Lucia Victrix

  Georgie felt better in the morning after two cups of very hot tea brought him by Foljambe who had come up as their joint maid. He read his paper, breakfasting in his room, as in his comfortable bachelor days. There was a fervent notice of Lucrezia, but no indication, since there had been five Duchesses present, as to which their particular Grace was, who had rather embarrassed him by her fixed eye. But then Foljambe brought him another paper which Lucia wanted back. She had marked it with a blue pencil, and there he read that the Duke and Duchess of Sheffield and the Mayor of Tilling had attended the opera in Miss Bracely’s box. That gave him great satisfaction, for all those folk who had looked at their box so much would now feel sure that he was the Mayor of Tilling … Then he went out alone for his shopping, as Lucia sent word that she had received some agenda for the next Council meeting, which she must study, and thoroughly enjoyed it. He found some very pretty new ties and some nice underwear, and he could linger by attractive windows, instead of going to some improving exhibition which Lucia would certainly have wished to do. Then in eager trepidation he went to the Ritz for lunch, and found that Lucia had not yet arrived. But there was Olga in the lounge, who hailed him on a high soprano note, so that everybody knew that he was Georgie, and might have guessed, from the timbre, that she was Olga.

  ‘My dear, how nice to see you,’ she cried. ‘But a beard, Georgie! What does it mean? Tell me all about it. Where’s your Lucia? She hasn’t divorced you already, I hope? And have a cocktail? I insist, because it looks so bad for an elderly female to be drinking alone, and I am dying for one. And did you like the opera last night? I thought I sang superbly; even Cortese didn’t scold me. How I love being in stuffy old London again; I’m off to Riseholme to-night for a week, and you must – Ah, here’s Lucia! We’ll go into lunch at once. I asked Cortese, but he can’t come in till afterwards. Only Poppy Sheffield is coming, and she will probably arrive about tea-time. She’ll be terribly taken up with Georgie, because she adores beards, and says they are getting so rare nowadays. Don’t be alarmed, my lamb: she doesn’t want to touch them, but the sight of them refreshes her in some psychic manner. Oh, of course, she was in your box last night. She hates music, and hears it only as a mortification of the flesh, of which she has plenty. Quite gaga, but so harmless.’

  Olga was a long time getting to her table, because she made many greetings on the way, and Lucia began to hate her again. She was too casual, keeping the Mayor of Tilling standing about like this, and Lucia, who had strong views about maquillage, was distressed to see how many women, Olga included, were sadly made-up. And yet how marvellous to thread her way through the crowded restaurant with the prima donna, not waiting for a Duchess: if only some Tillingites had been there to see! Per contra, it was rather familiar of Olga to put her hand on Georgie’s shoulder and shove him into his place. Lucia stored up in separate packets resentment and the deepest gratification.

  Asparagus. Cold and very buttery. Olga picked up the sticks with her fingers and then openly sucked them. Lucia used a neat little holder which was beside her plate. Perhaps Olga did not know what it was for.

  ‘And you and Georgie must come to Riseholme for the week-end,’ she said. ‘I get down to-night, so join me to-morrow.’

  Lucia shook her head.

  ‘Too sweet of you,’ she said, ‘but impossible, I’m afraid. So many duties. To-morrow is Friday, isn’t it? Yes: a prize-giving to-morrow afternoon, and something in the evening, I fancy. Borough Bench on Monday at ten. One thing after another; no end to them, day after day. It was only by the rarest chance I was able to come up yesterday.’

  Georgie knew that this was utter rubbish. Lucia had not had a single municipal engagement for four days, and had spent her time in bicycling and sketching and playing bridge. She just wanted to impress Olga with the innumerable duties of her position.

  ‘Too bad!’ said Olga. ‘Georgie, you mustn’t let her work herself to death like this. But you’ll come, won’t you, if we can’t persuade her.’

  Here was an opportunity for independent action. He strung himself up to take it.

  ‘Certainly. Delighted. I should adore to,’ he said with emphasis.

  ‘Capital. That’s settled then. But you must come, too, Lucia. How they would all love to see you again at Riseholme.’

