‘Georgie, I'm going to scold you,’ she said one day, as she took up her place against the black panel. ‘You're a selfish little brute. You think of nothing but your own amusement. Did that ever strike you?’
Georgie gasped with surprise. Here was he spending the whole of every morning trying to do something which would be a worthy Christmas present for her, to say nothing of the hours he had spent with his mouth open in front of his looking-glass and the cost of the beautiful frame which he had ordered, and yet he was supposed to be only thinking about himself. Of course, Olga did not know that the picture was to be hers…
‘How horrid you are!’ he said. ‘You're always finding fault with me. Explain.’
‘Well, you're neglecting your old friends for your new one,’ she said. ‘My dear, you should never drop an old friend. For instance, when did you last play duets with Mrs Lucas?’
‘Oh, not so very long ago,’ said Georgie.
‘Quite long enough, I am sure. But I don't actually mean sitting down and thumping the piano with her. When did you last think about her and make plans for her and talk baby-language?’
‘Who told you I ever did?’ asked Georgie.
‘Gracious! How can I possibly remember that sort of thing? I should say at a guess that everybody told me. Now poor Mrs Lucas is feeling out of it and neglected and dethroned. It's all on my mind rather, and I'm talking to you about it, because it's largely your fault. Now we're talking quite frankly, so don't fence and say it's mine. I know exactly what you mean, but you are perfectly wrong. Primarily, it's Mrs Lucas's fault, because she's quite the stupidest woman I ever saw, but it's partly your fault too.’
She turned round.
‘Come, Georgie, let's have it out,’ she said. ‘I'm perfectly powerless to do anything, because she detests me, and you've got to help her and help me, and drop your selfishness. Before I came here, she used to run you all, and give you treats like going to her tableaux and listening to her playing that old “Moonlight Sonata”, and talking seven words of Italian. And then I came along with no earthly intention except to enjoy my holiday, and she got it into her head that I was trying to run the place instead of her. Isn't that so! Just say “Yes”.’
‘Yes,’ said Georgie.
‘Well, that puts me in an odious position, and a helpless position. I did my best to be nice to her: I went to her house until she ceased to ask me, and asked her here for anything that I thought would amuse her, until she ceased to come. I took no notice of her rudeness, which was remarkable, or of her absurd patronizing airs, which didn't hurt me in the smallest degree. But, Georgie, she would continue to make such a dreadful ass of herself, and think it was my fault. Was it my fault that she didn't know the Spanish Quartet when she heard it, or that she didn't know a word of Italian when she pretended she did, or that the other day (it was the last time I saw her, when you played your Debussy to us at Aunt Jane's) she talked to me about inverted fifths!’
Olga suddenly burst out laughing, and Georgie assumed the Riseholme face of intense curiosity.
‘You must tell me all about that,’ he said, ‘and I'll tell you the rest which you don't know.’
Olga succumbed too, and began to talk in Aunt Jane's voice, for she had adopted her as an aunt.
‘Well, it was last Monday week, she said, ‘or was it Sunday? No, it couldn't have been Sunday, because I don't have anybody to tea that day, as Elizabeth goes over to Jacob's and spends the afternoon with Atkinson, or the other way about, which doesn't signify, as the point is that Elizabeth should be free. So it was Monday, and Aunt Jane – it's me talking again – had the tea-party at which you played Poissons d'or. And when it (the goldfish) was finished Mrs Lucas gave a great sigh, and said, “Poor Georgino! Wasting his time over that rubbish,” though she knew quite well that I had given it you. And so I said: “Would you quite call it rubbish, do you think?” and she said: “Quite. Every rule of music is violated. Don't those inverted fifths make you wince, Miss Bracely?”’
Olga laughed again, and spoke in her own voice.
‘Oh, Georgie, she is an ass,’ she said. ‘What she meant, I suppose, was consecutive fifths: you can't invert a fifth. So I said (I really meant it as a joke): “Of course there is that, but you must forgive Debussy that for the sake of that wonderful passage of submerged tenths!” And she took it quite gravely, and shook her head, and said she was afraid she was a purist. What happened next? That's all I know.’
