62

 

 

 

 

LUCIA'S PROGRESS

 

PART 10

 

 

CHAPTER X

 

Naturally nobody was foolish enough to expect that such idyllic harmony would be of long duration, for in this highly alert and critical society, with Elizabeth lynx-eyed to see what was done amiss, and Lucia, as was soon obvious, so intolerably conscious of the unique service she had done Tilling in having reconciled all those "funny little quarrels" of which she pretended to be quite unaware, discord was sure to develop before long; but at any rate tea-parties for Bridge were in full swing by the time strawberries were really cheap, and before they were over came the ceremony of the dedication of Lucia's organ.

 

She had said from the first that her whole function (and that a privilege) was to have made this little contribution to the beauty of the church services: that was all, and she began and ended there. But in a quiet talk with the Padre she suggested that the day of its dedication might be made to coincide with the annual confirmation of the young folk of the parish. The Bishop, perhaps, when his laying on of hands was done, would come to lunch at Mallards and take part in the other ceremony in the afternoon. The Padre thought that an excellent notion, and in due course the Bishop accepted Lucia's invitation and would be happy (D.V.) to dedicate the organ and give a short address.

 

Lucia had got her start: now like a great liner she cast off her tugs and began to move out under her own steam. There was another quiet talk in the garden-room.

 

"You know how I hate all fuss, dear Padre," she said, "but I do think, don't you, that Tilling would wish for a little pomp and ceremony. An idea occurred to me: the Mayor and Corporation perhaps might like to escort the Bishop in procession from here to the church after lunch. If that is their wish, I should not dream of opposing it. Maces, scarlet robes; there would be picturesqueness about it which would be suitable on such an occasion. Of course I couldn't suggest it myself, but, as Vicar, you might ascertain what they felt."

 

"'Twould be a gran' sight," said the Padre, quite distinctly seeing himself in the procession.

 

"I think Tilling would appreciate it," said Lucia thoughtfully. "Then about the service: one does not want it too long. A few prayers, a Psalm, such as 'I was glad when they said unto me': a lesson, and then, don't you think, as we shall be dedicating my organ, some anthem in praise of music? I had thought of that last chorus in Parry's setting of Milton's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, 'Blest Pair of Syrens'. Of course my organ would accompany the psalm and the anthem, but, as I seem to see it, unofficially incognito. After that, the Bishop's address: so sweet of him to suggest that."

 

"Very menseful of him," said the Padre.

 

"Then," said Lucia, waving the Samian bowl, "then there would follow the dedication of my organ, and its official appearance. An organ recital--not long--by our admirable organist to show the paces, the powers of the new instrument. Its scope. The tuba, the vox humana and the cor anglais: just a few of the new stops. Afterwards, I shall have a party in the garden here. It might give pleasure to those who have never seen it. Our dear Elizabeth, as you know, did not entertain much."

 

The Mayor and Corporation welcomed the idea of attending the dedication of the new organ in state, and of coming to Mallards just before the service and conducting the Bishop in procession to the church. So that was settled, and Lucia, now full steam ahead, got to work on the organist. She told him, very diffidently, that her friends thought it would be most appropriate if, before his official recital (how she was looking forward to it!), she herself, as donor, just ran her hands, so to speak, over the keys. Mr. Georgie Pillson, who was really a wonderful performer on the pedals, would help her, and it so happened that she had just finished arranging the first movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" for the organ. She was personally very unwilling to play at all, and in spite of all this pressure she had refused to promise to do so. But now as he added his voice to the general feeling she felt she must overcome her hesitation. It mustn't be mentioned at all: she wanted it to come as a little surprise to everybody. Then would follow the real, the skilled recital by him. She hoped he would then give them Falberg's famous "Storm at Sea," that marvellous tone-poem with thunder on the pedals, and lightning on the Diocton, and the choir of voices singing on the vox humana as the storm subsided. Terribly difficult, of course, but she knew he would play it superbly, and she sent him round a copy of that remarkable composition.

 

The day arrived, a hot and glorious morning, just as if Lucia had ordered it. The lunch at Mallards for the Bishop was very intime: just the Padre and his wife and the Bishop and his chaplain. Not even Georgie was asked, who, as a matter of fact, was in such a state of nerves over his approaching performance of the pedal part of the "Moonlight" that he could not have eaten a morsel, and took several aspirin tablets instead. But Lucia had issued invitations broadcast for the garden party afterwards, to the church choir, the Mayor and Corporation, and all her friends to meet the Bishop. R.S.V.P.; and there was not a single refusal. Tea for sixty.

 

The procession to church was magnificent, the sun poured down on maces and scarlet robes and on the Bishop, profusely perspiring, in his cope and mitre. Lucia had considered whether she should take part in the procession herself, but her hatred of putting herself forward in any way had caused her to abandon the idea of even walking behind the Bishop, and she followed at such a distance that not even those most critical of her conduct could possibly have accused her of belonging to the pageant, herself rather nervous, and playing triplets in the air to get her fingers supple. She took her seat close to the organ beside Georgie, so that they could slip into their places on the organ-bench while the Bishop was returning from the pulpit after his sermon. A tremendous bank of cloud had risen in the north, promising storm: it was lucky that it had held off till now, for umbrellas would certainly have spoiled the splendour of the procession.