  Lucia wanted to go, especially since Georgie would otherwise go without her, and she would have been much disconcerted if her refusal had been taken as final. She pressed two fingers to her forehead.

  ‘Let me think!’ she said. ‘I’ve nothing after Friday evening, have 1, Georgie, till Monday’s Council? I always try to keep Saturdays free. No: I don’t think I have. I could come down with Georgie, on Saturday morning, but we shall have to leave again very early on Monday. Too tempting to refuse, dear Olga. The sweet place, and those busy days, or so they seemed then, but now, by comparison, what a holiday!’

  Poppy appeared just as they had finished lunch, and Lucia was astonished to find that she had not the smallest idea that they had ever met before. When reminded, Poppy explained that when she went to hear music a total oblivion of all else seized her.

  ‘Carried away,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if I’m on my head or my heels.’

  ‘If you were carried away you’d be on your back,’ said Olga. ‘What do you want to eat?’

  ‘Dressed crab and plenty of black coffee,’ said Poppy decidedly. ‘That’s what keeps me in perfect health.’ She had just become conscious of Georgie, and had fixed her eye on his beard, when Cortese plunged into the restaurant and came, like a bore up the River Severn, to Olga’s table, loudly lamenting in Italian that he had not been able to come to lunch. He kissed her hand, he kissed Poppy’s hand, and after a short pause for recollection, he kissed Lucia’s hand.

  ‘Si, si,’ he cried, ‘it is the lady who came to hear the first trial of Lucrezia at your Riseholme, and spoke Italian with so pure an accent. Come sta, signora?’ And he continued to prattle in Italian.

  Lucia had a horrid feeling that all this had happened before, and that in a moment it would be rediscovered that she could not speak Italian. Lunch, anyhow, was over, and she could say a reluctant farewell. She summoned up a few words in that abhorred tongue.

  ‘Cara,’ she said to Olga, ‘we must tear ourselves away. A rivederci, non e vero, dopo domani. But we must go to catch our train. A poor hard-worked Mayor must get back to the call of duty.’

  ‘Oh, is he a Mayor?’ asked Poppy with interest. ‘How very distinguished.’

  There was no time to explain; it was better that Georgie should be temporarily enthroned in Poppy’s mind as Mayor, rather than run any further risks, and Lucia threaded her way through the narrow passage between the tables. After all she had got plenty of material to work up into noble narrative at Tilling. Georgie followed and slammed the door of the taxi quite crossly.

  ‘I can’t think why you were in such a hurry,’ he said. ‘I was enjoying myself, and we shall only be kicking our heels at the station.’

  ‘Better to run no risk of missing our train,’ she said. ‘And we have to pick up Foljambe and our luggage.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Georgie. ‘We particularly arranged that she should meet us with it at Victoria.’

  ‘Georgie, how stupid of me!’ said the shameless Lucia. ‘Forgive me.’

  Lucia found that she had no engagement for the next evening, and got up a party for dinner and bridge in order casually to disseminate these magnificent experiences. Mr Wyse and Diva (Susan being indisposed), the Mapp-Flints and the Padre and Evie were her guests. It rather surprised her that nobody asked any questions at dinner, about her visit to London, but, had she only known it, Tilling had seen in the paper that she and a Duke and Duchess had been in Olga’s box, and had entered into a fell conspiracy, for Lucia’s good, not to show the slightest curiosity about it. Thus, though her guests were starving for information, conversation at dinner had been entirely confined to other topics, and whenever Lucia made a casual allusion to th
e opera, somebody spoke loudly about something else. But when the ladies retired into the garden-room the strain on their curiosity began to tell, and Lucia tried again.

  ‘So delightful to get back to peaceful Tilling,’ she said, as if she had been away for thirty-six weeks instead of thirty-six hours, ‘though I fear it is not for long. London was such a terrible rush. Of course the first thing we did was to go to the Academy to see the Picture of the Year, dear Elizabeth.’

  That was crafty: Elizabeth could not help being interested in that.

  ‘And could you get near it, dear?’ she asked.

  ‘Easily. Not such a great crowd. Technically I was a wee bit disappointed. Very vigorous, of course, and great bravura –’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Diva.

