by Tom Holt
And with this alliterative outburst she sat down with the air of one who has realised some long-held ambition.
‘’Pon my soul!’ exclaimed the Major. ‘Mrs. Pillson fooling about on the black market. I wouldn’t have believed it of her. Mayor three times and all that. Most out of character.’
‘Nonsense, Benjy, it’s just the sort of thing she’d do. How else do you suppose she’s been feeding bevies of officers and making herself so conspicuous, without resorting to the black market? I say it is entirely in character—snatching food from the lips of starving orphans in order to impress the likes of Diva Plaistow and Susan Wyse! Quite contemptible, but entirely in character.’
‘I don’t think we should accept her damn’ invitation in that case,’ said the Major. ‘Eating black-market food is almost as bad as buying it.’ He paused and reflected for a moment. ‘Mind you, leg of lamb. Can’t remember when I last saw such a thing in this house.’
There was some point in this, for even in peacetime leg of lamb had been a rare visitor to Grebe. Other slightly less prized parts of the animal had been more usual.
‘Spoiling the Egyptian, Benjy,’ replied Elizabeth, who would eat human flesh in return for a chance to humiliate Lucia, let alone black-market lamb. ‘Of course, Tilling must know about this disgrace sooner or later, but I can see no reason why you and I should not enjoy ourselves at dear Lulu’s expense and meet “her” officers, as it pleases her to call them—clearly His Majesty had better take care, or all his troops will transfer their allegiance to Mrs. Pillson. And I’m sure those dear soldiers will be interested to know where their sumptuous meals are coming from.’
‘I say, Liz, that’s a thought. They won’t go back there in a hurry.’
‘Indeed, Benjy-boy; and then we might do some entertaining of our own—for the good of morale, of course. Meanwhile I’ve written to the A.R.P., and they say they’ll send an invitation to interview in a few days.’
Major Benjy froze with horror at this casual disclosure. Such awful treachery on the part of the wife of his bosom was as unexpected as it was fearful.
‘I’m not so sure about that, Liz old girl,’ he managed to say. ‘The old wound’s been playing up a lot over the last few weeks—difficult to get from one end of the room to the other some days.’ (There was some truth in this, although the cause lay not with a jezail bullet buried in the Major’s flesh, but with a hip-flask buried in his desk.) ‘Wouldn’t do to entrust such vital work to an old wreck of a retired soldier already well-nigh crippled by his nation’s enemies.’
‘Nonsense, Benjy,’ replied Elizabeth, ‘you’re just trying to wriggle out of your responsibilities to Tilling and to Britain in her hour of need. I shall have to find a white feather and send it to you anonymously, you dear shirker.’
‘Steady on, old girl,’ said the Major. ‘That’ s putting it a bit strongly, isn’t it? If you feel like that I shall certainly allow my name to be considered. It’s just that—well—when you’re as anxious to do your bit as I am it hurts the old pride a bit if you’re turned down, you know, on account of age, or injury.’
‘But they won’t turn you down, Benjy.’
‘Well, you know, they might,’ sighed the Major. He was more than afraid of refusal, he was sure of it, even if he had to feign a cardiac arrest during the actual interview. ‘Still, even if the A.R.P. don’t want me, I might find something else. Anyway, thank you for applying for me, Liz. Didn’t quite have the nerve myself.’
‘It was nothing, dear, nothing at all,’ said Elizabeth, rather puzzled at this collapse of resistance. Her dear Benjy-boy, as she had occasionally observed in the past, was never more dangerous than when appearing to be obedient.
Meanwhile, the criminal gang were sitting in gloomy silence in the beautiful panelled front-room of Mallards, where, so legend had it, an early member of the house of Hanover had taken tea after his cavalry escort had lost their way en route from Hastings to London. But what use were the notable services rendered to the nation by their predecessors in the house, if they themselves brought shame on it with their own miserable crimes?
‘There’s no guarantee that she won’t try and poach our officers and then produce the orange,’ moaned Lucia. ‘That would be so like Elizabeth.’
‘Surely by then it would be all mildewed and horrible,’ replied Georgie, ‘or perhaps Major Benjy might eat it when she isn’t looking.’
‘It’s no good, Georgie. I appreciate your trying to raise my spirits but I fear that all is lost. I have no alternative now but to confess the whole business to Lord Tony and see how he reacts.’
