‘Very well,’ said Georgie. ‘I saw her this morning.’
Lucia gave a sigh of relief.
‘That is good,’ she said. ‘Pepino, do you hear? Miss Bracely is quite well. Not overtired with practising that new opera? Lucy Greecia, was it? Oh, how silly I am! Lucrezia: that was it, by the extraordinary Neapolitan. Yes. And what next? Our good Mrs Weston, now! Still thinking about her nice young man? Making orange-flower wreaths, and choosing bridesmaids? How naughty I am! Yes. And then dear Daisy? How is she? Still entertaining princesses? I look in the Court Circular every morning to see if Princess Pop – Pop – Popoff, isn't it? – if Princess Popoff has popped off to see her cousin the Czar again. Dear me!’
The amount of malice, envy and nearly all uncharitableness which Lucia managed to put into this quite unrehearsed speech was positively amazing. She had not thought it over beforehand for a moment: it came out with the august spontaneity of lightning leaping from a cloud. Not till that moment had Georgie guessed at a tithe of all that Olga had felt so certain about, and a double emotion took hold of him. He was astounded at Lucia, never having conjectured how she must have suffered before she attained to so superb a sourness, and he adored the intuition that had guessed it and was only sorry for it. The outburst was not quite over yet, though Lucia felt distinctly better.
‘And you, Georgie,’ she said, ‘though I'm sure we are such strangers that I ought to call you Mr Pillson – what have you been doing? Playing Miss Bracely's accompaniments, and sewing wedding-dresses all day, and raising spooks all night? Yes.’
Lucia had caught this ‘Yes’ from Lady Ambermere, having found it peculiarly obnoxious. You laid down a proposition, or asked a question, and then confirmed it yourself.
‘And Mr Cortese,’ she said, ‘is he still roaring out his marvellous English and Italian? Yes. What a full life you lead, Georgie! I suppose you have no time for your painting now.’
This was not a bow drawn at a venture, for she had seen Georgie come out of Old Place with his paint-box and drawing-board, but this direct attack on him did not lessen the power of the ‘sweet charity’ which had sent him here. He blew the bugle to rally all the good-nature of which he was capable.
‘No, I've been painting just lately,’ he said; ‘at least, I have been trying to. I'm doing a little sketch of Miss Bracely at her piano, which I want to give her on Christmas Day. But it's so difficult. I wish I had brought it round to ask your advice, but you'd only have screamed with laughter at it. It's a dreadful failure: much worse than those I gave you for your birthdays. Fancy your keeping them still in your lovely music-room. Send them to the pantry, and I'll do something better for your next birthday.’
Lucia, try as she might, could not help being rather touched by this. There they all were: ‘Golden Autumn Woodland’, ‘Bleak December’, ‘Yellow Daffodils’ and ‘Roses of Summer’…
‘Or have them blacked over by the boot-boy,’ she said. ‘Take them down, Georgie, and let us send them to be blacked.’
This was much better: there was playfulness behind the sarcasm now, which peeped out from it. He made the most of that.
‘We'll do that presently,’ he said. ‘Just now I want to engage you and Pepino to dine with me on Christmas Day. Now don't be tarsome and say you're engaged. But one can never tell with you.’
‘A party?’ asked Lucia suspiciously.
‘Well, I thought we would have just one of our old evenings again,’ said Georgie, feeling himself remarkably clever. ‘We'll have the Quantocks, shan't we, and Colonel and Mrs Colonel, and you and Pepino and me, and Mrs Rumbold. That'll make eight, which is more than Foljambe likes, but she must lump it. Mr Rumbold is always singing carols all Christmas evening with the choir, and she will be alone.’
‘Ah, those carols!’ said Lucia, wincing.
‘I know: I will provide you with little wads of cotton-wool. Do come; we'll have just a party of eight. I've asked no one else yet: perhaps nobody will come. I want you and Pepino, and the rest may come or stop away. Do say you approve.’
Lucia could not yield at once. She had to press her finger to her forehead.
‘So kind of you, Georgie,’ she said, ‘but I must think. Are we doing anything on Christmas night, carissimo? Where's your engagement-book. Go and consult it.’
