The Complete Mapp & Lucia (91 page)

A few minutes before Lucia and Pepino drove off next morning from Brompton Square, Marcia observed Lucia’s announcement in the
Morning Post.
She was a good-natured woman, but she had been goaded, and now that Lucia could goad her no more for the present, she saw no objection to asking her to her ball. She thought of telephoning, but there was the chance that Lucia had not yet started, so she sent her a card instead, directing it to 25 Brompton Square, saying that she was At Home, dancing, to have the honour to meet a string of exalted personages. If she had telephoned, no one knows what would have happened, whether Daisy would have had any lunch that day or Georgie any dinner that night, and what excuse Lucia would have made to them… Adele and Tony Limpsfield, the most adept of all the Luciaphils, subsequently argued the matter out with much heat, but never arrived at a solution that they felt was satisfactory. But then Marcia did not telephone…

The news that the two were coming down was, of course, all over Riseholme a few minutes after Lucia had rung Georgie up. He was in his study when the telephone bell rang, in the fawn-coloured Oxford trousers, which had been cut down from their monstrous proportions and fitted quite nicely, though there had been a sad waste of stuff. Robert Quantock, the wag who had danced a hornpipe when Georgie had appeared in the original voluminousness, was waggish again, when he saw the abbreviated garments, and
à propos
of nothing in particular had said “Home is the sailor, home from sea,” and that was the epitaph on the Oxford trousers.

Georgie had been busy indoors this afternoon, for he had been attending to his hair, and it was not quite dry yet, and the smell of the auburn mixture still clung to it. But the telephone was a trunk-call, and, whether his hair was dry or not, it must be attended to. Since Lucia had disappeared after that week-end party, he had had a line from her once or twice, saying that they must really settle when he would come and spend a few days in London, but she had never descended to the sordid mention of dates.

A trunk-call, as far as he knew, could only be Lucia or Olga, and one would be interesting and the other delightful. It proved to be the interesting one, and though rather difficult to understand because of the aforesaid mixture of baby-talk and Italian, it certainly conveyed the gist of the originator’s intention.

“Me so tired,” Lucia said, “and it will be divine to get to Riseholme again. So come to ‘ickle quiet din-din with me and Pepino to-morrow, Georgino. Shall want to hear all novelle—”

“What?” said Georgie.

“All the news,” said Lucia.

Georgie sat in the draught—it was very hot to-day—until the auburn mixture dried. He knew that Daisy Quantock and Robert were playing clock-golf on the other side of his garden paling, for their voices had been very audible. Daisy had not been weeding much lately but had taken to golf, and since all the authorities said that matches were entirely won or lost on the putting-green, she with her usual wisdom devoted herself to the winning factor in the game. Presently she would learn to drive and approach and niblick and that sort of thing, and then they would see… She wondered how good Miss Wethered really was.

Georgie, now dry, tripped out into the garden and shouted “May I come in?” That meant, of course, might he look over the garden-paling and talk.

Daisy missed a very short putt, owing to the interruption.

“Yes, do,” she said icily. “I supposed you would give me that, Robert.”

“You supposed wrong,” said Robert, who was now two up.

Georgie stepped on a beautiful pansy.

“Lucia’s coming down to-morrow,” he said.

Daisy dropped her putter.

“No!” she exclaimed.

“And Pepino,” went on Georgie. “She says she’s very tired.”

“All those duchesses,” said Daisy. Robert Alton’s cartoon had been reproduced in an illustrated weekly, but Riseholme up to this moment had been absolutely silent about it. It was beneath notice.

“And she’s asked me to dinner to-morrow,” said Georgie.

“So she’s not bringing down a party?” said Daisy.

“I don’t know,” remarked Robert, “if you are going on putting, or if you give me the match.”

“Pouf!” said Daisy, just like that. “But tired, Georgie? What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” said Georgie, “but that’s what she said.”

“It means something else,” said Daisy, “I can’t tell you what, but it doesn’t mean that. I suppose you’ve said you’re engaged.”

“No I haven’t,” said Georgie.

De Vere came out from the house. In this dry weather her heels made no indentations on the lawn.

