54

 

 

 

LUCIA'S PROGRESS

 

PART 2

 

CHAPTER II

 

 

 

Major Benjy was in church with his wife next morning: this was weighty evidence as regards her influence over him, for never yet had he been known to spend a fine Sunday morning except on the golf links. He sat with her among the auxiliary choir sharing her hymn-book and making an underground sort of noise during the hymns. The Padre preached a long sermon in Scotch about early Christianity in Ireland which was somehow confusing to the geographical sense. After service Lucia walked away a little ahead of the Mapp-Flints, so that they certainly saw her ring the bell at Mallards Cottage and be admitted, and Elizabeth did not fail to remember that Georgie had said only yesterday afternoon that he was not up to seeing anybody. Lucia smiled and waved her hand as she went in to make sure Elizabeth saw, and Elizabeth gave a singularly mirthless smile in answer. As it was Sunday, she tried to feel pleased that he must be better this morning, but with only partial success. However, she would sit in the window of the garden-room and see how long Lucia stayed.

 

Georgie was not yet down and Lucia had a few minutes alone in his sitting-room among the tokens of his handiwork. There were dozens of his water-colour sketches on the walls, the sofa was covered with a charming piece of gros-point from his nimble needle, and his new piece in petit point, not yet finished, lay on one of the numerous little tables. One window looked on to the street, the other on to a tiny square of flower garden with a patch of crazy pavement surrounding a brick pillar on the top of which stood a replica of the Neapolitan Narcissus. Georgie had once told Lucia that he had just that figure when he was a boy, and with her usual tact she had assured him he had it still. There were large soft cushions in all the chairs, there was a copy of Vogue, a work-basket containing wools, a feather brush for dusting, a screen to shut off all draughts from the door, and a glass case containing his bibelots, including a rather naughty enamelled snuff-box: two young people--Then she heard his slippered tread on the stairs and in he came.

 

He had on his new blue suit: round his neck was a pink silk scarf with an amethyst pin to keep it in place, and above the scarf his face, a shade plumper than Narcissus's, thatched by his luxuriant auburn hair and decorated with an auburn moustache turned up at the ends, was now framed in a short grey, almost white beard.

 

"My dear, it's too dreadful," he said. "I know I'm perfectly hidjus, but I shan't be able to shave for weeks to come, and I couldn't bear being alone any longer. I tried to shave yesterday. Agonies!"

 

Dialectic encouragement was clearly the first thing to administer.

 

"Georgino! 'Oo vewy naughty boy not to send for me before," said Lucia. "If I'd been growing a barba--my dear, not at all disfiguring: rather dignified--do you think I should have said I wouldn't see you? But tell me all about it. I know nothing."

 

"Shingles on my face and neck," said Georgie. "Blisters. Bandages. Ointments. Aspirin. Don't tell anybody. So degrading!"

 

"Povero! But I'm sure you've borne it wonderfully. And you're over the attack?"

 

"So they say. But it will be weeks before I can shave, and I can't go about before I do that. Tell me the news. Elizabeth rang me up yesterday, and offered to come and sit with me after dinner."

 

"I know. I was there playing Bridge and you, or Foljambe rather, said you weren't up to seeing people. But she saw me come in this morning."

 

"No!" said Georgie. "She'll hate that."

 

Lucia sighed.

 

"An unhappy nature, I'm afraid," she said. "I waggled my hand and smiled at her as I stepped in, and she smiled back--how shall I say it?--as if she had been lunching on soused mackerel and pickles instead of going to church. And all those n'est ce pas-s as I told you yesterday."

 

"But what about her and Benjy?" asked Georgie. "Who wears the trousers?"

 

"Georgie: it's difficult to say: I felt a man's eye was needed. It looked to me as if they wore one trouser each. He's got the garden-room as his sitting-room: horns and savage aprons on the wall and bald tiger-skins on the floor. On the other hand he had tea instead of whisky and soda at tea-time in an enormous cup, and he was in church this morning. They dab at each other about equally."

 

"How disgusting!" said Georgie. "You don't know how you cheer me up."

 

"So glad, Georgie. That's what I'm here for. And now I've got a plan. No, it isn't a plan, it's an order. I'm not going to leave you here alone. You're coming to stay with me at Grebe. You needn't see anybody but me and me only when you feel inclined. It's ridiculous your being cooped up here with no one to talk to. Have your lunch and tell Foljambe to pack your bags and order your car."

