THE COMPLETE WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition). Эдвард Бенсон

      "Such a slice!" she said. "How are you getting on, Lucia? How many have you played to get there?"

      "One at present, dear," said Lucia. "But isn't it difficult?"

      Daisy's face fell.

      "One?" she said.

      Lucia kissed her hand.

      "That's all," she said. "And has Georgie told you that I'll manage about Pug for you?"

      Daisy looked round severely. She had begun to address her ball and nobody must talk.

      Lucia watched Daisy do it again, and rejoined Georgie who was in a "tarsome" place, and tufts of grass flew in the air.

      "Georgie, I had a little talk with Mr Stratton the other day," she said. "There's a new golf-committee being elected in October, and they would so like to have you on it. Now be good-natured and say you will."

      Georgie had no intention of saying anything else.

      "And they want poor little me to be President," said Lucia. "So shall I send Mr Stratton a line and say we will? It would be kind, Georgie. Oh, by the way, do come and dine tonight. Peppino — so much better, thanks — Peppino told me to ask you. He would enjoy it. Just one of our dear little evenings again."

      Lucia, in fact, was bringing her batteries into action, and Georgie was the immediate though not the ultimate objective. He longed to be on the golf-committee, he was intensely grateful for the promised removal of Pug, and it was much more amusing to play golf with Lucia than to be dragooned round by Daisy who told him after every stroke what he ought to have done and could never do it herself. A game should not be a lecture.

      Lucia thought it was time to confide in him about the abandoning of Brompton Square. Georgie would love knowing what nobody else knew yet. She waited till he had failed to hole a short putt, and gave him the subsequent one, which Daisy never did.

      "I hope we shall have many of our little evenings, Georgie," she said. "We shall be here till Christmas. No, no more London for us, though it's a secret at present."

      "What?" said Georgie.

      "Wait a moment," said Lucia, teeing up for the last hole. "Now ickle ballie, fly away home. There! . . ." and ickle ballie flew at about right angles to home, but ever such a long way.

      She walked with him to cover-point, where he had gone too.

      "Peppino must never live in London again," she said. "All going to be sold, Georgie. The house and the furniture and the pearls. You must put up with your poor old Lucia at Riseholme again. Nobody knows yet but you, but now it is all settled. Am I sorry? Yes, Georgie, course I am. So many dear friends in London. But then there are dear friends in Riseholme. Oh, what a beautiful bang, Georgie. You nearly hit Daisy. Call 'Five!' isn't that what they do?"

      Lucia was feeling much surer of her ground. Georgie, bribed by a place on the golf-committee and by her admiration of his golf, and by her nobility with regard to Pug, was trotting back quick to her, and that was something. Next morning she had a hectic interview with Lady Ambermere . . .

      Lady Ambermere was said to be not at home, though Lucia had seen her majestic face at the window of the pink saloon. So she asked for Miss Lyall, the downtrodden companion, and waited in the hall. Her chauffeur had deposited the large brown-paper parcel with Pug inside on the much-admired tessellated pavement.

      "Oh, Miss Lyall," said Lucia. "So sad that dear Lady Ambermere is out, for I wanted to convey the grateful thanks of the Museum Committee to her for her beautiful gift of poor Pug. But they feel they can't . . . Yes, that's Pug in the brown-paper parcel. So sweet. But will you, on Lady Ambermere's return, make it quite clear?"

      Miss Lyall, looking like a mouse, considered what her duty was in this difficult situation. She felt that Lady Ambermere ought to know Lucia's mission and deal with it in person.

      "I'll see if Lady Ambermere has come in, Mrs Lucas," she said. "She may have come in. Just out in the garden, you know. Might like to know what you've brought. Oh dear me!"

      Poor Miss Lyall scuttled away, and presently the door of the pink saloon was thrown open. After an impressive pause Lady Ambermere appeared, looking vexed. The purport of this astounding mission had evidently been conveyed to her.

      "Mrs Lucas, I believe," she said, just as if she wasn't sure.

      Now Lucia after all her Duchesses was not going to stand that. Lady Ambermere might have a Roman nose, but she hadn't any manners.

      "Lady Ambermere, I presume," she retorted. So there they were.

      Lady Ambermere glared at her in a way that should have turned her to stone. It made no impression.

      "You have come, I believe, with a message from the committee of your little Museum at Riseholme, which I may have misunderstood."

      Lucia knew she was doing what neither Mrs Boucher nor Daisy in their most courageous moments would have dared to do. As for Georgie . . .

      "No, Lady Ambermere," she said. "I don't think you've misunderstood it. A stuffed dog on a cushion. They felt that the Museum was not quite the place for it. I have brought it back to you with their thanks and regrets. So kind of you and — and so sorry of them. This is the parcel. That is all, I think."

      It wasn't quite all . . .

      "Are you aware, Mrs Lucas," said Lady Ambermere, "that the mittens of the late Queen Charlotte are my loan to your little Museum?"

      Lucia put her finger to her forehead.

      "Mittens?" she said. "Yes, I believe there are some mittens. I think I have seen them. No doubt those are the ones. Yes?"

      That was brilliant: it implied complete indifference on the part of the committee (to which Lucia felt sure she would presently belong) as to what Lady Ambermere might think fit to do about mittens.

      "The committee shall hear from me," said Lady Ambermere, and walked majestically back to the pink saloon.

      Lucia felt sorry for Miss Lyall: Miss Lyall would probably not have a very pleasant day, but she had no real apprehensions, so she explained to the committee, who were anxiously awaiting her return on the green, about the withdrawal of these worsted relics.

      "Bluff, just bluff," she said. "And even if it wasn't — Surely, dear Daisy, it's better to have no mittens and no Pug than both. Pug — I caught a peep of him through a hole in the brown paper — Pug would have made your Museum a laughing-stock."

      "Was she very dreadful?" asked Georgie.

      Lucia gave a little silvery laugh.

      "Yes, dear Georgie, quite dreadful. You would have collapsed if she had said to you 'Mr Pillson, I believe.' Wouldn't you, Georgie? Don't pretend to be braver than you are."

      "Well, I think we ought all to be much obliged to you, Mrs Lucas," said Mrs Boucher. "And I'm sure we are. I should never have stood up to her like that! And if she takes the mittens away, I should be much inclined to put another pair in the case, for the case belongs to us and not to her, with just the label 'These mittens did not belong to Queen Charlotte, and were not presented by Lady Ambermere.' That would serve her out."

      Lucia laughed gaily again. "So glad to have been of use," she said. "And now, dear Daisy, will you be as kind to me as Georgie was yesterday and give me a little game of golf this afternoon? Not much fun for you, but so good for me."

      Daisy had observed some of Lucia's powerful strokes yesterday, and she was rather dreading this invitation for fear it should not be, as Lucia said, much fun for her. Luckily, she and Georgie had already arranged to play today, and she had, in anticipation of the dread event, engaged Piggy, Goosie, Mrs Antrobus and Colonel Boucher to play with her on all the remaining days of that week. She meant to practise like anything in the interval. And then, like a raven croaking disaster, the infamous Georgie let her down.

      "I'd sooner not play this afternoon," he said. "I'd sooner just stroll out with you."

      "Sure, Georgie?" said Lucia. "That will be