‘Directly afterwards,’ said Georgie, greedily, ‘she brought the music to me, and asked me to show her where the passage of submerged tenths came. I didn't know, but I found some tenths, and she brightened up and said: “Yes, it is true: those submerged tenths are very impressive.” Then I suggested that the submerged tenth was not a musical expression, but referred to the population. On which she said no more, but when she went away, she asked me to lend her Dalston's Manual of “Harmony”. I daresay she is looking for anything about tenths still.’
Olga lit a cigarette and became grave again.
‘Well, it can't go on,’ she said. ‘We can't have the poor thing feeling angry and out of it. Then there was Mrs Quantock absolutely refusing to let her see the Princess –’
‘That was her own fault,’ said Georgie. ‘It was because she was so greedy about the Guru.’
‘That makes it all the bitterer. And I can't do anything because she blames me for it all. I would ask her and her Pepino here every night, and listen to her dreary tunes all evening, and let her have it all her own way, if it would do any good. But things have gone too far: she wouldn't come. It has all happened without my noticing it. I never added it all up as it went along, and I hate it.’
Georgie thought of the spiritualistic truths.
‘If you're an incarnation,’ he said, in a sudden glow of admiration, ‘you're the incarnation of an angel. How you can forgive her odious manners to you –’
‘My dear, shut up,’ said Olga. ‘We've got to do something. Now how would it be if you gave a nice party on Christmas night, and asked her at once? Ask her to help you in getting it up: make it clear she's going to run it.’
‘All right. You'll come, won't you?’
‘Certainly I will not. Perhaps I will come in afterwards with Goosie or someone of that sort. Don't you see it would spoil it all if I was at dinner? You must, rather pointedly, leave me out. Give her a nice, expensive, refined Christmas present too. You might give her that picture you're doing of me – no, I suppose she wouldn't like that. But just comfort her and make her feel you can't get on without her. You've been her right hand all these years. Make her give her tableaux again, and oh, I think you must ask me in afterwards. I long to see her and Pepino as Brünnhilde and Siegfried. Just attend to her, Georgie, and buck her up. Promise me you will. And do it as if your heart was in it, otherwise it's no good.’
Georgie began packing up his paint-box. This was not the plan he had hoped for on Christmas Day, but if Olga wished this, it had got to be done.
‘Well, I'll do my best,’ he said.
‘Thanks ever so much. You're a darling. And how is your planchette getting on? I've been lazy about my crystal, but I get so tired of my own nose.’
‘Planchette would write nothing but a few names,’ said Georgie, omitting the fact that Olga's was the most frequent. ‘I think I shall drop it.’
This was but reasonable, for since Riseholme had some new and absorbing excitement every few weeks, to say nothing of the current excitement of daily life, it followed that even the most thrilling pursuits could not hold the stage for very long. Still, the interest in spiritualism had died down with the rapidity of the seed on stony ground.
‘Even Mrs Quantock seems to have cooled,’ said Olga. ‘She and her husband were here last night, but she looked rather bored when I suggested table-turning. I wonder if anything has happened to put her off it?'
‘What do you think could have?’ asked Georgie, with Rise-holme alacrity.
‘Georgie, do y
ou really believe in the Princess and Pocky?’ she asked.
Georgie looked round to see that there was no one within hearing.
‘I did at the time,’ he said; ‘at least, I think I did. But it seems less likely now. Who was the Princess, anyway? Why didn't we ever hear of her before? I believe Mrs Quantock met her in the train or something.’
‘So do I,’ said Olga. ‘But not a word. It makes Aunt Jane and Uncle Jacob completely happy to believe in it all. Their lines of life are enormous, and they won't die till they're over a hundred. Now go and see Mrs Lucas, and if she doesn't ask you to lunch you can come back here.’