 

Georgie required very little persuasion. It was a daring proceeding to stay all alone with Lucia but that was not in its disfavour. He was the professional jeune premier in social circles at Tilling, smart and beautifully dressed and going to more tea-parties than anybody else, and it was not at all amiss that he should imperil his reputation and hers by these gay audacities. Very possibly Tilling would never know, as the plan was that he should be quite invisible till his clandestine beard was removed, but if Tilling did then or later find out, he had no objection. Besides, it would make an excellent opportunity for his cook to have her holiday, and she should go off to-morrow morning, leaving the house shut up. Foljambe would come up every other day or so to open windows and air it.

 

So Lucia paid no long visit, but soon left Georgie to make domestic arrangements. There was Elizabeth sitting at the window of the garden-room, and she threw it open with another soused mackerel smile as Lucia passed below.

 

"And how is our poor malade?" she asked. "Better, I trust, since he is up to seeing friends again. I must pop in to see him after lunch."

 

Lucia hesitated. If Elizabeth knew that he was moving to Grebe this afternoon, she would think it very extraordinary that she was not allowed to see him, but the secret of the beard must be inviolate.

 

"He's not very well," she said. "I doubt if he would see anybody else to-day."

 

"And what's the matter exactly, chérie?" asked Elizabeth, oozing with the tenderest curiosity. Major Benjy, Lucia saw, had crept up to the window too. Lucia could not of course tell her that it was shingles, for shingles and beard were wrapped up together in one confidence.

 

"A nervous upset," she said firmly. "Very much pulled down. But no cause for anxiety."

 

Lucia went on her way, and Elizabeth closed the window.

 

"There's something mysterious going on, Benjy," she said. "Poor dear Lucia's face had that guileless look which always means she's playing hokey-pokey. We shall have to find out what really is the matter with Mr. Georgie. But let's get on with the crossword till luncheon: read out the next."

 

By one of those strange coincidences, which admit of no explanation, Benjy read out:

 

"No. 3 down. A disease, often seen on the seashore."

 

 

 

Georgie's move to Grebe was effected early that afternoon without detection, for on Sunday, during the hour succeeding lunch, the streets of Tilling were like a city of the dead. With his head well muffled up, so that not a hair of his beard could be seen, he sat on the front seat to avoid draughts, and, since it was not worth while packing all his belongings for so short a transit, Foljambe sitting opposite him, was half buried under a loose moraine of coats, sticks, paint-boxes, music, umbrellas, dressing-gown, hot-water bottle and work-basket.

 

Hardly had they gone when Elizabeth, having solved the crossword except No. 3 down, which continued to baffle her, set about solving the mystery which, her trained sense assured her, existed, and she rang up Mallards Cottage with the intention of congratulating Georgie on being better, and of proposing to come in and read to him. Georgie's cook, who was going on holiday next day and had been bidden to give nothing away, answered the call. The personal pronouns in this conversation were rather mixed as in the correspondences between Queen Victoria and her Ministers of State.

 

"Could Mrs. Mapp-Flint speak to Mr. Pillson?"

 

"No, ma'am, she couldn't. Impossible just now."

 

"Is Mrs. Mapp-Flint speaking to Foljambe?"

 

"No, ma'am, it's me. Foljambe is out."

 

"Mrs. Mapp-Flint will call on Mr. Pillson about 4.30."

 

"Very good, ma'am, but I'm afraid Mr. Pillson won't be able to see her."

 

The royal use of the third person was not producing much effect, so Elizabeth changed her tactics, and became a commoner. She was usually an adept at worming news out of cooks and parlourmaids.

 

"Oh, I recognise your voice, cook," she said effusively. "Good afternoon. No anxiety, I hope, about dear Mr. Georgie?"

 

"No, ma'am, not that I'm aware of."

 

"I suppose he's having a little nap after his lunch."

 

"I couldn't say, ma'am."

 

"Perhaps you'd be so very kind as just to peep, oh, so quietly, into his sitting-room and give him my message, if he's not asleep."

 

"He's not in his sitting-room, ma'am."

