Lucia was being talked to across him by Mrs Weston, who had also pinned down the attention of Peppino on the other side of her. At that precise moment the flood of Mrs Quantock's spate of conversation to the Colonel dried up, and Robert could find nothing more to say to the hungry mouse. Georgie in this backwater of his own thoughts was whirled into the current again. But before he sank he caught Mrs Quantock's eye and put a question that arose from his exciting backwater.
"Have you heard from the Princess lately?" he asked.
Robert's head went round with the same alacrity as he had turned it away.
"Oh, yes," said she. "Two days ago was it, Robert?"
"I heard yesterday," said Robert firmly.
Mrs Quantock looked at her husband with an eager encouraging earnestness.
"So you did!" she said. 'I'm getting jealous. Interesting, dear?"
"Yes, dear, haw, haw," said Robert, and again their eyes met.
This time Georgie had no doubts at all. They were playing the same game now: they smiled and smirked at each other. They had not been playing the same game before. Now they recognised that there was a conspiracy between them . . . But he was host; his business for the moment was to make his guests comfortable, and not pry into their inmost bosoms. So before Mrs Weston realised that she had the whole table attending to her, he said:
"I shall get it out of Robert after dinner. And I'll tell you, Mrs Quantock."
"Before Atkinson came to the Colonel," said Mrs Weston, going on precisely where she had left off, "and that was five years before Elizabeth came to me — let me see — was it five or was it four and a half? — four and a half we'll say, he had another servant whose name was Ahab Crowe."
"No!" said Georgie.
"Yes!" said Mrs Weston, hastily finishing her champagne, for she saw Foljambe coming near — "Yes, Ahab Crowe. He married, too, just like Atkinson is going to, and that's an odd coincidence in itself. I tell the Colonel that if Ahab Crowe hadn't married, he would be with him still, and who can say that he'd have fancied Elizabeth? And if he hadn't, I don't believe that the Colonel and I would ever have — well, I'll leave that alone, and spare my blushes. But that's not what I was saying. Whom do you think Ahab Crowe married? You can have ten guesses each, and you would never come right, for it can't be a common name. It was Miss Jackdaw. Crowe, Jackdaw. I never heard anything like that, and if you ask the Colonel about it, he'll confirm every word I've said. Boucher, Weston: why that's quite commonplace in comparison, and I'm sure that's an event enough for me."
Lucia gave her silvery laugh.
"Dear Mrs Weston," she said, "you must really tell me at once when the happy day will be. Peppino and I are thinking of going to the Riviera —"
Georgie broke in.
"You shan't do anything of the kind," he said. "What's to happen to us? 'Oo very selfish, Lucia."
The conversation broke up again into duets and trios, and Lucia could have a private conversation with her host. But half an hour ago, so Georgie reflected, they had all been walking round each other like dogs going on tiptoe with their tails very tightly curled, and growling gently to themselves, aware that a hasty snap, or the breach of the smallest observance of etiquette, might lead to a general quarrel. But now they all had the reward of their icy politenesses: there was no more ice, except on their plates, and the politeness was not a matter of etiquette. At present, they might be considered a republic, but no one knew what was going to happen after dinner. Not a word had been said about the tableaux.
Lucia dropped her voice as she spoke to him, and put in a good deal of Italian for fear she might be overheard.
"Non cognosce anybody?" she asked. "I tablini, I mean. And are we all to sit in the aula, while the salone is being got ready?"
"Si," said Georgie. "There's a fire. When you go out, keep them there. I domestichi are making salone ready."
"Molto bene. Then Peppino and you and I just steal away. La lampa is acting beautifully. We tried it over several times."
"Everybody's tummin'," said Georgie, varying the cipher.
"Me so nervosa!" said Lucia. "Fancy me doing Brünnhilde before opera-Brünnhilde. Me can't bear it."
Georgie knew that Lucia had been thrilled and delighted to know that Olga so much wanted to come in after dinner and see the tableaux, so he found it quite easy to induce Lucia to nerve herself up to an ordeal so passionately desired. Indeed he himself was hardly less excited at the thought of being King Cophetua.
At that moment, even as the crackers were being handed round, the sound of the carol-singers was heard from outside, and Lucia had to wince, as "Good King Wenceslas" looked out. When the Page and the King sang their speeches, the other voices grew piano, so that the effect was of a solo voice accompanied. When the Page sang, Lucia shuddered.
"That's the small red-haired boy who nearly deafens me in church," she whispered to Georgie. "Don't you hope his voice will crack soon?"
She said this very discreetly, so as not to hurt Mrs Rumbold's feelings, for she trained the choir. Everyone knew that the king was Mr Rumbold, and said "Charming" to each other, after he had sung.
"I liked that boy's voice, too," said Mrs Weston. "Tommy Luton used to have a lovely voice, but this one's struck me as better-trained even than Tommy Luton's. Great credit to you, Mrs Rumbold."
The grey hungry mouse suddenly gave a shrill cackle of a laugh, quite inexplicable. Then Georgie guessed.
He got up.
"Now nobody must move," he said, "because we haven't drunk 'absent friends' yet. I'm just going out to see that they have a bit of supper in the kitchen before they go on."
His trembling legs would scarcely carry him to the door, and he ran out. There were half a dozen little choirboys, four men and one tall cloaked woman . . .
"Divine!" he said to Olga. "Aunt Jane thought your voice very well trained. Come in soon, won't you?"
"Yes: all flourishing?"
"Swimming," said Georgie. "Lucia hoped your voice would crack soon. But it's all being lovely."
He explained about food in the kitchen and hurried back to his guests. There was the riddle of the Quantocks to solve: there were the tableaux vivants imminent: there was the little red-haired boy coming in soon. What a Christmas night!
* * *
Soon after Georgie's hall began to fill up with guests, and yet not a word was said about tableaux. It grew so full that nobody could have said for certain whether Lucia and Peppino were there or not. Olga certainly was: there was no mistaking that fact. And then Foljambe opened the drawing-room door and sounded a gong.
The lamp behaved perfectly and an hour later one Brünnhilde was being extremely kind to the other, as they sat together. "If you really want to know my view, dear Miss Bracely," said Lucia, "it's just that. You must be Brünnhilde for the time being. Singing, of course, as you say, helps it out: you can express so much by singing. You are so lucky there. I am bound to say I had qualms when Peppino — or was it Georgie — suggested we should do Brünnhilde and Siegfried. I said it would be so terribly difficult. Slow: it has to be slow, and to keep gestures slow when you cannot make them mere illustrations