TROUBLE FOR LUCIA
PART 9
CHAPTER IX
Lucia was in for a run of bad luck, and it began that very afternoon. Ten minutes before she started with Grosvenor for Tilling, Cortese and his wife arrived. The latter was English and knew even less Italian than she did. And Cortese brought with him the first act of his new opera. It was too late to change her plans and she drove off after a most affectionate parting from Olga, whom she charged to come and stay at Tilling any time at a moment's notice. Just a telephone message to say she was coming, and she could start at once sure of the fondest welcome . . . But it was all most tiresome, for no doubt Cortese would run through the first act of his opera to-night, and the linguistic panic which had caused her to flee from Riseholme as from a plague-stricken village, leaving her nearest and dearest there, had proved to be utterly foundationless.
For the present that was all she knew: had she known what was to occur half an hour after she had left, she would certainly have turned and gone back to the plague-stricken village again, trusting to her unbounded ingenuity to devise some reason for her reappearance. A phone-call from the Duchess of Sheffield came for Madame Cortese.
"Poor mad Cousin Poppy," she said. "What on earth can she want?"
"Dressed crab," screamed Olga after her as she went to the telephone, "Cortese, you darling, let's have a go at your Diane de Poictiers after dinner. I had no idea you were near the end of the first act."
"Nor I also. It has come as smooth as margarine," said Cortese, who had been enjoined by Madame to learn English with all speed, and never to dare to speak Italian in her presence. "And such an aria for you. When you hear it, you will jump for joy. I jump, you jumps, they jumpino. Dam' good."
Madame returned from the telephone.
"Poppy asked more questions in half a minute than were ever asked before in that time," she said. "I took the first two or three and told her to wait. First, will we go to her awful old Castle to-morrow, to dine and stay the night. Second: who is here. Olga, I told her, and Cortese, and Mr. Pillson of Tilling. 'Why, of course I know him,' said Poppy. 'He's the Mayor of Tilling, and I met him at Lucrezia, and at lunch at the Ritz. Such a lovely beard'. Thirdly--"
"But I'm not the Mayor of Tilling," cried Georgie. "Lucia's the Mayor of Tilling, and she hasn't got a beard--"
"Georgie, don't be pedantic," said Olga. "Evidently she means you--"
"La Barba e mobile," chanted Cortese. "Una barba per due. Scusi. Should say 'A beard for two,' my Dorothea."
"It isn't mobile,'' said Georgie, thinking about his toupée.
"Of course it isn't," said Olga. "It's a fine, natural beard. Well, what about Poppy? Let's all go to-morrow afternoon."
"No: I must get back to Tilling," said Georgie. "Lucia expects me--"
"Aha, you are a henpeck," cried Cortese. "And I am also a henpeck. Is it not so, my Dorothea?"
"You're coming with us, Georgie," said Olga. "Ring up Lucia in the morning and tell her so. Just like that. And tell Poppy that we'll all four come, Dorothy. So that's settled."
Lucia, for all her chagrin, was thrilled at the news, when Georgie rang her up next morning. He laid special stress on the Mayor of Tilling having been asked, for he felt sure she would enjoy that. Though it was agonizing to think what she had missed by her precipitate departure yesterday, Lucia cordially gave him leave to go to Sheffield Castle, for it was something that Georgie should stay there, though not she, and she sent her love and regrets to Poppy. Then after presiding at the Borough Bench (which lasted exactly twenty seconds, as there were no cases) instead of conferring with her Town Clerk, she hurried down to the High Street to release the news like a new film.
"Back again, dear Worship," cried Elizabeth, darting across the street. "Pleasant visit?"
"Delicious," said Lucia in the drawling voice. "Dear Riseholme! How pleased they all were to see me. No party at Olga's; just Cortese and his wife, très intime, but such music. I got back last night to be ready for my duties to-day."
"And not Mr. Georgie?" asked Elizabeth.
"No. I insisted that he should stop. Indeed, I don't expect him till to-morrow, for he has just telephoned that Duchess Poppy--a cousin of Madame Cortese--asked the whole lot of us to go over to Sheffield to-day to dine and sleep. Such short notice, and impossible for me, of course, with my Council meeting this afternoon. The dear thing cannot realise that one has duties which must not be thrown over."
"What a pity. So disappointing for you, dear," said Elizabeth, writhing under a sudden spasm of colic of the mind. "But Sheffield's a long way to go for one night. Does she live in the town?"
Lucia emitted the musical trill of merriment.
"No, it's Sheffield Castle," she said. "Not a long drive from Riseholme, in one of Olga's Daimlers. A Norman tower. A moat. It was in Country Life not long ago. . . . Good morning, Padre."
"An' where's your guid man?" asked the Padre.
