by Tom Holt
‘Such things are better left to the Regular troops, dear one,’ replied Lucia smugly, ‘and I do think you’re being a little hard on poor Major Benjy. I’m sure he’s only doing his best. Nonetheless, I think it’s just as well there really aren’t any spies in Tilling. They would get quite the wrong impression.’
‘Well, I don’t agree,’ said Diva. ‘I think it’s wrong to sneer at the Army, even if it is only Major Benjy in a patched uniform, and I’m sure I wish them every success.’
With which she swept her mince into her basket and scuttled back to Wasters. Grebe had atoned for its black-market transgressions, while Mallards was getting a little above itself. The Padre and Evie, too, were cold in their goodbyes, and Evie left Irene to the rest of the mince (which was not much) with a pensive frown.
‘We shall have to be careful,’ said Lucia as they returned to Mallards. ‘Clearly dear Diva and the Bartletts are quite taken in by Major Benjy’s uniform. We must watch our step, Georgie, and use all our powers of tact and diplomacy.’
‘Not in front of the officers, surely?’
‘I’m not even sure about that, Georgie. Brothers-in-arms, you know, united by a common uniform. Now, put all such jarring thoughts from your mind and concentrate on lobster à la Riseholme. Oh yes, and we must practise our Polish phrases for Prince Andrei. Such an opportunity to learn accent and idiom from a native speaker, don’t you think?’
Lobster à la Riseholme arrived in due course and rarely, if ever, had that culinary masterpiece been so well presented as on Georgie’s public début as a chef Although several quite important ingredients had been lacking, Georgie had devised alternatives that were as good as, if not better than, the originals.
‘I must congratulate you on your cook, Mrs. Pillson,’ said Prince Andrei. ‘Even in my own country, which has the best cooks in the world, I have never tasted lobster so exquisitely prepared. Even in my beloved Warsaw, which now squirms beneath the jackboot of a hated foe, I cannot remember to have consumed lobster of such extreme quality.’
‘Dear Prince Andrei,’ said Lucia, wishing more than ever that she had been the one to learn the mystic art, ‘so kind of you, and I’m sure you’ll never guess who cooked it.’
‘Tell me, please—ah! I have it! You have a Polish cook.’
‘No, it was me!’ exclaimed Georgie, unable to contain his excitement any longer.
‘Ah, Mr. Pillson,’ replied the Prince, ‘I see you follow the old Roman custom. For was it not the way of the gravest and most venerable senator of the Republic to entrust the preparation of the rarest dishes to none but his own hands? I think it is so—there is a passage in Athenaeus, although I cannot recall the exact reference. But it is true, Mr. Pillson. I applaud you. You are Renaissance Man.’
So taken aback was Georgie by this generous tribute that for a moment he thought that Renaissance Man was one of those tar’some fossils dug up in Africa that proved that Man was descended from the apes. No, that was Neanderthal Man. Renaissance Man was Leonardo da Vinci. He glowed with pleasure.
‘All due respect to the fair sex, Mrs. Pillson,’ said Captain Oldshaw gravely, ‘but when it comes to the really difficult, dainty stuff, men cook just as well as women, if not better.’
‘Oh fie, Captain Oldshaw,’ said Prince Andrei.
‘Well, you won’t find many ladies cooking at the Savoy,’ he replied. It’s one of those things. What was that French chap’s name? Escoffier. That’s who you remind me of, Mr. Pillson.’
‘And in wartime too,’ concluded Lord Tony. ‘How did you get all the ingredients? I’ll swear that there was cinnamon in there somewhere.’
‘You’re far too clever to need cinnamon, aren’t you, Georgie?’ said Lucia. ‘All those marvellous short cuts and substitutes. I believe you’re an alchemist, turning powdered egg into gold.’
‘This is very interesting,’ said Lord Tony. ‘I know a man in the Ministry of Food who’s crying out for someone who can devise substitutes for unobtainable ingredients. I must mention your name to him, Pillson. I’m sure he’ll be fascinated.’
Georgie blushed redder than any boiled lobster, as if angel voices were calling him towards a Higher Purpose.
