House again. Why mayn't I grow on the walls of a
+garden like this, or better still, why shouldn't I have a house and
+garden of my own here, and sing on the village-green, and ask for
+halfpennies? Tell me what happens here! I've always lived in town since
+the time a hook-nosed Hebrew, rather like Lady Ambermere, took me out
+of the gutter."
+
+"My dear!" said Mr Shuttleworth.
+
+"Well, out of an orphan-school at Brixton and I would much prefer the
+gutter. That's all about my early life just now, because I am keeping
+it for my memoirs which I shall write when my voice becomes a little
+more like a steam-whistle. But don't tell Lady Ambermere, for she would
+have a fit, but say you happen to know that I belong to the Surrey
+Bracelys. So I do; Brixton is on the Surrey side. Oh, my dear, look at
+the sun. It's behaving like the best sort of Claude! Heile Sonne!"
+
+"I heard you do that last May," said Georgie.
+
+"Then you heard a most second-rate performance," said she. "But really
+being unlaced by that Thing, that great fat profligate beery Prussian
+was almost too much for me. And the duet! But it was very polite of you
+to come, and I will do better next time. Siegfried! Brunnhilde!
+Siegfried! Miaou! Miaou! Bring on the next lot of cats! Darling
+Georgie, wasn't it awful? And you had proposed to me only the day
+before."
+
+"I was absolutely enchanted," said Riseholme-Georgie.
+
+"Yes, but then you didn't have that Thing breathing beer into your
+innocent face." Georgie rose; the first call on a stranger in
+Riseholme was never supposed to last more than half an hour, however
+much you were enjoying it, and never less, however bored you might be,
+and he felt sure he had already exceeded this.
+
+"I must be off," he said. "Too delightful to think that you and Mr
+Shuttleworth will come to lunch with me tomorrow. Half past one, shall
+we say?"
+
+"Excellent; but where do you live?"
+
+"Just across the green. Shall I call for you?" he asked.
+
+"Certainly not. Why should you have that bother?" she said. "Ah, let me
+come with you to the inn-door, and perhaps you will shew me from
+there."
+
+She passed through the hall with him, and they stood together in the
+sight of all Riseholme, which was strolling about the green at this as
+at most other hours. Instantly all faces turned round in their
+direction, like so many sunflowers following the sun, while Georgie
+pointed out his particular mulberry tree. When everybody had had a good
+look, he raised his hat.
+
+_"A domani_ then," she said. "So many thanks."
+
+And quite distinctly she kissed her hand to him as he turned away....
+
+"So she talks Italian too," thought Georgie, as he dropped little
+crumbs of information to his friends on his way to his house.
+_"Domani,_ that means tomorrow. Oh yes; she was meaning lunch."
+
+It is hardly necessary to add that on the table in his hall there was
+one of Lucia's commoner kinds of note, merely a half sheet folded
+together in her own manner. Georgie felt that it was scarcely more
+necessary to read it, for he felt quite sure that it contained some
+excuse for not coming to his house at six in order to call on Mr and
+Mrs Bracely. But he gave a glance at it before he rolled it up in a
+ball for Tipsipoozie to play with, and found its contents to be
+precisely what he expected, the excuse being that she had not done her
+practising. But the post-script was interesting, for it told him that
+she had asked Foljambe to give her his copy of Siegfried....
+
+Georgie strolled down past The Hurst before dinner. Mozart was silent
+now, but there came out of the open windows the most amazing hash of
+sound, which he could just recognise as being the piano arrangement of
+the duet between Brunnhilde and Siegfried at the end. He would have
+been dull indeed if he had not instantly guessed what _that_
+signified.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter SEVEN
+
+
+A fresh thrill went through an atmosphere already super-saturated with
+excitement, when next morning all Lucia's friends who had been bidden
+to the garden-party (Tightum) were rung up on the telephone and
+informed that the party was Hightum. That caused a good deal of extra
+work, because the Tightum robes had to be put away again, and the
+Hightums aired and brushed and valetted. But it was well worth it, for
+Riseholme had not the slightest difficulty in conjecturing that Olga
+Bracely was to be among the guests. For a cultured and artistic centre
+the presence of a star that blazed so regally in the very zenith of the
+firmament of art absolutely demanded the Hightum which the presence of
+poor Lady Ambermere (though she would not have liked that) had been
+powerless to bring out of their cupboards. And these delightful
+anticipations concentrated themselves into one rose-coloured point of
+joy, when no less than two independent observers, without collusion,
+saw the piano-tuner either entering or leaving The Hurst, while a
+third, an ear-witness, unmistakably heard the tuning of the piano
+actually going on. It was thus clear to all penetrating minds that Olga
+Bracely was going to sing. It was further known that something was
+going on between her and Georgie, for she had been heard by one Miss
+Antrobus to ask for Georgie's number at the telephone in the Ambermere
+Arms. Etiquette forbade her actually to listen to what passed, but she
+could not help hearing Olga laugh at something (presumably) that
+Georgie said. He himself took no part in the green-parliament that
+morning, but had been seen to dash into the fruiterer's and out again,
+before he went in a great hurry to The Hurst, shortly after
+twelve-thirty. Classes on Eastern philosophy under the tuition of
+Mrs Quantock's Indian, were already beginning to be hinted at, but
+today in the breathless excitement about the prima-donna nobody cared
+about that; they might all have been taking lessons in cannibalism,
+and nobody would have been interested. Finally about one o'clock one
+of the motors in which the party had arrived yesterday drew up at the
+door of the Ambermere Arms, and presently Mr Bracely,--no, dear, Mr
+Shuttleworth got in and drove off alone. That was very odd conduct in a
+lately-married bridegroom, and it was hoped that there had been no
+quarrel.
+
+Olga had, of course, been given no directions as to Hightum or Tightum,
+and when she walked across to Georgie's house shortly after half-past
+one only Mrs Weston who was going back home to lunch at top speed was
+aware that she was dressed in a very simple dark blue morning frock,
+that would almost have passed for Scrub. It is true that it was
+exceedingly well cut, and had not the look of having been rolled up in
+a ball and hastily ironed out again that usually distinguished Scrub,
+and she also wore a string of particularly fine pearls round her neck,
+the sort of ornament that in Riseholme would only be seen in an
+evening Hightum, even if anybody in Riseholme had owned such things.
+Lucia, not long ago had expressed the opinion that jewels were vulgar
+except at night, and for her part she wore none at all, preferring one
+Greek cameo of uncertain authenticity.
+
+Georgie received Olga alone, for Hermy and Ursy were not yet back from
+their golf.
+
+"It is good of you to let me come without my husband," she said. "His
+excuse is toothache and he has driven into Brinton--"
+
+"I'm very sorry," said Georgie.
+
+"You needn't be, for now I'll tell you his real reason. He thought that
+if he lunched with you he would have to come on to the garden party,
+and that he was absolutely determined not to do. You were the thin edge
+of the wedge, in fact. My dear, what a delicious house. All panelled,
+with that lovely garden behind. And croquet--may we play croquet after
+lunch? I always try to cheat, and if I'm found out I lose my temper.
+Georgie won't play with me, so I play with my maid."
+
+"This Georgie will," said he.
+
+"How nice of him! And do you know what we did this morning, before the
+toothache didn't begin? We went all over that house three doors away,
+which is being done up. It belongs to the proprietor of the Ambermere
+Arms. And--oh, I wonder if you can keep a secret?"
+
+"Yes," said Georgie. He probably had never kept one yet, but there was
+no reason why he shouldn't begin now.
+
+"Well, I'm absolutely determined to buy it, only I daren't tell my
+husband until I've done it. He has an odd nature. When a thing is done,
+settled, and there's no help for it, he finds it adorable, but he also
+finds fatal objections to doing it at all, if he is consulted about it
+before it is done. So not a word! I shall buy it, make the garden,
+furnish it, down to the minutest detail, and engage the servants, and
+then he'll give it me for a birthday present. I had to tell somebody or
+I should burst."
+
+Georgie nearly swooned with fervour and admiration.
+
+"But what a perfect plan!" he said. "You really like our little
+Riseholme?"
+
+"It's not a question of liking; it's a mere detail of not being able to
+do without it. I don't like breathing, but I should die if I didn't. I
+want some delicious, hole-in-the-corner, lazy backwater sort of place,
+where nothing ever happens, and nobody ever does anything. I've been
+observing all the morning, and your habits are adorable. Nothing ever
+happens here, and that will precisely suit me, when I get away from my
+work."
+
+Georgie was nearer swooning than ever at this. He could hardly believe
+his ears when she talked of Riseholme being a lazy backwater, and
+almost thought she must have been speaking of London, where, as Lucia
+had acutely observed, people sat in the Park all morning and talked of
+each other's affairs, and spent the afternoon at picture-galleries, and
+danced all night. There was a flippant, lazy existence.
+
+But she was far too much absorbed in her project to notice his
+stupefaction.
+
+"But if you breathe a word," she said, "everything will be spoilt. It
+has to burst on Georgie. Oh, and there's another mulberry-tree in your
+garden as well as the one in front. It's too much."
+
+Her eyes followed Foljambe out of the door.
+
+"And I know your parlour-maid is called Paravicini or Grosvenor," she
+said.
+
+"No, she is Foljambe," said Georgie.
+
+She laughed.
+
+"I knew I was right," she said. "It's practically the same thing. Oh,
+and last night! I never had such an awful evening. Why didn't you warn
+me, and my husband should have had toothache then instead of this
+morning."
+
+"What happened?" asked he.
+
+"But the woman's insane, that Ambermere parrot, I mean. Georgie and I
+were ten minutes late, and she had a jet tiara on, and why did she ask
+us to dine at a quarter to eight, if she meant a quarter to eight,
+instead of saying half-past-seven? They were actually going into dinner
+when we came, a mournful procession of three moth-eaten men and three
+whiskered women. Upon which the procession broke up, as if we had been
+the riot act, and was arranged again, as a funeral procession, and
+Georgie with Lady Ambermere was the hearse. We dined in the family
+vault and talked about Lady Ambermere's pug. She talked about you, too,
+and said you were of county family, and that Mrs Lucas was a very
+decent sort of woman, and that she herself was going to look in on her
+garden-party today. Then she looked at my pearls, and asked if they
+were genuine. So I looked at her teeth, and there was no need to ask
+about them."
+
+"Don't miss out a moment," said Georgie greedily.
+
+"Whenever Lady Ambermere spoke, everybody else was silent. I didn't
+grasp that at first, for no one had explained the rules. So she stopped
+in the middle of a sentence and waited till I had finished. Then she
+went on again, precisely where she had left off. Then when we came into
+the drawing room, the whiskered ladies and I, there a little woman like
+a mouse sitting there, and nobody introduced her. So naturally I went
+to talk to her, before which the great parrot said, 'Will you kindly
+fetch my wool-work, Miss Lyall?' and Miss Lyall took a sack out of the
+corner, and inside was the sacred carpet. And then I waited for some
+coffee and cigarettes, and I waited, and I waited, and I am waiting
+still. The Parrot said that coffee always kept her awake, and that was
+why. And then Georgie came in with the others, and I could see by his
+face that he hadn't had a cigarette either. It was then half-past nine.
+And then each man sat down between two women, and Pug sat in the middle
+and looked for fleas. Then Lady Ambermere got up, and came across the
+charmed circle to me. She said: 'I hope you have brought your music,
+Mrs Shuttleworth. Kindly open the piano, Miss Lyall. It was always
+considered a remarkably fine instrument.'"
+
+Olga waved the fork on which was impaled a piece of the pineapple which
+Georgie had purchased that morning at the fruiterer's.
+
+"The stupendous cheek!" she said. "I thought it must be a joke, and
+laughed with the greatest politeness. But it wasn't! You'll hardly
+believe it, but it wasn't! One of the whiskered ones said, That will be
+a great treat,' and another put on the face that everyone wears at
+concerts. And I was so stunned that I sang, and Lady Ambermere beat
+time, and Pug barked."
+
+She pointed a finger at Georgie.
+
+"Never till the day of judgment," she said, "when Lady Ambermere
+gnashes her beautiful teeth for ever and ever, will I set foot in that
+house again. Nor she in my house. I will set fire to it sooner. There!
+My dear, what a good lunch you have given me. May we play croquet at
+once?"
+
+Lucia's garden-parties were scheduled from four to seven and
+half-an-hour before the earliest guest might be expected, she was
+casting an eagle eye over the preparations which today were on a very
+sumptuous scale. The bowls were laid out in the bowling alley, not
+because anybody in Hightums dresses was the least likely to risk the
+stooping down and the strong movements that the game entailed, but
+because bowls were Elizabethan. Between the alley and the lawn nearer
+to the house was a large marquee, where the commoner crowd--though no
+crowd could be really common in Riseholme--would refresh itself. But
+even where none are common there may still be degrees in rarity, and by
+the side of this general refreshment room was a smaller tent carpeted
+with Oriental rugs, and having inside it some half-dozen chairs, and two
+seats which can only be described as thrones, for Lady Ambermere or Olga
+Bracely, while Lucia's Guru, though throneworthy, would very kindly sit
+in one of his most interesting attitudes on the floor. This tent was
+designed only for high converse, and common guests (if they were good)
+would be led into it and introduced to the great presences, while for
+the refreshment of the presences, in intervals of audience, a more
+elaborate meal, with peaches and four sorts of sandwiches was laid in
+the smoking-parlour. Thus those guests for whom audiences were not
+provided, could have the felicity of seeing the great ones pass across
+the lawn on their excursions for food, and possibly trip over the
+croquet hoops, which had been left up to give an air of naturalness to
+the lawn. In the smoking-parlour an Elzevir or two were left
+negligently open, as if Mr and Mrs Lucas had been reading the works of
+Persius and Juvenal when the first guests arrived. In the music-room,
+finally, which was not usually open on these occasions, there were
+fresh flowers: the piano, too, was open, and if you had not seen the
+Elzevirs in the smoking-parlour, it would have been reasonable for the
+early guests, if they penetrated here, to imagine that Mrs Lucas had
+been running over the last act of Siegfried a minute before.
+
+In this visit of final inspection Lucia was accompanied by her Guru,
+for he was part of the domestic _dramatis personae_, and she
+wanted him to be "discovered" in the special tent. She pointed out the
+site of his proposed "discovery" to him.
+
+"Probably the first person I shall bring in here," she said, "will be
+Lady Ambermere, for she is noted for her punctuality. She is so anxious
+to see you, and would it not be exciting if you found you had met
+before? Her husband was Governor of Madras, and she spent many years in
+India."
+
+"Madras, gracious lady?" asked the Guru. "I, too, know Madras: there
+are many dark spirits in Madras. And she was at English Residency?"
+
+"Yes. She says Mr Kipling knows nothing about India. You and she will
+have much to talk about. I wish I could sit on the floor, too, and
+listen to what you say to each other."
+
+"It will be great treat," said the Guru thoughtfully, "I love all who
+love my wonderful country."
+
+Suddenly he stopped, and put his hands up to his head, palms outward.
+
+"There are wonderful vibrations today," he said. "All day I feel that
+some word is on way from the Guides, some great message of light."
+
+"Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if it came to you in the middle of my
+garden party?" said Lucia enthusiastically.
+
+"Ah, gracious lady, the great word comes not so. It comes always in
+solitude and quiet. Gracious lady knows that as well as Guru."
+
+Pure Guruism and social pre-eminence struggled together in Lucia.
+Guruism told her that she ought to be ecstatic at the idea of a great
+message coming and should instantly smile on his desire for solitude
+and quiet, while social pre-eminence whispered to her that she had
+already dangled the presence of a high-caste mystic from Benares before
+the eyes of Lady Ambermere, who only came from Madras. On the other
+hand Olga Bracely was to be an even more resplendent guest than either
+Lady Ambermere or the Guru; surely Olga Bracely was enough to set this
+particular garden-party on the giddiest of pinnacles. And an awful
+consequence lurked as a possibility if she attempted to force her Guru
+not to immune himself in solitude and quiet, which was that conceivably
+he might choose to go back to the pit whence he was digged, namely the
+house of poor Daisy Quantock. The thought was intolerable, for with him
+in her house, she had seen herself as dispenser of Eastern Mysteries,
+and Mistress of Omism to Riseholme. In fact the Guru was her August
+stunt; it would never do to lose him before the end of July, and rage
+to see all Riseholme making pilgrimages to Daisy. There was a
+thin-lipped firmness, too, about him at this moment: she felt that
+under provocation he might easily defy or desert her. She felt she had
+to yield, and so decided to do so in the most complete manner.
+
+"Ah, yes," she said. "I know how true that is. Dear Guru, go up to
+Hamlet: no one will disturb you there. But if the message comes through
+before Lady Ambermere goes away, promise me you will come back."
+
+He went back to the house, where the front door was already open to
+admit Lady Ambermere, who was telling "her people" when to come back
+for her, and fled with the heels of his slippers tapping on the oak
+stairs up to Hamlet. Softly he shut out the dark spirits from Madras,
+and made himself even more secure by turning the key in his door. It
+would never do to appear as a high caste Brahmin from Benares before
+anyone who knew India with such fatal intimacy, for he might not
+entirely correspond with her preconceived notions of such a person.
+
+Lady Ambermere's arrival was soon followed by that of other guests, and
+instead of going into the special tent reserved for the lions, she took
+up a commanding position in the middle of the lawn, where she could
+examine everybody through her tortoiseshell handled lorgnette. She kept
+Peppino by her, who darted forward to shake hands with his wife's
+guests, and then darted back again to her. Poor Miss Lyall stood behind
+her chair, and from time to time as ordered, gave her a cape, or put up
+her parasol, or adjusted her footstool for her, or took up Pug or put
+him down as her patroness required. Most of the time Lady Ambermere
+kept up a majestic monologue.
+
+"You have a pretty little garden here, Mr Lucas," she said, "though
+perhaps inconveniently small. Your croquet lawn does not look to me the
+full size, and then there is no tennis-court. But I think you have a
+little strip of grass somewhere, which you use for bowls, have you not?
+Presently I will walk around with you and see your domain. Put Pug down
+again, please, Miss Lyall, and let him run about. See, he wants to play
+with one of those croquet balls. Put it in motion for him, and he will
+run with it. Bless me, who is that coming up the path at such a
+tremendous speed in a bath-chair? Oh, I see, it is Mrs Weston. She
+should not go as fast as that. If Pug was to stray on to the path he
+would be run over. Better pick up Pug again, Miss Lyall, till she has
+gone by. And here is Colonel Boucher. If he had brought his bull-dogs,
+I should have asked him to take them away again. I should like a cup of
+tea, Miss Lyall, with plenty of milk in it, and not too strong. You
+know how I like my tea. And a biscuit or something for Pug, with a
+little cream in a saucer or anything that's handy."
+
+"Won't you come into the smoking-parlour, and have tea there, Lady
+Ambermere?" asked Peppino.
+
+"The smoking-parlour?" asked she. "How very strange to lay tea in a
+smoking-room."
+
+Peppino explained that nobody had in all probability used the
+smoking-parlour to smoke in for five or six years.
+
+"Oh, if that is so, I will come," said she. "Better bring Pug along,
+too, Miss Lyall. There is a croquet-hoop. I am glad I saw it or I
+should have stumbled over it perhaps. Oh, this is the smoking-parlour,
+is it? Why do you have rushes on the floor? Put Pug in a chair, Miss
+Lyall, or he may prick his paws. Books, too, I see. That one lying open
+is an old one. It is Latin poetry. The library at The Hall is very
+famous for its classical literature. The first Viscount collected it,
+and it numbers many thousands of volumes."
+
+"Indeed, it is the most wonderful library," said Peppino. "I can never
+tear myself away from it, when I am at The Hall."
+
+"I do not wonder. I am a great student myself and often spend a morning
+there, do I not, Miss Lyall? You should have some new glass put in
+those windows, Mr Lucas. On a dark day it must be very difficult to
+see here. By the way, your good wife told me that there would probably
+be a very remarkable Indian at her party, a Brahmin from Benares, she
+said. I should like to have a talk with him while I am having my tea.
+Kindly prepare a peach for me, Miss Lyall."
+
+Peppino had heard about the retirement of the Guru, in consequence of a
+message from the Guides being expected, and proceeded to explain this
+to Lady Ambermere, who did not take the slightest notice, as she was
+looking at the peaches through her lorgnette.
+
+"That one nearest me looks eatable," she said. "And then I do not see
+Miss Olga Bracely, though I distinctly told her I should be here this
+afternoon, and she said Mrs Lucas had asked her. She sang to us
+yesterday evening at The Hall, and very creditably indeed. Her husband,
+Mr Shuttleworth, is a cousin of the late lord's."
+
+Lucia had come into the smoking-parlour during this speech, and heard
+these fatal words. At the moment she would gladly have recalled her
+invitation to Olga Bracely altogether, sooner than have alluded therein
+to Mr Bracely. But that was one of the irremediable things of life, and
+since it was no use wasting regret on that, she was only the more eager
+for Olga to come, whatever her husband's name was. She braced herself
+up to the situation.
+
+"Peppino, are you looking after Lady Ambermere?" she said. "Dear Lady
+Ambermere, I hope they are all taking care of you."
+
+"A very decent peach," said Lady Ambermere. "The south wall of my
+garden is covered with them, and they are always of a peculiarly
+delicious flavour. The Hall is famed for its peaches. I understood that
+Miss Bracely was going to be here, Mrs Lucas. I cannot imagine what
+makes her so late. I was always famed for my punctuality myself. I have
+finished my tea."
+
+The lawn outside was now growing thick with people all in their
+Hightums, and Lady Ambermere as she emerged from the smoking-parlour
+again viewed the scene with marked disfavour. The two Miss Antrobuses
+had just arrived, and skipped up to their hostess with pretty cries.
+
+"We are dreadfully late," said the eldest, "but it was all Piggy's
+fault."
+
+"No, Goosie, it was yours," said the other. "How can you be so naughty
+as to say it was mine? Dear Mrs Lucas, what a lovely party it's being,
+and may we go and play bowls?"
+
+Lady Ambermere regarded their retreating backs, as they raced off with
+arms intertwined to the bowling green.
+
+"And who are those young ladies?" she asked. "And why Piggy and Goosie?
+Miss Lyall, do not let Pug go to the bowls. They are very heavy."
+
+Elsewhere Mrs Antrobus was slowly advancing from group to group, with
+her trumpet violently engaged in receiving refreshment. But
+conversation was not quite so varied as usual, for there was an
+attitude of intense expectation about with regard to the appearance of
+Miss Bracely, that made talk rather jerky and unconnective. Then also
+it had gone about that the mysterious Indian, who had been seen now and
+then during the last week, was actually staying with Mrs Lucas, and why
+was he not here? More unconjecturable yet, though not so thrillingly
+interesting, was the absence of Mr Georgie. What could have happened
+to him, that he was not flitting about on his hostess's errands, and
+being the life and soul of the party? It was in vain that Mrs Antrobus
+plodded on her methodical course, seeking answers to all these riddles,
+and that Mrs Weston in her swifter progression dashed about in her
+bath-chair from group to group, wherever people seemed to be talking in
+an animated manner. She could learn nothing, and Mrs Antrobus could
+learn nothing, in fact the only information to be had on the subject
+was what Mrs Weston herself supplied. She had a very high-coloured
+handsome face, and an extremely impressive manner, as if she was
+imparting information of the very highest importance. She naturally
+spoke in a loud, clear voice, so that she had not got to raise it much
+even when she addressed Mrs Antrobus. Her wealth of discursive detail
+was absolutely unrivalled, and she was quite the best observer in
+Riseholme.
+
+"The last I saw of Miss Bracely," she said exactly as if she had been
+told to describe something on oath in the witness-box, "was a little
+after half-past one today. It must have been after half-past because
+when I got home it was close on a quarter to two, and I wasn't a
+hundred yards from my house when I saw her. As soon as I saw her I said
+to my gardener boy, Henry Luton, who was pushing me--he's the son of
+old Mrs Luton who kept the fish shop, and when she died last year, I
+began to get my fish from Brinton, for I didn't fancy the look of the
+new person who took on the business, and Henry went to live with his
+aunt. That was his father's sister, not his mother's, for Mrs Luton
+never had a sister, and no brothers either. Well, I said to Henry, 'You
+can go a bit slower, Henry, as we're late, we're late, and a minute or
+two more doesn't make any difference.' 'No, ma'am,' said Henry touching
+his cap, so we went slower. Miss Bracely was just opposite the
+ducking-pond then, and presently she came out between the elms. She
+had just an ordinary morning frock on; it was dark-blue, about the same
+shade as your cape, Mrs Antrobus, or perhaps a little darker, for the
+sunshine brightened it up. Quite simple it was, nothing grand. And she
+looked at the watch on her wrist, and she seemed to me to walk a little
+quicker after that, as if she was a bit late, just as I was. But slower
+than I was going, I could not go, for I was crawling along, and before
+she got off the grass, I had come to the corner of Church Lane, and
+though I turned my head round sharp, like that, at the very last moment,
+so as to catch the last of her, she hadn't more than stepped off the
+grass onto the road before the laurestinus at the corner of Colonel
+Boucher's garden--no, of the Vicar's garden--hid her from me. And if
+you ask me----"
+
+Mrs Weston stopped for a moment, nodding her head up and down, to
+emphasize the importance of what she had said, and to raise the
+expectations of Mrs Antrobus to the highest pitch, as to what was
+coming.
+
+"And if you ask me where I think she was going and what she was going
+to do," she said, "I believe she was going out to lunch and that she
+was going to one of those houses there, just across the road, for she
+made a bee-line across the green towards them. Well, there are three
+houses there: there's Mrs Quantock's, and it couldn't have been that,
+or else Mrs Quantock would have had some news of her, or Colonel
+Boucher's, and it wouldn't have been that, for the Colonel would have
+had news of her, and we all know whose the third house just there is."
+
+Mrs Antrobus had not completely followed this powerful reasoning.
+
+"But Colonel Boucher and Mrs Quantock are both here, eh?" said she.
+
+Mrs Weston raised her voice a little.
+
+"That's what I'm saying," she announced, "but who isn't here whom we
+should expect to see, and where's his house?"
+
+It was generally felt that Mrs Weston had hit the nail on the head.
+What that nail precisely was no one knew, because she had not explained
+why both Olga Bracely and Georgie were absentees. But now came the
+climax, bang on the top of the nail, a shrewd straight stroke.
+
+"So there she was having her lunch with Mr Georgie," said Mrs Weston,
+now introducing this name for the first time, with the highest dramatic
+art, "and they would be seeing round his house afterwards. And then
+when it was time to come here, Mr Georgie would have remembered that
+the party was Hightum not Tightum, and there was Miss Bracely not in
+Hightum at all, nor even Tightum, in my opinion, but Scrub. No doubt
+she said to him, 'Is it a very grand sort of party, Mr Pillson?' and he
+couldn't do other than reply, for we all received notice that it was
+Hightum--mine came about twelve--he couldn't do other than reply, 'Yes,
+Miss Bracely, it is.' 'Good gracious me,' she would say, 'and I've only
+got this old rag on. I must go back to the Ambermere Arms, and tell my
+maid--for she brought a maid in that second motor--and tell my maid to
+put me out something tidy.' 'But that will be a great bother for you,'
+he would say, or something of that sort, for I don't pretend to know
+what he actually did say, and she would reply, 'Oh Mr Pillson, but I
+must put on something tidy, and it would be so kind of you, if you
+would wait for me, while I do that, and let us go together.' That's
+what _she_ said."
+
+Mrs Weston made a sign to her gardener to proceed, wishing to leave the
+stage at the moment of climax.
+
+"And that's why they're both late," she said, and was whirled away in
+the direction of the bowling-green.
+
+The minutes went on, and still nobody appeared who could possibly have
+accounted for the three-lined whip of Hightums, but by degrees Lucia,
+who had utterly failed to decoy Lady Ambermere into the place of
+thrones, began to notice a certain thinning on her lawns. Her guests,
+it would seem, were not in process of dispersal, for it was a long way
+off seven o'clock yet, and also none would be so ill-mannered as to
+leave without shaking hands and saying what a delicious afternoon they
+had spent. But certainly the lawns grew emptier, and she was utterly
+unable to explain this extraordinary phenomenon, until she happened to
+go close to the windows of her music-room. Then, looking in, she saw
+that not only was every chair there occupied, but people were standing
+about in expectant groups. For a moment, her heart beat high.... Could
+Olga have arrived and by some mistake have gone straight in there? It
+was a dreamlike possibility, but it burst like a ray of sunshine on the
+party that was rapidly becoming a nightmare to her,--for everyone, not
+Lady Ambermere alone, was audibly wondering when the Guru was coming,
+and when Miss Bracely was going to sing.
+
+At the moment as she paused, a window in the music-room was opened, and
+Piggy's odious head looked out.
+
+"Oh, Mrs Lucas," she said. "Goosie and I have got beautiful seats, and
+Mamma is quite close to the piano where she will hear excellently. Has
+she promised to sing Siegfried? Is Mr Georgie going to play for her?
+It's the most delicious surprise; how could you be so sly and clever as
+not to tell anybody?"
+
+Lucia cloaked her rage under the most playful manner, as she ran into
+the music-room through the hall.
+
+"You naughty things!" she said. "Do all come into the garden! It's a
+garden party, and I couldn't guess where you had all gone. What's all
+this about singing and playing? I know nothing of it."
+
+She herded the incredulous crowd out into the garden again, all in
+their Hightums, every one of them, only to meet Lady Ambermere with Pug
+and Miss Lyall coming in.
+
+"Better be going, Miss Lyall," she said. "Kindly run out and find my
+people. Oh, here's Mrs Lucas. Been very pleasant indeed, thank you,
+good-bye. Your charming garden. Yes."
+
+"Oh, but it's very early," said Lucia. "It's hardly six yet."
+
+"Indeed!" said Lady Ambermere. "Been so charming," and she marched out
+after Miss Lyall out into Shakespeare's garden.
+
+It was soon terribly evident that other people were sharing Lady
+Ambermere's conclusion about the delights of the afternoon, and the
+necessity of getting home. Colonel Boucher had to take his bull-dogs
+for a run and walk off the excitement of the party; Piggy and Goosie
+explained to their mother that nobody was going to sing, and by silvery
+laughter tried to drown her just indignation, and presently Lucia had
+the agony of seeing Mrs Quantock seated on one of the thrones, that had
+been designed for much worthier ends, and Peppino sitting in the other,
+while a few guests drifted about the lawn with all the purposelessness
+of autumn leaves. What with the Guru, presumably meditating upstairs
+still, and with Olga Bracely most conspicuously absent, she had hardly
+nervous energy left to wonder what could have become of Georgie. Never
+in all the years of his ministry had he failed to be at her elbow through
+the entire duration of her garden-parties, flying about on her errands
+like a tripping Hermes, herding her flocks if she wanted them in one
+part of the garden rather than another, like a sagacious sheep-dog,
+and coming back to heel again ready for further tasks. But today
+Georgie was mysteriously away, for he had neither applied for leave nor
+given any explanation, however improbable, of his absence. He at least
+would have prevented Lady Ambermere, the only cornerstone of the party,
+from going away in what must be called a huff, and have continued to
+tell Lucia how marvellous she was, and what a beautiful party they were
+having. With the prospect of two other much more magnificent
+cornerstones, Lucia had not provided any further entertainment for her
+guests: there was not the conjurer from Brinton, nor the three young
+ladies who played banjo-trios, nor even the mild performing doves which
+cooed so prettily, and walked up their mistress's outstretched fingers
+according to order, if they felt disposed. There was nothing to justify
+Hightums, there was scarcely even sufficient to warrant Tightums. Scrub
+was written all over "the desert's dusty face."
+
+It was about half-past six when the miracles began, and without warning
+the Guru walked out into the garden. Probably he had watched the
+departure of the great motor with its chauffeur and footman, and Miss
+Lyall and Lady Ambermere and Pug, and with his intuitive sagacity had
+conjectured that the danger from Madras was over. He wore his new red
+slippers, a wonderful turban and an ecstatic smile. Lucia and Daisy met
+him with cries of joy, and the remaining guests, those drifting autumn
+leaves, were swept up, as it were, by some compelling broom and
+clustered in a heap in front of him. There had been a Great Message, a
+Word of Might, full of Love and Peace. Never had there been such a
+Word....