This was a grand manoeuvre, for hardly had Pepino left the room when she started up with a little scream and ran after him.
‘Me so stupid,’ she cried. ‘Me put it in smoky-room, and poor caro will look for it ever so long. Back in a minute, Georgino.’
Naturally this was perfectly clear to Georgie. She wanted to have a short private consultation with Pepino, and he waited rather hopefully for their return, for Pepino, he felt sure, was bored with this Achilles-attitude of sitting sulking in the tent. They came back wreathed in smiles, and instantly embarked on the question of what to do after dinner. No romps: certainly not, but why not the tableaux again?
The question was still under debate when they went in to lunch. It was settled affirmatively during the macaroni, and Lucia said that they all wanted to work her to death, and so get rid of her. They had thought – she and Pepino – of having a little holiday on the Riviera, but anyhow they would put it off till after Christmas. Georgie's mouth was full of crashing toast at the moment, and he could only shake his head. But as soon as the toast could be swallowed, he made the usual reply with great fervour.
Georgie was hardly at all complacent when he walked home afterwards and thought how extremely good-natured he had been, for he could not but feel that this marvellous forbearance was a sort of mistletoe-growth on him, quite foreign really to his nature. Never before had Lucia showed so shrewish and venomous a temper; he had not thought her capable of it. For the gracious queen, there was substituted a snarling fish-wife, but then as Georgie calmly pursued the pacific mission of comfort to which Olga had ordained him, how the fish-wife wrinkles had been smoothed out and the asps divorced from her tongue! Had his imagination ever pictured Lucia saying such things to him, it would have supplied him with no sequel but a complete severance of relations between them. Instead of that he had consulted and truckled to her… truckled: yes, he had truckled, and he was astonished at himself. Why had he truckled?
And the beautiful mouth and kindly eyes of Olga supplied the answer. Certainly he must drop in at once, and tell her the result of the mission. Perhaps she would reward him by calling him a darling again. Really he deserved that she should say something nice to him.
It was a day of surprises for Georgie. He found Olga at home, and recounted, without losing any of the substance, the sarcasms of Lucia, and his own amazing tact and forbearance. He did not comment: he just narrated the facts in the vivid Riseholme manner and waited for his reward.
Olga looked at him a moment in silence.
‘Oh, poor Mrs Lucas!’ she said. ‘She must have been miserable to have behaved like that! I am so sorry. Now what else can you do, Georgie, to make her feel better?’
‘I think I've done everything that could have been required of me,’ said Georgie. ‘It was all I could do to keep my temper at all. I will give my party at Christmas, because I promised you I would.’
‘Oh, but it's ten days to Christmas yet, said Olga. ‘Can't you paint her portrait, and give it her for a present? Oh, I think you could, playing the “Moonlight Sonata”.’
Georgie felt terribly inclined to be offended and tell Olga that she was tired of him; or to be dignified and say he was unusually busy. Never had he shown such forbearance towards downright rudeness as he had shown to Lucia, and though he had done that for Olga's sake, she seemed to be without a single spark of gratitude, but continued to urge her request.
‘Do paint a little picture of her,’ she repeated. ‘She would love it: and make her young and interesting. Think over it anyhow: perhaps you'll think of something better than that. And now won't you go and secure all your guests for Christmas at once?’
Georgie turned to leave the r
oom, but just as he got to the door she spoke again.
‘I think you're a brick,’ she said.
Somehow this undemonstrative expression of approval began to glow in Georgie's heart as he walked home. Apparently she took it for granted that he was going to behave with all the perfect tact and good-temper that he had shown. It did not surprise her in the least: she had almost forgotten to indicate that she had noticed it at all. And that, as he thought about it, seemed a far deeper compliment than if she had told him how wonderful he was. She took it for granted, neither more nor less, that he would be kind and pleasant whatever Lucia said. He had not fallen short of her standard…
15
Georgie's Christmas guests had just taken their seats at his round table without a cloth, and he hoped that Foljambe would be quick with the champagne, because there had been rather a long wait before dinner, owing to Lucia and Pepino being late, and conversation had been a little jerky. Lucia, as usual, had sailed into the room without a word of apology, for she was accustomed to come last when she went out to dinner, and on her arrival dinner was always announced immediately. The few seconds that intervened were employed by her in saying just one kind word to everybody. Tonight, however, the kind words had not been received with the gratified responses to which she was accustomed: there was a different atmosphere abroad, and it was as if she was no more than one-eighth of the entire party… But it would never do to hurry Foljambe, who was a little upset already by the fact of there being eight to dinner, which was two more than she approved of.
