77

 

 

 

 

 

 

TROUBLE FOR LUCIA

 

PART  12

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XII

 

 

 

For the whole of the next day no burgess of Tilling, except Mrs. Simpson and the domestic staff, set eyes on the Mayor. By a strong effort of will Lucia took up her market-basket after breakfast with the intention of shopping, but looking out from the window of her hall, she saw Elizabeth on the pavement opposite, sketching the front of the ancestral house of her aunt by marriage. She could not face Elizabeth yet, for that awful mental earthquake in the churchyard last night had shattered her nerve. The Mayor was a self-ordained prisoner in her own house, as Popes had been at the Vatican.

 

She put down her basket and went back into the garden-room. She must show Elizabeth though not by direct encounter, that she was happy and brilliant and busy. She went to her piano and began practising scales. Arpeggios and roulades of the most dazzling kind followed. Slightly exhausted by this fine display she crept behind the curtain and peered out. Elizabeth was still there, and, in order to continue the impression of strenuous artistic activity, Lucia put on a gramophone record of the Moonlight Sonata. At the conclusion of that she looked out again; Elizabeth had gone. It was something to have driven that baleful presence away from the immediate neighbourhood, but it had only taken its balefulness elsewhere. She remembered how Susanna had said with regard to the rejected portrait (which no longer seemed to matter an atom) "You can't get people to like what they don't like by telling them that they ought to"; and now a parallel aphorism suggested itself to Lucia's harassed brain.

 

"You can't get people to believe what they won't believe by telling them that it's true," she whispered to herself. "Yet Poppy did stay here: she did, she did! And it's too unfair that I should lose more prestige over that, when I ought to have recovered all that I had lost . . . What is it, Grosvenor?"

 

Grosvenor handed her a telegram.

 

"Mr. Georgie won't be back till Monday instead of Saturday," said Lucia in a toneless voice. "Anything else?"

 

"Shall Cook do the shopping, ma'am, if you're not going out? It's early closing."

 

"Yes. I shall be alone for lunch and dinner," said Lucia, wishing that it were possible for all human affairs to shut down with the shops.

 

She glanced at Georgie's telegram again, amazed at its light-heartedness. "Having such fun," it ran.

 

"Olga insists I stop till Monday. Know you won't mind. Devoted Georgie."

 

She longed for devoted Georgie, and fantastic ideas born of pure misery darted through her head. She thought of replying: "Come back at once and stand by me. Nobody believes that Poppy slept here." She thought of asking the B.B.C. to broadcast an S.O.S.: "Will George Pillson last heard of to-day at Le Touquet, return at once to Tilling where his wife the Mayor--" No, she could not say she was dangerously ill. That would alarm him; besides he would find on arrival that she was perfectly well. He might even come by air, and then the plane might crash and he would be burned to death. She realised that such thoughts were of the most morbid nature, and wondered if a glass of sherry would disperse them. But she resisted. "I won't risk becoming like Major Benjy," she said to herself, "and I've got to stick it alone till Monday."

 

The hours crept dismally by: she had lunch, tea and dinner by herself. One fragment of news reached her through Grosvenor and that was not encouraging. Her cook had boasted to Elizabeth's parlour-maid that she had cooked dinner for a Duchess, and the parlour-maid with an odd laugh, had advised her not to be so sure about that. Cook had returned in a state of high indignation, which possibly she had expressed by saturating Lucia's soup with pepper, and putting so much mustard into her devilled chicken that it might have been used as a plaster for the parlour-maid. Perhaps these fiery substances helped to kindle Lucia again materially, and all day psychical stimulants were at work: pride which refused to surrender, the extreme boredom of being alone, and the consciousness of rectitude. So next morning, after making sure that Elizabeth was not lurking about, Lucia set forth with her market-basket. Irene was just coming out of her house, and met her with a grave and sympathetic face.

 

"Darling, I am so sorry about it," she said.

 

Lucia naturally supposed that she was referring to the rejection of the portrait.

 

"Don't give it another thought," she said. "It will be such a joy to have it at Mallards. They're all Goths and Vandals and Elizabeths."

 

"Oh that!" said Irene. "Who cares? Just wait till I've touched up Elizabeth and Benjy for the Carlton Gallery. No, about this septic Duchess. Why did you do it? So unwise!"

 

Lucia wondered if some fresh horror had ripened, and her mouth went dry.

 

"Why did I do what?" she asked.

 

"Say that she'd been to stay with you, when she didn't even know you by sight. So futile!"

 

"But she did stay with me!" cried Lucia.

 

"No, no," said Irene soothingly. "Don't go on saying it. It wounds me. Naturally, you were vexed at her not recognising you. You had seen her before somewhere, hadn't you?"

 

"But this is preposterous!" cried Lucia. "You must believe me. We had dressed crab for dinner. She went to bed early. She slept in the spare room. She snored. We breakfasted at half-past-seven--"

 

"Darling, we won't talk about it any more," said Irene. "Whenever you want me, I'll come to you. Just send for me."

 

"I shall want you," said Lucia with awful finality, "when you beg my pardon for not believing me."

 

Irene uttered a dismal cry, and went back into her house. Lucia with a face of stone went on to the High Street. As she was leaving the grocer's her basket bumped against Diva's, who was entering.

 

"Sorry," said Diva. "Rather in a hurry. My fault."

 

It was as if an iceberg, straight from the North Pole, had apologized. Mr. Wyse was just stepping on to the pavement, and he stood hatless as she hailed him.

 

"Lovely weather, isn't it?" she said. "Georgie writes to me that they're having the same at Le Touquet. We must have some more Bridge parties when he gets back."

 

"You enjoy your Bridge so much, and play it so beautifully," said Mr. Wyse with a bow. "And, believe me, I shall never forget your kindness over Susan's budgerigar."

 

In Lucia's agitated state, this sounded dreadfully like an assurance that, in spite of all, she hadn't lost his friendship. Then with an accession of courage, she determined to stick to her guns.

 

"The Duchess's visit to me was at such short notice," she said, "that there was literally not time to get a few friends together. She would so much have liked to see you and Susan."

 

"Very good of you to say so. I--I heard that she had spent the night under your hospitable roof. Ah! I see Susan beckoning to me."