‘And now, carissima Lucia,’ continued Lord Tony, ‘I must tell you that we Staffordshires have rivals here in Tilling! As I was strolling in the town after lunch I saw a party of armed men up by the Norman Tower. At first I thought they were Germans dressed in civilian costume, for they looked remarkably unlike any British soldier past or present, and I was just about to rush to the church and ring all the bells when I saw your Major Benjy—the one who didn’t get any coffee—strutting along in front of them, so I suppose they must be the Home Guard.’
‘And was Elizabeth—Mrs. Mapp-Flint—also leading them?’ asked Lucia excitedly. Condemnation of the Home Guard by the real Army should silence Diva and the Bartletts for ever.
‘Yes, she was, and she was brandishing a ferocious-looking basket in her hand. I suppose they will use that for putting German tanks in. It’s certainly big enough.’
‘Come on now, Limpsfield,’ said Captain Oldshaw. ‘I’ll admit they were a pretty unsoldierly lot, but at least it’s something.’
‘Ah yes, I’m afraid that we’ll have to leave our beloved Tilling in their hands soon. We’ve been posted, you see, and were leaving in a week and a bit. So this may be our first and last taste of Mr. Georgie’s lobster.’
Lucia dropped her fork.
‘Wicked Lord Tony,’ she said, pulling herself together with an effort. ‘What a way to break the news to us. Oh, how we shall all miss you.’
An idea formed itself in Lucia’s mind. If she had to lose her officers and thereby lose the most effective hold she had had on Tilling for years, she would at least say farewell to them in as advantageous a manner as possible.
‘And we shall miss you, my dear,’ continued Lord Tony. ‘Why, it’s cheered me up no end to eat magnificent lobster, and hear all about the nefarious activities of Mapp, and meet the Birmingham-Scottish padre. We shall be quite as desolate as you, you may be certain of that.’
‘We must have a farewell concert then,’ said Lucia, ‘for all the officers of the Regiment, not just our little circle, so that your parting memory of Tilling will be of culture and sweet music.’ Captain Oldshaw’s face was observed to fall slightly. He had hoped that his parting memory of Tilling would be more lobster à la Riseholme. ‘And of course a farewell dinner before our broche musika, as dear Prince Andrei would say,’ she continued. Captain Oldshaw’s smile returned. ‘No more gloomy thoughts now. So, Georgie kochany, what else have you to delight us with? A meringue, is it not? Piekna!’
The meringue was certainly piekna, which was as far as Lucia’s phrase-book got to bella in Italiano. It was a triumph, a towering ziggurat of a confection, and Lord Tony confessed that he would not have believed that only one egg could have been the foundation of such an edifice. He must certainly mention Georgie’s name to Teddy Broome at the Ministry. What Britain needed, he maintained, more than tanks or Hurricanes, was a way of making such a meringue with only one egg. Count Andrei called down all the saints to witness that even in his native land, where the meringue had been invented .and where all the most famous meringue-makers of antiquity had lived, he had never tasted so fine an example of the noblest of desserts. Even Captain Oldshaw, who was not given to passionate outbursts, declared that it was a jolly fine pudding, and he wished he had the recipe to send to his sister in Harrogate. The evening concluded with a little Chopin (‘Ready, Georgie? Jeden, due, TRIE!’) after which the Prince sang a very sad and beautiful folk-song from his native Poland, about a woodcutter who fell in love with a water-nymph, the tune of which sounded disconcertingly like ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow,’ transferred to the minor key.
Chapter 5.
Lucia hired the Institute, and set about choosing her music. She would play a good deal of Chopin, and she and Georgie together would play a good deal more, as well as th
e Elgar and the madrigals and the Dowland. The Padre would sing some Scottish ballads, including ‘Will ye no come back again?’, and quaint Irene would, as a sop to the groundlings, do her celebrated Impression of Hitler eating an orange—the orange, of course, to be mimed; real oranges were still a painful topic. As a grand finale she (Lucia) would take the leading rôle in a most ambitious and symbolic tableau; attired as Boadicea and representing the Spirit of England, she would chase the Teutonic dragon (Irene in her Hitler outfit and Diva in the tail section of the Christmas mummers’ dragon) away from the South coast. This selection of delights would, she felt, not only give the troops a rousing send-off, but involve all Tilling except Elizabeth.