‘No!’ said Georgie, thrilled by her courage. ‘My dear, how brave of you. But surely it could ruin everything. And perhaps Lord Tony might never find out otherwise.’
‘With Elizabeth and Major Benjy coming this evening? Do you think she could resist such an opportunity to make mischief? No, I was wrong to invite her in the first place. Better that Lord Tony hears it from my lips, directly, than from Elizabeth’s. If he’s terribly offended, I shall cancel all further dinner parties and have influenza for a month, and you will have to go and stay with Hermy and Ursy until it’s safe to come back.’
‘I think I’d rather stay here and be ostracised than spend a month with my sisters, if you don’t mind. Oh look, there’s a Humber coming out of Church Square. It’s Lord Tony, and he’s getting out. He’s coming here. Do you think he can have heard already, from Irene or someone, and has come to say he’s not coming—oh, you know what I mean,’ he concluded crossly.
There was a knock at the door, and presently Lord Tony, attired as ever in spotless khaki, was shown in by Foljambe. He had a parcel in his hands, wrapped in brown paper.
‘My dear,’ he said to the trembling pair before him, ‘I’ve just popped in to give you these. Four tins of salmon, Canadian I’m afraid, but fresh salmon is terribly tricky, isn’t it? I couldn’t get any through the N.A.A.F.I., so I had to consult a most unpatriotic little man who lives near the railway-station.’ He paused and consulted Lucia’s expression, which was rather strange. ‘My dear, you aren’t horrified, are you? I hope I haven’t offended your principles by offering you black-market fish.’
Lucia’s first reaction was to say, No, of course not, there’s nine more from the same source in the garden-room cupboard, but she restrained herself and smiled.
‘Dear Lord Tony,’ she purred, ‘do you suppose a poor civilian like myself could provide a square meal for four hungry soldiers from the Government ration? Very well then, let us not mention the horrid subject again.’
‘Well said!’ exclaimed Lord Limpsfield. ‘Some people are so stuffy and silly. But I always say that all’s fair in love and war, and there’s a war on, and I love salmon mousse, so that’s fair enough. Au reservoir!’
‘Well, that’s something,’ said Lucia as the Humber bumped away over the cobbles.
‘There’s still Elizabeth,’ replied Georgie. ‘Even if she doesn’t frighten off the officers, she can make us horribly unpopular in the town. I don’t believe that Tilling will be so broad-minded, even if they know that Lord Tony thinks it’s all right.’
‘We shall have to wait and see, I suppose. After all, it’s not such a terrible crime. If we didn’t buy it, all that food would go to waste, and that would be a crime. It’s only for the officers, not for ourselves, and besides, it’s rather dashing to buy black-market food to give to the troops. Like Robin Hood, stealing from the poor to help the rich—I mean the other way round.’
That, however, remained very much to be seen, as Lucia welcomed her guests the next evening. There was Lord Tony, and the dashing Captain Oldshaw; no Henry (and therefore, mercifully, no Irene) but instead there was Lieutenant Custard, an excessively shy young man with large pink ears who before the war had been that sophisticated playwright Grant Fever, author of the scandalous play Hollow Shells. There was also David Ashby, who was an anthropologist and had been to many quite extraordinary places. All in all there ne
ver had been such a brilliant gathering of officers at Mallards, but it was not the enfant terrible of the British stage that Lucia fixed her attention upon, nor yet the discoverer of five quite unknown African tribes. Rather, it was Elizabeth Mapp-Flint that she observed the most closely, as no doubt Major Benjy in his youth had studied a tiger which was in the act of deciding whether or not to spring. In theory Lucia was safe from anything Elizabeth might do; in practice, however, anything might happen. Certainly the arrival of the salmon mousse, greeted with cries of rapture by the rest of the table, seemed to twist some nerve in Elizabeth’s face, so that she winced as if forcibly restraining herself from some violent exclamation. As for the leg of lamb, Thyestes could not have looked so shocked when, duped by his foes, he ate his own son’s flesh. Yet still Elizabeth kept her silence, contenting herself with a savage smile that caused Georgie, who intercepted it on its way to Lucia, to spill his glass of wine. As the meal dragged on, Lucia almost wished that she would make her move, but still she chatted to Captain Oldshaw about Napoleon and Ilkley Moor.
