Books: Queen Lucia
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E. F. Benson >> Queen Lucia
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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 it 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 same
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."
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