TROUBLE FOR LUCIA
PART 8
CHAPTER VIII
Lucia, followed by Georgie, and preceded by an attendant, swept along the corridor behind the boxes on the grand tier at Covent Garden Opera House. They had dined early at their hotel and were in good time. She wore her seed-pearls in her hair, her gold Mayoral badge, like an Order, on her breast, and her gown was of a rich, glittering russet hue like cloth of copper. A competent-looking lady, hovering about with a small note book and a pencil, hurried up to her as the attendant opened the door of the box.
"Name, please," he said to Lucia.
"The Mayor of Tilling," said Lucia, raising her voice for the benefit of the lady with the note book.
He consulted his list.
"No such name, ma'am," he said. "Madam has given strict orders--"
"Mr. and Mrs. Pillson," suggested Georgie.
"That's all right, sir "; and in they went.
The house was gleaming with tiaras and white shoulders, and loud with conversation. Lucia stood for a minute at the front of the box which was close to the stage, and nodded and smiled as she looked this way and that, as if recognising friends . . . But, oh, to think that she might have been recognised, too, if only Irene had portrayed her in the Picture of the Year! They had been to see it this afternoon, and Georgie, also, had felt pangs of regret that it was not he with his Vandyck beard who sprawled windily among the clouds. But in spite of that he was very happy for in a few minutes now he would hear and see his adorable Olga again, and they were to lunch with her to-morrow at her hotel.
A burst of applause hailed the appearance of Cortese, composer, librettist and, to-night, conductor of Lucrezia. Lucia waggled her hand at him. He certainly bowed in her direction (for he was bowing in all directions), and she made up her mind to scrap her previous verdict on the opera and be enchanted with it.
The Royal party unfortunately invisible from Lucia's box arrived, and after the National Anthem the first slow notes of the overture wailed on the air.
"Divine!" she whispered to Georgie. "How well I remember dear Signor Cortese playing it to me at Riseholme. I think he took it a shade faster . . . There! Lucrezia's motif, or is it the Pope's? Tragic splendour. The first composer in Europe."
If Georgie had not known Lucia so well, he would scarcely have believed his ears. On that frightful evening, three years ago, when Olga had asked her to come and hear "bits" of it, she had professed herself outraged at the hideous, modern stuff, but there were special circumstances on that occasion which conduced to pessimism. Lucia had let it be widely supposed that she talked Italian with ease and fluency, but when confronted with Cortese, it was painfully clear that she could not understand a word he said. An awful exposure . . . Now she was in a prominent box, guest of the prima donna, at this gala performance, she could not be called upon to talk to Cortese without annoying the audience very much, and she was fanatic in admiration. She pressed Georgie's hand, emotion drowning utterance; she rose in her place at the end of Olga's great song in the first act, crying "Brava! Brava!" in the most correct Italian, and was convinced that she led the applause that followed.
During the course of the second act, the box was invaded by a large lady, clad in a magnificent tiara, but not much else, and a small man, who hid himself at the back. Lucia felt justly indignant at this interruption, but softened when the box-attendant appeared with another programme, and distinctly said "Your Grace" to the large lady. That made a difference, and during the interval Lucia talked very pleasantly to her (for when strangers were thrown together stiffness was ridiculous) and told her how she had heard her beloved Olga run through some of her part before the opera was produced, and that she had prophesied a huge success for it. She was agonising to know what the large lady was the Grace of, but could scarcely put so personal a question on such short acquaintance. She did not seem a brilliant conversationalist, but stared rather fixedly at Georgie . . . At the end of the opera there was immense enthusiasm: Olga and Cortese were recalled again and again, and during these effusions, Her unidentified Grace and her companion left: Lucia presumed that they were husband and wife as they took no notice of each other. She regretted their disappearance, but consoled herself with the reflection that their names would appear in the dazzling list of those who would be recorded in the press to-morrow as having attended the first performance of Lucrezia. The competent female in the corridor would surely see to that.
