Books: Queen Lucia

E >> E. F. Benson >> Queen Lucia

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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 complete 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."

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