Georgie put down his picture and painting apparatus at his house, and went on to Lucia's, definitely conscious that though he did not want to have her to dinner on Christmas Day, or to go back to his duets and his ADC duties, there was a spice and savour in so doing that came entirely from the fact that Olga wished him to, that by this service he was pleasing her. In itself it was distasteful, in itself it tended to cut him off from her, if he had to devote his time to Lucia, but he still delighted in doing it. ‘I believe I am falling in love with her,’ said Georgie to himself. ‘She's wonderful; she's big; she's –’
At that moment his thoughts were violently diverted, for Robert Quantock came out of his house in a violent hurry, merely scowled at Georgie, and positively trotted across the green in the direction of the newsagent's. Instantly Georgie recollected that he had seen him there already this morning before his visit to Olga, buying a new twopenny paper, in a yellow cover, called Todd's News. They had had a few words of genial conversation, and what could have happened in the last two hours that made Robert merely gnash his teeth at Georgie now, and make a second visit to the paper shop? It was impossible not to linger a moment, in order to see what Robert did when he got to the paper shop, and with the aid of his spectacles Georgie perceived that he had presently loaded himself with a whole packet of papers in yellow covers, presumably Todd's News. Flesh and blood could not resist the cravings of curiosity, and making a detour, so as to avoid being gnashed at again by Robert, who was coming rapidly back in his direction, he strolled round to the paper shop himself, and asked for a copy of Todd's News. Instantly the bright December morning grew dark with mystery, for the proprietor told him that Mr Quantock had bought every copy he possessed of it. No further information could be obtained, except that he had bought a copy of every other daily paper as well.
Georgie could make nothing whatever of this, and having observed Robert hurrying into his house again, went on his own errand to Lucia. Had he seen what Robert did when he got home, it is doubtful if he could have avoided breaking into the house and snatching a copy of Todd's News from him…
Robert went to his study and locked the door. He drew out from under his blotting-pad the first copy of Todd's News, that he had bought earlier in the morning, and put it with the rest. Then, with a furrowed brow, he turned to the police-reports in The Times, and, after looking at them, laid the paper down. He did the same to the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Morning Post, the Daily Chronicle. Finally (this was the last of the daily papers), he perused the Daily Mirror, tore it in shreds and said ‘Damn’.
He sat for a while in profound thought, trying to recollect if anybody in Riseholme except Colonel Boucher took in the Daily Mirror. But he felt morally certain that no one did, and letting himself out of his study, and again locking the door after him, he went into the street, and saw at a glance that the Colonel was employed in whirling Mrs Weston round the green. Instead of joining them, he hurried to the Colonel's house, and, for this was no time for half measures, fixed Atkinson with his eye, and said he would like to write a note to Colonel Boucher. He was shown into his sitting-room, and saw the Daily Mirror lying open on the table. As soon as he was left alone, he stuffed it into his pocket, told Atkinson he would speak to the Colonel instead of writing a note, and intercepted the path of the bath-chair. He was nearly run over, but stood his ground, and in a perfectly firm voice asked the Colonel if there was any news in the morning papers. With the Colonel's decided negative ringing joyfully in his ears, he went home again, and locked himself for the second time in his study.
There is a luxury, when some fell danger has been averted by promptness and presence of mind, in living through the moment of danger again, and Robert opened Todd's News (for that gave the fuller account), and read over the paragraph in the Police news headed ‘Bogus Russian Princess’. But now he gloated over the lines which had made him shudder before, when he read how Marie Lowenstein, of 15, Gerald Street, Charing Cross Road, calling herself Princess Popoffski, had been brought up at the Bow Street Police Court for fraudulently professing to tell fortunes and produce materialized spirits at a séance in her flat. Sordid details followed: a detective who had been there seized an Italian apparition by the throat, and turned on the electric light. It was the woman Popoffski's throat that he held, and her secretary, Hezekiah Schwarz, was discovered under the table detaching an electric hammer. A fine was inflicted…
A moment's mental debate was sufficient to determine Robert not to tell his wife. It was true that she had produced Popoffski, but then he had praised and applauded her for that: he, no less than she, had been convinced of Popoffski's integrity, high rank and marvellous psychic powers, and together they had soared to a pinnacle of greatness in the Riseholme world. Besides, poor Daisy would be simply flattened out if she knew that Popoffski was no better than the Guru. He glanced at the tall pile of Todd's News and at the grate…
It had been a cold morning, clear and frosty, and a good fire prospered in the grate. Out of each copy of Todd's News he tore the page on which were printed the police-reports, and fed the fire with them. Page after page he put upon it: never had so much paper been devoted to one grate. Up the chimney they flew in sheets of flame: sometimes he was afraid he had set it on fire, and he had to pause, shielding his scorched face, until the hollow rumbling had died down. With the page from two copies of the Daily Mirror, the holocaust was over, and he unlocked the door again. No one in Riseholme knew but he, and no one should ever know. Riseholme had been electrified by spiritualism, and even now the séances had been cheap at the price.