“Trunk-call, ma’am,” she said to Daisy.

“These tiresome interruptions,” said Daisy, hurrying indoors with great alacrity.

Georgie lingered. He longed to know what the trunk-call was, and was determined to remain with his head on the top of the paling till Daisy came back. So he made conversation.

“Your lawn is better than mine,” he said pleasantly to Robert.

Robert was cross at this delay.

“That’s not saying much,” he observed.

“I can’t say any more,” said Georgie, rather nettled. “And there’s the leather-jacket grub I see has begun on yours. I daresay there won’t be a blade of grass left presently.”

Robert changed the conversation: there were bare patches. “The Museum insurance,” he said. “I got the fire-policy this morning. The contents are the property of the four trustees, me and you and Daisy and Mrs. Boucher. The building is Colonel Boucher’s, and that’s insured separately. If you had a spark of enterprise about you, you would take a match, set light to the mittens, and hope for the best.”

“You’re very tarsome and cross,” said Georgie. “I should like to take a match and set light to you.”

Georgie hated rude conversations like this, but when Robert was in such a mood, it was best to be playful. He did not mean, in any case, to cease leaning over the garden paling till Daisy came back from her trunk-call.

“Beyond the mittens,” began Robert, “and, of course, those three sketches of yours, which I daresay are masterpieces—”

Daisy bowled out of the dining-room and came with such speed down the steps that she nearly fell into the circular bed where the broccoli had been. (The mignonette there was poorish.) “At half-past one or two,” said she, bursting with the news and at the same time unable to suppress her gift for withering sarcasm. “Lunch to-morrow. Just a picnic, you know, as soon as she happens to arrive. So kind of her. More notice than she took of me last time.”

“Lucia?” asked Georgie.

“Yes. Let me see, I was putting, wasn’t I?”

“If you call it putting,” said Robert. He was not often two up and he made the most of it.

“So I suppose you said you were engaged,” said Georgie.

Daisy did not trouble to reply at all. She merely went on putting. That was the way to deal with inquisitive questions.

This news, therefore, was very soon all over Riseholme, and next morning it was supplemented by the amazing announcement in
The Times, Morning Post, Daily Telegraph
and
Daily Mail
that Mrs. Philip Lucas had left London for two or three days’ complete rest. It sounded incredible to Riseholme, but of course it might be true and, as Daisy had said, that the duchesses had been too much for her. (This was nearer the mark than the sarcastic Daisy had known, for it was absolutely and literally true that one Duchess had been too much for her…) In any case, Lucia was coming back to them again, and though Riseholme was still a little dignified and reticent, Georgie’s acceptance of his dinner-invitation, and Daisy’s of her lunch invitation, were symptomatic of Riseholme’s feelings. Lucia had foully deserted them, she had been down here only once since that fatal accession to fortune, and on that occasion had evidently intended to see nothing of her old friends while that Yahoo party (“Yahoo” was the only word for Mrs. Alingsby) was with her; she had laughed at their Museum, she had courted the vulgar publicity of the press to record her movements in London, but Riseholme was really perfectly willing to forget and forgive if she behaved properly now. For, though no one would have confessed it, they missed her more and more. In spite of all her bullying monarchical ways, she had initiative, and though the excitement of the Museum and the Sagas from Abfou had kept them going for a while, it was really in relation to Lucia that these enterprises had been interesting. Since then, too, Abfou had been full of vain repetitions, and no one could go on being excited by his denunciation of Lucia as a snob, indefinitely. Lucia had personality, and if she had been here and had taken to golf Riseholme would have been thrilled at her skill, and have exulted over her want of it, whereas Daisy’s wonderful scores at clock-golf (she was off her game to-day) produced no real interest. Degrading, too, as were the records of Lucia’s movements in the columns of Hermione, Riseholme had been thrilled (though disgusted) by them, because they were about Lucia, and though she was coming down now for complete rest (whatever that might mean), the mere fact of her being here would make things hum. This time too she had behaved properly (perhaps she had learned wisdom) and had announced her coming, and asked old friends in.

Forgiveness, therefore, and excitement were the prevalent emotions in the morning parliament on the Green next day. Mrs. Boucher alone expressed grave doubts on the situation.

