Ever, dear Daisy, your sad Lucia.
And not a word about expectations!… Lucia’s dear Daisy crumpled up the absurd note, and said “Rubbish,” so loud that Georgie Pillson in the next garden thought he was being addressed.
“What’s that?” he said.
“Georgie, come to the fence a minute,” said Mrs. Quantock. “I want to speak to you.”
Georgie, longing for a little gossip, let go of the handle of his roller, which, suddenly released, gave a loud squeak and rapped him smartly on the elbow.
“Tarsome thing!” said Georgie.
He went to the fence and, being tall, could look over it. There was Mrs. Quantock angrily poking Lucia’s note into the flower-bed she had been weeding.
“What is it?” said Georgie. “Shall I like it?”
His face red and moist with exertion, appearing just over the top of the fence, looked like the sun about to set below the flat grey horizon of the sea.
“I don’t know if you’ll like it,” said Daisy, “but it’s your Lucia. I sent her a little note of condolence about the aunt, and she says it has been a terrible blow to Pepino and herself. They hoped that the old lady might have been spared them a few years yet.”
“No!” said Georgie, wiping the moisture off his forehead with the back of one of his beautiful pearl-grey gloves.
“But she did,” said the infuriated Daisy, “they were her very words. I could show you if I hadn’t dug it in. Such a pack of nonsense! I hope that long before I’ve been bedridden for seven years, somebody will strangle me with a bootlace, or anything handy. Why does Lucia pretend to be sorry? What does it all mean?”
Georgie had long been devoted henchman to Lucia (Mrs. Lucas, wife of Philip Lucas, and so Lucia), and though he could criticise her in his mind, when he was alone in his bed or his bath, he always championed her in the face of the criticism of others. Whereas Daisy criticised everybody everywhere…
“Perhaps it means what it says,” he observed with the delicate sarcasm that never had any effect on his neighbour.
“It can’t possibly do that,” said Mrs. Quantock. “Neither Lucia nor Pepino have set eyes on his aunt for years, nor spoken of her. Last time Pepino went to see her she bit him. Sling for a week afterwards, don’t you remember, and he was terrified of blood-poisoning. How can her death be a blow, and as for her being spared—”
Mrs. Quantock suddenly broke off, remembering that de Vere was still standing there and drinking it all in.
“That’s all, de Vere,” she said.
“Thank you, ma’am,” said de Vere, striding back towards the house. She had high-heeled shoes on, and each time she lifted her foot, the heel which had been embedded by her weight in the soft lawn came out with the sound of a cork being drawn. Then Daisy came closer to the fence, with the light of inductive reasoning, which was much cultivated at Riseholme, veiling the fury of her eye.
“Georgie, I’ve got it,” she said. “I’ve guessed what it means.”
Now though Georgie was devoted to his Lucia, he was just as devoted to inductive reasoning, and Daisy Quantock was, with the exception of himself, far the most powerful logician in the place.
“What is it, then?” he asked.
“Stupid of me not to have thought of it at once,” said Daisy. “Why, don’t you see? Pepino is Auntie’s heir, for she was unmarried, and he’s the only nephew, and probably he has been left piles and piles. So naturally they say it’s a terrible blow. Wouldn’t do to be exultant. They must say it’s a terrible blow, to show they don’t care about the money. The more they’re left, the sadder it is. So natural. I blame myself for not having thought of it at once. Have you seen her since?”
“Not for a quiet talk,” said Georgie. “Pepino was there, and a man who, I think, was Pepino’s lawyer. He was frightfully deferential.”
“That proves it,” said Daisy. “And nothing said of any kind?”
Georgie’s face screwed itself up in the effort to remember.
“Yes, there was something,” he said, “but I was talking to Lucia, and the others were talking rather low. But I did hear the lawyer say something to Pepino about pearls. I do remember the word pearls. Perhaps it was the old lady’s pearls.”
Mrs. Quantock gave a short laugh.
“It couldn’t have been Pepino’s,” she said. “He has one in a tie-pin. It’s called pear-shaped, but there’s little shape about it. When do wills come out?”