 

The choir gave a beautiful rendering of the last chorus in "Blest Pair of Sirens," and the Bishop a beautiful address. He made a very charming allusion to the patroness of organs, St. Cecilia, and immediately afterwards spoke of the donor "your distinguished citizeness" almost as if Lucia and that sainted musician were one. A slight stir went through the pews containing her more intimate friends: they had not thought of her like that, and Elizabeth murmured "St. Lucecilia" to herself for future use. During the address the church grew exceedingly dark, and the gloom was momentarily shattered by several vivid flashes of lightning followed by the mutter of thunder. Then standing opposite the organ, pastoral staff in hand, the Bishop solemnly dedicated it, and, as he went back to his seat in the Chancel, Lucia and Georgie, like another blest pair of sirens, slid on to the organ-seat, unobserved in the gathering gloom, and were screened from sight by the curtain behind it. There was a momentary pause, the electric light in the church was switched on, and the first piece of the organ recital began. Though Lucia's friends had not heard it for some time, it was familiar to them, and Diva and Elizabeth looked at each other, puzzled at first, but soon picking up the scent, as it were, of old associations. The scent grew hotter, and each inwardly visualized the picture of Lucia sitting at her piano with her face in profile against a dark curtain, and her fingers dripping with slow triplets: surely this was the same piece. Sacred edifice or not, these frightful suspicions had to be settled, and Elizabeth quietly rose and stood on tiptoe. She saw, quite distinctly, the top of Georgie's head and of Lucia's remarkable new hat. She sat down again, and in a hissing whisper said to Diva, "So we've all been asked to come to church to hear Lucia and Mr. Georgie practise." . . . Diva only shook her head sadly. On the slow movement went, its monotonous course relieved just once by a frightful squeal from the great organ as Georgie, turning over, put his finger on one of the top notes, and wailed itself away. The blest pair of sirens tiptoed round the curtain again, thereby completely disclosing themselves and sank into their seats.

 

Then to show off the scope of the organ there followed Falberg's famous tone-poem, "Storm at Sea." The ship evidently was having a beautiful calm voyage but then the wind began to whistle on swiftly ascending chromatic scales, thunder muttered on the pedals, and the Diocton contributed some flashes of forked lightning. Louder grew the thunder, more vivid the lightning as the storm waxed fiercer. Then came a perfectly appalling crash, and the Bishop, who was perhaps dozing a little after his labours and his lunch, started in his seat and put his mitre straight. Diva clutched at Elizabeth, Evie gave a mouse-like squeal of admiring dismay, for never had anybody heard so powerful an instrument. Bang, it went again and then it dawned on the more perceptive that Nature herself was assisting at the dedication of Lucia's organ with two claps of thunder immediately overhead at precisely the right moment. Lucia herself sat with her music-face on, gazing dreamily at the vaulting of the church, as if her organ was doing it all. Then the storm at sea (organ solo without Nature) died away and a chorus presumably of sailors and passengers (vox humana) sang a soft chorale of thanksgiving. Diva gave a swift suspicious glance at the choir to make sure this was not another trick, but this time it was the organ. Calm broad chords, like sunshine on the sea, succeeded the chorale, and Elizabeth writhing in impotent jealousy called Diva's attention to the serene shafts of real sunshine that were now streaming through Elijah going up to heaven and the witch of Endor.

 

Indeed it was scarcely fair. Not content with supplying that stupendous obbligato to the storm at sea, Nature had now caused the sun to burst brilliantly forth again, in order to make Lucia's garden party as great a success as her organ, unless by chance the grass was too wet for it. But during the solemn melody which succeeded, the sun continued to shine resplendently, and the lawn at Mallards was scarcely damp. There was Lucia receiving her guests and their compliments: the Mayor in his scarlet robe and chain of office was talking to her as Elizabeth stepped into what she still thought of as her own garden.

 

"Magnificent instrument, Mrs. Lucas," he was saying. "That storm at sea was very grand."

 

Elizabeth was afraid that he thought the organ had done it all, but she could hardly tell him his mistake.

 

"Dear Lucia," she said. "How I enjoyed that sweet old tune you've so often played to us. Some of your new stops a little harsh in tone, don't you think? No doubt they will mellow. Oh, how sadly burned up my dear garden is looking!"

 

Lucia turned to the Mayor again.

 

"So glad you think my little gift will add to the beauty of our services," she said. "You must tell me, Mr. Mayor, what next--Dear Diva, so pleased to see you. You liked my organ?"

 

"Yes, and wasn't the real thunderstorm a bit of luck?" said Diva. "Did Mr. Georgie play the pedals in the Beethoven? I heard him turn over."

 

Lucia swerved again.

 

"Good of you to look in, Major Benjy," she said. "You'll find tea in the marquee, and other drinks in the giardino segreto."

 

That was clever: Benjy ambled off in an absent-minded way towards the place of other drinks, and Elizabeth, whom Lucia wanted to get rid of, ambled after him, and towed him towards the less alcoholic marquee. Lucia went on ennobling herself to the Mayor.

 

"The unemployed," she said. "They are much and often on my mind. And the hospital. I'm told it is in sad need of new equipments. Really it will be a privilege to do something more before very long for our dear Tilling. You must spare me half-an-hour sometime and talk to me about its needs."

 

Lucia gave her most silvery laugh.