 

Lucia's shopping had not raised her spirits, and when she went up the street again towards Mallards, there was Elizabeth on the pavement opposite, at her easel. But now the sight of her braced Lucia. It flashed through her mind that her dear Mayoress had selected this subject for her sketch in order to keep an eye on her, to observe, as through a malicious microscope, her joyless exits and entrances and report to her friends how sad and wan she looked: otherwise Elizabeth would never have attempted anything which required the power to draw straight lines and some knowledge, however elementary, of perspective. All the more reason, then, that Lucia should be at her very best and brightest and politest and most withering.

 

Elizabeth out of the corner of her eye saw her approaching and kissed the top end of her paint-brush to her.

 

"Good morning, dear Worship," she said. "Been shopping and chatting with all your friends? Any news?"

 

"Good morning, sindaca mia," she said. "That means Mayoress, dear. Oh, what a promising sketch! But have you quite got the mellow tone of the bricks in my garden-room? I should suggest just a touch of brown-madder."

 

Elizabeth's paint-brush began to tremble.

 

"Thank you, dear," she said. "Brown-madder. I must remember that."

 

"Or a little rose-madder mixed with burnt sienna would do as well," continued Lucia. "Just stippled on. You will find that will give the glowing effect you want."

 

Elizabeth wondered whether Lucia could have realised that nobody in Tilling believed that Poppy had ever stayed with her and yet remain so complacent and superior. She hoped to find an opportunity of introducing that topic. But she could find something to say on the subject of Art first.

 

"So lovely for quaint Irene to have had this great success with her picture of me," she said. "The Carlton Gallery, she tells me, and then perhaps an American purchaser. Such a pity that masterpieces have to leave the country. Luckily her picture of you is likely to remain here."

 

"That was a terrible set-back for Irene," said Lucia, as glibly as if she had learned this dialogue by heart, "when your Committee induced the Council to reject it."

 

"Impossible to take any other view," said Elizabeth. "A daub. We couldn't have it in our beautiful Town Hall. And it didn't do you justice, dear."

 

"How interesting that you should say that!" said Lucia. "Dear Irene felt just that about her picture of you. She felt she had not put enough character into your face. She means to make some little alterations in it before she sends it to the Carlton Galleries."

 

That was alarming: Elizabeth remembered the "little alterations" Irene had made before. But she did not allow that to unnerve her.

 

"Sometimes I am afraid she will never rise to the level of her Venus again," she sighed. "Her high-water mark. Her picture of you, for instance. It might have been out of Mr. Wyse's pieces of still life: bicycle, piano, packs of cards."

 

"Some day when I can find time, I will explain to you the principles of symbolism," Lucia promised.

 

Elizabeth saw her way to the desired topic.

 

"Thank you, dear," she said fervently. "That would be a treat. But I know how busy you are with all your duties and all your entertaining. Have you had any more visitors to dine and sleep and go away very early next morning before they had seen anything of our lovely Tilling?"

 

The blow was wholly unexpected and it shook Lucia. She pulled herself together.

 

"Let me think," she said. "Such a succession of people dropping in. No! I think the dear Duchess was my last guest."

 

"What a lovely evening you must have had," said Elizabeth. "Two old friends together. How I love a tête-à-tête, just like what we're having now with nobody to interrupt. Roaming over all sorts of subjects, like bees sipping at flowers. How much you always teach me, Worship. Rose-madder and burnt sienna to give luminousness--"

 

Lucia clutched at the return of this topic, and surveyed Elizabeth's sketch.

 

"So glad to have given you that little tip," she said. "Immense improvement, isn't it? How the bricks glow now--"

 

"I haven't put any madder on yet, brown or rose," cooed Elizabeth, "but so glad to know about it. And is poor Duchess's memory really as bad as it seemed? How dreadful for you if she had forgotten her own name as well as yours."

 

Quite suddenly Lucia knew that she had no more force left in her. She could only just manage a merry laugh.

 

"What a delicious social crisis that would be!" she said. "You ought to send it to some comic paper. And what a pleasant talk we have had! I could stay here all morning chatting, but alas, I have a hundred arrears to get through. Addio, cara sindaca."

 

She walked without hurrying up the steps to her door and tottered out into the garden-room. Presently she crept to the observation post behind the curtain and looked out. Benjy had joined the Mayoress, and something she said caused him to laugh very heartily . . . And even devoted Irene did not believe that Poppy had ever stayed here.

 

Next day was Sunday. As Lucia listened to the joyful peal of the bells she wondered whether, without Georgie, she could meet the fresh ordeal that awaited her, when after the service Tilling society assembled outside the south porch of the church for the Sunday morning chat which took the place of the week-day shopping. To shirk that would be a tacit confession that she could not face her friends: she might just as well, from the social point of view, not go to church at all. But though the débâcle appeared so complete, she knew that her essential spirit was unbroken: it would be "given her," she felt, to make that manifest in some convincing manner.

 

She sang very loud in the hymns and psalms, she winced when the organist had a slight misunderstanding with the choir, she let ecclesiastical smiles play over her face when she found herself in sympathy with the doctrine of the curate's sermon, she gave liberally to the offertory. When the service was over she waited outside the south porch. Elizabeth followed close behind, and behind Elizabeth were other familiar faces. Lucia felt irresistibly reminded of the hymn she had just been singing about the hosts of Midian who 'prowled and prowled around'. . . . So much the worse for the hosts of Midian.

 

"Good morning, dear," said Elizabeth. "No Mr. Georgie in church? Not ill I hope?"

 

"No, particularly well," said Lucia, "and enjoying himself so much at Le Touquet that he's staying till Monday."

 

"Sweet of you to allow him," responded Elizabeth, "for you must be so lonely without him."

 

At that precise moment there took possession of Lucia an emotion to which hitherto she had been a stranger, namely sheer red rage. In all the numerous crises of her career her brain had always been occupied with getting what she wanted and with calm triumph when she got it, or with devising plans to extricate herself from tight places and with scaring off those who had laid traps for her. Now all such insipidities were swept away; rage at the injustice done her thrilled every fibre of her being, and she found the sensation delicious. She began rather gently.

 

"Lonely?" she asked. "I don't know the word. How could I be lonely with my books and my music and my work, above all with so many loving loyal friends like yourself, dear Elizabeth, so close about me?"

 

"That's the stuff to give her. That made her wince," she thought, and opening the furnace doors she turned to the group of loving loyal friends, who had emerged from church, and were close about her.