“Oh, ages,” said Georgie. “Months. And there’s a house in London, I know.”
“Whereabouts?” asked Daisy greedily.
Georgie’s face assumed a look of intense concentration.
“I couldn’t tell you for certain,” he said, “but I know Pepino went up to town not long ago to see about some repairs to his aunt’s house, and I think it was the roof.”
“It doesn’t matter where the repairs were,” said Daisy impatiently. “I want to know where the house was.”
“You interrupt me,” said Georgie. “I was telling you. I know he went to Harrod’s afterwards and walked there, because he and Lucia were dining with me and he said so. So the house must have been close to Harrod’s, quite close I mean, because it was raining, and if it had been any reasonable distance he would have had a taxi. So it might be Knightsbridge.”
Mrs. Quantock put on her gardening-gloves again.
“How frightfully secretive people are,” she said. “Fancy his never having told you where his aunt’s house was.”
“But they never spoke of her,” said Georgie. “She’s been in that nursing-home so many years.”
“You may call it a nursing-home,” observed Mrs. Quantock, “or, if you choose, you may call it a post office. But it was an asylum. And they’re just as secretive about the property.”
“But you never talk about the property till after the funeral,” said Georgie. “I believe it’s to-morrow.”
Mrs. Quantock gave a prodigious sniff.
“They would have, if there hadn’t been any,” she said.
“How horrid you are,” said Georgie. “How—”
His speech was cut off by several loud sneezes. However beautiful the sleeve-links, it wasn’t wise to stand without a coat after being in such a heat.
“How what?” asked Mrs. Quantock, when the sneezing was over.
“I’ve forgotten now. I shall get back to my rolling. A little chilly. I’ve done half the lawn.”
A telephone-bell had been ringing for the last few seconds, and Mrs. Quantock localised it as being in his house, not hers. Georgie was rather deaf, however much he pretended not to be.
“Your telephone bell’s ringing, Georgie,” she said.
“I thought it was,” said Georgie, who had not heard it at all.
“And come in presently for a cup of tea,” shouted Mrs. Quantock.
“Should love to. But I must have a bath first.”
Georgie hurried indoors, for a telephone call usually meant a little gossip with a friend. A very familiar voice, though a little husky and broken, asked if it was he.
“Yes, it’s me, Lucia,” he said in soft firm tones of sympathy. “How are you?”
Lucia sighed. It was a long, very audible, intentional sigh. Georgie could visualise her putting her mouth quite close to the telephone, so as to make sure it carried.
“Quite well,” she said. “And so is my Pepino, thank heaven. Bearing up wonderfully. He’s just gone.”
Georgie was on the point of asking where, but guessed in time.
“I see,” he said. “And you didn’t go. I’m very glad. So wise.”
“I felt I couldn’t,” she said, “and he urged me not. It’s to-morrow. He sleeps in London to-night—”
(Again Georgie longed to say “where,” for it was impossible not to wonder if he would sleep in the house of unknown locality near Harrod’s.) “And he’ll be back to-morrow evening,” said Lucia without pause. “I wonder if you would take pity on me and come and dine. Just something to eat,
you know: the house is so upset. Don’t dress.”
“Delighted,” said Georgie, though he had ordered oysters. But they could be scolloped for to-morrow… “Love to come.”
“Eight o’clock then? Nobody else of course. If you care to bring our Mozart duet.”
“Rather,” said Georgie. “Good for you to be occupied, Lucia. We’ll have a good go at it.”
“Dear Georgie,” said Lucia faintly. He heard her sigh again, not quite so successfully, and replace the earpiece with a click.
