E. F. Benson - The Complete Works of E. F. Benson (Illustrated Edition)

Mrs Boucher was greedily counting the shillings which had been taken from the till, while Georgie counted the counterfoils of the tickets.

"A hundred and twenty-three," he said. "That's nearly the best week we've had yet."

"And fifteen and four is nineteen," said Mrs Boucher, "and four is twenty-three which makes exactly six pounds three shillings. Well, I do call that good. And I hear we've had a wonderful bequest made. Most generous of our dear Olga. I think she ought not only to be thanked, but asked to join the committee. I always said —"

Daisy rapped the table.

"Abfou said just the same," she interrupted. "I had a sitting this morning, and he kept writing 'committee.' I brought the paper along with me, because I was going to propose that myself. But there's another thing first, and that's about insurance. Robert told me he was insuring the building and its contents separately for a thousand pounds each. We shall have to pay a premium, of course. Oh, here's Abfou's message. 'Committee,' you see 'committee' written three times. I feel quite sure he meant Olga."

"He spells it with only one 'm,' " said Georgie, "but I expect he means that. There's one bit of business that comes before that, for I have been offered another object for the Museum, and I said I would refer the offer to the Committee before I accepted it. Lucia came to see me yesterday morning and asked —"

"The Elizabethan spit," said Mrs Boucher. "I don't see what we want with it, for my part, and if I had to say what I thought, I should thank her most politely, and beg that she would keep it herself. Most kind of her, I'm sure. Sorry to refuse, which was just what I said when she asked me to lunch yesterday. There'd have been legs of cold chickens of which her friends from London had eaten wings."

"She asked me too," said Daisy, "and I said 'no.' Did she leave this morning?"

"Yes, about half-past ten," said Georgie. "She wanted me to ask her to dinner last night."

Daisy had been writing 'committee' again and again on her blotting-paper. It looked very odd with two 'm's' and she would certainly have spelt it with one herself.

"I think Abfou is right about the way to spell 'committee,' " she said, "and even if he weren't the meaning is clear enough. But about the insurance. Robert only advises insurance against fire, for he says no burglar in his senses —"

Mrs Boucher rapped the table.

"But there wasn't the manuscript of Lucrezia then," she said. "And I should think that any burglar whether in his senses or out of them would think that worth taking. If it was a question of insuring an Elizabethan spit —"

"Well, I want to know what the committee wishes me to say about that," said Georgie. "Oh, by the way, when we have a new edition of the catalogue, we must bring it up to date. There'll be the manuscript of Lucrezia."

"And if you ask me," said Mrs Boucher, "she only wanted to get rid of the spit because it makes her chimney smoke. Tell her to get her chimney swept and keep the spit."

"There's a portrait of her in the music-room," said Georgie, "by Sigismund. It looks like nothing at all —"

"Of course everybody has a right to have their hair shingled," said Mrs Boucher, "whatever their age, and there's no law to prevent you."

Daisy rapped the table.

"We were considering as to whether we should ask Mrs Shuttleworth to join the committee," she said.

"She sang too, beautifully, on Sunday night," said Georgie, "and what fun we had dancing. Oh, and Lucia asked for the Princess's book to sign her name in, and the only book she had brought was a book of crossword puzzles."

"No!" said both ladies together.

"She did, because Olga's parlour-maid told Foljambe, and —"

"Well I never!" said Daisy. "That served her out. Did she write Lucia across, and Peppino down?"

"I'm sure I've nothing to say against her," said Mrs Boucher, "but people usually get what they deserve. Certainly let us have the Museum insured if that's the right thing to do, and as for asking Olga to be on the committee, why we settled that hours ago, and I have nothing more to say about the spit. Have the spit if you like, but I would no more think of insuring it, than insuring a cold in the head. I've as much use for one as the other. All that stuff too about the gracious châtelaine at The Hurst in the Evening Gazette! My husband read it, and what he said was 'Faugh!' Tush and faugh, was what he said."

Public opinion was beginning to boil up again about Lucia, and Georgie intervened.

"I think that's all the business before the meeting," he said, "and so we accept the manuscript of' Lucrezia and decline the spit. I'm sure it was very kind of both the donors. And Olga's to be asked to join the committee. Well, we have got through a good morning's work."

* * *

Lucia meanwhile was driving back to London, where she intended to make herself a busy week. There would be two nights at the opera, on the second of which Olga was singing in The Valkyrie, and so far from intending to depreciate her singing, or to refrain from going, by way of revenge for the slight she had suffered, she meant, even if Olga sang like a screech-owl and acted like a stick, to say there had never been so perfect a presentation of Brünnhilde. She could not conceive doing anything so stupid as snubbing Olga because she had not come to her house or permitted her to enter Old Place: that would have been the height of folly.

At present, she was (or hoped to be) on the upward road, and the upward road could only be climbed by industry and appreciation. When she got to the top, it would be a different matter, but just now it was an asset, a score to allude to dear Olga and the hoppings in and out that took place all day at Riseholme: she knew too, a good deal that Olga had done on Sunday and that would all be useful. "Always appreciate, always admire," thought Lucia to herself as she woke Peppino up from a profound nap on their arrival at Brompton Square. "Be busy: work, work, work."

She knew already that there would be hard work in front of her before she got where she wanted to get, and she whisked off like a disturbing fly which impeded concentration the slight disappointment which her weekend had brought. If you meant to progress, you must never look back (the awful example of Lot's wife!) and never, unless you are certain it is absolutely useless, kick down a ladder which has brought you anywhere, or might in the future bring you anywhere. Already she had learned a lesson about that, for if she had only told Georgie that she had been coming down for a weekend, and had bidden him to lunch and dinner and anything else he liked, he would certainly have got Olga to pop in at The Hurst, or have said that he couldn't dine with Olga on that fateful Sunday night because he was dining with her, and then no doubt Olga would have asked them all to come in afterwards. It had been a mistake to kick Riseholme down, a woeful mistake, and she would never do such a thing again. It was a mistake also to be sarcastic about anybody till you were sure they could not help you, and who could be sure of that? Even poor dear Daisy with her ridiculous Abfou had proved such an attraction at Old Place, that Georgie had barely time to get back and dress for dinner, and a benignant Daisy instead of a militant and malignant Daisy would have helped. Everything helps, thought Lucia, as she snatched up the tablets which stood by the telephone and recorded the ringings up that had taken place in her absence.

She fairly gasped at the amazing appropriateness of a message that had been received only ten minutes ago. Marcia Whitby hoped that she could dine that evening: the message was to be delivered as soon as she arrived. Obviously it was a last-moment invitation: somebody had thrown her over, and perhaps that made them thirteen. There was no great compliment in it, for Marcia, so Lucia conjectured, had already tried high and low to get another woman, and now in despair she tried Lucia . . . Of course there were the tickets for Henry VIII, and it was a first night, but perhaps she could get somebody to go with Peppino . . . Ah, she remembered Aggie Sanderson lamenting that she had been able to secure a seat! Without a pause she rang up the Duchess of Whitby, and expressed her eager delight at coming to dine tonight. So lucky, so charmed. Then having committed herself, she rang up Aggie and hoped for the best, and Aggie jumped at the idea of a ticket for Henry VIII, and then she told Peppino all about it.