+
+And then, even before they had all felt the full thrill of that, once
+more the door from the house opened, and out came Olga Bracely and
+Georgie. It is true that she had still her blue morning frock, which
+Mrs Weston had designated as Scrub, but it was a perfectly new Scrub,
+and if it had been completely covered with Paris labels, they would not
+have made its _provenance_ one whit clearer. "Dear Mrs Lucas," she
+said, "Mr Georgie and I are terribly late, and it was quite my fault.
+There was a game of croquet that wouldn't come to an end, and my life
+has been guided by only one principle, and that is to finish a game of
+croquet whatever happens. I missed six trains once by finishing a game
+of croquet. And Mr Georgie was so unkind: he wouldn't give me a cup of
+tea, or let me change my frock, but dragged me off to see you. And I
+won!"
+
+The autumn leaves turned green and vigorous again, while Georgie went
+to get refreshment for his conqueror, and they were all introduced. She
+allowed herself to be taken with the utmost docility--how unlike
+Somebody--into the tent with the thrones: she confessed to having stood
+on tiptoe and looked into Mrs Quantock's garden and wanted to see it so
+much from the other side of the wall. And this garden, too--might she
+go and wander all over this garden when she had finished the most
+delicious peach that the world held? She was so glad she had not had
+tea with Mr Georgie: he would never have given her such a good
+peach....
+
+Now the departing guests in their Hightums, lingering on the village
+green a little, and being rather sarcastic about the utter failure of
+Lucia's party, could hardly help seeing Georgie and Olga emerge from
+his house and proceed swiftly in the direction of The Hurst, and Mrs
+Antrobus who retained marvellous eyesight as compensation for her
+defective hearing, saw them go in, and simultaneously thought that she
+had left her parasol at The Hurst. Next moment she was walking
+thoughtfully away in that direction. Mrs Weston had been the next to
+realize what had happened, and though she had to go round by the road
+in her bath-chair, she passed Mrs Antrobus a hundred yards from the
+house, her pretext for going back being that Lucia had promised to lend
+her the book by Antonio Caporelli (or was it Caporelto?).
+
+So once more the door into the garden opened, and out shot Mrs Weston.
+Olga by this time had made her tour of the garden, and might she see
+the house? She might. There was a pretty music-room. At this stage,
+just as Mrs Weston was poured out in the garden, as with the floodgates
+being unopened, the crowd that followed her came surging into
+Shakespeare's garden, and never had the mermaid's tail behind which was
+secreted the electric bell, experienced such feverish usage. Pressure
+after pressure invoked its aid, and the pretexts for re-admission were
+soon not made at all, or simply disregarded by the parlour-maid.
+Colonel Boucher might have left a bull-dog, and Mrs Antrobus an ear
+trumpet, or Miss Antrobus (Piggy) a shoe lace, and the other Miss
+Antrobus (Goosie) a shoe-horn: but in brisk succession the guests who
+had been so sarcastic about the party on the village-green, jostled
+each other in order to revisit the scenes of their irony. Miss Olga
+Bracely had been known to enter the portals, and as many of them who
+entered after her, found a Guru as well.
+
+Olga was in the music-room when the crowd had congested the hall.
+People were introduced to her, and sank down into the nearest chairs.
+Mrs Antrobus took up her old place by the keyboard of the piano.
+Everybody seemed to be expecting something, and by degrees the import
+of their longing was borne in upon Olga. They waited, and waited and
+waited, much as she had waited for a cigarette the evening before. She
+looked at the piano, and there was a comfortable murmur from her
+audience. She looked at Lucia, who gave a great gasp, and said nothing
+at all. She was the only person present who was standing now except her
+hostess, and Mrs Weston's gardener, who had wheeled his mistress's
+chair into an admirable position for hearing. She was not too well
+pleased, but after all....
+
+"Would you like me to sing?" she asked Lucia. "Yes? Ah, there's a copy
+of Siegfried. Do you play?"
+
+Lucia could not smile any more than she was smiling already.
+
+"Is it very diffy?" she asked. "Could I read it, Georgie? Shall I try?"
+
+She slid onto the music-stool.
+
+"Me to begin?" she asked, finding that Olga had opened the book at the
+salutation of Brunnhilde, which Lucia had practised so diligently all
+the morning.
+
+She got no answer. Olga standing by her, had assumed a perfectly
+different aspect. For her gaiety, her lightness was substituted some
+air of intense concentrated seriousness which Lucia did not understand
+at all. She was looking straight in front of her, gathering herself in,
+and paying not the smallest attention to Lucia or anybody else.
+
+"One, two," said Lucia. "Three. Now," and she plunged wildly into a sea
+of demi-semi-quavers. Olga had just opened her mouth, but shut it
+again.
+
+"No," she said. "Once more," and she whistled the motif.
+
+"Oh! it's so diffy!" said Lucia beginning again. "Georgie! Turn over!"
+
+Georgie turned over, and Lucia counting audibly to herself made an
+incomparable mess all over the piano.
+
+Olga turned to her accompanist.
+
+"Shall I try?" she said.
+
+She sat down at the piano, and made some sort of sketch of the
+accompaniment, simplifying, and yet retaining the essence. And then she
+sang.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter EIGHT
+
+
+Throughout August, Guruism reigned supreme over the cultured life of
+Riseholme, and the priestess and dispenser of its mysteries was Lucia.
+Never before had she ruled from so elate a pinnacle, nor wielded so
+secure a supremacy. None had access to the Guru but through her: all
+his classes were held in the smoking-parlour and he meditated only in
+Hamlet or in the sequestered arbour at the end of the laburnum walk.
+Once he had meditated on the village green, but Lucia did not approve
+of that and had led him, still rapt, home by the hand.
+
+The classes had swelled prodigiously, for practically all Riseholmites
+now were at some stage of instruction, with the exception of Hermy and
+Ursy, who pronounced the whole thing "piffle," and, as gentle chaff for
+Georgie, sometimes stood on one leg in the middle of the lawn and held
+their breath. Then Hermy would say One, Two, Three, and they shouted
+"Om" at the tops of their discordant voices. Now that the Guru was
+practically interned in The Hurst, they had actually never set eyes on
+him, for they had not chosen to come to the Hightum garden-party,
+preferring to have a second round of golf, and meeting Lucia next day
+had been distinctly irreverent on the subject of Eastern philosophy.
+Since then she had not been aware of their existence.
+
+Lucia now received special instruction from the Guru in a class all by
+herself so prodigious was her advance in Yoga, for she could hold her
+breath much longer than anybody else, and had mastered six postures,
+while the next class which she attended also consisted of the other
+original members, namely Daisy Quantock, Georgie and Peppino. They had
+got on very well, too, but Lucia had quite shot away from them, and now
+if the Guru had other urgent spiritual claims on him, she gave
+instruction to a less advanced class herself. For this purpose she
+habited herself in a peculiarly becoming dress of white linen, which
+reached to her feet and had full flowing sleeves like a surplice.
+It was girdled with a silver cord with long tassels, and had
+mother-of-pearl buttons and a hood at the back lined with white satin
+which came over her head. Below its hem as she sat and taught in a
+really rather advanced posture showed the toes of her white morocco
+slippers, and she called it her "Teacher's Robe." The class which she
+taught consisted of Colonel Boucher, Piggy Antrobus and Mrs Weston:
+sometimes the Colonel brought his bull-dogs with him, who lay and
+snorted precisely as if they were doing breathing exercises, too. A
+general air of joyful mystery and spiritual endeavour blew balmily
+round them all, and without any doubt the exercises and the deep
+breathing were extremely good for them.
+
+One evening, towards the end of the month, Georgie was sitting in his
+garden, for the half hour before dressing-time, thinking how busy he
+was, and yet how extraordinarily young and fresh he felt. Usually this
+month when Hermy and Ursy were with him was very fatiguing, and in
+ordinary years he would have driven away with Foljambe and Dicky on
+the day after their departure, and had a quiet week by the seaside. But
+now, though his sisters were going away tomorrow morning, he had no
+intention of taking a well-earned rest, in spite of the fact that not
+only had he been their host all this time, but had done an amazing
+quantity of other things as well. There had been the daily classes to
+begin with, which entailed much work in the way of meditation and
+exercises, as well as the actual learning, and also he had had another
+job which might easily have taxed his energies to the utmost any other
+year. For Olga Bracely had definitely bought that house without which
+she had felt that life was not worth living, and Georgie all this month
+had at her request been exercising a semi-independent supervision over
+its decoration and furnishing. She had ordered the general scheme
+herself and had sent down from London the greater part of the
+furniture, but Georgie was commissioned to report on any likely pieces
+of old stuff that he could find, and if expedition was necessary to act
+on his own responsibility and buy them. But above all secrecy was still
+necessary till the house was so complete that her Georgie might be
+told, and by the end of the month Riseholme generally was in a state of
+prostration following on the violent and feverish curiosity as to who
+had taken the house. Georgie had gone so far as to confess that he
+knew, but the most pathetic appeals as to the owner's identity had
+fallen on obdurate, if not deaf, ears. Not the smallest hint would he
+give on the subject, and though those incessant visits to the house,
+those searchings for furniture, the bestowal of it in suitable places,
+the superintendence of the making of the garden, the interviewings of
+paperhangers, plumbers, upholsterers, painters, carpenters and so forth
+occupied a great deal of time, the delicious mystery about it all, and
+the fact that he was doing it for so adorable a creature, rendered his
+exertions a positive refreshment. Another thing which, in conjunction
+with this and his youth-giving studies, made him feel younger than ever
+was the discreet arrival and perfect success of his toupet. No longer
+was there any need to fear the dislocation of his espaliered locks. He
+felt so secure and undetectable in that regard that he had taken to
+wearing no hat, and was soon about to say that his hair was growing
+more thickly than ever in consequence. But it was not quite time for
+that yet: it would be inartistic to suggest that just a couple of weeks
+of hatlessness had produced so desirable a result.
+
+As he sat at ease after the labours of the day he wondered how the
+coming of Olga Bracely to Riseholme would affect the economy of the
+place. It was impossible to think of her with her beauty, her charm,
+her fame, her personality as taking any second place in its life.
+Unless she was really meaning to use Riseholme as a retreat, to take no
+part in its life at all, it was hard to see what part she would take
+except the first part. One who by her arrival at Lucia's ever-memorable
+party had converted it in a moment from the most dire of Scrubs (in a
+psychical sense) to the Hightumest gathering ever known could not lay
+aside her distinction and pre-eminence. Never had Lucia "scored" so
+amazingly as over Olga's late appearance, which had the effect of
+bringing back all her departed guests with the compulsion of a magnet
+over iron-filings, and sending up the whole party like a rocket into
+the zenith of social success. All Riseholme knew that Olga had come
+(after playing croquet with Georgie the entire afternoon) and had given
+them free gratis and for nothing, such a treat as only the wealthiest
+could obtain with the most staggering fees. Lady Ambermere alone,
+driving back to The Hall with Pug and poor Miss Lyall, was the only
+person who had not shared in that, and she knew all about it next day,
+for Georgie had driven out on purpose to tell her, and met Lucia coming
+away. How, then, would the advent of Olga affect Riseholme's social
+working generally, and how would it affect Lucia in particular? And
+what would Lucia say when she knew on whose behalf Georgie was so busy
+with plumbers and painters, and with buying so many of the desirable
+treasures in the Ambermere Arms?
+
+Frankly he could not answer these conundrums: they presupposed
+inconceivable situations, which yet, though inconceivable, were shortly
+coming to pass, for Olga's advent might be expected before October,
+that season of tea-parties that ushered in the multifarious gaieties of
+the winter. Would Olga form part of the moonlit circle to whom Lucia
+played the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, and give a long sigh
+at the end like the rest of them? And would Lucia when they had all
+recovered a little from the invariable emotion go to her and say, "Olga
+mia, just a little bit out of the Valkyrie? It would be so pleasant."
+Somehow Georgie, with all his imagination, could not picture such a
+scene. And would Olga take the part of second citizenness or something
+of the sort when Lucia played Portia? Would Olga join the elementary
+class of Yoga, and be instructed by Lucia in her Teacher's Robe? Would
+she sing treble in the Christmas Carols, while Lucia beat time, and
+said in syllables dictated by the rhythm, "Trebles a little flat! My
+poor ears!"? Georgie could not imagine any of these things, and yet,
+unless Olga took no part in the social life of Riseholme at all (and
+that was equally inconceivable) what was the alternative? True, she had
+said that she was coming here because it was so ideally lazy a
+backwater, but Georgie did not take that seriously. She would soon see
+what Riseholme was when its life poured down in spate, whirling her
+punt along with it.
+
+And finally, what would happen to him, when Olga was set as a shining
+star in this firmament? Already he revolved about her, he was aware,
+like some eager delighted little moon, drawn away from the orbit where
+it had encircled so contentedly by the more potent planet. And the
+measure of his detachment from that old orbit might be judged precisely
+by the fact that the process of detachment which was already taking
+place was marked by no sense of the pull of opposing forces at all. The
+great new star sailing into the heavens had just picked him up by force
+of its superior power of attraction, even as by its momentary
+conjunction with Lucia at the garden-party it had raised her to a
+magnitude she had never possessed before. That magnitude was still
+Lucia's, and no doubt would be until the great star appeared again.
+Then without effort its shining must surely eclipse every other
+illumination, just as without effort it must surely attract all the
+little moons to itself. Or would Lucia manage somehow or other, either
+by sheer force of will, by desperate and hostile endeavour, or, on the
+other hand, by some supreme tact and cleverness to harness the great
+star to her own chariot? He thought the desperate and hostile endeavour
+was more in keeping with Lucia's methods, and this quiet evening hour
+represented itself to him as the lull before the storm.
+
+The actual quiet of the moment was suddenly broken into. His front-door
+banged, and the house was filled with running footsteps and screams of
+laughter. But it was not uncommon for Hermy and Ursy to make this sort
+of entrance, and at the moment Georgie had not the slightest idea of
+how much further-reaching was the disturbance of the tranquillity. He
+but drew a couple of long breaths, said "Om" once or twice, and was
+quite prepared to find his deeper calm unshattered.
+
+Hermy and Ursy ran down the steps into the garden where he sat still
+yelling with laughter, and still Georgie's imagination went no further
+than to suppose that one of them had laid a stymie for the other at
+their golf, or driven a ball out of bounds or done some other of these
+things that appeared to make the game so diverting to them.
+
+"Georgie, you'll never guess!" cried Hermy.
+
+"The Guru: the Om, of high caste and extraordinary sanctity," cried
+Ursy.
+
+"The Brahmin from Benares," shrieked Hermy.
+
+"The great Teacher! Who do you think he is?" said Ursy. "We never seen
+him before--"
+
+"But we recognised him at once--"
+
+"He recognised us, too, and didn't he run?--"
+
+"Into The Hurst and shut the door--"
+
+Georgie's deeper calm suddenly quivered like a jelly.
+
+"My dears, you needn't howl so, or talk quite so loud," he said. "All
+Riseholme will hear you. Tell me without shouting who it was you
+thought you recognised."
+
+"There's no think about it," said Hermy. "It was one of the cooks from
+the Calcutta Restaurant in Bedford Street--"
+
+"Where we often have lunch," said Ursy. "He makes the most delicious
+curries."
+
+"Especially when he's a little tipsy," said Hermy.
+
+"And is about as much a Brahmin as I am."
+
+"And always said he came from Madras."
+
+"We always tip him to make the curry himself, so he isn't quite
+ignorant about money."
+
+"O Lord!" said Hermy, wiping her eyes. "If it isn't the limit!"
+
+"And to think of Mrs Lucas and Colonel Boucher and you and Mrs
+Quantock, and Piggy and all the rest of them sitting round a cook,"
+said Ursy, "and drinking in his wisdom. Mr Quantock was on the right
+track after all when he wanted to engage him."
+
+Georgie with a fallen heart had first to satisfy himself that this was
+not one of his sisters' jokes, and then tried to raise his fallen heart
+by remembering that the Guru had often spoken of the dignity of simple
+manual work, but somehow it was a blow, if Hermy and Ursy were right,
+to know that this was a tipsy contriver of curry. There was nothing in
+the simple manual office of curry-making that could possibly tarnish
+sanctity, but the amazing tissue of falsehoods with which the Guru had
+modestly masked his innocent calling was not so markedly in the spirit
+of the Guides, as retailed by him. It was of the first importance,
+however, to be assured that his sisters had not at present communicated
+their upsetting discovery to anybody but himself, and after that to get
+their promise that they would not do so.
+
+This was not quite so easy, for Hermy and Ursy had projected a round of
+visits after dinner to every member of the classes with the exception
+of Lucia, who should wake up next morning to find herself the only
+illusioned person in the place.
+
+"She wouldn't like that, you know," said Hermy with brisk malice. "We
+thought it would serve her out for never asking us to her house again
+after her foolish old garden-party."
+
+"My dear, you never wanted to go," said Georgie.
+
+"I know we didn't, but we rather wanted to tell her we didn't want to
+go. She wasn't nice. Oh, I don't think we can give up telling
+everybody. It has made such sillies of you all. I think he's a real
+sport."
+
+"So do I," said Ursy. "We shall soon have him back at his curry-oven
+again. What a laugh we shall have with him."
+
+They subsided for just as long as it took Foljambe to come out of the
+house, inform them that it was a quarter of an hour to dinner-time, and
+return again. They all rose obediently.
+
+"Well, we'll talk about it at dinner-time," said Georgie
+diplomatically. "And I'll just go down to the cellar first to see if I
+can find something you like."
+
+"Good old Georgie," said Hermy. "But if you're going to bribe us, you
+must bribe us well."
+
+"We'll see," said he.
+
+Georgie was quite right to be careful over his Veuve Clicquot,
+especially since it was a bottle of that admirable beverage that Hermy
+and Ursy had looted from his cellar on the night of their burglarious
+entry. He remembered that well, though he had--chiefly from the desire
+to keep things pleasant about his hair--joined in "the fun," and had
+even produced another half-bottle. But tonight, even more than then,
+there was need for the abolition of all petty economies, for the
+situation would be absolutely intolerable if Hermy and Ursy spread
+about Riseholme the fact that the introducers and innermost circle of
+Yoga philosophers had sat at the feet of no Gamaliel at all, but at
+those of a curry-cook from some low restaurant. Indeed he brought up a
+second bottle tonight with a view if Hermy and Ursy were not softened
+by the first to administer that also. They would then hardly be in a
+condition to be taken seriously if they still insisted on making a
+house-to-house visit in Riseholme, and tearing the veil from off the
+features of the Guru. Georgie was far too upright of purpose to dream
+of making his sisters drunk, but he was willing to make great
+sacrifices in order to render them kind. What the inner circle would do
+about this cook he had no idea; he must talk to Lucia about it, before
+the advanced class tomorrow morning. But anything was better than
+letting Hermy and Ursy loose in Riseholme with their rude laughs and
+discreditable exposures. This evening safely over, he could discuss
+with Lucia what was to be done, for Hermy and Ursy would have vanished
+at cock-crow as they were going in for some golf-competition at a safe
+distance. Lucia might recommend doing nothing at all, and wish to
+continue enlightening studies as if nothing had happened. But Georgie
+felt that the romance would have evaporated from the classes as regards
+himself. Or again they might have to get rid of the Guru somehow. He
+only felt quite sure that Lucia would agree with him that Daisy
+Quantock must not be told. She with her thwarted ambitions of being the
+prime dispenser of Guruism to Riseholme might easily "turn nasty" and
+let it be widely known that she and Robert had seen through that fraud
+long ago, and had considered whether they should not offer the Guru the
+situation of cook in their household, for which he was so much better
+qualified. She might even add that his leanings towards her pretty
+housemaid had alone dissuaded her.
+
+The evening went off with a success more brilliant than Georgie had
+anticipated, and it was quite unnecessary to open the second bottle of
+champagne. Hermy and Ursy, perhaps under the influence of the first,
+perhaps from innate good-nature, perhaps because they were starting so
+very early next morning, and wanted to be driven into Brinton, instead
+of taking a slower and earlier train at this station, readily gave up
+their project of informing the whole of Riseholme of their discovery,
+and went to bed as soon as they had rooked their brother of eleven
+shillings at cut-throat bridge. They continued to say, "I'll play the
+Guru," whenever they had to play a knave, but Georgie found it quite
+easy to laugh at that, so long as the humour of it did not spread. He
+even himself said, "I'll Guru you, then," when he took a trick with the
+Knave of Trumps.
+
+The agitation and uncertainty caused him not to sleep very well, and in
+addition there was a good deal of disturbance in the house, for his
+sisters had still all their packing in front of them when they went to
+bed and the doze that preceded sleep was often broken by the sound of
+the banging of luggage, the clash of golf-clubs and steps on the stairs
+as they made ready for their departure.
+
+But after a while these disturbances ceased, and it was out of a deep
+sleep that he awoke with the sense that some noise had awakened him.
+Apparently they had not finished yet, for there was surely some faint
+stir of movement somewhere. Anyhow they respected his legitimate desire
+for quiet, for the noise, whatever it was, was extremely stealthy and
+subdued. He thought of his absurd lark about burglars on the night of
+their arrival, and smiled at the notion. His _toupet_ was in a
+drawer close to his bed, but he had no substantial impulse to put it
+on, and make sure that the noise was not anything other than his
+sisters' preparations for their early start. For himself, he would have
+had everything packed and corded long before dinner, if he was to start
+next day, except just a suit case that would hold the apparatus of
+immediate necessities, but then dear Hermy and Ursy were so ramshackle
+in their ways. Some time he would have bells put on all the shutters as
+he had determined to do a month ago, and then no sort of noise would
+disturb him any more....
+
+The Yoga-class next morning was (unusually) to assemble at ten, since
+Peppino, who would not miss it for anything, was going to have a day's
+fishing in the happy stream that flowed into the Avon, and he wanted to
+be off by eleven. Peppino had made great progress lately and had
+certain curious dizzy symptoms when he meditated which were highly
+satisfactory.
+
+Georgie breakfasted with his sisters at eight (they had enticed the
+motor out of him to convey them to Brinton) and when they were gone,
+Foljambe informed him that the housemaid had a sore throat, and had not
+"done" the drawing-room. Foljambe herself would "do" it, when she had
+cleaned the "young ladies'" rooms (there was a hint of scorn in this)
+upstairs, and so Georgie sat on the window seat of the dining-room, and
+thought how pleasant peace and quietness were. But just when it was
+time to start for The Hurst in order to talk over the disclosures of
+the night before with Lucia before the class, and perhaps to frame some
+secretive policy which would obviate further exposure, he remembered
+that he had left his cigarette-case (the pretty straw one with the
+turquoise in the corner) in the drawing-room and went to find it. The
+window was open, and apparently Foljambe _had_ just come in to let
+fresh air into the atmosphere which Hermy and Ursy had so
+uninterruptedly contaminated last night with their "fags" as they
+called them, but his cigarette-case was not on the table where he
+thought he had left it. He looked round, and then stood rooted to the
+spot.
+
+His glass-case of treasures was not only open but empty. Gone was the
+Louis XVI snuff-box, gone was the miniature of Karl Huth, gone the
+piece of Bow China, and gone the Faberge cigarette case. Only the Queen
+Anne toy-porringer was there, and in the absence of the others, it
+looked to him, as no doubt it had looked to the burglar, indescribably
+insignificant.
+
+Georgie gave a little low wailing cry, but did not tear his hair for
+obvious reasons. Then he rang the bell three times in swift succession,
+which was the signal to Foljambe that even if she was in her bath, she
+must come at once. In she came with one of Hermy's horrid woolen
+jerseys that had been left behind, in her hand.
+
+"Yes, sir, what is it?" she asked, in an agitated manner, for never
+could she remember Georgie having rung the bell three times except once
+when a fish-bone had stuck in his throat, and once again when a note
+had announced to him that Piggy was going to call and hoped to find him
+alone. For answer Georgie pointed to the rifled treasure-case. "Gone!
+Burgled!" he said. "Oh, my God!"
+
+At that supreme moment the telephone bell sounded.
+
+"See what it is," he said to Foljambe, and put the Queen Anne
+toy-porringer in his pocket.
+
+She came hurrying back.
+
+"Mrs Lucas wants you to come around at once," she said.
+
+"I can't," said Georgie. "I must stop here and send for the police.
+Nothing must be moved," and he hastily replaced the toy-porringer on
+the exact circle of pressed velvet where it had stood before.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Foljambe, but in another moment she returned.
+
+"She would be very much obliged if you would come at once," she said.
+"There's been a robbery in the house."
+
+"Well, tell her there's been one in mine," said Georgie irritably. Then
+good-nature mixed with furious curiosity came to his aid.
+
+"Wait here, then, Foljambe, on this very spot," he said, "and see that
+nobody touches anything. I shall probably ring up the police from The
+Hurst. Admit them."
+
+In his agitation he put on his hat, instead of going bareheaded and was
+received by Lucia, who had clearly been looking out of the music-room
+window, at the door. She wore her Teacher's Robe.
+
+"Georgie," she said, quite forgetting to speak Italian in her greeting,
+"someone broke into Philip's safe last night, and took a hundred pounds
+in bank-notes. He had put them there only yesterday in order to pay in
+cash for that cob. And my Roman pearls."
+
+Georgie felt a certain pride of achievement.
+
+"I've been burgled, too," he said. "My Louis XVI snuff-box is
+worth more than that, and there's the piece of Bow china, and the
+cigarette-case, and the Karl Huth as well."
+
+"My dear! Come inside," said she. "It's a gang. And I was feeling so
+peaceful and exalted. It will make a terrible atmosphere in the house.
+My Guru will be profoundly affected. An atmosphere where thieves have
+been will stifle him. He has often told me how he cannot stop in a
+house where there have been wicked emotions at play. I must keep it
+from him. I cannot lose him."
+
+Lucia had sunk down on a spacious Elizabethan settle in the hall. The
+humorous spider mocked them from the window, the humorous stone fruit
+from the plate beside the pot-pourri bowl. Even as she repeated, "I
+cannot lose him," again, a tremendous rap came on the front door, and
+Georgie, at a sign from his queen, admitted Mrs Quantock.
+
+"Robert and I have been burgled," she said. "Four silver spoons--thank
+God, most of our things are plate--eight silver forks and a Georgian
+tankard. I could have spared all but the last."
+
+A faint sign of relief escaped Lucia. If the foul atmosphere of thieves
+permeated Daisy's house, too, there was no great danger that her Guru
+would go back there. She instantly became sublime.
+
+"Peace!" she said. "Let us have our class first, for it is ten already,
+and not let any thought of revenge or evil spoil that for us. If I sent
+for the police now I could not concentrate. I will not tell my Guru
+what has happened to any of us, but for poor Peppino's sake I will ask
+him to give us rather a short lesson. I feel completely calm. Om."
+
+Vague nightmare images began to take shape in Georgie's mind, unworthy
+suspicions based on his sisters' information the evening before. But
+with Foljambe keeping guard over the Queen Anne porringer, there was
+nothing more to fear, and he followed Lucia, her silver cord with
+tassels gently swinging as she moved, to the smoking-parlour, where
+Peppino was already sitting on the floor, and breathing in a rather
+more agitated manner than was usual with the advanced class. There were
+fresh flowers on the table, and the scented morning breeze blew in from
+the garden. According to custom they all sat down and waited, getting
+calmer and more peaceful every moment. Soon there would be the tapping
+of slippered heels on the walk of broken paving-stones outside, and for
+the time they would forget all these disturbances. But they were all
+rather glad that Lucia was to ask the Guru to give them a shorter
+lesson than usual.
+
+They waited. Presently the hands of the Cromwellian timepiece which was
+the nearest approach to an Elizabethan clock that Lucia had been able
+at present to obtain, pointed to a quarter past ten.
+
+"My Guru is a little late," said she.
+
+Two minutes afterwards, Peppino sneezed. Two minutes after that Daisy
+spoke, using irony.
+
+"Would it not be well to see what has happened to your Guru, dear?" she
+asked. "Have you seen your Guru this morning?"
+
+"No, dear," said Lucia, not opening her eyes, for she was
+"concentrating," "he always meditates before a class."
+
+"So do I," said Daisy, "but I have meditated long enough."
+
+"Hush!" said Lucia. "He is coming."
+
+That proved to be a false alarm, for it was nothing but Lucia's Persian
+cat, who had a quarrel with some dead laurel leaves. Lucia rose.
+
+"I don't like to interrupt him," she said, "but time is getting on."
+
+She left the smoking-parlour with the slow supple walk that she adopted
+when she wore her Teacher's Robes. Before many seconds had passed, she
+came back more quickly and with no suppleness.
+
+"His door is locked", she said; "and yet there's no key in it."
+
+"Did you look through the keyhole, _Lucia mia_?" asked Mrs
+Quantock, with irrepressible irony.
+
+Naturally Lucia disregarded this.
+
+"I knocked," she said, "and there was no reply. I said, 'Master, we are
+waiting,' and he didn't answer."
+
+Suddenly Georgie spoke, as with the report of a cork flying out of a
+bottle.
+
+"My sisters told me last night that he was the curry-cook at the
+Calcutta restaurant," he said. "They recognised him, and they thought
+he recognised them. He comes from Madras, and is no more a Brahmin than
+Foljambe."
+
+Peppino bounded to his feet.
+
+"What?" he said. "Let's get a poker and break in the door! I believe
+he's gone and I believe he's the burglar. Ring for the police."
+
+"Curry-cook, is he?" said Daisy. "Robert and I were right after all. We
+knew what your Guru was best fitted for, dear Lucia, but then of course
+you always know best, and you and he have been fooling us finely. But
+you didn't fool me. I knew when you took him away from me, what sort of
+a bargain you had made. Guru, indeed! He's the same class as Mrs Eddy,
+and I saw through her fast enough. And now what are we to do? For my
+part, I shall just get home, and ring up for the police, and say that
+the Indian who has been living with you all these weeks has stolen my
+spoons and forks and my Georgian tankard. Guru, indeed! Burglaroo, I
+call him! There!"
+
+Her passion, like Hyperion's, had lifted her upon her feet, and she
+stood there defying the whole of the advanced class, short and stout
+and wholly ridiculous, but with some revolutionary menace about her.
+She was not exactly "terrible as an army with banners," but she was
+terrible as an elderly lady with a long-standing grievance that had
+been accentuated by the loss of a Georgian tankard, and that was
+terrible enough to make Lucia adopt a conciliatory attitude. Bitterly
+she repented having stolen Daisy's Guru at all, if the suspicions now
+thickening in the air proved to be true, but after all they were not
+proved yet. The Guru might still walk in from the arbor on the laburnum
+alley which they had not yet searched, or he might be levitating with
+the door key in his pocket. It was not probable but it was possible,
+and at this crisis possibilities were things that must be clung to, for
+otherwise you would simply have to submerge, like those U-boats.
+
+They searched all the garden, but found no trace of the curry-cook:
+they made guarded enquiries of the servants as to whether he had been
+seen, but nothing whatever could be learned about him. So when Peppino
+took a ponderous hammer and a stout chisel from his tool chest and led
+the way upstairs, they all knew that the decisive moment had come.
+Perhaps he might be meditating (for indeed it was likely that he had a
+good deal to meditate about), but perhaps--Peppino called to him in his
+most sonorous tones, and said that he would be obliged to break his
+lock if no answer came, and presently the house resounded with
+knockings as terrible as those in Macbeth, and much louder. Then
+suddenly the lock gave, and the door was open.
+
+The room was empty, and as they had all conjectured by now, the bed was
+unslept in. They opened the drawers of the wardrobe and they were as
+empty as the room. Finally, Peppino unlocked the door of a large
+cupboard that stood in the corner, and with a clinking and crashing of
+glass there poured out a cataract of empty brandy bottles. Emptiness:
+that was the key-note of the whole scene, and blank consternation its
+effect.
+
+"My brandy!" said Mrs Quantock in a strangled voice. "There are
+fourteen or fifteen bottles. That accounts for the glazed look in his
+eyes which you, dear Lucia, thought was concentration. I call it
+distillation."
+
+"Did he take it from your cellar?" asked Lucia, too shattered to feel
+resentment, but still capable of intense curiosity.
+
+"No: he had a standing order from me to order any little things he
+might want from my tradesmen. I wish I had my bills sent in every
+week."
+
+"Yes, dear," said Lucia.
+
+Georgie's eyes sought hers.
+
+"I saw him buy the first bottle," he said. "I remember telling you
+about it. It was at Rush's."