Georgie lay long awake that night. The music had excited him, and, more than the music, Olga herself. What a voice, what an exquisite face and presence, what an infinite charm! He recalled his bachelor days at Riseholme, when Lucia had been undisputed Queen of that highly-cultured village and he her cavaliere servente, whose allegiance had been seriously shaken by Olga's advent. He really had been in love with her, he thought, and the fact that she had a husband alive then, to whom she was devoted, allowed a moral man like him to indulge his emotions in complete security. It had thrilled him with daring joy to imagine that, had Olga been free, he would have asked her to marry him, but even in those flights of fancy he knew that her acceptance of him would have put him in a panic. Since then, of course, he had been married himself, but his union with Lucia had not been formidable, as they had agreed that no ardent tokens of affection were to mar their union. Marriage, in fact, with Lucia might be regarded as a vow of celibacy. Now, after three years, the situation was reversing itself in the oddest manner. Olga's husband had died and she was free, while his own marriage with Lucia protected him. His high moral principles would never suffer him to be unfaithful to his wife. "I am not that sort of man," he said to himself. "I must go to sleep."
He tossed and turned on his bed. Visions of Olga as he had seen her to-night floated behind his closed eyelids. Olga as a mere girl at the fête of her infamous father Pope Alexander VI: Olga at her marriage in the Sistine Chapel to the Duke of Biseglia: his murder in her presence by the hired bravos of His Holiness and her brother. The scenery was fantastically gorgeous ("not Shakespearian at all, Georgie," Lucia had whispered to him), but when Olga was on the stage, he was conscious of nothing but her. She outshone all the splendour, and never more so than when, swathed in black, she followed her husband's bier, and sang that lament--or was it a song of triumph?--"Amore misterioso, celeste, profondo." . . . "I believe I've got a very passionate nature," thought Georgie, "but I've always crushed it."
It was impossible to get to sleep, and wheeling out of bed, he lit a cigarette and paced up and down his room. But it was chilly, and putting on a smart blue knitted pullover he got back into bed again. Once more he jumped up; he had no ashtray, but the lid of his soap-dish would do, and he reviewed Life.
"I know Tilling is very exciting," he said to himself, "for extraordinary things are always happening, and I'm very comfortable there. But I've no independence. I'm devoted to Lucia, but what with breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner, as well as a great deal in between . . . And then how exasperating she is as Mayor! What with her ceaseless jaw about her duties and position I get fed up. Those tin boxes with nothing in them! Mrs. Simpson every morning with nothing to do! I want a change. Sometimes I almost sympathise with Elizabeth, when Lucia goes rolling along like the car of Juggernaut, squish-squash, whoever comes in her way. And yet it's she, I really believe, who makes things happen, just because she is Lucia, and I don't know where we should be without her. Good gracious, that's the second cigarette I've smoked in bed, and I had my full allowance before. Why didn't I bring up my embroidery? That often makes me sleepy. I shall be fit for nothing to-morrow, lying awake like this, and I must go shopping in the morning, and then we lunch with Olga, and catch the afternoon train back to That Hole. Damn everything!"
Georgie felt better in the morning after two cups of very hot tea brought him by Foljambe who had come up as their joint maid. He read his paper, breakfasting in his room, as in his comfortable bachelor days. There was a fervent notice of Lucrezia, but no indication, since there had been five Duchesses present, as to which their particular Grace was, who had rather embarrassed him by her fixed eye. But then Foljambe brought him another paper which Lucia wanted back. She had marked it with a blue pencil, and there he read that the Duke and Duchess of Sheffield and the Mayor of Tilling had attended the opera in Miss Bracely's box. That gave him great satisfaction, for all those folk who had looked at their box so much would now feel sure that he was the Mayor of Tilling . . . Then he went out alone for his shopping, as Lucia sent word that she had received some agenda for the next Council meeting, which she must study, and thoroughly enjoyed it. He found some very pretty new ties and some nice underwear, and he could linger by attractive windows, instead of going to some improving exhibition which Lucia would certainly have wished to do. Then in eager trepidation he went to the Ritz for lunch, and found that Lucia had not yet arrived. But there was Olga in the lounge, who hailed him on a high soprano note, so that everybody knew that he was Georgie, and might have guessed, from the timbre, that she was Olga.