The leg of lamb departed and was replaced with the orange soufflé. It was a fine specimen, light as a feather and tall as a steeple, and it seemed to fascinate Elizabeth like a hypnotist’s watch. She felt the blood pounding through her veins, and began to speak.
‘Lulu, dear, what a particularly splendid soufflé. How clever you are—such flavour’
Despite the white wine, Lucia’s palate was dry. She tried to speak but could only manage a broad smile.
‘My congratulations, Mrs. Pillson,’ said Captain Oldshaw. ‘Haven’t tasted anything like this since before the war. Mind you, my sister in Harrogate makes a very fine orange soufflé. Not as fine as this, though.’
‘And so clever of you to have managed to find all the ingredients,’ continued Elizabeth remorselessly. ‘I haven’t been able to get any oranges for simply ages.’
‘Oh, you can pick them up in the High Street from time to time,’ replied Lucia, without thinking what she was saying. This seemed to urge Elizabeth towards the kill.
For her part, Elizabeth smiled, showing all her teeth. ‘Really, dear? You must tell me where you get yours, then, for I’m sure I haven’t seen any such thing in the shops myself.’
‘I don’t know about you or Mrs. Pillson,’ said Lord Tony, ‘but I can usually find one or two on the marché noir, although the price is exorbitant. Such a benign institution, if one doesn’t mind risking the condemnation of a few narrow-minded souls. But really, if one refused to eat anything that couldn’t show its papers, so to speak, one would grow as thin as a rake, and anyone can see by my deplorable figure that I don’t get by on Army rations.’
Elizabeth had been engaged in swallowing a spoonful of soufflé as he said this, and a sort of minor explosion occurred in her mouth, followed by some violent coughing. From malicious joy her expression had changed to outraged innocence (for despite her scrupulous honesty she had managed to preserve her ample shape; if stoutness was equated with black marketeering, she must be accused) and as soon as she was clear of soufflé-shrapnel she exclaimed, ‘Oh, shame on you, dear Lord Limpsfield, encouraging us civilians to indulge in such unpatriotic activities! I would never dream of doing such a thing.’
‘Well now, Mrs. Mapp-Flint,’ replied Lord Tony with a twinkle in his eye, ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t, but in that case I’m equally sure I would never come to dinner at your house—Grebe, isn’t it?—for I’m afraid I like my food, and if I’m to be called upon to drive Hitler into the sea at a moment’s notice I would hate to have to do it on Army fare. Isn’t that so, Oldshaw?’
‘Quite right, Limpsfield. I’m sure the Hun has no such compunctions. Stuffing himself with all that French cuisine, I shouldn’t wonder. Wouldn’t like to face a storm trooper stuffed with crêpes suzettes on an ounce of boiled beef and two carrots.
‘’Pon my soul, Liz,’ said Major Benjy, whose perceptions may have been clouded slightly by Lucia’s excellent wine, ‘I couldn’t have got through my spell in His Majesty’s service—India, you know—’ (they did) ‘without a square meal inside me. Come to that, we’re not so blameless ourselves.’
‘What do you mean?’ cried Elizabeth hoarsely.
‘Well, when I was looking for a handkerchief the other day,’ he replied, eager to ally himself to the band of dashing buccaneers, ‘I came across an orange in the drawer. Now I dare say that that never saw the inside of Twistevant’s, eh, old girl? Went down a treat, as well.’ And he winked broadly.
Elizabeth cast down her napkin and stood up.
‘Come now, Benjy, we must be going home. Such a long way back to Grebe in the black-out. Thank you so much for our delicious dinner, Lulu darling. So sweet of you to ask us. Come, Benjy.’
‘But I haven’t had any coffee,’ said Benjy, as the excellent wine began to assert itself. ‘A cup of coffee and a li’l spot port with my friend Lord Tony Limpsfield. Spot of coffee, cup of port, li’l rubber of Bridge. Don’t want to go back to Grebe yet. Want spot port and cup of coffee.’
‘My driver will run you home in the Humber, Mrs. Mapp-Flint,’ said Lord Tony. ‘You mustn’t dream of leaving us yet.’
