The Greatest Works of E. F. Benson (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson
in the style of the Ancient Mariner. Georgie could not choose but hear . . . Lucia's eloquent well-ordered sentences had nothing impromptu about them; what she said was evidently all thought out and probably talked out. If she and Peppino had been talking of nothing else since the terrible blow had shattered them, she could not have been more lucid and crystal-clear.
"Georgie, I feel like a leisurely old horse who has been turned out to grass being suddenly bridled and harnessed again. But there is work and energy in me yet, though I thought that I should be permitted to grow old in the delicious peace and leisure of our dear quiet humdrum Riseholme. But I feel that perhaps that is not to be. My conscience is cracking the whip at me, and saying 'You've got to trot again, you lazy old thing.' And I've got to think of Peppino. Dear, contented Peppino would never complain if I refused to budge. He would read his paper, and potter in the garden, and write his dear little poems — such a sweet one, 'Bereavement,' he began it yesterday, a sonnet — and look at the stars. But is it a life for a man?"
Georgie made an uneasy movement in his chair, and Lucia hastened to correct the implied criticism.
"You're different, my dear," she said. "You've got that wonderful power of being interested in everything. Everything. But think what London would give Peppino! His club: the Astronomer-Royal is a member, his other club, political, and politics have lately been quite an obsession with him. The reading-room at the British Museum. No, I should be very selfish if I did not see all that. I must and I do think of Peppino. I mustn't be selfish, Georgie."
This idea of Lucia's leaving Riseholme was a live bomb. At the moment of its explosion, Georgie seemed to see Riseholme fly into a thousand disintegrated fragments. And then, faintly, through the smoke he seemed to see Riseholme still intact. Somebody, of course, would have to fill the vacant throne and direct its affairs. And the thought of Beau Nash at Bath flitted across the distant horizon of his mind. It was a naughty thought, but its vagueness absolved it from treason. He shook it off.
"But how on earth are we to get on without you?" he asked.
"Sweet of you to say that, Georgie," said she, giving another twirl to the spit. (There had been a leg of mutton roasted on it last Mayday, while they all sat round in jerkins and stomachers and hose, and all the perfumes of Arabia had hardly sufficed to quell the odour of roast meat which had pervaded the room for weeks afterwards.) "Sweet of you to say that, but you mustn't think that I am deserting Riseholme. We should be in London perhaps (though, as I say, nothing is settled) for two or three months in the summer, and always come here for weekends, and perhaps from November till Christmas, and a little while in the spring. And then Riseholme would always be coming up to us. Five spare bedrooms, I believe, and one of them quite a little suite with a bathroom and sitting-room attached. No, dear Georgie, I would never desert my dear Riseholme. If it was a choice between London and Riseholme, I should not hesitate in my choice."
"Then would you keep both houses open?" asked Georgie, thrilled to the marrow.
"Peppino thought we could manage it," she said, utterly erasing the impression of the shattered nephew. "He was calculating it out last night, and with board wages at the other house, if you understand, and vegetables from the country, he thought that with care we could live well within our means. He got quite excited about it, and I heard him walking about long after I had gone to bed. Peppino has such a head for detail. He intends to keep a complete set of things, clothes and sponge and everything in London, so that he will have no luggage. Such a saving of tips and small expenses, in which as he so truly says, money leaks away. Then there will be no garage expenses in London: we shall leave the motor here, and rough it with tubes and taxis in town."
Georgie was fully as excited as Peppino, and could not be discreet any longer.
"Tell me," he said, "how much do you think it will all come to? The money he'll come into, I mean."
Lucia also threw discretion to the winds, and forgot all about the fact that they were to be so terribly poor for a long time.
"About three thousand a year, Peppino imagines, when everything is paid. Our income will be doubled, in fact."
Georgie gave a sigh of pure satisfaction. So much was revealed, not only of the future, but of the past, for no one hitherto had known what their income was. And how clever of Robert Quantock to have made so accurate a guess!
"It's too wonderful for you," he said. "And I know you'll spend it beautifully. I had been thinking over it this afternoon, but I never thought it would be as much as that. And then there are the pearls. I do congratulate you."
Lucia suddenly felt that she had shown too much of the silver (or was it gold?) lining to the cloud of affliction that had overshadowed her.
"Poor Auntie!" she said. "We don't forget her through it all. We hoped she might have been spared us a little longer."
That came out of her note to Daisy Quantock (and perhaps to others as well), but Lucia could not have known that Georgie had already been told about that.
"Now, I've come here to take your mind off these sad things," he said. "You mustn't dwell on them any longer."
She rose briskly.
"You've been ever so good to me," she said. "I should just have moped if I had been alone."
She lapsed into the baby-language which they sometimes spoke, varying it with easy Italian.
"Ickle music, Georgie?" she said. "And you must be kindy-kindy to me. No practice all these days. You brought Mozart? Which part is easiest? Lucia wants to take easiest part."
"Lucia shall take which ever part she likes," said Georgie who had had a good practise at both.
"Treble then," said Lucia. "But oh, how diffy it looks! Hundreds of ickle notes. And me so stupid at reading! Come on then. You begin, Uno, due, tre."
The light by the piano was not very good, but Georgie did not want to put on his spectacles unless he was obliged, for he did not think Lucia knew that he wore them, and somehow spectacles did not seem to 'go' with Oxford trousers. But it was no good, and after having made a miserable hash of the first page, he surrendered.
"Me must put on speckies," he said. "Me a blind old man."
Then he had an immense surprise.
"And me a blind old woman," said Lucia. "I've just got speckies too. Oh, Georgie, aren't we getting vecchio? Now we'll start again. Uno, due —"
The Mozart went beautifully after that, and each of them inwardly wondered at the accuracy of the other's reading. Lucia suspected that Georgie had been having a try at it, but then, after all, she had had the choice of which part she would take, and if Georgie had practised already, he would have been almost certain to have practised the treble; it never entered her head that he had been so thorough as to practise both. Then they played it through again, changing parts, and again it went excellently. It was late now, and soon Georgie rose to go.
"And what shall I say if anybody who knows I've been dining with you, asks if you've told me anything?" he asked.
Lucia closed the piano and concentrated.
"Say nothing of our plans about the house in Brompton Square," she said, "but there's no reason why people shouldn't know that there is a house there. I hate secretiveness, and after all, when the will comes out, everyone will know. So say there is a house there, full of beautiful things. And similarly they will know about the money. So say what Peppino thinks it will come to."
"I see," said Georgie.
She came with him to the door, and strolled out into the little garden in front where the daffodils were in flower. The night was clear, but moonless, and the company of stars burned brightly.
"Aldebaran!" said Lucia, pointing inclusively to the spangled arch of the sky. "That bright one. Oh, Georgie, how restful it is to look at Aldebaran if one is worried and sad. It lifts one's mind above petty cares and personal sorrows. The patens of bright gold! Wonderful Shakespeare! Look in tomorrow afternoon, won't you, and tell me if there is any news. Naturally, I shan't go out."
"Oh, come and