by E. F. Benson
Elizabeth half closed her eyes as if to visualise it.
“A very pretty colour,” she said. “Just like the gown I had dyed red not long ago, if you happen to remember it. Of course he copied it.”
The front-door bell rang. It was quicker to answer it oneself, thought Diva, than to wait for Janet to come up from the kitchen, and she trundled off.
“Come in, Evie,” she said, “Elizabeth’s here.”
But Elizabeth would not wait, and Evie, in turn, gave her own impressions of the previous evening. They were on the same lines as Elizabeth’s, only it had been Elizabeth and Susan who (instead of revolting her) had been so vastly comical with their sudden interest in municipal affairs: “And, oh, dear me,” she said, “Mr. Wyse and Major Benjy were just as bad. It was like that musical thing where you have a tune in the treble, and the same tune next in the bass. Fugue; that’s it. Those four were just like a Bach concert. Kenneth and I simply sat listening. And I’m much mistaken if Lucia and Mr. Georgie didn’t see through them all.”
Diva had now got a complete idea of what had taken place; clearly there had been a six-part fugue.
“But she’s got to choose somebody,” she said. “Wonder who it’ll be.”
“Perhaps you, he, he!” squeaked Evie for a joke.
“That it won’t,” cried Diva emphatically, looking at the fragments of Lucia’s tactful note scattered about the room. “Sooner sing songs in the gutter. Fancy being at Lucia’s beck and call, whenever she wants something done which she doesn’t want to do herself. Not worth living at that price. No, thank you!”
“Just my fun,” said Evie. “I didn’t mean it seriously. And then there were other surprises. Mr. Georgie in a red—”
“I know; the colour of Elizabeth’s dyed one,” put in Diva.
“—and Mr. Wyse in sapphire velvet,” continued Evie. “Just like my second-best, which I was wearing.”
“No! I hadn’t heard that,” said Diva. “Aren’t the Tilling boys getting dressy?”
The tension increased during the next week to a point almost unbearable, for Lucia, like the Pythian Oracle in unfavourable circumstances, remained dumb, waiting for Elizabeth to implore her. The strain was telling and whenever the telephone bell rang in the houses of any of the candidates she or her husband ran to it to see if it carried news of the nomination. But, as at an inconclusive sitting of the Conclave of Cardinals for the election of the Pontiff, no announcement came from the precinct; and every evening, since the weather was growing chilly, a column of smoke curled out of the chimney of the garden-room. Was it that Lucia, like the Cardinals, could not make up her mind, or had she possibly chosen her Mayoress and had enjoined silence till she gave the word? Neither supposition seemed likely, the first, because she was so very decisive a person; the second, because it was felt that the chosen candidate could not have kept it to herself.
Then a series of curious things happened, and to the overwrought imagination of Tilling they appeared to be of the nature of omens. The church clock struck thirteen one noon, and then stopped with a jarring sound. That surely augured ill for the chances of the Padre’s wife. A spring broke out in the cliff above the Mapp-Flint’s house, and, flowing through the garden, washed the asparagus bed away. That looked like Elizabeth’s hopes being washed away too. Susan Wyse’s Royce collided with a van in the High Street and sustained damage to a mud-guard; that looked bad for Susan. Then Elizabeth, distraught with anxiety, suddenly felt convinced that Diva had been chosen. What made this the more probable was that Diva had so emphatically denied to Evie that she would ever be induced to accept the post. It was like poor Diva to think that anybody would believe such a monstrous statement; it only convinced Elizabeth that she was telling a thumping lie, in order to conceal something. Probably she thought she was being Bismarckian, but that was an error. Bismarck had said that to tell the truth was a useful trick for a diplomatist, because others would conclude that he was not. But he had never said that telling lies would induce others to think that he was telling the truth.
The days went on, and Georgie began to have qualms as to whether Elizabeth would ever humble herself and implore the boon.
“Time’s passing,” he said, as he and Lucia sat one morning in the garden-room. “What on earth will you do, if she doesn’t?”
