Queen Lucia




by E. F. Benson





Chapter ONE


Though the sun was hot on this July morning Mrs Lucas preferred to
cover the half-mile that lay between the station and her house on her
own brisk feet, and sent on her maid and her luggage in the fly that
her husband had ordered to meet her. After those four hours in the
train a short walk would be pleasant, but, though she veiled it from
her conscious mind, another motive, sub-consciously engineered,
prompted her action. It would, of course, be universally known to all
her friends in Riseholme that she was arriving today by the 12.26, and
at that hour the village street would be sure to be full of them. They
would see the fly with luggage draw up at the door of The Hurst, and
nobody except her maid would get out.

That would be an interesting thing for them: it would cause one of
those little thrills of pleasant excitement and conjectural exercise
which supplied Riseholme with its emotional daily bread. They would all
wonder what had happened to her, whether she had been taken ill at the