+
+Peppino gathered up his hammer and chisel.
+
+"Well, it's no use sitting here and thinking of old times," he
+observed. "I shall ring up the police-station and put the whole matter
+into their hands, as far as I am concerned. They'll soon lay hands on
+him, and he can do his postures in prison for the next few years."
+
+"But we don't know that it was he who committed all these burglaries
+yet," said Lucia.
+
+No one felt it was worth answering this, for the others had all tried
+and convicted him already.
+
+"I shall do the same," said Georgie.
+
+"My tankard," said Mrs Quantock. Lucia got up.
+
+_"Peppino mio,"_ she said, "and you, Georgie, and you, Daisy, I
+want you before you do anything at all to listen to me for five
+minutes. Just consider this. What sort of figure shall we all cut if we
+put the matter into the hands of the police? They will probably catch
+him, and it will all come out that we have been the dupes of a
+curry-cook. Think what we have all been doing for this last month,
+think of our classes, our exercises, our--everything. We have been made
+fools of, but for my part, I simply couldn't bear that everybody should
+know I had been made a fool of. Anything but that. What's a hundred
+pounds compared to that, or a tankard--"
+
+"My Louis XVI snuff-box was worth at least that without the other
+things," said Georgie, still with a secret satisfaction in being the
+greatest sufferer.
+
+"And it was my hundred pounds, not yours, _carissima,"_ said
+Peppino. But it was clear that Lucia's words were working within him
+like leaven.
+
+"I'll go halves with you," she said. "I'll give you a cheque for fifty
+pounds."
+
+"And who would like to go halves in my tankard?" said Daisy with bitter
+irony. "I want my tankard."
+
+Georgie said nothing, but his mind was extremely busy. There was Olga
+soon coming to Riseholme, and it would be awful if she found it ringing
+with the tale of the Guru, and glancing across to Peppino, he saw a
+thoughtful and sympathetic look in his eyes, that seemed to indicate
+that his mind was working on parallel lines. Certainly Lucia had
+given them all something to meditate upon. He tried to imagine the
+whole story being shouted into Mrs Antrobus's ear-trumpet on the
+village-green, and could not endure the idea. He tried to imagine Mrs
+Weston ever ceasing to talk about it, and could not picture her silence.
+No doubt they had all been taken in, too, but here in this empty bedroom
+were the original dupes, who encouraged the rest.
+
+After Mrs Quantock's enquiry a dead silence fell.
+
+"What do you propose, then?" asked Peppino, showing signs of surrender.
+
+Lucia exerted her utmost wiles.
+
+_"Caro!"_ she said. "I want 'oo to propose. Daisy and me, we silly
+women, we want 'oo and Georgie to tell us what to do. But if Lucia must
+speak, I fink--"
+
+She paused a moment, and observing strong disgust at her playfulness on
+Mrs Quantock's face, reverted to ordinary English again.
+
+"I should do something of this sort," she said. "I should say that dear
+Daisy's Guru had left us quite suddenly, and that he has had a call
+somewhere else. His work here was done; he had established our classes,
+and set all our feet upon the Way. He always said that something of the
+sort might happen to him----"
+
+"I believe he had planned it all along," said Georgie. "He knew the
+thing couldn't last for ever, and when my sisters recognised him, he
+concluded it was time to bolt."
+
+"With all the available property he could lay hands on," said Mrs
+Quantock.
+
+Lucia fingered her tassel.
+
+"Now about the burglaries," she said. "It won't do to let it be known
+that three burglaries were committed in one night, and that
+simultaneously Daisy's Guru was called away--"
+
+"My Guru, indeed!" said Mrs Quantock, fizzing with indignation at the
+repetition of this insult.
+
+"That might give rise to suspicion," continued Lucia calmly,
+disregarding the interruption, "and we must stop the news from
+spreading. Now with regard to our burglary ... let me think a moment."
+
+She had got such complete control of them all now that no one spoke.
+
+"I have it," she said. "Only Boaler knows, for Peppino told her not to
+say a word till the police had been sent for. You must tell her,
+_carissimo,_ that you have found the hundred pounds. That settles
+that. Now you, Georgie."
+
+"Foljambe knows," said Georgie.
+
+"Then tell her not to say a word about it. Put some more things out in
+your lovely treasure-case, no one will notice. And you, Daisy."
+
+"Robert is away," said she, quite meekly, for she had been thinking
+things over. "My maid knows."
+
+"And when he comes back, will he notice the loss of the tankard? Did
+you often use it?"
+
+"About once in ten years."
+
+"Chance it, then," said Lucia. "Just tell your maid to say nothing
+about it."
+
+She became deliciously modest again.
+
+"There!" she said. "That's just a little rough idea of mine and now
+Peppino and Georgie will put their wise heads together, and tell us
+what to do."
+
+That was easily done: they repeated what she had said, and she
+corrected them if they went wrong. Then once again she stood fingering
+the tassels of her Teacher's Robe.
+
+"About our studies," she said. "I for one should be very sorry to drop
+them altogether, because they made such a wonderful difference to me,
+and I think you all felt the same. Look at Georgie now: he looks ten
+years younger than he did a month ago, and as for Daisy, I wish I could
+trip about as she does. And it wouldn't do, would it, to drop
+everything just because Daisy's Guru--I mean our Guru--had been called
+away. It would look as if we weren't really interested in what he
+taught us, as if it was only the novelty of having a--a Brahmin among
+us that had attracted us."
+
+Lucia smiled benignly at them all.
+
+"Perhaps we shall find, bye and bye, that we can't progress much all by
+ourselves," she said, "and it will all drop quietly. But don't let us
+drop it with a bang. I shall certainly take my elementary class as
+usual this afternoon."
+
+She paused.
+
+"In my Robe, just as usual," she said.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter NINE
+
+
+The fish for which Mrs Weston sent to Brinton every week since she did
+not like the look of the successor to Tommy Luton's mother lay
+disregarded on the dish, while with fork and fish-slice in her hand, as
+aids to gesticulation, she was recounting to Colonel Boucher the
+complete steps that had led up to her remarkable discovery.
+
+"It was the day of Mrs Lucas's garden-party," she said, "when first I
+began to have my ideas, and you may be sure I kept them to myself, for
+I'm not one to speak before I'm pretty sure, but now if the King and
+Queen came to me on their bended knee and said it wasn't so, I
+shouldn't believe them. Well--as you may remember, we all went back to
+Mrs Lucas's party again about half-past six, and it was an umbrella
+that one had left behind, and a stick that another had forgotten, and
+what not, for me it was a book all about Venice, that I wanted to
+borrow, most interesting I am sure, but I haven't had time to glance at
+it yet, and there was Miss Bracely just come!"
+
+Mrs Weston had to pause a moment for her maid, Elizabeth Luton (cousin
+of Tommy), jogged her elbow with the dishcover in a manner that could
+not fail to remind her that Colonel Boucher was still waiting for his
+piece of brill. As she carved it for him, he rapidly ran over in his
+mind what seemed to be the main points so far, for as yet there was no
+certain clue as to the purpose of this preliminary matter, he guessed
+either Guru or Miss Bracely. Then he received his piece of brill, and
+Mrs Weston laid down her carving implements again.
+
+"You'd better help yourself, ma'am," said Elizabeth discreetly.
+
+"So I had, and I'll give you a piece of advice too, Elizabeth, and that
+is to give the Colonel a glass of wine. Burgundy! I was only wondering
+this afternoon when it began to turn chilly, if there was a bottle or
+two of the old Burgundy left, which Mr Weston used to be so fond of,
+and there was. He bought it on the very spot where it was made, and he
+said there wasn't a headache in it, not if you drank it all night. He
+never did, for a couple of glasses and one more was all he ever took,
+so I don't know how he knew about drinking it all night, but he was a
+very fine judge of wine. So I said to Elizabeth, 'A bottle of the old
+Burgundy, Elizabeth,' Well, on that evening I stopped behind a bit, to
+have another look at the Guru, and get my book, and when I came up the
+street again, what should I see but Miss Bracely walking in to the
+little front garden at 'Old Place.' It was getting dark, I know, and my
+eyes aren't like Mrs Antrobus's, which I call gimlets, but I saw her
+plain enough. And if it wasn't the next day, it was the day after that,
+that they began mending the roof, and since then, there have been
+plumbers and painters and upholsterers and furniture vans at the door
+day and night."
+
+"Haw, hum," said the Colonel, "then do you mean that it's Miss Bracely
+who has taken it?"
+
+Mrs Weston nodded her head up and down.
+
+"I shall ask you what you think when I've told you all," she said.
+"Well! There came a day, and if today's Friday it would be last Tuesday
+fortnight, and if today's Thursday, for I get mixed about it this
+morning, and then I never get it straight till next Sunday, but if
+today's Thursday, then it would be last Monday fortnight, when the Guru
+went away very suddenly, and I'm sure I wasn't very sorry, because
+those breathings made me feel very giddy and yet I didn't like to be
+out of it all. Mr Georgie's sisters went away the same day, and I've
+often wondered whether there was any connection between the two events,
+for it was odd their happening together like that, and I'm not sure
+we've heard the last of it yet."
+
+Colonel Boucher began to wonder whether this was going to be about the
+Guru after all and helped himself to half a partridge. This had the
+effect of diverting Mrs Weston's attention.
+
+"No," she said. "I insist on your taking the whole bird. They are quite
+small, and I was disappointed when I saw them plucked, and a bit of
+cold ham and a savoury is all the rest of your dinner. Mary asked me if
+I wouldn't have an apple tart as well, but I said 'No; the Colonel
+never touches sweets, but he'll have a partridge, a whole partridge,' I
+said, 'and he won't complain of his dinner.' Well! On the day that they
+all went away, whatever the explanation of that was, I was sitting in
+my chair opposite the Arms, when out came the landlord followed by two
+men carrying the settle that stood on the right of the fireplace in the
+hall. So I said, 'Well, landlord, who has ordered that handsome piece?'
+For handsome it was with its carved arms. And he said, 'Good morning,
+ma'am no, good afternoon ma'am, it would be--It's for Miss--and then he
+stopped dead and corrected himself, 'It's for Mr Pillson.'"
+
+Mrs Weston rapidly took a great quantity of mouthfuls of partridge. As
+soon as possible she went on.
+
+"So perhaps you can tell me where it is now, if it was for Mr Georgie,"
+she said. "I was there only two days ago, and it wasn't in his hall, or
+in his dining room, or in his drawing room, for though there are
+changes there, that settle isn't one of them. It's his treasure case
+that's so altered. The snuff-box is gone, and the cigarette case and
+the piece of Bow china, and instead there's a rat-tail spoon which he
+used to have on his dinner-table, and made a great fuss with, and a bit
+of Worcester china that used to stand on the mantelpiece, and a
+different cigarette case, and a bead-bag. I don't know where that came
+from, but if he inherited it, he didn't inherit much that time, I
+priced it at five shillings. But there's no settle in the treasure-case
+or out of it, and if you want to know where that settle is, it's in Old
+Place, because I saw it there myself, when the door was open, as I
+passed. He bought it--Mr Georgie--on behalf of Miss Bracely, unless you
+suppose that Mr Georgie is going to live in Old Place one day and his
+own house the next. No; it's Miss Bracely who is going to live at 'Old
+Place' and that explains the landlord saying 'Miss' and then stopping.
+For some reason, and I daresay that won't puzzle me long, now I can
+give my mind to it, she's making a secret about it, and only Mr Georgie
+and the landlord of the Arms know. Of course he had to, for 'Old Place'
+is his, and I wish I had bought it myself now, for he got it for an old
+song."
+
+"Well, by Jove, you have pieced it together finely," said Colonel
+Boucher.
+
+"Wait a bit," said Mrs Weston, rising to her climax. "This very day,
+when Mary, that's my cook as you know, was coming back from Brinton
+with that bit of brill we've been eating, for they hadn't got an ounce
+of turbot, which I wanted, a luggage-train was standing at Riseholme
+station, and they had just taken out of it a case that could have held
+nothing but a grand piano. And if that's not enough for you, Colonel,
+there were two big dress-baskets as well, which I think must have
+contained linen, for they were corded, and it took two men to move each
+of them, so Mary said, and there's nothing so heavy as linen properly
+packed, unless it's plate, and there printed on them in black--no, it
+would be white, because the dress-baskets are black, were two initials,
+O.B. And if you can point to another O.B. in Riseholme I shall think
+I've lost my memory."
+
+At this moment of supreme climax, the telephone-bell rang in the hall,
+shrill through the noise of cracking walnuts, and in came Elizabeth
+with the news that Mr Georgie wanted to know if he might come in for
+half-an-hour and chat. If it had been Olga Bracely herself, she could
+hardly have been more welcome; virtue (the virtue of observation and
+inference) was receiving its immediate reward.
+
+"Delighted; say I'm delighted, Elizabeth," said Mrs Weston, "and now,
+Colonel, why should you sit all alone here, and I all alone in the
+drawing room? Bring your decanter and your glass with you, and you
+shall spare me half a glass for myself, and if you can't guess what one
+of the questions that I shall ask Mr Georgie is: well----"
+
+Georgie made haste to avail himself of this hospitality for he was
+bursting with the most important news that had been his since the night
+of the burglaries. Today he had received permission to let it be known
+that Olga was coming to Old Place, for Mr Shuttleworth had been
+informed of the purchase and furnishing of the house, and had, as
+expected, presented his wife with it, a really magnificent gift. So now
+Riseholme might know, too, and Georgie, as eager as Hermes, if not
+quite so swift, tripped across to Mrs Weston's, on his delightful
+errand. It was, too, of the nature of just such a punitive expedition
+as Georgie thoroughly enjoyed, for Lucia all this week had been rather
+haughty and cold with him for his firm refusal to tell her who the
+purchaser of Old Place was. He had admitted that he knew, but had said
+that he was under promise not to reveal that, until permitted and Lucia
+had been haughty in consequence. She had, in fact, been so haughty that
+when Georgie rang her up just now, before ringing Mrs Weston up, to ask
+if he might spend an hour after dinner there, fully intending to tell
+her the great news, she had replied through her parlour-maid that she
+was very busy at the piano. Very well, if she preferred the second and
+third movements of the Moonlight Sonata, which she had seriously taken
+in hand, to Georgie's company, why, he would offer himself and his
+great news elsewhere. But he determined not to bring it out at once;
+that sort of thing must be kept till he said it was time to go away.
+Then he would bring it out, and depart in the blaze of Success.
+
+He had brought a pretty piece of embroidery with him to occupy himself
+with, for his work had fallen into sad arrears during August, and he
+settled himself comfortably down close to the light, so that at the
+cost of very little eye-strain, he need not put on his spectacles.
+
+"Any news?" he asked, according to the invariable formula. Mrs Weston
+caught the Colonel's eye. She was not proposing to bring out her
+tremendous interrogation just yet.
+
+"Poor Mrs Antrobus. Toothache!" she said. "I was in the chemist's this
+morning and who should come in but Miss Piggy, and she wanted a drop of
+laudanum and had to say what it was for, and even then she had to sign
+a paper. Very unpleasant, I call it, to be obliged to let a chemist
+know that your mother has a toothache. But there it was, tell him she
+had to, or go away without any laudanum. I don't know whether Mr
+Doubleday wasn't asking more than he should, just out of
+inquisitiveness, for I don't see what business it is of his. I know
+what I should have said: 'Oh, Mr Doubleday, I want it to make laudanum
+tartlets, we are all so fond of laudanum tartlets.' Something sharp and
+sarcastic like that, to show him his place. But I expect it did Mrs
+Antrobus good, for there she was on the green in the afternoon, and her
+face wasn't swollen for I had a good look at her. Oh, and there was
+something I wanted to ask you, Mr Georgie, and I had it on the tip of
+my tongue a moment ago. We talked about it at dinner, the Colonel and
+I, while we were eating our bit of partridge, and I thought 'Mr Georgie
+will be sure to be able to tell us,' and if you didn't ring up on the
+telephone immediately afterwards! That seemed just Providential, but
+what's the use of that, if I can't remember what it was that I wanted
+to ask you."
+
+This seemed a good opening for his startling news, but Georgie rejected
+it, as it was too early yet. "I wonder what it could have been," he
+said.
+
+"Well, it will come back to me presently, and here's our coffee, and I
+see Elizabeth hasn't forgotten to bring a drop of something good for
+you two gentlemen. And I don't say that I won't join you, if Elizabeth
+will bring another glass. What with a glass of Burgundy at my dinner,
+and a drop of brandy now, I shall be quite tipsy unless I take care.
+The Guru now, Mr Georgie, no, that's not what I wanted to ask you
+about--but has there been any news of the Guru?"
+
+For a moment in this juxtaposition of the topics of brandy and Guru,
+Georgie was afraid that something might have leaked out about the
+contents of the cupboard in Othello. But it was evidently a chance
+combination, for Mrs Weston went straight on without waiting for an
+answer.
+
+"What a day that was," she said, "when he and Miss Olga Bracely were
+both at Mrs Lucas' garden-party. Ah, now I've got it; now I know what I
+wanted to ask. When will Miss Olga Bracely come to live at Old Place?
+Quite soon now, I suppose."
+
+If Georgie had not put down his embroidery with great expedition, he
+would undoubtedly have pricked his finger.
+
+"But how on earth did you know she was coming at all?" he said. "I was
+just going to tell you that she was coming, as a great bit of news. How
+tarsome! It's spoiled all my pleasure."
+
+"Haw, hum, not a very gallant speech, when you're talking to Mrs
+Weston," said the Colonel, who hated Georgie's embroidery.
+
+Luckily the pleasure in the punitive part of the expedition remained
+and Georgie recovered himself. He had some news too; he could answer
+Mrs Weston's question.
+
+"But it was to have been such a secret until the whole thing was
+ready," he said. "I knew all along; I have known since the day of the
+garden-party. No one but me, not even her husband."
+
+He was well rewarded for the recovery of his temper. Mrs Weston put
+down her glass of something good untasted.
+
+"What?" she said. "Is she going to live here alone in hiding from him?
+Have they quarrelled so soon?"
+
+Georgie had to disappoint her about this, and gave the authentic
+version.
+
+"And she's coming next week, Monday probably," he said.
+
+They were all now extremely happy, for Mrs Weston felt convinced that
+nobody else had put two and two together with the same brilliant result
+as herself, and Georgie was in the even superior position of having
+known the result without having to do any addition at all, and Colonel
+Boucher enjoyed the first fruits of it all. When they parted, having
+thoroughly discussed it, the chief preoccupation in the minds of all
+was the number of Riseholmites that each of them would be the first to
+pass on the news to, Mrs Weston could tell Elizabeth that night, and
+Colonel Boucher his bull-dogs, but the first blood was really drawn by
+Georgie, who seeing a light in Mrs Quantock's drawing room when he
+returned, dropped in for a moment and scored a right and left by
+telling Robert who let him in, before going upstairs, and Mrs Quantock
+when he got there. It was impossible to do any more that night.
+
+Lucia was always very busy of a morning in polishing the sword and
+shield of Art, in order to present herself daily to her subjects in
+shining armour, and keep a little ahead of them all in culture, and
+thus did not as a rule take part in the parliament on the Green.
+Moreover Georgie usually dropped in before lunch, and her casual
+interrogation "Any news?" as they sat down to the piano, elicited from
+him, as in a neat little jug, the cream of the morning's milkings.
+Today she was attired in her Teacher's Robe, for the elementary class,
+though not always now in full conclave, gathered at her house on
+Tuesdays and Fridays. There had been signs of late that the interest of
+her pupils was on the wane, for Colonel Boucher had not appeared for
+two meetings, nor had Mrs Weston come to the last, but it was part of
+Lucia's policy to let Guruism die a natural death without herself
+facilitating its happy release, and she meant to be ready for her class
+at the appointed times as long as anybody turned up. Besides the
+Teacher's Robe was singularly becoming and she often wore it when there
+was no question of teaching at all.
+
+But today, though she would not have been surprised at the complete
+absence of pupils, she was still in consultation with her cook over the
+commissariat of the day, when a succession of tinklings from the
+mermaid's tail, announced that a full meeting was assembling. Her maid
+in fact had announced to her without pause except to go to the door and
+back, though it still wanted a few minutes to eleven, that Colonel
+Boucher, Mrs Weston, Mrs Antrobus and Piggy were all assembled in the
+smoking-parlour. Even as she passed through the hall on her way 'there,
+Georgie came hurrying across Shakespeare's garden, his figure distorted
+through the wavy glass of the windows, and she opened the door to him
+herself.
+
+"_Georgino mio_," she said, "oo not angry with Lucia for saying
+she was busy last night? And now I'm just going to take my Yoga-class.
+They all came rather early and I haven't seen any of them yet. Any
+news?"
+
+Georgie heaved a sigh; all Riseholme knew by this time, and he was
+going to score one more by telling Lucia.
+
+"My dear, haven't you heard yet?" he asked. "I was going to tell you
+last night."
+
+"The tenant of Old Place?" asked Lucia unerringly.
+
+"Yes. Guess!" said Georgie tantalizingly. This was his last revelation
+and he wanted to spin it out.
+
+Lucia decided on a great stroke, involving risks but magnificent if it
+came off. In a flash she guessed why all the Yoga-class had come so
+super-punctually; each of them she felt convinced wanted to have the
+joy of telling her, after everybody else knew, who the new tenant was.
+On the top of this bitterness was the added acrimony of Georgie, whose
+clear duty it was to have informed her the moment he knew, wanting to
+make the same revelation to her, last of all Riseholme. She had already
+had her suspicions, for she had not forgotten the fact that Olga
+Bracely and Georgie had played croquet all afternoon when they should
+have been at her garden-party, and she determined to risk all for the
+sake of spoiling Georgie's pleasure in telling her. She gave her
+silvery laugh, that started, so she had ascertained, on A flat above
+the treble clef.
+
+"_Georgino_, did all my questions as to who it was really take you
+in?" she asked. "Just as if I hadn't known all along! Why, Miss Olga
+Bracely, of course!"
+
+Georgie's fallen face shewed her how completely she had spoiled his
+pleasure.
+
+"Who told you?" he asked.
+
+She rattled her tassels.
+
+"Little bird!" she said. "I must run away to my class, or they will
+scold me."
+
+Once again before they settled down to high philosophies, Lucia had the
+pleasure of disappointing the ambitions of her class to surprise,
+inform and astonish her.
+
+"Good morning to you all," she said, "and before we settle down I'll
+give you a little bit of news now that at last I'm allowed to. Dear
+Miss Olga Bracely, whom I think you all met here, is coming to live at
+Old Place. Will she not be a great addition to our musical parties?
+Now, please."
+
+But this splendid bravado was but a scintillation, on a hard and highly
+polished surface, and had Georgie been able to penetrate into Lucia's
+heart he would have found complete healing for his recent severe
+mortification. He did not really believe that Lucia had known all
+along, like himself, who the new tenant was, for her enquiries had
+seemed to be pointed with the most piercing curiosity, but, after all,
+Lucia (when she did not forget her part) was a fine actress, and
+perhaps all the time he thought he had been punishing her, she had been
+fooling him. And, in any ease, he certainly had not had the joy of
+telling her; whether she had guessed or really knew, it was she who had
+told him, and there was no getting over it. He went back straight home
+and drew a caricature of her.
+
+But if Georgie was sitting with a clouded brow, Lucia was troubled by
+nothing less than a raging tornado of agitated thought. Though Olga
+would undoubtedly be a great addition to the musical talent of
+Riseholme, would she fall into line, and, for instance, "bring her
+music" and sing after dinner when Lucia asked her? As regards music, it
+was possible that she might be almost too great an addition, and cause
+the rest of the gifted amateurs to sink into comparative
+insignificance. At present Lucia was high-priestess at every altar of
+Art, and she could not think with equanimity of seeing anybody in
+charge of the ritual at any. Again to so eminent an opera-singer there
+must be conceded a certain dramatic knowledge, and indeed Georgie had
+often spoken to Lucia of that superb moment when Brunnhilde woke and
+hailed the sun. Must Lucia give up the direction of dramatic art as
+well as of music?
+
+Point by point pricked themselves out of the general gloom, and hoisted
+danger signals; then suddenly the whole was in blaze together. What if
+Olga took the lead, not in this particular or in that, but attempted to
+constitute herself supreme in the affairs of Riseholme? It was all very
+well for her to be a brilliant bird of passage just for a couple of
+days, and drop so to speak, "a moulted feather, a eagle's feather" on
+Lucia's party, thereby causing it to shine out from all previous
+festivities, making it the Hightumest affair that had ever happened,
+but it was a totally different matter to contemplate her permanent
+residence here. It seemed possible that then she might keep her
+feathers to line her own eyrie. She thought of Belshazzar's feast, and
+the writing of doom on the wall which she was Daniel enough to
+interpret herself, "Thy kingdom is divided" it said, "and given to the
+Bracelys or the Shuttleworths."
+
+She rallied her forces. If Olga meant to show herself that sort of
+woman, she should soon know with whom she had to deal. Not but what
+Lucia would give her the chance first of behaving with suitable loyalty
+and obedience; she would even condescend to cooperate with her so long
+as it was perfectly clear that she aimed at no supremacy. But there was
+only one lawgiver in Riseholme, one court of appeal, one dispenser of
+destiny.
+
+Her own firmness of soul calmed and invigorated her, and changing her
+Teacher's Robe for a walking dress, she went out up the road that led
+by Old Place, to see what could be observed of the interior from
+outside.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter TEN
+
+
+One morning about the middle of October, Lucia was seated at breakfast
+and frowning over a note she had just received. It began without any
+formality and was written in pencil.
+
+  "Do look in about half-past nine on Saturday and be
+  silly for an hour or two. We'll play games and
+  dance, shall we? Bring your husband of course, and
+  don't bother to reply.
+
+                                  "O.B."
+
+"An invitation," she said icily, as she passed it to her husband.
+"Rather short notice."
+
+"We're not doing anything, are we?" he asked.
+
+Peppino was a little imperceptive sometimes.
+
+"No, it wasn't that I meant," she said. "But there's a little more
+informality about it than one would expect."
+
+"Probably it's an informal party," said he.
+
+"It certainly seems most informal. I am not accustomed to be asked
+quite like that."
+
+Peppino began to be aware of the true nature of the situation.
+
+"I see what you mean, _cara_," he said. "So don't let us go. Then
+she will take the hint perhaps."
+
+Lucia thought this over for a moment and found that she rather wanted
+to go. But a certain resentment that had been slowly accumulating in
+her mind for some days past began to leak out first, before she
+consented to overlook Olga's informality.
+
+"It is a fortnight since I called on her," she said, "and she has not
+even returned the call. I daresay they behave like that in London in
+certain circles, but I don't know that London is any better for it."
+
+"She has been away twice since she came," said Peppino. "She has hardly
+been here for a couple of days together yet."
+
+"I may be wrong," said Lucia. "No doubt I am wrong. But I should have
+thought that she might have spared half-an-hour out of these days by
+returning my call. However, she thought not."
+
+Peppino suddenly recollected a thrilling piece of news which most
+unaccountably he had forgotten to tell Lucia.
+
+"Dear me, something slipped my memory," he said. "I met Mrs Weston
+yesterday afternoon, who told me that half an hour ago Miss Bracely had
+seen her in her bath-chair and had taken the handles from Tommy Luton,
+and pushed her twice round the green, positively running."
+
+"That does not seem to me of very prime importance," said Lucia, though
+she was thrilled to the marrow. "I do not wonder it slipped your
+memory, _caro_."
+
+"_Carissima_, wait a minute. That is not all. She told Mrs Weston
+that she would have returned her call, but that she hadn't got any
+calling cards."
+
+"Impossible!" cried Lucia. "They could have printed them at 'Ye olde
+Booke Shop' in an afternoon."
+
+"That may be so, indeed, if you say so, it is," said Peppino. "Anyhow
+she said she hadn't got any calling cards, and I don't see why she
+should lie about it."
+
+"No, it is not the confession one would be likely to make," said she,
+"unless it was true. Or even if it was," she added.
+
+"Anyhow it explains why she has not been here," said Peppino. "She
+would naturally like to do everything in order, when she called on you,
+_carissima_. It would have been embarrassing if you were out, and
+she could not hand in her card."
+
+"And about Mr Shuttleworth?" asked she in an absent voice, as if she
+had no real interest in her question.
+
+"He has not been seen yet at all, as far as I can gather."
+
+"Then shall we have no host, if we drop in tomorrow night?"
+
+"Let us go and see, _cara_," said he gaily.
+
+Apart from this matter of her call not being returned, Lucia had not as
+yet had any reason to suspect Olga of revolutionary designs on the
+throne. She had done odd things, pushing Mrs Weston's chair round the
+green was one of them, smoking a cigarette as she came back from church
+on Sunday was another, but these she set down to the Bohemianism and
+want of polish which might be expected from her upbringing, if you
+could call an orphan school at Brixton an upbringing at all. This
+terrific fact Georgie had let slip in his stern determination to know
+twice as much about Olga as anybody else, and Lucia had treasured it.
+She had in the last fortnight labelled Olga as "rather common,"
+retaining, however, a certain respect for her professional career,
+given that that professional career was to be thrown down as a carpet
+for her own feet. But, after all, if Olga was a bit Bohemian in her way
+of life, as exhibited by the absence of calling cards, Lucia was
+perfectly ready to overlook that (confident in the refining influence
+of Riseholme), and to go to the informal party next day, if she felt so
+disposed, for no direct answer was asked for.
+
+There was a considerable illumination in the windows of Old Place when
+she and Peppino set out after dinner next night to go to the "silly"
+party, kindly overlooking the informality and the absence of a return
+visit to her call. It had been a sloppy day of rain, and, as was
+natural, Lucia carried some very smart indoor shoes in a paper-parcel
+and Peppino had his Russian goloshes on. These were immense snow-boots,
+in which his evening shoes were completely encased, but Lucia preferred
+not to disfigure her feet to that extent, and was clad in neat
+walking-boots which she could exchange for her smart satin footwear
+in the cloak-room. The resumption of walking-boots when the evening
+was over was rather a feature among the ladies and was called "The
+cobbler's at-home." The two started rather late, for it was fitting
+that Lucia should be the last to arrive.
+
+They had come to the door of the Old Place, and Peppino was fumbling
+in the dark for the bell, when Lucia gave a little cry of agony and
+put her hands over her ears, just as if she had been seized with a
+double-earache of peculiar intensity.
+
+"Gramophone," she said faintly.
+
+There could be no doubt about that. From the window close at hand came
+out the excruciating strains of a very lusty instrument, and the record
+was that of a vulgar "catchy" waltz-tune, taken down from a brass-band.
+All Riseholme knew what her opinion about gramophones was; to the lover
+of Beethoven they were like indecent and profane language loudly used
+in a public place. Only one, so far as was known, had ever come to
+Riseholme, and that was introduced by the misguided Robert Quantock.
+Once he had turned it on in her presence, but the look of agony which
+crossed her face was such that he had to stop it immediately. Then the
+door was opened, and the abominable noise poured out in increased
+volume.
+
+Lucia paused for a moment in indecision. Would it be the great, the
+magnificent thing to go home without coming in, trusting to Peppino to
+let it be widely known what had turned her back from the door? There
+was a good deal to be said for that, for it would be living up to her
+own high and immutable standards. On the other hand she particularly
+wanted to see what standard of entertaining Olga was initiating. The
+"silly evening" was quite a new type of party, for since she had
+directed and controlled the social side of things there had been no
+"silly evenings" of any kind in Riseholme, and it might be a good thing
+to ensure the failure of this (in case she did not like it) by setting
+the example of a bored and frosty face. But if she went in, the
+gramophone must be stopped. She would sit and wince, and Peppino must
+explain her feeling about gramophones. That would be a suitable
+exhibition of authority. Or she might tell Olga.
+
+Lucia put on her satin shoes, leaving her boots till the hour of the
+cobbler's at-home came, and composing her face to a suitable wince was
+led by a footman on tiptoe to the door of the big music room which
+Georgie had spoken of.
+
+"If you'll please to step in very quietly, ma'am," he said.