 

"I'm still the deserted wife, you see," she said gaily. "My Georgie can't tear himself away from the sirens at Le Touquet, Olga and Poppy and the rest. Oh, Mr. Wyse, what a cold you've got! You must take care of yourself: your sister the Contessa Amelia di Faraglione would never have allowed you to come out! Dear Susan! No Royce? Have you actually walked all the way from Porpoise Street? You mustn't overdo it! Diva, how is Paddy? He's not been sick again, I hope, after eating one of your delicious sardine tartlets. Yes, Georgie's not back yet. I am thinking of going by aeroplane to Le Touquet this afternoon, just to dine and sleep--like Poppy--and return with him tomorrow. And Susanna! I hear you've been so busy with your new story about Tilling. I do hope you will get someone to publish it when it's finished. Dear Diva, what a silly mistake I've made: of course it was the recipe for cream-wafers which Susanna's chef gave you which made Paddy so unwell. Irene? You in church? Was it not a lovely sermon, all about thinking evil of your friends? Good morning, Major Benjy. You must get poor Mr. Wyse to try your favourite cure for colds. A tumbler of whisky, isn't it, every two hours with a little boiling water according to taste. Au revoir, dear ones. See you all to-morrow I hope."

 

She smiled and kissed her hand, and walked off without turning her head, a little out of breath with this shattering eloquence, but rejoicing and rejuvenated.

 

"That was a pleasure," she said to herself, "and to think that I was ever terrified of meeting them! What a coward! I don't think I left anybody out: I insulted each one in the presence of all the rest. That's what they get for not believing that Poppy stayed here, and for thinking that I was down and out. I've given them something else to think about. I've paid them back, thank God, and now we'll see what will happen next."

 

 

 

Lucia, of course, had no intention of flying to Le Touquet, but she drove to Seaport next morning to meet Georgie. He was wearing a new French yachting costume with a double-breasted jacket and brass buttons.

 

"My dear, how delightful of you to come and meet me!" he said. "Quite a smooth crossing. Do you like my clothes?"

 

"Too smart for anything, Georgie, and I am so glad to see you again. Such a lot to tell you which I couldn't write."

 

"Elizabeth been behaving well?" he asked.

 

"Fiendishly. A real crisis, Georgie, and you've come into the middle of it. I'll tell you all about it as we go."

 

Lucia gave an unbiassed and lucid sketch of what had happened, peppered by indignant and excited comments from him:

 

"Poppy's imbecile--yes I call her Poppy to her face, she asked me to--Fancy her forgetting you: just the sort of thing for that foul Mapp to make capital of--And so like her to get the Council to reject the picture of you--My dear, you cried? What a shame, and how very unlike you--And they don't believe Poppy stayed with you? Why of course she did! She talked about it--Even Irene?--How utterly poisonous of them all!--Hurrah, I'm glad you gave it them hot after church. Capital! We'll do something stunning, now that we can put our heads together about it. I must hear it all over again bit by bit. And here we are in the High Street. There's Mapp, grinning like a Cheshire cat. We'll cut her anyhow, just to make a beginning: we can't go wrong over that."

 

Georgie paused a moment.

 

"And, do you know, I'm very glad to be back," he said. "Olga was perfectly sweet, as she always is, but there were other things. It would have been far better if I'd come home on Saturday."

 

"Georgie, how thrilling!" cried Lucia, forgetting her own crisis for a brief second. "What is it?"

 

"I'll tell you afterwards. Hullo, Grosvenor, how are you? Yes, I think I'll have a warm bath after my journey and then rest till tea-time."

 

They had tea in his sitting-room after he had rested, where he was arranging his bibelots, for Grosvenor had not put them back, after dusting them, exactly as he wished. This done, he took up his needle-work and his narration.

 

"It's been rather upsetting," he said. "Poppy was terribly ill on her crossing, and I didn't see her till next day, after I had settled to stop at Olga's over the Sunday, as I telegraphed. And then she was very queer. She took hold of my hand under the table at dinner, and trod on my foot and smiled at me most oddly. She wouldn't play Bridge, but came and sat close up against me. One thing after another--"

 

"Georgie, what a horrid woman," said Lucia. "How could she dare? Did she try--"

 

"No," said Georgie hastily. "Nothing important. Olga assured me she didn't mean anything of the sort, but that she always behaved like that to people with beards. Olga wasn't very sympathetic about it: in fact she came to my room one night, and simply went into fits of laughter."

 

"Your bedroom, Georgie?" asked Lucia.

 

"Yes. She often did when we went upstairs and talked for a bit. But Poppy was very embarrassing. I'm not good at that sort of thing. And yesterday, she made me go for a walk with her along the beach, and wanted to paddle with me. But I was quite firm about that. I said I should go inland at once if she went on about it."

 

"Quite right, dear. Just what I should have done myself," said Lucia appreciatively.

 

"And so those last two days weren't so pleasant. I was uncomfortable. I wished I'd come back on Saturday."

 

"Very tiresome for you, dear," said Lucia. "But it's all over now."

 

"That's just what I'm not so sure about," said he. "She's leaving Olga's to-morrow, and she's going to telegraph to you, asking if you would let her stay here for a couple of nights. Apparently you begged her to propose herself. You must really say your house is full or that you're away. Though Olga says she means no harm, it's most disagreeable."

 

Lucia sprang from her chair.

 

"Georgie, how absolutely providential!" she cried. "If only she came, it would kill that despicable scandal that she hadn't stayed here before. They would be forced to believe that she had. Oh! What a score!"

 

"Well, I couldn't stop here if she came," said Georgie firmly. "It got on my nerves. It made me feel very jumpy."

 

"But then she mightn't stop if she found you weren't here," pleaded Lucia. "Besides, as Olga says, she doesn't mean anything, I shall be with you; surely that will be sufficient protection, and I won't leave you alone with her a minute all day. And if you're nervous, you may sleep in my room. Just while she's here, of course."

 

"Oh, I don't think either of us would like that," said Georgie, "and Foljambe would think it so odd."

 

"Well, you could lock your door. Oh, Georgie, it isn't really much to ask, and it will put me on a higher pinnacle than ever, far, far above their base insinuations. They will eat their hearts out with shame."

 

Grosvenor entered.

 

"A telegram for you, ma'am. Prepaid."

 

With trembling hands Lucia tore it open, and, for Grosvenor's benefit, assumed her drawling voice.

 

"From the Duchess, dear," she said. "She wants to come here to-morrow for two nights, on her way back from Le Touquet. I suppose I had better say yes, as I did ask her to propose herself."

 

"Oh, very well," said Georgie.

 

Lucia scribbled a cordial reply, and Grosvenor took it away with the tea-tray.

