writhing under compliments

--------------------- [excerpt]--------------- His bicycle was ready for him; he mounted without the slightest difficulty, and the boy was soon left far behind.  Then with secret trepidation he observed not far ahead a man with a saucepan of tar simmering over a fire pot.  As he got close, he was aware of a silly feeling in his head that it was exercisng a sort of fascination over his machine, but by keeping his eye on the road he got safely by it, though with frightful wobbles, and dismounted for a short rest.

"Well, that's a disappointment," observed the operator.  "You ain't a patch on the lady who knocked down my fire pot twice yesterday."

Suddenly Georgie remembered the dab of tar on Lucia's shoe, and illumination flooded his brain.

"No!  Did she indeed?" he said with great interest.  "The same lady twice?  That was bad riding!"

"Oh, something shocking.  Not that I'd ever seek to hinder her, for she gave me half a crown per upset.  Ain't she coming today?"

As he rode home, Georgie again meditated on Lucia's secretiveness.  Why could she not tell him about her jugglings at the séance yesterday and about her antics with the fire pot? 

Even to him, she had to keep up this incessant flow of triumphant achievement both in occult matters and in riding a bicycle. 

Now that they were man and wife, she ought to be more open with him.  "But I'll tickle her up about the fire pot," he thought vindictively.

When he got home, he found Lucia just returned from a most satisfactory Council meeting.

"We got through our business most expeditiously," she said, "for Elizabeth was absent, and so there were fewer irrelevant interruptions.  I wonder what ailed her; nothing serious, I hope.  She was rather odd in the High Street this morning.  No smiles; she scarcely opened her mouth when I spoke to her.  And did you make good progress on your bicycle this afternoon?"

"Admirable," said he.  "Perfect steering.  There was a man with a fire pot tarring a telegraph post--"

"Ah, yes," interrupted Lucia.  "Tar keeps off insects that burrow into the wood.  Let us go and have tea."

"--and an odd feeling came over me," he continued firmly, "that just because I must avoid it, I should very likely run into it.  Have you ever felt that?  I suppose not."

"Yes, indeed I have in my earlier stages," said Lucia cordially.  "But I can give you an absolute cure for it.  Fix your eyes straight ahead, and you'll have no bother at all."

"So I found.  The man was a chatty sort of fellow.  He told me that some learner on a bicycle had knocked over the pot twice yesterday.  Can you imagine such awkwardness?  I am pleased to have got past that stage."

Lucia did not show by the wink of an eyelid that this arrow had pierced her, and Georgie, in spite of his exasperation, could not help admiring such nerve.

"Capital!" she said.  "I expect you've quite caught me up by your practice today.  Now after my Council meeting I think I must relax.  A little music, dear?"

A melodious half hour followed.  They were both familiar with Beethoven's famous Fifth Symphony as arranged for four hands on the piano, and played it with ravishing sensibility.

"Caro, how it takes one out of all petty carpings and schemings!" said Lucia at the end.  "How all our smallnesses are swallowed up in that broad cosmic splendor!  And how beautifully you played, dear.  Inspired!  I almost stopped in order to listen to you."

Georgie writhed under these compliments; he could hardly switch back to dark hints about séances and fire pots after them.  In strong rebellion against his kindlier feelings towards her, he made himself comfortable by the fire....--------------------- [end excerpt]
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When I read these "Lucia" novels during the 1980s, I found them frothily entertaining, not even knowing why I liked them.  I told a friend about them, and gave her one, I think, and she too "got" the atmosphere & style....

Then in the 90s came the TV show "Friends" which I didn't like that much at first, but later learned to "get it" -- and then re-viewing the Lucia books now, comparisons with "Friends" often occur to me.
Not in superficial aspects --
"Friends" --
young people
in NYC
in the 1990s

"Lucia" --
middle-aged people
in small town in England
in the 19 -- not sure -- 20s maybe?

...but in substantive aspects -- the style of the story-telling and humor -- it's silly, but not dumb -- a tightrope to be "walked" with rare precision....

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{Trouble For Lucia, by E.F. Benson.  Copyright 1939, Doubleday, Doran & Company.  Copyright renewed 1967 by Kenneth Stewart Patrick McDowall.  Copyright 1977 by Harper & Row.  First Perennial Library edition pub. 1984.}

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