  ‘How shall I say it? Dash, sensational effect, a too obvious dexterity,’ said Lucia, gesticulating like a painter doing bold brush-work. ‘I should have liked more time to look at it, for Irene will long to know what I think about it, but we had to dress and dine before the opera. Dear Olga had given us an excellent box, a little too near the stage perhaps.’

  It was more than flesh and blood could stand: the conspiracy of silence broke down.

  ‘I saw in the paper that the Duke and Duchess of Sheffield were there, too,’ said Evie.

  ‘In the paper was it?’ asked Lucia with an air of great surprise. ‘How the press ferrets things out! He and Poppy Sheffield came in in the middle of the second act. I was rather cross, I’m afraid, for I hate such interruptions.’

  Elizabeth was goaded into speech.

  ‘Most inconsiderate,’ she said. ‘I hope you told her so, Worship.’

  Lucia smiled indulgently.

  ‘Ah, people who aren’t really musical – poor Poppy Sheffield is not – have no idea of the pain they give. And what has happened here since Georgie and I left?’

  ‘Seventeen to tea yesterday,’ said Diva. ‘What was the opera like?’

  ‘Superb. Olga sang the great scene to me years ago and I confess I did not do it justice. A little modern for my classical taste, but a very great work. Very. And her voice is still magnificent; perhaps a little sign of forcing in the top register, but then I am terribly critical.’

  The conspiracy of silence had become a cross-examination of questions. These admissions were being forced from her.

  ‘And then did you go out to supper?’ asked Evie.

  ‘Ah no! Music takes too much out of me. Back to the hotel and so to bed, as Pepys says.’

  ‘And next morning, Worship, after such an exciting evening?’ asked Elizabeth.

  ‘Poor me! A bundle of agenda for the Council meeting on Monday. I had to slave at them until nearly lunch-time.’

  ‘You and Mr Georgie in your hotel?’ asked Diva.

  ‘No: dear Olga insisted that we should lunch with her at the Ritz,’ said Lucia in the slow drawling voice which she adopted when her audience were on tenterhooks. ‘No party, just the four of us.’

  ‘Who was the fourth?’

  ‘The Duchess. She was very late, just as she had been at the opera. A positive obsession with her. So we didn’t wait.’

  Not waiting for a Duchess produced a stunning effect.

  Diva recovered first.

  ‘Good food?’ she asked.

  ‘Fair, I should have called it. Or do you mean Poppy’s food? How you will laugh! A dressed crab and oceans of black coffee. The only diet on which she feels really well.’

  ‘Sounds most indigestible,’ said Diva. ‘What an odd sort of stomach. And then?’

  ‘How you all catechize me! Then Cortese came in. He is the composer, I must explain, of Lucrezia, and conducted it. Italian, with all the vivaciousness of the South –’

  ‘So you had a good talk in Italian to him, dear,’ said Elizabeth viciously.

  ‘Alas, no. We had to rush off almost immediately to catch our train. Hardly a word with him.’

  ‘What a pity!’ said Elizabeth. ‘And just now you told us you were not going to be here long. Gadding off again?’

  ‘Alas, yes; though how ungrateful of me to say “alas”,’ said Lucia still drawling. ‘Dear Olga implored Georgie and me to spend the week-end with her at Riseholme. She would not take a refusal. It will be delicious to see the dear old place again. I shall make her sing to us. These great singers are always at their best with a small intime sympathetic audience.’

  ‘And will there be some Duchesses there?’ asked Elizabeth, unable to suppress her bitterness.

  ‘Chi lo sa?’ said Lucia with superb indifference. ‘Ah, here come the men. Let us get to our bridge.’

  The men, who were members of this conspiracy, had shown a stronger self-control than the women, and had not asked Georgie a single question about high-life, but they knew now about his new ties. Evie could not resist saying in an aside to her husband:

  ‘Fancy, Kenneth, the Duchess of Sheffield lives on dressed crab and black coffee.’

  Who could resist such an alluring fragment? Certainly not the Padre.

  ‘Eh, that’s a singular diet,’ he said, ‘and has Mistress Mayor been telling you a’ about it? An’ what does she do when there’s no crab to be had?’

