The Complete Mapp & Lucia (12 page)

At the end Lucia, with her far-away look, emerged, you might say, in a dazed condition from hearing about the fastness of Thibet, where the Guru had been in commune with the Guides, whose wisdom he interpreted to them.

“I feel such a difference already,” she said dreamily. “I feel as if I could never be hasty or worried any more at all. Don’t you experience that, dear Daisy?”

“Yes, dear,” said she. “I went through all that at my first lesson. Didn’t I, Guru dear?”

“I felt it too,” said Georgie, unwilling not to share in these benefits, and surreptitiously tightening his trouser-strap to compensate for the loss of buttons. “And am I to do that swaying exercise before every meal?”

“Yes, Georgie,” said Lucia, saving her Guru from the trouble of answering. “Five times to the right and five times to the left and then five times backwards and forwards. I felt so young and light just now when we did it that I thought I was rising into the air. Didn’t you, Daisy?”

Daisy smiled kindly.

“No, dear, that is levitation,” she said, “and comes a very long way on.”

She turned briskly towards her Guru.

“Will you tell them about that time when you levitated at Paddington Station?” she said. “Or will you keep that for when Mrs Lucas gets rather further on? You must be patient, dear Lucia; we all have to go through the early stages, before we get to that.”

Mrs Quantock spoke as if she was in the habit of levitating herself, and it was but reasonable, in spite of the love that was swirling about them all, that Lucia should protest against such an attitude. Humility, after all, was the first essential to progress on the Way.

“Yes, dear,” she said. “We will tread these early stages together, and encourage each other.”

Georgie went home, feeling also unusually light and hungry, for he had paid special attention to the exercise that enabled him to have his liver and digestive organs in complete control, but that did not prevent him from devoting his mind to arriving at that which had made Lucia look so sharp and foxy during their conversation about Olga Bracely. He felt sure that she was meaning to steal a march on him, and she was planning to draw first blood with the prima-donna, and, as likely as not, claim her for her own, with the same odious greed as she was already exhibiting with regard to the Guru. All these years Georgie had been her faithful servant and coadjutor; now for the first time the spirit of independence had begun to seethe within him. The scales were falling from his eyes, and just as he turned into shelter of his mulberry-tree, he put on his spectacles to see how Riseholme was getting on without him to assist at the morning parliament. His absence and Mrs Quantock’s would be sure to evoke comment, and since the Yoga classes were always to take place at half-past twelve, the fact that they would never be there, would soon rise to the level of a first-class mystery. It would, of course, begin to leak out that they and Lucia were having a course of Eastern philosophy that made its pupils young and light and energetic, and there was a sensation!

Like all great discoveries, the solution of Lucia’s foxy look broke on him with the suddenness of a lightning-flash, and since it had been settled that she should call for him at six, he stationed himself in the window of his bath room, which commanded a perfect view of the village green and the entrance to the Ambermere Arms at five. He had brought up with him a pair of opera-glasses, with the intention of taking them to bits, so he had informed Foljambe, and washing their lenses, but he did not at once proceed about this, merely holding them ready to hand for use. Hermy and Ursy had gone back to their golf again after lunch, and so callers would be told that they were all out. Thus he could wash the lenses, when he chose to do so, uninterrupted.

The minutes passed on pleasantly enough, for there was plenty going on. The two Miss Antrobuses frisked about the green, jumping over the stocks in their playful way, and running round the duck-pond in the eternal hope of attracting Colonel Boucher’s attention to their pretty nimble movements. For many years past, they had tried to gain Georgie’s serious attention, without any result, and lately they had turned to Colonel Boucher. There was Mrs Antrobus there, too, with her ham-like face and her ear-trumpet, and Mrs Weston was being pushed round and round the asphalt path below the elms in her bath-chair. She hated going slow, and her gardener and his boy took turns with her during her hour’s carriage exercise, and propelled her, amid streams of perspiration, at a steady four miles an hour. As she passed Mrs Antrobus she shouted something at her, and Mrs Antrobus returned her reply, when next she came round.

