Humorous stories; London (England) -- Fiction; Lucia (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Women -- England -- Fiction
It was odd, and Pepino had been odd. He had dined with Georgie one
night, and, on the other, Georgie had dined with him, but he had said
nothing about Lucia that Hermione had not trumpeted to the world.
Otherwise, Pepino had not been seen at all on that Sunday except when
Mrs. Antrobus, not feeling very well in the middle of the Psalms on
Sunday morning, had come out, and observed him standing on tip-toe and
peering into the window of the Museum that looked on to the Roman
Antiquities. Mrs. Antrobus (feeling much better as soon as she got into
the air) had come quite close up to him before he perceived her, and
then with only the curtest word of greeting, just as if she was the
Museum Committee, he had walked away so fast that she could not but
conclude that he wished to be alone. It was odd too, and scarcely
honourable, that he should have looked into the window like that, and
clearly it was for that purpose that he had absented himself from
church, thinking that he would be unobserved. Daisy had not the smallest
doubt that he was spying for Lucia, and had been told merely to collect
information and to say nothing, for though he knew that Georgie was on
the committee, he had carefully kept off the subject of the Museum on
both their tête-à-tête dinners. Probably he had begun his spying the
moment church began, and if Mrs. Antrobus had not so providentially felt
faint, no one would have known anything about it. As it was, it was
quite likely that he had looked into every window by the time she saw
him, and knew all that the Museum contained. Since then, the Museum had
been formally opened by Lady Ambermere, who had lent (not presented)
some mittens which she said belonged to Queen Charlotte (it was
impossible to prove that they hadn’t), and the committee had put up some
very baffling casement curtains which would make an end to spying for
ever.
Now this degrading espionage had happened three weeks ago (come
Sunday), and therefore for three weeks (come Monday), Lucia must have
known all about the Museum. But not a word had she transmitted on that
or any other subject; she had not demanded a place on the committee, nor
presented the Elizabethan spit which so often made the chimney of her
music-room to smoke, nor written to say that they must arrange it all
quite differently. That she had a plan, a policy about the Museum, no
one who knew Lucia could possibly doubt, but her policy (which thus at
present was wrapped in mystery) might be her complete and eternal
ignoring of it. It would indeed be dreadful if she intended to remain
unaware of it, but Daisy doubted if anyone in her position and of her
domineering character could be capable of such inhuman self-control. No:
she meant to do something when she came back, but nobody could guess
what it was, or when she was coming.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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