 

Elizabeth rang off. She was more convinced than ever that some mystery was afoot, and her curiosity passed from tender oozings to acute inflammation. Her visit at 4.30 brought her no nearer the solution, for Georgie's substantial cook blocked the doorway, and said he was at home to nobody. Benjy on his way back from golf met with no better luck, nor did Diva on her way to evening church. All these kind enquiries were telephoned to Georgie at Grebe: Tilling was evidently beginning to seethe, and it must continue to do so.

 

Lucia's household had been sworn to secrecy, and the two passed a very pleasant evening. They had a grand duet on the piano, and discussed the amazing romance of Dame Catherine Winterglass who had become enshrined in Lucia's mind as a shining example of a conscientious woman of middle-age determined to make the world a better place.

 

"Really, Georgie," she said, "I'm ashamed of having spent so many years getting gradually a little richer without being a proper steward of my money. Money is a power, and I have been letting it lie idle, instead of increasing it by leaps and bounds like that wonderful Dame Catherine. Think of the good she did!"

 

"You might decrease it by leaps and bounds if you mean to speculate," observed Georgie. "It's supposed to be the quickest short-cut to the workhouse, isn't it?"

 

"Speculation?" said Lucia. "I abhor it. What I mean is studying the markets, working at finance as I work at Aristophanes, using one's brains, going carefully into all those prospectuses that are sent one. For instance, yesterday there was a strong recommendation in the evening paper to buy shares in a West African mine called Siriami, and this morning the City Editor of a Sunday paper gave the same advice. I collate those facts, Georgie. I reason that there are two very shrewd men recommending the same thing. Naturally I shall be very cautious at first, till I know the ropes, so to speak, and shall rely largely on my broker's advice. But I shall telegraph to him first thing to-morrow to buy me five hundred Siriami. Say they go up only a shilling--I've worked it all out--I shall be twenty-five pounds to the good."

 

"My dear, how beautiful!" said Georgie. "What will you do with it all?"

 

"Put it into something else, or put more into Siriami. Dame Catherine used to say that an intelligent and hard-working woman can make money every day of her life. She was often a bear. I must find out about being a bear."

 

"I know what that means," said Georgie. "You sell shares you haven't got in order to buy them cheaper afterwards."

 

Lucia looked startled.

 

"Are you sure about that? I must tell my broker to be certain that the man he buys my Siriami shares from has got them. I shall insist on that: no dealings with bears."

 

Georgie regarded his needlework. It was a French design for a chair back: a slim shepherdess in a green dress was standing among her sheep. The sheep were quite unmistakable but she insisted on looking like a stick of asparagus. He stroked the side of his beard which was unaffected by shingles.

 

"Tarsome of her," he said. "I must give her a hat or rip her clothes off and make her pink."

 

"And if they went up two shillings I should make fifty pounds," said Lucia absently.

 

"Oh, those shares: how marvellous!" said Georgie. "But isn't there the risk of their going down instead?"

 

"My dear, the whole of life is a series of risks," said Lucia sententiously.

 

"Yes, but why increase them? I like to be comfortable, but as long as I have all I want, I don't want anything more. Of course I hope you'll make tons of money, but I can't think what you'll do with it."

 

"Aspett'un po', Georgino," said she. "Why it's half-past ten. The invalid must go to bed."

 

"Half-past ten: is it really?" said Georgie. "Why, I've been going to bed at nine, because I was so bored with myself."

 

 

 

Next morning Tilling seethed furiously. Georgie's cook had left before the world was a-stir, and Elizabeth, setting out with her basket about half-past ten to do her marketing in the High Street observed that the red blinds in his sitting-room were still down. That was very odd: Foljambe was usually there at eight, but evidently she had not come yet: possibly she was ill, too. That distressing (but interesting) doubt was soon set at rest, for there was Foljambe in the High Street looking very well. Something might be found out from her, and Elizabeth put on her most seductive smile.

 

"Good morning, Foljambe," she said. "And how is poor Mr. Georgie to-day?"

 

Foljambe's face grew stony, as if she had seen the Gorgon.

 

"Getting on nicely, ma'am," she said.

 

"Oh, so glad! I was almost afraid you were ill, too, as his sitting-room blinds were down."

 

"Indeed, ma'am," said Foljambe, getting even more flintily petrified.

 

"And will you tell him I shall ring him up soon to see if he'd like me to look in?"

 

"Yes, ma'am," said Foljambe.