“She will,” said Lucia, “though I allow she has held out longer than I expected. I did not know how strong that false pride of hers was. But she’s weakening. I’ve been sitting in the window most of the morning—such a multiplicity of problems to think over—and she has passed the house four times since breakfast. Once she began to cross the road to the front-door, but then she saw me, and walked away again. The sight of me, poor thing, must have made more vivid to her what she had to do. But she’ll come to it. Let us discuss something more important. That idea of mine about reviving the fishing industry. The Royal Fish Express. I made a few notes—”
Lucia glanced once more out of the window.
“Georgie,” she cried. “There’s Elizabeth approaching again. That’s the fifth time. Round and round like a squirrel in its cage.”
She glided to her ambush behind the curtain, and, peeping stealthily out, became like the reporter of the University boat-race on the wireless.
“She’s just opposite, level with the front-door,” she announced. “She’s crossing the road. She’s quickening up. She’s crossed the road. She’s slowing down on the front-door steps. She’s raised her hand to the bell. She’s dropped it again. She turned half-round—no, I don’t think she saw me. Poor woman, what a tussle! Just pride. Georgie, she’s rung the bell. Foljambe’s opened the door; she must have been dusting the hall. Foljambe’s let her in, and has shut the door. She’ll be out here in a minute.”
Foljambe entered.
“Mrs. Mapp-Flint, ma’am,” she said. “I told her you were probably engaged, but she much wants to see you for a few moments on a private matter of great importance.”
Lucia sat down in a great hurry, and spread some papers on the table in front of her.
“Go into the garden, will you, Georgie,” she said, “for she’ll never be able to get it out unless we’re alone. Yes, Foljambe; tell her I can spare her five minutes.”
CHAPTER III
Five minutes later Elizabeth again stood on the doorstep of Mallards, uncertain whether to go home to Grebe by the Vicarage and tell inquisitive Evie the news, or via Irene and Diva. She decided on the latter route, unconscious of the vast issues that hung on this apparently trivial choice.
On this warm October morning, quaint Irene (having no garden) was taking the air on a pile of cushions on her doorstep. She had a camera beside her in case of interesting figures passing by, and was making tentative jottings in her sketchbook for her Victorian Venus in a tartan shawl. Irene noticed something peculiarly buoyant about Elizabeth’s gait, as she approached, and with her Venus in mind she shouted to her: “Stand still a moment, Mapp. Stand on one leg in a poised attitude. I want that prancing action. One arm forward if you can manage it without tipping up.”
Elizabeth would have posed for the devil in this triumphant mood.
“Like that, you quaint darling?” she asked.
“Perfect. Hold it for a second while I snap you first.”
Irene focused and snapped.
“Now half a mo’ more,” she said, seizing her sketchbook. “Be on the point of stepping forward again.”
Irene dashed in important lines and curves.
“That’ll do,” she said. “I’ve got you. I never saw you so lissom and elastic. What’s up? Have you been successfully seducing some young lad in the autumn of your life?”
“Oh, you shocking thing,” said Elizabeth.
“Naughty! But I’ve just been having such a lovely talk with our sweet Lucia. Shall I tell you about it, or shall I tease you?”
“Whichever you like,” said Irene, putting in a little shading. “I don’t care a blow.”
“Then I’ll
give you a hint. Make a pretty curtsey to the Mayoress.”
“Rubbish,” said Irene.
“No, dear. Not rubbish. Gospel.”
“My God, what an imagination you have,” said Irene. “How do you do it? Does it just come to you like a dream?”
“Gospel, I repeat,” said Elizabeth. “And such joy, dear, that you should be the first to hear about it, except Mr. Georgie.”
Irene looked at her and was forced to believe. Unaffected bliss beamed in Mapp’s face; she wasn’t pretending to be pleased, she wallowed in a bath of exuberant happiness.
“Good Lord, tell me about it,” she said. “Bring another cushion, Lucy,” she shouted to her six-foot maid, who was leaning out of the dining-room window, greedily listening.
“Well, dear, it was an utter surprise to me,” said Elizabeth. “Such a notion had never entered my head. I was just walking up by Mallards: I often stroll by to look at the sweet old home that used to be mine—”
“You can cut all that,” said Irene.
