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

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СКАЧАТЬ and poor me! Marcia will adore it. She always says she can never get hold of me nowadays."

      Lucia gave a swift scrutiny to the rest of the collection, so as to be able to recognise them all without reference to her catalogue, when she came back, as she intended to do later in the morning. There was hardly anyone here at present, but the place would certainly be crowded an hour before lunchtime, and she proposed to make a soi-disant first visit then, and know at once whom all the caricatures represented (for Bertie in his enthusiasm for caricature sometimes omitted likenesses), and go into peals of laughter at those of herself and Peppino, and say she must buy them, which of course she had already done. Stephen remained behind, for Hermione was going to say a good deal about the exhibition, but promised to wait till Lucia came back. She had not shown the smallest sign of amorousness this morning. His apprehensions were considerably relieved, and it looked as if no storm of emotion was likely to be required of him.

      "Hundreds of things to do!" she said. "Let me see, half-past eleven, twelve — yes, I shall be back soon after twelve, and we'll have a real look at them. And you'll lunch? Just a few people coming."

      Before Lucia got back, the gallery had got thick with visitors, and Hermione was busy noting those whom he saw chatting with friends or looking lovely, or being very pleased with the new house in Park Lane, or receiving congratulations on the engagement of a daughter. There was no doubt which of the pictures excited most interest, and soon there was a regular queue waiting to look at Numbers 39 and 40. People stood in front of them regarding them gravely and consulting their catalogues and then bursting into loud cracks of laughter and looking again till the growing weight of the queue dislodged them. One of those who lingered longest and stood her ground best was Adele, who, when she was eventually shoved on, ran round to the tail of the queue and herself shoved till she got opposite again. She saw Stephen.

      "Ah, then Lucia won't be far off," she observed archly. "Doesn't she adore it? Where is Lucia?"

      "She's been, but she's coming back," he said. "I expect her every minute. Ah! there she is."

      This was rather stupid of Stephen. He ought to have guessed that Lucia's second appearance was officially intended to be her first. He grasped that when she squeezed her way through the crowd and greeted him as if they had not met before that morning.

      "And dearest Adele," she said. "What a crush! Tell me quickly, where are the caricatures of Peppino and me? I'm dying to see them; and when I see them no doubt I shall wish I was dead."

      The light of Luciaphilism came into Adele's intelligent eyes.

      "We'll look for them together," she said. "Ah thirty-nine and forty. They must be somewhere just ahead."

      Lucia exerted a steady indefatigable pressure on those in front, and presently came into range.

      "Well, I never!" she said. "Oh, but so like Peppino! How could Bertie have told he got his sword entangled just like that? And look what he says . . . Oh, and then Me! Just because I met him at Marcia's party and people were wanting to know when I had an evening free! Of all the impertinences! How I shall scold him!"

      Lucia did it quite admirably in blissful unconsciousness that Adele knew she had been here before. She laughed, she looked again and laughed again ("Mrs Lucas and Lady Brixton in fits of merriment over the cartoon of Mr Lucas and herself," thought Hermione.)

      "Ah, and there's Lord Hurtacombe," she said. "I'm sure that's Lord Hurtacombe, though you can't see much of him, and, look, Olga surely, is it not? How does he do it?"

      That was a very clever identification for one who had not previously studied the catalogue, for Olga's face consisted entirely of a large open mouth and the tip of a chin, it might have been the face of anybody yawning. Her arms were stretched wide, and she towered above a small man in shorts.

      "The last scene in Siegfried, I'm sure," said Lucia. "What does the catalogue say, Stephen? Yes, I am right. 'Siegfried! Brünnhilde!' How wicked, is it not? But killing! Who could be cross with him?"

      This was all splendid stuff for Luciaphils; it was amazing how at a first glance she recognised everybody. The gallery, too, was full of dears and darlings of a few weeks' standing, and she completed a little dinner-party for next Tuesday long before she had made the circuit. All the time she kept Stephen by her side, looked over his catalogue, put a hand on his arm to direct his attention to some picture, took a speck of alien material off his sleeve, and all the time the entranced Adele felt increasingly certain that she had plumbed the depth of the adorable situation. Her sole anxiety was as to whether Stephen would plumb it too. He might — though he didn't look like it — welcome these little tokens of intimacy as indicating something more, and when they were alone attempt to kiss her, and that would ruin the whole exquisite design. Luckily his demeanour was not that of a favoured swain; it was, on the other hand, more the demeanour of a swain who feared to be favoured, and if that shy thing took fright, the situation would be equally ruined . . . To think that the most perfect piece of Luciaphilism was dependent on the just perceptions of Stephen! As the three made their slow progress, listening to Lucia's brilliant identifications, Adele willed Stephen to understand; she projected a perfect torrent of suggestion towards his mind. He must, he should understand . . .

      Fervent desire, so every psychist affirms, is never barren. It conveys something of its yearning to the consciousness to which it is directed, and there began to break on the dull male mind what had been so obvious to the finer feminine sense of Adele. Once again, and in the blaze of publicity, Lucia was full of touches and tweaks, and the significance of them dawned, like some pale, austere sunrise, on his darkened senses. The situation was revealed, and he saw it was one with which he could easily deal. His gloomy apprehensions brightened, and he perceived that there would be no need, when he went to stay at Riseholme next, to lock his bedroom door, a practice which was abhorrent to him, for fear of fire suddenly breaking out in the house. Last night he had had a miserable dream about what had happened when he failed to lock his door at The Hurst, but now he dismissed its haunting. These little intimacies of Lucia's were purely a public performance.

      "Lucia, we must be off," he said loudly and confidently. "Peppino will wonder where we are."

      Lucia sighed.

      "He always bullies me like that, Adele," she said. "I must go: au revoir, dear. Tuesday next: just a few intimes."

      Lucia's relief was hardly less than Stephen's. He would surely not have said anything so indiscreet if he had been contemplating an indiscretion, and she had no fear that his hurry to be off was due to any passionate desire to embrace her in the privacy of her car. She believed he understood, and her belief felt justified when he proposed that the car should be opened.

      * * *

      Riseholme, in the last three weeks of social progress, had not occupied the front row of Lucia's thoughts, but the second row, so to speak, had been entirely filled with it, for, as far as the future dimly outlined itself behind the present, the plan was to go down there early in August, and remain there, with a few brilliant excursions till autumn peopled London again. She had hoped for a dash to Aix, where there would be many pleasant people, but Peppino had told her summarily that the treasury would not stand it. Lucia had accepted that with the frankest good-nature: she had made quite a gay little lament about it, when she was asked what she was going to do in August. "Ah, all you lucky rich people with money to throw about; we've got to go and live quietly at home," she used to say. "But I shall love it, though I shall miss you all dreadfully. Riseholme, dear Riseholme, you know, adorable, and all the delicious funny friends down there who spoil me so dreadfully. I shall have lovely tranquil days, with a trot across the green to order fish, and a chat on the way, and my books and my piano, and a chair in the garden, and an early bedtime instead of all these late hours. An anchorite life, СКАЧАТЬ