by E. F. Benson
‘I rather think Diva’s making our fourth,’ faltered Georgie.
Lucia expressed strong approval.
‘A very sensible innovation,’ she said. ‘I remember telling you that it struck me as rather bourgeois, rather Victorian, always to have husbands and wives together. No doubt also, dear Evie felt sure I should be busy up till dinner-time. Really very considerate of her, not to give me the pain of refusing. How I shall enjoy a quiet hour with a book.’
‘She doesn’t like it all the same,’ thought Georgie, as, rather fatigued with a six-mile tramp in a thick sea-mist, he tripped down the hill to Diva’s, ‘and I shouldn’t wonder if she guessed the reason …’ The tea-room was crowded, so that Diva could not have had tea with them even if she had been asked. She presented the bill to Evie herself (three eighteen-penny teas) and received the generous tip of fourpence a head.
‘Thank you, dear Evie,’ she said pocketing the extra shilling. ‘I do call that handsome. I’ll join you in the card-room as soon as ever I can.’
They had most exciting games at the usual stakes. It was impossible to leave the last rubber unfinished, and Georgie had to hurry over his dressing not to keep Lucia waiting. Her eye had that gimlet-like aspect, which betokened a thirst for knowledge.
‘A good tea and a pleasant rubber?’ she asked.
‘Both,’ said Georgie. ‘I enjoyed myself.’
‘So glad. And many people having tea?’
‘Crammed. Diva couldn’t join us till close on six.’
‘How pleasant for Diva. And did you play for stakes, dear, or for nothing?’
‘Stakes,’ said Georgie. ‘The usual threepence.’
‘Georgie, I’m going to ask a favour of you,’ she said. ‘I want you to set an example – poor young Twistevant, you know – I want it to be widely known that I do not play cards for money. You diminish the force of my example, dear, if you continue to do so. The limelight is partially, at any rate, on you as well as me. I ask you not to.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t consent,’ said Georgie. ‘I don’t see any harm in it – Naturally you will do as you like –’
‘Thank you, dear,’ said Lucia.
‘No need to thank me. And I shall do as I like.’
Grosvenor entered.
‘Silentio!’ whispered Lucia. ‘Yes, Grosvenor?’
‘Mrs Mapp-Flint has rung up’ – began Grosvenor.
‘Tell her I can’t attend to any business this evening,’ said Lucia.
‘She doesn’t want you to, ma’am. She only wants to know if Mr Pillson will dine with her the day after to-morrow and play bridge.’
‘Thank her,’ said Georgie firmly. ‘Delighted.’
Card-playing circles in Tilling remained firm: there was no slump. If, in view of her exemplary position, Worship declined to play bridge for money, far be it from us, said Tilling, to seek to persuade her against the light of conscience. But if Worship imagined that Tilling intended to follow her example, the sooner she got rid of that fond illusion the better. Lucia sent out invitations for another bridge-party at Mallards but everybody was engaged. She could not miss the significance of that, but she put up a proud front and sent for the latest book on bridge and studied it incessantly, almost to the neglect of her Mayoral duties, in order to prove that what she cared for was the game in itself. Her grasp of it, she declared, improved out of all knowledge, but she got no opportunities of demonstrating that agreeable fact. Invitations rained on Georgie, for it was clearly unfair that he should get no bridge because nobody would play with the Mayor, and he returned these hospitalities by asking his friends to have tea with him at Diva’s rooms, with a rubber afterwards, for he could not ask three gamblers to dinner and leave Lucia to study bridge-problems by herself, while the rest of the party played. Other entertainers followed his example, for it was far less trouble to order tea at Diva’s and find the card-room ready, and as Algernon Wyse expressed it, ‘ye olde tea-house’ became quite like Almack’s. This was good business for the establishment, and Diva bitterly regretted that it had not occurred to her from the first to charge card-money. She put the question one day to Elizabeth.
‘All those markers being used up so fast,’ she said, ‘and I shall have to get new cards so much oftener than I expected. Twopence, say, for card-money, don’t you think?’
‘I shouldn’t dream of it, dear,’ said Elizabeth very decidedly. ‘You must be doing very well as it is. But I should recommend some fresh packs of cards. A little greasy, when last I played. More daintiness, clean cards, sharp pencils and so on are well worth while. But card-money, no!’