"My dear, how nice to see you," she cried. "But a beard, Georgie! What does it mean? Tell me all about it. Where's your Lucia? She hasn't divorced you already, I hope? And have a cocktail? I insist, because it looks so bad for an elderly female to be drinking alone, and I am dying for one. And did you like the opera last night? I thought I sang superbly; even Cortese didn't scold me. How I love being in stuffy old London again; I'm off to Riseholme to-night for a week, and you must--Ah, here's Lucia! We'll go into lunch at once. I asked Cortese, but he can't come in till afterwards. Only Poppy Sheffield is coming, and she will probably arrive about tea-time. She'll be terribly taken up with Georgie, because she adores beards, and says they are getting so rare nowadays. Don't be alarmed, my lamb: she doesn't want to touch them, but the sight of them refreshes her in some psychic manner. Oh, of course, she was in your box last night. She hates music, and hears it only as a mortification of the flesh, of which she has plenty. Quite gaga, but so harmless."
Olga was a long time getting to her table, because she made many greetings on the way, and Lucia began to hate her again. She was too casual, keeping the Mayor of Tilling standing about like this, and Lucia, who had strong views about maquillage, was distressed to see how many women, Olga included, were sadly made-up. And yet how marvellous to thread her way through the crowded restaurant with the prima donna, not waiting for a Duchess: if only some Tillingites had been there to see! Per contra, it was rather familiar of Olga to put her hand on Georgie's shoulder and shove him into his place. Lucia stored up in separate packets resentment and the deepest gratification.
Asparagus. Cold and very buttery. Olga picked up the sticks with her fingers and then openly sucked them. Lucia used a neat little holder which was beside her plate. Perhaps Olga did not know what it was for.
"And you and Georgie must come to Riseholme for the week-end," she said. "I get down to-night, so join me to-morrow."
Lucia shook her head.
"Too sweet of you," she said, "but impossible, I'm afraid. So many duties. To-morrow is Friday, isn't it? Yes: a prize-giving to-morrow afternoon, and something in the evening, I fancy. Borough Bench on Monday at ten. One thing after another; no end to them, day after day. It was only by the rarest chance I was able to come up yesterday."
Georgie knew that this was utter rubbish. Lucia had not had a single municipal engagement for four days, and had spent her time in bicycling and sketching and playing Bridge. She just wanted to impress Olga with the innumerable duties of her position.
"Too bad!" said Olga. "Georgie, you mustn't let her work herself to death like this. But you'll come, won't you, if we can't persuade her."
Here was an opportunity for independent action. He strung himself up to take it.
"Certainly. Delighted. I should adore to," he said with emphasis.
"Capital. That's settled then. But you must come, too, Lucia. How they would all love to see you again at Riseholme."
Lucia wanted to go, especially since Georgie would otherwise go without her, and she would have been much disconcerted if her refusal had been taken as final. She pressed two fingers to her forehead.
"Let me think!" she said. "I've nothing after Friday evening, have I, Georgie, till Monday's Council? I always try to keep Saturdays free. No: I don't think I have. I could come down with Georgie, on Saturday morning, but we shall have to leave again very early on Monday. Too tempting to refuse, dear Olga. The sweet place, and those busy days, or so they seemed then, but now, by comparison, what a holiday!"
Poppy appeared just as they had finished lunch, and Lucia was astonished to find that she had not the smallest idea that they had ever met before. When reminded, Poppy explained that when she went to hear music a total oblivion of all else seized her.
"Carried away," she said. "I don't know if I'm on my head or my heels."
"If you were carried away you'd be on your back," said Olga. "What do you want to eat?"
"Dressed crab and plenty of black coffee," said Poppy decidedly. "That's what keeps me in perfect health." She had just become conscious of Georgie, and had fixed her eye on his beard, when Cortese plunged into the restaurant and came, like a bore up the River Severn, to Olga's table, loudly lamenting in Italian that he had not been able to come to lunch. He kissed her hand, he kissed Poppy's hand, and after a short pause for recollection, he kissed Lucia's hand.
"Si, si," he cried, "it is the lady who came to hear the first trial of Lucrezia at your Riseholme, and spoke Italian with so pure an accent. Come sta, signora?" And he continued to prattle in Italian.
Lucia had a horrid feeling that all this had happened before, and that in a moment it would be rediscovered that she could not speak Italian. Lunch, anyhow, was over, and she could say a reluctant farewell. She summoned up a few words in that abhorred tongue.
"Cara," she said to Olga, "we must tear ourselves away. A rivederci, non e vero, dopo domani. But we must go to catch our train. A poor hard-worked Mayor must get back to the call of duty."
"Oh, is he a Mayor?" asked Poppy with interest. "How very distinguished."