 

"Dear me, what a snub I got over the election to the Town Council," she said. "But nothing discourages me, Mr. Mayor . . . Now I think all my guests have come, so let us go and have a cup of tea. I am quite ashamed of my lawn to-day, but not long ago I had an entertainment for the school-children and games and races, and they kicked it up sadly, dear mites."

 

As they walked towards the marquee, the Mayor seemed to Lucia to have a slight bias (like a bowl); towards the giardino segreto and she tactfully adapted herself to this change of direction. There were many varieties of sumptuous intoxicants, cocktails and sherry and whisky and hock-cup. Grosvenor was serving, but just now she had a flinty face, for a member of the Corporation had been addressing her as "Miss", as if she was a barmaid. Then Major Benjy joined Grosvenor's group, having given Elizabeth the slip while she was talking to the Bishop, and drank a couple of cocktails in a great hurry before she noticed his disappearance. Lucia was specially attentive to members of the Corporation, making, however, a few slight errors, such as recommending her greengrocer the strawberries she had bought from him, and her wine merchant his own sherry, for that was bringing shop into private life. Then Elizabeth appeared with the Bishop in the doorway of the giardino segreto, and with a wistful face she pointed out to him this favourite spot in her ancestral home: but she caught sight of Benjy at the bar and her wistfulness vanished, for she had found something of her own again. Firmly she convoyed him to the less alcoholic garden, and Lucia took the Bishop, who was interested in Roman antiquities, to see the pieces of Samian ware in the garden-room and the scene of her late excavations. "Too sad," she said, "to have had to fill up my trenches again, but digging was terribly expensive, and the organ must come first."

 

A group was posed for a photograph: Lucia stood between the Mayor and the Bishop, and afterwards she was more than affable to the reporter for the Hastings Chronicle, whose account of her excavations had already made such a stir in Tilling. She gave him hock-cup and strawberries, and sitting with him in a corner of the garden, let him take down all she said in shorthand. Yes: it was she who had played the opening piece at the recital (the first movement of the sonata in C sharp minor by Beethoven, usually called the "Moonlight"). She had arranged it herself for the organ ("Another glass of hock-cup, Mr. Meriton?") and hoped that he did not think it a vandalism to adapt the Master. The Bishop had lunched with her, and had been delighted with her little Queen Anne house and thought very highly of her Roman antiquities. Her future movements this summer? Ah, she could not tell him for certain. She would like to get a short holiday, but they worked her very hard in Tilling. She had been having a little chat with the Mayor about some schemes for the future, but it would be premature to divulge them yet . . . Elizabeth standing near and straining her ears, heard most of this frightful conversation and was petrified with disgust. The next number of the Hastings Chronicle would be even more sickening than the excavation number. She could bear it no longer and went home with Benjy, ordering a copy in advance on her way.

 

The number, when it appeared justified her gloomiest anticipations. The Bishop's address about the munificent citizeness was given very fully, and there was as well a whole column almost entirely about Lucia. With qualms of nausea Elizabeth read about Mrs. Lucas's beautiful family home that dated from the reign of Queen Anne, its panelled parlours, its garden-room containing its positively Bodleian library and rare specimens of Samian ware which she had found in the excavations in her old-world garden. About the lawn with the scars imprinted on its velvet surface by the happy heels of the school-children whom she had entertained for an afternoon of tea and frolics. About the Office with its ledgers and strip of noiseless indiarubber by the door, where the châtelaine of Mallards conducted her financial operations. About the secret garden (Mrs. Lucas who spoke Italian with the same ease and purity as English referred to it as "mio giardino segreto") in which she meditated every morning. About the splendour of the procession from Mallards to the church with the Mayor and the maces and the mitre and the cope of the Lord Bishop, who had lunched privately with Mrs. Lucas. About the masterly arrangement for the organ of the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, made by Mrs. Lucas, and her superb performance of the same. About her princely entertainment of the local magnates. About her hat and her hock-cup.

 

"I wonder how much she paid for that," said Elizabeth, tossing the foul sheet across to Benjy as they sat at breakfast. It fell on his poached egg, in which he had just made a major incision, and smeared yolk on the clean table-cloth. She took up the Daily Mirror, and there was the picture of Lucia standing between the Mayor and the Bishop. She took up the Financial Gazette, and Siriami had slumped another shilling.

 

 

 

It was not only Elizabeth who was ill-pleased with this sycophantic column. Georgie had ordered a copy, which he first skimmed swiftly for the name of Mr. G. Pillson: a more careful reading of it showed him that there was not the smallest allusion to his having played the pedals in the "Moonlight." Rather mean of Lucia; she certainly ought to have mentioned that, for, indeed, without the pedals it would have been a very thin performance. "I don't mind for myself," thought Georgie, "for what good does it do me to have my name in a squalid provincial rag, but I'm afraid she's getting grabby. She wants to have it all. She wants to be on the top with nobody else in sight. Her masterly arrangement of the Moonlight! Rubbish! She just played the triplets with one hand and the air with the other, while I did the bass on the pedals. And her family house! It's been in her family (only she hasn't got one) since April. Her Italian, too! And the Samian ware from her excavations! That's a whopper. All she got from her excavations was three-quarters of an Apollinaris bottle. If she had asked my advice, I should have told her that it was wiser to let sleeping dogs lie!" . . . So instead of popping into Mallards and congratulating her on her marvellous press, Georgie went straight down to the High Street in a condition known as dudgeon. He saw the back of Lucia's head in the Office, and almost hoped she would disregard Mammoncash's advice and make some unwise investment.

