THE COMPLETE WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition). Эдвард Бенсон
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Название: THE COMPLETE WORKS OF E. F. BENSON (Illustrated Edition)
Автор: Эдвард Бенсон
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 9788027200924
isbn:
"Give me a cup of tea, strong tea, Peppino," she said. "I've been racketing about all day, and I feel done for. How I shall get through these next two or three days I really don't know. And London is stifling. You look worn out too, my dear."
Peppino acknowledged the truth of this. He had hardly had time even to go to his club this last day or two, and had been reflecting on the enormous strength of the weaker sex. But for Lucia to confess herself done for was a portentous thing: he could not remember such a thing happening before.
"Well, there are not many more days of it," he said. "Three more this week, and then Lady Brixton's party."
He gave several loud sneezes.
"Not a cold?" asked Lucia.
"Something extraordinarily like one," said he.
Lucia became suddenly alert again. She was sorry for Peppino's cold, but it gave her an admirable gambit for what she had made up her mind to do.
"My dear, that's enough," she said. "I won't have you flying about London with a bad cold coming on. I shall take you down to Riseholme tomorrow."
"Oh, but you can't, my dear," said he. "You've got your engagement book full for the next three days."
"Oh, a lot of stupid things," said she. "And really, I tell you quite honestly, I'm fairly worn out. It'll do us both good to have a rest for a day or two. Now don't make objections. Let us see what I've got to do."
The days were pretty full (though, alas, Thursday evening was deplorably empty) and Lucia had a brisk half-hour at the telephone. To those who had been bidden here, and to those to whom she had been bidden, she gave the same excuse, namely, that she had been advised (by herself) two or three days' complete rest.
She rang up The Hurst, to say that they were coming down tomorrow, and would bring the necessary attendants, she rang up Georgie (for she was not going to fall into that error again) and in a mixture of baby-language and Italian, which he found very hard to understand, asked him to dine tomorrow night, and finally she scribbled a short paragraph to the leading morning papers to say that Mrs Philip Lucas had been ordered to leave London for two or three days' complete rest. She had hesitated a moment over the wording of that, for it was Peppino who was much more in need of rest than she, but it would have been rather ludicrous to say that Mr and Mrs Philip Lucas were in need of a complete rest . . . These announcements she sent by hand so that there might be no miscarriage in their appearance tomorrow morning. And then, as an afterthought, she rang up Daisy Quantock and asked her and Robert to lunch tomorrow.
She felt much happier. She would not be at the fell Marcia's ball, because she was resting in the country.
Chapter Eight
A few minutes before Lucia and Peppino drove off next morning from Brompton Square, Marcia observed Lucia's announcement in the Morning Post. She was a good-natured woman, but she had been goaded, and now that Lucia could goad her no more for the present, she saw no objection to asking her to her ball. She thought of telephoning, but there was the chance that Lucia had not yet started, so she sent her a card instead, directing it to 25 Brompton Square, saying that she was At Home, dancing, to have the honour to meet a string of exalted personages. If she had telephoned, no one knows what would have happened, whether Daisy would have had any lunch that day or Georgie any dinner that night, and what excuse Lucia would have made to them . . . Adele and Tony Limpsfield, the most adept of all the Luciaphils, subsequently argued the matter out with much heat, but never arrived at a solution that they felt was satisfactory. But then Marcia did not telephone . . .
The news that the two were coming down was, of course, all over Riseholme a few minutes after Lucia had rung Georgie up. He was in his study when the telephone bell rang, in the fawn-coloured Oxford trousers, which had been cut down from their monstrous proportions and fitted quite nicely, though there had been a sad waste of stuff. Robert Quantock, the wag who had danced a hornpipe when Georgie had appeared in the original voluminousness, was waggish again, when he saw the abbreviated garments, and à propos of nothing in particular had said "Home is the sailor, home from sea," and that was the epitaph on the Oxford trousers.
Georgie had been busy indoors this afternoon, for he had been attending to his hair, and it was not quite dry yet, and the smell of the auburn mixture still clung to it. But the telephone was a trunk call, and, whether his hair was dry or not, it must be attended to. Since Lucia had disappeared after that weekend party, he had had a line from her once or twice, saying that they must really settle when he would come and spend a few days in London, but she had never descended to the sordid mention of dates.
A trunk call, as far as he knew, could only be Lucia or Olga, and one would be interesting and the other delightful. It proved to be the interesting one, and though rather difficult to understand because of the aforesaid mixture of baby-talk and Italian, it certainly conveyed the gist of the originator's intention.
"Me so tired," Lucia said, "and it will be divine to get to Riseholme again. So come to 'ickle quiet din-din with me and Peppino tomorrow, Georgino. Shall want to hear all novelle —"
"What?" said Georgie.
"All the news," said Lucia.
Georgie sat in the draught — it was very hot today — until the auburn mixture dried. He knew that Daisy Quantock and Robert were playing clock-golf on the other side of his garden paling, for their voices had been very audible. Daisy had not been weeding much lately but had taken to golf, and since all the authorities said that matches were entirely won or lost on the putting-green, she with her usual wisdom devoted herself to the winning factor in the game. Presently she would learn to drive and approach and niblick and that sort of thing, and then they would see . . . She wondered how good Miss Wethered really was.
Georgie, now dry, tripped out into the garden and shouted "May I come in?" That meant, of course, might he look over the garden-paling and talk.
Daisy missed a very short putt, owing to the interruption.
"Yes, do," she said icily. "I supposed you would give me that, Robert."
"You supposed wrong," said Robert, who was now two up.
Georgie stepped on a beautiful pansy.
"Lucia's coming down tomorrow," he said.
Daisy dropped her putter.
"No!" she exclaimed.
"And Peppino," went on Georgie. "She says she's very tired."
"All those duchesses," said Daisy. Robert Alton's cartoon had been reproduced in an illustrated weekly, but Riseholme up to this moment had been absolutely silent about it. It was beneath notice.
"And she's asked me to dinner tomorrow," said Georgie.
"So she's not bringing down a party?" said Daisy.
"I don't know," remarked Robert, "if you are going on putting, or if you give me the match."
"Pouf!" СКАЧАТЬ