Suddenly all these interesting objects vanished completely from Georgie’s ken, for his dark suspicions were confirmed, and there was Lucia in her “Hightum” hat and her “Hightum” gown making her gracious way across the green. She had distinctly been wearing one of the “Scrub” this morning at the class, so she must have changed after lunch, which was an unheard of thing to do for a mere stroll on the green. Georgie knew well that this was no mere stroll; she was on her way to pay a call of the most formal and magnificent kind. She did not deviate a hair-breadth from her straight course to the door of the Arms, she just waggled her hand to Mrs Antrobus, blew a kiss to her sprightly daughters, made a gracious bow to Colonel Boucher, who stood up and took his hat off, and went on with the inexorability of the march of destiny, or of fate knocking at the door in the immortal fifth symphony. And in her hand she carried a note. Through his glasses Georgie could see it quite plainly, and it was not a little folded-up sheet, such as she commonly used, but a square thick envelope. She disappeared in the Arms and Georgie began thinking feverishly. A great deal depended on how long she stopped there.

A few little happenings beguiled the period of waiting. Mrs Weston desisted from her wild career, and came to anchor on the path just opposite the door into the Arms, while the gardener’s boy sank exhausted on to the grass. It was quite easy to guess that she proposed to have a chat with Lucia when she came out. Similarly the Miss Antrobuses who had paid no attention to her at all before, ceased from their pretty gambolings, and ran up to talk to her, so they wanted a word too. Colonel Boucher, a little less obviously, began throwing sticks into the ducking-pond for his bull-dog (for Lucia would be obliged to pass the ducking-pond) and Mrs Antrobus examined the stocks very carefully, as if she had never seen them before.

And then, before a couple of minutes had elapsed Lucia came out. She had no longer the note in her hand, and Georgie began taking his opera-glasses to bits, in order to wash the lenses. For the present they had served their purpose. “She has left a note on Olga Bracely,” said Georgie quite aloud, so powerful was the current of his thoughts. Then as a corollary came the further proposition which might be considered as proved, “But she had not seen her.”

The justice of this conclusion was soon proved, for Lucia had hardly disengaged herself from the group of her subjects, and traversed the green on her way back to her house, when a motor passed Georgie’s bathroom window, closely followed by a second; both drew up at the entrance to the Ambermere Arms. With the speed of a practised optician Georgie put his opera glass together again, and after looking through the wrong end of it in his agitation was in time to see a man get out of the second car, and hold the carriage-door open for the occupants of the first. A lady got out first, tall and slight in figure, who stood there unwinding her motor veil, then she turned round again, and with a thump of his heart that surprised Georgie with its violence, he beheld the well-remembered features of his Brunnhilde.

Swiftly he passed into his bedroom next door, and arrayed himself in his summer Hightums; a fresh (almost pearly) suit of white duck, a mauve tie with an amethyst pin in it, socks, tightly braced up, of precisely the same colour as the tie, so that an imaginative beholder might have conjectured that on this warm day the end of his tie had melted and run down his legs; buckskin shoes with tall slim heels and a straw hat completed this pretty Hightum. He had meant to wear it for the first time at Lucia’s party tomorrow, but now, after her meanness, she deserved to be punished. All Riseholme should see it before she did.

The group round Mrs Weston’s chair was still engaged in conversation when Georgie came up, and he casually let slip what a bore it was to pay calls on such a lovely day, but he had promised to visit Miss Olga Bracely, who had just arrived. So there was another nasty one for Lucia, since now all Riseholme would know of her actual arrival before Lucia did.

“And who, Mr Georgie,” asked Mrs Antrobus presenting her trumpet to him in the manner in which an elephant presents its trunk to receive a bun, “who was that with her?”

“Oh, her husband, Mr Shuttleworth,” said Georgie. “They have just been married, and are on their honeymoon.” And if that was not another staggerer for Lucia, it is diffy, as Georgie would say, to know what a staggerer is. For Lucia would be last of all to know that this was not Mr Bracely.

“And will they be at Mrs Lucas’s party tomorrow?” asked Mrs Weston.

“Oh, does she know them?” asked Georgie.

“Haw, haw, by Jove!” began Colonel Boucher. “Very handsome woman. Envy you, my boy. Pity it’s their honeymoon. Haw!”

Mrs Antrobus’s trumpet was turned in his direction at this moment, and she heard these daring remarks.

“Naughty!” she said, and Georgie, the envied, passed in into the inn.

He sent in his card, on which he had thought it prudent to write “From Lady Ambermere,” and was presently led through into the garden behind the building. There she was, tall and lovely and welcoming, and held out a most cordial hand.