There was no time to explain; it was better that Georgie should be temporarily enthroned in Poppy's mind as Mayor, rather than run any further risks, and Lucia threaded her way through the narrow passage between the tables. After all she had got plenty of material to work up into noble narrative at Tilling. Georgie followed and slammed the door of the taxi quite crossly.
"I can't think why you were in such a hurry," he said. "I was enjoying myself, and we shall only be kicking our heels at the station."
"Better to run no risk of missing our train," she said. "And we have to pick up Foljambe and our luggage."
"Not at all," said Georgie. "We particularly arranged that she should meet us with it at Victoria."
"Georgie, how stupid of me!" said the shameless Lucia. "Forgive me."
Lucia found that she had no engagement for the next evening, and got up a party for dinner and Bridge in order casually to disseminate these magnificent experiences. Mr. Wyse and Diva, (Susan being indisposed) the Mapp-Flints and the Padre and Evie were her guests. It rather surprised her that nobody asked any questions at dinner, about her visit to London, but, had she only known it, Tilling had seen in the paper that she and a Duke and Duchess had been in Olga's box, and had entered into a fell conspiracy, for Lucia's good, not to show the slightest curiosity about it. Thus, though her guests were starving for information, conversation at dinner had been entirely confined to other topics, and whenever Lucia made a casual allusion to the opera, somebody spoke loudly about something else. But when the ladies retired into the garden-room the strain on their curiosity began to tell, and Lucia tried again.
"So delightful to get back to peaceful Tilling," she said, as if she had been away for thirty-six weeks instead of thirty-six hours, "though I fear it is not for long. London was such a terrible rush. Of course the first thing we did was to go to the Academy to see the Picture of the Year, dear Elizabeth."
That was crafty: Elizabeth could not help being interested in that.
"And could you get near it, dear?" she asked.
"Easily. Not such a great crowd. Technically I was a wee bit disappointed. Very vigorous, of course, and great bravura--"
"What does that mean?" asked Diva.
"How shall I say it? Dash, sensational effect, a too obvious dexterity," said Lucia, gesticulating like a painter doing bold brush-work. "I should have liked more time to look at it, for Irene will long to know what I think about it, but we had to dress and dine before the opera. Dear Olga had given us an excellent box, a little too near the stage perhaps."
It was more than flesh and blood could stand: the conspiracy of silence broke down.
"I saw in the paper that the Duke and Duchess of Sheffield were there, too," said Evie.
"In the paper was it?" asked Lucia with an air of great surprise. "How the press ferrets things out! He and Poppy Sheffield came in in the middle of the second act. I was rather cross, I'm afraid, for I hate such interruptions."
Elizabeth was goaded into speech.
"Most inconsiderate," she said. "I hope you told her so, Worship."
Lucia smiled indulgently.
"Ah, people who aren't really musical--poor Poppy Sheffield is not--have no idea of the pain they give. And what has happened here since Georgie and I left?"
"Seventeen to tea yesterday," said Diva. "What was the opera like?"
"Superb. Olga sang the great scene to me years ago and I confess I did not do it justice. A little modern for my classical taste, but a very great work. Very. And her voice is still magnificent; perhaps a little sign of forcing in the top register, but then I am terribly critical."
The conspiracy of silence had become a cross-examination of questions. These admissions were being forced from her.
"And then did you go out to supper?" asked Evie.
"Ah no! Music takes too much out of me. Back to the hotel and so to bed, as Pepys says."
"And next morning, Worship, after such an exciting evening?" asked Elizabeth.
"Poor me! A bundle of agenda for the Council meeting on Monday. I had to slave at them until nearly lunch-time."
"You and Mr Georgie in your hotel?" asked Diva.
"No: dear Olga insisted that we should lunch with her at the Ritz," said Lucia in the slow drawling voice which she adopted when her audience were on tenterhooks. No party, just the four of us."
"Who was the fourth?"
"The Duchess. She was very late, just as she had been at the opera. A positive obsession with her. So we didn't wait."
Not waiting for a Duchess produced a stunning effect.
Diva recovered first.
"Good food?" she asked.
"Fair, I should have called it. Or do you mean Poppy's food? How you will laugh! A dressed crab and oceans of black coffee. The only diet on which she feels really well."
"Sounds most indigestible," said Diva. "What an odd sort of stomach. And then?"