+
+The room was full of people; all Riseholme was there, and since there
+were not nearly enough chairs (Lucia saw _that_ at once) a large
+number were sitting on the floor on cushions. At the far end of the
+room was a slightly-raised dais, to the corner of which the grand piano
+had been pushed, on the top of which, with its braying trumpet pointing
+straight at Lucia was an immense gramophone. On the dais was Olga
+dancing. She was dressed in some white soft fabric shimmering with
+silver, which left her beautiful arms bare to the shoulder. It was cut
+squarely and simply about the neck, and hung in straight folds down to
+just above her ankles. She held in her hands some long shimmering scarf
+of brilliant red, that floated and undulated as she moved, as if
+inspired by some life of its own that it drew out of her slim superb
+vitality. From the cloud of shifting crimson, with the slow billows of
+silver moving rhythmically round her body, that beautiful face looked
+out deliciously smiling and brimming with life....
+
+Lucia had hardly entered when with a final bray the gramophone came to
+the end of its record, and Olga swept a great curtsey, threw down her
+scarf, and stepped off the dais. Georgie was sitting on the floor close
+to it, and jumped up, leading the applause. For a moment, though
+several heads had been turned at Lucia's entrance, nobody took the
+slightest notice of her, indeed, the first apparently to recognize her
+presence was her hostess, who just kissed her hand to her, and then
+continued talking to Georgie. Then Olga threaded her way through the
+besprinkled floor, and came up to her.
+
+"How wise you were to miss that very poor performance," she said. "But
+Mr Georgie insisted that I should make a fool of myself."
+
+"Indeed, I am sorry not to have been here for it," said Lucia in her
+most stately manner. "It seemed to me very far from being a poor
+performance, very far indeed. _Caro mio_, you remember Miss
+Bracely."
+
+"_Si, si molto bene_," said Peppino, shaking hands.
+
+"Ah, and you talk Italian," said Olga. "_Che bella lingua!_ I wish
+I knew it."
+
+"You have a very good pronunciation," said Lucia.
+
+"_Tante grazie_. You know everyone here of course. Now, what shall
+we do next? Clumps or charades or what? Ah, there are some cigarettes.
+Won't you have one?"
+
+Lucia gave a little scream of dismay.
+
+"A cigarette for me? That would be a very odd thing," she said. Then
+relenting, as she remembered that Olga must be excused for her
+ignorance, she added: "You see I never smoke. Never."
+
+"Oh, you should learn," said Olga. "Now let's play clumps. Does
+everyone know clumps? If they don't they will find out. Or shall we
+dance? There's the gramophone to dance to."
+
+Lucia put up her hands in playful petition.
+
+"Oh please, no gramophone!" she said.
+
+"Oh, don't you like it?" said Olga. "It's so horrible that I adore it,
+as I adore dreadful creatures in an aquarium. But I think we won't
+dance till after supper. We'll have supper extremely soon, partly
+because I am dying of famine, and partly because people are sillier
+afterwards. But just one game of clumps first. Let's see; there are but
+enough for four clumps. Please make four clumps everybody, and--and
+will you and two more go out with Mr Georgie, Mrs Lucas? We will be as
+quick as we can, and we won't think of anything that will make Mr
+Georgie blush. Oh, there he is! He heard!"
+
+Olga's intense enjoyment of her own party was rapidly galvanizing
+everybody into a much keener gaiety than was at all usual in Riseholme,
+where as a rule, the hostess was somewhat anxious and watchful, fearing
+that her guests were not amusing themselves, and that the sandwiches
+would give out. There was a sit-down supper when the clumps were over
+(Mrs Quantock had been the first to guess Beethoven's little toe on his
+right foot, which made Lucia wince) and there were not enough men and
+maids to wait, and so people foraged for themselves, and Olga paraded
+up and down the room with a bottle of champagne in one hand, and a dish
+of lobster-salad in the other. She sat for a minute or two first at one
+table and then at another, and asked silly riddles, and sent to the
+kitchen for a ham, and put out all the electric light by mistake, when
+she meant to turn on some more. Then when supper was over they all took
+their seats back into the music-room and played musical chairs, at the
+end of which Mrs Quantock was left in with Olga, and it was believed
+that she said "Damn," when Mrs Quantock won. Georgie was in charge of
+the gramophone which supplied deadly music, quite forgetting that this
+was agony to Lucia, and not even being aware when she made a sign to
+Peppino, and went away having a cobbler's at-home all to herself.
+Nobody noticed when Saturday ended and Sunday began, for Georgie and
+Colonel Boucher were cock-fighting on the floor, Georgie screaming out
+"How tarsome" when he was upset, and Colonel Boucher very red in the
+face saying "Haw, hum. Never thought I should romp again like this. By
+Jove, most amusing!" Georgie was the last to leave and did not notice
+till he was half-way home that he had a ham-frill adorning his shirt
+front. He hoped that it had been Olga who put it there, when he had to
+walk blind-fold across the floor and try to keep in a straight line.
+
+Riseholme got up rather late next morning, and had to hurry over its
+breakfast in order to be in time for church. There was a slight feeling
+of reaction abroad, and a sense of having been young and amused, and of
+waking now to the fact of church-bells and middle-age. Colonel Boucher
+singing the bass of "A few more years shall roll," felt his mind
+instinctively wandering to the cock-fight the evening before, and
+depressedly recollecting that a considerable number of years had rolled
+already. Mrs Weston, with her bath-chair in the aisle and Tommy Luton
+to hand her hymn-book and prayer-book as she required, looked sideways
+at Mrs Quantock, and thought how strange it was that Daisy, so few
+hours ago, had been racing round a solitary chair with Georgie's finger
+on the gramophone, while Georgie, singing tenor by Colonel Boucher's
+ample side, saw with keen annoyance that there was a stain of tarnished
+silver on his forefinger, accounted for by the fact that after
+breakfast he had been cleaning the frame which held the photograph of
+Olga Bracely and had been astonished to hear the church-bells
+beginning. Another conducement to depression on his part was the fact
+that he was lunching with Lucia, and he could not imagine what Lucia's
+attitude would be towards the party last night. She had come to church
+rather late, having no use for the General Confession, and sang with
+stony fervour. She wore her usual church-face, from which nothing
+whatever could be gathered. A great many stealthy glances right and
+left from everybody failed to reveal the presence of their hostess of
+last night. Georgie, in particular, was sorry for this; he would have
+liked her to show that capacity for respectable seriousness which her
+presence at church that morning would have implied; while Lucia, in
+particular, was glad of this, for it confirmed her view that Miss
+Bracely was not, nor could ever be, a true Riseholmite. She had thought
+as much last night, and had said so to Peppino. She proposed to say the
+same to Georgie today.
+
+Then came a stupefying surprise as Mr Rumbold walked from his stall to
+the pulpit for the sermon. Generally he gave out the number of the
+short anthem which accompanied this manoeuvre, but today he made no
+such announcement. A discreet curtain hid the organist from the
+congregation, and veiled his gymnastics with the stops and his antic
+dancing on the pedals, and now when Mr Rumbold moved from his stall,
+there came from the organ the short introduction to Bach's "Mein
+Glaubige Herz," which even Lucia had allowed to be nearly "equal" to
+Beethoven. And then came the voice....
+
+The reaction after the romp last night went out like a snuffed candle
+at this divine singing, which was charged with the joyfulness of some
+heavenly child. It grew low and soft, it rang out again, it lingered
+and tarried, it quickened into the ultimate triumph. No singing could
+have been simpler, but that simplicity could only have sprung from the
+highest art. But now the art was wholly unconscious; it was part of the
+singer who but praised God as the thrushes do. She who had made gaiety
+last night, made worship this morning.
+
+As they sat down for the discourse, Colonel Boucher discreetly
+whispered to Georgie "By Jove." And Georgie rather more audibly
+answered "Adorable." Mrs Weston drew a half-a-crown from her purse
+instead of her usual shilling, to be ready for the offertory, and Mrs
+Quantock wondered if she was too old to learn to sing.
+
+Georgie found Lucia very full of talk that day at luncheon, and was
+markedly more Italian than usual. Indeed she put down an Italian
+grammar when he entered the drawing-room, and covered it up with the
+essays of Antonio Caporelli. This possibly had some connection with the
+fact that she had encouraged Olga last night with regard to her
+pronunciation.
+
+"_Ben arrivato, Georgio_," she said. "_Ho finito il libro di
+Antonio Caporelli quanta memento. E magnifico!_"
+
+Georgie thought she had finished it long ago, but perhaps he was
+mistaken. The sentence flew off Lucia's tongue as if it was perched
+there all quite ready.
+
+"_Sono un poco fatigata dopo il_--dear me how rusty I am getting
+in Italian for I can't remember the word," she went on. "Anyhow I am a
+little tired after last night. A delightful little party, was it not?
+It was clever of Miss Bracely to get so many people together at so
+short a notice. Once in a while that sort of romp is very well."
+
+"I enjoyed it quite enormously," said Georgie.
+
+"I saw you did, _cattivo ragazzo_," said she. "You quite forgot
+about your poor Lucia and her horror of that dreadful gramophone. I had
+to exert all the calmness that Yoga has given me not to scream. But you
+were naughty with the gramophone over those musical chairs--unmusical
+chairs, as I said to Peppino, didn't I, _caro_?--taking it off and
+putting it on again so suddenly. Each time I thought it was the end.
+_E pronta la colazione. Andiamo_."
+
+Presently they were seated; the menu, an unusual thing in itself at
+luncheon, was written in Italian, the scribe being clearly Lucia.
+
+"I shall want a lot of Georgino's _tempo_ this week," she said,
+"for Peppino and I have quite settled we must give a little after
+dinner party next Saturday, and I want you to help me to arrange some
+impromptu tableaux. Everything impromptu must just be sketched out
+first, and I daresay Miss Bracely worked a great deal at her dance last
+night and I wish I had seen more of it. She was a little awkward in the
+management of her draperies I thought, but I daresay she does not know
+much about dancing. Still it was very graceful and effective for an
+amateur, and she carried it off very well."
+
+"Oh, but she is not quite an amateur," said Georgie. "She has played in
+Salome."
+
+Lucia pursed her lips.
+
+"Indeed, I am sorry she played in that," she said. "With her
+undoubtedly great gifts I should have thought she might have found a
+worthier object. Naturally I have not heard it. I should be very much
+ashamed to be seen there. But about our tableaux now. Peppino thought
+we might open with the Execution of Mary Queen of Scots. It is a
+dreadful thing that I have lost my pearls. He would be the executioner
+and you the priest. Then I should like to have the awakening of
+Brunnhilde."
+
+"That would be lovely," said Georgie. "Have you asked Miss Olga if she
+will?"
+
+"_Georgino mio_, you don't quite understand," said Lucia. "This
+party is to be for Miss Bracely. I was her guest last night in spite of
+the gramophone, and indeed I hope she will find nothing in my house
+that jars on her as much as her gramophone jarred on me. I had a
+dreadful nightmare last night--didn't I, Peppino?--in consequence.
+About the Brunnhilde tableaux, I thought Peppino would be Siegfried--and
+perhaps you could learn just fifteen or twenty bars of the music and
+play it while the curtain was up. You can play the same over again
+if it is encored. Then how about King Cophetua and the beggar-maid. I
+should be with my back to the audience, and should not turn round at
+all; it would be quite your tableaux. We will just sketch them out, as
+I said, and have a grouping or two to make sure we don't get in each
+other's way, and I will see that there are some dresses of some kind
+which we can just throw on. The tableaux with a little music, serious
+music, would be quite sufficient to keep everybody interested."
+
+By this time Georgie had got a tolerable inkling of the import of all
+this. It was not at present to be war; it was to be magnificent
+rivalry, a throwing down perhaps of a gauntlet, which none would
+venture to pick up. To confirm this view, Lucia went on with gathering
+animation.
+
+"I do not propose to have games, romps shall I call them?" she said,
+"for as far as I know Riseholme, and perhaps I know it a little better
+than dear Miss Bracely, Riseholme does not care for that sort of thing.
+It is not quite in our line; we may be right or wrong, I am sure I do
+not know, but as a matter of fact, we _don't_ care for that sort
+of thing. Dear Miss Bracely did her very best last night; I am sure she
+was prompted only by the most hospitable motives, but how should she
+know? The supper too. Peppino counted nineteen empty champagne
+bottles."
+
+"Eighteen, _carissima_," said Peppino.
+
+"I think you told me nineteen, _caro_, but it makes very little
+difference. Eighteen empty champagne bottles standing on the sideboard,
+and no end to the caviare sandwiches which were left over. It was all
+too much, though there were not nearly enough chairs, and indeed I
+never got one at all except just at supper."
+
+Lucia leaned forward over the table, with her hands clasped.
+
+"There was display about it, _Georgino_, and you know how I hate
+display," she said. "Shakespeare was content with the most modest
+scenery for his masterpieces, and it would be a great mistake if we
+allowed ourselves to be carried away by mere wasteful opulence. In all
+the years I have lived here, and contributed in my humble way to the
+life of the place, I have heard no complaints about my suppers or teas,
+nor about the quality of entertainment which I offer my guests when
+they are so good as to say '_Si_,' to _le mie invitazione_.
+Art is not advanced by romping, and we are able to enjoy ourselves
+without two hundred caviare sandwiches being left over. And such
+wasteful cutting of the ham; I had to slice the chunk she gave me over
+and over again before I could eat it."
+
+Georgie felt he could not quite let this pass.
+
+"Well, I had an excellent supper," he said, "and I enjoyed it very
+much. Besides, I saw Peppino tucking in like anything. Ask him what he
+thought of it."
+
+Lucia gave her silvery laugh.
+
+"_Georgino_, you are a boy," she said artfully, "and 'tuck in' as
+you so vulgarly call it without thinking, I'm saying nothing against
+the supper, but I'm sure that Peppino and Colonel Boucher would have
+felt better this morning if they had been wiser last night. But that's
+not the real point. I want to show Miss Bracely, and I'm sure she will
+be grateful for it, the sort of entertainment that has contented us at
+Riseholme for so long. I will frame it on her lines; I will ask all and
+sundry to drop in with just a few hours' notice, as she did. Everything
+shall be good, and there shall be about it all something that I seemed
+to miss last night. There was a little bit--how shall I say it?--a
+little bit of the footlights about it all. And the footlights didn't
+seem to me to have been extinguished at church-time this morning. The
+singing of that very fine aria was theatrical, I can't call it less
+than theatrical."
+
+She fixed Georgie with her black beady eye, and smoothed her undulated
+hair.
+
+"Theatrical," she said again. "Now let us have our coffee in the
+music-room. Shall Lucia play a little bit of Beethoven to take out
+any nasty taste of gramophone? Me no likey gramophone at all. Nebber!"
+
+Georgie now began to feel himself able to sympathise with that
+surfeited swain who thought how happy he could be with either, were
+t'other dear charmer away. Certainly he had been very happy with Lucia
+all these years, before t'other dear charmer alighted in Riseholme, and
+now he felt that should Lucia decide, as she had often so nearly
+decided, to spend the winter on the Riviera, Riseholme would still be a
+very pleasant place of residence. He never was quite sure how seriously
+she had contemplated a winter on the Riviera, for the mere mention of
+it had always been enough to make him protest that Riseholme could not
+possibly exist without her, but today, as he sat and heard (rather than
+listened to) a series of slow movements, with a brief and hazardous
+attempt at the scherzo of the "Moonlight," he felt that if any talk of
+the Riviera came up, he would not be quite so insistent as to the
+impossibility of Riseholme continuing to exist without her. He could,
+for instance, have existed perfectly well this Sunday afternoon if
+Lucia had been even at Timbuctoo or the Antipodes, for as he went away
+last night, Olga had thrown a casual intimation to him that she would
+be at home, if he had nothing better to do, and cared to drop in.
+Certainly he had nothing better to do but he had something worse to
+do....
+
+Peppino was sitting in the window-seat, with eyes closed, because he
+listened to music better so, and with head that nodded occasionally,
+presumably for the same reason. But the cessation of the slow movement
+naturally made him cease to listen, and he stirred and gave the sigh
+with which Riseholme always acknowledged the end of a slow movement.
+Georgie sighed too, and Lucia sighed; they all sighed, and then Lucia
+began again. So Peppino closed his eyes again, and Georgie continued
+his mental analysis of the situation.
+
+At present, so he concluded, Lucia did not mean war. She meant, as by
+some great armed demonstration, to exhibit the Riseholme spirit in its
+full panoply, and then crush into dazzled submission any potential
+rivalry. She meant also to exert an educational influence, for she
+allowed that Olga had great gifts, and she meant to train and refine
+those gifts so that they might, when exercised under benign but
+autocratic supervision, conduce to the strength and splendour of
+Riseholme. Naturally she must be loyally and ably assisted, and Georgie
+realized that the tableau of King Cophetua (his tableau as she had
+said) partook of the nature of a bribe, and, if that word was
+invidious, of a raising of his pay. It was equally certain that this
+prolonged recital of slow movements was intended to produce in his mind
+a vivid consciousness of the contrast between the romp last night and
+the present tranquil hour, and it did not fail in this respect.
+
+Lucia shut the piano-lid, and almost before they had given their sighs,
+spoke.
+
+"I think I will have a little dinner-party first," she said. "I will
+ask Lady Ambermere. That will make us four, with you Georgie, and Miss
+Bracely and Mr Shuttleworth will make six. The rest I shall ask to come
+in at nine, for I know Lady Ambermere does not like late hours. And now
+shall we talk over our tableaux?"
+
+So even Lucia's mind had not been wholly absorbed in Beethoven, though
+Georgie, as usual, told her she had never played so divinely.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter ELEVEN
+
+
+The manoeuvres of the next week became so bewilderingly complicated
+that by Wednesday Georgie was almost thinking of going away to the
+seaside with Foljambe and Dicky in sheer despair, and in after years he
+could not without great mental effort succeed in straightening it all
+out, and the effort caused quite a buzzing in his head.... That Sunday
+evening Lucia sent an invitation to Lady Ambermere for "dinner and
+tableaux," to which Lady Ambermere's "people" replied by telephone on
+Monday afternoon that her ladyship was sorry to be unable. Lucia
+therefore gave up the idea of a dinner-party, and reverted to her
+original scheme of an evening party like Olga's got up on the spur of
+the moment, with great care and most anxious preparation. The
+rehearsals for the impromptu tableaux meantime went steadily forward
+behind closed doors, and Georgie wrestled with twenty bars of the music
+of the "Awakening of Brunnhilde." Lucia intended to ask nobody until
+Friday evening, and Olga should see what sort of party Riseholme could
+raise at a moment's notice.
+
+Early on Tuesday morning the devil entered into Daisy Quantock,
+probably by means of subconscious telepathy, and she proceeded to go
+round the green at the morning parliament, and ask everybody to come in
+for a good romp on Saturday evening, and they all accepted. Georgie,
+Lucia and Olga were absentees, and so, making a house-to-house
+visitation she went first to Georgie. He with secret knowledge of the
+tableaux (indeed he was stitching himself a robe to be worn by King
+Cophetua at the time and hastily bundling it under the table) regretted
+that he was already engaged. This was rather mysterious, but he might
+have planned, for all Mrs Quantock knew, an evening when he would be
+"busy indoors," and since those evenings were never to be pried upon,
+she asked no questions, but went off to Lucia's to give her invitation
+there. There again she was met with a similarly mysterious refusal.
+Lucia much regretted that she and Peppino were unable to come, and she
+hoped Daisy would have a lovely party. Even as she spoke, she heard her
+telephone bell ringing, and hurried off to find that Georgie, faithful
+lieutenant, was acquainting her with the fact that Mrs Quantock was
+planning a party for Saturday; he did not know how far she had got. At
+that moment she had got just half-way to Old Place, walking at unusual
+speed. Lucia grasped the situation with amazing quickness, and cutting
+off Georgie with a snap, she abandoned all idea of her party being
+impromptu, and rang up Olga. She would secure her anyhow....
+
+The telephone was in the hall, and Olga, with her hat on, was just
+preparing to go out, when the bell sounded. The words of grateful
+acceptance were on her very lips when her front-door bell rang too,
+very long and insistently and had hardly left off when it began again.
+Olga opened the door herself and there was Mrs Quantock on the doorstep
+with her invitation for Saturday night. She was obliged to refuse, but
+promised to look in, if she was not very late in getting away from Mrs
+Lucas's (and pop went the cat out of the bag). Another romp would be
+lovely.
+
+Already the evils of decentralisation and overlapping were becoming
+manifest. Lucia rang up house after house, only to find that its
+inhabitants were already engaged. She had got Olga and Georgie, and
+could begin the good work of education and the crushing of rivalry, not
+by force but by pure and refined example, but Mrs Quantock had got
+everybody else. In the old days this could never have happened for
+everything devolved round one central body. Now with the appearance of
+this other great star, all the known laws of gravity and attraction
+were upset.
+
+Georgie, again summoned to the telephone, recommended an appeal to Mrs
+Quantock's better nature, which Lucia rejected, doubting whether she
+had one.
+
+"But what about the tableaux?" asked Georgie. "We three can't very well
+do tableaux for Miss Olga to look at."
+
+Then Lucia showed herself truly great.
+
+"The merit of the tableaux does not consist in the number of the
+audience," she said.
+
+She paused a moment.
+
+"Have you got the Cophetua-robe to set properly?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, it'll do," said Georgie dejectedly.
+
+On Tuesday afternoon Olga rang up Lucia again to say that her husband
+was arriving that day, so might she bring him on Saturday? To this
+Lucia cordially assented, but she felt that a husband and wife sitting
+together and looking at another husband and wife doing tableaux would
+be an unusual entertainment, and not characteristic of Riseholme's
+best. She began to waver about the tableaux and to consider dinner
+instead. She also wondered whether she had been wronging dear Daisy,
+and whether she had a better nature after all. Perhaps Georgie might
+ascertain.
+
+Georgie was roused from a little fatigued nap by the telephone, for he
+had fallen asleep over King Cophetua's robe. Lucia explained the
+situation and delicately suggested that it would be so easy for him to
+"pop in" to dear Daisy's, and be very diplomatic. There was nobody like
+Georgie for tact. So with a heavy yawn he popped in.
+
+"You've come about this business on Saturday," said Daisy unerringly.
+"Haven't you?"
+
+Georgie remembered his character for tact.
+
+"How wonderful of you to guess that!" he said. "I thought we might see
+if we couldn't arrange something, if we put our heads together. It's
+such a pity to split up. We--I mean Lucia has got Miss Olga and her
+husband coming, and----"
+
+"And I've got everybody else," said Daisy brightly. "And Miss Bracely
+is coming over here, if she gets away early. Probably with such a small
+party she will."
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't count on that," said he. "We are having some tableaux,
+and they always take longer than you think. Dear me, I shouldn't have
+said that, as they were to be impromptu, but I really believe my head
+is going. You know how thorough Lucia is; she is taking a great deal of
+trouble about them."
+
+"I hadn't heard about that," said Mrs Quantock.
+
+She thought a moment.
+
+"Well; I don't want to spoil Lucia's evening," she said, "for I'm sure
+nothing could be so ridiculous as three people doing tableaux for two
+others. And on the other hand, I don't want her to spoil mine, for
+what's to prevent her going on with the tableaux till church-time next
+morning if she wishes to keep Miss Bracely away from my house? I'm sure
+after the way she behaved about my Guru---- Well, never mind that. How
+would it be if we had the tableaux first at Lucia's, and then came on
+here? If Lucia cares to suggest that to me, and my guests consent, I
+don't mind doing that."
+
+By six o'clock on Tuesday evening therefore all the telephone bells of
+Riseholme were merrily ringing again. Mrs Quantock stipulated that
+Lucia's party should end at 10.45 precisely, if it didn't end before,
+and that everyone should then be free to flock across to her house. She
+proposed a romp that should even outshine Olga's, and was deep in the
+study of a manual of "Round Games," which included "Hunt the
+Slipper."...
+
+Georgie and Peppino took turns at the telephone, ringing up all Mrs
+Quantock's guests, and informing them of the double pleasure which
+awaited them on Saturday. Since Georgie had let out the secret of the
+impromptu tableaux to Mrs Quantock there was no reason why the rest of
+Riseholme should not learn of this firsthand from The Hurst, instead of
+second-hand (with promises not to repeat it) from Mrs Quantock. It
+appeared that she had a better nature than Lucia credited her with,
+but to expect her not to tell everybody about the tableaux would be
+putting virtue to an unfair test.
+
+"So that's all settled," said Georgie, as he returned with the last
+acceptance, "and how fortunately it has happened after all. But what a
+day it has been. Nothing but telephoning from morning till night. If we
+go on like this the company will pay a dividend this year, and return
+us some of our own pennies."
+
+Lucia had got a quantity of pearl beads and was stringing them for the
+tableau of Mary Queen of Scots.
+
+"Now that everyone knows," she said, "we might allow ourselves a little
+more elaboration in our preparations. There is an Elizabethan axe at
+the Ambermere Arms which I might borrow for Peppino. Then about the
+Brunnhilde tableau. It is dawn, is it not? We might have the stage
+quite dark when the curtain goes up, and turn up a lamp very slowly
+behind the scene, so that it shines on my face. A lamp being turned up
+very slowly is wonderfully effective. It produces a perfect illusion.
+Could you manage that with one hand and play the music of the awakening
+with the other, Georgino?"
+
+"I'm quite sure I couldn't," said he.
+
+"Well then Peppino must do it before he comes on. We will have movement
+in this tableau; I think that will be quite a new idea. Peppino shall
+come in--just two steps--when he has turned the lamp up, and he will
+take off my shield and armour----"
+
+"But the music will never last out," cried Georgie. "I shall have to
+start earlier."
+
+"Yes, perhaps that would be better," said Lucia calmly. "That real
+piece of chain-armour too, I am glad I remembered Peppino had that.
+Marshall is cleaning it now, and it will give a far finer effect than
+the tawdry stuff they use in opera. Then I sit up very slowly, and wave
+first my right arm and then my left, and then both. I should like to
+practise that now on the sofa!"
+
+Lucia had just lain down, when the telephone sounded again and Georgie
+got up.
+
+"That's to announce a dividend," he said, and tripped into the hall.
+
+"Is that Mrs Lucas'?" said a voice he knew.
+
+"Yes, Miss Olga," he said, "and this is me."
+
+"Oh, Mr Georgie, how fortunate," she said. "You can give my message now
+to Mrs Lucas, can't you? I'm a perfect fool, you know, and horribly
+forgetful."
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Georgie faintly.
+
+"It's about Saturday. I've just remembered that Georgie and I--not you,
+you know--are going away for the weekend. Will you tell Mrs Lucas how
+sorry I am?"
+
+Georgie went back to the music room, where Lucia had just got both her
+arms waving. But at the sight of his face she dropped them and took a
+firm hold of herself.
+
+"Well, what is it?" she said.
+
+Georgie gave the message, and she got off the sofa, rising to her feet,
+while her mind rose to the occasion.
+
+"I am sorry that Miss Bracely will not see our tableaux," she said.
+"But as she was not acting in them I do not know that it makes much
+difference."
+
+A deadly flatness, although Olga's absence made no difference,
+descended on the three. Lucia did not resume her arm-work, for after
+all these years her acting might be supposed to be good enough for
+Riseholme without further practice, and nothing more was heard of the
+borrowing of the axe from the Ambermere Arms. But having begun to
+thread her pearl-beads, she finished them; Georgie, however, cared no
+longer whether the gold border of King Cophetua's mantle went quite
+round the back or not, and having tacked on the piece he was working
+at, rolled it up. It was just going to be an ordinary party, after all.
+His cup was empty.
+
+But Lucia's was not yet quite full, for at this moment Miss Lyall's
+pony hip-bath stopped at the gate, and a small stableboy presented a
+note, which required an answer. In spite of all Lucia's self-control,
+the immediate answer it got was a flush of heightened colour.
+
+"Mere impertinence," she said. "I will read it aloud."
+
+  "Dear Mrs Lucas,
+
+  "I was in Riseholme this morning, and learn from Mrs
+  Weston that Miss Bracely will be at your house on
+  Saturday night. So I shall be enchanted to come to
+  dinner after all. You must know that I make a rule of
+  not going out in the evening, except for some special
+  reason, but it would be a great pleasure to hear her
+  sing again. I wonder if you would have dinner at 7:30
+  instead of 8, as I do not like being out very late."
+
+There was a short pause.
+
+_"Caro,"_ said Lucia, trembling violently, "perhaps you would
+kindly tell Miss Lyall that I do not expect Miss Bracely on Saturday,
+and that I do not expect Lady Ambermere either."
+
+"My dear--" he began.
+
+"I will do it myself then," she said.
+
+It was as Georgie walked home after the delivery of this message that
+he wanted to fly away and be at rest with Foljambe and Dicky. He had
+been frantically excited ever since Sunday at the idea of doing
+tableaux before Olga, and today in especial had been a mere feverish
+hash of telephoning and sewing which all ended in nothing at all, for
+neither tableaux nor romps seemed to hold the least attraction for him
+now that Olga was not going to be there. And then all at once it dawned
+on him that he must be in love with Olga, for why else should her
+presence or absence make such an astounding difference to him? He
+stopped dead opposite Mrs Quantock's mulberry tree.
+
+"More misery! More unhappiness!" he said to himself. Really if life at
+Riseholme was to become a series of agitated days ending in devastating
+discoveries, the sooner he went away with Foljambe and Dicky the
+better. He did not quite know what it was like to be in love, for the
+nearest he had previously ever got to it was when he saw Olga awake on
+the mountain-top and felt that he had missed his vocation in not being
+Siegfried, but from that he guessed. This time, too, it was about Olga,
+not about her as framed in the romance of legend and song, but of her
+as she appeared at Riseholme, taking as she did now, an ecstatic
+interest in the affairs of the place. So short a time ago, when she
+contemplated coming here first, she had spoken of it as a lazy
+backwater. Now she knew better than that, for she could listen to Mrs
+Weston far longer than anybody else, and ask for more histories when
+even she had run dry. And yet Lucia seemed hardly to interest her at
+all. Georgie wondered why that was.
+
+He raised his eyes as he muttered these desolated syllables and there
+was Olga just letting herself out of the front garden of the Old Place.
+Georgie's first impulse was to affect not to see her, and turn into his
+bachelor house, but she had certainly seen him, and made so shrill and
+piercing a whistle on her fingers that, pretend as he would not to have
+seen her, it was ludicrous to appear not to have heard her. She
+beckoned to him.
+
+"Georgie, the most awful thing has happened," she said, as they came
+within speaking distance. "Oh, I called you Georgie by mistake then.
+When one once does that, one must go on doing it on purpose. Guess!"
+she said in the best Riseholme manner.
+
+"You can come to Lucia's party after all," said he.
+
+"No, I can't. Well, you'll never guess because you move in such high
+circles, so I'll tell you. Mrs Weston's Elizabeth is going to be
+married to Colonel Boucher's Atkinson. I don't know his Christian name,
+nor her surname, but they're the ones!"
+
+"You don't say so!" said Georgie, stung for a moment out of his own
+troubles. "But will they both leave? What will either of the others do?
+Mrs Weston can't have a manservant, and how on earth is she to get on
+without Elizabeth? Besides----"
+
+A faint flush mounted to his cheek.
+
+"I know. You mean babies," said Olga ruthlessly. "Didn't you?"
+
+"Yes," said Georgie.
+
+"Then why not say so? You and I were babies once, though no one is old
+enough to remember that, and we shouldn't have liked our parents and
+friends to have blushed when they mentioned us. Georgie, you are a
+prude."
+
+"No, I'm not," said Georgie, remembering he was probably in love with a
+married woman.
+
+"It doesn't matter whether you are or not. Now there's only one thing
+that can happen to Mrs Weston and the Colonel. They must marry each
+other too. Then Atkinson can continue to be Colonel Boucher's man and
+Elizabeth the parlour-maid, unless she is busy with what made you
+blush. Then they can get help in; you will lend them Foljambe, for
+instance. It's time you began to be of some good in your wicked selfish
+life. So that's settled. It only remains for us to make them marry each
+other."
+
+"Aren't you getting on rather fast?" asked Georgie.
+
+"I'm not getting on at all at present I'm only talking. Come into my
+house instantly, and we'll drink vermouth. Vermouth always makes me
+brilliant unless it makes me idiotic, but we'll hope for the best."
+
+Presently they were seated in Olga's music-room, with a bottle of
+vermouth between them.
+
+"Now drink fair, Georgie," she said, "and as you drink tell me all
+about the young people's emotional history."
+
+"Atkinson and Elizabeth?" asked Georgie.
