by E. F. Benson
‘Thought I wouldn’t come out,’ said this bluff fellow, ‘as I heard your Miss Milliner Michael-Angelo, ha, was with you –’
‘Oh Major Benjy, fie!’ said Elizabeth. ‘Cruel of you.’
‘Well, leave it at that. Now about this party to-morrow. I think I shall make a stand straight away, for I’m not going to spend the whole of the winter evenings tramping through the mud to Grebe. To be sure it’s dinner this time, which makes a difference.’
Elizabeth found that she longed to see what Lucia had made of Grebe, and what she had made of her speech from the window.
‘I quite agree in principle,’ she said, ‘but a house-warming, you know. Perhaps it wouldn’t be kind to refuse. Besides, Georgie –’
‘Eh?’ said the Major.
‘Mr Pillson, I mean,’ said Elizabeth, hastily correcting herself, has offered to drive us both down.’
‘And back?’ asked he suspiciously.
‘Of course. So just for once, shall we?’
‘Very good. But none of those after-dinner musicals, or lessons in bridge for me.’
‘Oh, Major Benjy!’ said Elizabeth. ‘How can you talk so? As if poor Lucia would attempt to teach you bridge.’
This could be taken in two ways, one interpretation would read that he was incapable of learning, the other that Lucia was incapable of teaching. He took the more obvious one.
‘Upon my soul she did, at the last game I had with her,’ said he. ‘Laid out the last three tricks and told me how to play them. Beyond a joke. Well, I won’t keep you from your dressmaker.’
‘O fie!’ said Elizabeth again. ‘Au reservoir.’
Lucia, meantime, had driven back to Grebe with that mocking voice still ringing in her ears, and a series of most unpleasant images, like some diabolical film, displaying themselves before her inward eye. Most probably Elizabeth had seen her when she called out to Georgie like that, and was intentionally insulting her. Such conduct called for immediate reprisals and she must presently begin to think these out. But the alternative, possible though not probable, that Elizabeth had not seen her, was infinitely more wounding, for it implied that Georgie was guilty of treacheries too black to bear looking at. Privately, when she herself was not present, he was on Christian-name terms with that woman, and permitted and enjoyed her obvious mimicry of herself. And what was Georgie doing popping in to Mallards like this, and being scolded in baby-voice for ringing the bell instead of letting himself in, with allusions of an absolutely unmistakable kind to that episode about the chain? Did they laugh over that together: did Georgie poke fun at his oldest friend behind her back? Lucia positively writhed at the thought. In any case, whether or no he was guilty of this monstrous infidelity, he must be in the habit of going into Mallards, and now she remembered that he had his paint-box in his hand. Clearly then he was going there to paint, and in all their talks when he so constantly told her what he had been doing, he had never breathed a word of that. Perhaps he was painting Elizabeth, for in this winter weather he could never be painting in the garden. Just now too, when she called at Mallards Cottage, and they had had a talk together, he had refused to go out and drive with her, because he had some little jobs to do indoors, and the moment he had got rid of her – no less than that – he had hurried off to Mallards with his paint-box. With all this evidence, things looked very dark indeed, and the worst and most wounding of these two alternatives began to assume probability.
Georgie was coming to tea with her that afternoon, and she must find out what the truth of the matter was. But she could not imagine herself saying to him: ‘Does she really call you Georgie, and does she imitate me behind my back, and are you painting her?’ Pride absolutely forbade that: such humiliating inquiries would choke her. Should she show him an icy aloof demeanour, until he asked her if anything was the matter? But that wouldn’t do, for either she must say that nothing was the matter, which would not help, or she must tell him what the matter was, which was impossible. She must behave to him exactly as usual, and he would probably do the same. ‘So how am I to find out?’ said the bewildered Lucia quite aloud.