"How you all catechize me! Then Cortese came in. He is the composer, I must explain, of Lucrezia, and conducted it. Italian, with all the vivaciousness of the South--"
"So you had a good talk in Italian to him, dear," said Elizabeth viciously.
"Alas, no. We had to rush off almost immediately to catch our train. Hardly a word with him."
"What a pity!" said Elizabeth. "And just now you told us you were not going to be here long. Gadding off again?"
"Alas, yes; though how ungrateful of me to say 'alas'," said Lucia still drawling. "Dear Olga implored Georgie and me to spend the week-end with her at Riseholme. She would not take a refusal. It will be delicious to see the dear old place again. I shall make her sing to us. These great singers are always at their best with a small intime sympathetic audience."
"And will there be some Duchesses there?" asked Elizabeth, unable to suppress her bitterness.
"Chi lo sa?" said Lucia with superb indifference. "Ah, here come the men. Let us get to our Bridge."
The men, who were members of this conspiracy, had shewn a stronger self-control than the women, and had not asked Georgie a single question about high-life, but they knew now about his new ties. Evie could not resist saying in an aside to her husband:
"Fancy, Kenneth, the Duchess of Sheffield lives on dressed crab and black coffee."
Who could resist such an alluring fragment? Certainly not the Padre.
"Eh, that's a singular diet," he said, "and has Mistress Mayor been telling you a' about it? An' what does she do when there's no crab to be had?"
From the eagerness in his voice, Lucia instantly guessed that the men had heard nothing, and were consumed with curiosity.
"Enough of my silly tittle-tattle," she said. "More important matters lie before us. Elizabeth, will you and the Padre and Mr. Wyse play at my table?"
For a while cards overrode all other interests, but it was evident that the men were longing to know all that their vow of self-control had hidden from them: first one and then another, during the deals, alluded to shellfish and Borgias. But Lucia was adamant: they had certainly conspired to show no interest in the great events of the London visit, and they must be punished. But when the party broke up, Mr. Wyse insisted on driving Diva back in the Royce, and plied her with questions, and Major Benjy and the Padre, by the time they got home, knew as much as their wives.
Lucia and Georgie, with Grosvenor as maid (for it was only fair that she should have her share in these magnificent excursions) motored to Riseholme next morning. Lucia took among her luggage the tin box labelled "Housing," in order to keep abreast of municipal work, but in the hurry of departure forget to put any municipal papers inside it. She would have liked to take Mrs. Simpson as well, but Grosvenor occupied the seat next her chauffeur, and three inside would have been uncomfortable. Olga gave a garden-party in her honour in the afternoon, and Lucia was most gracious to all her old friends, in the manner of a Dowager Queen who has somehow come into a far vaster kingdom, but who has a tender remembrance of her former subjects, however humble, and she had a kind word for them all. After the party had dispersed, she and Georgie and Olga sat on in the garden, and her smiles were touched with sadness.
"Such a joy to see all the dear, quaint folk again," she said, "but what a sad change has come over the place! Riseholme, which in old days used to be seething with every sort of interest, has become just like any other vegetating little village--"
"I don't agree at all," said Georgie loudly. "It's seething still. Daisy Quantock's got a French parlourmaid who's an atheist, and Mrs. Antrobus has learned the deaf and dumb alphabet, as she's got so deaf that the most expensive ear-trumpet isn't any use to her. Everybody has been learning it, too, and when Mrs. Boucher gave a birthday party for her only last week, they all talked deaf and dumb to each other, so that Mrs. Antrobus could understand what was being said. I call that marvellous manners."
The old flame flickered for a moment in Lucia's breast.
"No!" she cried. "What else?"
"I haven't finished this yet," said Georgie. "And they were all using their hands so much to talk, that they couldn't get on with their dinner, and it took an hour and a half, though it was only four courses."
"Georgie, how thrilling!" said Olga. "Go on."
Georgie turned to the more sympathetic listener.
"You see, they couldn't talk fast, because they were only learning, but when Mrs. Antrobus replied, she was so quick, being an expert, that nobody except Piggie and Goosie--"
Lucia tilted her head sideways, with a sidelong glance at Olga, busy with a looking-glass and lipstick.
"Ah; I recollect. Her daughters," she said.