 

Elizabeth watched her go along the street, and noticed she did not turn up in the direction of Mallards Cottage, but kept straight on. Very mysterious: where could she be going? Elizabeth thought of following her, but her attention was diverted by seeing Diva pop out of the hairdresser's establishment in that scarlet beret and frock which made her look so like a round pillar-box. She had taken the plunge at last after tortures of indecision, and had had her hair cropped quite close. The right and scathing thing to do, thought Elizabeth, was to seem not to notice any change in her appearance.

 

"Such a lovely morning, isn't it, dear Diva, for January," she said. "Si doux. Any news?"

 

Diva felt there was enough news on her own head to satisfy anybody for one morning, and she wheeled so that Elizabeth should get a back view of it, where the change was most remarkable. "I've heard none," she said. "Oh, there's Major Benjy. Going to catch the tram, I suppose."

 

It was Elizabeth's turn to wheel. There had been a coolness this morning, for he had come down very late to breakfast, and had ordered fresh tea and bacon with a grumpy air. She would punish him by being unaware of him. . . . Then that wouldn't do, because gossipy Diva would tell everybody they had had a quarrel, and back she wheeled again.

 

"Quick, Benjy-boy," she called out to him, "or you'll miss the tram. Play beautifully, darling. All those lovely mashies."

 

Lucia's motor drew up close to them opposite the post office. She had a telegraph form in her hand, and dropped it as she got out. It bowed and fluttered in the breeze, and fell at Elizabeth's feet. Her glance at it, as she picked it up, revealing the cryptic sentence: "Buy five hundred Siriami shares," was involuntary or nearly so.

 

"Here you are, dear," she said. "En route to see poor Mr. Georgie?"

 

Lucia's eye fell on Diva's cropped head.

 

"Dear Diva, I like it immensely!" she said. "Ten years younger."

 

Elizabeth remained profoundly unconscious.

 

"Well, I must be trotting," she said. "Such a lot of commissions for my Benjy. So like a man, bless him, to go off and play golf, leaving wifie to do all his jobs. Such a scolding I shall get if I forget any."

 

She plunged into the grocer's, and for the next half-hour, the ladies of Tilling, popping in and out of shops, kept meeting on doorsteps with small collision of their baskets, and hurried glances at their contents. Susan Wyse alone did not take part in this ladies' chain, but remained in the Royce, and butcher and baker and greengrocer and fishmonger had to come out and take her orders through the window. Elizabeth felt bitterly about this, for, in view of the traffic, which would otherwise have become congested, tradesmen ran out of their shops, leaving other customers to wait, so that Susan's Royce might not be delayed. Elizabeth had addressed a formal complaint about it to the Town Council, and that conscientious body sent a reliable timekeeper in plain clothes down to the High Street on three consecutive mornings, to ascertain how long, on the average, Mrs. Wyse's car stopped at each shop. As the period worked out at a trifle over twenty seconds they took the view that as the road was made for vehicular traffic, she was making a legitimate use of it. She could hardly be expected to send the Royce to the parking place by the Town Hall each time she stopped, for it would not nearly have got there by the time she was ready for it again. The rest of the ladies, not being so busy as Elizabeth, did not mind these delays, for Susan made such sumptuous orders that it gave you an appetite to hear them: she had been known, even when she and Algernon had been quite alone to command a hen-lobster, a pheasant, and a pâté de foie gras. . . .

 

 

 

Elizabeth soon finished her shopping (Benjy-boy had only asked her to order him some shaving soap), and just as she reached her door, she was astonished to see Diva coming rapidly towards her house from the direction of Mallards Cottage, thirty yards away, and making signs to her. After the severity with which she had ignored the Eton crop, it was clear that Diva must have something to say which overscored her natural resentment.

 

"The most extraordinary thing," panted Diva as she got close, "Mr. Georgie's blinds--"

 

"Oh, is his sitting-room blind still down?" asked Elizabeth. "I saw that an hour ago, but forgot to tell you. Is that all, dear?"

 

"Nowhere near," said Diva. "All his blinds are down. Perhaps you saw that too, but I don't believe you did."

 

Elizabeth was far too violently interested to pretend she had, and the two hurried up the street and contemplated the front of Mallards Cottage. It was true. The blinds of his dining-room, of the small room by the door, of Georgie's bedroom, of the cook's bedroom, were all drawn.

