Again some nameless pang shot through Lucia. Absent or present, she ought to have been the chairman of the committee and told them exactly what to do, and how to do it. But she felt no doubt that she could remedy all that when she came down to Riseholme for a week-end. In the meantime, it was sufficient to have pulled his secret out of Georgie, like a cork, with a loud pop, and an effusion of contents.
“Most interesting,” she said. “I must think what I can give you for your museum. Well, that’s a nice little gossip.”
Georgie could not bring himself to tell her that the stocks had already been moved from the village green to the tithe-barn, for he seemed to remember that Lucia and Pepino had presented them to the Parish Council. Now the Parish Council had presented them to the Museum, but that was a reason the more why the Parish Council and not he should face the donors.
“A nice little gossip,” said Lucia. “And what a pleasant party last night. I just popped over, to congratulate dear Olga on the favourable, indeed the very favourable reception of ‘Lucrezia,’ for I thought she would be hurt—artists are so sensitive—if I did not add my little tribute, and then you saw how she refused to let me go, but insisted that I should come in. And I found it all most pleasant: one met many friends, and I was very glad to be able to look in.”
This expressed very properly what Lucia meant to convey. She did not in the least want to put Olga in her place, but to put herself, in Georgie’s eyes, in her own place. She had just, out of kindness, stepped across to congratulate Olga, and then had been dragged in. Unfortunately Georgie did not believe a single word of it: he had already made up his mind that Lucia had laid an ambush for Olga, so swiftly and punctually had she come out of the shadow of the gas-lamp on her arrival. He answered her therefore precisely in the spirit in which she had spoken. Lucia would know very well....
“It was good of you,” he said enthusiastically. “I’m sure Olga appreciated your coming immensely. How forgetful of her not to have asked you at first! And as for ‘Lucrezia’ just having a favourable reception, I thought it was the most brilliant success it is possible to imagine.”
Lucia felt that her attitude hadn’t quite produced the impression she had intended. Though she did not want Georgie (and Riseholme) to think she joined in the uncritical adulation of Olga, she certainly did not want Georgie to tell Olga that she didn’t. And she still wanted to hear the Princess’s name.
“No doubt, dear Georgie,” she said, “it was a great success. And she was in wonderful voice, and looked most charming. As you know, I am terribly critical, but I can certainly say that. Yes. And her party delicious. So many pleasant people. I saw you having great jokes with the Princess.”
Pepino having been asleep when Lucia came back last night, and not having seen her this morning, had not heard about the Princess.
“Indeed, who was that?” he asked Lucia.