What with rehearsals and practising Chopin and limiting the Padre to only four ballads, at least two of which must be comprehensible to those unfamiliar with the Scottish dialect, and keeping Elizabeth from having anything to do with it, and encouraging Georgie to work out a rather complicated recipe for Stroganoff using almost none of the original ingredients, Lucia was kept very busy over the next few days. All Tilling buzzed with concert-fever. Diva spent hours in the dragon’s tail, getting accustomed to the almost total darkness inside the costume, Irene strutted up and down in front of the Wyses making violent gestures and spluttering (they were the only people with sufficient leisure to watch her rehearse, although they found the performance in highly doubtful taste), and anyone passing the Vicarage would have been startled by the bellowing of Caledonian folksong that issued from within. On the eve of the concert Lucia returned, tired but content, from a final rehearsal at Starling Cottage, to find a letter from Lord Tony. She opened it eagerly, only to find that he had managed to persuade Teddy Broome from the Ministry of Food to come to dinner and the concert, and to meet Georgie. In a postscript, written in haste, he also said that Olga Bracely, who was entertaining the troops in Hastings on the same day, had heard of the concert, and had expressed an earnest wish to be present, although sadly she could not be in time for dinner.
This, not unnaturally, caused Lucia a moment’s dismay. The presence of an important official from the Ministry of Food, come expressly to consult him about one-egg meringues and what not, combined with Olga, whom he undoubtedly still adored, might tend to make Georgie just a little above himself. Of course, she trusted him absolutely, but it was undeniably true that meeting Olga again always left him rather rebellious; and now that the officers were leaving she would have to find some other prestigious occupation for them both so that she might maintain her rightful position in Tilling. Olga alone she could have coped with by adhering to the two of them and hogging the conversation until Olga went away, but the man from the Ministry posed rather more serious problems.
Nevertheless, the triumph that she must surely enjoy with the concert would keep Elizabeth in check for the moment, and the preparations for that event continued to monopolise her thoughts. The Padre would insist on singing a very long and mournful ballad about an army of heroic Scots warriors who went away to fight the marauding Norsemen and who, despite many deeds of notable prowess and impeccable valour all round, did not come back. That, she felt, was not quite what she had in mind.
Stroganoff and lemon sorbet (magically created with but one small lemon) came forth from Mallards’ kitchen to astound and gratify the officers assembled around the Round Table of Lucia’s Camelot for the last time, and Teddy Broome, seated in the Siege Perilous on Lucia’s right, took but a small part in the sparkling conversation, for all his powers of concentration were devoted to the food. Try as he might he could not detect the substitutes and improvisations that he was assured had been employed in the Stroganoff and the sorbet. Once he lifted his solemn countenance and suggested ‘Powdered egg?’ in a hopeful voice, only to be informed that that deplorable substance had not entered into the process at all. Mystified and awash with imagination and sorbet he continued to munch and puzzle and analyse and wonder.
Then, when coffee (with an artificial cream of uncanny realism) had been hastily consumed, and when Lord Tony had thoughtfully suggested that a flask of coffee be taken out to Major Benjy, who might have had to miss his coffee again in order to take out the evening patrol, the assembled company departed, by Humber, on the short journey to the Institute. As it happened Major Benjy was indeed leading out his evening patrol from the Institute as they arrived, for the concert had forced them out of their cosy drill-hall into the cold night air. The Home Guard’s rustic salutes were returned with professional precision by the Regulars, and Lord Tony said ‘Qui-hi, Major Benjy’ under his breath, though not sufficiently quietly for it not to be heard by the whole platoon. Lucia laughed shrilly, exclaimed ‘Naughty Lord Tony,’ and waved gaily to the furious Commander of the Tilling troop.
There was not a vacant seat in the Institute, for it was filled with officers of every shape and size, age and rank. In the front row was Henry Porteous, sitting next to quaint Irene, who was wearing a duffel-coat to conceal her Hitler costume. There seemed to be a coolness between them that Lucia would have investigated fully at any other time .... And there was Olga, radiant and magnificent. Georgie blushed redder than the sunrise, and dropped his music. Gathering it hastily, he joined Lucia at the piano and prepared to turn the pages for her. There were, he noticed, a great many pages, and somehow the assembled officers struck him as being in not quite the mood for so much Chopin. When all was settled, Lucia seated herself at the piano, assumed her music face and began to play.