 

There was a little group of friends at the corner, Diva and Elizabeth and Evie. They all hailed him: it was as if they were waiting for him, as indeed they were.

 

"Have you read it, Mr. Georgie?" asked Diva. (There was no need to specify what.)

 

"Her family home," interrupted Elizabeth musingly. "And this is my family market-basket. It came into my family when I bought it the day before yesterday and it's one of my most cherished heirlooms. Did you ever, Mr. Georgie? It's worse than her article about the Roman forum, in the potato-bed."

 

"And scarcely a word about Kenneth," interrupted Evie. "I always thought he was Vicar of Tilling--"

 

"No, dear, we live and learn when we come up against the châtelaine of Mallards," said Elizabeth.

 

"After all, you and the Padre went to lunch, Evie," said Diva who never let resentment entirely obliterate her sense of fairness. "But I think it's so mean of her not to say that Mr. Georgie played the pedals for her. I enjoyed them much more than the triplets."

 

"What I can't understand is that she never mentioned the real thunderstorm," said Elizabeth. "I expected her to say she'd ordered it. Surely she did, didn't she? Such a beauty, too: she might well be prouder of it than of her hat."

 

Georgie's dudgeon began to evaporate in these withering blasts of satire. They were ungrateful. Only a few weeks ago Lucia had welded together the fragments of Tilling society, which had been smashed up in the first instance by the tipsiness of Benjy. Nobody could have done it except her, strawberry time would have gone by without those luscious and inexpensive teas and now they were all biting the hand that had caused them to be fed. It was bright green jealousy, just because none of them had ever had a line in any paper about their exploits, let alone a column. And who, after all, had spent a thousand pounds on an organ for Tilling, and got a Bishop to dedicate it, and ordered a thunderstorm, and asked them all to a garden party afterwards? They snatched at the benefits of their patroness, and then complained that they were being patronised. Of course her superior airs and her fibs could be maddening sometimes, but even if she did let a reporter think that she spoke Italian as naturally as English and had dug up Samian ware in her garden, it was "pretty Fanny's way," and they must put up with it. His really legitimate grievance about his beautiful pedalling vanished.

 

"Well, I thought it was a wonderful day," he said. "She's more on a pinnacle than ever. Oh, look: here she comes."

 

Indeed she did, tripping gaily down the hill with a telegraph form in her hand.

 

"Buon giorno a tutti," she said. "Such a nuisance: my telephone is out of order and I must go to the post-office. A curious situation in dollars and francs. I've been puzzling over it."

 

Stony faces and forced smiles met her. She tumbled to it at once, the clever creature.

 

"And how good of you all to have rallied round me," she said, "and have made our little festa such a success. I was so anxious about it, but I needn't have been with so many dear loyal friends to back me up. The Bishop was enchanted with Mallards, Elizabeth: of course I told him that I was only an interloper. And what sweet things he said to me about the Padre, Evie."

 

Lucia racked her brain to invent something nice which he said about Diva. So, though Pat hadn't been at the party, how immensely the Bishop admired her beautiful dog!

 

"And how about a little Bridge this afternoon?" she asked. "Shan't invite you, Georgino: just a woman's four. Yes and yes and yes? Capital! It's so hot that we might play in the shelter in Elizabeth's secret garden. Four o'clock then. Georgie, come to the stationer's with me. I want you to help me choose a book. My dear, your pedalling yesterday! How enthusiastic the organist was about it. Au reservoir, everybody.

 

"Georgie, I must get a great big scrap-book," she went on, "to paste my press notices into. They multiply so. That paragraph the other day about my excavazioni, and to-day a whole column, and the photograph in the Daily Mirror. It would be amusing perhaps, years hence, to turn over the pages and recall the past. I must get a handsome looking book, morocco, I think. How pleased all Tilling seems to be about yesterday."

 

To be continued

 

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61

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LUCIA'S PROGRESS

 

PART 9

 

 

CHAPTER IX

 

 

 

Lucia and Georgie were seated side by side on the bench of the organ in Tilling church. The May sunshine streamed on to them through the stained glass of a south window, vividly colouring them with patches of the brightest hues, so that they looked like objects daringly camouflaged in war-time against enemy aircraft, for nobody could have dreamed that those brilliant Joseph-coats could contain human beings. The lights cast upon Lucia's face and white dress reached her through a picture of Elijah going up to heaven in a fiery chariot. The heat from this vehicle would presumably have prevented the prophet from feeling cold in interstellar space, for he wore only an emerald-green bathing-dress which left exposed his superbly virile arms and legs, and his snowy locks streamed in the wind. The horses were flame-coloured, the chariot was red-hot, and high above it in an ultramarine sky hung an orange sun which seemed to be the object of the expedition. Georgie came under the influence of the Witch of Endor. She was wrapt in an eau de nil mantle, which made his auburn beard look livid. Saul in a purple cloak, and Samuel in a black dressing-gown made sombre stains on his fawn-coloured suit.

 

The organ was in process of rebuilding. A quantity of fresh stops were being added to it, and an electric blowing apparatus had been installed. Lucia clicked on the switch which set the bellows working, and opened a copy of the Moonlight Sonata.

 

"It sounds quite marvellous on the organ, Georgie," she said. "I was trying it over yesterday. What I want you to do is to play the pedals. Just those slow base notes: pom, pom. Quite easy."