Lucia considered whether she should repeat the great news. But it was more exalted not to, especially since the dissemination of it, now that Elizabeth knew, was as certain as if she had it proclaimed by the Town Crier.
"He joins me to-morrow," she said. "Any news here?"
"Such a lovely sermon from Reverence yesterday," said Elizabeth, for the relief of her colic. "All about riches and position in the world being only dross. I wish you could have heard it, Worship."
Lucia could afford to smile at this pitiable thrust, and proceeded with her shopping, not ordering any special delicacies for herself because Georgie would be dining with a Duchess. She felt that fate had not been very kind to her personally, though most thoughtful for Georgie. It was cruel that she had not known the nationality of Cortese's wife, and her rooted objection to his talking Italian, before she had become adamant about returning to Tilling, and this was doubly bitter, because in that case she would have still been on the spot when Poppy's invitation arrived, and it might have been possible (indeed, she would have made it possible) for the Deputy Mayor to take her place at the Council meeting to-day, at which her presence had been so imperative when she was retreating before the Italians.
She began to wonder whether she could not manage to join the Ducal party after all. There was actually very little business at the Council meeting; it would be over by half-past four, and if she started then she would be in time for dinner at Sheffield Castle. Or perhaps it would be safer to telephone to the Deputy Mayor, asking him to take her place, as she had been called away unexpectedly. The Deputy Mayor very willingly consented. He hoped it was not bad news and was reassured. All that there remained was to ring up Sheffield Castle, and say that the Mayor of Tilling was delighted to accept Her Grace's invitation to dine and sleep, conveyed to her Worship by Mr. Pillson. The answer was returned that the Mayor of Tilling was expected. "And just for a joke," thought Lucia, "I won't tell them at Riseholme that I'm coming. Such a lovely surprise for them, if I get there first. I can start soon after lunch, and take it quietly."
She recollected, with a trivial pang of uneasiness, that she had told Elizabeth that her duties at Tilling would have prevented her in any case from going to Sheffield Castle, but that did not last long. She would live it down or deny having said it, and she went into the garden-room to release Mrs. Simpson, and, at the same time, to provide for the propagation of the tidings that she was going to her Duchess.
"I shall not attend the Council meeting this afternoon, Mrs. Simpson," she said, "as there's nothing of the slightest importance. It will be a mere formality, so I am playing truant. I shall be leaving Tilling after lunch, to dine and sleep at the Duchess of Sheffield's, at Sheffield Castle. A moat and I think a drawbridge. Ring me up there if anything occurs that I must deal with personally, and I will give it my attention. There seems nothing that need detain you any more to-day. One of our rare holidays."
On her way home Mrs. Simpson met Diva's Janet, and told her the sumptuous news. Janet scuttled home and plunged down into the kitchen to tell her mistress who was making buns. She had already heard about Georgie from Elizabeth.
"Don't believe a word of it," said Diva. "You've mixed it up, Janet. It's Mr. Georgie, if anybody, who's going to Sheffield Castle."
"Beg your pardon, ma'am," said Janet hotly, "but I've mixed nothing up. Mrs. Simpson told me direct that the Mayor was going, and talking of mixing you'd better mix twice that lot of currants, if it's going to be buns."
The telephone bell rang in the tea-room above, and Diva flew up the kitchen-stairs, scattering flour.
"Diva, is that Diva?" said Lucia's voice. "My memory is shocking; did I say I would pop in for tea to-day?"
"No. Why?" said Diva.
"That is all right then," said Lucia. "I feared that I might have to put it off. I'm joining Georgie on a one night's visit to a friend. I couldn't get out of it. Back to-morrow."
Diva replaced the receiver.
"Janet, you're quite right," she called down the kitchen stairs. "Just finish the buns. Must go out and tell people."
Lucia's motor came round after lunch. Foljambe (it was Foljambe's turn, and Georgie felt more comfortable with her) was waiting in the hall with the jewel-case and a camera, and Lucia was getting the "Slum Clearance" tin box from the garden-room to take with her, when the telephone-bell rang. She had a faint presage of coming disaster as she said, "Who is it?" in as steady a voice as she could command.
"Sheffield Castle speaking. Is that the Mayor of Tilling."
"Yes."
"Her Grace's maid speaking, your Worship. Her Grace partook of her usual luncheon to-day--"
"Dressed crab?" asked Lucia in parenthesis.
"Yes, your Worship, and was taken with internal pains."
"I am terribly sorry," said Lucia. "Was it tinned?"
"Fresh, I understand, and the party is put off."
Lucia gave a hollow moan into the receiver, and Her Grace's maid offered consolation.
"No anxiety at all, your Worship," she said, "but she thought she wouldn't feel up to a party."
The disaster evoked in Lucia the exercise of her utmost brilliance. There was such a fearful lot at stake over this petty indigestion.