 

"Georgino, you're an angel," said she. "My dear, all the time that I was so wretched here, I knew it would all come right as soon as you got back, and see what has happened! Now let us make our plans at once. I think we'll ask nobody the first night she is here--"

 

"Nor the second either I should hope," said Georgie, "Give them a good lesson. Besides, after the way you talked to them yesterday after church, they probably wouldn't come. That would be a knock."

 

Lucia regarded an angle of the ceiling with that far away abstracted expression with which she listened to music.

 

"About their coming, dear," she said, "I will wager my knowledge of human nature that they will without exception. As to my asking them, you know how I trust your judgment, but here I'm not sure that I agree. Don't you think that to forgive them all, and to behave as if nothing had happened, would be the most devastating thing I could do? There's nothing that stings so much as contemptuous oblivion. I have often found that."

 

"You don't mean to say that you'll ask Elizabeth Mapp-Flint to dine?" asked Georgie.

 

"I think so, Georgie, poor soul. If I don't she will feel that she has hurt me, that I want to pay her out. I shouldn't like her to feel that. I don't want to leave her a leg to stand on. Up till now I have never desired quite to crush her, but I feel I have been too lenient. If she is to become a better woman, I must give her a sharper lesson than merely ignoring her. I may remind her by some little impromptu touch of what she tried to do to me, but I shall trust to the inspiration of the moment about that."

 

Georgie came round to Lucia's view of the value of vindictive forgiveness, while for himself he liked the idea of calling a Duchess by her Christian name before Mapp and Co. He would not even mind her holding his hand if there were plenty of people there.

 

"It ought to be a wonderful party," he said. "Even better than the party you gave for Olga. I'm beginning to look forward to it. Shall I help you with writing the invitations?"

 

"Not necessary, dear, thank you," said Lucia. "I shall ask them all quite casually by telephone on the afternoon of our dinner. Leave it to me."

 

 

 

Poppy arrived next evening, again prostrated by seasickness and far from amorous. But a good night restored her, and the three took a morning stroll in the High Street, so that everybody saw them. Lucia, absolutely certain that there would be a large dinner-party at Mallards that night, ordered appropriate provisions. In the afternoon they went for a motor-drive: just before starting Lucia directed Foljambe to ring up the whole circle of friends, asking them to excuse such short notice and take pot-luck with her, and not a word was Foljambe to say about Duchesses. They knew.

 

While the ducal party traversed the country roads, the telephone bells of Tilling were ringing merrily. For the Wyses were engaged to dine and play Bridge with the Mapp-Flints, and Susan, feeling certain that she would not meet the Mapp-Flints anyhow at Mallards, rang up Elizabeth to say that she was not feeling at all well and regretted not being able to come. Algernon, she said, did not like to leave her. To her surprise Elizabeth was all cordiality: dear Susan must not think of going out, it was no inconvenience at all, and they would arrange another night. So, with sighs of relief, they both rang up Mallards, and found that the line was engaged, for Susan Leg, having explained to Diva that she had made a stupid mistake, and had meant to ask her for tomorrow not for to-night, was telling Foljambe that she would be charmed to come. Diva got the line next, and fussing with this delay, Elizabeth sent Benjy round to Mallards to say how pleased. Then to make certain, they all wrote formal notes of acceptance. As for Irene, she was so overcome with remorse at having ever doubted Lucia's word, and so overwhelmed by her nobility in forgiving her, that she burst into tears, and forgot to answer at all.

 

Poppy was very late for dinner, and all Lucia's guests had arrived before she appeared. They were full of a timid yet eager cordiality, as if scarcely believing that such magnanimity was possible, and their hostess was graciousness itself. She was particularly kind to Elizabeth and made enquiries about her sketch. Then as Poppy still lingered she said to Georgie: "Run up to Poppy's room, dear, and tell her she must be quick." She had hardly got that pleasant sentence out when Poppy entered.

 

"Naughty!" said Lucia, and took her arm to introduce the company. "Mr. and Mrs. Wyse, Miss Leg (Rudolph da Vinci, you know, dear), Miss Irene Coles--the picture of the year--and Mrs. Plaistow: didn't you have one of her delicious teas when you were here? And my Mayoress, Mrs. Mapp-Flint, I don't think you met her when you stayed with me last week. And Major Mapp-Flint. Now everybody knows everybody. Sherry, dear Poppy?"

 

Georgie kept his hands on the table during dinner, and Poppy intermittently caressed the one nearest her in a casual manner; with so many witnesses and in so bright a light, Georgie liked it rather than otherwise. Her attempt to stroll with him alone in the garden afterwards was frustrated, for Lucia, as bound by her promise, instantly joined them, and brought them back to the garden-room. She was induced to play to them, and Poppy, sitting close to Georgie on the sofa, fell into a refreshing slumber. At the cessation of the music, she woke with a start and asked what the time was. A most distinguished suavity prevailed, and though the party lacked the gaiety and lightness of the Olga-festival, its quality was far more monumental. Then the guests dispersed; Lucia had a kind word for each and she thanked them all for having excused her giving them such short notice.

 

Elizabeth walked home in silence with Benjy. Her exaltation evaporated in the night-air like the fumes of wine, leaving behind an irritated depression.

 

"Well, there's no help for it," she said bitterly, as he fumbled with the latch-key of the Vicarage. "But I daresay before long--Do be quick."

 

 

 

Half an hour later at Mallards, Lucia, having seen Poppy well on the way to bed, tapped discreetly at Georgie's door. That gave him a terrible fright, till he remembered he had locked it.

 

"No, you can't come in," he said. "Good night, Poppy. Sleep well."

 

"It's me, Georgie," said Lucia in a low voice. "Open the door: only a chink. She isn't here."

 

Georgie unlocked it.

 

"Perfect!" she whispered. "Such a treat for them all! They will remember this evening. Perfect."

 

 

 

End

 

 

 

Return to Good in Parts Contents Page

76

 

 

 

 

 

 

TROUBLE FOR LUCIA

 

PART  11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XI

 

 

 

Georgie continued to be tactless about Olga's manifold perfections, and though his chaste passion for her did not cause Lucia the smallest anxiety (she knew Georgie too well for that) she wondered what Tilling would make of his coming visit to Le Touquet without her. Her native effrontery had lived the Poppy-crisis down, but her rescue of Susan Leg, like some mature Andromeda, from the clutches of her Mayoress, had raised the deepest animosity of the Mapp-Flints, and she was well aware that Elizabeth would embrace every opportunity to be nasty. She was therefore prepared for trouble, but, luckily for her peace of mind, she had no notion what a tempest of tribulation was gathering . . . Georgie and Foljambe left by a very early train for Seaport so that he might secure a good position amidships on the boat, for the motion was felt less there, before the continental express from London arrived, and each of them had a tube of cachets preventive of sea-sickness.