 

"And there's no smoke coming out of the chimneys," said Diva in an awed whisper. "Can he be dead?"

 

"Do not rush to such dreadful conclusions," said Elizabeth. "Come back to Mallards and let's talk it over."

 

But the more they talked, the less they could construct any theory to fit the facts. Lucia had been very cheerful, Foljambe had said that Georgie was going on nicely, and even the two most ingenious women in Tilling could not reconcile this with the darkened and fireless house, unless he was suffering from some ailment which had to be nursed in a cold, dark room. Finally, when it was close on lunch time, and it was obvious that Elizabeth was not going to press Diva to stay, they made their thoughtful way to the front door, still completely baffled. Till now, so absorbed had they been in the mystery, Diva had quite forgotten Elizabeth's unconsciousness of her cropped head. Now it occurred to her again.

 

"I've had my hair cut short this morning," she said. "Didn't you notice it?"

 

"Yes, dear, to be quite frank, since we are such old friends, I did," said Elizabeth. "But I thought it far kinder to say nothing about it. Far!"

 

"Ho!" said Diva, turning as red as her beret, and she trundled down the hill.

 

Benjy came back very sleepy after his golf, and in a foul temper, for the Padre, who always played with him morning and afternoon on Monday, to recuperate after the stress of Sunday, had taken two half-crowns off him, and he was intending to punish him by not going to church next Sunday. In this morose mood he took only the faintest interest in what might or might not have happened to Georgie. Diva's theory seemed to have something to be said for it, though it was odd that if he was dead, there should not have been definite news by now. Presently Elizabeth gave him a little butterfly kiss on his forehead, to show she forgave him for his unpunctuality at breakfast, and left him in the garden-room to have a good snooze. Before his good snooze he had a good swig at a flask which he kept in a locked drawer of his business table.

 

 

 

Diva's theory was blown into smithereens next day, for Elizabeth from her bedroom window observed Foljambe letting herself into Mallards Cottage at eight o'clock, and a short stroll before breakfast shewed her that blinds were up and chimneys smoking, and the windows of Georgie's sitting-room opened for an airing. Though the mystery of yesterday had not been cleared up, normal routine had been resumed, and Georgie could not be dead.

 

 

 

After his sad lapse yesterday Benjy was punctual for breakfast this morning. Half-past eight was not his best time, for during his bachelor days he had been accustomed to get down about ten o'clock, to shout "Quai-hai" to show he was ready for his food, and to masticate it morosely in solitude. Now all was changed: sometimes he got as far as "Quai," but Elizabeth stopped her ears and said "There is a bell, darling," in her most acid voice. And concerning half-past eight she was adamant: she had all her household duties to attend to, and then after she had minutely inspected the larder, she had her marketing to do. Unlike him she was quite at her best and brightest (which was saying a good deal) at this hour, and she hailed his punctual advent to-day with extreme cordiality to show him how pleased she was with him.

 

"Nice hot cup of tea for my Benjy," she said, "and dear me, what a disappointment--no, not disappointment: that wouldn't be kind--but what a surprise for poor Diva. Blinds up, chimneys smoking at Mr. Georgie's, and there was she yesterday suggesting he was dead. Such a pessimist! I shan't be able to resist teasing her about it."

 

Benjy had entrenched himself behind the morning paper, propping it up against the teapot and the maiden-hair fern which stood in the centre of the table, and merely grunted. Elizabeth, feeling terribly girlish made a scratching noise against it, and then looked over the top.

 

"Peep-o!" she said brightly. "Oh, what a sleepy face! Turn to the City news, love, and see if you can find something called Siriami."

 

A pause.

 

"Yes: West African mine," he said. "Got any, Liz? Shares moved sharply up yesterday: gained three shillings. Oh, there's a note about them. Excellent report received from the mine."

 

"Dear me! how lovely for the shareholders, I wish I was one," said Elizabeth with singular bitterness as she multiplied Lucia's five hundred shares by three and divided them by twenty. "And what about my War Loan?"

 

"Down half a point."