"I don't mind an atom about the dislocation of my plans," she said, "but I am a little anxious about her dear Grace. I quite understand about the party being put off; so wise to spare her fatigue. It would be such a relief if I might come just to reassure myself. I was on the point of starting, my maid, my luggage all ready. I would not be any trouble. My maid would bring me a tray instead of dinner. Is it possible?"
"I'll see," said her Grace's maid, touched by this devotion. "Hold on."
She held on; she held on, it seemed, as for life itself, till, after an interminable interval the reply came.
"Her Grace would be very happy to see the Mayor of Tilling, but she's putting off the rest of the party," said the angelic voice.
"Thank you, thank you," called Lucia. "So good of her. I will start at once."
She picked up Slum Clearance and went into the house only to be met by a fresh ringing of the telephone in the hall. A panic seized her lest Poppy should have changed her mind.
"Let it ring, Grosvenor," she said. "Don't answer it at all. Get in, Foljambe. Be quick."
She leaped into the car.
"Drive on, Chapman," she called.
The car rocked its way down to the High Street, and Lucia let down the window and looked out, in case there were any friends about. There was Diva at the corner, and she stopped the car.
"Just off, Diva," she said. "Duchess Poppy not very well, so I've just heard."
"No! Crab?" asked Diva.
"Apparently, but not tinned, and there is no need for me to feel anxious. She insisted on my coming just the same. Such a lovely drive in front of me. Taking some work with me."
Lucia pulled up the window again and pinched her finger but she hardly regarded that for there was so much to think about. Olga at Riseholme, for instance, must have been informed by now that the party was off, and yet Georgie had not rung up to say that he would be returning to Tilling to-day. A disagreeable notion flitted through her mind that, having got leave to go to Sheffield Castle, he now meant to stay another night with Olga, without telling her, and it was with a certain relief that she remembered the disregarded telephone call which had hurried her departure. Very likely that was Georgie ringing up to tell her that he was coming back to Tilling to-day. It would be a sad surprise for him not to find her there.
Her route lay through Riseholme, and passing along the edge of the village green, she kept a sharp look-out for familiar figures. She saw Piggie and Goosie with Mrs. Antrobus: they were all three gesticulating with their hands in a manner that seemed very odd until she remembered that they must be speaking in deaf and dumb alphabet: she saw a very slim elegant young woman whom she conjectured to be Daisy Quantock's atheistic French maid, but there was no sign of Georgie or Olga. She debated a moment as to whether she should call at Olga's to find out for certain that he had gone, but dismissed the idea as implying a groundless suspicion. Beyond doubt the telephone call which she had so narrowly evaded was to say that he had done so, and she steadily backed away from the familiar scene in order to avoid seeing him if he was still here . . . Then came less familiar country, a belt of woods, a stretch of heathery upland glowing in the afternoon sun, positively demanding to be sketched in water-colours, and presently a turning with a sign-post "To Sheffield Bottom''. Trees again, a small village of grey stone houses, and facing her a great castellated wall with a tower above a gateway and a bridge over a moat leading to it. Lucia stopped the car and got out, camera in hand.
"What a noble façade," she said to herself. "I wonder if my room will be in that tower."
She took a couple of photographs, and getting back into the car, she passed over the bridge and through the gateway.
Inside lay a paved courtyard in a state of indescribable neglect. Weeds sprouted between the stones, a jungle of neglected flower-beds lay below the windows, here and there were moss-covered stone seats. On one of these close beside the huge discoloured door of blistered paint sat Poppy with her mouth open, fast asleep. As Lucia stepped out, she awoke, and looked at her with a dazed expression of strong disfavour.
"Who are you?" asked Poppy.
"Dear Duchess, so good of you to let me come," said Lucia, thinking that she was only half-awake. "Lucia Pillson, the Mayor of Tilling."
"That you aren't," said Poppy. "It's a man, and he's got a beard."
Lucia laughed brightly.
"Ah, you're thinking of my husband," she said. "Such a vivid description of him. It fits him exactly. But I'm the Mayor. We met at dear Olga's opera-box, and at the Ritz next day."
Poppy gave a great yawn, and sat silent, assimilating this information.
"I'm afraid there's been a complete muddle," she said. "I thought it was he who was coming. You see I was much flattered at his eagerness to spend a quiet evening with me and my stomach-ache, and so I said yes. No designs on him of any kind I assure you. All clean as a whistle: he'd have been as safe with me as with his grandmother, if she's still alive. My husband's away, and I just wanted a pleasant companion. And to think that it was you all the while. That never entered my head. Fancy!"
It did not require a mind of Lucia's penetrative power to perceive that Poppy did not want her, and did not intend that she should stop. Her next remarks removed any possibility of doubt.