 

Georgie put a foot on the pedals. Nothing happened.

 

"Oh, I haven't pulled out any pedal stop," said Lucia. By mistake she pulled out the tuba, and as the pedals happened to be coupled to the solo organ a blast of baritone fury yelled through the church. "My fault," she said, "entirely my fault, but what a magnificent noise! One of my new stops."

 

She uncoupled the pedals and substituted the bourdon: Elijah and the Witch of Endor rattled in their leaded frames.

 

"That's perfect!" she said. "Now with one hand I shall play the triplets on the swell, and the solo tune with the other on the vox humana! Oh, that tuba again! I thought I'd put it in."

 

The plaintive throaty bleating of the vox humana was enervatingly lovely, and Lucia's America-cloth eyes grew veiled with moisture.

 

"So heart-broken," she intoned, her syllables keeping time with the air. "A lovely contralto tone. Like Clara Butt, is it not? The passionate despair of it. Fresh courage coming. So noble. No, Georgie, you must take care not to put your foot on two adjacent pedals at once. Now, listen! Do you hear that lovely crescendo? That I do by just opening the swell very gradually. Isn't it a wonderful effect? . . . I am surprised that no one has ever thought of setting this Sonata for the organ . . . Go on pulling out stops on the great organ--yes, to your left there--in case I want them. One always has to look ahead in organ playing. Arrange your palette, so to speak. No, I shan't want them . . . It dies away, softer and softer . . . Hold on that bass C sharp till I say now . . . Now."

 

They both gave the usual slow movement sigh. Then the volume of Beethoven tumbled on to the great organ on which Georgie had pulled out all the stops, and the open diapasons received it with a shout of rapture. Lucia slipped from the bench to pick it up. On the floor round about was an assemblage of small pipes.

 

"I think this lot is the cor anglais," she said. "I am putting in a beautiful cor anglais."

 

She picked up one of the pipes, and blew through it.

 

"A lovely tone," she said. "It reminds one of the last act of Tristan, does it not, where the shepherd-boy goes on playing the cor anglais for ever and ever."

 

Georgie picked up a pipe belonging to the flute. It happened to be a major third above Lucia's cor anglais, and they blew on them together with a very charming effect. They tried two others, but these happened to be a semitone apart, and the result was not so harmonious. Then they hastily put them down, for a party of tourists, being shown round the church by the Padre, came in at the north door. He was talking very strong Scots this morning, with snatches of early English in compliment to the architecture.

 

"The orrgan, ye see, is being renovated," he said. "'Twill be a bonny instrument, I ken. Good morrow to ye, Mistress Lucas."

 

Then, as she and Georgie passed him on their way out, he added in an audible aside:

 

"The leddy whose munificence has given it to the church. Eh, a grand benefaction. A thousand pounds and mair, what wi' lutes and psaltery, and a' the whustles."

 

 

 

"I often go and have a little practice on my organ during the workmen's dinner-hour," said Lucia as they stepped out into the hot sunshine. "The organ, Georgie, I find is a far simpler instrument on which to get your effects than the piano. The stops supply expression: you just pull them out or push them in. That vox humana, for instance, with what ease one gets the singing tone, that's so difficult on the piano."

 

"You've picked it up wonderfully quickly," said Georgie. "I thought you had a beautiful touch. And when will your organ be finished?"

 

"In a month or less, I hope. We must have a service of dedication and a recital: the Padre, I know, will carry out my wishes about that. Georgie, I think I shall open the recital myself. I am sure that Tilling would wish it. I should play some little piece, and then make way for the organist. I might do worse than give them that first movement of the 'Moonlight.'"

 

"I'm sure Tilling would be much disappointed if you didn't," said Georgie warmly. "May I play the pedals for you?"

 

"I was going to suggest that, and help me with the stops. I have progressed, I know, and I'm glad you like my touch, but I hardly think I could manage the whole complicated business alone yet. Festina lente. Let us practice in the dinner-hour every day. If I give the 'Moonlight' it must be exquisitely performed. I must shew them what can be done with it when the orchestral colour of the organ is added."

 

"I promise to work hard," said Georgie. "And I do think, as the Padre said to the tourists just now, that it's a most munificent gift."

 

"Oh, did he say that?" asked Lucia who had heard perfectly. "That was why they all turned round and looked at me. But, as you know, it was always my intention to devote a great part, anyhow, of what I made on the Stock Exchange to the needs of our dear Tilling."

 

"Very generous, all the same," repeated Georgie.

 

"No, dear; simple duty. That's how I see it. . . . Now what have I got to do this afternoon? That tea-party for the school-children: a hundred and twenty are coming. Tea in the garden in the shade, and then games and races. You'll be helping me all the time, won't you? Only four o'clock till seven."

 

"Oh dear: I'm not very good with children," said Georgie. "Children are so sticky, particularly after tea, and I won't run a race with anybody."

 

"You shan't run a race. But you'll help to start them, won't you, and find their mothers for them and that sort of thing. I know I can depend on you, and children always adore you. Let me see: do I dine with you to-night or you with me?"

 

"You with me. And then to-morrow's your great dinner-party. I tell you I'm rather nervous, for there are so many things we mustn't talk about, that there's scarcely a safe subject. It'll be the first complete party anyone's had since that frightful evening at the Wyses'."