Georgie moved away from the telephone, feeling immensely busy: there was so much to think about and to do. The first thing was to speak about the oysters, and, his parlour-maid being out, he called down the kitchen-stairs. The absence of Foljambe made it necessary for him to get his bath ready himself, and he turned the hot water tap half on, so that he could run downstairs again and out into the garden (for there was not time to finish the lawn if he was to have a bath and change before tea) in order to put the roller back in the shed. Then he had to get his clothes out, and select something which would do for tea and also for dinner, as Lucia had told him not to dress. There was a new suit which he had not worn yet, rather daring, for the trousers, dark fawn, were distinctly of Oxford cut, and he felt quite boyish as he looked at them. He had ordered them in a moment of reckless sartorial courage, and a quiet tea with Daisy Quantock, followed by a quiet dinner with Lucia, was just the way to make a beginning with them, far better than wearing them for the first time at church on Sunday, when the whole of Riseholme simultaneously would see them. The coat and waistcoat were very dark blue: they would look blue at tea and black at dinner; and there were some grey silk socks, rather silvery, and a tie to match them. These took some time to find, and his search was interrupted by volumes of steam pouring into his bedroom from his bathroom; he ran in to find the bath full nearly to the brim of boiling water. It had been little more than lukewarm yesterday, and his cook had evidently taken to heart his too-sharp words after breakfast this morning. So he had to pull up the plug of his bath to let the boiling contents subside, and fill up with cold.
He went back to his bedroom and began undressing. All this news about Lucia and Pepino, with Daisy Quantock’s penetrating comments, was intensely interesting. Old Miss Lucas had been in this nursing-home or private asylum for years, and Georgie didn’t suppose that the inclusive charges could be less than fifteen pounds a week, and fifteen times fifty-two was a large sum. That was income too, and say it was at five per cent., the capital it represented was considerable. Then there was that house in London. If it was freehold, that meant a great deal more capital: if it was on lease it meant a great deal more income. Then there were rates and taxes, and the wages of a caretaker, and no doubt a margin. And there were the pearls.
Georgie took a half-sheet of paper from the drawer in a writing-table where he kept half-sheets and pieces of string untied from parcels, and began to calculate. There was necessarily a good deal of guesswork about it, and the pearls had to be omitted altogether, since nobody could say what “pearls” were worth without knowing their quantity or quality. But even omitting these, and putting quite a low figure on the possible rent of the house near Harrod’s, he was astounded at the capital which these annual outgoings appeared to represent.
“I don’t put it at a penny less than fifty thousand pounds,” he said to himself, “and the income at two thousand six hundred.”
He had got a little chilly as he sat at his figures, and with a luxurious foretaste of a beautiful hot bath, he hurried into his bathroom. The whole of the boiling water had run out.
“How tarsome! Damn!” said Georgie, putting in the plug and turning on both taps simultaneously.
His calculations, of course, had only been the materials on which his imagination built, and as he dressed it was hard at work, between glances at his trousers as reflected in the full-length mirror which stood in his window. What would Lucia and Pepino do with this vast increase of fortune? Lucia already had the biggest house in Riseholme and the most Elizabethan decor, and a motor, and as many new clothes as she chose. She did not spend much on them because her lofty mind despised clothes, but Georgie permitted himself to indulge cynical reflections that the pearls might make her dressier. Then she already entertained as much as she felt disposed; and more money would not make her wish to give more dinners. And she went up to London whenever there was anything in the way of pictures or plays or music which she felt held the seed of culture. Society (so-called) she despised as thoroughly as she despised clothes, and always said she came back to Riseholme feeling intellectually starved. Perhaps she would endow a permanent fund for holding May-day revels on the village green, for Lucia had said she meant to have May-day revels every year. They had been a great success last year, though fatiguing, for everybody dressed up in sixteenth century costume, and danced Morris dances till they all hobbled home dead lame at the merciful sunset. It had all been wonderfully Elizabethan, and Georgie’s jerkin had hurt him very much.
Lucia was a wonderful character, thought Georgie, and she would find a way to spend two or three thousand a year more in an edifying and cultured manner. (Were Oxford trousers meant to turn up at the bottom? He thought not: and how small these voluminous folds made your feet look.) Georgie knew what he himself would do with two or three thousand a year more: indeed he had often considered whether he would not try to do it without. He wanted, ever so much, to have a little flat in London (or a couple of rooms would serve), just for a dip every now and then in the life which Lucia found so vapid. But he knew he wasn’t a strong, serious character like Lucia, whose only frivolities were artistic or Elizabethan.