 

"That's what comes of being patriotic," said Elizabeth, and went to see her cook. She had meant to have a roast pheasant for dinner this evening, but in consequence of this drop in her capital, decided on a rabbit. It seemed most unfair that Lucia should have made all that money (fifteen hundred shillings minus commission) by just scribbling a telegram, and dropping it in the High Street. Memories of a golden evening at Monte Carlo came back to her, when she and Benjy returned to their pension after a daring hour in the Casino with five hundred francs between them and in such a state of reckless elation that he had an absinthe and she a vermouth before dinner. They had resolved never to tempt fortune again, but next afternoon, Elizabeth having decided to sit in the garden and be lazy while he went for a walk, they ran into each other at the Casino, and an even happier result followed and there was more absinthe and vermouth. With these opulent recollections in her mind she bethought herself, as she set off with her market-basket for her shopping, of some little savings she had earmarked for the expenses of a rainy day, illness or repair to the roof of Mallards. It was almost a pity to keep them lying idle, when it was so easy to add to them. . . .

 

Diva trundled swiftly towards her with Paddy, her great bouncing Irish terrier, bursting with news, but Elizabeth got the first word.

 

"All your gloomy anticipations about Mr. Georgie quite gone phut, dear," she said. "Chimneys smoking, blinds up--"

 

"Oh, Lord, yes," said Diva. "I've been up to have a look already. You needn't have got so excited about it. And just fancy! Lucia bought some mining shares only yesterday, and she seems to have made hundreds and hundreds of pounds. She's telegraphing now to buy some more. What did she say the mine was? Syrian Army, I think."

 

Elizabeth made a little cooing noise, expressive of compassionate amusement.

 

"I should think you probably mean Siriami, n'est ce pas?" she said. "Siriami is a very famous gold mine somewhere in West Africa. Mon vieux was reading to me something about it in the paper this morning. But surely, dear, hundreds and hundreds of pounds is an exaggeration?"

 

"Well, quite a lot, for she told me so herself," said Diva. "I declare it made my mouth water. I've almost made up my mind to buy some myself with a little money I've got lying idle. Just a few."

 

"I wouldn't if I were you, dear," said Elizabeth earnestly. "Gambling is such an insidious temptation. Benjy and I learned that at Monte Carlo."

 

"Well, you made something, didn't you?" asked Diva.

 

"Yes, but I should always discourage anyone who might not be strong-minded enough to stop."

 

"I'd back the strength of my mind against yours any day," said Diva.

 

A personal and psychological discussion might have ensued, but Lucia at that moment came out of the post-office. She held in her hand a copy of the Financial Post.

 

"And have you bought some more Siriami?" asked Diva with a sort of vicarious greed.

 

Lucia's eyes wore a concentrated though far-away expression as if she was absorbed in some train of transcendent reasoning. She gave a little start as Diva spoke, and recalled herself to the High Street.

 

"Yes: I've bought another little parcel of shares," she said. "I heard from my broker this morning, and he agrees with me that they'll go higher. I find his judgment is usually pretty sound."

 

"Diva's told me what a stroke of luck you've had," said Elizabeth.

 

Lucia smiled complacently.

 

"No, dear Elizabeth, not luck," she said. "A little studying of the world-situation, a little inductive reasoning. The price of gold, you know: I should be much surprised if the price of gold didn't go higher yet. Of course I may be wrong."

 

"I think you must be," said Diva. "There are always twenty shillings to the pound, aren't there?"

 

Lucia was not quite clear what was the answer to that. Her broker's letter, quite approving of a further purchase on the strength of the favourable news from the mine, had contained something about the price of gold, which evidently she had not grasped.

 

"Too intricate to explain, dear Diva," she said indulgently. "But I should be very sorry to advise you to follow my example. There is a risk. But I must be off and get back to Georgie."

 

The moment she had spoken she saw her mistake. The only way of putting it right was to take the street that led up to Mallards Cottage and then get back to Grebe by a circuitous course, else surely Elizabeth would get on Georgie's track. Even as it was Elizabeth watched her till she had disappeared up the correct turning.

 

"So characteristic of the dear thing," she said, "making a lot of money in Siriami, and then advising you not to touch it! I shouldn't the least wonder if she wants to get all the shares herself and be created Dame Lucia Siriami. And then her airs, as if she was a great financier! Her views of the world-situation! Her broker who agrees with her about the rising price of gold! Why she hadn't the slightest idea what it meant, anyone could see that. Diva, c'est trop! I shall get on with my humble marketing instead of buying parcels of gold."