 

"It was clearly my duty to respond to Diva's appeal," said Lucia, "and all we've got to do is to make a great deal of poor Elizabeth. She's had a horrid time, most humiliating, Georgie, and what makes it worse for her is that it was so much her own fault. Four o'clock then, dear, this afternoon, or perhaps a little before."

 

 

 

Lucia let herself into her house, musing at considerable length on the frightful things that had happened since that night at the Wyses' to which Georgie had alluded, when Elizabeth and Benjy had set out in their goloshes, to walk back to Grebe. That was an unwise step, for the fresh night air had made Benjy much worse, and the curate returning home on the other side of the High Street after a meeting of the Band of Hope (such a contrast) had witnessed dreadful goings-on. Benjy had stood in the middle of the road, compelling a motor to pull up with a shriek of brakes, and asked to see the driver's license, insisting that he was a policeman in plain clothes on point duty. When that was settled in a most sympathetic manner by a real policeman, Benjy informed him that Msslucas was a regular stunner, and began singing "You are Queen of my heart to-night." At that point the curate, pained but violently interested, reluctantly let himself into his house, and there was no information to be had with regard to the rest of their walk home to Grebe. Then the sad tale was resumed, for Withers told Foljambe (who told Georgie who told Lucia) that Major Mapp-Flint on arrival had, no doubt humorously, suggested getting his gun and shooting the remaining tiger-skins in the hall, but that Mrs. Mapp-Flint wouldn't hear of it and was not amused. "Rather the reverse," said Withers. . . . Bed.

 

The curate felt bound to tell his spiritual superior about the scene in the High Street and Evie told Diva, so that by the time Elizabeth came up with her market-basket next morning, this sad sequel to the Wyses' dinner party was known everywhere. She propitiated Diva by paying her the ninepence which had been in dispute, and went so far as to apologise to her for her apparent curtness at the bridge-table last night. Then, having secured a favourable hearing, she told Diva how she had found Benjy sitting close to Lucia with his hand on her knee. "He had had more to drink than he should," she said, "but never would he have done that unless she had encouraged him. That's her nature, I'm afraid: she can't leave men alone. She's no better than the Pride of Poona!"

 

So, when Diva met Lucia half an hour afterwards, she could not resist being distinctly "arch" about her long tête-à-tête with Benjy during the first rubber. Lucia, not appreciating this archness, had answered not a word, but turned her back and went into Twistevant's. Diva hadn't meant any harm, but this truculent conduct (combined with her dropping that ninepence down a grating in the gutter) made her see red, and she instantly told Irene that Lucia had been flirting with Benjy. Irene had tersely replied, "You foul-minded old widow."

 

Then as comment spread, Susan Wyse was blamed for having allowed Benjy (knowing his weakness) to drink so much champagne, and Mr. Wyse was blamed for being so liberal with his port. This was quite unfounded: it was Benjy who had been so liberal with his port. The Wyses adopted a lofty attitude: they simply were not accustomed to their guests drinking too much, and must bear that possibility in mind for the future: Figgis must be told. Society therefore once again, as on the occasion of the municipal elections, was rent. The Wyses were aloof, Elizabeth and Diva would not speak to Lucia, nor Diva to Irene, and Benjy would not speak to anybody because he was in bed with a severe bilious attack.

 

This haycock of inflammatory material would in the ordinary course of things soon have got dispersed or wet through or trodden into the ground, according to the Tilling use of disposing of past disturbances in order to leave the ground clear for future ones, but for the unexpected arrival of the Contessa Faraglione who came on a flying visit of two nights to her brother. He and Susan were still adopting their tiresome lofty, un-Tillingish attitude, and told her nothing at all exhaustive about Benjy's inebriation, Lucia's excavations, Elizabeth's disappointment and other matters of first-rate importance, and in the present state of tension thought it better not to convoke any assembly of Tilling Society in Amelia's honour. But she met Elizabeth in the High Street who was very explicit about Roman antiquities, and she met Lucia, who was in a terrible fright lest she should begin talking Italian, and learned a little more, and she went to tea with Diva, who was quite the best chronicler in Tilling, and who poured into her madly interested ear a neat résumé of all previous rows, and had just got down to the present convulsion when the Padre popped in, and he and Diva began expounding it in alternate sentences after the manner of a Greek tragedy. Faradiddlione sat, as if hypnotised, alert and wide-eyed while this was going on, but when told of Elizabeth's surmise that Lucia had encouraged Benjy to make love to her, she most disconcertingly burst into peals of laughter. Muffins went the wrong way, she choked, she clapped her hands, her eyes streamed, and it was long before she could master herself for coherent speech.

 

"But you are all adorable," she cried. "There is no place like Tilling, and I shall come and live here for ever when my Cecco dies and I am dowager. My poor brother (such a prig!) and fat Susan were most discreet: they told me no more than that your great Benjy--he was my flirt here before, was he not, the man like a pink walrus--that he had a bilious attack, but of his tipsiness and of all those gaffes at dinner and of that scene of passion in the back drawing-room not a word. Thr-r-rilling! Imagine the scene. Your tipsy walrus. Your proud Lucia in her Roman blue stockings. She is a Duse, all cold alabaster without and burning with volcanic passion within. Next door is Mapp quarrelling about ninepence. What did the guilty ones do? I would have given anything to have been behind the curtain. Did they kiss? Did they embrace? Can you picture them? And then the entry of Mapp with her ninepence still in her pocket."