 

Elizabeth popped into Diva's for a chat that morning.

 

"They've gone," she said. "I've just met Worship. She was looking very much worried, poor thing, and I'm sure I don't wonder."

 

Diva had left off her eyebrows. They took too long, and she was tired of always looking surprised when, as on this occasion, she was not surprised.

 

"I suppose you mean about Mr. Georgie going off alone," she said.

 

"Among other worries. Benjy and I both grieve for her. Mr. Georgie's infatuation is evidently increasing. First of all there was that night here--"

 

"No: Lucia came back," said Diva.

 

"Never quite cleared up, I think. And then he's been staying at Riseholme without her, unless you're going to tell me that Worship went over every evening and returned at cock-crow for her duties here."

 

"Olga asked them both, anyhow," said Diva.

 

"So we've been told, but did she? And this time Lucia's certainly not been asked. It's mounting up, and it must be terrible for her. All that we feared at first is coming true, as I knew it would. And I don't believe for a moment that he'll come back at the end of a week."

 

"That would be humiliating," said Diva.

 

"Far be it from me to insinuate that there's anything wrong," continued Elizabeth emphatically, "but if I was Lucia I shouldn't like it, any more than I should like it if you and Benjy went for a week and perhaps more to Le Touquet."

 

"And I shouldn't like it either," said Diva. "But I'm sorry for Lucia, too."

 

"I daresay she'll need our sympathy before long," said Elizabeth darkly. "And how truly grateful I am to her for taking that Leg woman off my hands. Such an incubus. How she managed it I don't enquire. She may have poisoned Leg's mind about me, but I should prefer to be poisoned than see much more of her."

 

"Now you're getting mixed, Elizabeth," protested Diva. "It was Leg's mind you suggested was poisoned, not you."

 

"That's a quibble, dear," said Elizabeth decidedly. "You'll hardly deny that Benjy and I were most civil to the woman. I even asked Lucia and Irene to meet her, which was going a long way considering Lucia's conduct about the Corporation plate and the Mayor's book. But I couldn't have stood Leg much longer, and I should have had to drop her . . . I must be off; so busy to-day, like Worship. A Council meeting this afternoon."

 

 

 

Lucia always enjoyed her Council meetings. She liked presiding, she liked being suave and gracious and deeply conscious of her own directing will. As she took her seat to-day, she glanced at the wall behind her, where before long Irene's portrait of her would be hanging. Minutes of the previous meeting were read, reports from various committees were received, discussed and adopted. The last of these was that of the Committee which had been appointed to make its recommendation to the Council about her portrait. She had thought over a well-turned sentence or two: she would say what a privilege it was to make this work of genius the permanent possession of the Borough. Miss Coles, she need hardly remind the Council was a Tillingite of whom they were all proud, and the painter also of the Picture of the Year, in which there figured two of Tilling's most prominent citizens, one being a highly honoured member of the Council. ("And then I shall bow to Elizabeth," thought Lucia, "she will appreciate that.")

 

She looked at the agenda.

 

"And now we come to our last business, ladies and gentlemen," she said. "To receive the report of the Committee on the Mayor's offer of a portrait of herself to the Council, to be hung in the Town Hall."

 

Elizabeth rose.

 

"As Chairman of this Committee," she said, "it is my duty to say that we came to the unanimous conclusion that we cannot recommend the Council to accept the Mayor's most generous gift."

 

The gracious sovereignty of Lucia's demeanour did not suffer the smallest diminution.

 

"Those in favour of accepting the findings of the Committee?" she asked. "Unanimous, I think."

 

 

 

Never, in all Lucia's triumphant career, had she suffered so serious a reverse, nor one out of which it seemed more impossible to reap some incidental advantage. She had been dismissed from Sheffield Castle at the shortest notice, but she had got a harvest of photographs. Out of her inability to find the brake on her bicycle, thus madly scorching through a crowded street, she had built herself a monument for dash and high athletic prowess. She always discovered silver linings to the blackest of clouds, but now, scrutinize them as she might, she could detect in them none but the most sombre hues. Her imagination had worked out a dazzling future for this portrait. It would hang on the wall behind her; the Corporation, at her request, would lend it (heavily insured) to the Royal Academy exhibition next May, where it would be universally acclaimed as a masterpiece far outshining the Venus of the year before. It would be lithographed or mezzotinted, and she would sign the first fifty pulls. Visitors would flock to the Town Hall to see it; they would recognise her as she flashed by them on her bicycle or sat sketching at some picturesque corner; admiring the mellow front of Mallards, the ancestral home of the Mayor, they would be thrilled to know that the pianist, whose exquisite strains floated out of the open window of the garden-room, was the woman whose portrait they just seen above her official chair. Such thoughts as these were not rigidly defined but floated like cloud-castles in the sky, forming and shifting and always elegant.

 

Now of those fairy edifices there was nothing left. The Venus was to be exhibited at the Carlton Gallery and then perhaps to form a gem in the collection of some American millionaire, and Elizabeth would go out into all lands and Benjy to the ends of the earth, while her own rejected portrait would be returned to Mallards, with the best thanks of the Committee, like Georgie's sunny morning on the marsh, and Susan's budgerigar, and Diva's sardine tartlet. (And where on earth should she hang this perpetual reminder of defeated dreams?) . . . Another aspect of this collapse struck her. She had always thought of herself as the beneficent director of municipal action, but now the rest of her Council had expressed unanimous agreement with the report of a small malignant Committee, instead of indignantly rallying round her and expressing their contempt of such base ingratitude. This was a snub to which she saw no possible rejoinder except immediate resignation of her office, but that would imply that she felt the snub, which was not to be thought of. Besides, if her resignation was accepted, there would be nothing left at all.