+
+"No, my dear; Colonel Boucher and Mrs Weston. They have an emotional
+history. I am sure you all thought they were going to marry each other
+once. And they constantly dine together tete-a-tete. Now that's a very
+good start. Are you quite sure he hasn't got a wife and family in Egypt,
+or she a husband and family somewhere else? I don't want to rake up
+family skeletons."
+
+"I've never heard of them," said Georgie.
+
+"Then we'll take them as non-existent. You certainly would have heard
+of them if there were any, and very likely if there weren't. And they
+both like eating, drinking and the latest intelligence. Don't they?"
+
+"Yes. But----"
+
+"But what? What more do you or they want? Isn't that a better start for
+married life than many people get?"
+
+"But aren't they rather old?" asked Georgie.
+
+"Not much older than you and me, and if it wasn't that I've got my own
+Georgie, I would soon have somebody else's. Do you know who I mean?"
+
+"No!" said Georgie firmly. Though all this came at the end of a most
+harrowing day, it or the vermouth exhilarated him.
+
+"Then I'll tell you just what Mrs Weston told me. 'He's always been
+devoted to Lucia,' said Mrs Weston, 'and he has never looked at anybody
+else. There was Piggy Antrobus----' Now do you know who I mean?"
+
+Georgie suddenly giggled.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"Then don't talk about yourself so much, my dear, and let us get to the
+point. Now this afternoon I dropped in to see Mrs Weston and as she was
+telling me about the tragedy, she said by accident (just as I called
+you Georgie just now by accident) 'And I don't know what Jacob will do
+without Atkinson.' Now is or is not Colonel Boucher's name Jacob? There
+you are then! That's one side of the question. She called him Jacob by
+accident and so she'll call him Jacob on purpose before very long."
+
+Olga nodded her head up and down in precise reproduction of Mrs Weston.
+
+"I'd hardly got out of the house," she said in exact imitation of Mrs
+Weston's voice, "before I met Colonel Boucher. It would have been about
+three o'clock--no it couldn't have been three, because I had got back
+home and was standing in the hall when it struck three, and my clock's
+a shade fast if anything. Well; Colonel Boucher said to me, 'Haw, hum,
+quite a domestic crisis, by Jove.' And so I pretended I didn't know,
+and he told me all about it. So I said 'Well, it is a domestic crisis,
+and you'll lose Atkinson.' 'Haw, hum,' said he, 'and poor Jane, I
+should say, Mrs Weston, will lose Elizabeth.' There!"
+
+She got up and lit a cigarette.
+
+"Oh, Georgie, do you grasp the inwardness of that?" she said. "Their
+dear old hearts were laid bare by the trouble that had come upon them,
+and each of them spoke of the other, as each felt for the other.
+Probably neither of them had said Jacob or Jane in the whole course of
+their lives. But the Angel of the Lord descended and troubled the
+waters. If you think that's profane, have some more vermouth. It's
+making me brilliant, though you wouldn't have thought it. Now listen!"
+
+She sat down again close to him, her face brimming with a humorous
+enthusiasm. Humour in Riseholme was apt to be a little unkind; if you
+mentioned the absurdities of your friends, there was just a speck of
+malice in your wit. But with her there was none of that, she gave an
+imitation of Mrs Weston with the most ruthless fidelity, and yet it was
+kindly to the bottom. She liked her for talking in that emphatic voice
+and being so particular as to what time it was. "Now first of all you
+are coming to dine with me tonight," said Olga.
+
+"Oh, I'm afraid that tonight----" began Georgie, shrinking from any
+further complications. He really must have a quiet evening, and go to
+bed very early.
+
+"What are you afraid of tonight?" she asked. "You're only going to wash
+your hair. You can do that tomorrow. So you and I, that's two, and Mrs
+Weston and Colonel Jacob, that's four, which is enough, and I don't
+believe there's anything to eat in the house. But there's something to
+drink, which is my point. Not for you and me, mind; we've got to keep
+our heads and be clever. Don't have any more vermouth. But Jane and
+Jacob are going to have quantities of champagne. Not tipsy, you
+understand, but at their best, and unguardedly appreciative of each
+other and us. And when they go away, they will exchange a chaste kiss
+at Mrs Weston's door, and she will ask him in. No! I think she'll ask
+him in first. And when they wake up tomorrow morning, they will both
+wonder how they could possibly, and jointly ask themselves what
+everybody else will say. And then they'll thank God and Olga and
+Georgie that they did, and live happily for an extraordinary number of
+years. My dear, how infinitely happier they will be together than they
+are being now. Funny old dears! Each at its own fireside, saying that
+it's too old, bless them! And you and I will sing 'Voice that breathed
+o'er Eden' and in the middle our angel-voices will crack, and we will
+sob into our handkerchief, and Eden will be left breathing deeply all
+by itself like the Guru. Why did you never tell me about the Guru? Mrs
+Weston's a better friend to me than you are, and I must ring for my
+cook--no I'll telephone first to Jacob and Jane--and see what there is
+to eat afterwards. You will sit here quietly, and when I have finished
+I will tell you what your part is."
+
+During dinner, according to Olga's plan of campaign, the conversation
+was to be general, because she hated to have two conversations going on
+when only four people were present, since she found that she always
+wanted to join in the other one. This was the main principle she
+inculcated on Georgie, stamping it on his memory by a simile of
+peculiar vividness. "Imagine there is an Elizabethan spittoon in the
+middle of the table," she said, "and keep on firmly spitting into it. I
+want you when there's any pause to spit about two things, one, how
+dreadfully unhappy both Jacob and Jane will be without their paragons,
+the other, how pleasant is conversation and companionship. I shall be
+chaffing you, mind, all the time and saying _you_ must get
+married. After dinner I shall probably stroll in the garden with Jacob.
+Don't come. Keep him after dinner for some little time, for then's my
+opportunity of talking to Jane, and give him at least three glasses of
+port. Gracious it's time to dress, and the Lord prosper us."
+
+Georgie found himself the last to arrive, when he got back to Olga's
+and all three of them shook hands rather as people shake hands before a
+funeral. They went into dinner at once and Olga instantly began, "How
+many years did you say your admirable Atkinson had been with you?" she
+asked Colonel Boucher.
+
+"Twenty; getting on for twenty-one," said he. "Great nuisance; 'pon my
+word it's worse than a nuisance."
+
+Georgie had a bright idea.
+
+"But what's a nuisance, Colonel?" he asked.
+
+"Eh, haven't you heard? I thought it would have been all over the place
+by now. Atkinson's going to be married."
+
+"No!" said Georgie. "Whom to?"
+
+Mrs Weston could not bear not to announce this herself. "To my
+Elizabeth," she said. "Elizabeth came to me this morning. 'May I speak
+to you a minute, ma'am?' she asked, and I thought nothing more than
+that perhaps she had broken a tea-cup. 'Yes,' said I quite cheerfully,
+'and what have you come to tell me?'"
+
+It was getting almost too tragic and Olga broke in.
+
+"Let's try to forget all about it, for an hour or two," she said. "It
+was nice of you all to take pity on me and come and have dinner,
+otherwise I should have been quite alone. If there's one thing I cannot
+bear it's being alone in the evening. And to think that anybody chooses
+to be alone when he needn't! Look at that wretch there," and she
+pointed to Georgie, "who lives all by himself instead of marrying.
+Liking to be alone is the worst habit I know; much worse than drink."
+
+"Now do leave me alone," said Georgie.
+
+"I won't, my dear, and when dinner is over Mrs Weston and I are going
+to put our heads together, and when you come out we shall announce to
+you the name of your bride. I should put a tax of twenty shillings on
+the pound on all bachelors; they should all marry or starve."
+
+Suddenly she turned to Colonel Boucher.
+
+"Oh, Colonel," she said. "What have I been saying? How dreadfully
+stupid of me not to remember that you were a bachelor too. But I
+wouldn't have you starve for anything. Have some more fish instantly to
+shew you forgive me. Georgie change the subject you're always talking
+about yourself."
+
+Georgie turned with admirable docility to Mrs Weston.
+
+"It's too miserable for you," he said. "How will you get on without
+Elizabeth? How long has she been with you?"
+
+Mrs Weston went straight back to where she had left off.
+
+"So I said, 'What have you come to tell me?' quite cheerfully, thinking
+it was a tea-cup. And she said, 'I'm going to be married, ma'am,' and she
+blushed so prettily that you'd have thought she was a girl of twenty,
+though she was seventeen when she came to me,--no, she was just
+eighteen, and that's fifteen years ago, and that makes her
+thirty-three. 'Well, Elizabeth,' I said, 'you haven't told me yet
+who it is, but whether it's the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Prince
+of Wales--for I felt I had to make a little joke like that--I hope
+you'll make him as happy as you've made me all these years.'"
+
+"You old darling," said Olga. "I should have gone into hysterics, and
+forbade the banns."
+
+"No, Miss Bracely, you wouldn't," said Mrs Weston, "you'd have been
+just as thankful as me, that she'd got a good husband to take care of
+and to be taken care of by, because then she said, 'Lor ma'am, it's
+none of they--not them great folks. It's the Colonel's Atkinson.' You
+ask the Colonel for Atkinson's character, Miss Bracely, and then you'd
+be just as thankful as I was."
+
+"The Colonel's Atkinson is a slow coach, just like Georgie," said Olga.
+"He and Elizabeth have been living side by side all these years, and
+why couldn't the man make up his mind before? The only redeeming
+circumstance is that he has done it now. Our poor Georgie now--"
+
+"Now you're going to be rude to Colonel Boucher again," said Georgie.
+"Colonel, we've been asked here to be insulted."
+
+Colonel Boucher had nothing stronger than a mild tolerance for Georgie
+and rather enjoyed snubbing him.
+
+"Well, if you call a glass of wine and a dinner like this an insult,"
+he said, "'pon my word I don't know what you'd call a compliment."
+
+"I know what I call a compliment," said Olga, "and that's your all
+coming to dine with me at such short notice. About Georgie's
+approaching nuptials now--"
+
+"You're too tarsome" said he. "If you go on like that, I shan't ask you
+to the wedding. Let's talk about Elizabeth's. When are they going to
+get married, Mrs Weston?"
+
+"That's what I said to Elizabeth. 'Get an almanack, Elizabeth,' said I,
+'so that you won't choose a Sunday. Don't say the 20th of next month
+without looking it out. But if the 20th isn't a Sunday or a Friday
+mind, for though I don't believe in such things, still you never
+know--' There was Mrs Antrobus now," said Mrs Weston suddenly, putting
+in a footnote to her speech to Elizabeth, "it was on a Friday she
+married, and within a year she got as deaf as you see her now. Then Mr
+Weston's uncle, his uncle by marriage I should say, he was another Friday
+marriage and they missed their train when going off on their honeymoon,
+and had to stay all night where they were without a sponge or a tooth
+brush between them, for all their luggage was in the train being
+whirled away to Torquay. 'So make it the 20th, Elizabeth,' I said, 'if
+it isn't a Friday or a Sunday, and I shall have time to look round me,
+and so will the Colonel, though I don't expect that either of us will
+find your equals! And don't cry, Elizabeth,' I said, for she was
+getting quite watery, 'for if you cry about a marriage, what'll be left
+for a funeral?'"
+
+"Ha! Upon my word, I call that splendid of you," said the Colonel. "I
+told Atkinson I wished I had never set eyes on him, before I wished him
+joy."
+
+Olga got up.
+
+"Look after Colonel Boucher, Georgie," she said, "and ring for anything
+you want. Look at the moon! Isn't it heavenly. How Atkinson and
+Elizabeth must be enjoying it."
+
+The two men spent a half-hour of only moderately enjoyable
+conversation, for Georgie kept the grindstone of the misery of his lot
+without Atkinson, and the pleasure of companionship firmly to the
+Colonel's nose. It was no use for him to attempt to change the subject
+to the approaching tableaux, to a vague rumour that Piggy had fallen
+face downwards in the ducking-pond, that Mrs Quantock and her husband
+had turned a table this afternoon with remarkable results, for it had
+tapped out that his name was Robert and hers Daisy. Whichever way he
+turned, Georgie herded him back on to the stony path that he had been
+bidden to take, with the result that when Georgie finally permitted him
+to go into the music-room, he was athirst for the more genial
+companionship of the ladies. Olga got up as they entered.
+
+"Georgie's so lazy," she said, "that it's no use asking him. But do let
+you and me have a turn up and down my garden, Colonel. There's a divine
+moon and it's quite warm."
+
+They stepped out into the windless night.
+
+"Fancy it's being October," she said. "I don't believe there is any
+winter in Riseholme, nor autumn either, for that matter. You are all so
+young, so deliciously young. Look at Georgie in there: he's like a boy
+still, and as for Mrs Weston, she's twenty-five: not a day older."
+
+"Yes, wonderful woman," said he. "Always agreeable and lively.
+Handsome, too: I consider Mrs Weston a very handsome woman. Hasn't
+altered an atom since I knew her."
+
+"That's the wonderful thing about you all!" said she. "You are all just
+as brisk and young as you were ten years ago. It's ridiculous. As for
+you, I'm not sure that you're not the most ridiculous of the lot. I
+feel as if I had been having dinner with three delightful cousins a
+little younger--not much, but just a little--than myself. Gracious! How
+you all made me romp the other night here. What a pace you go, Colonel!
+What's your walking like if you call this a stroll?"
+
+Colonel Boucher moderated his pace. He thought Olga had been walking so
+quickly.
+
+"I'm very sorry," he said. "Certainly Riseholme is a healthy bracing
+place. Perhaps we do keep our youth pretty well. God bless me, but the
+days go by without one's noticing them. To think that I came here with
+Atkinson close on ten years ago."
+
+This did very well for Olga: she swiftly switched off onto it.
+
+"It's quite horrid for you losing your servant," she said. "Servants do
+become friends, don't they, especially to anyone living alone. Georgie
+and Foljambe, now! But I shouldn't be a bit surprised if Foljambe had a
+mistress before very long."
+
+"No, really? I thought you were just chaffing him at dinner. Georgie
+marrying, is he? His wife'll take some of his needlework off his hands.
+May I--ah--may I enquire the lady's name?"
+
+Olga decided to play a great card. She had just found it, so to speak,
+in her hand, and it was most tempting. She stopped.
+
+"But can't you guess?" she said. "Surely I'm not absolutely on the
+wrong track?"
+
+"Ah, Miss Antrobus," said he. "The one I think they call Piggy. No, I
+should say there was nothing in that."
+
+"Oh, that had never occurred to me," said she. "I daresay I'm quite
+wrong. I only judged from what I thought I noticed in poor Georgie. I
+daresay it's only what he should have done ten years ago, but I fancy
+there's a spark alive still. Let us talk about something else, though
+we won't go in quite yet, shall we?" She felt quite safe in her
+apparent reluctance to tell him; the Riseholme gluttony for news made
+it imperative for him to ask more.
+
+"Really, I must be very dull," he said. "I daresay an eye new to the
+place sees more. Who is it, Miss Bracely?"
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Ah, how bad a man is at observing a man!" she said. "Didn't you see
+Georgie at dinner? He hardly took his eyes off her."
+
+She had a great and glorious reward. Colonel Boucher's face grew
+absolutely blank in the moonlight with sheer astonishment.
+
+"Well, you surprise me," he said. "Surely a fine woman, though lame,
+wouldn't look at a needle-woman--well, leave it at that."
+
+He stamped his feet and put his hands in his pockets.
+
+"It's growing a bit chilly," he said. "You'll be catching cold, Miss
+Bracely, and what will your husband say if he finds out I've been
+strolling about with you out of doors after dinner?"
+
+"Yes, we'll go in," she said. "It is chilly. How thoughtful you are for
+me."
+
+Georgie little knowing the catspaw that had been made of him, found
+himself being detached from Mrs Weston by the Colonel, and this suited
+him very well, for presently Olga said she would sing, unless anybody
+minded, and called on him to accompany her. She stood just behind him,
+leaning over him sometimes with a hand on his shoulder, and sang three
+ruthless simple English songs, appropriate to the matter in hand. She
+sang, "I Attempt from Love's Sickness to Fly," and "Sally in Our
+Alley," and "Come Live with Me," and sometimes beneath the rustle of
+leaves turned over she whispered to him, "Georgie, I'm cleverer than
+anybody ever was, and I shall die in the night," she said once. Again
+more enigmatically she said, "I've been a cad, but I'll tell you about
+it when they've gone. Stop behind." And then some whiskey came in, and
+she insisted on the "young people" having some of that; finally she saw
+them off at the door, and came running back to Georgie. "I've been a
+cad," she said, "because I hinted that you were in love with Mrs
+Weston. My dear, it was simply perfect! I believe it to have been the
+last straw, and if you don't forgive me you needn't. Wasn't it clever?
+He simply couldn't stand that, for it came on the top of your being so
+young."
+
+"Well, really--" said Georgie.
+
+"I know. And I must be a cad again. I'm going up to my bedroom, you may
+come, too, if you like, because it commands a view of Church Road. I
+shouldn't sleep a wink unless I knew that he had gone in with her.
+It'll be precisely like Faust and Marguerite going into the house, and
+you and I are Mephistopheles and Martha. Come quick!"
+
+From the dark of the window they watched Mrs Weston's bath-chair being
+pushed up the lit road.
+
+"It's the Colonel pushing it," whispered Olga, squeezing him into a
+corner of the window. "Look! There's Tommy Luton on the path. Now
+they've stopped at her gate ... I can't bear the suspense.... Oh,
+Georgie, they've gone in! And Atkinson will stop, and so will
+Elizabeth, and you've promised to lend them Foljambe. Which house will
+they live at, do you think? Aren't you happy?"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter TWELVE
+
+
+The miserable Lucia started a run of extreme bad luck about this time,
+of which the adventure or misadventure of the Guru seemed to be the
+prelude, or perhaps the news of her want of recognition of the August
+moon, which Georgie had so carefully saluted, may have arrived at that
+satellite by October. For she had simply "cut" the August moon....
+
+There was the fiasco about Olga coming to the tableaux, which was the
+cause of her sending that very tart reply, via Miss Lyall, to Lady
+Ambermere's impertinence, and the very next morning, Lady Ambermere,
+coming again into Riseholme, perhaps for that very purpose, had behaved
+to Lucia as Lucia had behaved to the moon, and cut her. That was
+irritating, but the counter-irritant to it had been that Lady Ambermere
+had then gone to Olga's, and been told that she was not at home, though
+she was very audibly practising in her music-room at the time. Upon
+which Lady Ambermere had said "Home" to her people, and got in with
+such unconcern of the material world that she sat down on Pug.
+
+Mrs Quantock had heard both "Home" and Pug, and told the cut Lucia, who
+was a hundred yards away about it. She also told her about the
+engagement of Atkinson and Elizabeth, which was all she knew about
+events in those houses. On which Lucia with a kind smile had said,
+"Dear Daisy, what slaves some people are to their servants. I am sure
+Mrs Weston and Colonel Boucher will be quite miserable, poor things.
+Now I must run home. How I wish I could stop and chat on the green!"
+And she gave her silvery laugh, for she felt much better now that she
+knew Olga had said she was out to Lady Ambermere, when she was so
+audibly in.
+
+Then came a second piece of bad luck. Lucia had not gone more than a
+hundred yards past Georgie's house, when he came out in a tremendous
+hurry. He rapidly measured the distance between himself and Lucia, and
+himself and Mrs Quantock, and made a bee-line for Mrs Quantock, since
+she was the nearest. Olga had just telephoned to him....
+
+"Good morning," he said breathlessly, determined to cap anything she
+said. "Any news?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," she said. "Haven't you heard?"
+
+Georgie had one moment of heart-sink.
+
+"What?" he said.
+
+"Atkinson and Eliz----" she began.
+
+"Oh, that," said he scornfully. "And talking of them, of course you've
+heard the rest. _Haven't_ you? Why, Mrs Weston and Colonel Boucher
+are going to follow their example, unless they set it themselves, and
+get married first."
+
+"No!" said Mrs Quantock in the loudest possible Riseholme voice of
+surprise.
+
+"Oh, yes. I really knew it last night. I was dining at Old Place and
+they were there. Olga and I both settled there would be something to
+talk in the morning. Shall we stroll on the green a few minutes?"
+
+Georgie had a lovely time. He hurried from person to person, leaving
+Mrs Quantock to pick up a few further gleanings. Everyone was there
+except Lucia, and she, but for the accident of her being further off
+than Mrs Quantock, would have been the first to know.
+
+When this tour was finished Georgie sat to enjoy the warm comforting
+glow of envy that surrounded him. Nowadays the meeting place at the
+Green had insensibly transferred itself to just opposite Old Place, and
+it was extremely interesting to hear Olga practising as she always did
+in the morning. Interesting though it was, Riseholme had at first been
+a little disappointed about it, for everyone had thought that she would
+sing Brunnhilde's part or Salome's part through every day, or some
+trifle of that kind. Instead she would perform an upwards scale in
+gradual _crescendo,_ and on the highest most magnificent note
+would enunciate at the top of her voice, "Yawning York!" Then starting
+soft again she would descend in _crescendo_ to a superb low note
+and enunciate "Love's Lilies Lonely." Then after a dozen repetitions of
+this, she would start off with full voice, and get softer and softer
+until she just whispered that York was yawning, and do the same with
+Love's Lilies. But you never could tell what she might not sing, and
+some mornings there would be long trills and leapings onto high notes:
+long notes and leaping onto trills, and occasionally she sang a real
+song. That was worth waiting for, and Georgie did not hesitate to let
+drop that she had sung four last night to his accompaniment. And hardly
+had he repeated that the third time, when she appeared at her window,
+and before all Riseholme called out "Georgie!" with a trill at the end,
+like a bird shaking its wings. Before all Riseholme!
+
+So in he went. Had Lucia known that, it would quite have wiped the gilt
+off Lady Ambermere's being refused admittance. In point of fact it did
+wipe the gilt off when, about an hour afterwards, Georgie went to lunch
+because he told her. And if there had been any gilt left about
+anywhere, that would have vanished, too, when in answer to some rather
+damaging remark she made about poor Daisy's interests in the
+love-affairs of other people's servants, she learned that it was of
+the love-affairs of their superiors that all Riseholme had been talking
+for at least an hour by now.
+
+Again there was ill-luck about the tableaux on Saturday, for in the
+Brunnhilde scene, Peppino in his agitation, turned the lamp that was to
+be a sunrise, completely out, and Brunnhilde had to hail the midnight,
+or at any rate a very obscure twilight. Georgie, it is true, with
+wonderful presence of mind, turned on an electric light when he had
+finished playing, but it was more like a flash of lightning than a
+slow, wonderful dawn. The tableaux were over well before 10.45, and
+though Lucia in answer to the usual pressings, said she would "see
+about" doing them again, she felt that Mrs Weston and Colonel Boucher,
+who made their first public appearance as the happy pair, attracted
+more than their proper share of attention. The only consolation was that
+the romps that followed at poor Daisy's were a complete fiasco. It was
+in vain, too, at supper, that she went from table to table, and helped
+people to lobster salad and champagne, and had not enough chairs, and
+generally imitated all that had apparently made Olga's party so supreme
+a success. But on this occasion the recipe for the dish and not the
+dish itself was served up, and the hunting of the slipper produced no
+exhilaration in the chase....
+
+But far more untoward events followed. Olga came back on the next
+Monday, and immediately after Lucia received a card for an evening "At
+Home," with "Music" in the bottom left-hand corner. It happened to be
+wet that afternoon, and seeing Olga's shut motor coming from the
+station with four men inside, she leaped to the conclusion that these
+were four musicians for the music. A second motor followed with
+luggage, and she quite distinctly saw the unmistakable shape of a
+'cello against the window. After that no more guessing was necessary,
+for it was clear that poor Olga had hired the awful string-quartet from
+Brinton, that played in the lounge at the Royal Hotel after dinner. The
+Brinton string-quartet! She had heard them once at a distance and that
+was quite enough. Lucia shuddered as she thought of those doleful
+fiddlers. It was indeed strange that Olga with all the opportunities
+she had had for hearing good music, should hire the Brinton
+string-quartet, but, after all, that was entirely of a piece with her
+views about the gramophone. Perhaps the gramophone would have its share
+in this musical evening. But she had said she would go: it would be very
+unkind to Olga to stop away now, for Olga must know by this time her
+passion for music, so she went. She sincerely hoped that she would not
+be conducted to the seat of honour, and be obliged to say a few
+encouraging words to the string-quartet afterwards.
+
+Once again she came rather late, for the music had begun. It had only
+just begun, for she recognised--who should recognise if not she?--the
+early bars of a Beethoven quartet. She laid her hand on Peppino's arm.
+
+"Brinton: Beethoven," she said limply.
+
+She slipped into a chair next Daisy Quantock, and sat in her well-known
+position when listening to music, with her head forward, her chin
+resting on her hand, and the far-away look in her eyes. Nothing of
+course could wholly take away the splendour of that glorious
+composition, and she was pleased that there was no applause between the
+movements, for she had rather expected that Olga would clap, and
+interrupt the unity of it all. Occasionally, too, she was agreeably
+surprised by the Brinton string-quartet: they seemed to have some
+inklings, though not many. Once she winced very much when a string
+broke.
+
+Olga (she was rather a restless hostess) came up to her when it was
+over.
+
+"So glad you could come," she said. "Aren't they divine?"
+
+Lucia gave her most indulgent smile.
+
+"Perfect music! Glorious!" she said. "And they really played it very
+creditably. But I am a little spoiled, you know, for the last time I
+heard that it was performed by the Spanish Quartet. I know one ought
+never to compare, but have you ever heard the Spanish Quartet, Miss
+Bracely?"
+
+Olga looked at her in surprise.
+
+"But they are the Spanish Quartet!" she said pointing to the players.
+
+Lucia had raised her voice rather as she spoke, for when she spoke on
+music she spoke for everybody to hear. And a great many people
+undoubtedly did hear, among whom, of course, was Daisy Quantock. She
+gave one shrill squeal of laughter, like a slate-pencil, and from that
+moment granted plenary absolution to _poor dear Lucia_ for all her
+greed and grabbing with regard to the Guru.
+
+But instantly all Olga's good-nature awoke: unwittingly (for her remark
+that this _was_ the Spanish Quartet had been a mere surprised
+exclamation), she had made a guest of hers uncomfortable, and must at
+once do all she could to remedy that.
+
+"It's a shocking room for echoes, this," she said. "Do all of you come
+up a little nearer, and you will be able to hear the playing so much
+better. You lose all shade, all fineness here. I came here on purpose
+to ask you to move up, Mrs Lucas: there are half a dozen chairs
+unoccupied near the platform."
+
+It was a kindly intention that prompted the speech, but for all real
+Riseholme practical purposes, quite barren, for many people had heard
+Lucia's remarks, and Peppino also had already been wincing at the
+Brinton quartet. In that fell moment the Bolshevists laid bony fingers
+on the sceptre of her musical autocracy.... But who would have guessed
+that Olga would get the Spanish Quartet from London to come down to
+Riseholme?
+
+Staggering from these blows, she had to undergo an even shrewder stroke
+yet. Already, in the intelligence department, she had been sadly
+behind-hand in news, her tableaux-party had been anything but a
+success, this one little remark of Olga's had shaken her musically, but
+at any rate up till this moment she had shewn herself mistress of the
+Italian tongue, while to strengthen that she was being very diligent
+with her dictionary, grammar and Dante's Paradiso. Then as by a bolt
+out of a clear sky that temple, too, was completely demolished, in the
+most tragic fashion.
+
+A few days after the disaster of the Spanish-Brinton Quartet, Olga
+received a letter from Signor Cortese, the eminent Italian composer, to
+herald the completion of his opera, "Lucretia." Might he come down to
+Riseholme for a couple of nights, and, figuratively, lay it at her
+feet, in the hope that she would raise it up, and usher it into the
+world? All the time he had been writing it, as she knew, he had
+thought of her in the name part and he would come down today, tomorrow,
+at a moment's notice by day or night to submit it to her. Olga was
+delighted and sent an effusive telegram of many sheets, full of
+congratulation and welcome, for she wanted above all things to "create"
+the part. So would Signor Cortese come down that very day?
+
+She ran upstairs with the news to her husband.
+
+"My dear, 'Lucretia' is finished," she said, "and that angel
+practically offers it me. Now what are we to do about dinner tonight?
+Jacob and Jane are coming, and neither you nor they, I suppose, speak
+one word of Italian, and you know what mine is, firm and intelligible
+and operatic but not conversational. What are we to do? He hates
+talking English.... Oh, I know, if I can only get Mrs Lucas. They
+always talk Italian, I believe, at home. I wonder if she can come.
+She's musical, too, and I shall ask her husband, I think: that'll be a
+man over, but it will be another Italiano----"
+
+Olga wrote at once to Lucia, mentioning that Cortese was staying with
+them, but, quite naturally, saying nothing about the usefulness of
+Peppino and her being able to engage the musician in his own tongue,
+for that she took for granted. An eager affirmative (such a great
+pleasure) came back to her, and for the rest of the day, Lucia and
+Peppino made up neat little sentences to let off to the dazzled
+Cortese, at the moment when they said "good-night," to shew that they
+could have talked Italian all the time, had there been any occasion for
+doing so.
+
+Mrs Weston and Colonel Boucher had already arrived when Lucia and her
+husband entered, and Lucia had quite a shock to see on what intimate
+terms they were with their hostess. They actually called each other
+Olga and Jacob and Jane, which was most surprising and almost painful.
+Lucia (perhaps because she had not known about it soon enough) had been
+a little satirical about the engagement, rather as if it was a slight
+on her that Jacob had not been content with celibacy and Jane with her
+friendship, but she was sure she wished them both "nothing but well."
+Indeed the moment she got over the shock of seeing them so intimate
+with Olga, she could not have been surpassed in cordiality.
+
+"We see but little of our old friends now," she said to Olga and Jane
+jointly, "but we must excuse their desire for solitude in their first
+glow of their happiness. Peppino and I remember that sweet time, oh,
+ever so long ago."
+
+This might have been tact, or it might have been cat. That Peppino and
+she sympathised as they remembered their beautiful time was tact, that
+it was so long ago was cat. Altogether it might be described as a cat
+chewing tact. But there was a slight air of patronage about it, and if
+there was one thing Mrs Weston would not, and could not and did not
+even intend to stand, it was that. Besides it had reached her ears that
+Mrs Lucas had said something about there being no difficulty in finding
+bridesmaids younger than the bride.
+
+"Fancy! How clever of you to remember so long ago," she said. "But,
+then, you have the most marvellous memory, dear, and keep it
+wonderfully!"
+
+Olga intervened.
+
+"How kind of you and Mr Lucas to come at such short notice," she said.
+"Cortese hates talking English, so I shall put him between you and me,
+and you'll talk to him all the time, won't you? And you won't laugh at
+me, will you, when I join in with my atrocious attempts? And I shall
+buttress myself on the other side with your husband, who will firmly
+talk across me to him."
+
+Lucia had to say something. A further exposure was at hand, quite
+inevitably. It was no use for her and Peppino to recollect a previous
+engagement.
+
+"Oh, my Italian is terribly rusty," she said, knowing that Mrs Weston's
+eye was on her.... Why had she not sent Mrs Weston a handsome
+wedding-present that morning?
+
+"Rusty? We will ask Cortese about that when you've had a good talk to
+him. Ah, here he is!"
+
+Cortese came into the room, florid and loquacious, pouring out a stream
+of apology for his lateness to Olga, none of which was the least
+intelligible to Lucia. She guessed what he was saying, and next moment
+Olga, who apparently understood him perfectly, and told him with an
+enviable fluency that he was not late at all, was introducing him to
+her, and explaining that "la Signora" (Lucia understood this) and her
+husband talked Italian. She did not need to reply to some torrent of
+amiable words from him, addressed to her, for he was taken on and
+introduced to Mrs Weston, and the Colonel. But he instantly whirled
+round to her again, and asked her something. Not knowing the least what
+he meant, she replied:
+
+"Si: tante grazie."
+
+He looked puzzled for a moment and then repeated his question in
+English.
+
+"In what deestrict of Italy 'ave you voyaged most?"
+
+Lucia understood that: so did Mrs Weston, and Lucia pulled herself
+together.
+
+"In Rome," she said. "_Che bella citta! Adoro Roma, e il mio marito.
+Non e vere, Peppino?_"
+
+Peppino cordially assented: the familiar ring of this fine intelligible
+Italian restored his confidence, and he asked Cortese whether he was
+not very fond of music....