“—and I saw Lucia at the window of the garden-room, looking, oh, so anxious and worn. She slipped behind a curtain and suddenly I felt that she needed me. A sort of presentiment. So I rang the bell—oh, and that was odd, too, for I’d hardly put my finger on it when the door was opened, as if kind Foljambe had been waiting for me—and I asked her if Lucia would like to see me.”
Elizabeth paused for a moment in her embroidery.
“So Foljambe went to ask her,” she continued, “and came almost running back, and took me out to the garden-room. Lucia was sitting at her table apparently absorbed in some papers. Wasn’t that queer, for the moment before she had been peeping out from behind the curtain? I could see she was thoroughly overwrought and she gave me such an imploring look that I was quite touched.”
A wistful smile spread over Elizabeth’s face.
“And then it came,” she said. “I don’t blame her for holding back: a sort of pride, I expect, which she couldn’t swallow. She begged me to fill the post, and I felt it was my duty to do so. A dreadful tax, I am afraid, on my time and energies, and there will be difficult passages ahead, for she is not always very easy to lead. What Benjy will say to me I don’t know, but I must do what I feel to be right. What a blessed thing to be able to help others!”
Irene was holding herself in, trembling slightly with the effort.
Elizabeth continued, still wistfully.
“A lovely little talk,” she said, “and then there was Mr. Georgie in the garden, and he came across the lawn to me with such questioning eyes, for I think he guessed what we had been talking about—”
Irene could contain herself no longer. She gave one maniac scream.
“Mapp, you make me sick,” she cried. “I believe Lucia has asked you to be Mayoress, poor misguided darling, but it didn’t happen like that. It isn’t true, Mapp. You’ve been longing to be Mayoress: you’ve been losing weight, not a bad thing either, with anxiety. You asked her: you implored her. I am not arguing with you, I am telling you… Hullo, here they both come. It will be pretty to see their gratitude to you. Don’t go, Mapp.”
Elizabeth rose. Dignity prevented her from making any reply to these gutter-snipe observations. She did it very well. She paused to kiss her hand to the approaching Lucia, and walked away without hurrying. But once round the corner into the High Street, she, like Foljambe, “almost ran”.
Irene hailed Lucia.
“Come and talk for a minute, darling,” she said. “First, is it all too true, Mayoress Mapp, I mean? I see it is. You had far better have chosen me or Lucy. And what a liar she is! Thank God I told her so. She told me that you had at last swallowed your pride, and asked her—”
“What?” cried Lucia.
“Just that; and that she felt it was her duty to help you.”
Lucia, though trembling with indignation, was magnificent.
“Poor thing!” she said. “Like all habitual liars, she deceives herself far more often than she deceives others.”
“But aren’t you going to do anything?” asked Irene, dancing wild fandangoes on the doorstep. “Not tell her she’s a liar? Or, even better, tell her you never asked her to be Mayoress at all! Why not? There was no one there but you and she.”
“Dear Irene, you wouldn’t want me to lower myself to her level?”
“Well, for once it wouldn’t be a bad thing. You can become lofty again immediately afterwards. But I’ll develop the snap-shot I made of her, and send it to the press as a photograph of our new Mayoress.”
Within an hour the news was stale. But the question of how the offer was made and accepted was still interesting, and fresh coins appeared from Elizabeth’s mint: Lucia, it appeared had said “Beloved friend, I could never have undertaken my duties without your support” or words to that effect, and Georgie had kissed the hand of the Mayoress Elect. No repudiation of such sensational pieces came from head-quarters and they passed into a sort of doubtful currency. Lucia merely shrugged her shoulders, and said that her position forbade her directly to defend herself. This was thought a little excessive; she was not actually of Royal blood. A brief tranquillity followed, as when a kettle, tumultuously boiling, is put on the hob to cool off, and the Hampshire Argus merely stated that Mrs. Elizabeth Mapp-Flint (née Mapp) would be Mayoress of Tilling for the ensuing year.
Next week the kettle began to lift its lid again, for in the same paper there appeared a remarkable photograph of the Mayoress. She was standing on one foot, as if skating, with the other poised in the air behind her. Her face wore a beckoning smile, and one arm was stretched out in front of her in eager solicitation. Something seemed bound to happen. It did.
