The Essential E. F. Benson: 53+ Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson

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      One of Lucia's greatnesses lay in the fact that when she found anybody out in some act of atrocious meanness, she never indulged in any idle threats of revenge: it was sufficient that she knew, and would take suitable steps on the earliest occasion. Consequently when it appeared, from the artless conversation of the guru at lunch, that the perfidious Mrs Quantock had not even asked him whether he would like to go to Lucia's garden-party or not (pending her own decision as to what she was meaning to do with him) Lucia received the information with the utmost good-humour, merely saying, "No doubt dear Mrs Quantock forgot to tell you," and did not announce acts of reprisal, such as striking Daisy off the list of her habitual guests for a week or two, just to give her a lesson. She even, before they sat down to lunch, telephoned over to that thwarted woman to say that she had met the guru in the street, and they had both felt that there was some wonderful bond of sympathy between them, so he had come back with her, and they were just sitting down to tiffin. She was pleased with the word "tiffin," and also liked explaining to Daisy what it meant.

      Tiffin was a great success, and there was no need for the guru to visit the kitchen in order to make something that could be eaten without struggle. He talked quite freely about his mission here, and Lucia and Georgie and Peppino, who had come in rather late, for he had been obliged to go back to the market-gardener's about the bulbs, listened entranced.

      "Yes, it was when I went to my friend who keeps the bookshop," he said, "that I knew there was English lady who wanted guru, and I knew I was called to her. No luggage, no anything at all: as I am. Such a kind lady, too, and she will get on well, but she will find some of the postures difficult, for she is what you call globe, round."

      "Was that postures when I saw her standing on one leg in the garden?" asked Georgie, "and when she sat down and tried to hold her toes?"

      "Yes, indeed, quite so, and difficult for globe. But she has white soul."

      He looked round with a smile.

      "I see many white souls here," he said. "It is happy place, when there are white souls, for to them I am sent."

      This was sufficient: in another minute Lucia, Georgie and Peppino were all accepted as pupils, and presently they went out into the garden, where the guru sat on the ground in a most complicated attitude which was obviously quite out of reach of Mrs Quantock.

      "One foot on one thigh, other foot on other thigh," he explained. "And the head and back straight: it is good to meditate so."

      Lucia tried to imagine meditating so, but felt that any meditation so would certainly be on the subject of broken bones.

      "Shall I be able to do that?" she asked. "And what will be the effect?"

      "You will be light and active, dear lady, and ah — here is other dear lady come to join us."

      Mrs Quantock had certainly made one of her diplomatic errors on this occasion. She had acquiesced on the telephone in her guru going to tiffin with Lucia, but about the middle of her lunch, she had been unable to resist the desire to know what was happening at The Hurst. She could not bear the thought that Lucia and her guru were together now, and her own note, saying that it was uncertain whether the guru would come to the garden-party or not filled her with the most uneasy apprehensions. She would sooner have acquiesced in her guru going to fifty garden-parties, where all was public, and she could keep an eye and a control on him, rather than that Lucia should have "enticed him in" — that was her phrase — like this to tiffin. The only consolation was that her own lunch had been practically inedible, and Robert had languished lamentably for the guru to return, and save his stomach. She had left him glowering over a little mud and water called coffee. Robert, at any rate, would welcome the return of the guru.

      She waddled across the lawn to where this harmonious party was sitting, and at that moment Lucia began to feel vindictive. The calm of victory which had permeated her when she brought the guru in to lunch, without any bother at all, was troubled and broken up, and darling Daisy's note, containing the outrageous falsity that the guru would not certainly accept an invitation which had never been permitted to reach him at all, assumed a more sinister aspect. Clearly now Daisy had intended to keep him to herself, a fact that she already suspected, and had made a hostile invasion.

      "Guru, dear, you naughty thing," said Mrs Quantock playfully, after the usual salutations had passed, "why did you not tell your Chela you would not be home for tiffin?"

      The guru had unwound his legs, and stood up.

      "But see, beloved lady," he said, "how pleasant we all are! Take not too much thought, when it is only white souls who are together."

      Mrs Quantock patted his shoulder.

      "It is all good and kind Om," she said. "I send out my message of love. There!"

      It was necessary to descend from these high altitudes, and Lucia proceeded to do so, as in a parachute that dropped swiftly at first, and then floated in still air.

      "And we're making such a lovely plan, dear Daisy," she said. "The guru is going to teach us all. Classes! Aren't you?"

      He held his hands up to his head, palms outwards, and closed his eyes.

      "I seem to feel call," he said. "I am sent. Surely the Guides tell me there is a sending of me. What you call classes? Yes? I teach: you learn. We all learn . . . I leave all to you. I will walk a little way off to arbour, and meditate, and then when you have arranged, you will tell guru, who is your servant. Salaam! Om!"

      With the guru in her own house, and with every intention to annex him, it was no wonder that Lucia took the part of chairman in this meeting that was to settle the details of the esoteric brotherhood that was to be formed in Riseholme. Had not Mrs Quantock been actually present, Lucia in revenge for her outrageous conduct about the garden-party invitation would probably have left her out of the classes altogether, but with her sitting firm and square in a basket chair, that creaked querulously as she moved, she could not be completely ignored. But Lucia took the lead throughout, and suggested straight away that the smoking-parlour would be the most convenient place to hold the classes in.

      "I should not think of invading your house, dear Daisy," she said, "and here is the smoking-parlour which no one ever sits in, so quiet and peaceful. Yes. Shall we consider that settled, then?"

      She turned briskly to Mrs Quantock.

      "And now where shall the guru stay?" she said. "It would be too bad, dear Daisy, if we are all to profit by his classes, that you should have all the trouble and expense of entertaining him, for in your sweet little house he must be a great inconvenience, and I think you said that your husband had given up his dressing-room to him."

      Mrs Quantock made a desperate effort to retain her property.

      "No inconvenience at all," she said, "quite the contrary in fact, dear. It is delightful having him, and Robert regards him as a most desirable inmate."

      Lucia pressed her hand feelingly.

      "You and your husband are too unselfish," she said. "Often have I said, 'Daisy and Mr Robert are the most unselfish people I know.' Haven't I, Georgie? But we can't permit you to be so crowded. Your only spare room, you know, and your husband's dressing-room! Georgie, I know you agree with me; we must not permit dear Daisy to be so unselfish."

      The birdlike eye produced its compelling effect on Georgie. So short a time ago he had indulged in revolutionary ideas, and had contemplated having the guru and Olga Bracely to dinner, without even asking Lucia: now the faint stirrings of revolt faded like snow in summer. He knew quite well what Lucia's next proposition would be: he knew, too, that he would agree to it.

      "No, that would never do," he said. "It is simply trespassing on Mrs Quantock's good nature, if she is to board and lodge him, while he teaches all of us. I wish I could take him in, but with Hermy and Ursy coming tonight, I have as little room as Mrs Quantock."

      "He shall come here," said Lucia brightly, as if she had just that moment thought of it. "There are Hamlet and Othello vacant"