Mrs Quantock had heard both ‘Home’ and Pug, and eagerly told Lucia, who was a hundred yards away, about it. She also told her about the engagement of Atkinson and Elizabeth, which was all she knew about events in those houses. On which Lucia, with a kind smile, had said, ‘Dear Daisy, what slaves some people are to their servants. I'm sure Mrs Weston and Colonel Boucher will be quite miserable, poor things. Now I must run home. How I wish I could stop and chat on the green!’ And she gave her silvery laugh, for she felt much better now that she knew Olga had said she was out to Lady Ambermere, when she was so audibly in.
Then came a further piece of bad luck. Lucia had not gone more than a hundred yards past Georgie's house when he came out in a tremendous hurry. He rapidly measured the distance between himself and Lucia, and himself and Mrs Quantock, and made a bee-line for Mrs Quantock, since she was the nearest. Olga had just telephoned to him…
‘Good morning,’ he said breathlessly, determined to cap anything she said. ‘Any news?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ she said. ‘Haven't you heard?’
Georgie had one moment of heart-sink.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Atkinson and Eliz -’ she began.
‘Oh, that,’ said he. ‘And talking of them, of course you've heard the rest? Haven't you? Why Mrs Weston and Colonel Boucher are going to follow their example, unless they set it themselves and get married first.’
‘No?’ said Mrs Quantock in the loudest possible Riseholme voice of surprise.
‘Oh, yes. I really knew it last night. I was dining at Old Place and they were there. Olga and I both settled there would be something to tell in the morning. Shall we stroll on the green a few minutes?’
Georgie had a lovely time. He hurried from person to person, leaving Mrs Quantock to pick up a few further gleanings. Everyone was there except Lucia, and she, but for the accident of her being rather farther off than Mrs Quantock, would have been the first to know.
When this was finished he sat to enjoy the warm comforting glow of envy that surrounded him. Nowadays the meeting-place on the green had insensibly transferred itself to just opposite Old Place, and it was extremely interesting to hear Olga practising as she always did in the morning. Interesting though it was, Riseholme had at first been a little disappointed about it, for everyone had thought that she would sing Brünnhilde's part or Salome's part through every day, or some trifle of that kind. Instead she would perform an upwards scale in gradual crescendo, and on the highest, most magnificent note would sing at the top of her voice ‘Yawning York!’ Then starting soft again she would descend in crescendo to a superb low note and enunciate ‘Love's lilies lonely.’ Then, after a dozen repetitions of this, she would start at full voice, and just whisper that York was yawning, and do the same with Love's lilies. But you never could tell: on some mornings there would be long trills and leapings on to high notes, or long notes and leaping into trills, and occasionally she sang a real song. That was worth waiting for, and Georgie did not hesitate to let drop that she had sung four last night to his accompaniment. And hardly had he repeated that for the third time when she appeared at her window, and before all Riseholme called out ‘Georgie!’ with a trill at the end, like a bird shaking its wings. Before all Riseholme! So in he went. Had Lucia known that, it would quite have wiped the gilt off Lady Ambermere's being refused admittance. In point of fact, it did wipe the gilt off, when, about an hour afterwards, Georgie went to lunch, because he told her. And if there had been any gilt left about anywhere, that would have vanished too when, in answer to some rather damaging remark she made about poor Daisy's interest in the love-affairs of other people's servants, she learned that it was the love-affairs of their superiors about which all Riseholme had been talking for at least an hour by now.