Lucia was on Georgie's right, Mrs Colonel (as she had decided to call herself) on his left. Next to her was Pepino, then Mrs Quantock, then the Colonel, then Mrs Rumbold (who resembled a grey suspicious mouse), and Mr Quantock completed the circle around Lucia again. Everyone had a small bunch of violets in their napkin, but Lucia had the largest. She had also a footstool.
‘Capital good soup,’ remarked Mr Quantock. ‘Can't get soup like this at home.’
There was dead silence. Why was there never a silence when Olga was there? wondered Georgie. It wasn't because she talked: she somehow caused other people to talk.
‘Tommy Luton hasn't got measles,’ said Mrs Weston. ‘I always said he hadn't, though there are measles about. He came to work as usual this morning, and is going to sing in the carols to-night.’
She suddenly stopped.
Georgie gave an imploring glance at Foljambe, and looked at the champagne glasses. Foljambe took no notice. Lucia turned to Georgie, with an elbow on the table between her and Mr Quantock.
‘And what news, Georgie?’ she said. ‘Pepino and I have been so busy that we haven't seen a soul all day. What have you been doing. Any planchette?’
She looked brightly at Mrs Quantock.
‘Yes, dear Daisy, I needn't ask you what you've been doing. Table-turning, I expect. I know how interested you are in psychical matters. I should be, too, if only I could be certain that I was not dealing with fraudulent people.’
Georgie felt inclined to give a hollow groan and sink under the table when this awful polemical rhetoric began. To his unbounded surprise Mrs Quantock answered most cordially.
‘You are quite right, dear Lucia,’ she said. ‘Would it not be terrible to find that a medium, some dear friend perhaps, whom one implicitly trusted, was exposed as fraudulent? One sees such exposures in the paper sometimes. I should be miserable if I thought I had ever sat with a medium who was not honest. They fine the wretches well though, if they are caught, and they deserve it.’
Georgie observed, and could not the least understand, a sudden blank look cross Robert's face. For the moment he looked as if he was dead but had been beautifully stuffed. But Georgie gave but a cursory thought to that, for the amazing supposition dawned on him that Lucia had not been polemical at all, but was burying instead of chopping with the hatchet. It was instantly confirmed, for Lucia took her elbow off the table and turned to Robert.
‘You and dear Daisy have been very lucky in your spiritualistic experiences,’ she said. ‘I hear on all sides what a charming medium you had. Georgie quite lost his heart to her.’
‘*Pon my word, and she was delightful,’ said Robert. ‘Of course she was a dear friend of Daisy's, but one has to be very careful when one hears of the dreadful exposures, as my wife said, that occur sometimes. Fancy finding that a medium whom you believed to be perfectly honest had yards and yards of muslin and a false nose or two concealed about her. It would sicken me of the whole business.’
A loud pop announced that Foljambe had allowed them all some champagne at last, but Georgie hardly heard it, for glancing up at Daisy Quantock he observed that the same dead and stuffed look had come over her face which he had just now noticed on her husband's countenance. Then they both looked up at each other with a glance that to him bristled with mystery. An agonized questioning, an imploring petition for silence seemed to inspire it: it was as if each had unwittingly made some hopeless faux pas. Then they instantly looked away from each other again; their necks seemed to crack with the rapidity with which they turned them right and left, and they burst into torrents of speech to the grey suspicious mouse and the Colonel respectively.