+
+Dinner seemed interminable to Lucia. She kept a watchful eye on
+Cortese, and if she saw he was about to speak to her, she turned
+hastily to Colonel Boucher, who sat on her other side, and asked him
+something about his _cari cani_, which she translated to him.
+While he answered she made up another sentence in Italian about the
+blue sky or Venice, or very meanly said her husband had been there,
+hoping to direct the torrent of Italian eloquence to him. But she knew
+that, as an Italian conversationalist, neither she nor Peppino had a
+rag of reputation left them, and she dismally regretted that they had
+not chosen French, of which they both knew about as much, instead of
+Italian, for the vehicle of their linguistic distinction.
+
+Olga meantime continued to understand all that Cortese said, and to
+reply to it with odious fluency, and at the last, Cortese having said
+something to her which made her laugh, he turned to Lucia.
+
+"I've said to Meesis Shottlewort" ... and he proceeded to explain his
+joke in English.
+
+"Molto bene," said Lucia with a dying flicker. "Molto divertente. Non e
+vero, Peppino."
+
+"Si, si," said Peppino miserably.
+
+And then the final disgrace came, and it was something of a relief to
+have it over. Cortese, in excellent spirits with his dinner and his
+wine and the prospect of Olga taking the part of Lucretia, turned
+beamingly to Lucia again.
+
+"Now we will all spick English," he said. "This is one very pleasant
+evening. I enjoy me very much. Ecco!"
+
+Just once more Lucia shot up into flame.
+
+"Parlate Inglese molto bene," she said, and except when Cortese spoke
+to Olga, there was no more Italian that night.
+
+Even the unique excitement of hearing Olga "try over" the great scene
+in the last act could not quite absorb Lucia's attention after this
+awful fiasco, and though she sat leaning forward with her chin in her
+hand, and the far-away look in her eyes, her mind was furiously busy as
+to how to make anything whatever out of so bad a job. Everyone present
+knew that her Italian, as a medium for conversation, had suffered a
+complete break-down, and it was no longer any real use, when Olga
+did not quite catch the rhythm of a passage, to murmur "_Uno_,
+_due_, _tre_" unconsciously to herself; she might just as well
+have said "one, two, three" for any effect it had on Mrs Weston.
+The story would be all over Riseholme next day, and she felt sure that
+Mrs Weston, that excellent observer and superb reporter, had not failed
+to take it all in, and would not fail to do justice to it. Blow after
+blow had been rained upon her palace door, it was little wonder that
+the whole building was a-quiver. She had thought of starting a
+Dante-class this winter, for printed Italian, if you had a dictionary
+and a translation in order to prepare for the class, could be easily
+interpreted: it was the spoken word which you had to understand without
+any preparation at all, and not in the least knowing what was coming,
+that had presented such insurmountable difficulties. And yet who, when
+the story of this evening was known, would seek instruction from a
+teacher of that sort? Would Mrs Weston come to her Dante-class? Would
+she? Would she? No, she would not.
+
+Lucia lay long awake that night, tossing and turning in her bed in that
+delightful apartment in "Midsummer Night's Dream," and reviewing the
+fell array of these unlucky affairs. As she eyed them, black shapes
+against the glow of her firelight, it struck her that the same
+malevolent influence inspired them all. For what had caused the failure
+and flatness of her tableaux (omitting the unfortunate incident about
+the lamp) but the absence of Olga? Who was it who had occasioned her
+unfortunate remark about the Spanish Quartet but Olga, whose clear duty
+it had been, when she sent the invitation for the musical party, to
+state (so that there could be no mistake about it) that those eminent
+performers were to entrance them? Who could have guessed that she would
+have gone to the staggering expense of having them down from London?
+The Brinton quartet was the utmost that any sane imagination could have
+pictured, and Lucia's extremely sane imagination had pictured just
+that, with such extreme vividness that it had never occurred to her
+that it could be anybody else. Certainly Olga should have put "Spanish
+Quartet" in the bottom left-hand corner instead of "Music" and then
+Lucia would have known all about it, and have been speechless with
+emotion when they had finished the Beethoven, and wiped her eyes, and
+pulled herself together again. It really looked as if Olga had laid a
+trap for her....
+
+Even more like a trap were the horrid events of this evening. Trap was
+not at all too strong a word for them. To ask her to the house, and
+then suddenly spring upon her the fact that she was expected to talk
+Italian.... Was that an open, an honourable proceeding? What if Lucia
+had actually told Olga (and she seemed to recollect it) that she and
+Peppino often talked Italian at home? That was no reason why she should
+be expected, off-hand like that, to talk Italian anywhere else. She
+should have been told what was expected of her, so as to give her the
+chance of having a previous engagement. Lucia hated underhand ways,
+and they were particularly odious in one whom she had been willing to
+educate and refine up to the highest standards of Riseholme. Indeed it
+looked as if Olga's nature was actually incapable of receiving
+cultivation. She went on her own rough independent lines, giving a romp
+one night, and not coming to the tableaux on another, and getting the
+Spanish Quartet without consultation on a third, and springing this
+dreadful Pentecostal party on them on a fourth. Olga clearly meant
+mischief: she wanted to set herself up as leader of Art and Culture in
+Riseholme. Her conduct admitted of no other explanation.
+
+Lucia's benevolent scheme of educating and refining vanished like
+morning mists, and through her drooping eyelids, the firelight seemed
+strangely red.... She had been too kind, too encouraging: now she must
+collect her forces round her and be stern. As she dozed off to sleep,
+she reminded herself to ask Georgie to lunch next day. He and Peppino
+and she must have a serious talk. She had seen Georgie comparatively
+little just lately, and she drowsily and uneasily wondered how that
+was.
+
+Georgie by this time had quite got over the desolation of the moment
+when standing in the road opposite Mrs Quantock's mulberry-tree he had
+given vent to that bitter cry of "More misery: more unhappiness!" His
+nerves on that occasion had been worn to fiddlestrings with all the
+fuss and fiasco of planning the tableaux, and thus fancying himself in
+love had been just the last straw. But the fact that he had been Olga's
+chosen confidant in her wonderful scheme of causing Mrs Weston and the
+Colonel to get engaged, and the distinction of being singled out by
+Olga to this friendly intimacy, had proved a great tonic. It was quite
+clear that the existence of Mr Shuttleworth constituted a hopeless bar
+to the fruition of his passion, and, if he was completely honest with
+himself, he was aware that he did not really hate Mr Shuttleworth for
+standing in his path. Georgie was gentle in all his ways, and his
+manner of falling in love was very gentle, too. He admired Olga
+immensely, he found her stimulating and amusing, and since it was out
+of the question really to be her lover, he would have enjoyed next best
+to that, being her brother, and such little pangs of jealousy as he
+might experience from time to time, were rather in the nature of small
+electric shocks voluntarily received. He was devoted to her with a
+warmth that his supposed devotion to Lucia had never kindled in him; he
+even went so far as to dream about her in an agitated though respectful
+manner. Without being conscious of any unreality about his sentiments,
+he really wanted to dress up as a lover rather than to be one, for he
+could form no notion at present of what it felt to be absorbed in
+anyone else. Life was so full as it was: there really was no room for
+anything else, especially if that something else must be of the quality
+which rendered everything else colourless.
+
+This state of mind, this quality of emotion was wholly pleasurable and
+quite exciting, and instead of crying out "More misery! more
+unhappiness!" he could now, as he passed the mulberry, say to himself
+"More pleasures! more happiness!"
+
+Yet as he ran down the road to lunch with Lucia he was conscious that
+she was likely to stand, an angel perhaps, but certainly one with a
+flaming sword, between him and all the interests of the new life which
+was undoubtedly beginning to bubble in Riseholme, and to which Georgie
+found it so pleasant to take his little mug, and have it filled with
+exhilarating liquid. And if Lucia proved to be standing in his path,
+forbidding his approach, he, too, was armed for combat, with a
+revolutionary weapon, consisting of a rolled-up copy of some of
+Debussy's music for the piano--Olga had lent it him a few days,--and he
+had been very busy over "Poissons d'or." He was further armed by the
+complete knowledge of the Italian debacle of last night, which, from
+his knowledge of Lucia, he judged must constitute a crisis. Something
+would have to happen.... Several times lately Olga had, so to speak,
+run full-tilt into Lucia, and had passed on leaving a staggering form
+behind her. And in each case, so Georgie clearly perceived, Olga had
+not intended to butt into or stagger anybody. Each time, she had
+knocked Lucia down purely by accident, but if these accidents occurred
+with such awful frequency, it was to be expected that Lucia would find
+another name for them: they would have to be christened. With all his
+Riseholme appetite for complications and events Georgie guessed that he
+was not likely to go empty away from this lunch. In addition there were
+other topics of extraordinary interest, for really there had been very
+odd experiences at Mrs Quantock's last night, when the Italian debacle
+was going on, a little way up the road. But he was not going to bring
+that out at once.
+
+Lucia hailed him with her most cordial manner, and with a superb
+effrontery began to talk Italian just as usual, though she must have
+guessed that Georgie knew all about last night.
+
+"Bon arrivato, amico mio," she said. "Why, it must be three days since
+we met. Che la falto il signorino? And what have you got there?"
+
+Georgie, having escaped being caught over Italian, had made up his mind
+not to talk any more ever.
+
+"Oh, they are some little things by Debussy," he said. "I want to play
+one of them to you afterwards. I've just been glancing through it."
+
+"Bene, molto bene!" said she. "Come in to lunch. But I can't promise to
+like it, Georgino. Isn't Debussy the man who always makes me want to
+howl like a dog at the sound of the gong? Where did you get these
+from?"
+
+"Olga lent me them," said Georgie negligently. He really did call her
+Olga to her face now, by request.
+
+Lucia's bugles began to sound.
+
+"Yes, I should think Miss Bracely would admire that sort of music," she
+said. "I suppose I am too old-fashioned, though I will not condemn your
+little pieces of Debussy before I have heard them. Old-fashioned! Yes!
+I was certainly too old-fashioned for the music she gave us last night.
+Dio mi!"
+
+"Oh, didn't you enjoy it?" asked he.
+
+Lucia sat down, without waiting for Peppino.
+
+"Poor Miss Bracely!" she said. "It was very kind of her in intention to
+ask me, but she would have been kinder to have asked Mrs Antrobus
+instead, and have told her not to bring her ear-trumpet. To hear that
+lovely voice, for I do her justice, and there are lovely notes in her
+voice, _lovely_, to hear that voice shrieking and screaming away,
+in what she called the great scene, was simply pitiful. There was no
+melody, and above all there was no form. A musical composition is like
+an architectural building; it must be built up and constructed. How
+often have I said that! You must have colour, and you must have line,
+otherwise I cannot concede you the right to say you have music."
+
+Lucia finished her egg in a hurry, and put her elbows on the table.
+
+"I hope I am not hide-bound and limited," she said, "and I think you
+will acknowledge, Georgie, that I am not. Even in the divinest music of
+all, I am not blind to defects, if there are defects. The Moonlight
+Sonata, for instance. You have often heard me say that the two last
+movements do not approach the first in perfection of form. And if I am
+permitted to criticise Beethoven, I hope I may be allowed to suggest
+that Mr Cortese has not produced an opera which will render Fidelio
+ridiculous. But really I am chiefly sorry for Miss Bracely. I should
+have thought it worth her while to render herself not unworthy to
+interpret Fidelio, whatever time and trouble that cost her, rather than
+to seek notoriety by helping to foist on to the world a fresh
+combination of engine-whistles and grunts. _Non e vero_, Peppino?
+How late you are."
+
+Lucia had not determined on this declaration of war without anxious
+consideration. But it was quite obvious to her that the enemy was daily
+gaining strength, and therefore the sooner she came to open hostilities
+the better, for it was equally obvious to her mind that Olga was a
+pretender to the throne she had occupied for so long. It was time to
+mobilise, and she had first to state her views and her plan of campaign
+to the chief of her staff.
+
+"No, we did not quite like our evening, Peppino and I, did we,
+_caro_?" she went on. "And Mr Cortese! His appearance! He is like
+a huge hairdresser. His touch on the piano. If you can imagine a wild
+bull butting at the keys, you will have some idea of it. And above all,
+his Italian! I gathered that he was a Neapolitan, and we all know what
+Neapolitan dialect is like. Tuscans and Romans, who between them I
+believe--Lingua Toscano in Bocca Romana, you remember--know how to
+speak their own tongue, find Neapolitans totally unintelligible. For
+myself, and I speak for mio sposo as well, I do not want to understand
+what Romans do not understand. La bella lingua is sufficient for me."
+
+"I hear that Olga could understand him quite well," said Georgie
+betraying his complete knowledge of all that had happened.
+
+"That may be so," said Lucia. "I hope she understood his English too,
+and his music. He had not an 'h' when he spoke English, and I have not
+the slightest doubt in my own mind that his Italian was equally
+illiterate. It does not matter; I do not see that Mr Cortese's
+linguistic accomplishments concern us. But his music does, if poor Miss
+Bracely, with her lovely notes, is going to study it, and appear as
+Lucretia. I am sorry if that is so. Any news?"
+
+Really it was rather magnificent, and it was war as well; of that there
+could not be the slightest doubt. All Riseholme, by this time, knew
+that Lucia and Peppino had not been able to understand a word of what
+Cortese had said, and here was the answer to the back-biting
+suggestion, vividly put forward by Mrs Weston on the green that
+morning, that the explanation was that Lucia and Peppino did not know
+Italian. They could not reasonably be expected to know Neapolitan
+dialect; the language of Dante satisfied their humble needs. They found
+it difficult to understand Cortese when he spoke English, but that did
+not imply that they did not know English. Dante's tongue and
+Shakespeare's tongue sufficed them....
+
+"And what were the words of the libretto like?" asked Georgie.
+
+Lucia fixed him with her beady eyes, ready and eager to show how
+delighted she was to bestow approbation wherever it was deserved.
+
+"Wonderful!" she said. "I felt, and so did Peppino, that the words were
+as utterly wasted on that formless music as was poor Miss Bracely's
+voice. How did it go, Peppino? Let me think!"
+
+Lucia raised her head again with the far-away look.
+
+"Amore misterio!" she said. "Amore profondo! Amore profondo del vasto
+mar." "Ah, there was our poor bella lingua again. I wonder who wrote the
+libretto."
+
+"Mr Cortese wrote the libretto," said Georgie.
+
+Lucia did not hesitate for a moment, but gave her silvery laugh.
+
+"Oh, dear me, no," she said. "If you had heard him talk you would know
+he could not have. Well, have we not had enough of Mr Cortese and his
+works? Any news? What did you do last night, when Peppino and I were in
+our purgatorio?"
+
+Georgie was almost equally glad to get off the subject of Italian. The
+less said in or of Italian the better.
+
+"I was dining with Mrs Quantock," he said. "She had a very interesting
+Russian woman staying with her, Princess Popoffski."
+
+Lucia laughed again.
+
+"Dear Daisy!" she said. "Tell me about the Russian princess. Was she a
+Guru? Dear me, how easily some people are taken in! The Guru! Well, we
+were all in the same boat there. We took the Guru on poor Daisy's
+valuation, and I still believe he had very remarkable gifts, curry-cook
+or not. But Princess Popoffski now----"
+
+"We had a seance," said Georgie.
+
+"Indeed! And Princess Popoffski was the medium?"
+
+Georgie grew a little dignified.
+
+"It is no use adopting that tone, cara," he said, relapsing into
+Italian. "You were not there; you were having your purgatory at Olga's.
+It was very remarkable. We touched hands all round the table; there was
+no possibility of fraud."
+
+Lucia's views on psychic phenomena were clearly known to Riseholme;
+those who produced them were fraudulent, those who were taken in by
+them were dupes. Consequently there was irony in the baby-talk of her
+reply.
+
+"Me dood!" she said. "Me very dood, and listen carefully. Tell Lucia!"
+
+Georgie recounted the experiences. The table had rocked and tapped out
+names. The table had whirled round, though it was a very heavy table.
+Georgie had been told that he had two sisters, one of whom in Latin was
+a bear.
+
+"How did the table know that?" he asked. "Ursa, a bear, you know. And
+then, while we were sitting there, the Princess went off into a trance.
+She said there was a beautiful spirit present, who blessed us all. She
+called Mrs Quantock Margarita, which, as you may know, is the Italian
+for Daisy."
+
+Lucia smiled.
+
+"Thank you for explaining, Georgino," she said.
+
+There was no mistaking the irony of that, and Georgie thought he would
+be ironical too.
+
+"I didn't know if you knew," he said. "I thought it might be Neapolitan
+dialect."
+
+"Pray, go on!" said Lucia, breathing through her nose.
+
+"And she said I was Georgie," said Georgie, "but that there was another
+Georgie not far off. That was odd, because Olga's house, with Mr
+Shuttleworth, were so close. And then the Princess went into very deep
+trance, and the spirit that was there took possession of her."
+
+"And who was that?" asked Lucia.
+
+"His name was Amadeo. She spoke in Amadeo's voice, indeed it was Amadeo
+who was speaking. He was a Florentine and knew Dante quite well. He
+materialised; I saw him."
+
+A bright glorious vision flashed upon Lucia. The Dante-class might not,
+even though it was clearly understood that Cortese spoke unintelligible
+Neapolitan, be a complete success, if the only attraction was that she
+herself taught Dante, but it would be quite a different proposition if
+Princess Popoffski, controlled by Amadeo, Dante's friend, was present.
+They might read a Canto first, and then hold a seance of which
+Amadeo--via Princess Popoffski--would take charge. While this was
+simmering in her mind, it was important to drop all irony and be
+extremely sympathetic.
+
+"Georgino! How wonderful!" she said. "As you know, I am sceptical by
+nature, and want all evidence carefully sifted. I daresay I am too
+critical, and that is a fault. But fancy getting in touch with a friend
+of Dante's! What would one not give? Tell me: what is this Princess
+like? Is she the sort of person one could ask to dinner?"
+
+Georgie was still sore over the irony to which he had been treated.
+He had, moreover, the solid fact behind him that Daisy Quantock
+(Margarita) had declared that in no circumstances would she permit
+Lucia to annex her Princess. She had forgiven Lucia for annexing the
+Guru (and considering that she had only annexed a curry-cook, it was
+not so difficult) but she was quite determined to run her Princess
+herself.
+
+"Yes, you might ask her," he said. If irony was going about, there was
+no reason why he should not have a share.
+
+Lucia bounced from her seat, as if it had been a spring cushion.
+
+"We will have a little party," she said. "We three, and dear Daisy and
+her husband and the Princess. I think that will be enough; psychics
+hate a crowd, because it disturbs the influences. Mind! I do not say I
+believe in her power yet, but I am quite open-minded; I should like to
+be convinced. Let me see! We are doing nothing tomorrow. Let us have
+our little dinner tomorrow. I will send a line to dear Daisy at once,
+and say how enormously your account of the seance has interested me. I
+should like dear Daisy to have something to console her for that
+terrible fiasco about her Guru. And then, Georgino mio, I will listen
+to your Debussy. Do not expect anything; if it seems to me formless, I
+shall say so. But if it seems to me promising, I shall be equally
+frank. Perhaps it is great; I cannot tell you about that till I have
+heard it. Let me write my note first."
+
+That was soon done, and Lucia, having sent it by hand, came into the
+music-room, and drew down the blinds over the window through which the
+autumn sun was streaming. Very little art, as she had once said, would
+"stand" daylight; only Shakespeare or Dante or Beethoven and perhaps
+Bach, could compete with the sun.
+
+Georgie, for his part, would have liked rather more light, but after
+all Debussy wrote such very odd chords and sequences that it was not
+necessary to wear his spectacles.
+
+Lucia sat in a high chair near the piano, with her chin in her hand,
+tremendously erect.
+
+Georgie took off his rings and laid them on the candle-bracket, and ran
+his hands nimbly over the piano.
+
+"_Poissons d'or_," he said. "Goldfish!"
+
+"Yes; Pesci d'oro," said Lucia, explaining it to Peppino.
+
+Lucia's face changed as the elusive music proceeded. The far-away look
+died away, and became puzzled; her chin came out of her hand, and the
+hand it came out of covered her eyes.
+
+Before Georgie had got to the end the answer to her note came, and she
+sat with it in her hand, which, released from covering her eyes, tried
+to beat time. On the last note she got up with a regretful sigh.
+
+"Is it finished?" she asked. "And yet I feel inclined to say 'When is
+it going to begin?' I haven't been fed; I haven't drank in anything.
+Yes, I warned you I should be quite candid. And there's my verdict. I
+am sorry. Me vewy sowwy! But you played it, I am sure, beautifully,
+Georgino; you were a _buono avvocato_; you said all that could be
+said for your client. Shall I open this note before we discuss it more
+fully? Give Georgino a cigarette, Peppino! I am sure he deserves one,
+after all those accidentals."
+
+She pulled up the blind again in order to read her note and as she read
+her face clouded.
+
+"Ah! I am sorry for that," she said. "Peppino, the Princess does not go
+out in the evening; they always have a seance there. I daresay Daisy
+means to ask us some evening soon. We will keep an evening or two open.
+It is a long time since I have seen dear Daisy; I will pop round this
+afternoon."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter THIRTEEN
+
+
+Spiritualism, and all things pertaining to it, swept over Riseholme
+like the amazing growth of some tropical forest, germinating and
+shooting out its surprising vegetation, and rearing into huge fantastic
+shapes. In the centre of this wonderful jungle was a temple, so to
+speak, and that temple was the house of Mrs Quantock....
+
+A strange Providence was the origin of it all. Mrs Quantock, a week
+before, had the toothache, and being no longer in the fold of Christian
+Science, found that it was no good at all to tell herself that it was a
+false claim. False claim it might be, but it was so plausible at once
+that it quite deceived her, and she went up to London to have its
+falsity demonstrated by a dentist. Since the collapse of Yoga and the
+flight of the curry-cook, she had embarked on no mystical adventure,
+and she starved for some new fad. Then when her first visit to the
+dentist was over (the tooth required three treatments) and she went to
+a vegetarian restaurant to see if there was anything enlightening to be
+got out of that, she was delighted to find herself sitting at a very
+small table with a very communicative lady who ate cabbages in
+perfectly incredible quantities. She had a round pale face like the
+moon behind the clouds, enormous eyebrows that almost met over her
+nose, and a strange low voice, of husky tone, and a pronunciation quite
+as foreign as Signor Cortese's. She wore some very curious rings with
+large engraved amethysts and turquoises in them, and since in the first
+moments of their conversation she had volunteered the information that
+vegetarianism was the only possible diet for any who were cultivating
+their psychical powers, Mrs Quantock asked her if these weird
+finger-ornaments had any mystical signification. They had; one was
+Gnostic, one was Rosicrucian, and the other was Cabalistic.... It is
+easy to picture Mrs Quantock's delight; adventure had met her with
+smiling mouth and mysterious eyes. In the course of an animated
+conversation of half an hour, the lady explained that if Mrs Quantock
+was, like her, a searcher after psychical truths, and cared to come to
+her flat at half-past four that afternoon, she would try to help her.
+She added with some little diffidence that the fee for a seance was a
+guinea, and, as she left, took a card out of a case, encrusted with
+glowing rubies, and gave it her. That was the Princess Popoffski.
+
+Now here was a curious thing. For the last few evenings at Riseholme,
+Mrs Quantock had been experimenting with a table, and found that it
+creaked and tilted and tapped in the most encouraging way when she and
+Robert laid their hands on it. Then something--whatever it was that
+moved the table--had indicated by raps that her name was Daisy and his
+Robert, as well as giving them other information, which could not so
+easily be verified. Robert had grown quite excited about it, and was
+vexed that the seances were interrupted by his wife's expedition to
+London. But now how providential that was. She had walked straight from
+the dentist into the arms of Princess Popoffski.
+
+It was barely half-past four when Mrs Quantock arrived at the
+Princess's flat, in a pleasant quiet side street off Charing Cross
+Road. A small dapper little gentleman received her, who explained that
+he was the Princess's secretary, and conducted her through several
+small rooms into the presence of the Sybil. These rooms, so Mrs
+Quantock thrillingly noticed, were dimly lit by oil lamps that stood in
+front of shrines containing images of the great spiritual guides from
+Moses down to Madame Blavatski, a smell of incense hung about, there
+were vases of flowers on the tables, and strange caskets set with
+winking stones. In the last of these rooms the Princess was seated, and
+for the moment Mrs Quantock hardly recognised her, for she wore a
+blue robe, which left her massive arms bare, and up them writhed
+serpent-shaped bracelets of many coils. She fixed her eyes on Mrs
+Quantock, as if she had never seen her before, and made no sign of
+recognition.
+
+"The Princess has been meditating," said the secretary in a whisper.
+"She'll come to herself presently."
+
+For a moment meditation unpleasantly reminded Mrs Quantock of the Guru,
+but nothing could have been less like that ill-starred curry-cook than
+this majestic creature. Eventually she gave a great sigh and came out
+of her meditation.
+
+"Ah, it is my friend," she said. "Do you know that you have a purple
+halo?"
+
+This was very gratifying, especially when it was explained that only
+the most elect had purple halos, and soon other elect souls assembled
+for the seance. In the centre of the table was placed a musical box and
+a violin, and hardly had the circle been made, and the lights turned
+down, when the most extraordinary things began to happen. A perfect
+storm of rappings issued from the table, which began to rock violently,
+and presently there came peals of laughter in a high voice, and those
+who had been here before said that it was Pocky. He was a dear naughty
+boy, so Mrs Quantock's neighbour explained to her, so full of fun, and
+when on earth had been a Hungarian violinist. Still invisible, Pocky
+wished them all much laughter and joy, and then suddenly said "'Ullo,
+'ullo, 'ere's a new friend. I like her," and Mrs Quantock's neighbour,
+with a touch of envy in her voice, told her that Pocky clearly meant
+her. Then Pocky said that they had been having heavenly music on the
+other side that day, and that if the new friend would say "Please" he
+would play them some of it.
+
+So Mrs Quantock, trembling with emotion, said "Please, Pocky," and
+instantly he began to play on the violin the spirit tune which he had
+just been playing on the other side. After that, the violin clattered
+back onto the middle of the table again, and Pocky, blowing showers of
+kisses to them all, went away amid peals of happy laughter.
+
+Silence fell, and then a deep bass voice said, "I am coming, Amadeo!"
+and out of the middle of the table appeared a faint luminousness. It
+grew upwards and began to take form. Swathes of white muslin shaped
+themselves in the darkness, and there appeared a white face, in among
+the topmost folds of the muslin, with a Roman nose and a melancholy
+expression. He was not gay like Pocky, but he was intensely impressive,
+and spoke some lines in Italian, when asked to repeat a piece of Dante.
+Mrs Quantock knew they were Italian, because she recognised "notte" and
+"uno" and "caro," familiar words on Lucia's lips.
+
+The seance came to an end, and Mrs Quantock having placed a guinea with
+the utmost alacrity in a sort of offertory plate which the Princess's
+secretary negligently but prominently put down on a table in one of the
+other rooms, waited to arrange for another seance. But most
+unfortunately the Princess was leaving town next day on a much needed
+holiday, for she had been giving three seances a day for the last two
+months and required rest.
+
+"Yes, we're off tomorrow, the Princess and I," said he, "for a week at
+the Royal Hotel at Brinton. Pleasant bracing air, always sets her up.
+But after that she'll be back in town. Do you know that part of the
+country?"
+
+Daisy could hardly believe her ears.
+
+"Brinton?" she said. "I live close to Brinton."
+
+Her whole scheme flashed completely upon her, even as Athene sprang
+full-grown from the brain of Zeus.
+
+"Do you think that she might be induced to spend a few days with me at
+Riseholme?" she said. "My husband and I are so much interested in
+psychical things. You would be our guest, too, I hope. If she rested
+for a few days at Brinton first? If she came on to me afterwards? And
+then if she was thoroughly rested, perhaps she would give us a seance
+or two. I don't know--"
+
+Mrs Quantock felt a great diffidence in speaking of guineas in the same
+sentence with Princesses, and had to make another start.
+
+"If she were thoroughly rested," she said, "and if a little circle
+perhaps of four, at the usual price would be worth her while. Just
+after dinner, you know, and nothing else to do all day but rest. There
+are pretty drives and beautiful air. All very quiet, and I think I may
+say more comfortable than the hotel. It would be such a pleasure."
+
+Mrs Quantock heard the clinking of bracelets from the room where the
+Princess was still reposing, and there she stood in the door, looking
+unspeakably majestic, but very gracious. So Mrs Quantock put her
+proposition before her, the secretary coming to the rescue on the
+subject of the usual fees, and when two days afterwards Mrs Quantock
+returned to Riseholme, it was to get ready the spare room and Robert's
+room next to it for these thrilling visitors, whose first seance
+Georgie and Piggy had attended, on the evening of the Italian
+debacle....
+
+The Quantocks had taken a high and magnificent line about the "usual
+fees" for the seances, an expensive line, but then Roumanian oils had
+been extremely prosperous lately. No mention whatever of these fees was
+made to their guests, no offertory-plate was put in a prominent
+position in the hall, there was no fumbling for change or the discreet
+pressure of coins into the secretary's hand; the entire cost was borne
+by Roumanian oils. The Princess and Mrs Quantock, apparently, were old
+friends; they spoke to each other at dinner as "dear friend," and the
+Princess declared in the most gratifying way that they had been most
+intimate in a previous incarnation, without any allusion to the fact
+that in this incarnation they had met for the first time last week at a
+vegetarian restaurant. She was kind enough, it was left to be
+understood, to give a little seance after dinner at the house of her
+"dear friend," and so, publicly, the question of money never came up.
+
+Now the Princess was to stay three nights, and therefore, as soon as
+Mrs Quantock had made sure of that, she proceeded to fill up each of
+the seances without asking Lucia to any of them. It was not that she
+had not fully forgiven her for her odious grabbing of the Guru, for she
+had done that on the night of the Spanish quartette; it was rather that
+she meant to make sure that there would by no possibility be anything
+to forgive concerning her conduct with regard to the Princess. Lucia
+could not grab her and so call Daisy's powers of forgiveness into play
+again, if she never came near her, and Daisy meant to take proper
+precautions that she should not come near her. Accordingly Georgie and
+Piggy were asked to the first seance (if it did not go very well, it
+would not particularly matter with them), Olga and Mr Shuttleworth were
+bidden to the second, and Lady Ambermere with Georgie again to the
+third. This--quite apart from the immense interest of psychic
+phenomena--was deadly work, for it would be bitter indeed to Lucia to
+know, as she most undoubtedly would, that Lady Ambermere, who had cut
+her so firmly, was dining twice and coming to a seance. Daisy, it must
+again be repeated, had quite forgiven Lucia about the Guru, but Lucia
+must take the consequences of what she had done.
+
+It was after the first seance that the frenzy for spiritualism seized
+Riseholme. The Princess with great good-nature, gave some further
+exhibitions of her psychical power in addition to the seances, and even
+as Georgie the next afternoon was receiving Lucia's cruel verdict about
+Debussy, the Sybil was looking at the hands of Colonel Boucher and Mrs
+Weston, and unerringly probing into their past, and lifting the corner
+of the veil, giving them both glimpses into the future. She knew that
+the two were engaged for that she had learned from Mrs Quantock in her
+morning's drive, and did not attempt to conceal the fact, but how could
+it be accounted for that looking impressively from the one to the
+other, she said that a woman no longer young but tall, and with fair
+hair had crossed their lives and had been connected with one of them
+for years past? It was impossible to describe Elizabeth more accurately
+than that, and Mrs Weston in high excitement confessed that her maid
+who had been with her for fifteen years entirely corresponded with what
+the Princess had seen in her hand. After that it took only a moment's
+further scrutiny for the Princess to discover that Elizabeth was going
+to be happy too. Then she found that there was a man connected with
+Elizabeth, and Colonel Boucher's hand, to which she transferred her
+gaze, trembled with delightful anticipation. She seemed to see a man
+there; she was not quite sure, but was there a man who perhaps had been
+known to him for a long time? There was. And then by degrees the
+affairs of Elizabeth and Atkinson were unerringly unravelled. It was
+little wonder that the Colonel pushed Mrs Weston's bath-chair with
+record speed to "Ye signe of ye daffodil," and by the greatest good
+luck obtained a copy of the "Palmist's Manual."