Again the tableaux on Saturday were unlucky, for in the Brünnhilde scene Pepino, in his agitation, turned the lamp that was to be a sunrise completely out, and Brünnhilde had to hail the midnight instead, or at any rate a very obscure twilight. Georgie, it is true, with wonderful presence of mind turned on an electric light when he had finished playing, but it was more like a flash of lightning. The tableaux were over well before 10.45 and though Lucia, in answer to the usual pressings, said she would ‘see about’ doing them again, she felt that Mrs Weston and Colonel Boucher, who made their first public appearance as the happy pair, attracted more than their proper share of attention. The only consolation was that the romps that followed at poor Daisy's were a complete fiasco. It was in vain, too, at supper that she went from table to table, and helped people to lobster salad and champagne, and had not enough chairs, and generally imitated all that had apparently made Olga's party so supreme a success. But on this occasion the recipe for the dish and not the dish itself was served up, and the hunting of the slipper produced no exhilaration in the chase…
But far more subversive events followed. Olga came back next week, and immediately after Lucia received a card for an evening ‘At home’, with ‘Music’ in the bottom left-hand corner. It happened to be wet that afternoon, and seeing Olga's shut motor coming from the station with four men inside, she leapt to the conclusion that these were four musicians for the music. A second motor followed with luggage, and she quite distinctly saw the unmistakable shape of a 'cello against the window. After that no more guessing was necessary, for it was clear that poor Olga had hired the awful string-quartet from Brinton that played in the lounge of the Royal Hotel after dinner. The Brinton string-quartet! She had heard them once at a distance, and that was enough! Lucia shuddered as she thought of those doleful fiddlers. It was indeed strange that Olga, with all the opportunities she had had for hearing good music, should hire the Brinton string-quartet, but, after all, that was entirely of a piece with her views about the gramophone. Perhaps the gramophone would have its share in this musical evening. But she had said she would go: it would be very unkind to Olga to stop away now, for Olga must know by this time her passion for music, so she went. She sincerely hoped that she would not be conducted to the seat of honour, and have to say a few encouraging words to the string-quartet afterwards. Once again she came rather late, for the music had begun. It had only just begun, for she recognized – who should recognize if not she? - the early bars in a Beethoven quartet. She laid her hand on Pepino's arm.
‘Brinton: Beethoven,’ she said limply.
She slipped into a chair next to Daisy Quantock, and sat in her well-known position when listening to music, with her head forward, her chin resting on her hand, and the far-away look in her eyes. Nothing, of course, could wholly take away the splendour of that glorious composition, and she was pleased that there was no applause between the movements, for she had rather expected that Olga would clap and interrupt the unity of it all. Occasionally, too, she was agreeably surprised by the Brinton string-quartet: they seemed to have some inklings, though not many. Once she winced very much when a string broke.
Olga (she was rather a restless hostess) came up to her when it was over.
‘So glad you could come!’ she said. ‘Aren't they divine!’
Lucia gave her most indulgent smile.
‘Perfect music! Glorious!’ she said. ‘And they really played it very creditably. But I am a little spoiled, you know, for the last time I heard that it was performed by the Spanish Quartet. I know one ought never to compare, but have you ever heard the Spanish Quartet, Miss Bracely?’
Olga looked at her in surprise.
‘But they are the Spanish Quartet!’ she said, pointing to the players.
Lucia had raised her voice rather as she spoke, for when she spoke on music she spoke for everybody to hear. And a great many people undoubtedly did hear, among whom, of course, was Daisy Quantock. She gave one shrill squeal of laughter, like a slate pencil, and from that moment granted plenary absolution to poor dear Lucia for all her greed and grabbing with regard to the Guru.
But instantly all Olga's good-nature awoke: unwittingly (for her remark that this was the Spanis
h Quartet had been a mere surprised exclamation) she had made a guest of hers uncomfortable, and must at once do all she could to remedy that.
‘It's a shocking room for echoes, this,’ she said. ‘Do all of you come up a little nearer, and you will be able to hear the playing so much better. You lose all shade, all fineness here. I came here on purpose to ask you to move up, Mrs Lucas: there are half a dozen chairs unoccupied near the platform.’
It was a kindly intention that prompted the speech, but for all practical purposes quite barren, for so many people had heard Lucia's remarks, and Pepino had already alluded to the Brinton quartet. In that fell moment the Bolshevists laid bony fingers on the sceptre of her musical autocracy.
