Queen Lucia

at breakfast and frowning over a note she had just receive

for an hour or two. We'll play games and dance, shall we

.B

said icily, as she pa

short

g anything, are

little imperce

d. "But there's a little more informa

an informal p

ormal. I am not accustomed t

aware of the true na

said. "So don't let us go. Then

a certain resentment that had been slowly accumulating in her mind for some days

even returned the call. I daresay they behave like that in London in

," said Peppino. "She has hardly been h

uld have thought that she might have spared half-an-hour out

ing piece of news which most unaccoun

ho told me that half an hour ago Miss Bracely had seen her in her bath-chair and had take

," said Lucia, though she was thrilled to the marr

told Mrs Weston that she would have returned her

cia. "They could have

p' in an

Peppino. "Anyhow she said she hadn't got any callin

be likely to make," said she, "unless it

ally like to do everything in order, when she called on you, carissima. It wou

she in an absent voice, as if she h

en yet at all, as f

no host, if we dro

d see, cara,"

pected 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 labelled Olga as "rather common," retaining, however, a certain respect for her professional career, given that

ia carried some very smart indoor shoes in a paper-parcel and Peppino had his Russian goloshes on. These were immense snow-boots, in which his evening shoes were completely encased, but Lucia preferred not to disfigure her feet to that extent, and was clad in neat walking-boots which sh

for the bell, when Lucia gave a little cry of agony and put her hands over her

e," she sa

hat her opinion about gramophones was; to the lover of Beethoven they were like indecent and profane language loudly used in a public place. Only one, so far as was known, had ever come to Riseholme, and that was introduced by the misg

On the other hand she particularly wanted to see what standard of entertaining Olga was initiating. The "silly evening" was quite a new type of party, for since she had directed and controlled the social side of things there had been no "silly evenings" of any kind in Riseholme, and it might be a good thing to

's at-home came, and composing her face to a suitable wince was led by a foo

o step in very quie

nting straight at Lucia was an immense gramophone. On the dais was Olga dancing. She was dressed in some white soft fabric shimmering with silver, which left her beautiful arms bare to the shoulder. It was cut squarely and simply about the neck, and hung in straight folds down to just above her ankles. She held in her hands some long shi

the floor close to it, and jumped up, leading the applause. For a moment, though several heads had been turned at Lucia's entrance, nobody took the slightest notice of her, indeed, the first appare

iss that very poor perf

that I should make

r most stately manner. "It seemed to me very far from being a poor

ne," said Peppin

lian," said Olga. "Ch

new

good pronunciat

, what shall we do next? Clumps or charades or what?

little scre

d. Then relenting, as she remembered that Olga must be excuse

Does everyone know clumps? If they don't they will find o

er hands in pl

no gramophon

partly because I am dying of famine, and partly because people are sillier afterwards. But just one game of clumps first. Let's see; there are but enough for four clumps. Please make four clumps

sh of lobster-salad in the other. She sat for a minute or two first at one table and then at another, and asked silly riddles, and sent to the kitchen for a ham, and put out all the electric light by mistake, when she meant to turn on some more. Then when supper was over they all took their seats back into the music-room and played musical chairs, at the end of which Mrs Quantock was left in with Olga, and it was believed that she said "Damn," when Mrs Quantock won. Georgie was in charge of the gramophone which supplied deadly music, quite forgetting that this was agony to Lucia, and not even being aware when she made a si

that Daisy, so few hours ago, had been racing round a solitary chair with Georgie's finger on the gramophone, while Georgie, singing tenor by Colonel Boucher's ample side, saw with keen annoyance that there was a stain of tarnished silver on his forefinger, accounted for by the fact that after breakfast he had been cleaning the frame which held the photograph of Olga Bracely and had been astonished to hear the church-bells beginning. Another conducement to depression on his part was the fact that he was lunching with Lucia, and he could not imagine what Lucia's attitude would be towards the party last night. She had come to church rather late, having no use for the Ge

y he made no such announcement. A discreet curtain hid the organist from the congregation, and veiled his gymnastics with the stops and his antic dancing on the pedals, and now when Mr Rumbold

it rang out again, it lingered and tarried, it quickened into the ultimate triumph. No singing could have been simpler, but that simplicity could only have sprung from the high

rather more audibly answered "Adorable." Mrs Weston drew a half-a-crown from her purse instead of her usu

down an Italian grammar when he entered the drawing-room, and covered it up with the essays of Antonio Caporelli. Thi

"Ho finito il libro di Antonio Capo

erhaps he was mistaken. The sentence flew off Lucia

nt on. "Anyhow I am a little tired after last night. A delightful little party, was it not? It was clever of Mi

uite enormously

the calmness that Yoga has given me not to scream. But you were naughty with the gramophone over those musical chairs-unmusical chairs, as I said

sual thing in itself at luncheon, was writte

impromptu tableaux. Everything impromptu must just be sketched out first, and I daresay Miss Bracely worked a great deal at her dance last night and I wish I had seen more of it. She was a little

te an amateur," said Ge

lo

ursed h

ave not heard it. I should be very much ashamed to be seen there. But about our tableaux now. Peppino thought we might open with the Execution of Mary Queen of

aid Georgie. "Have you as

e Brunnhilde tableaux, I thought Peppino would be Siegfried-and perhaps you could learn just fifteen or twenty bars of the music and play it while the curtain was up. You can play the same over again if it is encored. Then how about King Cophetua and the beggar-maid. I should be with my back to the audience, and should not turn round at a

sent to be war; it was to be magnificent rivalry, a throwing down perhaps of a gauntlet, whic

e for that sort of thing. It is not quite in our line; we may be right or wrong, I am sure I do not know, but as a matter of fact, we don't care for that sort of thing. Dear Miss Bracely

arissima," s

s standing on the sideboard, and no end to the caviare sandwiches which were left over. It was all too mu

over the table, wit

e. In all the years I have lived here, and contributed in my humble way to the life of the place, I have heard no complaints about my suppers or teas, nor about the quality of entertainment which I offer my guests when they are so good as to say 'Si,' to le

could not quit

enjoyed it very much. Besides, I saw Peppino tuckin

e her sil

w Miss Bracely, and I'm sure she will be grateful for it, the sort of entertainment that has contented us at Riseholme for so long. I will frame it on her lines; I will ask all and sundry to drop in with just a few hours' notice, as she did. Everything shall be good, and there shall be about it all someth

r black beady eye, and sm

sic-room. Shall Lucia play a little bit of Beethoven to take out an

ence. He never was quite sure how seriously she had contemplated a winter on the Riviera, for the mere mention of it had always been enough to make him protest that Riseholme could not possibly exist without her, but today, as he sat and heard (rather than listened to) a series of slow movements, with a brief and hazardous attempt at the scherzo of the "Moonlight," he felt that if any talk of the Riviera came up, he would not be quite

the cessation of the slow movement naturally made him cease to listen, and he stirred and gave the sigh with which Riseholme always acknowledged the end of a slow movement. G

e meant to train and refine those gifts so that they might, when exercised under benign but autocratic supervision, conduce to the strength and splendour of Riseholme. Naturally she must be loyally and ably assisted, and Georgie realized that the tableau of King Cophetua (his tableau as she had said) partook of the

and almost before they had

s four, with you Georgie, and Miss Bracely and Mr Shuttleworth will make six. The rest I shall ask to com

d not been wholly absor

old her she had neve