"Yes, of course. They could tell you what she said if they were looking, but if they weren't looking you had to guess, like when somebody talks fast in a foreign language which you don't know much of, and you make a shot at what he's saying."
Lucia gave him a gimlet-glance. But of course, Georgie couldn't have been thinking of her and the Italian crisis.
"Their dear, funny little ways!" she said. "But everyone I talked to was so eager to hear about Tilling and my mayoral work, that I learned nothing about what was going on here. How they besieged me with questions! What else, Georgie?"
"Well, the people who have got your house now have made a swimming bath in the garden and have lovely mixed bathing parties."
Lucia repressed a pang of regret that she had never thought of doing that, and uttered a shocked sort of noise.
"Oh, what a sad desecration!" she said. "Where is it? In my pleached alley, or in Perdita's garden?"
"In the pleached alley, and it's a great success. I wish I'd brought my bathing-suit."
"And do they keep up my tableaux and Elizabethan fêtes and literary circles?" she asked.
"I didn't hear anything about them, but there's a great deal going on. Very gay, and lots of people come down for week-ends from town."
Lucia rose.
"And cocktail parties, I suppose," she said. "Well, well, one must expect one's traces to be removed by the hand of time. That wonderful sonnet of Shakespeare's about it. Olga mia, will you excuse me till dinner-time? Some housing plans I have got to study, or I shall never be able to face my Council on Monday."
Lucia came down to dinner steeped in the supposed contents of her tin box and with a troubled face.
"Those riband-developments!" she said. "They form one of the greatest problems I have to tackle."
Olga looked utterly bewildered.
"Ribands?" she asked. "Things in hats."
Lucia gave a bright laugh.
"Stupid of me not to explain, dear," she said. "How could you know? Building developments: dreadful hideous dwellings along the sweet country roads leading into Tilling. Red-brick villas instead of hedges of hawthorn and eglantine. It seems such desecration."
Georgie sighed. Lucia had already told him what she meant to say to her Council on Monday afternoon, and would assuredly tell him what she had said on Monday evening.
"Caterpillars!" she cried with a sudden inspiration. "I shall compare those lines of houses to caterpillars, hungry red caterpillars wriggling out across the marsh and devouring its verdant loveliness. A vivid metaphor like that is needed. But I know, dear Olga, that nothing I say to you will go any further. My Councillors have a right to know my views before anybody else."
"My lips are sealed," said Olga.
"And yet we must build these new houses," said the Mayor, putting both her elbows on the table and disregarding her plate of chicken. "We must abolish the slums in Tilling, and that means building on the roads outside. Such a multiplicity of conflicting interests."
"I suppose the work is tremendous," said Olga.
"Yes, I think we might call it tremendous, mightn't we, Georgie?" asked Lucia.
Georgie was feeling fearfully annoyed with her. She was only putting it on in order to impress Olga, but the more fervently he agreed, the sooner, it might be hoped, she would stop.
"Overwhelming. Incessant," he asserted.
The hope was vain.
"No, dear, not overwhelming," she said, eating her chicken in a great hurry. "I am not overwhelmed by it. Working for others enlarges one's capacity for work. For the sake of my dear Tilling I can undertake without undue fatigue, what would otherwise render me a perfect wreck. Ich Dien. Of course I have to sacrifice other interests. My reading? I scarcely open a book. My painting? I have done nothing since I made a sketch of some gorgeous dahlias in the autumn, which Georgie didn't think too bad."
"Lovely," said Georgie in a voice of wood.
"Thank you, dear. My music? I have hardly played a note. But as you must know so well, dear Olga, music makes an imperishable store of memories within one: morsels of Mozart: bits of Beethoven all audible to the inward ear."
"How well I remember you playing the slow movement of the Moonlight Sonata," said Olga, seeking, like Georgie to entice her away from Mayoral topics. But the effect of this was appalling. Lucia assumed her rapt music-face, and with eyes fixed on the ceiling, indicated slow triplets on the table cloth. Her fingers faltered, they recovered, and nobody could guess how long she would continue: probably to the end of the movement, and yet it seemed rude to interrupt this symbolic recital. But presently she sighed.
"Naughty fingers," she said, as if shaking the triplets off. "So forgetful of them!"