Georgie was utterly mystified: his Riseholme instinct told him that there was something below all this, but his Riseholme instinct could not supply the faintest clue as to what it was. They both knew something about the Princess, but surely if Daisy had read in the paper that the Princess had been exposed and fined, she would not have touched on so dangerous a subject. Then the curious incident about Todd's News irresistibly occurred to him, but that would not fit the case, since it was Robert and not Daisy who had bought that inexplicable number of the yellow print. And then Robert had hinted at the discovery of yards and yards of muslin and a false nose. Why had he done that unless he had discovered them, or unless… Georgie's eyes grew round with the excitement of the chase… unless Robert had some reason to suspect the integrity of the dear friend, and had said this at pure haphazard. In that case what was Robert's reason for suspicion? Had he, not Daisy, read in the paper of some damaging disclosure, and had Daisy (also having reason to suspect the Princess) alluded to the damaging exposures in the paper by pure haphazard? Anyhow, they had both looked dead and stuffed when the other alluded to frauds by mediums, and both had said how lucky their experiences had been. Oh! – Georgie almost said it aloud – what if Robert had seen a damaging exposure in Todd's News, and therefore bought up every copy that was to be had? Then, indeed, he would look dead and stuffed when Daisy alluded to damaging exposures in the paper. Had a stray copy escaped him, and did Daisy know? What did Robert know? Had they exquisite secrets from each other?
Lucia was being talked to across him by Mrs Weston, who had also pinned down the attention of Pepino on the other side of her. At that precise moment the flood of Mrs Quantock's spate of conversation to the Colonel dried up, and Robert could find nothing more to say to the grey mouse. Georgie in this backwater of his own thoughts was whirled into the current again. But before he sank he caught Mrs Quantock's eye and put a question that arose from his exciting backwater.
‘Have you heard from the Princess lately?’ he asked.
Robert's head went round with the same alacrity with which he had turned it away.
‘Oh, yes,’ said she. ‘Two days ago, was it, Robert?’
‘I heard yesterday,’ said Robert.
Mrs Quantock looked at her husband with an eager, encouraging earnestness.
‘So you did!’ she said. ‘I'm getting jealous. Interesting, dear?’
‘Yes, dear; haw, haw,’ said Robert, and again their eyes met. This time Georgie had no doubts at all. They were playing the same game: they smiled and smirked at each other. They had not been playing the same game before. Now they recognized that there was a conspiracy between them… But he was host: his business for the moment was to make his guests comfortable, and not pry into their inmost bosoms. So before Mrs Weston realized that she had the whole
table attending to her, he said: ‘I shall get it out of him after dinner. And I'll tell you, Mrs Quantock.’
‘Before Atkinson came to the Colonel,’ said Mrs Weston, ‘and that was five years before Elizabeth came to me – let me see, was it five or was it four and a half? – four and a half we'll say – he had another servant whose name was Ahab Crow.’
‘No!’ said Georgie.
‘Yes!’ said Mrs Weston, hastily finishing her champagne, for she saw Foljambe coming near. ‘Yes, Ahab Crow. He married too, just like Atkinson is going to, and that's an odd coincidence in itself. I tell the Colonel that if Ahab Crow hadn't married he would be with him still, and who can say that he'd have fancied Elizabeth. And if he hadn't, I don't believe that the Colonel and I would ever have – well, I'll leave that alone to spare my blushes. But that's not what I was saying. Whom do you think Ahab Crow married? You can have ten guesses each, and you would never come right, for it can't be a common name. It was Miss Jackdaw. Crow: Jackdaw. I never heard anything like that, and if you ask the Colonel about it, he'll confirm every word I said. Boucher: Weston – why that's quite common-place in comparison, and I'm sure that's an event enough for me.’
Lucia gave her silvery laugh.
‘Dear Mrs Weston,’ she said, ‘you must really tell me at once when the happy day will be. Pepino and I are thinking of going to the Riviera –’
Georgie broke in.
‘You shan't do anything of the kind,’ he said. ‘What's to happen to us?’ Oo vewy selfish, Lucia!’
The conversation broke up again into duets and trios, and Lucia could have a private conversation with her host. But half an hour ago, so Georgie reflected, they had all been walking round each other like dogs going on tip-toe with their tails very tightly curled, and growling gently to themselves, aware that a hasty snap, or the breach of the smallest observance of etiquette, might lead to a general quarrel. But now they all had the reward of their icy politenesses: there was no more ice, except on their plates, and the politeness was not a matter of etiquette. At present they might be considered a republic, but no one knew what was going to happen after dinner. Not a word had been said about the tableaux.