"But you'll have some tea first, won't you?" she asked. "Indeed I insist on your having some tea unless you prefer coffee. If you ring the door-bell, somebody will probably come. Oh, I see you've got a camera. Do take some photographs. Would you like to begin with me, though I'm not looking my best."
In spite of the nightmarish quality of the situation, Lucia kept her head, and it was something to be given tea and to take photographs. Perhaps there was a scoop here, if she handled it properly, and first she photographed Poppy and the dismal courtyard, and then went to Poppy's bedroom to tidy herself for tea and snapped her washing-stand and the corner of her Elizabethan bed. After tea Poppy took her to the dining-room and the gaunt picture gallery and through a series of decayed drawing-rooms, and all the time Lucia babbled rapturous comments.
"Magnificent tapestry," she said, "ah, and a glimpse of the Park from the window. Would you stand there, Duchess, looking out with your dog on the window-seat? What a little love! Perfect. And this noble hall: the panelling by that lovely oriel window would make a lovely picture. And that refectory table."
But now Poppy had had enough, and she walked firmly to the front-door and shook hands.
"Charmed to have seen you," she said, "though I've no head for names. You will have a pleasant drive home on this lovely evening. Goodbye, or perhaps au revoir."
"That would be much nicer," said Lucia, cordial to the last.
She drove out of the gateway she had entered three quarters of an hour before, and stopped the car to think out her plans. Her first idea was to spend the night at the Ambermere Arms at Riseholme, and return to Tilling next morning laden with undeveloped photographs of Sheffield Castle and Poppy, having presumably spent the night there. But that was risky: it could hardly help leaking out through Foljambe that she had done nothing of the sort, and the exposure, coupled with the loss of prestige, would be infinitely painful. "I must think of something better that that," she said to herself, and suddenly a great illumination shone on her. "I shall tell the truth," she heroically determined, "in all essentials. I shall say that Poppy's maid told me that I, the Mayor of Tilling was expected. That, though the party was abandoned, she still wanted me to come. That I found her asleep in a weedy courtyard, looking ghastly. That she evidently didn't feel up to entertaining me, but insisted that I should have tea. That I took photographs all over the place. All gospel truth, and no necessity for saying anything about that incredible mistake of hers in thinking that Georgie was the Mayor of Tilling."
She tapped on the window.
"We'll just have dinner at the Ambermere Arms, at Riseholme, Chapman," she called, "and then go back to Tilling."
It was about half-past ten when Lucia's car drew up at the door of Mallards. She could scarcely believe that it was still the same day as that on which she had awoke here, regretful that she had fled from Riseholme on a false alarm, had swanked about Georgie staying at Sheffield Castle, had shirked the Council meeting to which duty had called her, had wangled an invitation to the Castle herself, had stayed there for quite three quarters of an hour, and had dined at Riseholme. "Quite like that huge horrid book by Mr. James Joyce, which all happens in one day," she reflected, as she stepped out of the car.
Looking up, she saw that the garden-room was lit, and simultaneously she heard the piano: Georgie therefore must have come home. Surely (this time) she recognised the tune: it was the prayer in Lucrezia. He was playing that stormy introduction with absolute mastery, and he must be playing it by heart, for he could not have the score, nor, if he had, could he have read it. And then that unmistakeable soprano voice (though a little forced in the top register) began to sing. The wireless? Was Olga singing Lucrezia in London to-night? Impossible; for only a few hours ago during this interminable day, she was engaged to dine and sleep at Poppy's Castle. Besides, if this was relayed from Covent Garden, the orchestra, not the piano, would be accompanying her. Olga must be singing in the garden-room, and Georgie must be here, and nobody else could be here . . . There seemed to be material for another huge horrid book by Mr. James Joyce before the day was done.
"I shall be perfectly calm and ladylike whatever happens," thought Lucia, and concentrating all her power on this genteel feat she passed through the hall and went out to the garden-room. But before entering, she paused, for in her reverence for Art, she felt she could not interrupt so superb a performance: Olga had never sung so gloriously as now when she was singing to Georgie all alone. . . . She perched on the final note pianissimo. She held it with gradual crescendo till she was singing fortissimo. She ceased, and it was as if a great white flame had been blown out.
Lucia opened the door. Georgie was sitting in the window: his piece of needle-work had dropped from his hand, and he was gazing at the singer. "Too marvellous," he began, thinking that Grosvenor was coming in with drinks. Then, by some sixth sense, he knew it wasn't Grosvenor, and turning, he saw his wife.