 

But behind this irritation with Lucia, Elizabeth was burning with the desire to yield to the insidious temptation of which she had warned Diva, and buy some Siriami shares herself. Diva might suspect her design if she went straight into the post-office, and so she crossed the street to the butcher's to get her rabbit. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Susan Wyse's car slowing up to stop at the same shop, and so she stood firm and square in the doorway, determined that that sycophantic vendor of flesh-food should not sneak out to take Susan's order before she was served herself, and that should take a long time. She would spin the rabbit out.

 

"Good morning, Mr. Worthington," she said in her most chatty manner. "I just looked in to see if you've got anything nice for me to give the Major for his dinner to-night. He'll be hungry after his golfing."

 

"Some plump young pheasants, ma'am," said Mr. Worthington. He was short, but by standing on tiptoe he could see that Susan's car had stopped opposite his shop, and that her large round face appeared at the window.

 

"Well, that does sound good," said Elizabeth. "But let me think. Didn't I give him a pheasant a couple of days ago?"

 

"Excuse me, ma'am, one moment," said this harassed tradesman. "There's Mrs. Wyse--"

 

Elizabeth spread herself a little in the doorway with her basket to reinforce the barricade. Another car had drawn up on the opposite side of the street, and there was a nice congestion forming. Susan's chauffeur was hooting to bring Mr. Worthington out and the car behind him was hooting because it wanted to get by.

 

"You haven't got a wild duck, I suppose," said Elizabeth, gloating on the situation. "The Major likes a duck now and then."

 

"No ma'am. Mallards, if you'll excuse me, is over."

 

More hoots and then an official voice.

 

"Move on, please," said the policeman on point duty to Susan's chauffeur. "There's a block behind you and nothing in front."

 

Elizabeth heard the purr of the Royce as it moved on, releasing the traffic behind. Half-turning she could see that it drew up twenty yards further on and the chauffeur came back and waited outside the doorway which she was blocking so efficiently.

 

"Not much choice then," said Elizabeth. "You'd better send me up a rabbit, Mr. Worthington. Just a sweet little bunny, a young one mind--"

 

"Brace of pheasants to Mrs. Wyse," shouted the chauffeur through the window, despairing of getting in.

 

"Right-o," called Mr. Worthington. "One rabbit then, ma'am; thank you."

 

"Got such a thing as a woodcock?" called the chauffeur.

 

"Not fit to eat to-day," shouted Mr. Worthington. "Couple of snipe just come in."

 

"I'll go and ask."

 

"Oh, Mr. Worthington, why didn't you tell me you'd got a couple of snipe?" said Elizabeth. "Just what the Major likes. Well, I suppose they're promised now. I'll take my bunny with me."

 

All this was cheerful work: she had trampled on Susan's self-assumed right to hold up traffic till she lured butchers out into the street to attend to her, and with her bunny in her basket she crossed to the post-office again. There was a row of little boxes like mangers for those who wanted to write telegrams, and she took one of these, putting her basket on the floor behind her. As she composed this momentous telegram for the purchase of three hundred Siriami shares and the denuding of the rainy day fund, she heard a mixed indefinable hubbub at her back and looking round saw that Diva had come in with Paddy, and that Paddy had snatched bunny from the basket, and was playing with him very prettily. He tossed him in the air, and lay down with a paw on each side of him, growling in a menacing manner as he pretended to worry him. Diva who had gone to the counter opposite with a telegram in her hand was commanding Paddy to drop it, but Paddy leaped up, squeezed himself through the swing-door and mounted guard over his prey on the pavement. Elizabeth and Diva rushed out after him and by dint of screaming "Trust, Paddy!" Diva induced her dog to drop bunny.

 

"So sorry, dear Elizabeth," she said, smoothing the rumpled fur. "Not damaged at all, I think."

 

"If you imagine I'm going to eat a rabbit mangled by your disgusting dog--" began Elizabeth.

 

"You shouldn't have left it lying on the floor," retorted Diva. "Public place. Not my fault."

 

Mr. Worthington came nimbly across the street, unaware that he was entering a storm-centre.

 

"Mrs. Wyse doesn't need that couple of snipe, ma'am," he said to Elizabeth. "Shall I send them up to Mallards?"

 

"I'm surprised at your offering me Mrs. Wyse's leavings," said Elizabeth. "And charge the rabbit I bought just now to Mrs. Plaistow."

 

"But I don't want a rabbit," said Diva. "As soon eat rats."