The debris of all these papers he had removed by the housemaid, and this was hardly done when his wife came in from the green.
‘I thought there was a chimney on fire, Robert,’ she said. ‘You would have liked it to be the kitchen chimney, as you said the other day.’
‘Stuff and nonsense, my dear,’ said he. ‘Lunch-time, isn't it?’
‘Yes. Ah, there's the post. None for me, and two for you.’
She looked at him narrowly as he took his letters. Perhaps their subconscious minds (according to her dear friend's theory) held communication, but only the faintest unintelligible ripple of that appeared on the surface.
‘I haven't heard from my Princess since she went away,’ she remarked.
Robert gave a slight start: he was a little off his guard from the reaction after his anxiety.
‘Indeed!’ he said. ‘Have you written to her?’
She appeared to try to remember.
‘Well, I really don't believe I have,’ she said. ‘That is remiss of me. I must send her a long budget one of these days.’
This time he looked narrowly at her. Had she a secret, he wondered, as well as he? What could it be?…
Georgie found his mission none too easy, and it was only the thought that it was a labour of love, or something very like it, that enabled him to persevere. Even then for the first few minutes he thought it might prove love's labour lost, so bright and unreal was Lucia. He had half crossed Shakespeare's garden, and had clearly seen her standing at the window of the music-room, when she stole away from the window, and next moment the strains of some slow movement, played very loudly, drowned the bell on the mermaid's tail so completely that he wondered whether it had rung at all. As a matter of fact, Lucia and Pepino were in the midst of a most serious conversat
ion when Georgie came through the gate, which was concerned with deciding what was to be done. A party at The Hurst sometime during Christmas week took place as regularly as the festival itself, but this year everything was so unusual. Who was to be asked, in the first place? Certainly not Mrs Weston, for she had talked Italian to Lucia in a manner impossible to misinterpret, and probably, so said Lucia with great acidity, she would be playing children's games with her promesso. It was equally impossible to ask Miss Bracely and her husband, for relations were already severed, on account of the Spanish Quartet and Signor Cortese, and as for the Quantocks, did Pepino expect Lucia to ask Mrs Quantock again ever? Then there was Georgie, who had become so different and strange, and… Well, here was Georgie. Hastily she sat down at the piano, and Pepino closed his eyes for the slow movement.
The opening of the door was lost on Lucia, and Pepino's eyes were closed. Consequently Georgie sat down on the nearest chair, and waited. At the end Pepino sighed, and he sighed too.
‘Who is that?’ said Lucia sharply. ‘Why, is it you, Georgie? What a stranger! Aren't you? Any news?’
This was all delivered in the coldest of tones, and Lucia scratched a morsel of wax off E flat.
‘I've heard none,’ said Georgie, in great discomfort. ‘I just dropped in.’
Lucia fixed Pepino with a glance. If she had shouted at the top of her voice she could not have conveyed more unmistakably that she was going to manage this situation.
‘Ah, that is very pleasant,’ she said. ‘Pepino and I have been so busy lately that we have seen nobody. We are quite country-cousins, and so the town-mouse must spare us a little cheese. How is dear Miss Bracely now?’