Another extremely uncomfortable person in tranquil Tilling that morning was Georgie himself. As he painted this sketch of the garden-room for Lucia, with Elizabeth busying herself with dusting her piano and bringing in chrysanthemums from her greenhouse, and making bright little sarcasms about Diva who was in ill odour just now, there painted itself in his mind, in colours growing ever more vivid, a most ominous picture of Lucia. If he knew her at all, and he was sure he did, she would say nothing whatever about that disconcerting scene on the doorstep. Awkward as it would be, he would be obliged to protest his innocence, and denounce Elizabeth. Most disagreeable, and who could foresee the consequences? For Lucia (if he knew her) would see red, and there would he war. Bloody war of the most devastating sort. ‘But it will be rather exciting too,’ thought he, ‘and I back Lucia.’
Georgie could not wait for tea-time, but set forth on his uncomfortable errand soon after lunch. Lucia had seen him coming up the garden, and abandoned her musings and sat down hastily at the piano. Instantly on his entry she sprang up again, and plunged into mixed Italian and baby-talk.
‘Ben arrivato, Georgino,’ she cried. ‘How early you are, and so we can have cosy ickle chat-chat before tea. Any newsy-pewsy?’
Georgie took the plunge.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Tell Lucia, presto. ‘Oo think me like it?’
‘It’ll interest you,’ said Georgie guardedly. ‘Now! When I was standing on Mallards doorstep this morning, did you hear what that old witch called to me out of the garden-room window?’
Lucia could not repress a sigh of relief. The worst could not be true. Then she became herself again.
‘Let me see now!’ she said. ‘Yes. I think I did. She called you Georgie, didn’t she: she scolded you for ringing. Something of that sort.’
‘Yes. And she talked baby-talk like you and me,’ interrupted Georgie, ‘and she said the door wasn’t on the chain. I want to tell you straight off that she never called me Georgie before, and that we’ve never talked baby-talk together in my life. I owe it to myself to tell you that.’
Lucia turned her piercing eye on to Georgie. There seemed to be a sparkle in it that boded ill for somebody.
‘And you think she saw me, Georgie?’ she asked.
‘Of course she did. Your car was directly below her window.’
‘I am afraid there is no doubt about it,’ said Lucia. ‘Her remarks, therefore, seem to have been directed at me. A singularly ill-bred person. There’s one thing more. You were taking your paint-box with you –’
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said he. ‘I’m doing a sketch of the garden-room. You’ll know about that in time. And what are you going to do?’ he asked greedily.
Lucia laughed in her most musical manner.
‘Well, first of all I shall give her a very good dinner to-morrow, as she has not had the decency to say she was engaged. She telephoned to me just now telling me what a joy it would be, and how she was looking forward to it. And mind you call her Elizabeth.’
‘I’ve done that already,’ said Georgie proudly. ‘I practised saying it to myself.’
‘Good. She dines here then to-morrow night, and I shall be her hostess and shall make the evening as pleasant as I can to all my guests. But apart from that, Georgie, I shall take steps to teach her manners if she’s not too old to learn. She will be sorry; she will wish she had not been so rude. And I can’t see any objection to our other friends in Tilling knowing what occurred this morning, if you feel inclined to speak of it. I shan’t, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.’
‘Hurrah, I’m dining with the Wyses to-night,’ said Georgie. ‘They’ll soon know.’
Lucia knitted her brows in profound thought.
‘And then there’s that incident about our pictures, yours and mine, being rejected by the hanging committee of the Art Club,’ said she. ‘W
e have both kept the forms we received saying that they regretted having to return them, and I think, Georgie, that while you are on the subject of Elizabeth Mapp, you might show yours to Mr Wyse. He is a member, so is Susan, of the committee, and I think they have a right to know that our pictures were rejected on official forms without ever coming before the committee at all. I behaved towards our poor friend with a magnanimity that now appears to me excessive, and since she does not appreciate magnanimity we will try her with something else. That would not be amiss.’ Lucia rose.
‘And now let us leave this very disagreeable subject for the present, she said, ‘and take the taste of it out of our mouths with a little music. Beethoven, noble Beethoven, don’t you think? The fifth symphony, Georgie, for four hands. Fate knocking at the door.’
Georgie rather thought that Lucia smacked her lips as she said, ‘this very disagreeable subject’, but he was not certain, and presently Fate was knocking at the door with Lucia’s firm fingers, for she took the treble.
They had a nice long practice, and when it was time to go home Lucia detained him.
