style="font-size:15px;"> 'You may like it or not,' she said very emphatically, 'but the only person who can pull you through is Lucia.'
'Nobody can pull poor Daisy through,' said Georgie. 'Hopeless!'
'That's what I mean,' said she. 'If Lucia isn't the Queen, I say give it all up. Poor Daisy's bitten off, if you won't misunderstand me, as we're all such friends of hers, more than she can chew. My kitchen-cat, and I don't care who knows it, would make a better Queen.'
'But Lucia's going off to Tilling, next week,' said Georgie. 'She won't be here even.'
'Well, beg and implore her not to desert Riseholme,' said Mrs Boucher. 'Why, everybody was muttering about it this morning, army and navy and all. It was like a revolution. There was Mrs Antrobus; she said to me, "Oh dear, oh dear, it will never do at all," and there was poor Daisy standing close beside her; and we all turned red. Most awkward. And it's up to you, Georgie, to go down on your knees to Lucia and say "Save Riseholme!" There!'
'But she refused to have anything to do with it, after Daisy asked her to be my wife,' said Georgie Drake.
'Naturally she would be most indignant. An insult. But you and Daisy must implore her. Perhaps she could go to Tilling and settle herself in and then come back for the fête, for she doesn't need any rehearsals. She could act every part herself if she could be a crowd.'
'Marvellous woman!' said Colonel Boucher. 'Every word of the Queen's speech by heart, singing with the choir, basting with the cooks, dancing with the sailors. That's what I call instinct, eh? You'd have thought she had been studying it all the time. I agree with my wife, Georgie. The difficulty is Daisy. Would she give it up?'
Georgie brightened.
'She did say that she felt inclined to chuck the whole thing, a few days ago,' he said.
'There you are, then,' said Mrs Boucher. 'Remind her of what she said. You and she go to Lucia before you waste time over another rehearsal without her, and implore her. Implore! I shouldn't a bit wonder if she said yes. Indeed, if you ask me, I believe that she's been keeping out of it all until you saw you couldn't do without her. Then she came to help at a rehearsal, and you all saw what you could do when she was there. Why, I burst out cheering myself when she said she had the heart of a Prince. Then she retires again as she did this morning, and more than ever you see you can't do without her. I say she's waiting to be asked. It would be like her, you know.'
That was an illuminating thought; it certainly seemed tremendously like Lucia at her very best.
'I believe you're right. She's cleverer than all of us put together,' said Georgie. 'I shall go over to Daisy at once and sound her. Thank God, my shoes are better.'
It was a gloomy queen that Georgie found, a Queen of Sheba with no spirit left in her, but only a calmness of despair.
'It went worse than ever this morning,' she remarked. 'And I dare say we've not touched bottom yet. Georgie, what is to be done?'
It was more delicate to give Daisy the chance of abdicating herself.
'I'm sure I don't know,' said he. 'But something's got to be done. I wish I could think what.'
Daisy was rent with pangs of jealousy and of consciousness of her supreme impotence. She took half a glass of port, which her regime told her was deadly poison.
'Georgie! Do you think there's the slightest chance of getting Lucia to be the Queen and managing the whole affair?' she asked quaveringly.
'We might try,' said Georgie. 'The Bouchers are for it, and everybody else as well, I think.'
'Well, come quick then, or I may repent,' said Daisy.
* * *
Lucia had seen them coming, and sat down at her piano. She had not time to open her music, and so began the first movement of the 'Moonlight Sonata'.
'Ah, how nice!' she said. 'Georgie, I'm going to practise all afternoon. Poor fingers so rusty! And did you have a lovely rehearsal this morning? Speech going well, Daisy? I'm sure it is.'
'Couldn't remember a word,' said Daisy. 'Lucia, we all want to turn the whole thing over to you, Queen and all. Will you — '
'Please, Lucia,' said Georgie.
Lucia looked from one to the other in amazement.
'But, dear things, how can I?' she said. 'I shan't be here to begin with, I shall be at Tilling. And then all the trouble you've been taking, Daisy. I couldn't. Impossible. Cruel.'
'We can't do it at all without you,' said Daisy firmly. 'So that's impossible too. Please, Lucia.'
Lucia seemed quite bewildered by these earnest entreaties.
'Can't you come back for the fête?' said Georgie. 'Rehearse all day, every day, till the end of the month. Then go to Tilling, and you and I will return just for the week of the fête.'
Lucia seemed to be experiencing a dreadful struggle with herself.
'Dear Georgie, dear Daisy, you're asking a great sacrifice of me,' she said. 'I had planned my days here so carefully. My music, my Dante: all my lessons! I shall have to give them all up, you know, if I'm to get this fête into any sort of shape. No time for anything else.'
A miserable two-part fugue of 'Please, Lucia. It's the only chance. We can't do it unless you're Queen,' suddenly burst into the happy strains of 'It is good of you. Oh, thank you, Lucia,' and the day was won.
Instantly she became extremely businesslike.
'No time to waste then,' she said. 'Let us have a full rehearsal at three, and after that I'll take the Morris-dancers and the halberdiers. You and Georgie must be my lieutenants, dear Daisy. We shall all have to pull together. By the way, what will you be now?'
'Whatever you like,' said Daisy recklessly.
Lucia looked at her fixedly with that gimlet eye, as if appraising, at their highest, her possibilities.
'Then let us see, dear Daisy,' she said, 'what you can make of Drake's wife. Quite a short part, I know, but so important. You have to get into that one moment all the loyalty, all the devotion of the women of England to the Queen.'
She rose.
'Let us begin working at once,' she said. 'This is the Golden Hind: I have just stepped on to it. Now go behind the piano, and then come tripping out, full of awe, full of reverence . . . Oh, dear me, that will never do. Shall I act it for you once more? . . .
Chapter Four
Lucia had come back to Tilling last night from the fêteful week at Riseholme, and she was sitting next morning after breakfast at the window of the garden-room in Miss Mapp's house. It was a magic casement to anyone who was interested in life, as Lucia certainly was, and there was a tide every morning in the affairs of Tilling which must be taken at the flood. Mrs Wyse's Royce had lurched down the street, Diva had come out with her market basket from quaint
