68
" Mrs. Alingsby was tall and weird and intense, dressed rather like a bird-of-paradise that had been out in a high gale, but very well connected. She had long straight hair which fell over her forehead, and sometimes got in her eyes, and she wore on her head a scarlet jockey-cap with an immense cameo in front of it. She hated all art that was earlier than 1923, and a considerable lot of what was later. In music, on the other hand, she was primitive, and thought Bach decadent: in literature her taste was for stories without a story, and poems without metre or meaning. But she had collected round her a group of interesting outlaws, of whom the men looked like women, and the women like nothing at all, and though nobody ever knew what they were talking about, they themselves were talked about. Lucia had been to a party of hers, where they all sat in a room with black walls, and listened to early Italian music on a spinet while a charcoal brazier on a blue hearth was fed with incense… Lucia’s general opinion of her was that she might be useful up to a point, for she certainly excited interest. "
― E.F. Benson , Make Way for Lucia
71
" I began to walk about the room, peering round each article of furniture, tucking up the valances of the bed, and opening its curtains wide. I pulled up the blinds and examined the fastenings of the several windows before closing the shutters, leant forward and looked up the blackness of the wide chimney, and tapped the dark oak paneling for any secret opening. There were two big mirrors in the room, each with a pair of sconces bearing candles, and on the mantelshelf, too, were more candles in china candlesticks. "
― E.F. Benson , The Greatest Ghost and Horror Stories Ever Written: volume 6 (30 short stories)
76
" Now all my life I have believed that we are intended to be happy, that joy is of all gifts the most divine. And when I left London, abandoned my career, such as it was, I did so because I intended to devote my life to the cultivation of joy, and, by continuous and unsparing effort, to be happy. Among people, and in constant intercourse with others, I did not find it possible; there were too many distractions in towns and work-rooms, and also too much suffering. So I took one step backwards or forwards, as you may choose to put it, and went straight to Nature, to trees, birds, animals, to all those things which quite clearly pursue one aim only, which blindly follow the great native instinct to be happy without any care at all for morality, or human law or divine law. I wanted, you understand, to get all joy first-hand and unadulterated, and I think it scarcely exists among men; it is obsolete. "
― E.F. Benson , The Man Who Went Too Far
77
" News!," she said. "Lucia's going to have a lover."
"No!" said Tony in the Riseholme manner.
"They won't want me then," said Tony. "And yet she asked me to come at half-past five."
"Nonsense, my dear. They will want you, both of them...Oh Tony, don't you see? It's a stunt."
Tony assumed the rapt expression of Luciaphils receiving intelligence.
"Tell me all about it," he said.
"I'm sure I'm right," said she. "Her poppet came in just now, and she held his hand as women do, and made him draw his chair up to her, and said he had scolded her. I'm not sure that he knows yet. But I saw that he guessed something was up. I wonder if he's clever enough to do it properly...I wish she had chosen you, Tony, you'd have done it perfectly. They have got - don't you see - to have the appearance of being lovers, everyone must think they are lovers, while all the time there's nothing at all of any sort in it. It's a stunt; it's a play; it's a glory."
"But perhaps there is something in it," said Tony. "I really think I had better not go in."
"Tony trust me. Lucia has no more idea of keeping a real lover than of keeping a chimpanzee. "
― E.F. Benson , Lucia in London & Mapp and Lucia (The Mapp & Lucia Novels)
79
" What is it, Georgie? she said. "See if poor Lucia can help."
"Well, said Georgie. "You know Pug?"
"That mangy little thing of Lady Ambermere's? said Lucia.
"Yes. Pug died. I don't know what of--"
"Cream, I should think," said Lucia. "And cake."
"Well it may have been. Anyhow, Lady Ambermere had him stuffed, and while I was out this morning, she left him in a glass case at my house, as a present for the Museum. There is lying on a blue cushion, with one ear cocked, and a great watery eye, and the end of his horrid tongue between his lips. "
― E.F. Benson , Lucia in London & Mapp and Lucia (The Mapp & Lucia Novels)