Diva by this time had furnished her tea-room, and was giving dress-rehearsals, serving tea herself to a few friends and then sitting down with them, very hot and thirsty. To-day Georgie and Evie were being entertained, and the Padre was expected. Evie did not know why he was late: he had been out in the parish all day, and she had not seen him since after breakfast.
“Nothing like rehearsals to get things working smoothly,” said Diva, pouring her tea into her saucer and blowing on it. “There are two jams, Mr. Georgie, thick and clear, or is that soup?”
“They’re both beautifully clear,” said Georgie politely, “and such hot, crisp toast.”
“There should have been pastry-fingers as well,” said Diva, “but they wouldn’t rise.”
“Tar’some things,” said Georgie with his mouth full.
“Stuck to the tin and burned,” replied Diva. “You must imagine them here even for a shilling tea. And cream for eighteenpenny teas with potted meat sandwiches. Choice of China or Indian. Tables for four can be reserved, but not for less… Ah, here’s the Padre. Have a nice cup of tea, Padre, after all those funerals and baptisms.”
“Sorry I’m late, Mistress Plaistow,” said he, “and I’ve a bit o’ news, and what d’ye think that’ll be about? Shall I tease you, as Mistress Mapp-Flint says?”
“You won’t tease me,” said Georgie, “because I know it’s about that picture of Elizabeth in the Hampshire Argus. And I can tell you at once that Lucia knew nothing about it, whatever Elizabeth may say, till she saw it in the paper. Nothing whatever, except that Irene had taken a snap-shot of her.”
“Well, then, you know nowt o’ my news. I was sitting in the club for a bitty, towards noon, when in came Major Benjy, and picked up the copy of the Hampshire Argus where was the portrait of his guid wife. I heard a sort o’ gobbling turkey-cock noise and there he was, purple in the face, wi’ heathen expressions streaming from him like torrents o’ spring. Out he rushed with the paper in his hand—club-property, mind you, and not his at all—and I saw him pelting down the road to Grebe.”
“No!” cried Diva.
“Yes, Mistress Plaistow. A bit later as I was doing my parish visiting, I saw the Major again with the famous cane riding-whip in his hand, with which, we’ve all heard often enough, he hit the Indian tiger in the face while
he snatched his gun to shoot him. ‘No one’s going to insult my wife, while I’m above ground,’ he roared out, and popped into the office o’ the Hampshire Argus.”
“Gracious! What a crisis!” squeaked Evie.
“And that’s but the commencement, mem! The rest I’ve heard from the new Editor, Mr. McConnell, who took over not a week ago. Up came a message to him that Major Mapp-Flint would like to see him at once. He was engaged, but said he’d see the Major in a quarter of an hour, and to pass the time wouldn’t the Major have a drink. Sure he would, and sure he’d have another when he’d made short work of the first, and, to judge by the bottle, McConnell guessed he’d had a third, but he couldn’t say for certain. Be that as it may, when he was ready to see the Major, either the Major had forgotten what he’d come about, or thought he’d be more prudent not to be so savage, for a big man is McConnell, a very big man indeed, and the Major was most affable, and said he’d just looked in to pay a call on the newcomer.”
“Well, that was a come-down,” ejaculated Georgie.
“And further to come down yet,” said the Padre, “for they had another drink together, and the poor Major’s mind must have got in a fair jumble. He’d come out, ye see, to give the man a thrashing, and instead they’d got very pleasant together, and now he began talking about bygones being bygones. That as yet was Hebrew-Greek to McConnell, for it was the Art-Editor who’d been responsible for the picture of the Mayoress and McConnell had only just glanced at it, thinking there were some queer Mayoresses in Hampshire, and then, oh, dear me, if the Major didn’t ask him to step round and have a bit of luncheon with him, and as for the riding-whip it went clean out of his head and he left it in the waiting-room at the office. There was Mistress Elizabeth when they got to Grebe, looking out o’ the parlour window and waiting to see her brave Benjy come marching back with the riding-whip shewing a bit of wear and tear, and instead there was the Major with no riding-whip at all, arm in arm with a total stranger saying as how this was his good friend Mr. McConnell, whom he’d brought to take pot-luck with them. Dear, oh dear, what wunnerful things happen in Tilling, and I’ll have a look at that red conserve.”