of his trousers merely due to her preoccupation with Lucia's probable income? . . . Or were the trousers, after all, not so daring as he had thought them?
He sat down with one leg thrown carelessly over the arm of his chair, so that Daisy could hardly fail to see it. Then he took a piece of teacake.
"Yes, do tell me what you think she will do with it?" he asked. "I've been puzzling over it too."
"I can't imagine," said Daisy. "She's got everything she wants now. Perhaps they'll just hoard it, in order that when Peppino dies we may all see how much richer he was than we ever imagined. That's too posthumous for me. Give me what I want now, and a pauper's funeral afterwards."
"Me too," said Georgie, waving his leg. "But I don't think Lucia will do that. It did occur to me —"
"The house in London, you mean," said Daisy, swiftly interrupting. "Of course if they kept both houses open, with a staff in each, so that they could run up and down as they chose, that would make a big hole in it. Lucia has always said that she couldn't live in London, but she may manage it if she's got a house there."
"I'm dining with her tonight," said Georgie. "Perhaps she'll say something."
Mrs Quantock was very thirsty with her gardening, and the tea was very hot. She poured it into her saucer and blew on it.
"Lucia would be wise not to waste any time," she said, "if she intends to have any fun out of it, for, you know, Georgie, we're beginning to get old. I'm fifty-two. How old are you?"
Georgie disliked that barbarous sort of question. He had been the young man of Riseholme so long that the habit was ingrained, and he hardly believed that he was forty-eight.
"Forty-three," he said, "but what does it matter how old we are, as long as we're busy and amused? And I'm sure Lucia has got all the energy and life she ever had. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if she made a start in London, and went in for all that. Then, of course, there's Peppino, but he only cares for writing his poetry and looking through his telescope."
"I hate that telescope," said Daisy. "He took me up on to the roof the other night and showed me what he said was Mars, and I'll take my oath he said that the same one was Venus only a week before. But as I couldn't see anything either time, it didn't make much difference."
The door opened, and Mr Quantock came in. Robert was like a little round brown sarcastic beetle. Georgie got up to greet him, and stood in the full blaze of the light. Robert certainly saw his trousers, for his eyes seemed unable to quit the spreading folds that lay round Georgie's ankles: he looked at them as if he was Cortez and they some new planet. Then without a word he folded his arms and danced a few steps of what was clearly meant to be a sailor's hornpipe.
"Heave-ho, Georgie," he said. "Belay there and avast."
"What is he talking about?" said Daisy.
Georgie, quite apart from his general good-nature, always strove to propitiate Mr Quantock. He was far the most sarcastic person in Riseholme and could say sharp things straight off, whereas Georgie had to think a long time before he got a nasty edge to any remark, and then his good nature generally forbade him to slash with it.
"He's talking about my new clothes," he said, "and he's being very naughty. Any news?"
"Any news?" was the general gambit of conversation in Riseholme. It could not have been bettered, for there always was news. And there was now.
"Yes, Peppino's gone to the station," said Mr Quantock. "Just like a large black crow. Waved a black hand. Bah! Why not call a release a release and have done with it? And if you don't know — why, I'll tell you. It's because they're rolling in riches. Why, I've calculated —"
"Yes?" said Daisy and Georgie simultaneously.
"So you've been calculating too?" said Mr Quantock. "Might have a sweepstake for the one who gets nearest. I say three thousand a year."
"Not so much," said Georgie and Daisy again simultaneously.
"All right. But that's no reason why I shouldn't have a lump of sugar in my tea."
"Dear me, no," said Daisy genially. "But how do you make it up to three thousand?"
"By addition," said this annoying man. "There'll be every penny of that. I was at the lending library after lunch, and those who could add made it all that."
Daisy turned to Georgie.
"You'll be alone with Lucia then tonight," she said.
"Oh, I knew that," said Georgie. "She told me Peppino had gone. I expect he's sleeping in that house tonight."
Mr Quantock produced his calculations, and the argument waxed hot. It was still raging when Georgie left in order to get a little rest before going on to dinner, and to practise the Mozart duet. He and Lucia hadn't tried it before, so it was as well to practise both parts, and let her choose which she liked. Foljambe had come back from her afternoon out, and told him that there had been a trunk call for him while he was at tea, but she could make nothing of it.
"Somebody in a great hurry, sir," she said, "and kept asking if I was — excuse me, sir, if I was Georgie — I kept saying I wasn't, but I'd fetch you. That wouldn't do, and she said she'd telegraph."
"But who was it?" asked Georgie.
"Couldn't say, sir. She never gave a name, but only kept asking."
"She?" asked Georgie.
"Sounded like one!" said Foljambe.
"Most mysterious," said Georgie. It couldn't be either of his sisters, for they sounded not like a she but a he. So he lay down on his sofa to rest a little before he took a turn at the Mozart.
* * *
The evening had turned chilly, and he put on his blue cape with the velvet collar to trot across to Lucia's house. The parlour-maid received him with a faint haggard smile of recognition, and then grew funereal again, and preceding him, not at her usual brisk pace, but sadly and slowly, opened the door of the music-room and pronounced his name in a mournful whisper. It was a gay cheerful room, in the ordinary way; now only one light was burning, and from the deepest of the shadows, there came a rustling, and Lucia rose to meet him.
"Georgie, dear," she said. "Good of you."
Georgie held her hand a moment longer than was usual, and gave it a little extra pressure for the conveyance of sympathy. Lucia, to acknowledge that, pressed a little more, and Georgie tightened his grip again to show that he understood, until their respective finger-nails grew white with the conveyance and reception of sympathy. It was rather agonising, because a bit of skin on his little finger had got caught between two of the rings on his third finger, and he was glad when they quite understood each other.
Of course it was not to be expected that in these first moments Lucia should notice his trousers. She herself was dressed in deep mourning, and Georgie thought he recognised the little cap she wore as being that which had faintly expressed her grief over the death of Queen Victoria. But black suited her, and she certainly looked very well. Dinner was announced immediately, and she took Georgie's arm, and with faltering steps they went into the dining-room.
Georgie had determined that his role was to be sympathetic, but bracing. Lucia must rally from this blow, and her suggestion that he should bring the Mozart duet was hopeful. And though her voice was low and unsteady, she did say, as they sat down, "Any news?"
"I've hardly been outside my house and garden all day," said Georgie. "Rolling the lawn. And Daisy Quantock — did you know? — has had a row with her gardener, and is going to do it all herself. So there she was next door with a fork and a wheelbarrow full of manure."
Lucia gave a wan smile.
"Dear Daisy!" she said. "What a garden it will be! Anything else?"
"Yes, I had tea with them, and while I was out, there was a trunk call for me. So tarsome. Whoever it was couldn't make any way, and she's going to telegraph. I can't imagine who it was."
"I