Humorous stories; London (England) -- Fiction; Lucia (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Women -- England -- Fiction
“Ah, that Museum!” he said. “Those mittens! Shall I ever get over those
mittens? Lucia said she would give it the next shoe-lace she broke.”
“Yes,” said Georgie. “The Princess wanted to see those mittens. Queen
Charlotte was her great-aunt. I told them how amused you all were at the
mittens.”
Lucia had been pressing her finger to her forehead, a sign of
concentration. She rose as if going back to her other guests.
“Coming into the garden presently?” she asked, and glided from the room.
“And so you’re going to have a sitting with the ouija-board,” said Mr.
Merriall. “I am intensely interested in ouija. Very odd phenomena
certainly occur. Strange but true.”
A fresh idea had come into Georgie’s head. Lucia certainly had not
appeared outside the window that looked into the garden, and so he
walked across to the other one which commanded a view of the Green.
There she was heading straight for the Museum.
“It is marvellous,” he said to Mr. Merriall. “We have had some curious
results here, too.”
Mr. Merriall was moving daintily about the room, and Georgie wondered if
it would be possible to convert Oxford trousers into an ordinary pair.
It was dreadful to think that Olga, even in fun, had suggested that such
a man was his double. There was the little cape as well.
“I have quite fallen in love with your Riseholme,” said Mr. Merriall.
“We all adore it,” said Georgie, not attending very much because his
whole mind was fixed on the progress of Lucia across the Green. Would
she catch them in the Museum, or had they already gone? Smaller and
smaller grew her figure and her twinkling legs, and at last she crossed
the road and vanished behind the belt of shrubs in front of the
tithe-barn.
“All so homey and intimate. ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ in fact,” said Mr.
Merriall. “We have been hearing how Mrs. Shuttleworth loves singing in
this room.”
Georgie was instantly on his guard again. It was quite right and proper
that Lucia should be punished, and of course Riseholme would know all
about it, for indeed Riseholme was administering the punishment. But it
was a very different thing to let her down before those who were not
Riseholme.
“Oh yes, she sings here constantly,” he said. “We are all in and out of
each other’s houses. But I must be getting back to mine now.”
Mr. Merriall longed to be asked to this little ouija party at Olga’s,
and at present his hostess had been quite unsuccessful in capturing
either of the two great stars. There was no harm in trying....
“You couldn’t perhaps take me to Mrs. Shuttleworth’s for tea?” he asked.
“No, I’m afraid I could hardly do that,” said Georgie. “Good-bye. I hope
we shall meet again.”
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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