In that moment he went through a selection of emotions that fully equalled hers. The first was blank consternation. A sense of baffled gallantry succeeded, and was followed by an overwhelming thankfulness that it was baffled. All evening he had been imagining himself delightfully in love with Olga, but had been tormented by the uneasy thought that any man of spirit would make some slight allusion to her magnetic charm. That would be a most perilous proceeding. He revelled in the feeling that he was in love with her, but to inform her of that might be supposed to lead to some small practical demonstration of his passion, and the thought made him feel cold with apprehension. She might respond (it was not likely but it was possible, for he had lately been reading a book by a very clever writer, which showed how lightly ladies in artistic professions, take an adorer's caresses), and he was quite convinced that he was no good at that sort of thing. On the other hand she might snub him, and that would wound his tenderest sensibilities. Whatever happened, in fact, it would entirely mar their lovely evening. Taking it all in all, he had never been so glad to see Lucia.
Having pierced him with her eye, she turned her head calmly and gracefully towards Olga.
"Such a surprise!" she said. "A delightful one, of course. And you, no doubt, are equally surprised to see me."
Lucia was being such a perfect lady that Olga quaked and quivered with suppressed laughter.
"Georgie, explain at once," she said. "It's the most wonderful muddle that ever happened."
"Well, it's like this," said Georgie carefully. "As I telephoned you this morning, we were all invited to go to Poppy's for the night. Then she was taken ill after lunch and put us off. So I rang up in order to tell you that I was coming back here and bringing Olga. You told her to propose herself whenever she felt inclined, and just start--"
Lucia bestowed a polite bow on Olga.
"Quite true," she said. "But I never received that message. Oh--"
"I know you didn't," said Georgie. "I couldn't get any answer. But I knew you would be delighted to see her, and when we got here not long before dinner, Grosvenor said you'd gone to dine and sleep at Poppy's. Why didn't you answer my telephone? And why didn't you tell us you were going away? In fact, what about you?"
During this brief but convincing narrative, the thwarted Muse of Tragedy picked up her skirts and fled. Lucia gave a little trill of happy laughter.
"Too extraordinary," she said. "A comedy of errors. Georgie, you told me this morning, very distinctly, that Poppy had invited the Mayor of Tilling. Very well. I found that there was nothing that required my pretence at the Council meeting, and I rang up Sheffield Cattle to say I could manage to get away. I was told that I was expected. Then just as I was starting there came a message that poor Poppy was ill and the party was off."
Lucia paused a moment to review her facts as already rehearsed, and resumed in her superior, drawling voice.
"I felt a little uneasy about her," she said, "and as I had no further engagement this afternoon, I suggested that though the party was off, I would run over--the motor was actually at the door--and stay the night. She said she would be so happy to see me. She gave me such a pleasant welcome, but evidently she was far from well, and I saw she was not up to entertaining me. So I just had tea; she insisted on that, and she took me round the Castle and made me snap a quantity of photographs. Herself, her bedroom, the gallery, that noble oriel window in the hall. I must remember to send her prints. A delicious hour or two, and then I left her. I think my visit had done her good. She seemed brighter. Then a snack at the Ambermere Arms; I saw your house was dark, dear Olga, or I should have popped in. And here we are. That lovely prayer from Lucrezia to welcome me. I waited entranced on the doorstep till it was over."
It was only by strong and sustained effort that Olga restrained herself from howling with laughter. She hadn't been singing the prayer from Lucrezia this time, but Les feux magiques, by Berlioz; Lucia seemed quite unable--though of course she had been an agitated listener--to recognise the prayer when she heard it. But she was really a wonderful woman. Who but she would have had the genius to take advantage of Poppy's delusion that Georgie was the Mayor of Tilling? Then what about Lucia's swift return from the Castle? Without doubt Poppy had sent her away when she saw her female, beardless guest, and the clever creature had made out that it was she who had withdrawn as Poppy was so unwell, with a gallery of photographs to prove she had been there. Then she recalled Lucia's face when she entered the garden-room a few minutes ago, the face of a perfect lady who, unexpectedly returns home to find a wanton woman, bent on seduction, alone with her husband. Or was Georgie's evident relief at her advent funnier still? Impossible to decide, but she must not laugh till she could bury her face in her pillow. Lucia had a few sandwiches to refresh her after her drive, and they went up to bed. The two women kissed each other affectionately. Nobody kissed Georgie.
Tilling next morning, unaware of Lucia's return, soon began to sprout with a crop of conjectures which, like mushrooms, sprang up all over the High Street. Before doing any shopping at all, Elizabeth rushed into Diva's tea-shop to obtain confirmation that Diva had actually seen Lucia driving away with Foljambe and luggage on the previous afternoon en route for Sheffield Castle.
"Certainly I did," said Diva. "Why?"
Elizabeth contracted her brows in a spasm of moral anguish.
"I wish I could believe," she said, "that it was all a blind, and that Worship didn't go to Sheffield Castle at all, but only wanted to make us think so, and returned home after a short drive by another route. Deceitful though that would be, it would be far, far better than what I fear may have happened."
"I suppose you're nosing out some false scent as usual," said Diva. "Get on."