His eye fell on a large photograph on the table by his bedside in a silver frame, representing Brunnhilde. It was signed “Olga to beloved Georgie,” and his waistcoat felt quite tight as, drawing in a long breath, he recalled that wonderful six months when Olga Bracely, the prima donna, had bought Old Place, and lived here, and had altered all the values of everything. Georgie believed himself to have been desperately in love with her, but it had been a very exciting time for more reasons than that. Old values had gone: she had thought Riseholme the most splendid joke that had ever been made; she loved them all and laughed at them all, and nobody minded a bit, but followed her whims as if she had been a Pied Piper. All but Lucia, that is to say, whose throne had, quite unintentionally on Olga’s part, been pulled smartly from under her, and her sceptre flew in one direction, and her crown in another. Then Olga had gone off for an operatic tour in America, and, after six triumphant months there, had gone on to Australia. But she would be back in England by now, for she was singing in London this season, and her house at Riseholme, so long closed, would be open again… . And the coat buttoned beautifully, just the last button, leaving the rest negligently wide and a little loose. Georgie put an amethyst tie-pin in his grey tie, which gave a pretty touch of colour, brushed his hair back from his forehead, so that the toupée was quite indistinguishable from his own hair, and hurried downstairs to go out to tea with Daisy Quantock.
Daisy was seated at her writing-table when he entered, very busy with a pencil and piece of paper and counting something up on her fingers. Her gardening-fork lay in the grate with the fire-irons, on the carpet there were one or two little sausages of garden-mould, which no doubt had peeled off from her boots, and her gardening gloves were on the floor by her side. Georgie instantly registered the conclusion that something important must have occurred, and that she had come indoors in a great hurry, because the carpet was nearly new, and she always made a great fuss if the smallest atom of cigarette ash dropped on it.
“Thirty-seven, forty-seven, fifty-two, and carry five,” she muttered, as Georgie stood in front of the fire, so that the entire new suit should be seen at once. “Wait a moment, Georgie—and seventeen and five’s twenty-three—no, twenty-two, and that’s put me out: I must begin again. That can’t be right. Help yourself, if de Vere has brought in tea, and if not ring—Oh
, I left out the four, and altogether it’s two thousand five hundred pounds.”
Georgie had thought at first that Daisy was merely doing some belated household accounts, but the moment she said two thousand five hundred pounds he guessed, and did not even go through the formality of asking what was two thousand five hundred pounds.
“I made it two thousand six hundred,” he said. “But we’re pretty well agreed.”
Naturally Daisy understood that he understood.
“Perhaps you reckoned the pearls as capital,” she said, “and added the interest.”
“No I didn’t,” he said. “How could I tell how much they were worth? I didn’t reckon them in at all.”
“Well, it’s a lot of money,” said Daisy. “Let’s have tea. What will she do with it?”
She seemed quite blind to the Oxford trousers, and Georgie wondered whether that was from mere feebleness of vision. Daisy was short-sighted, though she steadily refused to recognise that, and would never wear spectacles. In fact, Lucia had made an unkind little epigram about it at a time when there was a slight coolness between the two, and had said “Dear Daisy is too short-sighted to see how short-sighted she is.” Of course it was unkind, but very brilliant, and Georgie had read through “The Importance of Being Earnest” which Lucia had gone up to town to see, in the hopes of discovering it… Or was Daisy’s unconsciousness of his trousers merely due to her preoccupation with Lucia’s probable income?… Or were the trousers, after all, not so daring as he had thought them?
He sat down with one leg thrown carelessly over the arm of his chair, so that Daisy could hardly fail to see it. Then he took a piece of tea-cake.
“Yes, do tell me what you think she will do with it?” he asked. “I’ve been puzzling over it too.”
“I can’t imagine,” said Daisy. “She’s got everything she wants now. Perhaps they’ll just hoard it, in order that when Pepino dies we may all see how much richer he was than we ever imagined. That’s too posthumous for me. Give me what I want now, and a pauper’s funeral afterwards.”