“How kind of you to come and see us,” she said. “Georgie, this is Mr Pillson. My husband.”

“How do you do, Mr Shuttleworth,” said Georgie to shew he knew, though his own Christian name had given him quite a start. For the moment he had almost thought she was speaking to him.

“And so Lady Ambermere asked you to come and see us?” Olga went on. “I think that was much kinder of her than to ask us to dinner. I hate going out to dinner in the country almost as much as I hate not going out to dinner in town. Besides with that great hook nose of hers, I’m always afraid that in an absent moment I might scratch her on the head and say ‘Pretty Polly.’ Is she a great friend of yours, Mr Pillson? I hope so, because everyone likes his best friends being laughed at.”

Up till that moment Georgie was prepared to indicate that Lady Ambermere was the hand and he the glove. But evidently that would not impress Olga in the least. He laughed in a most irreverent manner instead.

“Don’t let us go,” she went on. “Georgie, can’t you send a telegram saying that we have just discovered a subsequent engagement and then we’ll ask Mr Pillson to show us round this utterly adorable place, and dine with us afterwards. That would be so much nicer. Fancy living here! Oh, and do tell me something, Mr Pillson. I found a note when I arrived half an hour ago, from Mrs Lucas asking me and Mr Shuttleworth to go to a garden-party tomorrow. She said she didn’t even hope that I should remember her, but would we come. Who is she? Really I don’t think she can remember me very well, if she thinks I am Mrs Bracely. Georgie says I must have been married before, and that I have caused him to commit bigamy. That’s pleasant conversation for a honeymoon, isn’t it? Who is she?”

“Oh, she’s quite an old friend of mine,” said Georgie, “though I never knew she had met you before; I’m devoted to her.”

“Extremely proper. But now tell me this, and look straight in my face, so that I shall know if you’re speaking the truth. Should I enjoy myself more wandering about this heavenly place than at her garden party?”

Georgie felt that poor Lucia was really punished enough by this time.

“You will give her a great deal of pleasure if you go,” he began.

“Ah, that’s not fair; it is hitting below the belt to appeal to unselfish motives. I have come here simply to enjoy myself. Go on; eyes front.”

The candour and friendliness of that beautiful face gave Georgie an impulse of courage. Besides, though no doubt in fun, she had already suggested that it would be much nicer to wander about with him and dine together than spend the evening among the splendours of The Hall.

“I’ve got a suggestion,” he said. “Will you come and lunch with me first, and we’ll stroll about, and then we can go to the garden-party, and if you don’t like it I’ll take you away again?”

“Done!” she said. “Now don’t you try to get out of it, because my husband is a witness. Georgie, give me a cigarette.”

In a moment Riseholme-Georgie had his cigarette-case open.

“Do take one of mine,” he said, “I’m Georgie too.”

“You don’t say so! Let’s send it to the Psychical Research, or whoever those people are who collect coincidences and say it’s spooks. And a match please, one of you Georgies. Oh, how I should like never to see the inside of an Opera House again. Why mayn’t I grow on the walls of a garden like this, or better still, why shouldn’t I have a house and garden of my own here, and sing on the village-green, and ask for halfpennies? Tell me what happens here! I’ve always lived in town since the time a hook-nosed Hebrew, rather like Lady Ambermere, took me out of the gutter.”

“My dear!” said Mr Shuttleworth.

“Well, out of an orphan-school at Brixton and I would much prefer the gutter. That’s all about my early life just now, because I am keeping it for my memoirs which I shall write when my voice becomes a little more like a steam-whistle. But don’t tell Lady Ambermere, for she would have a fit, but say you happen to know that I belong to the Surrey Bracelys. So I do; Brixton is on the Surrey side. Oh, my dear, look at the sun. It’s behaving like the best sort of Claude! Heile Sonne!”

“I heard you do that last May,” said Georgie.

“Then you heard a most second-rate performance,” said she. “But really being unlaced by that Thing, that great fat profligate beery Prussian was almost too much for me. And the duet! But it was very polite of you to come, and I will do better next time. Siegfried! Brunnhilde! Siegfried! Miaou! Miaou! Bring on the next lot of cats! Darling Georgie, wasn’t it awful? And you had proposed to me only the day before.”