The Greatest Works of E. F. Benson (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson
The moment Lucia had said it was quite impossible she had been longing for Georgie to urge her, and had indeed been prepared to encourages him to urge her if he didn't do so of his own accord. His last words had given her an admirable opening.
"I wonder!" she said. "Perhaps Peppino might feel inclined to go, if there really was no party. It doesn't do to brood: you are right, I mustn't let him brood. Selfish of me not to think of that. Who would there be, Georgie?"
"That's really for you to settle," he said.
"You?" she asked.
"Yes," said Georgie, thinking it unnecessary to add that Olga was dining with him on Saturday, and that he would be at lunch and dinner on Sunday. "Yes: she asked me to come."
"Well, then, what if you asked poor Daisy and her husband?" said Lucia. "It would be a treat for them. That would make six. I think six would be enough. I will do my best to persuade Peppino."
"Capital," said Georgie. "And would you prefer lunch or dinner?"
Lucia sighed.
"I think dinner," she said. "One feels more capable of making the necessary effort in the evening. But, of course, it is all conditional on Peppino's feeling."
She glanced at the clock.
"He will just be leaving Brompton Square," she said. "And then, afterwards, his lawyer is coming to lunch with him and have a talk. Such a lot of business to see to."
Georgie suddenly remembered that he did not yet know the number of the house.
"Indeed there must be," he said. "Such a delightful square, but rather noisy, I should think, at the lower end."
"Yes, but deliciously quiet at the top end," said Lucia. "A curve you know, and a cul-de-sac. Number twenty-five is just before the beginning of the curve. And no houses at the back. Just the peaceful old churchyard — though sad for Peppino to look out on this morning — and a footpath only up to Ennismore Gardens. My music-room looks out at the back."
Lucia rose.
"Well, Georgie, you will be very busy this morning," she said, "getting all the guests for Sunday, and I mustn't keep you. But I should like to play you a morsel of Stravinski which I have been trying over. Terribly modern, of course, and it may sound hideous to you at first, and at best it's a mere little tinkle if you compare it with the immortals. But there is something about it, and one mustn't condemn all modern work unheard. There was a time no doubt when even Beethoven's greatest sonatas were thought to be modern and revolutionary."
She led the way to the piano, where on the music rest was the morsel of Stravinski, which explained the second and hitherto unintelligible rustle.
"Sit by me, Georgie," she said, "and turn over quick, when I nod. Something like this."
Lucia got through the first page beautifully, but then everything seemed to go wrong. Georgie had expected it all to be odd and aimless, but surely Stravinski hadn't meant quite what Lucia was playing. Then he suddenly saw that the key had been changed, but in a very inconspicuous manner, right in the middle of a bar, and Lucia had not observed this. She went on playing with amazing agility, nodded at the end of the second page, and then luckily the piece changed back again into its original clef. Would it be wise to tell her? He thought not: next time she tried it, or the time after, she would very likely notice the change of key.
A brilliant roulade consisting of chromatic scales in contrary directions, brought this firework to an end, and Lucia gave a little shiver.
"I must work at it," she said, "before I can judge of it . . ."
Her fingers strayed about the piano, and she paused. Then with the wistful expression Georgie knew so well, she played the first movement of the "Moonlight Sonata". Georgie set his face also into the Beethoven-expression, and at the end gave the usual little sigh.
"Divine," he said. "You never played it better. Thank you, Lucia."
She rose.
"You must thank immortal Beethoven," she said.
* * *
Georgie's head buzzed with inductive reasoning, as he hurried about on his vicariously hospitable errands. Lucia had certainly determined to make a second home in London, for she had distinctly said 'my music-room' when she referred to the house in Brompton Square. Also it was easy to see the significance of her deigning to touch Stravinski with even the tip of one finger. She was visualising herself in the modern world, she was going to be up-to-date: the music-room in Brompton Square was not only to echo with the first movement of the "Moonlight" . . . "It's too thrilling," said Georgie, as, warmed with this mental activity, he quite forgot to put on his fur tippet.
His first visit, of course, was to Daisy Quantock, but he meant to stay no longer than just to secure her and her husband for dinner on Sunday with Olga, and tell her the number of the house in Brompton Square. He found that she had dug a large trench round her mulberry tree, and was busily pruning the roots with the wood-axe by the light of Nature: in fact she had cut off all their ends, and there was a great pile of chunks of mulberry root to be transferred in the wheelbarrow, now empty of manure, to the wood-shed.
"Twenty-five, that's easy to remember," she said. "And are they going to sell it?"
"Nothing settled," said Georgie. "My dear, you're being rather drastic, aren't you? Won't it die?"
"Not a bit," said Daisy. "It'll bear twice as many mulberries as before. Last year there was one. You should always prune the roots of a fruit tree that doesn't bear. And the pearls?"
"No news," said Georgie, "except that they come in a portrait of the aunt by Sargent."
"No! By Sargent?" asked Daisy.
"Yes. And Queen Anne furniture and Chinese Chippendale chairs," said Georgie.
"And how many bedrooms?" asked Daisy, wiping her axe on the grass.
"Five spare, so I suppose that means seven," said Georgie, "and one with a sitting-room and bathroom attached. And a beautiful music-room."
"Georgie, she means to live there," said Daisy, "whether she told you or not. You don't count the bedrooms like that in a house you're going to sell. It isn't done."
"Nothing settled, I tell you," said Georgie. "So you'll dine with Olga on Sunday, and now I must fly and get people to lunch with her."
"No! A lunch-party too?" asked Daisy.
"Yes. She wants to see everybody."
"And five spare rooms, did you say?" asked Daisy, beginning to fill in her trench.
Georgie hurried out of the front gate, and Daisy shovelled the earth back and hurried indoors to impart all this news to her husband. He had a little rheumatism in his shoulder, and she gave him Coué treatment before she counter-ordered the chicken which she had bespoken for his dinner on Sunday.
Georgie thought it wise to go first to Olga's house, to make sure that she had told her caretaker that she was coming down for the weekend. That was the kind of thing that prima-donnas sometimes forgot. There was a man sitting on the roof of Old Place with a coil of wire, and another sitting on the chimney. Though listening-in had not yet arrived at Riseholme, Georgie at once conjectured that Olga was installing it, and what would Lucia say? It was utterly un-Elizabethan to begin with, and though she countenanced the telephone, she had expressed herself very strongly on the subject of listening-in. She had had an unfortunate experience of it herself, for on a visit to London not long ago, her hostess had switched it on, and the company was regaled with a vivid lecture on pyorrhea by a hospital nurse . . . Georgie, however, would see Olga before Lucia came to dinner on Sunday and would explain her abhorrence of the instrument.
Then there was the delightful task of asking everybody to lunch. It was the hour now when Riseholme generally was popping in and out of shops, and finding out the news. It was already known that Georgie had dined with Lucia last night and that Peppino had gone to his aunt's funeral, and everyone was agog to ascertain if anything definite had yet