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

      Georgie's fallen face showed her how completely she had spoiled his pleasure.

      "Who told you?" he asked.

      She rattled her tassels.

      "Little bird!" she said. "I must run away to my class, or they will scold me."

      Once again before they settled down to high philosophies, Lucia had the pleasure of disappointing the ambitions of her class to surprise, inform and astonish her.

      "Good-morning to you all," she said, "and before we settle down I'll give you a little bit of news now that at last I'm allowed to. Dear Miss Olga Bracely, whom I think you all met here, is coming to live at Old Place. Will she not be a great addition to our musical parties? Now, please."

      But this splendid bravado was but a scintillation, on a hard and highly polished surface, and had Georgie been able to penetrate into Lucia's heart he would have found complete healing for his recent severe mortification. He did not really believe that Lucia had known all along, like himself, who the new tenant was, for her enquiries had seemed to be pointed with the most piercing curiosity, but, after all, Lucia (when she did not forget her part) was a fine actress, and perhaps all the time he thought he had been punishing her, she had been fooling him. And, in any case, he certainly had not had the joy of telling her; whether she had guessed or really knew, it was she who had told him, and there was no getting over it. He went back straight home and drew a caricature of her.

      But if Georgie was sitting with a clouded brow, Lucia was troubled by nothing less than a raging tornado of agitated thought. Though Olga would undoubtedly be a great addition to the musical talent of Riseholme, would she fall into line, and, for instance, "bring her music" and sing after dinner when Lucia asked her? As regards music, it was possible that she might be almost too great an addition, and cause the rest of the gifted amateurs to sink into comparative insignificance. At present Lucia was high-priestess at every altar of Art, and she could not think with equanimity of seeing anybody in charge of the ritual at any. Again to so eminent an opera-singer there must be conceded a certain dramatic knowledge, and indeed Georgie had often spoken to Lucia of that superb moment when Brünnhilde woke and hailed the sun. Must Lucia give up the direction of dramatic art as well as of music?

      Point by point pricked themselves out of the general gloom, and hoisted danger signals; then suddenly the whole was in blaze together. What if Olga took the lead, not in this particular or in that, but attempted to constitute herself supreme in the affairs of Riseholme? It was all very well for her to be a brilliant bird of passage just for a couple of days, and drop, so to speak, "a moulted feather, a eagle's feather" on Lucia's party, thereby causing it to shine out from all previous festivities, making it the Hightumest affair that had ever happened, but it was a totally different matter to contemplate her permanent residence here. It seemed possible that then she might keep her feathers to line her own eyrie. She thought of Belshazzar's feast, and the writing of doom on the wall which she was Daniel enough to interpret herself, "Thy kingdom is divided," it said, "and given to the Bracelys or the Shuttleworths."

      She rallied her forces. If Olga meant to show herself that sort of woman, she should soon know with whom she had to deal. Not but what Lucia would give her the chance first of behaving with suitable loyalty and obedience; she would even condescend to cooperate with her so long as it was perfectly clear that she aimed at no supremacy. But there was only one lawgiver in Riseholme, one court of appeal, one dispenser of destiny.

      Her own firmness of soul calmed and invigorated her, and changing her Teacher's Robe for a walking dress, she went out up the road that led by Old Place, to see what could be observed of the interior from outside.

      Chapter Ten

       Table of Contents

      One morning about the middle of October, Lucia was seated at breakfast and frowning over a note she had just received. It began without any formality and was written in pencil.

      Do look in about half-past nine on Saturday and be silly for an hour or two. We'll play games and dance, shall we? Bring your husband of course, and don't bother to reply.

      O. B.

      "An invitation," she said icily, as she passed it to her husband. "Rather short notice."

      "We're not doing anything, are we?" he asked.

      Peppino was a little imperceptive sometimes.

      "No, it wasn't that I meant," she said. "But there's a little more informality about it than one would expect."

      "Probably it's an informal party," said he.

      "It certainly seems most informal. I am not accustomed to be asked quite like that."

      Peppino began to be aware of the true nature of the situation.

      "I see what you mean, cara," he said. "So don't let us go. Then she will take the hint perhaps."

      Lucia thought this over for a moment and found that she rather wanted to go. But a certain resentment that had been slowly accumulating in her mind for some days past began to leak out first, before she consented to overlook Olga's informality.

      "It is a fortnight since I called on her," she said, "and she has not even returned the call. I dare say they behave like that in London in certain circles, but I don't know that London is any better for it."

      "She has been away twice since she came," said Peppino. "She has hardly been here for a couple of days together yet."

      "I may be wrong," said Lucia. "No doubt I am wrong. But I should have thought that she might have spared half an hour out of these days by returning my call. However, she thought not."

      Peppino suddenly recollected a thrilling piece of news which most unaccountably he had forgotten to tell Lucia.

      "Dear me, something slipped my memory," he said. "I met Mrs Weston yesterday afternoon, who told me that half an hour ago Miss Bracely had seen her in her bath-chair and had taken the handles from Tommy Luton, and pushed her twice round the green, positively running."

      "That does not seem to me of very prime importance," said Lucia, though she was thrilled to the marrow. "I do not wonder it slipped your memory, caro."

      "Carissima, wait a minute. That is not all. She told Mrs Weston that she would have returned her call, but that she hadn't got any calling cards."

      "Impossible!" cried Lucia. "They could have printed them at Ye olde Booke Shop in an afternoon."

      "That may be so, indeed, if you say so, it is," said Peppino. "Anyhow she said she hadn't got any calling cards, and I don't see why she should lie about it."

      "No, it is not the confession one would be likely to make," said she, "unless it was true. Or even if it was," she added.

      "Anyhow it explains why she has not been here," said Peppino. "She would naturally like to do everything in order, when she called on you, carissima. It would have been embarrassing if you were out, and she could not hand in her card."

      "And about Mr Shuttleworth?" asked she in an absent voice, as if she had no real interest in her question.

      "He has not been seen yet at all, as far as I can gather."

      "Then shall we have no host, if we drop in tomorrow night?"

      "Let us go and see, cara," said he gaily.

      Apart from this matter of her call not being returned, Lucia had not as yet had any reason to suspect Olga of revolutionary designs on the throne. She had done odd things — pushing Mrs Weston's chair round the green was one of them, smoking a cigarette as she came back from church on Sunday was another — but these she set down to the Bohemianism and want of polish which might be expected from her upbringing, if you could call an orphan school at Brixton an upbringing at all. This terrific fact Georgie had let slip in his stern determination to know twice as much about Olga as anybody else, and Lucia had treasured it. She had in the last fortnight