‘I’ve got one thing to say to you, Georgie,’ she said, ‘though not about that paltry subject. I’ve sold the Hurst, I’ve bought this new property, and so I’ve made a new will. I’ve left Grebe and all it contains to you, and also, well, a little sum of money. I should like you to know that.’
Georgie was much touched.
‘My dear, how wonderful of you,’ he said. ‘But I hope it will be ages and ages before –’
‘So do I, Georgie,’ she said in her most sincere manner.
Tilling had known tensions before and would doubtless know them again. Often it had been on a very agreeable rack of suspense, as when, for instance, it had believed (or striven to believe) that Major Benjy might be fighting a duel with that old crony of his, Captain Puffin, lately deceased. Now there was a suspense of a more intimate quality (for nobody would have cared at all if Captain Puffin had been killed, nor much, if Major Benjy), for it was as if the innermost social guts of Tilling were attached to some relentless windlass, which, at any moment now, might be wound, but not relaxed. The High Street next morning, therefore, was the scene of almost painful excitement. The Wyses’ Royce, with Susan smothered in sables, went up and down, until she was practically certain that she had told everybody that she and Algernon had retired from the hanging committee of the Art Club, pending explanations which they had requested Miss (no longer Elizabeth) Mapp to furnish, but which they had no hope of receiving. Susan was perfectly explicit about the cause of this step, and Algernon who, at a very early hour, had interviewed the errand-boy at the frame-shop, was by her side, to corroborate all she said. His high-bred reticence, indeed, had been even more weighty than Susan’s volubility. ‘I am afraid it is all too true,’ was all that could be got out of him. Two hours had now elapsed since their resignations had been sent in, and still no reply had come from Mallards.
But that situation was but an insignificant fraction of the prevalent suspense, for the exhibition had been open and closed months before, and if Tilling was to make a practice of listening to such posthumous revelations, life would cease to have any poignant interest, but be wholly occupied in retrospective retributions. Thrilling therefore as was the past, as revealed by the stern occupants of the Royce, what had happened only yesterday on the doorstep of Mallards was far more engrossing. The story of that, by 11.30 a.m., already contained several remarkable variants. The Padre affirmed that Georgie had essayed to enter Mallards without knocking, and that Miss Mapp (the tendency to call her Miss Mapp was spreading) had seen Lucia in her motor just below the window of the garden-room, and had called out ‘Tum in, Georgino mio, no tarsome chains now that Elizabeth has got back to her own housie-pousie. Diva had reason to believe that Elizabeth (she still stuck to that) had not seen Lucia in her motor, and had called out of the window to Georgie ‘Ring the belly-pelly, dear, for I’m afraid the chain is on the door.’ Mrs Bartlett (she was no use at all) said, ‘All so distressing and exciting and Christmas Day next week, and very little good will, oh dear me!’ Irene had said, ‘That old witch will get what for.’
Again, it was known that Major Benjy had called at Mallards soon after the scene, whatever it was, had taken place, and had refused to go into the garden-room, when he heard that Georgie was painting Elizabeth’s portrait. Withers was witness (she had brought several pots of jam to Diva’s house that morning, not vegetable marrow at all, but raspberry, which looked like a bribe) that the Major had said ‘Faugh!’ when she told him that Georgie was there. Major Benjy himself could not be cross-examined because he had gone out by the eleven o’clock tram to play golf. Lucia had not been seen in the High Street at all, nor had Miss Mapp, and Georgie had only passed through it in his car, quite early, going in the direction of Grebe. This absence of the principals, in these earlier stages of development, was felt to be in accordance with the highest rules of dramatic technique, and everybody, as far as was known, was to meet that very night at Lucia’s house-warming. Opinion as to what would happen then was as divergent as the rumours of what had happened already. Some said that Miss Mapp had declined the invitation on the plea that she was engaged to dine with Major Benjy. This was unlikely, because he never had anybody to dinner. Some said that she had accepted, and that Lucia no doubt intended to send out a message that she was not expected, but that Georgie’s car would take her home again. So sorry. All this, however, was a matter of pure conjecture, and it was work enough to sift out what had happened, without wasting time (for time was precious) in guessing what would happen.