 

 

 

Her pensive steps, after the Council meeting was over, had brought her to the garden-room, and the bright japanned faces of tin-boxes labelled "Museum", "Fire Brigade" or "Burial Board" gave her no comfort: their empty expressions seemed to mock her. Had Georgie been here, she could have confided the tragedy to him without loss of dignity. He would have been sympathetic in the right sort of way: he would have said "My dear, how tar'some! That foul Elizabeth: of course she was at the bottom of it. Let's think of some plan to serve her out." But without that encouragement she was too flattened out to think of Elizabeth at all. The only thing she could do was to maintain, once more, her habitual air of prosperous self-sufficiency. She shuddered at the thought of Tilling being sorry for her, because, communing with herself, she seemed to sense below this superficial pity, some secret satisfaction that she had had a knock. Irene, no doubt, would be wholly sincere, but though her prestige as an artist had suffered indignity, what difference would it make to her that the Town Council of Tilling had rejected her picture, when the Carlton Gallery in London had craved the loan of her Venus, and an American millionaire was nibbling for its purchase? Irene would treat it as a huge joke; perhaps she would design a Christmas card showing Mapp, as a nude, mature, female Cupid, transfixing Benjy's heart with a riding-whip. For a moment, as this pleasing fantasy tickled Lucia's brain, she smiled wanly. But the smile faded again: not the grossest insult to Elizabeth would mend matters. A head held high and a total unconsciousness that anything disagreeable had happened was the only course worthy of the Mayor.

 

The Council meeting had been short, for no reports from Committees (especially the last) had raised controversy, and Lucia stepped briskly down the hill to have tea in public at Diva's, and exhibit herself as being in cheerful or even exuberant spirits. Just opposite the door was drawn up a monstrous motor, behind which was strapped a dress-basket and other substantial luggage with the initials P.S. on them. "A big postscript," thought Lucia, lightening her heavy heart with humorous fancies, and she skirted round behind this ponderous conveyance, and so on to the pavement. Two women were just stepping out of ye olde tea-shop: one was Elizabeth dripping with unctuous smiles, and the other was Poppy Sheffield.

 

"And here's sweet Worship herself," said Elizabeth. "Just in time to see you. How fortunate!"

 

Some deadly misgiving stirred in Lucia's heart as Poppy turned on her a look of blank unrecognition. But she managed to emit a thin cry of welcome.

 

"Dear Duchess!" she said. "How naughty of you to come to my little Tilling without letting me know. It was au revoir when we parted last."

 

Poppy still seemed puzzled, and then (unfortunately, perhaps) she began to remember.

 

"Why, of course!" she said. "You came to see me at the Castle, owing to some stupid misunderstanding. My abominable memory. Do tell me your name.''

 

"Lucia Pillson," said the wretched woman. "Mayor of Tilling."

 

"Yes, how it all comes back," said Poppy, warmly shaking hands. "That was it. I thought your husband was the Mayor of Tilling, and I was expecting him. Quite. So stupid of me. And then tea and photographs, wasn't it? I trust they came out well."

 

"Beautifully. Do come up to my house--only a step--and I'll show you them."

 

"Alas! not a moment to spare. I've spent such a long time chatting to all your friends. Somebody--somebody called Leg, I think--introduced them to me. She said she had been to my house in London which I daresay was quite true. One never can tell. But I'm catching, at least I hope so, the evening boat at Seaport on my way to stay with Olga Bracely at Le Touquet. Such a pleasure to have met you again."

 

Lucia presented a brave front.

 

"Then do come and dine and sleep here to break your journey on your return," she said. "I shall expect you to propose yourself at any time, like all my friends. Just a wire or a telephone call. Georgie and I are sure to be here. Impossible for me to get away in these crowded months--"

 

"That would be nice," said Poppy. "Good-bye: Mrs. Pillson, isn't it? Quite. Charmed, I'm sure: so pleasant. Drive straight on to the quay at Seaport," she called to her chauffeur.

 

Lucia kissed her hand after the car.

 

"How lucky just to have caught her for a moment," she drawled to Elizabeth, as they went back into ye olde tea-house. "Naughty of her not to have let me know. How dreadfully bad her memory is becoming."

 

"Shocking," said Elizabeth. "You should persuade her to see somebody about it."

 

Lucia turned on the full horse-power of her courage for the coming encounter in ye olde tea-house. The moment she saw the faces of her friends assembled there, Evie and Leg and Diva, she knew she would need it all.

 

"You've just missed an old friend, Lucia," said Susanna. (Was there in her words a touch of the irony for which Rudolph da Vinci was celebrated?)

 

"Too unfortunate, dear Susanna," said Lucia. "But I just got a word with her. Off to stay at Le Touquet, she said. Ah! I never told her she would find Georgie there. My memory is getting as bad as hers. Diva, may I have a one and sixpenny?"

 

Diva usually went down to the kitchen to see to the serving of a one and sixpenny, but she only called the order down the stairs to Janet. And her face lacked its usual cordiality.

 

"You've missed such a nice chat," she said.

 

There was a silence pregnant with trouble. It was impossible, thought Lucia, that her name should not have figured in the nice chat, or that Poppy should not have exhibited that distressing ignorance about her which had been so evident outside. In any case Elizabeth would soon promulgate the news with the addition of that hideous detail, as yet undiscovered, that she had been asked to Sheffield Castle only because Poppy thought that Georgie was Mayor of Tilling. Brave cheerfulness was the only possible demeanour.

 

"Too unfortunate," she repeated, "and I could have been here half an hour ago, for we had quite a short Council meeting. Nothing controversial: all went so smoothly--"

 

The memory of that uncontroversial rejection of her portrait brought her up short. Then the sight of Elizabeth's wistful, softly smiling face lashed her forward again.

 

"How you will laugh, Susanna," she said brightly, "when I tell you that the Council unanimously refused to accept my gift of the portrait Irene painted of me which you admired so much. A small Committee advised them against it. And ecco!''

 

Susanna's laugh lacked the quality of scorn and contempt for the Council, for which Lucia had hoped. It sounded amused.

 

"Well, that was a pity," she said. "They just didn't like it. But you can't get people to like what they don't like by telling them that they ought to."

 

The base desertion was a shock. Lucia looked without favour at the sumptuous one and sixpenny Janet had brought her, but her voice remained calm.

 

"I think I was wrong to have offered it them at all," she said. "I ought to have known that they could not understand it. What fun Irene and I will have over it when I tell her. I can hear her scream 'Philistines! Vandals!' and burst into shrieks of laughter. And what a joy to have it back at Mallards again!"

 

Elizabeth continued to smile.

 

"No place like home is there, dear?" she said. "Where will you hang it?"