 

"It's only fair to say that she paid me next morning," said Diva scrupulously.

 

"Oh, stop me laughing," cried Faradiddlione. "Mapp enters. 'Come home, Benjy,' and then 'Queen of my Heart' all down the High Street. The rage of the Mapp! If she could not have a baby she must invent for her husband a mistress. Who shall say it is not true, though? When his bilious attack is better will they meet in the garden at Mallards? He is Lothario of the tiger-skins. Why should it not be true? My Cecco has had a mistress for years--such a good-natured pretty woman--and why not your Major? Basta! I must be calm."

 

This flippant and deplorably immoral view of the crisis had an inflammatory rather than a cooling effect. If Tilling was anything, it was intensely serious, and not to be taken seriously by this lascivious Countess made it far more serious. So, after a few days during which social intercourse was completely paralysed, Lucia determined to change the currents of thought by digging a new channel for them. She had long been considering which should be the first of those benefactions to Tilling which would raise her on a pinnacle of public pre-eminence and expunge the memory of that slight fiasco at the late municipal elections, and now she decided on the renovation and amplification of the organ on which she and Georgie had been practising this morning. The time was well chosen, for surely those extensive rents in the social fabric would be repaired by the universal homage rendered her for her munificence, and nothing more would be heard of Roman antiquities and dinner-bells and drunkenness and those odious and unfounded aspersions on the really untarnishable chastity of her own character. All would be forgotten.

 

Accordingly next Sunday morning the Padre had announced from the pulpit in accents trembling with emotion that through the generosity of a donor who preferred to remain anonymous the congregation's psalms and hymns of praise would soon be accompanied by a noble new relay of trumpets and shawms. Then, as nobody seemed to guess (as Lucia had hoped) who the anonymous donor was, she had easily been persuaded to let this thin veil of anonymity be withdrawn. But even then there was not such a tumultuous outpouring of gratitude and admiration as to sweep away all the hatchets that still lay perilously about: in fact Elizabeth who brought the news to Diva considered the gift a very ostentatious and misleading gesture.

 

"It's throwing dust in our eyes," she observed with singular acidity. "It's drawing a red herring across her Roman excavations and her abominable forwardness with Benjy on that terrible evening. As for the gift itself, I consider it far from generous. With the fortune she has made in gold-mines and rails and all the rest of it, she doesn't feel the cost of it one atom. What I call generosity is to deprive yourself--"

 

"Now you're not being consistent, Elizabeth," said Diva. "You told me yourself that you didn't believe she had made more than half-a-crown."

 

"No, I never said that, dear," affirmed Elizabeth. "You must be thinking of someone else you were gossiping with."

 

"No, I mustn't," said Diva. "You did say it. And even if you hadn't, it would be very paltry of you to belittle her gift just because she was rich. But you're always carping and picking holes, and sowing discord."

 

"I?" said Elizabeth, not believing her ears.

 

"Yes, you. Go back to that terrible evening as you call it. You've talked about nothing else since: you've been keeping the wound open. I don't deny that it was very humiliating for you to see Major Benjy exceed like that, and of course no woman would have liked her husband to go bawling out 'Queen of my Heart' all the way home about some other woman. But I've been thinking it over. I don't believe Lucia made up to him any more than I did. We should all be settling down again happily if it wasn't for you, instead of being at loggerheads with each other. Strawberries will be in next week, and not one of us dares ask the rest to our usual summer Bridge parties for fear of there being more ructions."

 

"Nonsense, dear," said Elizabeth. "As far as I am concerned it isn't a question of not daring at all, though of course I wouldn't be so rude as to contradict you about your own moral cowardice. It's simply that I prefer not to see anything of people like Lucia or Susan who on that night was neither more nor less than a barmaid encouraging Benjy to drink, until they've expressed regret for their conduct."

 

"If it comes to expressions of regret," retorted Diva. "I think Major Benjy had better show the way and you follow. How you can call yourself a Christian at all is beyond me."

 

"Benjy has expressed himself very properly to me," said Elizabeth, "so there's the end of that. As for my expressing regret I can't conceive what you wish me to express regret for. Painful though I should find it to be excommunicated by you, dear, I shall have to bear it. Or would you like me to apologise to Irene for all the wicked things she said to me that night?"

 

"Well I daren't ask our usual party," said Diva, "however brave you are. You may call it moral cowardice, but it's simply common sense. Lucia would refuse with some excuse that would be an insult to my intelligence, and Mr. Georgie would certainly stick to her. So would Irene; besides she called me a foul-minded old widow. The Wyses won't begin, and I agree it wouldn't be any use your trying. The only person who's got the power or position or whatever you like to call it, to bring us all together again is Lucia herself. Don't look down your nose, Elizabeth, because it's true. I've a good mind to apologise to her for my bit of silly chaff about Major Benjy, and to ask her to do something for us."

 

"I hope, dear," said Elizabeth rising, "that you won't encourage her to think that Benjy and I will come to her house. That would only lead to disappointment."

 

"By the way, how is he?" said Diva. "I forgot to ask."

 

"So I noticed, dear. He's better, thanks. Gone to play golf again to-day."

 

 

 

Diva put her pride in her pocket and went up to Mallards that very afternoon and said that she was very sorry that a word of hers spoken really in jest, should have given offence to Lucia. Lucia, as might have been expected from her lofty and irritating ways, looked at her smiling and a little puzzled, with her head on one side.