+
+At another of these informal seances attended by Goosie and Mrs
+Antrobus, even stranger things had happened, for the Princess's hands,
+as they held a little preliminary conversation, began to tremble and
+twitch even more strongly than Colonel Boucher's, and Mrs Quantock
+hastily supplied her with a pencil and a quantity of sheets of foolscap
+paper, for this trembling and twitching implied that Reschia, an
+ancient Egyptian priestess, was longing to use the Princess's hand for
+automatic writing. After a few wild scrawls and plunges with the
+pencil, the Princess, though she still continued to talk to them,
+covered sheet after sheet in large flowing handwriting. This, when it
+was finished and the Princess sunk back in her chair, proved to be the
+most wonderful spiritual discourse, describing the happiness and
+harmony which pervaded the whole universe, and was only temporarily
+obscured by the mists of materiality. These mists were wholly withdrawn
+from the vision of those who had passed over. They lived in the midst
+of song and flowers and light and love.... Towards the end there was a
+less intelligible passage about fire from the clouds. It was rendered
+completely intelligible the very next day when there was a
+thunderstorm, surely an unusual occurrence in November. If that had not
+happened Mrs Quantock's interpretation of it, as referring to
+Zeppelins, would have been found equally satisfactory. It was no wonder
+after that, that Mrs Antrobus, Piggy and Goosie spent long evenings
+with pencils and paper, for the Princess said that everybody had the
+gift of automatic writing, if they would only take pains and patience
+to develop it. Everybody had his own particular guide, and it was the
+very next day that Piggy obtained a script clearly signed Annabel
+Nicostratus and Jamifleg followed very soon after for her mother and
+sister, and so there was no jealousy.
+
+But the crown and apex of these manifestations was undoubtedly the
+three regular seances which took place to the three select circles
+after dinner. Musical boxes resounded, violins gave forth ravishing
+airs, the sitters were touched by unseen fingers when everybody's hands
+were touching all around the table, and from the middle of it
+materialisations swathed in muslin were built up. Pocky came, visible
+to the eye, and played spirit music. Amadeo, melancholy and impressive,
+recited Dante, and Cardinal Newman, not visible to the eye but audible
+to the ear, joined in the singing "Lead, Kindly Light," which the
+secretary requested them to encourage him with, and blessed them
+profusely at the conclusion. Lady Ambermere was so much impressed, and
+so nervous of driving home alone, that she insisted on Georgie's going
+back to the Hall with her, and consigning her person to Pug and Miss
+Lyall, and for the three days of the Princess's visit, there was
+practically no subject discussed at the parliaments on the Green,
+except the latest manifestations. Olga went to town for a crystal, and
+Georgie for a planchette, and Riseholme temporarily became a
+spiritualistic republic, with the Princess as priestess and Mrs
+Quantock as President.
+
+Lucia, all this time, was almost insane with pique and jealousy, for
+she sat in vain waiting for an invitation to come to a seance, and
+would, long before the three days were over, have welcomed with
+enthusiasm a place at one of the inferior and informal exhibitions.
+Since she could not procure the Princess for dinner, she asked Daisy to
+bring her to lunch or tea or at any hour day or night which was
+convenient. She made Peppino hang about opposite Daisy's house, with
+orders to drop his stick, or let his hat blow off, if he saw even the
+secretary coming out of the gate, so as possibly to enter into
+conversation with him, while she positively forced herself one morning
+into Daisy's hall, and cried "Margarita" in silvery tones. On this
+occasion Margarita came out of the drawing-room with a most determined
+expression on her face, and shut the door carefully behind her.
+
+"Dearest Lucia," she said, "how nice to see you! What is it?"
+
+"I just popped in for a chat," said she. "I haven't set eyes on you
+since the evening of the Spanish quartette."
+
+"No! So long ago as that is it? Well, you must come in again sometime
+very soon, won't you? The day after tomorrow I shall be much less busy.
+Promise to look in then."
+
+"You have a visitor with you, have you not?" asked Lucia desperately.
+
+"Yes! Two, indeed, dear friends of mine. But I am afraid you would not
+like them. I know your opinion about anything connected with
+spiritualism, and--isn't it silly of us?--we've been dabbling in that."
+
+"Oh, but how interesting," said Lucia. "I--I am always ready to learn,
+and alter my opinions if I am wrong."
+
+Mrs Quantock did not move from in front of the drawing-room door.
+
+"Yes?" she said. "Then we will have a great talk about it, when you
+come to see me the day after tomorrow. But I know I shall find you hard
+to convince."
+
+She kissed the tips of her fingers in a manner so hopelessly final that
+there was nothing to do but go away.
+
+Then with poor generalship, Lucia altered her tactics, and went up to
+the Village Green where Piggy was telling Georgie about the script
+signed Annabel. This was repeated again for Lucia's benefit.
+
+"Wasn't it too lovely?" said Piggy. "So Annabel's my guide, and she
+writes a hand quite unlike mine."
+
+Lucia gave a little scream, and put her fingers to her ears.
+
+"Gracious me!" she said. "What has come over Riseholme? Wherever I go I
+hear nothing but talk of seances, and spirits, and automatic writing.
+Such a pack of nonsense, my dear Piggy. I wonder at a sensible girl
+like you."
+
+Mrs Weston, propelled by the Colonel, whirled up in her bath-chair.
+
+"'The Palmist's Manual' is too wonderful," she said, "and Jacob and I
+sat up over it till I don't know what hour. There's a break in his line
+of life, just at the right place, when he was so ill in Egypt, which is
+most remarkable, and when Tommy Luton brought round my bath-chair this
+morning--I had it at the garden-door, because the gravel's just laid at
+my front-door, and the wheels sink so far into it--'Tommy,' I said,
+'let me look at your hand a moment,' and there on his line of fate, was
+the little cross that means bereavement. It came just right didn't it,
+Jacob? when he was thirteen, for he's fourteen this year, and Mrs Luton
+died just a year ago. Of course I didn't tell Tommy that, for I only
+told him to wash his hands, but it was most curious. And has your
+planchette come yet, Mr Georgie? I shall be most anxious to know what
+it writes, so if you've got an evening free any night soon just come
+round for a bit of dinner, and we'll make an evening of it, with table
+turning and planchette and palmistry. Now tell me all about the seance
+the first night. I wish I could have been present at a real seance, but
+of course Mrs Quantock can't find room for everybody, and I'm sure it
+was most kind of her to let the Colonel and me come in yesterday
+afternoon. We were thrilled with it, and who knows but that the
+Princess didn't write the Palmist's Manual for on the title page it
+says it's by P. and that might be Popoffski as easily as not, or
+perhaps Princess."
+
+This allusion to there not being room for everybody was agony to Lucia.
+She laughed in her most silvery manner.
+
+"Or, perhaps Peppino," she said. "I must ask _mio caro_ if he
+wrote it. Or does it stand for Pillson? Georgino, are you the author of
+the Palmist's Manual? Ecco! I believe it was you."
+
+This was not quite wise, for no one detested irony more than Mrs
+Weston, or was sharper to detect it. Lucia should never have been
+ironical just then, nor indeed have dropped into Italian.
+
+"No" she said. "I'm sure it was neither Il Signer Peppino nor Il Signer
+Pillson who wrote it. I believe it was the Principessa. So, ecco! And
+did we not have a delicious evening at Miss Bracely's the other night?
+Such lovely singing, and so interesting to learn that Signor Cortese
+made it all up. And those lovely words, for though I didn't understand
+much of them, they sounded so exquisite. And fancy Miss Bracely talking
+Italian so beautifully when we none of us knew she talked it at all."
+
+Mrs Weston's amiable face was crimson with suppressed emotion, of which
+these few words were only the most insignificant leakage, and a very
+awkward pause succeeded which was luckily broken by everybody beginning
+to talk again very fast and brightly. Then Mrs Weston's chair scudded
+away; Piggy skipped away to the stocks where Goosie was sitting with a
+large sheet of foolscap, in case her hand twitched for automatic
+script, and Lucia turned to Georgie, who alone was left.
+
+"Poor Daisy!" she said. "I dropped in just now, and really I found her
+very odd and strange. What with her crazes for Christian Science, and
+Uric Acid and Gurus and Mediums, one wonders if she is quite sane. So
+sad! I should be dreadfully sorry if she had some mental collapse; that
+sort of thing is always so painful. But I know of a first-rate place
+for rest-cures; I think it would be wise if I just casually dropped the
+name of it to Mr Robert, in case. And this last craze seems so terribly
+infectious. Fancy Mrs Weston dabbling in palmistry! It is too comical,
+but I hope I did not hurt her feelings by suggesting that Peppino or
+you wrote the Manual. It is dangerous to make little jokes to poor Mrs
+Weston."
+
+Georgie quite agreed with that, but did not think it necessary to say
+in what sense he agreed with it. Every day now Lucia was pouring floods
+of light on a quite new side of her character, which had been
+undeveloped, like the print from some photographic plate lying in the
+dark so long as she was undisputed mistress of Riseholme. But, so it
+struck him now, since the advent of Olga, she had taken up a critical
+ironical standpoint, which previously she had reserved for Londoners.
+At every turn she had to criticise and condemn where once she would
+only have praised. So few months ago, there had been that marvellous
+Hightum garden party, when Olga had sung long after Lady Ambermere had
+gone away. That was her garden party; the splendour and success of it
+had been hers, and no one had been allowed to forget that until Olga
+came back again. But the moment that happened, and Olga began to sing
+on her own account (which after all, so Georgie thought, she had a
+perfect right to do), the whole aspect of affairs was changed. She
+romped, and Riseholme did not like romps; she sang in church, and that
+was theatrical; she gave a party with the Spanish quartette, and
+Brinton was publicly credited with the performance. Then had come Mrs
+Quantock and her Princess, and, lo, it would be kind to remember the
+name of an establishment for rest-cures, in the hope of saving poor
+Daisy's sanity. Again Colonel Boucher and Mrs Weston were intending to
+get married, and consulted a Palmist's Manual, so they too helped to
+develop as with acid the print that had lain so long in the dark.
+
+"Poor thing!" said Lucia, "it is dreadful to have no sense of humour,
+and I'm sure I hope that Colonel Boucher will thoroughly understand
+that she has none before he speaks the fatal words. But then he has
+none either, and I have often noticed that two people without any sense
+of humour find each other most witty and amusing. A sense of humour, I
+expect, is not a very common gift; Miss Bracely has none at all, for I
+do not call romping humour. As for poor Daisy, what can rival her
+solemnity in sitting night after night round a table with someone who
+may or may not be a Russian princess--Russia of course is a very large
+place, and one does not know how many princesses there may be
+there--and thrilling over a pot of luminous paint and a false nose and
+calling it Amadeo the friend of Dante."
+
+This was too much for Georgie.
+
+"But you asked Mrs Quantock and the Princess to dine with you," he
+said, "and hoped there would be a seance afterwards. You wouldn't have
+done that, if you thought it was only a false nose and a pot of
+luminous paint."
+
+"I may have been impulsive," said Lucia speaking very rapidly. "I
+daresay I'm impulsive, and if my impulses lie in the direction of
+extending such poor hospitality as I can offer to my friends, and their
+friends, I am not ashamed of them. Far otherwise. But when I see and
+observe the awful effect of this so-called spiritualism on people whom
+I should have thought sensible and well-balanced--I do not include poor
+dear Daisy among them--then I am only thankful that my impulses did not
+happen to lead me into countenancing such piffle, as your sister so
+truly observed about POOR Daisy's Guru."
+
+They had come opposite Georgie's house, and suddenly his drawing-room
+window was thrown up. Olga's head looked out.
+
+"Don't have a fit, Georgie, to find me here" she said. "Good morning,
+Mrs Lucas; you were behind the mulberry, and I didn't see you. But
+something's happened to my kitchen range, and I can't have lunch at
+home. Do give me some. I've brought my crystal, and we'll gaze and
+gaze. I can see nothing at present except my own nose and the window.
+Are you psychical, Mrs Lucas?"
+
+This was the last straw; all Lucia's grievances had been flocking
+together like swallows for their flight, and to crown all came this
+open annexation of Georgie. There was Olga, sitting in his window, all
+unasked, and demanding lunch, with her silly ridiculous crystal in her
+hand, wondering if Lucia was psychical.
+
+Her silvery laugh was a little shrill. It started a full tone above its
+normal pitch.
+
+"No, dear Miss Bracely," she said. "I am afraid I am much too
+commonplace and matter-of-fact to care about such things. It is a
+great loss I know, and deprives me of the pleasant society of Russian
+princesses. But we are all made differently; that is very lucky. I must
+get home, Georgie."
+
+It certainly seemed very lucky that everyone was not precisely like
+Lucia at that moment, or there would have been quarrelling.
+
+She walked quickly off, and Georgie entered his house. Lucia had really
+been remarkably rude, and, if allusion was made to it, he was ready to
+confess that she seemed a little worried. Friendship would allow that,
+and candour demanded it. But no allusion of any sort was made. There
+was a certain flush on Olga's face, and she explained that she had been
+sitting over the fire.
+
+The Princess's visit came to an end next day, and all the world knew
+that she was going back to London by the 11.00 a.m. express. Lady
+Ambermere was quite aware of it, and drove in with Pug and Miss Lyall,
+meaning to give her a lift to the station, leaving Mrs Quantock, if she
+wanted to see her guest off, to follow with the Princess's luggage in
+the fly which, no doubt, had been ordered. But Daisy had no intention
+of permitting this sort of thing, and drove calmly away with her dear
+friend in Georgie's motor, leaving the baffled Lady Ambermere to follow
+or not as she liked. She did like, though not much, and found herself
+on the platform among a perfect crowd of Riseholmites who had strolled
+down to the station on this lovely morning to see if parcels had come.
+Lady Ambermere took very little notice of them, but managed that Pug
+should give his paw to the Princess as she took her seat, and waved her
+hand to Mrs Quantock's dear friend, as the train slid out of the
+station.
+
+"The late lord had some Russian relations," she said majestically. "How
+did you get to know her?"
+
+"I met her at Potsdam" was on the tip of Mrs Quantock's tongue, but she
+was afraid that Lady Ambermere might not understand, and ask her when
+she had been to Potsdam. It was grievous work making jokes for Lady
+Ambermere.
+
+The train sped on to London, and the Princess opened the envelope which
+her hostess had discreetly put in her hand, and found that _that_
+was all right. Her hostess had also provided her with an admirable
+lunch, which her secretary took out of a Gladstone bag. When that was
+finished, she wanted her cigarettes, and as she looked for these, and
+even after she had found them, she continued to search for something
+else. There was the musical box there, and some curious pieces of
+elastic, and the violin was in its case, and there was a white mask.
+But she still continued to search....
+
+About the same time as she gave up the search, Mrs Quantock wandered
+upstairs to the Princess's room. A less highly vitalised nature than
+hers would have been in a stupor of content, but she was more in a
+frenzy of content than in a stupor. How fine that frenzy was may be
+judged from the fact that perhaps the smallest ingredient in it was her
+utter defeat of Lucia. She cared comparatively little for that glorious
+achievement, and she was not sure that when the Princess came back
+again, as she had arranged to do on her next holiday, she would not ask
+Lucia to come to a seance. Indeed she had little but pity for the
+vanquished, so great were the spoils. Never had Riseholme risen to such
+a pitch of enthusiasm, and with good cause had it done so now, for of
+all the wonderful and exciting things that had ever happened there,
+these seances were the most delirious. And better even than the
+excitement of Riseholme was the cause of its excitement, for
+spiritualism and the truth of inexplicable psychic phenomena had
+flashed upon them all. Tableaux, romps, Yoga, the Moonlight Sonata,
+Shakespeare, Christian Science, Olga herself, Uric Acid, Elizabethan
+furniture, the engagement of Colonel Boucher and Mrs Weston, all these
+tremendous topics had paled like fire in the sunlight before the
+revelation that had now dawned. By practice and patience, by zealous
+concentration on crystals and palms, by the waiting for automatic
+script to develop, you attained to the highest mysteries, and could
+evoke Cardinal Newman, or Pocky....
+
+There was the bed in which the Sybil had slept; there was the fresh
+vase of flowers, difficult to procure in November, but still
+obtainable, which she loved to have standing near her. There was the
+chest of drawers in which she had put her clothes, and Mrs Quantock
+pulled them open one by one, finding fresh emanations and vibrations
+everywhere. The lowest one stuck a little, and she had to use force to
+it....
+
+The smile was struck from her face, as it flew open. Inside it were
+billows and billows of the finest possible muslin. Fold after fold of
+it she drew out, and with it there came a pair of false eyebrows. She
+recognised them at once as being Amadeo's. The muslin belonged to Pocky
+as well.
+
+She needed but a moment's concentrated thought, and in swift succession
+rejected two courses of action that suggested themselves. The first was
+to use the muslin herself; it would make summer garments for years. The
+chief reason against that was that she was a little old for muslin. The
+second course was to send the whole paraphernalia back to her dear
+friend, with or without a comment. But that would be tantamount to a
+direct accusation of fraud. Never any more, if she did that, could she
+dispense her dear friend to Riseholme like an expensive drug. She would
+not so utterly burn her boats. There remained only one other judicious
+course of action, and she got to work.
+
+It had been a cold morning, clear and frosty, and she had caused a good
+fire to be lit in the Princess's bedroom, for her to dress by. It still
+prospered in the grate, and Mrs Quantock, having shut the door and
+locked it, put on to it the false eyebrows, which, as they turned to
+ash, flew up the chimney. Then she fed it with muslin; yards and yards
+of muslin she poured on to it; never had there been so much muslin nor
+that so exquisitely fine. It went to her heart to burn it, but there
+was no time for minor considerations; every atom of that evidence must
+be purged by fire. The Princess would certainly not write and say that
+she had left some eyebrows and a hundred yards of muslin behind her,
+for, knowing what she did, it would be to her interests as well as Mrs
+Quantock's that those properties should vanish, as if they never had
+been.
+
+Up the chimney in sheets of flame went this delightful fabric;
+sometimes it roared there, as if it had set the chimney on fire, and
+she had to pause, shielding her scorched face, until the hollow
+rumbling had died down. But at last the holocaust was over, and she
+unlocked the door again. No one knew but she, and no one should ever
+know. The Guru had turned out to be a curry-cook, but no intruding
+Hermy had been here this time. As long as crystals fascinated and
+automatic writing flourished, the secret of the muslin and the eyebrows
+should repose in one bosom alone. Riseholme had been electrified by
+spiritualism, and, even now, the seances had been cheap at the price,
+and in spite of this discovery, she felt by no means sure that she
+would not ask the Princess to come again and minister to their
+spiritual needs.
+
+She had hardly got downstairs when Robert came in from the Green, where
+he had been recounting the experiences of the last seance.
+
+"Looked as if there was a chimney on fire," he said. "I wish it was the
+kitchen chimney. Then perhaps the beef mightn't be so raw as it was
+yesterday."
+
+Thus is comedy intertwined with tragedy!
+
+
+
+
+Chapter FOURTEEN
+
+
+Georgie was very busily engaged during the first weeks of December on
+a water-colour sketch of Olga sitting at her piano and singing. The
+difficulty of it was such that at times he almost despaired of
+accomplishing it, for the problem of how to draw her face and her mouth
+wide open and yet retain the likeness seemed almost insoluble. Often he
+sat in front of his own looking-glass with his mouth open, and
+diligently drew his own face, in order to arrive at the principles of
+the changes of line which took place. Certainly the shape of a person's
+face, when his mouth was wide open altered so completely that you would
+have thought him quite unrecognisable, however skilfully the artist
+reproduced his elongated countenance, and yet Georgie could easily
+recognise that face in the glass as his. Forehead, eyes and cheek-bones
+alone retained their wonted aspect; even the nose seemed to lengthen if
+you opened your mouth very wide.... Then how again was he to indicate
+that she was singing and not yawning, or preparing for a sneeze? His
+most successful sketch at present looked precisely as if she was
+yawning, and made Georgie's jaws long to yawn too. Perhaps the shape of
+the mouth in the two positions was really the same, and it was only the
+sound that led you to suppose that an open-mouthed person was singing.
+But perhaps the piano would supply the necessary suggestion; Olga would
+not sit down at the piano merely to yawn or sneeze, for she could do
+that anywhere.
+
+Then a brilliant idea struck him: he would introduce a shaded lamp
+standing on the piano, and then her face would be in red shadow.
+Naturally this entailed fresh problems with regard to light, but light
+seemed to present less difficulty than likeness. Besides he could make
+her dress, and the keys of the piano very like indeed. But when he came
+to painting again he despaired. There must be red shadow on her face
+and yellow light on her hands, and on her green dress, and presently
+the whole thing looked not so much like Olga singing by lamp-light, as
+a lobster-salad spread out in the sunlight. The more he painted, the
+more vividly did the lettuce leaves and the dressing and the lobster
+emerge from the paper. So he took away the lamp, and shut Olga's mouth,
+and there she would be at her piano just going to sing.
+
+These artistic agonies had rewards which more than compensated for
+them, for regularly now he took his drawing-board and his paint-box
+across to her house, and sat with her while she practised. There were
+none of love's lilies low or yawning York now, for she was very busy
+learning her part in Lucretia, spending a solid two hours at it every
+morning, and Georgie began to perceive what sort of work it implied to
+produce the spontaneous ease with which Brunnhilde hailed the sun. More
+astounding even was the fact that this mere learning of notes was but
+the preliminary to what she called "real work." And when she had got
+through the mere mechanical part of it, she would have to study. Then
+when her practice was over, she would indulgently sit with her head in
+profile against a dark background, and Georgie would suck one end of
+his brush and bite the other, and wonder whether he would ever produce
+anything which he could dare to offer her. By daily poring on her face,
+he grew not to admire only but to adore its youth and beauty, by daily
+contact with her he began to see how fresh and how lovely was the mind
+that illuminated it.
+
+"Georgie, I'm going to scold you," she said one day, as she took up her
+place against the black panel. "You're a selfish little brute. You
+think of nothing but your own amusement. Did that ever strike you?"
+
+Georgie gasped with surprise. Here was he spending the whole of every
+morning trying to do something which would be a worthy Christmas
+present for her (to say nothing of the hours he had spent with his
+mouth open in front of his glass, and the cost of the beautiful frame
+which he had ordered) and yet he was supposed to be only thinking about
+himself. Of course Olga did not know that the picture was to be
+hers....
+
+"How tarsome you are!" he said. "You're always finding fault with me.
+Explain."
+
+"Well, you're neglecting your old friends for your new one," she said.
+"My dear, you should never drop an old friend. For instance, when did
+you last play duets with Mrs Lucas?"
+
+"Oh, not so very long ago," said Georgie.
+
+"Quite long enough, I am sure. But I don't actually mean sitting down
+and thumping the piano with her. When did you last think about her and
+make plans for her and talk baby-language?"
+
+"Who told you I ever did?" asked Georgie.
+
+"Gracious! How can I possibly remember that sort of thing? I should say
+at a guess that everybody told me. Now poor Mrs Lucas is feeling out of
+it, and neglected and dethroned. It's all on my mind rather, and I'm
+talking to you about it, because it's largely your fault. Now we're
+talking quite frankly, so don't fence, and say it's mine. I know
+exactly what you mean, but you are perfectly wrong. Primarily, it's Mrs
+Lucas's fault, because she's quite the stupidest woman I ever saw, but
+it's partly your fault too."
+
+She turned round.
+
+"Come, Georgie, let's have it out," she said. "I'm perfectly powerless
+to do anything, because she detests me, and you've got to help her and
+help me, and drop your selfishness. Before I came here, she used to run
+you all, and give you treats like going to her tableaux and listening
+to her stupid old Moonlight Sonata, and talking seven words of Italian.
+And then I came along with no earthly intention except to enjoy my
+holidays, and she got it into her head that I was trying to run the
+place instead of her. Isn't that so? Just say 'yes.'"
+
+"Yes," said Georgie.
+
+"Well, that puts me in an odious position and a helpless position. I
+did my best to be nice to her; I went to her house until she ceased to
+ask me, and asked her here for everything that I thought would amuse
+her, until she ceased to come. I took no notice of her rudeness which
+was remarkable, or of her absurd patronising airs, which didn't hurt me
+in the smallest degree. But Georgie, she would continue to make such a
+dreadful ass of herself, and think it was my fault. Was it my fault
+that she didn't know the Spanish quartette when she heard it, or that
+she didn't know a word of Italian, when she pretended she did, or that
+the other day (it was the last time I saw her, when you played your
+Debussy to us at Aunt Jane's) she talked to me about inverted fifths?"
+
+Olga suddenly burst out laughing, and Georgie assumed the Riseholme
+face of intense curiosity.
+
+"You must tell me all about that," he said, "and I'll tell you the rest
+which you don't know."
+
+Olga succumbed too, and began to talk in Aunt Jane's voice, for she had
+adopted her as an aunt.
+
+"Well, it was last Monday week" she said "or was it Sunday? No it
+couldn't have been Sunday because I don't have anybody to tea that day,
+as Elizabeth goes over to Jacob's and spends the afternoon with
+Atkinson, or the other way about, which doesn't signify, as the point
+is that Elizabeth should be free. So it was Monday, and Aunt Jane--it's
+me talking again--had the tea-party at which you played Poisson d'Or.
+And when it was finished, Mrs Lucas gave a great sigh, and said 'Poor
+Georgino! Wasting his time over that rubbish,' though she knew quite
+well that I had given it to you. And so I said, 'Would you call it
+rubbish, do you think?' and she said 'Quite. Every rule of music is
+violated. Don't those inverted fifths make you wince, Miss Bracely?'"
+
+Olga laughed again, and spoke in her own voice.
+
+"Oh, Georgie, she is an ass," she said. "What she meant I suppose was
+consecutive fifths; you can't invert a fifth. So I said (I really meant
+it as a joke), 'Of course there is that, but you must forgive Debussy
+that for the sake of that wonderful passage of submerged tenths!' And
+she took it quite gravely and shook her head, and said she was afraid
+she was a purist. What happened next? That's all I know."
+
+"Directly afterwards," said Georgie, "she brought the music to me, and
+asked me to show her where the passage of tenths came. I didn't know,
+but I found some tenths, and she brightened up and said 'Yes, it is
+true; those submerged tenths are very impressive.' Then I suggested
+that the submerged tenth was not a musical expression, but referred to
+a section of the population. On which she said no more, but when she
+went away she asked me to send her some book on 'Harmony.' I daresay
+she is looking for the submerged tenth still."
+
+Olga lit a cigarette and became grave again.
+
+"Well, it can't go on," she said. "We can't have the poor thing feeling
+angry and out of it. Then there was Mrs Quantock absolutely refusing to
+let her see the Princess."
+
+"That was her own fault," said Georgie. "It was because she was so
+greedy about the Guru."
+
+"That makes it all the bitterer. And I can't do anything, because she
+blames me for it all. I would ask her and her Peppino here every night,
+and listen to her dreary tunes every evening, and let her have it all
+her own way, if it would do any good. But things have gone too far; she
+wouldn't come. It has all happened without my noticing it. I never
+added it all up as it went along, and I hate it."
+
+Georgie thought of the spiritualistic truths.
+
+"If you're an incarnation," he said in a sudden glow of admiration,
+"you're the incarnation of an angel. How you can forgive her odious
+manners to you----"
+
+"My dear, shut up," said Olga. "We've got to do something. Now how
+would it be if you gave a nice party on Christmas night, and asked her
+at once? Ask her to help you in getting it up; make it clear she's
+going to run it."
+
+"All right. You'll come, won't you?"
+
+"Certainly I will not. Perhaps I will come in after dinner with Goosie
+or some one of that sort. Don't you see it would spoil it all if I were
+at dinner? You must rather pointedly leave me out. Give her a nice
+expensive refined Christmas present too. You might give her that
+picture you're doing of me--No, I suppose she wouldn't like that. But
+just comfort her and make her feel you can't get on without her. You've
+been her right hand all these years. Make her give her tableaux again.
+And then I think you must ask me in afterwards. I long to see her and
+Peppino as Brunnhilde and Siegfried. Just attend to her, Georgie, and
+buck her up. Promise me you will. And do it as if your heart was in it,
+otherwise it's no good."
+
+Georgie began packing up his paint-box. This was not the plan he had
+hoped for on Christmas Day, but if Olga wished this, it had got to be
+done.
+
+"Well, I'll do my best," he said.
+
+"Thanks ever so much. You're a darling. And how is your planchette
+getting on? I've been lazy about my crystal, but I get so tired of my
+own nose."
+
+"Planchette would write nothing but a few names," said Georgie,
+omitting the fact that Olga's was the most frequent. "I think I shall
+drop it."
+
+This was but reasonable, for since Riseholme had some new and absorbing
+excitement every few weeks, to say nothing of the current excitement of
+daily life, it followed that even the most thrilling pursuits could not
+hold the stage for very long. Still, the interest in spiritualism had
+died down with the rapidity of the seed on stony ground.
+
+"Even Mrs Quantock seems to have cooled," said Olga. "She and her
+husband were here last night, and they looked rather bored when I
+suggested table-turning. I wonder if anything has happened to put her
+off it?"
+
+"What do you think could have?" asked Georgie with Riseholme alacrity.
+
+"Georgie, do you really believe in the Princess and Pocky?" she asked.
+
+Georgie looked round to see that there was no one within hearing.
+
+"I did at the time," he said, "at least I think I did. But it seems
+less likely now. Who was the Princess anyway? Why didn't we ever hear
+of her before? I believe Mrs Quantock met her in the train or
+something."
+
+"So do I," said Olga. "But not a word. It makes Aunt Jane and Uncle
+Jacob completely happy to believe in it all. Their lines of life are
+enormous, and they won't die till they're over a hundred. Now go and
+see Mrs Lucas, and if she doesn't ask you to lunch you can come back
+here."
+
+Georgie put down his picture and painting-apparatus at his house, and
+went on to Lucia's, definitely conscious that though he did not want to
+have her to dinner on Christmas Day, or go back to his duets and his A.
+D. C. duties, there was a spice and savour in so doing that came
+entirely from the fact that Olga wished him to, that by this service he
+was pleasing her. In itself it was distasteful, in itself it tended to
+cut him off from her, if he had to devote his time to Lucia, but he
+still delighted in doing it.
+
+"I believe I am falling in love with her this time," said Georgie to
+himself.... "She's wonderful; she's big; she's---"
+
+At that moment his thoughts were violently diverted, for Robert
+Quantock came out of his house in a tremendous hurry, merely scowling
+at Georgie, and positively trotted across the Green in the direction of
+the news-agent's. Instantly Georgie recollected that he had seen him
+there already this morning before his visit to Olga, buying a new
+twopenny paper in a yellow cover called "Todd's News." They had had a
+few words of genial conversation, and what could have happened in the
+last two hours that made Robert merely gnash his teeth at Georgie now,
+and make a second visit to the paper-shop?
+
+It was impossible not to linger a moment and see what Robert did when
+he got to the paper-shop, and with the aid of his spectacles Georgie
+perceived that he presently loaded himself with a whole packet of
+papers in yellow covers, presumably "Todd's News." Flesh and blood
+could not resist the cravings of curiosity, and making a detour, so as
+to avoid being gnashed at again by Robert, who was coming rapidly back
+in his direction, he strolled round to the paper-shop and asked for a
+copy of "Todd's News." Instantly the bright December morning grew dark
+with mystery, for the proprietor told him that Mr Quantock has bought
+every copy he possessed of it. No further information could be
+obtained, except that he had bought a copy of every other daily paper
+as well.
+
+Georgie could make nothing of it whatever, and having observed Robert
+hurry into his house again, went on his errand to Lucia. Had he seen
+what Robert did when he got home, it is doubtful if he could have
+avoided breaking into the house and snatching a copy of "Todd's News"
+from him....
+
+Robert went to his study, and locked the door. He drew out from under
+his blotting-pad the first copy of "Todd's News" that he bought earlier
+in the morning, and put it with the rest. Then with a furrowed brow he
+turned to the police-reports in the "Times" and after looking at them
+laid the paper down. He did the same to the "Daily Telegraph," the
+"Daily Mail," the "Morning Post," the "Daily Chronicle." Finally (this
+was the last of the daily papers) he perused "The Daily Mirror," tore
+it in shreds, and said "Damn."
