Trouble For Lucia by E. F Benson

Author:E. F Benson [Benson, E. F]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Novels
Publisher: Project Gutenberg Australia
Published: 2011-03-26T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

Lucia, followed by Georgie, and preceded by an attendant, swept along the corridor behind the boxes on the grand tier at Covent Garden Opera House. They had dined early at their hotel and were in good time. She wore her seed-pearls in her hair, her gold Mayoral badge, like an Order, on her breast, and her gown was of a rich, glittering russet hue like cloth of copper. A competent-looking lady, hovering about with a small note book and a pencil, hurried up to her as the attendant opened the door of the box.

"Name, please," he said to Lucia.

"The Mayor of Tilling," said Lucia, raising her voice for the benefit of the lady with the note book.

He consulted his list.

"No such name, ma'am," he said. "Madam has given strict orders—"

"Mr. and Mrs. Pillson," suggested Georgie.

"That's all right, sir "; and in they went.

The house was gleaming with tiaras and white shoulders, and loud with conversation. Lucia stood for a minute at the front of the box which was close to the stage, and nodded and smiled as she looked this way and that, as if recognising friends . . . But, oh, to think that she might have been recognised, too, if only Irene had portrayed her in the Picture of the Year! They had been to see it this afternoon, and Georgie, also, had felt pangs of regret that it was not he with his Vandyck beard who sprawled windily among the clouds. But in spite of that he was very happy for in a few minutes now he would hear and see his adorable Olga again, and they were to lunch with her to-morrow at her hotel.

A burst of applause hailed the appearance of Cortese, composer, librettist and, to-night, conductor of Lucrezia. Lucia waggled her hand at him. He certainly bowed in her direction (for he was bowing in all directions), and she made up her mind to scrap her previous verdict on the opera and be enchanted with it.

The Royal party unfortunately invisible from Lucia's box arrived, and after the National Anthem the first slow notes of the overture wailed on the air.

"Divine!" she whispered to Georgie. "How well I remember dear Signor Cortese playing it to me at Riseholme. I think he took it a shade faster . . . There! Lucrezia's motif, or is it the Pope's? Tragic splendour. The first composer in Europe."

If Georgie had not known Lucia so well, he would scarcely have believed his ears. On that frightful evening, three years ago, when Olga had asked her to come and hear "bits" of it, she had professed herself outraged at the hideous, modern stuff, but there were special circumstances on that occasion which conduced to pessimism. Lucia had let it be widely supposed that she talked Italian with ease and fluency, but when confronted with Cortese, it was painfully clear that she could not understand a word he said. An awful exposure . . . Now she was in a prominent

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