“I don’t believe she’s ill,” she said. “If she’s ill, I shall be very sorry, but I don’t believe it. If she is, Mr. Georgie, I’m all for accepting her gift of the spit to the Museum, for it would be unkind not to. You can write and say that the Committee have reconsidered it and would be very glad to have it. But let’s wait to see if she’s ill first. In fact, wait to see if she’s coming at all, first.”

Piggy came whizzing up with news, while Goosie shouted it into her mother’s ear-trumpet. Before Piggy could come out with it, Goosie’s announcement was audible everywhere.

“A cab from the station has arrived at The Hurst, Mamma,” she yelled, “with the cook and the housemaid, and a quantity of luggage.”

“O, Mrs. Boucher, have you heard the news?” panted Piggie.

“Yes, my dear, I’ve just heard it,” said Mrs. Boucher, “and it looks as if they were coming. That’s all I can say. And if the cook’s come by half-past eleven, I don’t see why you shouldn’t get a proper lunch, Daisy. No need for a cup of strong soup or a sandwich which I should have recommended if there had been no further news since you were asked to a picnic lunch. But if the cook’s here now…”

Daisy was too excited to go home and have any serious putting and went off to the Museum. Mr. Rushbold, the Vicar, had just presented his unique collection of walking-sticks to it, and though the Committee felt it would be unkind not to accept them, it was difficult to know how to deal with them. They could not all be stacked together in one immense stick-stand, for then they could not be appreciated. The handles of many were curiously carved, some with gargoyle-heads of monsters putting out their tongues and leering, some with images of birds and fish, and there was one rather indelicate one, of a young man and a girl passionately embracing… On the other hand, if they were spaced and leaned against the wall, some slight disturbance upset the equilibrium of one and it fell against the next, and the whole lot went down like ninepins. In fact, the boy at the turnstile said his entire time was occupied with picking them up. Daisy had a scheme of stretching an old lawn-tennis net against the wall, and tastefully entangling them in its meshes…

Riseholme lingered on the Green that morning long after one o’clock, which was its usual lunch-time, and at precisely twenty five minutes past they were rewarded. Out of the motor stepped Pepino in a very thick coat and a large muffler. He sneezed twice as he held out his arm to assist Lucia to alight. She clung to it, and leaning heavily on it went with faltering steps past Perdita’s garden into the house. So she was ill.

Ten minutes later, Daisy and Robert Quantock were seated at lunch with them. Lucia certainly looked very well and she ate her lunch very properly, but she spoke in a slightly faded voice, as befitted one who had come here for complete rest. “But Riseholme, dear Riseholme will soon put me all right again,” she said. “Such a joy to be here! Any news, Daisy?”

Really there was very little. Daisy ran through such topics as had interested Riseholme during those last weeks, and felt that the only thing which had attracted true, feverish, Riseholme-attention was the record of Lucia’s own movements. Apart from this there was only her own putting, and the embarrassing gift of walking-sticks to the Museum… But then she remembered that the Committee had authorised the acceptance of the Elizabethan spit, if Lucia seemed ill, and she rather precipitately decided that she was ill enough.

“Well, we’ve been busy over the Museum,” she began.

“Ah, the dear Museum,” said Lucia wistfully.

That quite settled it.

“We should so like to accept the Elizabethan spit, if we may,” said Daisy. “It would be a great acquisition.”

“Of course; delighted,” said Lucia. “I will have it sent over. Any other gifts?”

Daisy went on to the walking-sticks, omitting all mention of the indelicate one in the presence of gentlemen, and described the difficulty of placing them satisfactorily. They were eighty-one (including the indelicacy) and a lawn-tennis net would barely hold them. The invalid took but a wan interest in this, and Daisy’s putting did not rouse much keener enthusiasm. But soon she recovered a greater animation and was more herself. Indeed, before the end of lunch it had struck Daisy that Pepino was really the invalid of the two. He certainly had a prodigious cold, and spoke in a throaty wheeze that was scarcely audible. She wondered if she had been a little hasty about accepting the spit, for that gave Lucia a sort of footing in the Museum.