+
+He sat for a while in thought, trying to recollect if anybody in
+Riseholme except Colonel Boucher took in the "Daily Mirror." But he
+felt morally certain that no one did, and letting himself out of his
+study, and again locking the door after him, he went into the street,
+and saw at a glance that the Colonel was employed in whirling Mrs
+Weston round the Green. Instead of joining them he hurried to the
+Colonel's house and, for there was no time for half-measures, fixed
+Atkinson with his eye, and said he would like to write a note to
+Colonel Boucher. He was shown into his sitting-room, and saw the "Daily
+Mirror" lying open on the table. As soon as he was left alone, he
+stuffed it into his pocket, told Atkinson he would speak to the Colonel
+instead, and intercepted the path of the bath-chair. He was nearly run
+over, but stood his ground, and in a perfectly firm voice asked the
+Colonel if there was any news in the morning papers. With the Colonel's
+decided negative ringing joyfully in his ears, he went home again, and
+locked himself for the second time into his study.
+
+There is a luxury, when some fell danger has been averted by promptness
+and presence of mind, in living through the moments of that danger
+again, and Robert opened "Todd's News," for that gave the fuller
+account, and read over the paragraph in the police news headed "Bogus
+Russian Princess." But now he gloated over the lines which had made him
+shudder before when he read how Marie Lowenstein, of 15, Gerald Street,
+Charing Cross Road, calling herself Princess Popoffski, had been
+brought up at the Bow Street Police Court for fraudulently professing
+to tell fortunes and produce materialised spirits at a seance in her
+flat. Sordid details followed: a detective who had been there seized an
+apparition by the throat, and turned on the electric light. It was the
+woman Popoffski's throat that he held, and her secretary, Hezekiah
+Schwarz, was discovered under the table detaching an electric hammer. A
+fine was inflicted....
+
+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 Lucia," 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.
+
+Georgie was utterly mystified: his Riseholme instinct told him that
+there was something below all this, but his Riseholme instinct could
+not supply the faintest clue as to what it was. Both of the Quantocks,
+it seemed clear, knew something perilous about the Princess, but surely
+if Daisy had read in the paper that the Princess had been exposed and
+fined, she would not have touched on so dangerous a subject. Then the
+curious incident about "Todd's News" inevitably occurred to him, but
+that would not fit the case, since it was Robert and not Daisy who had
+bought that inexplicable number of the yellow print. And then Robert
+had hinted at the discovery of yards and yards of muslin and a false
+nose. Why had he done that unless he had discovered them, or unless ...
+Georgie's eyes grew round with the excitement of the chase ... unless
+Robert had some other reason to suspect the integrity of the dear
+friend, and had said this at hap-hazard. In that case what was Robert's
+reason for suspicion? Had _he_, not Daisy, read in the paper of
+some damaging disclosures, and had Daisy (also having reason to suspect
+the Princess) alluded to the damaging exposures in the paper by pure
+hap-hazard? Anyhow they had both looked dead and stuffed when the other
+alluded to mediumistic frauds, and both had said how lucky their own
+experiences had been. "Oh!"--Georgie almost said it aloud--What if
+Robert had seen a damaging exposure in "Todd's News," and therefore
+bought up every copy that was to be had? Then, indeed, he would look
+dead and stuffed, when Daisy alluded to damaging exposures in the
+paper. Had a stray copy escaped him, and did Daisy know? What did
+Robert know? Had they exquisite secrets from each other?
+
+Lucia was being talked to across him by Mrs Weston, who had also pinned
+down the attention of Peppino on the other side of her. At that precise
+moment the flood of Mrs Quantock's spate of conversation to the Colonel
+dried up, and Robert could find nothing more to say to the hungry
+mouse. Georgie in this backwater of his own thoughts was whirled into
+the current again. But before he sank he caught Mrs Quantock's eye and
+put a question that arose from his exciting backwater.
+
+"Have you heard from the Princess lately?" he asked.
+
+Robert's head went round with the same alacrity as he had turned it
+away.
+
+"Oh, yes," said she. "Two days ago was it, Robert?"
+
+"I heard yesterday," said Robert firmly.
+
+Mrs Quantock looked at her husband with an eager encouraging
+earnestness.
+
+"So you did!" she said. "I'm getting jealous. Interesting, dear?"
+
+"Yes, dear, haw, haw," said Robert, and again their eyes met.
+
+This time Georgie had no doubts at all. They were playing the same game
+now: they smiled and smirked at each other. They had not been playing
+the same game before. Now they recognised that there was a conspiracy
+between them.... But he was host, his business for the moment was to
+make his guests comfortable, and not pry into their inmost bosoms. So
+before Mrs Weston realised that she had the whole table attending to
+her, he said:
+
+"I shall get it out of Robert after dinner. And I'll tell you, Mrs
+Quantock."
+
+"Before Atkinson came to the Colonel," said Mrs Weston, going on
+precisely where she had left off, "and that was five years before
+Elizabeth came to me--let me see--was it five or was it four and a
+half?--four and a half we'll say, he had another servant whose name was
+Ahab Crowe."
+
+"No!" said Georgie.
+
+"Yes!" said Mrs Weston, hastily finishing her champagne, for she saw
+Foljambe coming near--"Yes, Ahab Crowe. He married, too, just like
+Atkinson is going to, and that's an odd coincidence in itself. I tell
+the Colonel that if Ahab Crowe hadn't married, he would be with him
+still, and who can say that he'd have fancied Elizabeth? And if he
+hadn't, I don't believe that the Colonel and I would ever have--well,
+I'll leave that alone, and spare my blushes. But that's not what I was
+saying. Whom do you think Ahab Crowe married? You can have ten guesses
+each, and you would never come right, for it can't be a common name. It
+was Miss Jackdaw. Crowe: Jackdaw. I never heard anything like that, and
+if you ask the Colonel about it, he'll confirm every word I've said.
+Boucher, Weston, why that's quite commonplace in comparison, and I'm
+sure that's an event enough for me."
+
+Lucia gave her silvery laugh.
+
+"Dear Mrs Weston," she said, "you must really tell me at once when the
+happy day will be. Peppino and I are thinking of going to the
+Riviera----"
+
+Georgie broke in.
+
+"You shan't do anything of the kind," he said. "What's to happen to us?
+'Oo very selfish, Lucia."
+
+The conversation broke up again into duets and trios, and Lucia could
+have a private conversation with her host. But half-an-hour ago, so
+Georgie reflected, they had all been walking round each other like dogs
+going on tiptoe with their tails very tightly curled, and growling
+gently to themselves, aware that a hasty snap, or the breach of the
+smallest observance of etiquette, might lead to a general quarrel. But
+now they all had the reward of their icy politenesses: there was no
+more ice, except on their plates, and the politeness was not a matter
+of etiquette. At present, they might be considered a republic, but no
+one knew what was going to happen after dinner. Not a word had been
+said about the tableaux.
+
+Lucia dropped her voice as she spoke to him, and put in a good deal of
+Italian for fear she might be overheard.
+
+"_Non cognosce_ anybody?" she asked. "I _tablieri_, I mean.
+And are we all to sit in the _aula_, while the _salone_ is
+being got ready?"
+
+"_Si_," said Georgie. "There's a fire. When you go out, keep them
+there. I _domestichi_ are making _salone_ ready."
+
+"_Molto bene_. Then Peppino and you and I just steal away. _La
+lampa_ is acting beautifully. We tried it over several times."
+
+"Everybody's tummin'," said Georgie, varying the cipher.
+
+"Me so _nervosa!_" said Lucia. "Fancy me doing Brunnhilde before
+singing Brunnhilde. Me can't bear it."
+
+Georgie knew that Lucia had been thrilled and delighted to know that
+Olga so much wanted to come in after dinner and see the tableaux, so he
+found it quite easy to induce Lucia to nerve herself up to an ordeal so
+passionately desired. Indeed he himself was hardly less excited at the
+thought of being King Cophetua.
+
+At that moment, even as the crackers were being handed round, the sound
+of the carol-singers was heard from outside, and Lucia had to wince, as
+"Good King Wenceslas" looked out. When the Page and the King sang their
+speeches, the other voices grew piano, so that the effect was of a solo
+voice accompanied. When the Page sang, Lucia shuddered.
+
+"That's the small red-haired boy who nearly deafens me in church," she
+whispered to Georgie. "Don't you hope his voice will crack soon?"
+
+She said this very discreetly, so as not to hurt Mrs Rumbold's
+feelings, for she trained the choir. Everyone knew that the king was Mr
+Rumbold, and said "Charming" to each other, after he had sung.
+
+"I liked that boy's voice, too," said Mrs Weston. "Tommy Luton used to
+have a lovely voice, but this one's struck me as better-trained even
+than Tommy Luton's. Great credit to you, Mrs Rumbold."
+
+The grey hungry mouse suddenly gave a shrill cackle of a laugh, quite
+inexplicable. Then Georgie guessed.
+
+He got up.
+
+"Now nobody must move," he said, "because we haven't drunk 'absent
+friends' yet. I'm just going out to see that they have a bit of supper
+in the kitchen before they go on."
+
+His trembling legs would scarcely carry him to the door, and he ran
+out. There were half a dozen little choir boys, four men and one tall
+cloaked woman....
+
+"Divine!" he said to Olga. "Aunt Jane thought your voice very well
+trained. Come in soon, won't you?"
+
+"Yes: all flourishing?"
+
+"Swimming," said Georgie. "Lucia hoped your voice would crack soon. But
+it's all being lovely."
+
+He explained about food in the kitchen and hurried back to his guests.
+There was the riddle of the Quantocks to solve: there were the tableaux
+vivants imminent: there was the little red-haired boy coming in soon.
+What a Christmas night!
+
+Soon after Georgie's hall began to fill up with guests, and yet not a
+word was said about tableaux. It grew so full that nobody could have
+said for certain whether Lucia and Peppino were there or not. Olga
+certainly was: there was no mistaking that fact. And then Foljambe
+opened the drawing-room door and sounded a gong.
+
+The lamp behaved perfectly and an hour later one Brunnhilde was being
+extremely kind to the other, as they sat together. "If you really want
+to know my view, dear Miss Bracely," said Lucia, "it's just that. You
+must be Brunnhilde for the time being. Singing, of course, as you say,
+helps it out: you can express so much by singing. You are so lucky
+there. I am bound to say I had qualms when Peppino--or was it
+Georgie--suggested we should do Brunnhilde-Siegfried. I said it would
+be so terribly difficult. Slow: it has to be slow, and to keep gestures
+slow when you cannot make them mere illustrations of what you are
+singing--well, I am sure, it is very kind of you to be so flattering
+about it--but it is difficult to do that."
+
+"And you thought them all out for yourself?" said Olga. "Marvellous!"
+
+"Ah, if I had ever seen you do it," said Lucia, "I am sure I should
+have picked up some hints! And King Cophetua! Won't you give me a
+little word for our dear King Cophetua? I was so glad after the strain
+of Brunnhilde to have my back to the audience. Even then there is the
+difficulty of keeping quite still, but I am sure you know that quite as
+well as I do, from having played Brunnhilde yourself. Georgie was very
+much impressed by your performance of it. And Mary Queen of Scots now!
+The shrinking of the flesh, and the resignation of the spirit! That is
+what I tried to express. You must come and help me next time I attempt
+this sort of thing again. That will not be quite soon, I am afraid, for
+Peppino and I am thinking of going to the Riviera for a little
+holiday."
+
+"Oh, but how selfish!" said Olga. "You mustn't do that."
+
+Lucia gave the silvery laugh.
+
+"You are all very tiresome about my going to the Riviera," she said.
+"But I don't promise that I shall give it up yet. We shall see!
+Gracious! How late it is. We must have sat very late over dinner. Why
+were you not asked to dinner, I wonder! I shall scold Georgie for not
+asking you. Ah, there is dear Mrs Weston going away. I must say
+good-night to her. She would think it very strange if I did not.
+Colonel Boucher, too! Oh, they are coming this way to save us the
+trouble of moving."
+
+A general move was certainly taking place, not in the direction of the
+door, but to where Olga and Lucia were sitting.
+
+"It's snowing," said Piggy excitedly to Olga. "Will you mark my
+footsteps well, my page?"
+
+"Piggy, you--you Goosie," said Olga hurriedly. "Goosie, weren't the
+tableaux lovely?"
+
+"And the carols," said Goosie. "I adored the carols. I guessed. Did you
+guess, Mrs Lucas?"
+
+Olga resorted to the mean trick of treading on Goosie's foot and
+apologising. That was cowardly because it was sure to come out
+sometime. And Goosie again trod on dangerous ground by saying that if
+the Page had trod like that, there was no need for any footsteps to be
+marked for him.
+
+It was snowing fast, and Mrs Weston's wheels left a deep track, but in
+spite of that, Daisy and Robert had not gone fifty yards from the door
+when they came to a full stop.
+
+"Now, what is it?" said Daisy. "Out with it. Why did you talk about the
+discovery of muslin?"
+
+"I only said that we were fortunate in a medium whom after all you
+picked up at a vegetarian restaurant," said he. "I suppose I may
+indulge in general conversation. If it comes to that, why did you talk
+about exposure in the papers?"
+
+"General conversation," said Mrs Quantock all in one word. "So that's
+all, is it?"
+
+"Yes," said Robert, "you may know something, and--"
+
+"Now don't put it all on me," said Daisy. "If you want to know what I
+think, it is that you've got some secret."
+
+"And if you want to know what I think," he retorted, "it is that I know
+you have."
+
+Daisy hesitated a moment, the snow was white on her shoulder and she
+shook her cloak.
+
+"I hate concealment," she said. "I found yards and yards of muslin and
+a pair of Amadeo's eyebrows in that woman's bedroom the very day she
+went away."
+
+"And she was fined last Thursday for holding a seance at which a
+detective was present," said Robert. "15 Gerard Street. He seized
+Amadeo or Cardinal Newman by the throat, and it was that woman."
+
+She looked hastily round.
+
+"When you thought that the chimney was on fire, I was burning muslin,"
+she said.
+
+"When you thought the chimney was on fire, I was burning every copy of
+'Todd's News,'" said he. "Also a copy of the 'Daily Mirror,' which
+contained the case. It belonged to the Colonel. I stole it."
+
+She put her hand through his arm.
+
+"Let's get home," she said. "We must talk it over. No one knows one
+word except you and me?"
+
+"Not one, my dear," said Robert cordially. "But there are suspicions.
+Georgie suspects, for instance. He saw me buy all the copies of 'Todd's
+News,' at least he was hanging about. Tonight he was clearly on the
+track of something, though he gave us a very tolerable dinner."
+
+They went into Robert's study: it was cold, but neither felt it, for
+they glowed with excitement and enterprise.
+
+"That was a wonderful stroke of yours, Robert," said she. "It was
+masterly: it saved the situation. The 'Daily Mirror,' too: how right
+you were to steal it. A horrid paper I always thought. Yes, Georgie
+suspects something, but luckily he doesn't know what he suspects."
+
+"That's why we both said we had just heard from that woman," said
+Robert.
+
+"Of course. You haven't got a copy of 'Todd's News,' have you?"
+
+"No: at least I burned every page of the police reports," said he. "It
+was safer."
+
+"Quite so. I cannot show you Amadeo's eyebrows for the same reason. Nor
+the muslin. Lovely muslin, my dear: yards of it. Now what we must do is
+this: we must continue to be interested in psychical things; we mustn't
+drop them, or seem to be put off them. I wish now I had taken you into
+my confidence at the beginning and told you about Amadeo's eyebrows."
+
+"My dear, you acted for the best," said he. "So did I when I didn't
+tell you about 'Todd's News.' Secrecy even from each other was more
+prudent, until it became impossible. And I think we should be wise to
+let it be understood that we hear from the Princess now and then.
+Perhaps in a few months she might even visit us again. It--it would be
+humorous to be behind the scenes, so to speak, and observe the
+credulity of the others."
+
+Daisy broke into a broad grin.
+
+"I will certainly ask dear Lucia to a seance, if we do," she said.
+"Dear me! How late it is: there was such a long wait between the
+tableaux. But we must keep our eyes on Georgie, and be careful how we
+answer his impertinent questions. He is sure to ask some. About getting
+that woman down again, Robert. It might be fool-hardy, for we've had an
+escape, and shouldn't put our heads into the same noose again. On the
+other hand, it would disarm suspicion for ever, if, after a few months,
+I asked her to spend a few days of holiday here. You said it was a fine
+only, not imprisonment?"
+
+The week was a busy one: Georgie in particular never had a moment to
+himself. The Hurst, so lately a desert, suddenly began to rejoice with
+joy and singing and broke out into all manner of edifying gaieties.
+Lucia, capricious queen, quite forgot all the vitriolic things she had
+said to him, and gave him to understand that he was just as high in
+favour as ever before, and he was as busy with his duties as ever he
+had been. Whether he would have fallen into his old place so readily if
+he had been a free agent, was a question that did not arise, for though
+it was Lucia who employed him, it was Olga who drove him there. But he
+had his consolation, for Lucia's noble forgiveness of all the
+disloyalties against her, included Olga's as well, and out of all the
+dinners and music parties, and recitations from Peppino's new book of
+prose poems which was already in proof, and was read to select
+audiences from end to end, there was none to which Olga was not bidden,
+and none at which she failed to appear. Lucia even overlooked the fact
+that she had sung in the carols on Christmas night, though she had
+herself declared that it was the voice of the red-haired boy which was
+so peculiarly painful to her. Georgie's picture of her (she never knew
+that Olga had really commissioned it) hung at the side of the piano in
+the music room, where the print of Beethoven had hung before, and it
+gave her the acutest gratification. It represented her sitting, with
+eyes cast down at her piano, and was indeed much on the same scheme as
+the yet unfinished one of Olga, which had been postponed in its favour,
+but there was no time for Georgie to think out another position, and
+his hand was in with regard to the perspective of pianos. So there it
+hung with its title, "The Moonlight Sonata," painted in gilt letters on
+its frame, and Lucia, though she continued to say that he had made her
+far, far too young, could not but consider that he had caught her
+expression exactly....
+
+So Riseholme flocked back to The Hurst like sheep that have been
+astray, for it was certain to find Olga there, even as it had turned
+there, deeply breathing, to the classes of the Guru. It had to sit
+through the prose-poems of Peppino, it had to listen to the old, old
+tunes and sigh at the end, but Olga mingled her sighs with theirs, and
+often after a suitable pause Lucia would say winningly to Olga:
+
+"One little song, Miss Bracely. Just a stanza? Or am I trespassing too
+much on your good-nature? Where is your accompanist? I declare I am
+jealous of him: I shall pop into his place some day! Georgino, Miss
+Bracely is going to sing us something. Is not that a treat? Sh-sh,
+please, ladies and gentlemen."
+
+And she rustled to her place, and sat with the farthest-away expression
+ever seen on mortal face, while she trespassed on Miss Bracely's
+good-nature.
+
+Then Georgie had the other picture to finish, which he hoped to get
+ready in time to be a New Year's present, since Olga had insisted on
+Lucia's being done first. He had certainly secured an admirable
+likeness of her, and there was in it just all that his stippled, fussy
+representation of Lucia lacked. "Bleak December" and "Yellow Daffodils"
+and the rest of the series lacked it, too: for once he had done
+something in the doing of which he had forgotten himself. It was by no
+means a work of genius, for Georgie was not possessed of one grain of
+that, and the talent it displayed was by no means of a high order, but
+it had something of the naturalness of a flower that grew from the
+earth which nourished it.
+
+On the last day of the year he was putting a few final touches to it,
+little high reflected lights on the black keys, little blacknesses of
+shadow in the moulding of the panel behind his hand. He had finished
+with her altogether, and now she sat in the window-seat, looking out,
+and playing with the blind-tassel. He had been so much absorbed in his
+work that he had scarcely noticed that she had been rather unusually
+silent.
+
+"I've got a piece of news for you," she said at length.
+
+Georgie held his breath, as he drew a very thin line of body-colour
+along the edge of Ab.
+
+"No! What is it?" he said. "Is it about the Princess?"
+
+Olga seemed to hail this as a diversion.
+
+"Ah, let's talk about that for a minute," she said. "What you ought to
+have done was to order another copy of 'Todd's News' at once."
+
+"I know I ought, but I couldn't get one when I thought of it
+afterwards. That was tarsome. But I feel sure there was something about
+her in it."
+
+"And you can't get anything out of the Quantocks?"
+
+"No, though I've laid plenty of traps for them. There's an
+understanding between them now. They both know something. When I lay a
+trap, it isn't any use: they look at the trap, and then they look at
+each other afterwards."
+
+"What sort of traps?"
+
+"Oh, anything. I say suddenly, 'What a bore it is that there are so
+many frauds among mediums, especially paid ones.' You see, I don't
+believe for a moment that these seances were held for nothing, though
+we didn't pay for going to them. And then Robert says that he would
+never trust a paid medium, and she looks at him approvingly, and says
+'Dear Princess'! The other day--it was a very good trap--I said, 'Is it
+true that the Princess is coming to stay with Lady Ambermere?' It
+wasn't a lie: I only asked."
+
+"And then?" said Olga.
+
+"Robert gave an awful twitch, not a jump exactly, but a twitch. But she
+was on the spot and said, 'Ah, that would be nice. I wonder if it's
+true. The Princess didn't mention it in her last letter.' And then he
+looked at her approvingly. There is something there, no one shall
+convince me otherwise."
+
+Olga suddenly burst out laughing.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Georgie.
+
+"Oh, it's all so delicious!" she said. "I never knew before how
+terribly interesting little things were. It's all wildly exciting, and
+there are fifty things going on just as exciting. Is it all of you who
+take such a tremendous interest in them that makes them so absorbing,
+or is it that they are absorbing in themselves, and ordinary dull
+people, not Riseholmites, don't see how exciting they are? Tommy
+Luton's measles: the Quantocks' secret: Elizabeth's lover! And to think
+that I believed I was coming to a backwater."
+
+Georgie held up his picture and half closed his eyes. "I believe it's
+finished," he said. "I shall have it framed, and put it in my
+drawing-room."
+
+This was a trap, and Olga fell into it.
+
+"Yes, it will look nice there," she said. "Really, Georgie, it is very
+clever of you."
+
+He began washing his brushes.
+
+"And what was your news?" he said.
+
+She got up from her seat.
+
+"I forgot all about it, with talking of the Quantocks' secret," she
+said. "That just shows you: I completely forgot, Georgie. I've just
+accepted an offer to sing in America, a four months' engagement, at
+fifty thousand million pounds a night. A penny less, and I wouldn't
+have gone. But I really can't refuse. It's all been very sudden, but
+they want to produce Lucretia there before it appears in England. Then
+I come back, and sing in London all the summer. Oh, me!"
+
+There was dead silence, while Georgie dried his brushes.
+
+"When do you go?" he asked.
+
+"In about a fortnight."
+
+"Oh," said he.
+
+She moved down the room to the piano and shut it without speaking,
+while he folded the paper round his finished picture.
+
+"Why don't you come, too?" she said at length. "It would do you no end
+of good, for you would get out of this darling two-penny place which
+will all go inside a nut-shell. There are big things in the world,
+Georgie: seas, continents, people, movements, emotions. I told my
+Georgie I was going to ask you, and he thoroughly approves. We both
+like you, you know. It would be lovely if you would come. Come for a
+couple of months, anyhow: of course you'll be our guest, please."
+
+The world, at that moment, had grown absolutely black to him, and it
+was by that that he knew who, for him, was the light of it. He shook
+his head.
+
+"Why can't you come?" she said.
+
+He looked at her straight in the face.
+
+"Because I adore you," he said.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter SIXTEEN
+
+
+The glad word went round Riseholme one March morning that the earliest
+flower in Perdita's garden was in bloom. The day was one of those
+glories of the English spring-time, with large white clouds blown
+across wide spaces of blue sky by the southwest wind, and with swift
+shadows that bowled across the green below them. Parliament was in full
+conclave that day, and in the elms the rooks were busy.
+
+An awful flatness had succeeded Olga's departure. Riseholme naturally
+took a good deal of credit for the tremendous success which had
+attended the production of Lucretia, since it so rightly considered
+that the real cradle of the opera was here, where she had tried it over
+for the first time. Lucia seemed to remember it better than anybody,
+for she remembered all sorts of things which no one else had the
+faintest recollection of: how she had discussed music with Signor
+Cortese, and he had asked her where she had her musical training. Such
+a treat to talk Italian with a Roman--lingua Toscana in bocca
+Romana--and what a wonderful evening it was. Poor Mrs Colonel
+recollected very little of this, but Lucia had long been aware that
+her memory was going sadly. After producing Lucretia in New York,
+Olga had appeared in some of her old roles, notably in the part of
+Brunnhilde, and Lucia was very reminiscent of that charming party of
+Christmas Day at dear Georgino's, when they had the tableaux. Dear Olga
+was so simple and unspoiled: she had come to Lucia afterwards, and asked
+her to tell her how she had worked out her scheme of gestures in the
+awakening, and Lucia had been very glad, very glad indeed to give her
+a few hints. In fact, Lucia was quite herself: it was only her subjects
+whom it had been a little hard to stir up. Georgie in particular had
+been very listless and dull, and Lucia, for all her ingenuity, was at a
+complete loss to find a reason for it.
+
+But today the warm inflowing tide of spring seemed to renovate the
+muddy flats, setting the weeds, that had lain dank and dispirited,
+a-floating again on the return of the water. No one could quite resist
+the magic of the season, and Georgie, who had intended out of mere
+politeness to go to see the earliest of Perdita's stupid flowers
+(having been warned of its epiphany by telephone from The Hurst) found,
+when he set foot outside his house on that warm windy morning, that it
+would be interesting to stroll across the green first, and see if there
+was any news. All the news he had really cared about for the last two
+months was news from America, of which he had a small packet done up in
+a pink riband.
+
+After getting rid of Piggy, he went to the newspaper shop, to get his
+"Times," which most unaccountably had not arrived, and the sight of
+"Todd's News" in its yellow cover stirred his drowsy interest. Not one
+atom of light had ever been thrown on that extraordinary occurrence
+when Robert bought the whole issue, and though Olga never failed to
+enquire, he had not been able to give her the slightest additional
+information. Occasionally he set a languid trap for one of the
+Quantocks, but they never by any chance fell into it. The whole affair
+must be classed with problems like the origin of evil, among the
+insoluble mysteries of life.
+
+It was possible to get letters by the second post an hour earlier than
+the house-to-house delivery by calling at the office, and as Georgie
+was waiting for his "Times," Mrs Quantock came hurrying out of the
+post-office with a small packet in her hands, which she was opening as
+she walked. She was so much absorbed by this that she did not see
+Georgie at all, though she passed quite close to him, and soon after
+shed a registered envelope. At that the "old familiar glamour" began to
+steal over him again, and he found himself wondering with intensity
+what it contained.
+
+She was now some hundred yards in front of him, walking in the
+direction of The Hurst, and there could be no doubt that she, too, was
+on her way to see Perdita's first flower. He followed her going more
+briskly than she and began to catch her up. Soon (this time by
+accident, not in the manner in which, through eagerness she had
+untidily cast the registered envelope away) she dropped a small paper,
+and Georgie picked it up, meaning to give it her. It had printed matter
+on the front of it, and was clearly a small pamphlet. He could not
+possibly help seeing what that printed matter was, for it was in
+capital letters:
+
+INCREASE YOUR HEIGHT
+
+Georgie quickened his step, and the old familiar glamour brightened
+round him. As soon as he got within speaking distance, he called to
+her, and turning round, "like a guilty thing surprised," a little box
+flew out of her hand. As it fell the lid came off, and there was
+scattered on the green grass a multitude of red lozenges. She gave a
+cry of dismay.
+
+"Oh! Mr Georgie, how you startled me" she said. "Do help me to pick
+them up. Do you think the damp will have hurt them? Any news? I was so
+wrapped up in what I was doing that I've spoken to nobody."
+
+Georgie assisted in the recovery of the red lozenges.
+
+"You dropped this as you walked," he said. "I picked it up in order to
+give it you."
+
+"Ah, that is kind, and did you see what it was?"
+
+"I couldn't help seeing the outside," said Georgie.
+
+She looked at him a moment, wondering what was the most prudent course.
+If she said nothing more, he would probably tell everybody....
+
+"Well, then I shall let you into the whole secret," she said. "It's the
+most wonderful invention, and increases your height, whatever your age
+is, from two to six inches. Fancy! There are some exercises you have to
+do, rather like those Yoga ones, every morning, and you eat three
+lozenges a day. Quite harmless they are, and then you soon begin to
+shoot up. It sounds incredible, doesn't it? but there are so many
+testimonials that I can't doubt it is genuine. Here's one of a man who
+grew six inches. I saw it advertised in some paper, and sent for it.
+Only a guinea! What fun when Robert begins to see that I am taller than
+he is! But now not a word! Don't tell dear Lucia whatever you do. She
+is half a head taller than I, and it would be no fun if everybody grew
+from two to six inches. You may write for them, and I'll give you the
+address, but you must tell nobody."
+
+"Too wonderful" said Georgie. "I _shall_ watch you. Here we are.
+Look, there's Perdita's flower. What a beauty!"
+
+It was not necessary to press the mermaid's tail, for Lucia had seen
+them from the music-room, and they heard her high heels clacking over
+the polished floor of the hall.
+
+"Listen! No more need of high heels!" said Mrs Quantock. "And I've got
+something else to tell you. Lucia may hear that. Ah, dear Lucia, what a
+wonderful Perdita-blossom!"
+
+"Is it not?" said Lucia, blowing kisses to Georgie, and giving them to
+Daisy. "That shows spring is here. _Primavera!_ And Peppino's
+_piccolo libro_ comes out today. I should not be a bit surprised
+if you each of you found a copy of it arrived before evening. Glorious!
+It's glorious!"
+
+Surely it was no wonder that Georgie's blood began to canter along his
+arteries again. There had been very pleasant exciting years before now,
+requiring for their fuel no more than was ready at this moment to keep
+up the fire. Mrs Quantock was on tip-toe, so to speak, to increase her
+height, Peppino was just delivered of a second of these vellum volumes
+with seals and tapes outside, Mrs Weston was going to become Mrs
+Colonel at the end of the week, and at the same hour and church
+Elizabeth was going to become Mrs Atkinson. Had these things no savour,
+because----
+
+"How is 'oo?" said Georgie, with a sudden flush of the spring-time
+through him. "Me vewy well, sank 'oo and me so want to read Peppino's
+bookie-bookie."
+
+"'Oo come in," said Lucia. "Evewybody come in. Now, who's got ickle bit
+news?"
+
+Mrs Quantock had been walking on her toes all across the hall, in
+anticipation of the happy time when she would be from two to six inches
+taller. As the animated pamphlet said, the world assumed a totally
+different aspect when you were even two inches taller. She was quite
+sorry to sit down.
+
+"Is next week very full with you, dear Lucia?" she asked.
+
+Lucia pressed her finger to her forehead.
+
+"Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday," she began. "No, not Tuesday, I am doing
+nothing on Tuesday. You want to be the death of me between you. Why?"
+
+"I hope that my dear friend, Princess Popoffski, will be staying with
+me" said Mrs Quantock. "Do get over your prejudice against
+spiritualism, and give it a chance. Come to a seance on Tuesday. You,
+too, of course, Georgie: I know better than to invite Lucia without
+you."
+
+Lucia put on the far-away look which she reserved for the masterpieces
+of music, and for Georgie's hopeless devotion.
+
+"Lovely! That will be lovely!" she said. "Most interesting! I shall
+come with a perfectly open mind."
+
+Georgie scarcely lamented the annihilation of a mystery. He must surely
+have imagined the mystery, for it all collapsed like a card-house, if
+the Princess was coming back. The seances had been most remarkable,
+too; and he would have to get out his planchette again.
+
+"And what's going to happen on Wednesday?" he asked Lucia. "All I know
+is that I've not been asked. Me's offended."
+
+"Ickle surprise," said Lucia. "You're not engaged that evening, are
+you? Nor you, dear Daisy? That's lovely. Eight o'clock? No, I think a
+quarter to. That will give us more time. I shan't tell you what it is."
+
+Mrs Quantock, grasping her lozenges, wondered how much taller she would
+be by then. As Lucia played to them, she drew a lozenge out of the box
+and put it into her mouth, in order to begin growing at once. It tasted
+rather bitter, but not unpleasantly so.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Queen Lucia, by E. F. Benson
+
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+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #6840 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6840)
diff --git a/old/qnlca10.zip b/old/qnlca10.zip
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