The church clock had hardly struck half-past eleven (winter time) before the first of the principals appeared on the stage of the High Street. This was Miss Mapp, wreathed in smiles, and occupied in her usual shopping errands. She trotted about from grocer to butcher, and butcher to general stores, where she bought a mouse-trap, and was exceedingly affable to trades-people. She nodded to her friends, she patted Mr Woolgar’s dog on the head, she gave a penny to a ragged individual with a lugubrious baritone voice who was singing ‘The Last Rose of Summer’, and said ‘Thank you for your sweet music.’ Then after pausing for a moment on the pavement in front of Wasters, she rang the bell. Diva, who had seen her from the window, flew to open it.
‘Good morning, Diva dear,’ she said. ‘I just looked in. Any news?’
‘Good gracious, it’s I who ought to ask you that,’ said Diva. ‘What did happen really?’
Elizabeth looked very much surprised.
‘How? When? Where?’ she asked.
‘As if you didn’t know,’ said Diva, fizzing with impatience. ‘Mr Georgie, Lucia, paint-boxes, no chain on the door, you at the garden-room window, belly-pelly. Etcetera. Yesterday morning.’
Elizabeth put her finger to her forehead, as if trying to recall some dim impression. She appeared to succeed.
‘Dear gossipy one,’ she said, ‘I believe I know what you mean. Georgie came to paint in the garden-room, as he so often does –’
‘Do you call him Georgie?’ asked Diva in an eager parenthesis.
‘Yes, I fancy that’s his name, and he calls me Elizabeth.’
‘No!’ said Diva.
‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Do not interrupt me, dear … I happened to be at the window as he rang the bell, and I just popped my head out, and told him he was a naughty boy not to walk straight in.’
‘In baby-talk?’ asked Diva. ‘Like Lucia?’
‘Like any baby you chance to mention,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Why not?’
‘But with her sitting in her car just below?’
‘Yes, dear, it so happened that she was just coming to leave an invitation on me for her house-warming to-night. Are you going?’
‘Yes, of course, everybody is. But how could you do it?’
Elizabeth sat wrapped in thought.
‘I’m beginning to see what you mean,’ she said at length. ‘But what an absurd notion. You mean, don’t you, th
at dear Lulu thinks – goodness, how ridiculous – that I was mimicking her.’
‘Nobody knows what she thinks,’ said Diva. ‘She’s not been seen this morning.’
‘But gracious goodness me, what have I done?’ asked Elizabeth. ‘Why this excitement? Is there a law that only Mrs Lucas of Grebe may call Georgie, Georgie? So ignorant of me if there is. Ought I to call him Frederick? And pray, why shouldn’t I talk baby-talk? Another law perhaps. I must get a book of the laws of England.’
‘But you knew she was in the car just below you and must have heard.’
Elizabeth was now in possession of what she wanted to know. Diva was quite a decent barometer of Tilling weather, and the weather was stormy.
‘Rubbish, darling,’ she said. ‘You are making mountains out of mole-hills. If Lulu heard – and I don’t know that she did, mind – what cause of complaint has she? Mayn’t I say Georgie? Mayn’t I say “vewy naughty boy”? Let us hear no more about it. You will see this evening how wrong you all are. Lulu will be just as sweet and cordial as ever. And you will hear with your own ears how Georgie calls me Elizabeth.’
These were brave words, and they very fitly represented the stout heart that inspired them. Tilling had taken her conduct to be equivalent to an act of war, exactly as she had meant it to be, and if anyone thought that E. M. was afraid they were wrong … Then there was that matter of Mr Wyse’s letter, resigning from the hanging committee. She must tap the barometer again.
‘I think everybody is a shade mad this morning,’ she observed, ‘and I should call Mr Wyse, if anybody asked me to be candid, a raving lunatic. There was a little misunderstanding months and months ago – I am vague about it – concerning two pictures that Lulu and Georgie sent in to the art exhibition in the summer. I thought it was all settled and done with. But I did act a little irregularly. Technically I was wrong, and when I have been wrong about a thing, as you very well know, dear Diva, I am not ashamed to confess it.’