“Then would you keep both houses open?” asked Georgie, thrilled to the marrow.
“Pepino 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. Pepino 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 Pepino, 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, Pepino 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 Pepino 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 to-morrow afternoon, won’t you, and tell me if there is any news. Naturally, I shan’t go out.”
“Oh, come and have lunch,” said Georgie.
“No, dear Georgie: the funeral is at two. Putney Vale. Buona notte.”
“Buona notte, dear Lucia,” he said.
Georgie hurried back to his house, and was disappointed to see that there were no lights in Daisy’s drawing-room nor in Robert Quantock’s study. But when he got up to his bedroom, where Foljambe had forgotten to pull down the blinds, he saw a light in Daisy’s bedroom. Even as he looked the curtains there were drawn back, and he saw her amply clad in a dressing-gown, opening windows at top and bottom, for just now the first principle of health consisted in sleeping in a gale. She too must have seen his room was lit, and his face at the window, for she made violent signs to him, and he threw open the casement.
“Well?” she said.
“In Brompton Square,” said George. “And three thousand a year!”
“No!” said Daisy.
CHAPTER II
This simple word ‘No’ connoted a great deal in the Riseholme vernacular. It was used, of course, as a mere negative, without emphasis, and if you wanted to give weight to your negative you added ‘Certainly not.’ But when you used the word ‘No’ with emphasis, as Daisy had used it from her bedroom window to Georgie, it was not a negative at all, and its signification briefly put was “I never heard anything so marvellous, and it thrills me through and through. Please go on at once, and tell me a great deal more, and then let us talk it all over.”
On that occasion Georgie did not go on at once, for having made his climax he, with supreme art, shut the window and drew down the blind, leaving Daisy to lie awake half the night and ponder over this remarkable news, and wonder what Pepino and Lucia would do with all that money. She arrived at several conclusions: she guessed that they would buy the meadow beyond the garden, and have a new telescope, but the building of a library did not occur to her. Before she went to sleep an even more important problem presented itself, and she scribbled a note to Georgie to be taken across in the morning early, in which she wrote, “And did she say anything about the house? What’s going to happen to it? And you didn’t tell me the number,” exactly as she would have continued the conversation if he had not shut his window so quickly and drawn down the blind, ringing down the curtain on his magnificent climax.
Foljambe brought up this note with Georgie’s early morning tea and the glass of very hot water which sometimes he drank instead of it if he suspected an error of diet the night before, and the little glass gallipot of Kruschen salts, which occasionally he added to the hot water or the tea. Georgie was very sleepy, and, only half awake, turned round in bed, so that Foljambe should not see the place where he wore the toupée, and smothered a snore, for he would not like her to think that he snored. But when she said “Telegram for you, sir,” Georgie sat up at once in h
is pink silk pyjamas.
“No!” he said with emphasis.
He tore the envelope open, and a whole sheaf of sheets fell out. The moment he set eyes on the first words, he knew so well from whom it came that he did not even trouble to look at the last sheet where it would be signed.
Beloved Georgie (it ran), I rang you up till I lost my temper and so send this. Most expensive, but terribly important. I arrived in London yesterday and shall come down for week-end to Riseholme. Shall dine with you Saturday all alone to hear about everything. Come to lunch and dinner Sunday, and ask everybody to one or other, particularly Lucia. Am bringing cook, but order sufficient food for Sunday. Wonderful American and Australian tour, and I’m taking house in London for season. Shall motor down.
Bless you.
Olga.
Georgie sprang out of bed, merely glancing through Daisy’s pencilled note and throwing it away. There was nothing to be said to it in any case, since he had been told not to divulge the project with regard to the house in Brompton Square, and he didn’t know the number. But in Olga’s telegram there was enough to make anybody busy for the day, for he had to ask all her friends to lunch or dinner on Sunday, order the necessary food, and arrange a little meal for Olga and himself to-morrow night. He scarcely knew what he was drinking, tea or hot water or Kruschen salts, so excited was he. He foresaw too, that there would be call for the most skilled diplomacy with regard to Lucia. She must certainly be asked first, and some urging might be required to make her consent to come at all, either to lunch or dinner, even if due regard was paid to her deep mourning, and the festivity limited to one or two guests of her own selection. Yet somehow Georgie felt that she would stretch a point and be persuaded, for everybody else would be going some time on Sunday to Olga’s, and it would be tiresome for her to explain again and again in the days that followed that she had been asked and had not felt up to it. And if she didn’t explain carefully every time, Riseholme would be sure to think she hadn’t been asked. ‘A little diplomacy’ thought George, as he trotted across to her house after breakfast with no hat, but a fur tippet round his neck.
He was shown into the music-room, while her maid went to fetch her. The piano was open, so she had evidently been practising, and there was a copy of the Mozart duet which she had read so skilfully last night on the music-rest. For the moment Georgie thought he must have forgotten to take his copy away with him, but then looking at it more carefully he saw that there were pencilled marks for the fingering scribbled over the more difficult passages in the treble, which certainly he had never put there. At the moment he saw Lucia through the window coming up the garden, and he hastily took a chair far away from the piano and buried himself in The Times.
They sat close together in front of the fire, and Georgie opened his errand.
“I heard from Olga this morning,” he said, “a great long telegram. She is coming down for the week-end.”
Lucia gave a wintry smile. She did not care for Olga’s coming down. Riseholme was quite silly about Olga.
“That will be nice for you, Georgie,” she said.
“She sent you a special message,” said he.
“I am grateful for her sympathy,” said Lucia. “She might perhaps have written direct to me, but I’m sure she was full of kind intentions. As she sent the message by you verbally, will you verbally thank her? I appreciate it.”
Even as she delivered these icy sentiments, Lucia got up rather hastily and passed behind him. Something white on the music-rest of the piano had caught her eye.
“Don’t move, Georgie,” she said, “sit and warm yourself and light your cigarette. Anything else?”
She walked up the room to the far end where the piano stood, and Georgie, though he was a little deaf, quite distinctly heard the rustle of paper. The most elementary rudiments of politeness forbade him to look round. Besides he knew exactly what was happening. Then there came a second rustle of paper, which he could not interpret.
“Anything else, Georgie?” repeated Lucia, coming back to her chair.
“Yes. But Olga’s message wasn’t quite that,” he said. “She evidently hadn’t heard of your bereavement.”
“Odd,” said Lucia. “I should have thought perhaps that the death of Miss Amy Lucas—however, what was her message then?”
“She wanted you very much—she said ‘particularly Lucia’—to go to lunch or dine with her on Sunday. Pepino, too, of course.”
“So kind of her, but naturally quite impossible,” said Lucia.
“Oh, but you mustn’t say that,” said Georgie. “She is down for just that day, and she wants to see all her old friends. Particularly Lucia, you know. In fact she asked me to get up two little parties for her at lunch and dinner. So, of course, I came to see you first, to know which you would prefer.”
Lucia shook her head.
“A party!” she said. “How do you think I could?”
“But it wouldn’t be that sort of party,” said Georgie. “Just a few of your friends. You and Pepino will have seen nobody to-night and all to-morrow. He will have told you everything by Sunday. And so bad to sit brooding.”
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 Pepino 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 Pepino.”
“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 Pepino’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 Pepino 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 wheel-barrow, now empty of manure, to the wood-shed.