The actual quiet of the moment was suddenly broken into. His front-door banged, and the house was filled with running footsteps and screams of laughter. But it was not uncommon for Hermy and Ursy to make this sort of entrance, and at the moment Georgie had not the slightest idea of how much further-reaching was the disturbance of the tranquillity. He but drew a couple of long breaths, said ‘Om’ once or twice, and was quite prepared to find his deeper calm unshattered.
Hermy and Ursy ran down the steps into the garden where he sat, still yelling with laughter, and Georgie's imagination went no further than to suppose that one of them had laid a stymie for the other at their golf, or driven a ball out of bounds, or done some other of those things that appeared to make the game so diverting to them.
‘Georgie, you'll never guess!’ cried Hermy. ‘The Guru, the Om –’
‘– Of high caste and extraordinary sanctity –’ cried Ursy.
‘The Brahmin from Benares –’ shrieked Hermy.
‘The Great Teacher! Who do you think he is?’ said Ursy.
‘We'd never seen him before –’
‘But we recognized him at once –’
‘He recognized us, too, and didn't he run? –’
‘Into The Hurst, and shut the door –’
Georgie's deeper calm suddenly quivered like a jelly.
‘My dears, you needn't howl so, or talk quite so loud,’ he said. ‘All Riseholme will hear you. Tell me without shouting who it was you thought you recognized.’
‘There's no thinking about it,’ said Hermy. ‘It was one of the cooks from the Calcutta Restaurant in Bedford Street –’
‘Where we often have lunch,’ said Ursy. ‘He makes the most delicious curries.’
‘Especially when he's a little tipsy,’ said Hermy.
‘And is about as much a Brahmin as I am.’
‘And always said he came from Madras.’
‘We always tip him to make the curry himself, so he isn't quite ignorant about money.’
‘O Lord!’ said Hermy, wiping her eyes. ‘If it isn't the limit!’
‘And to think of Mrs Lucas and Colonel Boucher, and you and Mrs Quantock, and Piggy and all the rest of them, sitting round a cook,’ said Ursy, ‘and drinking in his wisdom. Mr Quantock was on the right tack after all when he wanted to engage him.’
Georgie, with a fallen heart, had first to satisfy himself that this was not one of his sisters’ jokes, and then tried to raise his fallen heart by remembering that the Guru had often spoken of the dignity of simple manual work, but somehow it was a blow, if Hermy and Ursy were right, to know that this was a tipsy contriver of curry. There was nothing in the simple manual office of curry-making that could possibly tarnish sanctity, but the amazing tissue of falsehoods with which the Guru had modestly masked his innocent calling was not so markedly in the spirit of the Guides, as retailed by him. It was of the first importance, however, to be assured that his sisters had not at present communicated their upsetting discovery to anybody but himself, and after that to get their promise that they would not do so.
This was not quite so easy, for Hermy and Ursy had projected a round of visits after dinner to every member of the classes, with the exception of Lucia, who should wake up next morning to find herself the only illusioned person in the place.
‘She wouldn't like that, you know,’ said Hermy, with brisk malice. ‘We thought it would serve her out for never asking us to her house again after her foolish old garden-party.’
‘My dear, you never wanted to go,’ said Georgie.
‘I know we didn't, but we rather wanted to tell her we didn't want to go. She wasn't nice. Oh, I don't think we can give up telling everybody. He has made such sillies of you all. I think he's a real sport.’
‘So do I,’ said Ursy. ‘We shall soon have him back at his curry-oven again. What a laugh we shall have with him.’
They subsided for just as long as it took Foljambe to come out of the house, inform them that it was a quarter of an hour to dressing-time, and return again, and they all rose obediently.
‘Well, we'll talk about it at dinner-time,’ said Georgie diplomatically. ‘And I'll just go down to the cellar first to see if I can find something you like.’
‘Good old Georgie,’ said Hermy. ‘But if you're going to bribe us, you must bribe us well!’
‘We'll see,’ said he.
Georgie was quite right to be careful over his Veuve Clicquot, especially since it was a bottle of that admirable beverage that Hermy and Ursy had looted from his cellar on the night of their burglarious entry. He remembered that well, though he had – chiefly from the desire to keep things pleasant about his house – joined in ‘the fun’, and had even produced another half-bottle. But to-night, even more than ever, there was need for the abolition of all petty economies, for the situation would be absolutely intolerable if Hermy and Ursy spread about Riseholme the fact that the innocent circle of Yoga philosophers had sat at the feet of no Gamaliel at all, but at those of a curry-cook from some low restaurant. Indeed, he brought up a second bottle to-night, with a view, if Hermy and Ursy were not softened by the first, of administering that also. They would then hardly be in a condition to be taken seriously, if they still insisted on making a house-to-house visit in Riseholme and tearing the veil from off the features of the Guru. Georgie was far too upright of purpose to dream of making his sisters drunk, but he was willing to make great sacrifices in order to render them kind. What the inner circle would do about this cook he had no idea, and must talk to Lucia about it, before the advanced class to-morrow morning. But anything was better than letting Hermy and Ursy loose on Riseholme with their rude laughter and discreditable exposures. This evening safely over, he could discuss with Lucia what was to be done, for Hermy and Ursy would have vanished at cockcrow as they were going in for some golf-competition at a safe distance. Lucia might recommend doing nothing at all, and wish to continue the enlightening studies as if nothing had happened. But Georgie felt that the romance would have evaporated from the classes as regards himself. Or again they might have to get rid of the Guru somehow. He only felt quite sure that Lucia would agree with him that Daisy Quantock must not be told. She with her thwarted ambitions of being the prime dispenser of Guruism to Riseholme might easily ‘turn nasty’, and let it be widely known that she and Robert had seen through that fraud long ago, and had considered whether they should not offer the Guru the situation of cook in their household, for which he was so much better qualified. She might even add that his leanings towards her pretty housemaid had alone dissuaded her.
The evening went off with a success more brilliant than Georgie had anticipated, and it was quite unnecessary to open the second bottle of Veuve Clicquot. Hermy and Ursy, perhaps under the influence of the first, perhaps from inner 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 Riseholme, 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 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 crash 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 roused 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 noi
se, whatever it was, was extremely stealthy and subdued. He thought of his absurd alarm 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 else than his sisters' preparations for their early start. For himself, he had everything packed and corded long before dinner if he was to start next day, except just a suitcase 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 Pepino, 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. Pepino 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 in 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 in the drawing-room (the pretty straw one with a little turquoise in the corner), and went to find it. The window was open, so 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 by Karl Huth, gone the piece of Bow china, and gone the Fabergé 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 woollen 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 round 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 her 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 settee 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 plated! – eight silver forks and a Georgian tankard. I could have spared all but the last.’
A faint sigh 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 Pepino'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 Pepino 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 these disturbances. But they were all rather glad that Lucia was to ask her 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.
Five minutes afterwards Pepino 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 Robe. Before many seconds had passed, she came back more quickly and with less 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 recognized him, and they thought he recognized them. He comes from Madras, and is no more a Brahmin than Foljambe is.’
Pepino bounced to his feet.
‘What?’ he cried. ‘Let's get a poker and break in the door! I believe he's gone; 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 knew best, and you and he have been fooling us all 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!’