 

Lucia gave up the idea of eating her sardine-tartlet. She had intended to stay on, until Susanna and Elizabeth left, and find out from Diva what had been said about her before she came in. She tried a few light topics of general interest, evoking only short replies of paralyzing politeness. This atmosphere of veiled hostility was undermining her. She knew that if she went away first, Elizabeth would pour out all that Poppy had let slip on the doorstep, but perhaps the sooner that was known the better. After drinking her tea and scalding her mouth she rose.

 

"I must be off," she said. "See you again very soon, Susanna. One and sixpence, Diva? Such a lovely tea."

 

Elizabeth continued smiling till the door closed.

 

"Such odd things happened outside," she said. Her Poppy didn't recognise her. She asked her who she was. And Worship wasn't invited to Sheffield Castle at all. Poppy thought that Mr. Georgie was the Mayor, and the invitation was for him. That was why Worship came back so soon."

 

"Gracious, what a crash!" said Diva.

 

"It always comes in time," said Elizabeth thoughtfully. "Poor thing, we must be very gentle with her, but what a lot of things we must avoid talking about!"

 

She enumerated them on her plump fingers.

 

"Duchesses, Castles, photographs--I wonder if they were picture postcards--prima-donnas, for I'm sure she'd have gone to Le Touquet, if she had been asked--portraits--it was my duty to recommend the Council not to accept that daub--gad-about husbands--I havn't got enough fingers. Such a lot of subjects that would tear old wounds open, and she's brought it all on herself, which makes it so much more bitter for her."

 

Diva, who hated waste (and nothing would keep in this hot weather) ate Lucia's sardine-tartlet.

 

"Don't gloat, Elizabeth!" she commanded. "You may say sympathetic things, but there's a nasty tone in the way you say them. I'm really rather sorry for her.''

 

"Which is just what I have been trying to express," retorted Elizabeth.

 

"Then you haven't expressed it well. Not that impression at all. Goodness, here's a fresh party coming in. Janet!"

 

Lucia passed by the fishmonger's, and some stir of subconscious cerebration prompted her to order a dressed crab that she saw in the window. Then she went home and out into the garden-room. This second blow falling so fast on the heels of the first, caused her to reel. To all the dismal reflections occasioned by the rejection of her portrait there were added those appropriate to the second, and the composite mental picture presented by the two was appalling. Surely some malignant Power, specially dedicated to the service of her discomfiture, must have ordained the mishaps (and their accurate timing) of this staggering afternoon: the malignant Power was a master of stage-craft. Who could stand up against a relentless tragedian? Lucia could not, and two tears of self-pity rolled down her cheeks. She was much surprised to feel their tickling progress, for she had always thought herself incapable of such weakness, but there they were. The larger one fell on to her blotting-pad, and she dashed the smaller aside.

 

She pulled herself together. Whatever humiliations were heaped on her, her resolve to continue sprightly and dominant and unsubdued was as firm as ever, and she must swallow pity or contempt without apparently tasting them. She went to her piano, and through a slightly blurred vision had a good practice at the difficult treble part of the duet Georgie and she had run through before his departure. She did a few bracing physical exercises, and a little deep breathing. "I have lost a great deal of prestige," she said to herself as she held her breath and puffed it out again, "but that shall not upset me. I shall recover it all. In a fortnight's time, if not less, I shall be unable to believe that I could ever have felt so abject and have behaved so weakly. Sursum corda! I shall--"

 

Her telephone-bell rang. It required a strong call on her courage to answer it, for who could tell what fresh calamity might not be sprung on her? When she heard the name of the speaker, she nearly rang off, for it seemed so impossible. Probably some infamous joke was being played on her. But she listened.

 

"I've just missed my boat," said the voice, "and sleeping in a hotel makes me ill for a week. Would you be wonderfully kind and let me dine and sleep? You were so good as to suggest that this afternoon. Then I can catch the early boat to-morrow."

 

A sob of joy rose in Lucia's throat.

 

"Delighted, Duchess," she answered. "So glad you took me at my word and proposed yourself."

 

"Many thanks. I shall be with you in an hour or so."

 

Lucia skipped to the bell, and kept her finger on it till Grosvenor came running out.

 

"Grosvenor, the Duchess of Sheffield will be here in about an hour to dine and sleep," cried Lucia, still ringing. "What is there for dinner?"

 

"Couldn't say, except for a dressed crab that's just come in--" began Grosvenor.

 

"Yes, I ordered it," cried Lucia excitedly, ceasing to ring. "It was instinctive, Grosvenor, it was a leading. Things like that often happen to me. See what else, and plenty of strong coffee."

 

Grosvenor went into the house, and the music of triumphant meditations poured through Lucia's brain.

 

"Shall I ask Benjy and Elizabeth?" she thought. "That would crush Elizabeth for ever, but I don't really wish her such a fate. Diva? No. A good little thing, but it might seem odd to Poppy to meet at dinner a woman to whom she had paid a shilling for her tea, or perhaps eighteen-pence. Susanna Leg? No: she was not at all kind about the picture. Shall I send for the Mayor's book and get Poppy to write in it? Again, no. It would look as if I wanted to record her visit officially, whereas she only just drops in. We will be alone, I think. Far more chic."

 

Grosvenor returned with the modest menu, and Lucia added a savoury.

 

"And I shan't dress, Grosvenor," she said. "Her Grace (rich words!) will be leaving very early, and she won't want to unpack, I expect."

 

Her Grace arrived. She seemed surprised not to find Georgie there, but was pleased to know that he was staying with Olga at Le Touquet. She went to bed very soon after dinner, and left at eight next morning. Never had Lucia waited so impatiently for the shopping hour, when casually, drawlingly she would diffuse the news.

 

 

 

The first person she met was Elizabeth herself, who hurried across the street with an odious smile of kindly pity on her face.

 

"So lonely for you, Worship, all by yourself without Mr. Georgie," she said. "Pop in and dine with us to-night."

 

Lucia could have sung aloud to think how soon that kindly pity would be struck from the Mayoress's face. She pressed a finger to her forehead.

 

"Let me think," she said. "I'm afraid . . . No, that's tomorrow . . . Yes, I am free. Charmed." She paused, prolonging the anticipation of the wonderful disclosure.

 

"And I had such a queer little surprise last night," she drawled. "I went home after tea at Diva's,--of course you were there--and played my piano a while. Then the eternal telephone rang. Who do you think it was who wanted to dine and sleep at such short notice?"

 

Elizabeth curbed her longing to say "Duchess Poppy," but that would have been too unkind and sarcastic.