  From the eagerness in his voice, Lucia instantly guessed that the men had heard nothing, and were consumed with curiosity.

  ‘Enough of my silly tittle-tattle,’ she said. ‘More important matters lie before us. Elizabeth, will you and the Padre and Mr Wyse play at my table?’

  For a while cards overrode all other interest, but it was evident that the men were longing to know all that their vow of self-control had hidden from them: first one and then another, during the deals, alluded to shellfish and Borgias. But Lucia was adamant: they had certainly conspired to show no interest in the great events of the London visit, and they must be punished. But when the party broke up, Mr Wyse insisted on driving Diva back in the Royce, and plied her with questions, and Major Benjy and the Padre, by the time they got home, knew as much as their wives.

  Lucia and Georgie, with Grosvenor as maid (for it was only fair that she should have her share in these magnificent excursions) motored to Riseholme next morning. Lucia took among her luggage the tin box labelled ‘Housing’, in order to keep abreast of municipal work, but in the hurry of departure forgot to put any municipal papers inside it. She would have liked to take Mrs Simpson as well, but Grosvenor occupied the seat next her chauffeur, and three inside would have been uncomfortable. Olga gave a garden-party in her honour in the afternoon, and Lucia was most gracious to all her old friends, in the manner of a Dowager Queen who has somehow come into a far vaster kingdom, but who has a tender remembrance of her former subjects, however humble, and she had a kind word for them all. After the party had dispersed, she and Georgie and Olga sat on in the garden, and her smiles were touched with sadness.

  ‘Such a joy to see all the dear, quaint folk again,’ she said, ‘but what a sad change has come over the place! Riseholme, which in old days used to be seething with every sort of interest, has become just like any other vegetating little village –’

  ‘I don’t agree at all,’ said Georgie loudly. ‘It’s seething still. Daisy Quantock’s got a French parlourmaid who’s an atheist, and Mrs Antrobus has learned the deaf and dumb alphabet, as she’s got so deaf that the most expensive ear-trumpet isn’t any use to her. Everybody has been learning it, too, and when Mrs Boucher gave a birthday-party for her only last week, they all talked deaf and dumb to each other, so that Mrs Antrobus could understand what was being said. I call that marvellous manners.’

  The old flame flickered for a moment in Lucia’s breast.

  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘What else?’

  ‘I haven’t finished this yet,’ said Georgie. ‘And they were all using their hands so much to talk, that they couldn’t get on with their dinner, and it took an hour and a half, though it was only four courses.’

  ‘Georgie, how thrilling!’ said Olga. ‘Go on.’

  Georgie turned
to the more sympathetic listener.

  ‘You see, they couldn’t talk fast, because they were only learning, but when Mrs Antrobus replied, she was so quick, being an expert, that nobody except Piggie and Goosie –’

  Lucia tilted her head sideways, with a sidelong glance at Olga, busy with a looking-glass and lipstick.

  ‘Ah; I recollect. Her daughters,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, of course. They could tell you what she said if they were looking, but if they weren’t looking you had to guess, like when somebody talks fast in a foreign language which you don’t know much of, and you make a shot at what he’s saying.’

  Lucia gave him a gimlet glance. But of course, Georgie couldn’t have been thinking of her and the Italian crisis.

  ‘Their dear, funny little ways!’ she said. ‘But everyone I talked to was so eager to hear about Tilling and my Mayoral work, that I learned nothing about what was going on here. How they besieged me with questions! What else, Georgie?’

  ‘Well, the people who have got your house now have made a swimming-bath in the garden and have lovely mixed bathing-parties.’

  Lucia repressed a pang of regret that she had never thought of doing that, and uttered a shocked sort of noise.

  ‘Oh, what a sad desecration!’ she said. ‘Where is it? In my pleached alley, or in Perdita’s garden?’

  ‘In the pleached alley, and it’s a great success. I wish I’d brought my bathing-suit.’

  ‘And do they keep up my tableaux and Elizabethan fêtes and literary circles?’ she asked.

  ‘I didn’t hear anything about them, but there’s a great deal going on. Very gay, and lots of people come down for weekends from town.’