Somehow she had drained the life out of the others, but dinner was over, and they moved into Olga's music-room. The piano stood open, and Lucia, as if walking in sleep, like Lady Macbeth, glided on to the music stool. The naughty fingers became much better, indeed they became as good as they had ever been. She dwelt long on the last note of the famous slow movement, gazing wistfully up, and they all sighed, according to the traditional usage when Lucia played the Moonlight.
"Thank you, dear," said Olga. "Perfect."
Lucia suddenly sprang off the music-stool with a light laugh.
"Better than I had feared," she said, "but far from perfect. And now, dear Olga, dare I? Might we? One little song. Shall I try to accompany you?"
Olga thought she could accompany herself and Lucia seated herself on a sort of throne close beside her and resumed her rapt expression, as Olga sang the "Ave" out of Lucrezia. That solemn strain seemed vaguely familiar to Lucia, but she could not place it. Was it Beethoven? Was it from Fidelio or from Creation Hymn? Perhaps it was wiser only to admire with emotion without committing herself to the composer.
"That wonderful old tune!" she said. "What a treat to hear it again. Those great melodies are the very foundation-stone of music."
"But isn't it the prayer in Lucrezia?" asked Georgie.
Lucia instantly remembered that it was.
"Yes, of course it is, Georgie," she said. "But in the plain-song mode. I expressed myself badly."
"She hadn't the smallest idea what it was," thought Olga, "but she could wriggle out of a thumb-screw." Then aloud:
"Yes, that was Cortese's intention," she said. "He will be pleased to know you think he has caught it. By the way, he rang up just before dinner to ask if he and his wife might come down to-morrow afternoon for the night. I sent a fervent 'yes'."
"My dear, you spoil us!" said Lucia ecstatically. "That will be too delightful."
In spite of her ecstasy, this was grave news, and as she went to bed she pondered it. There would be Cortese, whose English was very limited (though less circumscribed than her own Italian), there would be Olga, who, though she said she spoke Italian atrociously, was fluent and understood it perfectly, and possibly Cortese's wife knew no English at all. If she did not, conversation must be chiefly conducted in Italian, and Lucia's vivid imagination pictured Olga translating to her what they were all saying, and re-translating her replies to them. Then no doubt he would play to them, and she would have to guess whether he was playing Beethoven or Mozart or plain-song or Cortese. It would be an evening full of hazards and humiliations. Better perhaps, in view of a pretended engagement on Monday morning, to leave on Sunday afternoon, before these dangerous foreigners arrived. "If only I could bring myself to say that I can neither speak nor understand Italian, and know nothing about music!" thought Lucia. "But I can't after all these years. It's wretched to run away like this, but I couldn't bear it."
Georgie came down very late to breakfast. He had had dreams of Olga trying through a song to his accompaniment. She stood behind him with her hands on his shoulders, and her face close to his. Then he began singing, too, and their voices blended exquisitely. . . . Dressing was a festival with his tiled bathroom next door, and he debated as to which of his new ties Olga would like best. Breakfast, Grosvenor had told him, would be on the verandah, but it was such a warm morning there was no need for his cape.
The others were already down.
"Georgie, this will never do," said Olga, as he came out. ''Lucia says she must go back to Tilling this afternoon. Keep her in order. Tell her she shan't."
"But what's happened, Lucia?" he asked. "If we start early to-morrow we shall be in heaps of time for your Council meeting."
Lucia began to gabble.
"I'm too wretched about it," she said, "But when I went upstairs last night, I looked into those papers again which I brought down with me, and I find there is so much I must talk over with my Town Clerk if I am to be equipped for my Council in the afternoon. You know what Monday morning is, Georgie. I must not neglect my duties though I have to sacrifice my delicious evening here. I must be adamant.''
"Too sad," said Olga. "But there's no reason why you should go, Georgie. I'll drive you back tomorrow. My dear, what a pretty tie!"
"I shall stop then," said he. "I've nothing to do at Tilling. I thought you'd like my tie."
Lucia had never contemplated this, and she did not like it. But having announced herself as adamant, she could not instantly turn to putty. Just one chance of getting him to come with her remained.
"I shall have to take Grosvenor with me," she said.
Georgie pictured a strange maid bringing in his tea, and getting his bath ready, with the risk of her finding his toupée, and other aids to juvenility. He faced it: it was worth it.
"That doesn't matter," he replied. "I shall be able to manage perfectly."
To be continued