 

"Tell me, dear," she said.

 

"The Duchess," said Lucia. "I begged her, do you remember, when we three met for a minute yesterday, just to propose herself . . . And an hour afterwards, she did. Dear vague thing! She missed her boat and can't bear hotels and telephoned. A pleasant quiet evening. She went off again very early to-day, to catch the morning boat. I wonder if she'll succeed this time. Eight o'clock this evening then? I shall look forward to it."

 

Lucia went into a shop, leaving Elizabeth speechless on the pavement, with her mouth wide open. Then she closed it, and it assumed its grimmest aspect. She began to cross the street, but leaped back to the pavement again on the violent hooting, almost in her ear, of Susan's Royce.

 

"So sorry if it made you jump," said Susan, putting her face out of the window, "but I hear that Lucia's Duchess was here yesterday and didn't know her from Adam. Or Eve. Either of them. Can it be true?"

 

"I was there," said Elizabeth. "She hadn't the slightest idea who Worship was."

 

"That's odd, considering all those photographs."

 

"These's something odder yet," said Elizabeth. "Worship has just told me she had a visitor to dine and sleep, who left very early this morning. Guess who that was!"

 

"I never can guess, as you know," said Susan. "Who?"

 

"She!" cried Elizabeth shrilly. "And Lucia had the face to tell me so!"

 

Mr. Wyse, concealed behind the immense bulk of his wife, popped his head round the corner of her shoulder. The Mayoress's savage countenance so terrified him that he popped it back again.

 

"How Worship's conscience will let her tell such whoppers, is her concern and not mine, thank God," continued the Mayoress. "What I deplore is that she should think me idiotic enough to believe them. Does one woman ask another woman, whom she doesn't know by sight, to let her dine and sleep? Does she?"

 

Mr. Wyse always refused to be drawn into social crises. "Drive on," he said in a low voice down the speaking-tube, and the car hooted and moved away. Elizabeth screamed "Does she," after it.

 

The news spread fast, and there was only one verdict on it. Obviously Lucia had invented the story to counter the mortification of being unrecognised by Poppy the day before. "So silly," said Diva, when Elizabeth plunged into the tea-house and told her. "Much better to have lived it down. We've all got to live things down sometimes. She's only made it much harder for herself. What's the good of telling lies which nobody can believe? When you and I tell lies, Elizabeth, it's in the hope anyhow--What is it Janet?"

 

"Please ma'am, Grosvenor's just told me there was a visitor at Mallards last night, and who do you think--"

 

"Yes, I've heard," said Diva. "I'll be down in the kitchen in a minute."

 

"And making poor Grosvenor her accomplice," said Elizabeth. "Come and dine to-night, Diva. I've asked Worship, and you must help Benjy and me to get through the evening. You must help us to keep her off the subject, or I shall lose my self-control and forget that I'm a lady and tell her she's a liar."

 

Lucia spent a wonderfully happy day. She came straight home after telling Elizabeth her news, for it was far more lofty not to spread it herself and give the impression that she was gratified, and devoted herself to her music and her reading, as there was no municipal business to occupy her. Long before evening everyone would know, and she would merely make casual allusions at dinner to her visitor, and inflame their curiosity. She went out wearing her seed-pearls in the highest spirits.

 

"Dear host and hostess," she said as she swept in. "So sweet of you to take compassion on my loneliness. No, Major Benjy, no sherry thanks, though I really deserve some after my long day. Breakfast at half-past seven--"

 

"Fancy! That was early!" interrupted Elizabeth. Diva entered.

 

"So sorry," she said. "A bit late. Fearfully busy afternoon. Worn out. Yes, Major Benjy: just half a glass."

 

"I was just saying that I had had a long day, too," said Lucia. "My guest was off at eight to catch the early boat at Seaport--"

 

"Such a good service," put in Benjy. "Liz and I went by that route on our honeymoon."

 

"--and would get to Le Touquet in time for lunch."

 

"Well, dinner, dinner," said Benjy, and in they went.

 

 

 

"I've not seen Susan Leg to-day," remarked Diva. "She usually drops in to tea now."

 

"She's been writing hard," said Elizabeth. "I popped in for a minute. She's got some material now, she told me."

 

This dark saying had a bright lining for Lucia. Her optimistic mind concluded that Susanna knew about her visitor, and she laughed gaily as dressed crab was handed to her.

 

"Such a coincidence," she said. "Last night I had ordered dressed crab before--dear Elizabeth, I never get tired of it--before I was rung up from Seaport. Was not that lucky? Her favourite food."

 

"And how many teas did you say you served to-day, Diva?" asked Elizabeth.

 

"Couldn't tell you yet. Janet hadn't finished counting up. People still in the garden when I left."

 

"I heard from Georgie to-day," said Lucia. "He'll be back from Le Touquet on Saturday. The house was quite full already, he said, and he didn't know where Olga would put another guest."

 

"Such lovely September weather," said Elizabeth. "So good for the crops."

 

Lucia was faintly puzzled. They had all been so eager to hear about her visit to Sheffield Castle, and now whenever she brought up kindred topics, Elizabeth or Diva changed the subject with peculiar abruptness. Very likely Elizabeth was a little jealous, a little resentful that Lucia had not asked her to dine last night. But she could explain that.

 

"It was too late, alas," she said, "to get up a small party," she said, "as I should have so much liked to do. Simply no time. We didn't even dress."

 

Elizabeth rose.

 

"Such a short visit," she said, "and breakfast at half-past seven. Fancy! Let us have a rubber, as we needn't get up so early to-morrow."

 

 

 

Lucia walked home in the bright moonlight, making benevolent plans. If Poppy broke her return journey by staying a night here she must certainly have a party.

 

She vaguely regretted not having done so last night: it would have given pleasure, and she ought to welcome all opportunities of making treats for her friends . . . They were touchy folk; to-night they had been harsh with each other over Bridge, but to her they had been scrupulously polite, receiving all her criticisms of their play in meek silence. Perhaps they were beginning to perceive at last that she was a different class of player from them. As she caressed this vainglorious thought, she stopped to admire the chaste whiteness of the moonlight on the church-tower, which seemed to point skywards as if towards her own serene superiority among the stars. Then quite suddenly a violent earthquake happened in her mind, and it collapsed.

 

"They don't believe that Poppy ever stayed with me at all," she moaned. "They think I invented it. Infamous!"

 

 

 

 

To be continued

 

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