The approach of the election to the vacancy on the Town Council diverted the Mayor’s mind from her abstract study of bridge. Up to within a few days of the date on which candidates’ names must be sent in, Elizabeth was still the only aspirant. Lucia found herself faced by the prospect of her Mayoress being inevitably elected, and the thought of that filled her with the gloomiest apprehensions. She wondered if Georgie could be induced to stand. It was his morning for cleaning his bibelots, and she went up to his room with offers of help.
‘I so often wish, dear,’ she said pensively, attacking a snuff-box, ‘that you were more closely connected with me in my municipal work. And such an opportunity offers itself just now.’
‘Do be careful with that snuff-box,’ said he. ‘Don’t rub it hard. What’s this opportunity?’
‘The Town Council. There’s a vacancy very soon. I’m convinced, dear, that with a little training, such as I could give you, you would make a marvellous Councillor, and you would find the work most absorbing.’
‘I think it would bore me stiff,’ he said. ‘I’m no good at slums and drains.’
Lucia decided to disclose herself.
‘Georgie, it’s to help me,’ she said. ‘Elizabeth at present is the only candidate, and the idea of having her on the Council is intolerable. And with the prestige of your being my husband I don’t doubt the result. Just a few days of canvassing; you with your keen interest in human nature will revel in it. It is a duty, it seems to me, that you owe to yourself. You would have an official position in the town. I have long felt it an anomaly that the Mayor’s husband had none.’
Georgie considered. He had before now thought it would be pleasant to walk in Mayoral processions in a purple gown. And bored though he was with Lucia’s municipal gabble, it would be different when, with the weight of his position to back him, he could say that he totally disagreed with her on some matter of policy, and perhaps defeat some project of hers at a Council meeting. Also, it would be a pleasure to defeat Elizabeth at the poll …
‘Well, if you’ll help me with the canvassing –’ he began.
‘Ah, if I only could!’ she said. ‘But, dear, my position precludes me from taking any active part. It is analogous to that of the King, who, officially, is outside politics. The fact that you are my husband – what a blessed day was that when our lives were joined – will carry immense weight. Everyone will know that your candidature has my full approval. I shouldn’t wonder if Elizabeth withdrew when she learns you are standing against her.’
‘Oh, very well,’ said he. ‘But you must coach me on what my programme is to be.’
‘Thank you, dear, a thousand times! You must send in your name at once. Mrs Simpson will get you a form to fill up.’
Several horrid days ensued and Georgie wended his dripping way from house to house in the most atrocious weather. His ticket was better housing for the poorer classes, and he called at rows of depressing dwellings, promising to devote his best energies to procuring the tenants bathrooms, plumbing, bicycle-sheds and open spaces for their children to play in. A disagreeable sense oppressed him that the mothers, whose household jobs he was interrupting, were much bored with his visits, and took very little interest in his protestations. In reward for these distasteful exertions Lucia relaxed the Spartan commissariat – indeed, she disliked it very much herself and occasionally wondered if her example was
being either followed or respected – and she gave him Lucullan lunches and dinners. Elizabeth, of course, at once got wind of his candidature and canvassing, but instead of withdrawing, she started a hurricane campaign of her own. Her ticket was the reduction of rates, instead of this rise in them which these idiotic schemes for useless luxuries would inevitably produce.
The result of the election was to be announced by the Mayor from the steps of the Town Hall. Owing to the howling gale, and the torrents of rain the street outside was absolutely empty save for the figure of Major Benjy clad in a sou’wester hat, a mackintosh and waders, crouching in the most sheltered corner he could find beneath a dripping umbrella. Elizabeth had had hard work to induce him to come at all: he professed himself perfectly content to curb his suspense in comfort at home by the fire till she returned with the news, and all the other inhabitants of Tilling felt they could wait till next morning … Then Lucia emerged from the Town Hall with a candidate on each side of her, and in a piercing scream, to make her voice heard in this din of the elements, she announced the appalling figures. Mrs Elizabeth Mapp-Flint, she yelled, had polled eight hundred and five votes, and was therefore elected.
