THE COMPLETE WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition). Эдвард Бенсон
of troubling herself," said the Princess.
Foljambe retired and appeared for the third time with a faint, firm smile.
"Mrs Lucas will ring up Mrs Shuttleworth in a quarter of an hour," she said.
The Princess finished her apple tart.
"And now let us go and see the Museum," she said.
* * *
Georgie remained behind to ring up Daisy, to explain when Lucia telephoned next that Olga had gone out, and to pay his visit to The Hurst. To pretend that he did not enjoy that, would be to misunderstand him altogether. Lucia had come down here with her smart party and had taken no notice of Riseholme, and now two people a million times smarter had by a clearly providential dealing come down at the same time and were taking no notice of her. Instead they were hobnobbing with people like himself and Daisy whom Lucia had slighted. Then she had laughed at the Museum, and especially at the catalogue and the mittens, and now the great-niece of the owner of the mittens had gone to see them. That was a stinger, in fact it was all a stinger, and well Lucia deserved it.
He was shown into the music-room, and he had just time to observe that there was a printed envelope on the writing table addressed to the Evening Gazette, when Lucia and Mr Merriall came hurrying in.
"Georgino mio," said Lucia effusively. "How nice of you to come in. But you've not brought your ladies? Oh, this is Mr Merriall."
(Hermione, of the Evening Gazette, it's proved, thought Georgie.)
"They thought they wouldn't add to your big party," said Georgie sumptuously. (That was another stinger).
"And was it Princess Isabel I saw at your door?" asked Mr Merriall with an involuntary glance at the writing table. (Lucia had not mentioned her since.)
"Oh yes. They just motored down and took pot luck with me."
"What did you give them?" asked Lucia, forgetting her anxieties for a moment.
"Oh, just cold lamb and apple tart," said Georgie.
"No!" said Lucia. "You ought to have brought them to lunch here. Oh, Georgie, my picture, look. By Sigismund."
"Oh yes," said Georgie. "What's it of?"
"Cattivo!" said Lucia. "Why, it's a portrait of me. Sigismund, you know, he's the great rage in London just now. Everyone is crazy to be painted by him."
"And they look crazy when they are. It's a mad world, my masters," said Mr Merriall.
"Naughty," said Lucia. "Is it not wonderful, Georgie?"
"Yes. I expect it's very clever," said Georgie. "Very clever indeed."
"I should so like to show it dearest Olga," said Lucia, "and I'm sure the Princess would be interested in it. She was talking about modern art the other day when I dined with Olga. I wonder if they would look in at teatime, or indeed any other time."
"Not very likely, I'm afraid," said Georgie, "for Daisy Quantock's coming to tea, I know. We're going to weedj. And they're going out for a drive sometime."
"And where are they now?" asked Lucia. It was terrible to have to get news of her intimate friends from Georgie, but how else was she to find out?
"They went across to see the Museum," said he. "They were most interested in it."
Mr Merriall waved his hands, just in the same way as Georgie did.
"Ah, that Museum!" he said. "Those mittens! Shall I ever get over those mittens? Lucia said she would give it the next shoelace she broke."
"Yes," said Georgie. "The Princess wanted to see those mittens. Queen Charlotte was her great-aunt. I told them how amused you all were at the mittens."
Lucia had been pressing her finger to her forehead, a sign of concentration. She rose as if going back to her other guests.
"Coming into the garden presently?" she asked, and glided from the room.
"And so you're going to have a sitting with the ouija-board," said Mr Merriall. "I am intensely interested in ouija. Very odd phenomena certainly occur. Strange but true."
A fresh idea had come into Georgie's head. Lucia certainly had not appeared outside the window that looked into the garden, and so he walked across to the other one which commanded a view of the green. There she was heading straight for the Museum.
"It is marvellous," he said to Mr Merriall. "We have had some curious results here, too."
Mr Merriall was moving daintily about the room, and Georgie wondered if it would be possible to convert Oxford trousers into an ordinary pair. It was dreadful to think that Olga, even in fun, had suggested that such a man was his double. There was the little cape as well.
"I have quite fallen in love with your Riseholme," said Mr Merriall.
"We all adore it," said Georgie, not attending very much because his whole mind was fixed on the progress of Lucia across the green. Would she catch them in the Museum, or had they already gone? Smaller and smaller grew her figure and her twinkling legs, and at last she crossed the road and vanished behind the belt of shrubs in front of the tithe-barn.
"All so homey and intimate. 'Home, Sweet Home,' in fact," said Mr Merriall. "We have been hearing how Mrs Shuttleworth loves singing in this room."
Georgie was instantly on his guard again. It was quite right and proper that Lucia should be punished, and of course Riseholme would know all about it, for indeed Riseholme was administering the punishment. But it was a very different thing to let her down before those who were not Riseholme.
"Oh yes, she sings here constantly," he said. "We are all in and out of each other's houses. But I must be getting back to mine now."
Mr Merriall longed to be asked to this little ouija-party at Olga's, and at present his hostess had been quite unsuccessful in capturing either of the two great stars. There was no harm in trying . . .
"You couldn't perhaps take me to Mrs Shuttleworth's for tea?" he asked.
"No, I'm afraid I could hardly do that," said Georgie. "Goodbye. I hope we shall meet again."
* * *
Nemesis meantime had been dogging Lucia's footsteps, with more success than Lucia was having in dogging Olga's. She had arrived, as Georgie had seen, at the Museum, and again paid a shilling to enter that despised exhibition. It was rather full, for visitors who had lunched at the Ambermere Arms had come in, and there was quite a crowd round Queen Charlotte's mittens, among whom was Lady Ambermere herself who had driven over from The Hall with two depressed guests whom she had forced to come with her. She put up her glasses and stared at Lucia.
"Ah, Mrs Lucas!" she said with the singular directness for which she was famous. "For the moment I did not recognise you with your hair like that. It is a fashion that does not commend itself to me. You have come in, of course, to look at Her late Majesty's mittens, for really there is very little else to see."
As a rule, Lucia shamelessly truckled to Lady Ambermere, and schemed to get her to lunch or dinner. But today she didn't care two straws about her, and while these rather severe remarks were being addressed to her, her eyes darted eagerly round the room in search of those for whom she would have dropped Lady Ambermere without the smallest hesitation.
"Yes, dear Lady Ambermere," she said. "So interesting to think that Queen Charlotte wore them. Most good of you to have presented them to our little Museum."
"Lent," said Lady Ambermere. "They are heirlooms in my family. But I am glad to let others enjoy the sight of them. And by a remarkable coincidence I have just had the privilege of showing them to a relative of their late owner. Princess Isabel. I offered to have the case opened for her, and let her try them on. She said, most graciously, that it was not necessary."
"Yes, dear Princess Isabel," said Lucia, "I heard she had come down. Is she here still?"
"No. She and Mrs Shuttleworth have just gone. A motor drive, I understand, before tea. I