 

"Dear Diva, what do you mean?" she said. "How can you have offended me?"

 

"What I said about Benjy and you," said Diva. "Just outside Twistevant's. Very stupid of me, but just chaff."

 

"My wretched memory," said Lucia. "I've no recollection of it at all. I think you must have dreamed it. But so nice to see you, and tell me all the news. Heaps of pleasant little parties? I've been so busy with my new organ and so on, that I'm quite out of the movement."

 

"There's not been a single party since that dinner at Susan's," said Diva.

 

"You don't say so! And how is Major Benjy? I think somebody told me he had caught a chill that night, when he walked home. People who have lived much in the tropics are liable to them: he must take more care of himself."

 

They had strolled out into the garden, awaiting tea, and looked into the greenhouse where the peach trees were covered with setting fruit. Lucia looked wistfully at the potato and asparagus beds.

 

"More treasures to be unearthed some time, I hope," she said with really unparalleled nerve. "But at present my hands are so full: my organ, my little investments, Georgie just dines quietly with me or I with him, and we make music or read. Happy busy days!"

 

Really she was quite maddening, thought Diva, pretending like this to be totally unaware of the earthquake which had laid in ruins the social life of Tilling. On she went.

 

"Otherwise I've seen no one but Irene, and just a glimpse of dear Contessa Faraglione, and we had a refreshing chat in Italian. I found I was terribly rusty. She told me that it was just a flying visit."

 

"Yes, she's gone," said Diva.

 

"Such a pity: I should have liked to get up an evening with un po' di musica for her," said Lucia, who had heard from Georgie, who had it from the Padre, all about her monstrously immoral views and her maniac laughter. "Ah, tea ready, Grosvenor? Tell me more Tilling news, Diva."

 

"But there isn't any," said Diva, "and there won't be unless you do something for us."

 

"I?" asked Lucia. "Little hermit I?"

 

Diva could have smacked her for her lofty unconsciousness, but in view of her mission had to check that genial impulse.

 

"Yes, you, of course," she said. "We've all been quarrelling. Never knew anything so acute. We shall never get together again, unless you come to the rescue."

 

Lucia sighed.

 

"Dear Diva, how you all work me, and come to me when there's trouble. But I'm very obedient. Tell me what you want me to do. Give one of my simple little parties, al fresco, here some evening?"

 

"Oh, do!" said Diva.

 

"Nothing easier. I'm afraid I've been terribly remiss, thinking of nothing but my busy fragrant life. Very naughty of me. And if, as you say, it will help to patch up some of your funny little disagreements between yourselves, of which I know nothing at all, so much the better. Let's settle a night at once. My engagement-book, Grosvenor."

 

Grosvenor brought it her. There were no evening engagements at all in the future, and slightly tipping it up, so that Diva could not see the fair white pages, she turned over a leaf or two.

 

"This week, impossible, I'm afraid," she said, with a noble disregard of her own admission that she and Georgie dined quietly together every night. "But how about Wednesday next week? Let me think--yes, that's all right. And whom am I to ask? All our little circle?"

 

"Oh do!" said Diva. "Start us again. Break the ice. Put out the fire. They'll all come."

 

 

 

Diva was right: even Elizabeth who had warned her that such an invitation would only lead to disappointment accepted with pleasure, and Lucia made the most tactful arrangements for this agapé. Grosvenor was instructed to start every dish at Mrs. Mapp-Flint, and to offer barley-water as well as wine to all the guests. They assembled before dinner in the garden-room, and there, on the top of the piano, compelling notice, were the bowl and saucer of Samian ware. Mr. Wyse, with his keen perception for the beautiful, instantly enquired what they were.

 

"Just some fragments of Roman pottery," said Lucia casually. "So glad you admire them. They are pretty, but, alas, the bowl as you see is incomplete."

 

Evie gave a squeal of satisfaction: she had always believed in Lucia's excavations.

 

"Oh, look, Kenneth," she said to her husband, "Fancy finding those lovely things in an empty potato-patch."

 

"Begorra, Mistress Lucia," said he, "'twas worth digging up a whole garden entoirely."

 

Elizabeth cast a despairing glance at this convincing evidence, and dinner was announced.

 

Conversation was a little difficult at first; for there were so many dangerous topics to avoid that to carry it on was like crossing a quaking bog and jumping from one firm tussock to another over soft and mossy places. But Elizabeth's wintriness thawed, when she found that not only was she placed on Georgie's right hand who was acting as host, but that every dish was started with her, and she even asked Irene if she had been painting any of her sweet pictures lately. Dubious topics and those allied to them were quite avoided, and before the end of dinner, if Lucia had proposed that they should sing "Auld Lang Syne," there would not have been a silent voice. Bridge, of so friendly a kind that it was almost insipid, followed, and it was past midnight before anyone could suppose that it was half-past ten. Then most cordial partings took place in the hall: Susan was loaded with her furs, Diva dropped a shilling and was distracted. Benjy found a clandestine opportunity to drink a strong whisky and soda, Irene clung passionately to Lucia, as if she would never finish saying good night, the Royce sawed to and fro before it could turn and set forth on its journey of one hundred yards, and the serene orbs of heaven twinkled benignly over a peaceful Tilling. This happy result (all but the stars) was Lucia's achievement: she had gone skimming up the pinnacle of social pre-eminence till she was almost among the stars herself.

 

 

To be continued

 

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