Books: Queen Lucia
E >>
E. F. Benson >> Queen Lucia
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19
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."
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19