So deeply was her attention engaged in the glories (and difficulties) of the music that she did not at first notice the slight air of restlessness that followed the fifth piano solo. When her recital came to an end, the applause almost appeared to be as much relief as approval. When the Padre stepped on to the platform to sing his Scottish ballads in appropriate costume there were muffled cheers at the back of the hall, as if some uncultured minds were expecting a Harry Lauder routine. Their cheers turned to audible whispers as the Padre sang his first ballad (he had a loud voice, used mainly for plainsong). There seemed to be mounting speculation among the younger and less educated officers as to whether the turn was meant to be funny or not. Lucia’s lips were a thin white line as she played the first bars of ‘Scots, wha hae wi Wallace bled,’ but the whispers continued, and the clapping was surely somewhat slower than one heard at Covent Garden. With panic in his eyes the Padre turned and suggested that they should go straight on to the final ballad, and regrettably enough his rhetorical question ‘Will ye no come back again?’ was greeted by a few definite replies of ‘No!’
After he had resumed his seat, followed by a few (doubtless good-humoured) suggestions as to how he should extend his repertoire, Georgie joined Lucia at the piano for the duets.
‘I don’t think they like it,’ he whispered.
‘Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, Georgie,’ she replied, but Georgie wasn’t too sure. At times, he thought, music had exactly the opposite effect, and this was one of them. Surely the officers wouldn’t throw things....
Lucia had determined to be entirely oblivious to the disturbances, but nonetheless the programme of madrigals was severely truncated, and Elgar wholly omitted. It seemed unlikely that the massed chivalry of Staffordshire would stand much more of Lucia’s rousing send-off. The next item on the agenda was Irene’s Hitler impersonation. She was dressed in knee-breeches, riding-boots and braces, her head topped by a cardboard cap and her upper lip daubed with boot-polish. Lucia shuddered slightly at the spectacle, but the audience roared with delight, and started demanding encores in advance, to get their orders in early, so to speak. When the storm of gesticulation and spluttering was over and the ovation had died away, Lucia rose to return to the piano. Chopin and Grieg .... Georgie, seized with a sudden concern for his wife’s safety, caught her arm and hissed ‘Play the National Anthem’ to her. As she hesitated, Lord Tony, who had been whispering with Olga, joined them and muttered something about Miss Bracely wanting to sing a few numbers, and could it be fitte
d in? Lucia was in two minds. She was unwilling to let dear Olga steal her show, but then, there was not much left of her show to steal. Besides, Olga was a professional and must by now be used to rowdies, while that world-famous voice might even save a situation rapidly becoming chaotic. Georgie joined in the discussion, declaring that he was willing to accompany Olga on the piano, and Lucia, glancing at the audience, assented. She too did not believe for a moment that British officers would throw things, but in case they did, the stains of over-ripe tomatoes would be easier to remove from Georgie’s shirt than from her evening-gown.
A decision having been reached, Lord Tony rose and announced a change in the programme. Miss Olga Bracely, the famous soprano, had consented to sing a few songs which would be familiar to them all .... Lucia felt a pang of anxiety at these words as, almost simultaneously, Georgie began to play the tune (if it could be described as such) of ‘Run, rabbit, run’.
And Olga sang.
Enormous, like a giant wave of the sea, was the applause that rocked the little hall. Never before had such applause, such clapping and cheering, been heard there, but never before had its roof re-echoed such a superb voice as that of the divine Olga. Like an alchemist who can make vile things precious she transmuted the vulgar melodies. Even ‘Roll out the barrel’, Lucia was forced to admit, seemed quite a jolly little tune when Olga sang it. Georgie, meanwhile, was playing as he had never played before, pounding the keys in an ecstasy of delight. Divine Mozartino it most certainly was not, but to accompany his Olga, even in ‘There’ll always be an England’ and ‘I’m going to get lit up when the lights go up in London’, amid all this tumult of devotion, was the purest happiness. His eyes flitted from one unfamiliar page to the next, and he clouted the piano like a blacksmith. Finally, with ‘Land of hope and glory’ (which evidently was the only piece of Elgar’s music that would be heard in Tilling that night) and a roaring crescendo of ‘Rule Britannia’, the concert came to an explosive end and Major Benjy, splashing along with his men through the puddles in the High Street, could hear the singing and the clapping in Malleson Street, and wondered how he was to break the news to Elizabeth that, in spite of all her predictions to the contrary, Lucia’s concert appeared to have been a great success.