Elizabeth made a feint of walking towards the door at this rude speech, but gave it up.
"It's too terrible, Diva," she said. "Yesterday evening, it might have been about half-past six, I was walking up the street towards Mallards. A motor passed me, laden with luggage, and it stopped there."
"So I suppose you stopped, too," said Diva.
"--and out of it got Mr. Georgie and a big, handsome--yes, she was very handsome--woman, though, oh, so common. She stood on the doorstep a minute looking round, and sang out, 'Georgino! How divino!' Such a screech! I judge so much by voice. In they went, and the luggage was taken in after them, and the door shut. Bang. And Worship, you tell me, had gone away."
"Gracious me!" said Diva.
"You may well say that. And you may well say that I stopped. I did, for I was rooted to the spot. It was enough to root anybody. At that moment the Padre had come round the corner, and he was rooted too. As I didn't know then for certain whether Worship had actually gone--it might only have been one of her grand plans of which one hears no more--I said nothing to him, because it is so wicked to start any breath of scandal, until one has one's facts. It looks to me very black, and I shouldn't have thought it of Mr. Georgie. Whatever his faults--we all have faults--I did think he was a man of clean life. I still hope it may be so, for he has always conducted himself with propriety, as far as I know, to the ladies of Tilling, but I don't see how it possibly can."
Diva gave a hoarse laugh.
"Not much temptation," she said, "from us old hags. But it is queer that he brought a woman of that sort to stay at Mallards on the very night Lucia was away. And then there's another thing. She told us all that he was going to stay at Poppy's last night--"
"I can't undertake to explain all that Worship tells us," said Elizabeth. "That is asking too much of me."
"--but he was here," said Diva. "Yet I shouldn't wonder if you'd got hold of the wrong end of the stick somehow. Habit of yours, Elizabeth. After all, the woman may have been a friend of Lucia's--"
"--and so Mr. Georgie brought her when Lucia was away. I see," said Elizabeth.
Her pensive gaze wandered to the window, and she stiffened like a pointing setter, for down the street from Mallards was coming Georgie with the common, handsome, screeching woman. Elizabeth said nothing to Diva, for something might be done in the way of original research, and she rose.
"Very dark clouds," she said, "but we must pray that they will break. I've done no shopping yet. I suppose Worship will be back some time to-day with a basket of strawberry leaves, if Poppy can spare her. Otherwise, the municipal life of Tilling will be suspended. Not that it matters two straws whether she's here or not. Quite a cypher in the Council."
"Now that's not fair," shouted Diva angrily after her. "You can't have it both ways. Why she ever made you Mayoress--" but Elizabeth had shut the door.
Diva went down to her kitchen with an involuntary glow of admiration for Georgie, which was a positive shock to her moral principles. He and his petit point, and his little cape, and his old-maidish ways--was it possible that these cloaked a passionate temperament? Who could this handsome, common female be? Where had he picked her up? Perhaps in the hotel when he and Lucia had stayed in London, for Diva seemed to have heard that voluptuous assignations were sometimes made in the most respectable places. What a rogue! And how frightful for Lucia, if she got to know about it. "I'm sure I hope she won't," thought Diva, "but it wouldn't be bad for her to be taken down a peg or two, though I should pity her at the same time. However, one mustn't rush to conclusions. But it's shocking that I've got a greater respect for Mr. Georgie than I ever had before. Can't make it out."
Diva got to work with her pastry-making, but some odd undercurrent of thought went trickling on. What a starvation diet for a man of ardent temperament, as Georgie now appeared, must his life in Tilling have been, where all the women were so very undecorative. If there had only been a woman with a bit of brilliance about her, whom he could admire and flirt with just a little, all this might have been averted. She left Janet to finish the shortbread, and went out to cull developments.
Elizabeth meantime had sighted her prey immediately, and from close at hand observed the guilty pair entering the photographer's. Were the shameless creatures, she wondered, going to be photographed together? That was the sort of bemused folly that sinning couples often committed, and bitterly rued it afterwards. She glided in after them, but Georgie was only giving the shopman a roll of negatives to be developed and printed and sent up to Mallards as soon as possible. He took off his hat to her very politely, but left the shop without introducing her to his companion which was only natural and showed good feeling. Certainly she was remarkably handsome. Beautifully dressed. A row of pearls so large that they could not be real. Hatless with waved hair. Rouge. Lipstick. . . . She went in pursuit again. They passed the Padre and his wife, who turned completely round to look at them; they passed Susan in her Royce (she had given up tricycling in this hot weather) who held her head out of the window till foot passengers blocked her view of them, and Diva, standing on her doorstep with her market basket, was rooted to the spot as firmly as Elizabeth had been the night before. The woman was a dream of beauty with her brilliant colouring and her high, arched eyebrows. Recovering her powers of locomotion, Diva went into the hairdressing and toilet saloon.