Staggering from those blows, she had to undergo an even shrewder stroke yet. Already in the intelligence department she had been sadly behind-hand in news, her tableaux party had been anything but a success. This one little remark of Olga's had shaken her musically, but at any rate up till this moment she had shown herself mistress of the Italian tongue, while to strengthen that she was being very diligent with her dictionary, grammar and Dante's Paradiso. Then as from a bolt out of a clear sky that temple was completely demolished in the most tragic fashion.
A few days after the evening of the Spanish-Brinton Quartet, Olga received a letter from Signor Cortese, the great Italian composer, to herald the completion of his opera Lucrezia. Might he come down to Riseholme for a couple of nights, and, figuratively, lay it at her feet, in the hope that she would raise it up, and usher it into the world? All the time he had been writing it, as she knew, he had thought of her in the name part, and he would come down to-day, to-morrow, at a moment's notice by day or night, to submit it to her. Olga was delighted and sent an effusive telegram of many sheets, full of congratulation and welcome, for she wanted above all things to ‘create’ the part. So would Signor Cortese come down that very day?
She ran upstairs with the news to her husband.
‘My dear, Lucrezia is finished,’ she said, ‘and that angel offers it to me. Now what are we to do about dinner to-night? Jacob and Jane are coming, and neither you nor they, I suppose, speak one word of Italian, and you know what mine is, firm and intelligible and operatic, but not conversational. What are we to do? He hates talking English… Oh, I know! If I can only get Mrs Lucas. They always talk Italian, I believe, at home. I wonder if she can come. She's musical too, and I shall ask her husband, I think: that'll be a man over, but it will be another Italiano.’
Olga wrote at once to Lucia, mentioning that Cortese was staying with them, but, quite naturally, saying nothing about the usefulness of Pepino and her being able to engage the musician in his own tongue, for that she took for granted. An eager affirmative (such a great pleasure) came back to her. For the rest of the day, Lucia and Pepino made up neat little sentences to let off to the dazzled Cortese, at the last moment, to show that they could have talked Italian all the time had there been any occasion for doing so.
Mrs Weston and Colonel Boucher had already arrived when Lucia and her husband entered, and Lucia had quite a shock to see on what intimate terms they were with their hostess. They actually called each other Olga and Jacob and Jane, which was most surprising and almost painful. Lucia (perhaps because she had not known about it soon enough) had been a little satirical about the engagement, rather as if it was a slight on her that Jacob had not been content with celibacy and Jane with her friendship, but she was sure she wished them both ‘nothing but well’. Indeed, the moment she had got over the shock of seeing them so intimate with Olga, she could not have been surpassed in cordiality.
‘We see but little of our old friends now,’ she said archly to Olga, ‘but we must excuse their desire for solitude in this first glow of their happiness. Pepino and I remember that sweet time, oh, ever so long ago.’
This might have been tact, or it might have been cat. That Pepino and she sympathized and remembered their beautiful time was tact, that it was so long ago was cat. Altogether it might be described as a cat showing tact. There was, too, a slight air of patronage about it, and if there was one thing Mrs Weston would not, could not and did not even intend to stand, it was that. Besides, it had reached her ears that Mrs Lucas had said something about there being no difficulty in finding bridesmaids younger than the bride.
‘Fancy! How clever of you to remember so long ago,’ she said. ‘But then you have the most marvellous memory, dear, and keep it wonderfully!’
Olga intervened.
‘How kind of you and Mr Lucas to come at such short notice,’ she said. ‘Cortese hates talking English, so I shall put him between you and me, and you'll talk to him all the time, won't you? And you won't laugh at me, will you, when I join in with my atrocious attempts? And I shall buttress myself on the other side with your husband, who will firmly talk across me to him.’
Lucia had to say something. A further exposure was at hand, quite inevitable. It was no use for her and Pepino to recollect a previous engagement…
‘Oh, my Italian is terribly rusty,’ she said, knowing that Mrs Weston's eye was on her… Why, had she not sent Mrs Weston a handsome wedding-present that morning?
