“Well, Daisy has been having some most remarkable experiences,” he said. “She got a ouija board and a planchette—we use the planchette most—and very soon it was quite clear that messages were coming through from a guide.”
Lucia laughed with a shrill metallic note of rather hostile timbre.
“Dear Daisy,” she said. “If only she would take commonsense as her guide. I suppose the guide is a Chaldean astrologer or King Nebuchadnezzar.”
“Not at all,” said Georgie. “It’s an Egyptian called Abfou.”
A momentary pang of envy shot through Lucia. She could well imagine the quality of excitement which thrilled Riseholme, how Georgie would have popped in to tell her about it, and how she would have got a ouija board too, and obtained twice as many messages as Daisy. She hated the thought of Daisy having Abfou all her own way, and gave another little shrill laugh.
“Daisy is priceless,” she said. “And what has Abfou told her?”
“Well, it was very odd,” said Georgie. “The morning I got your letter Abfou wrote ‘L from L,’ and if that doesn’t mean ‘Letter from Lucia,’ I don’t know what else it could be.”
“It might just as well mean ‘Lozengers from Leamington,’” said Lucia witheringly. “And what else?”
Georgie felt the conversation was beginning to border rather dangerously on the Museum, and tried a light-hearted sortie into another subject.
“Oh, just things of that sort,” he said. “And then she had a terrible time over her garden. She dismissed Simkinson for doing cross-word puzzles instead of the lawn, and determined to do it all herself. She sowed sprouts in that round bed under the dining-room window.”