‘No, dear Lord Limpsfield, I couldn’t allow Army petrol to be wasted on us. Benjy!’
Bitter and dark as any cup of coffee were Elizabeth’s thoughts as she strode back to Grebe through the gathering gloom. It was just as well, she thought to herself, that she had declined Lord Tony’s offer; anyone who had seen her riding home in the Humber would no doubt assume that she had been arrested for black-marketeering and was being taken off to prison. Major Benjy, having got over the disappointment of not having any coffee, declared that he wanted to go down to the Harbour and inspect the troops, and Elizabeth had a job to prevent him, so carried away was he by contact with soldiers. Arriving at last at Grebe, she took two Aspros and went to bed. Meanwhile, at Mallards Lucia was playing the opening bars of the Moonlight Sonata....
Chapter 3.
Breakfast was a dour meal at Grebe next morning, for both the Mapp-Flints were feeling wretched, though for entirely different reasons. The Major sat toying with an enormous cup full of boiling water (faintly tea-stained), his mind divided between resentment and fear. His better part of valour (and Major Benjy’s valour was largely composed of the better part) told him that a show of submission, such as becoming an air-raid warden, was demanded of him in order to keep peace and tranquillity in the home; but the old tiger-slaying Adam, nagging away like toothache, insisted that the slavery endured by occupied France was as nothing compared to his own subservience in not insisting upon his inalienable right to a little cup of coffee and a glass of port on the rare occasions on which he was able to dine out. Elizabeth, for her part, could think only of the humiliation she had suffered at Lucia’s hands. the need for revenge and the difficulty of procuring it, and, of course, the loss of the orange.
From the military circles of Tilling she was utterly banished, without a shadow of a doubt. In the horrid confusion of the previous evening she had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, and by some process she could not, even now, reconstruct, Lucia’s crime had been transferred to her. Thank God no other member of Tilling society had been there to witness it.
As to Lucia’s exposure and condemnation in the eyes of the town, as distinct from the Harbour, she was still in two minds. Every fibre of her being urged her to hasten to the High Street and broadcast the crime in plain, unambiguous English. But how could she be certain of being believed? And even if she were, was it not possible that all Tilling was infected with the same deplorable attitude to black-marketeering as Mallards and Tilling Harbour? Finally, if this last possibility proved to be the case, the thought that she had been depriving herself of such little luxuries as a few additional eggs and spoonsful of sugar bit into her soul like an ulcer.
Furthermore, her social exclusion, instead of being ended by her encounter on the road to Twistevants, had been consolidated, for now she could not dream o
f joining (and so leading) the officer-based culture that now constituted all social activity in the town. Well, if she could not join them she must beat them. Courage and faith in her own abilities she had never lacked, but the scale of the task appalled her. She must hold her hand until she had established Tilling’s views of the marché noir, as Lord Limpsfield had so glibly called it. Meanwhile she must cast about for some secret weapon....
Her reverie was interrupted by the arrival of the post. A letter each. Elizabeth opened hers and read it distractedly, for her mind still moved upon high strategy, so that only after she had put it back in its envelope and replaced it on a side-plate did she realise what it said.
‘Benjy!’ she exclaimed, but the Major interrupted her with a cry of ‘Liz, old girl!’
‘Well?’ she demanded impatiently.
‘Marvellous piece of news,’ he said. ‘You know Phillipson, the bank manager? He’s been transferred to Folkestone!’
‘Benjy, how wonderful,’ said Elizabeth in a voice loaded with irony. ‘l must say that has cheered me up considerably.’
‘The best part is yet to come,’ said he obliviously. ‘He was the Officer Commanding, Tilling Home Guard. Dashed silly if you ask me. He couldn’t lead an ace of diamonds, let alone a platoon. Anyway, they’ve offered me the job. Old soldier. Highly respected in the community. No one else available.’
‘No!’ exclaimed his wife, and the joyful contents of her own letter melted from her mind like snow in the sunshine. ‘Benjy, how marvellous.’
‘Not half, old girl. I shall only be a Lieutenant—reduced to the ranks, ha!—but I’ll have a platoon of trained men equipped with—now let me see—Ross rifles and a Lewis gun, whatever that may mean, and be solely responsible for the defence of Tilling in the event of an invasion; that’s if there aren’t any Regulars here, of course.’