‘Rusty? We will ask Cortese about that when you've had a good talk to him. Ah, here he is!’
Cortese came into the room, florid and loquacious, pouring out a stream of apology for his lateness to Olga, none of which was the least intelligible to Lucia. She guessed what he was saying, and next moment Olga, who apparently understood him perfectly, and told him with enviable fluency that he was not late at all, was introducing him to her, and explaining that ‘la Signora’ (Lucia understood this) and her husband talked Italian. She did not need to reply to some torrent of words from him addressed to her, for he was taken on and introduced to Mrs Weston and the Colonel. But he instantly whirled round to her again, and asked her something. Not knowing in the least what he said, she replied.
‘Si, tante grazie.’
He looked puzzled for a moment, and then repeated his question in English.
‘In what deestrict of Italy 'ave you voyaged most?’
Lucia understood that: so did Mrs Weston, and Lucia pulled herself together.
‘In Roma!’ she said. ‘Che bella città! Adoro Roma, ed il mio marito. Non è vero, Pepino?’
Pepino cordially assented: the familiar ring of this firm intelligible Italian restored his confidence, and he asked Cortese whether he was not very fond of music…
Dinner seemed interminable to Lucia. She kept a watchful eye on Cortese, and if she saw he was about to speak to her, she turned hastily to Colonel Boucher, who sat on her other side, and asked him something about his cari cani, which she translated to him. While he answered she made up another sentence in Italian about the blue sky or Venice, and very meanly said her husband had been there, hoping to direct the torrent of Italian eloquence on him. But she knew that, as talker of Italian, neither she nor Pepino had a rag of reputation left them, and she dismally regretted that they had not chosen French, of which they both knew about as much, instead of Italian, for the vehicle of their linguistic distinction.
Olga meantime continued to understand all that Cortese said, and to reply to it with odious fluency, and at last, Cortese having said something to her which made her laugh, he turned to Lucia.
‘I 'ave said to Messis Shottlewort’…’ and he proceeded to explain his joke in English.
‘Molto bene,’ said Lucia, with a dying flicker. ‘Molto divertente. Non è vero, Pepino.’
‘Si, si,’ said Pepino miserably.
And then the final disgrace came, though it was something of a relief to have it over. Cortese, in excellent spirits with his dinner and his wine and the prospect of Olga taking the part of Lucrezia, turned beamingly to Lucia again.
‘Now we all spick English,’ he said. ‘This is one very pleasant evening. I enjoy me very much. Ecco!’
Just once more Lucia shot up into flame.
‘Parlate Inglese molto bene,’ she sai
d, and except when Cortese spoke to Olga, there was no more Italian that night.
Even the unique excitement of hearing Olga ‘try over’ the great scene in the last act could not quite absorb Lucia's attention after this awful fiasco, and though she sat leaning forward with her chin in her hand, and the far-away look in her eyes, her mind was furiously busy as to how to make anything whatever out of so bad a job. Everyone present knew that her Italian, as a vehicle for conversation, had suffered a complete breakdown, and it was no longer any real use, when Olga did not quite catch the rhythm of a passage, to murmur ‘Uno, due, tre,’ unconsciously to herself: she might just as well have said ‘One, two, three,’ for any effect it had on Mrs Weston. The story would be all over Riseholme next day, and she felt sure that Mrs Weston, that excellent observer and superb reporter, had not failed to take it all in, and would not fail to do justice to it. Blow after blow had been rained upon her palace door: it was little wonder that the whole building was aquiver. She had thought of starting a Dante class this winter, for printed Italian, if you had a dictionary and a translation in order to prepare for the class, could be easily interpreted: it was the spoken word which you had to understand without any preparation at all, not in the least knowing what was coming, that had presented such unsurmountable difficulties. And yet who, when the story of this evening was known, would seek instruction from a teacher of that sort? Would Mrs Weston come to her Dante class? Would she? Would she? No, she would not. Assigning reasons.