Elizabeth bought some parsnips at Twistevant's, deep in thought. Bitter moralist though she was, she could not withhold her admiration for the anonymous female. Diva had rudely alluded to the ladies of Tilling as old hags, and was there not a grain of truth in it? They did not make the best of themselves. What brilliance that skilfully applied rouge and lipstick gave a face! Without it the anonymous might have looked ten years older and far less attractive. "Hair, too," thought Elizabeth, "that soft brown, so like a natural tint. But fingernails, dripping with bright arterial blood: never!"
She went straight to the hair-dressing and toilet establishment. Diva was just coming out of the shop carrying a small packet.
"Little titivations, dear?" asked Elizabeth, reading her own thoughts unerringly.
"Tooth-powder," said Diva without hesitation, and scooted across the road to where Susan was still leaning out of the window of her Royce and beckoning to her.
"I've seen her," she said (there was no need to ask who 'she' was). "And I recognised her at once from her picture in the Tatler. You'd never guess."
"No, I know I shouldn't," said Diva impatiently. "Who?"
"The great prima donna. Dear me, I've forgotten her name. But the one Lucia went to hear sing in London," said Susan. "Bracelet, wasn't it?"
"Bracely? Olga Bracely?" cried Diva. "Are you quite sure?"
"Positive. Quite lovely, and such hair."
That was enough, and Diva twinkled back across the road to intercept Elizabeth who was just coming out of the hair-dressing and toilet shop with a pink packet in her hand, which she instantly concealed below the parsnips.
"Such a screechy voice, didn't you say, Elizabeth?" she asked.
"Yes, frightful. It went right through me like a railway whistle. Why?"
"It's the prima donna, Olga Bracely. That's all," said Diva. "Voice must have gone. Sad for her. Glad to have told you who she is."
Very soon all Tilling knew who was the lovely maquillée woman with the pearls, who had stayed the night alone with Georgie at Mallards. Lucia had not been seen at all this morning, and it was taken for granted that she was still away on that snobbish expedition for which she had thrown over her Council meeting. Though Olga (so she said) was a dear friend, it would certainly be a surprise to her, when she returned to find her dear friend staying with her husband at her own house, when she had told Tilling that both Georgie and Olga were staying that night at Poppy's Castle. Or would Olga leave Tilling again before Lucia returned? Endless interpretations could be put on this absorbing incident, but Tilling was too dazzled with the prima donna herself, her pearls, her beauty, her reputation as the Queen of Song to sit in judgment on her.
What a dream of charm and loveliness she was with her delicately rouged cheeks and vermilion mouth, and that air of joyous and unrepentant paganism! For Evie her blood-red nails had a peculiar attraction, and she too went to the hair-dressing and toilet establishment, and met Susan just coming out.
Lucia meantime had spent a municipal morning in the garden-room without showing herself even for a moment at the window. Her departmental boxes were grouped round her, but she gave them very little attention. She was completely satisfied with the explanation of the strange adventures which had led to the staggering discovery of Olga and Georgie alone in her house the night before, and was wondering whether Tilling need ever know how very brief her visit to Poppy had been. It certainly was not her business to tell her friends that a cup of tea had been the only hospitality she had received. Then her photographs (if they came out) would be ready by to-morrow, and if she gave a party in the evening she would leave her scrap-book open on the piano. She would not call attention to it, but there it would be, furnishing unshakable ocular evidence of her visit . . .
After lunch, accordingly, she rang up all her more intimate circle, and, without definitely stating that she had this moment returned to Tilling from Sheffield Castle, let it be understood that such was the case. It had been such a lovely morning: she had enjoyed her drive so much: she had found a mass of arrears waiting for her, and she asked them all to dine next night at eight. She apologized for such short notice, but her dear friend Olga Bracely, who was here on a short visit, would be leaving the day after--a gala night at the opera--and it would give her such pleasure to meet them all. But, as she and Olga went up to dress next evening, she told Olga that dinner would be at eightish: say ten minutes past eight. There was a subtle reason for this, for the photographs of Sheffield Castle had arrived and she had pasted them into her scrap-book. Tilling would thus have time to admire and envy before Olga appeared: Lucia felt that her friends would not take much interest in them if she was there.