Major Benjy uttered a hoarse ‘Hurrah!’ and trying to clap his hands let go of his umbrella which soared into the gale and was seen no more … Mr George Pillson, screamed Lucia, had polled four hundred and twenty-one votes. Elizabeth, at the top of her voice, then warmly thanked the burgesses of Tilling for the confidence which they had placed in her, and which she would do her best to deserve. She shook hands with the Mayor and the defeated candidate, and instantly drove away with her husband. As there were no other burgesses to address, Georgie did not deliver the speech which he had prepared: indeed it would have been quite unsuitable, since he had intended to thank the burgesses of Tilling in similar terms. He and Lucia scurried to their car, and Georgie put up the window.
‘Most mortifying,’ he said.
‘My dear, you did your best,’ said Lucia, pressing his arm with a wet but sympathetic hand. ‘In public life, one has to take these little reverses –’
‘Most humiliating,’ interrupted Georgie. ‘All that trouble thrown away. Being triumphed over by Elizabeth when you led me to expect quite the opposite. She’ll be far more swanky now than if I hadn’t put up.’
‘No, Georgie, there I can’t agree,’ said Lucia. ‘If there had been no other candidate, she would have said that nobody felt he had the slightest chance against her. That would have been much worse. Anyhow she knows now that four hundred and – what was the figure?’
‘Four hundred and twenty-one,’ said Georgie.
‘Yes, four hundred and twenty-one thoughtful voters in Tilling –’
‘– against eight hundred and five thoughtless ones,’ said Georgie. ‘Don’t let’s talk any more about it. It’s a loss of prestige for both of us. No getting out of it.’
Lucia hurried indoors to tell Grosvenor to bring up a bottle of champagne for dinner, and to put on to the fire the pretty wreath of laurel leaves which she had privily stitched together for the coronation of her new Town Councillor.
‘What’s that nasty smell of burning evergreen?’ asked Georgie morosely, as they went into the dining-room.
In the opinion of friends the loss of prestige had been entirely Lucia’s. Georgie would never have stood for the Council unless she had urged him, and it was a nasty defeat which, it was hoped, might do the Mayor good. But the Mayoress’s victory, it was feared, would have the worst effect on her character. She and Diva met next morning in the pouring rain to do their shopping.
‘Very disagreeable for poor Worship,’ said Elizabeth ‘and not very friendly to me to put up another candidate –’
‘Rubbish,’ said Diva. ‘She’s made you Mayoress. Quite enough friendliness for one year, I should have thought.’
‘And it was out of friendliness that I accepted. I wanted to be of use to her, and stood for the Council for the same reason –’
‘Only she thought Mr Georgie would be of more use than you,’ interrupted Diva.
‘Somebody in her pocket – Take care, Diva. Susan’s van.’
The Royce drew up close to them, and Susan’s face loomed in the window.
‘Good morning, Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘I’ve just heard –’
‘Thanks, dear, for your congratulations,’ said Elizabeth. ‘But quite a walk-over.’
Susan’s face showed no sign of comprehension.
‘What did you walk over?’ she asked. ‘In this rain, too? – Oh, the election to the Town Council. How nice for you! When are you going to reduce the rates?’
A shrill whistle, and Irene’s huge red umbrella joined the group.
‘Hullo, Mapp!’ she said. ‘So you’ve got on the map again. Ha, ha! How dare you stand against Georgie when my Angel wanted him to get in?’
Irene’s awful tongue always deflated Elizabeth.
‘Dear quaint one!’ she said. ‘What a lovely umbrella.’
‘I know that. But how dare you?’
Elizabeth was stung into sarcasm.
‘Well, we don’t all of us think that your Angel must always have her way, dear,’ she replied, ‘and that we must lie down flat for her to trample us into the mire.’
‘But she raised you out of the mire, woman,’ cried Irene, ‘when she made you Mayoress. She took pity on your fruitless efforts to become somebody. Wait till you see my fresco.’
Elizabeth was sorry she had been so courageous!
‘Painting a pretty fresco, dear?’ she asked. ‘How I shall look forward to seeing it!’