 

"All I can say is that it's not mine," said Elizabeth.

 

Diva thought of something rather neat.

 

"Oh, well, it'll do for the kitchen," she said, putting it in her basket.

 

"Diva dear, don't let your servants eat it," said Elizabeth. "As likely as not it would give them hydrophobia."

 

"Pooh!" said Diva. "Bet another dog carried it when it was shot. Oh, I forgot my telegram."

 

"I'll pick out a nice young plump one for you, ma'am, shall I?" said Mr. Worthington to Elizabeth.

 

"Yes, and mind you only charge one to me."

 

The two ladies went back into the post-office with Paddy and the rabbit to finish the business which had been interrupted by that agitating scene on the pavement. Elizabeth's handwriting was still a little ragged with emotion when she handed her telegram in, and it was not (except the address which had been written before) very legible. In fact the young lady could not be certain about it.

 

"Buy 'thin bunkered Simiawi' is it?" she asked.

 

"No, three hundred Siriami," said Elizabeth, and Diva heard. Simultaneously Diva's young lady asked: "Is it Siriami?" and Elizabeth heard. So both knew.

 

They walked back together very amicably as far as Diva's house, quite resolved not to let a rabbit wreck or even threaten so long-standing a friendship. Indeed there was no cause for friction any more, for Diva had no objection to an occasional rabbit for the kitchen, and Elizabeth saw that her bunny was far the plumper of the two. As regards Siriami, Diva had a distinct handle against her friend, in case of future emergencies, for she knew that Elizabeth had solemnly warned her not to buy them and had done so herself: she knew, too, how many Elizabeth had bought, in case she swanked about her colossal holding, whereas nobody but the young lady to whom she handed her telegram, knew how many she had bought. So they both quite looked forward to meeting that afternoon for Bridge at Susan Wyse's.

 

Marketing had begun early this morning, and though highly sensational, had been brief. Consequently, when Elizabeth turned up the street towards Mallards, she met her Benjy just starting to catch the eleven o'clock tram for the golf links. He held a folded piece of paper in his hand, which, when he saw her, he thrust into his pocket.

 

"Well, boy o' mine, off to your game?" she asked. "Look, such a plump little bunny for dinner. And news. Lucia has become a great financier. She bought Siriami yesterday and again to-day."

 

Should she tell him she had bought Siriami too? On the whole, not. It was her own private rainy day fund she had raided, and if, by some inscrutable savagery of Providence, the venture did not prosper, it was better that he should not know. If, on the other hand, she made money, it was wise for a married woman to have a little unbeknownst store tucked away.

 

"Dear me, that's a bit of luck for her, Liz," he said.

 

Elizabeth gave a gay little laugh.

 

"No, dear, you're quite wrong," she said. "It's inductive reasoning, it's study of the world-situation. How pleasant for her to have all the gifts. Bye-bye."

 

She went into the garden-room, still feeling very sardonic about Lucia's gifts, and wondering in an undercurrent why Benjy had looked self-conscious. She could always tell when he was self-conscious, for instead of having a shifty eye, he had quite the opposite kind of eye; he looked at her, as he had done just now, with a sort of truculent innocence, as if challenging her to suspect anything. Then that piece of paper which he had thrust into his pocket, linked itself up. It was rather like a telegraph form, and instantly she wondered if he had been buying Siriami, too, out of his exiguous income. Very wrong of him, if he had, and most secretive of him not to have told her so. Sometimes she felt that he did not give her his full confidence, and that saddened her. Of course it was not actually proved yet that he had bought Siriami, but cudgel her brains as she might, she could think of nothing else that he could have been telegraphing about. Then she calculated afresh what she stood to win if Siriami went up another three shillings, and sitting down on the hot water pipes in the window which commanded so wide a prospect, she let her thoughts stray back to Georgie. Even as she looked out she saw Foljambe emerge from his door, and without a shadow of doubt she locked it after her.

 

The speed with which Elizabeth jumped up was in no way due to the heat of the pipes. A flood of conjectures simply swept her off them. Lucia had gone up to see Georgie less than half-an-hour ago, so had Foljambe locked her and Georgie up together? Or had Foljambe (in case Lucia had already left) locked Georgie up alone with his cook? She hurried out for the second time that morning to have a look at the front of the house. All blinds were down.

 

To be continued

 

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