Never had any party in Tilling worn so brilliant and unexpected an appearance as that which assembled in the garden-room the following night. Evie and the Padre arrived first: Evie's finger nails looked as if she had pinched them all, except one, in the door, causing the blood to flow freely underneath each. She had forgotten about that one, and it looked frost-bitten. Elizabeth and Benjy came next: Elizabeth's cheeks were like the petals of wild roses, but she had not the nerve to incarnadine her mouth, which, by contrast, appeared to be afflicted with the cyanosis which precedes death. Diva, on the other hand, had been terrified at the aspect of blooming youth which rouge gave her, and she had wiped it off at the last moment, retaining the Cupid's bow of a vermilion mouth, and two thin arched eyebrows in charcoal. Susan, wearing the Order of the British Empire, had had her grey hair waved, and it resembled corrugated tin roofing: Mr. Wyse and Georgie wore their velvet suits. It took them all a few minutes to get used to each other, for they were like butterflies which had previously only known each other in the caterpillar or chrysalis stage, and they smiled and simpered like new acquaintances in the most polite circles, instead of old and censorious friends. Olga had not yet appeared, and so they had time to study Lucia's album of snap-shots which lay open on the piano, and she explained in a casual manner what the latest additions were.
"A corner of the Courtyard of Sheffield Castle," she said. "Not come out very well. The Norman tower. The dining hall. The Duchess's bedroom; wonderful Elizabethan bed. The picture gallery. She is standing looking out of the window with her Pekingese. Such a sweet. It jumped up on the window-seat just before I snapped. The Duchess at the tea-table--"
"What a big cake!" interrupted Diva professionally. "Sugared, too. So she does eat something besides dressed crab. Hope she didn't have much cake after her indigestion."
"But what a shabby court-yard," said Evie. "I should have thought a Duke would have liked his Castle to look tidier. Why doesn't he tell his gardener to weed it?"
Elizabeth felt she would burst unless she put in a venomous word.
"Dear Worship, when you write to thank her Grace for your pleasant visit, you must say, just in fun, of course, that you expect the court-yard to be tidied up before you come next."
Lucia was perfectly capable of dealing with such clumsy sarcasm.
"What a good idea!" she said. "You always think of the right thing, Elizabeth. Certainly I will. Remind me, Georgie."
So the photographs did their work. Tilling could not doubt that Lucia had been wrapped in the Norman embrace of Sheffield Castle, and determined silently and sternly never again to allude to the painful subject.
That suited Lucia admirably, for there were questions that might be asked about her visit which would involve regrettable admissions if she was to reply quite truthfully. Just as her friends were turning surfeited and sad from the album a step was heard outside and Olga appeared in the doorway. A white gown, high at the neck, reeking of Molyneux and simplicity. A scarlet girdle, and pearls as before.
"Dear Lucia," she cried, "I see I'm late. Forgive me."
"My own! I always forgive you as soon as I see you, only there is never anything to forgive," said Lucia effusively. "Now I needn't say who you are, but this is Mrs. Bartlett and our Padre, and here are Mr. and Mrs. Wyse, and this is Diva Plaistow, and here's my beloved Mayoress, Elizabeth Mapp-Flint and Major Mapp-Flint--"
Olga looked from Benjy to Elizabeth and back again.
"But surely I recognise them," she said. "That marvellous picture, which everybody raves about--"
"Yes, little me," said the beaming Elizabeth, "and my Benjy in the clouds. What an eye you've got, Miss Bracely!"
"And this is my husband," went on Lucia with airy humour, "who says he thinks he has met you before--"
"I believe we did meet somewhere, but ages ago, and he won't remember me," said Olga. "Oh, Georgie, I mustn't drink sherry, but as you've poured it out for me--"
"Dinner," said Grosvenor rather sternly.
In the hard overhead light of the dining-room, the ladies of Tilling, novices in maquillage, looked strangely spurious, but the consciousness in each of her rejuvenated appearance, combined with Olga's gay presence, made them feel exceptionally brilliant. All round the table conversation was bright and eager, and they all talked at her, striving to catch her attention. Benjy, sitting next her, began telling her one of his adventures with a tiger, but instantly Susan raised her voice and spoke of her tricycle. Her husband chipped in, and with an eye on Olga told Lucia that his sister the Contessa di Faraglione was a passionate student of the age of Lucrezia Borgia. Diva, longing to get Olga to come to ye olde tea-house, spoke loudly about her new recipe for sardine tartlets, but Lucia overrode so commercial a subject by the introduction of the Mayoral Motif coupled with slums. Olga herself chattered and laughed, the only person present who was not anxious to make a favourable impression. She lit a cigarette long before dinner was over, and though Elizabeth had once called that "a disgusting foreign habit" she lit one, too. Olga ate a cherry beginning with the end of the stalk and at once Benjy was trying to do the same, ejaculating, as it dropped into his finger bowl, "Not so easy, by Jove." There was no Bridge to-night, but by incessant harping on antique dances, Lucia managed to get herself asked to tread a minuet with Georgie. Olga accompanied them, and as she rose from the piano, she became aware that they were all looking at her with the expectant air of dogs that hope to be taken out for a walk.
"Yes, certainly if you want me to," she said.
She sat down at the piano again. And she sang.
To be continued