‘It may be a disappointment to you,’ said Irene. ‘Do you remember posing for me on the day Lucia made you Mayoress? It came out in the Hampshire Argus. Well, it’s going to come out again in my fresco. Standing on an oyster-shell with Benjy blowing you along. Wait and see.’
This was no brawl for an MBE to be mixed up in, and Susan called ‘Home!’ to her chauffeur, and shut the window. Even Diva thought she had better move on.
‘Bye-bye,’ she said. ‘Must get back to my baking.’
Elizabeth turned on her with a frightful grin.
‘Very wise,’ she said. ‘If you had got back earlier to your baking yesterday, we should have enjoyed your jam-puffs more.’
‘That’s too much!’ cried Diva. ‘You ate three.’
‘And bitterly repented it,’ said Elizabeth.
Irene hooted with laughter and went on down the street. Diva crossed it, and Elizabeth stayed where she was for a moment to recover her poise. Why did Irene always cause her to feel like a rabbit with a stoat in pursuit? She bewildered and disintegrated her; she drained her of all power of invective and retort. She could face Diva, and had just done so with signal success, but she was no good against Irene. She plodded home through the driving rain, menaced by the thought of that snap-shot being revived again in fresco.
5
Nobody was more conscious of this loss of prestige than Lucia herself, and there were losses in other directions as well. She had hoped that her renunciation of gambling would have induced card-playing circles to follow her example. That hope was frustrated; bridge-parties with the usual stakes were as numerous as ever, but she was not asked to them. Another worry was that the humiliating election rankled in Georgie’s mind and her seeking his advice on municipal questions, which was intended to show him how much she relied on his judgment, left him unflattered. When they sat after dinner in the garden-room (where, alas, no eager gamblers now found the hours pass only too quickly) her lucid exposition of some administrative point failed to rouse any real enthusiasm in him.
‘And if everything isn’t quite clear,’ she said, ‘mind you interrupt me, and I’ll go over it again.’
But no interruption ever came; occasionally she thought she observed that slight elongation of the face that betokens a suppressed yawn, and at the end, as likely as not, he made some comment which showed he had not listened to a word she was saying. To-night, she
was not sorry he asked no questions about the contentious conduct of the catchment board, as she was not very clear about it herself. She became less municipal.
‘How these subjects get between one and the lighter side of life!’ she said. ‘Any news to-day?’
‘Only that turn-up between Diva and Elizabeth,’ he said.
‘Georgie, you never told me! What about?’
‘I began to tell you at dinner,’ said Georgie, ‘only you changed the subject to the water-rate. It started with jam-puffs. Elizabeth ate three one afternoon at Diva’s, and said next morning that she bitterly repented it. Diva says she’ll never serve her a tea again, until she apologizes, but I don’t suppose she means it.’
‘Tell me more!’ said Lucia, feeling the old familiar glamour stealing over her. ‘And how is her tea-shop getting on?’
‘Flourishing. The most popular house in Tilling. All so pleasant and chatty, and a rubber after tea on most days. Quite a centre.’
Lucia wrestled with herself for an intense moment.
‘There’s a point on which I much want your advice,’ she began.
‘Do you know, I don’t think I can hope to understand any more municipal affairs to-night,’ said Georgie firmly.
‘It’s not that sort, dear,’ she said, wondering how to express herself in a lofty manner. ‘It is this: You know how I refused to play bridge any more for money. I’ve been thinking deeply over that decision. Deeply. It was meant to set an example, but if nobody follows an example, Georgie, one has to consider the wisdom of continuing to set it.’
‘I always thought you’d soon find it very tarsome not to get your bridge,’ said Georgie. ‘You used to enjoy it so.’
‘Ah, it’s not that,’ said Lucia, speaking in her best Oxford voice. ‘I would willingly never see a card again if that was all, and indeed the abstract study of the game interests me far more. But I did find a certain value in our little bridge-parties quite apart from cards. Very suggestive discussions, sometimes, about local affairs, and now more than ever it is so important for me to be in touch with the social as well as the municipal atmosphere of the place. I regret that others have not followed my example, for I am sure our games would have been as thrilling as ever, but if others won’t come into line with me, I will gladly step back into the ranks again. Nobody shall be able to say of me that I caused splits and dissensions. “One and all”, as you know, is my favourite motto.’