by Tom Holt
Lucia’s only reply was to gurgle inarticulately. To be sure, this was the erudite and learned conversation that she longed to hear replacing the endless cries of ‘Three hearts!’ and ‘I thought you had no more clubs’ in her beloved garden-room. But there was a time and place for everything.
‘That’s always puzzled me,’ said Diva, who had never given the subject a moments thought before. ‘Greek name, Latin ending. Odd.’
‘It is an established etymological phenomenon in botanical circles, I believe,’ intoned Mr. Wyse gravely. ‘Often the first of two scientific names accorded to each individual species is of Greek derivation, whereas the second is of Latin origin. Thus in the case of Pyracanthus latefolia, Pyracanthus is, I scarcely need remind you, formed from two Greek words, while latefolia is a Latin compound. Indeed, some names of plants are macaronic within the same word.’
‘Gosh!’ said Diva. She had not the faintest idea what he was talking about, but Lucia’s face was a prettier sight than all the pyracanthuses (or pyracanthi) in Christendom.
‘’Tes often the case that a wee flower is clept after the wight that first discovered it. Dahlia. Fuchsia. Ah, ’twud be a gladsome thing to be thus remembered. Now, if I were tae discover a new azalea, a’ mankind would ken wha it was that first identified Azalea bartlettii.’
‘What wonderful flowers they must have at Windsor!’ snarled Lucia, crossing to the mantelpiece.
‘Not nearly as fine as the gardens at Kew,’ interrupted Evie. ‘Kenneth and I visited them once. Such colours.’
With a deliberate movement, Lucia knocked the invitation off the mantelpiece. It fluttered to the ground and came to rest at Mr. Wyse’s feet. Gracefully, he stooped and picked it up, smiled and then replaced it on the mantelpiece. Lucia stared at him.
‘Ah, dear Padre,’ she growled, ‘here is a book I promised to lend you. Do come and see.’
‘Thank ye, Mistress Pillson, but as it so chances I managed tae buy a copy o’ the self-same edition only the ither week. Sich a bargain ’twas too, at only three shillings.’
‘And here is a book I have promised you many times, Diva,’ Lucia ground on remorselessly. ‘About Irish setters, you recall.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Diva, and she flushed red. ‘Just so happens I managed to pick up a copy of that the other day myself. What a coincidence!’
‘How fortunate! Now, here is one for you, dear Susan.’ Lucia was beginning to sound like a Sunday-school prize-giving. ‘I recall that you asked me for it only the other day, so I searched the house from top to bottom and here it is!’
‘Oh I don’t think so!’ replied Susan. ‘On the contrary, I think I offered to lend you my copy. I think you must have got muddled up. Fancy you having one too! Such a fine work! Such sensitivity!’
Lucia could feel sweat breaking out on her forehead, although it may just have been the warmth of the fire. Reluctantly she came away from the fireplace and drank her sherry rather quickly.
‘I do hope Mr. Georgie has cooked us something special. He has been working rather a lot recently on turnips. I believe he intends to name this particular dish after the King.’
‘That’s handy,’ said Diva, ‘seeing as how they’re both called George. I bet he’s really named it after himself. And why not? Interesting name, George.’
‘Originally,’ said Mr. Wyse, ‘derived from the Greek word meaning a farmer. Its popularity in this country is, of course, due to its being the name of our patron saint. Yet St. George was originally a Greek saint. Perhaps you can enlighten us on that subject, Padre?’
This dazzling display of scholarship threatened to overwhelm Lucia, for she gasped and sat down hurriedly. Obviously they were all deliberately ignoring the invitation. But why? Just then Foljambe announced dinner and the assembled company made its way through to the dining-room. There Georgie was standing, as was his custom. It had been a delicate matter for him to decide, for since he cooked the food, he felt he ought to stay with it and to be on hand to sponsor its arrival, so to speak, rather than abandoning it to the charge of Foljambe once he had brought it to life. On the other hand, he could not bring himself to pass round the plates, feeling (and rightly so) that it would embarrass the guests to be waited on by their host. So he usually remained standing up at least until the soup arrived and ate his portion quickly so as to be able to dash off to the kitchen to inspect the next course and return to his seat before Foljambe produced it. This ritual not infrequently gave him indigestion, but he felt that that was right and proper, in a way; the artist must suffer and by his suffering ennoble the world.
Lucia took her place at the head of the table. She had, in her desperation, thought of bringing the invitation card in with her; but that would not achieve anything. For some reason, everyone was ignoring it. Again she asked herself why. What had she done?
‘Hello, everyone,’ said Georgie. He was amazed to see them all so cheerful, when there should have been an uncomfortable silence. But there was Elizabeth, kissing her hand to Lucia as she took her seat at the opposite end of the table. This placing had been intended to isolate her, to put her on view after her disgrace. But now she sat in state, like a one-woman government in exile, and it was Lucia who felt excluded. Georgie shook his head and turned round to see what had become of the soup. By Lucia’s express command it was Brown Windsor.
‘Why Mr. Georgie, what delicious oxtail!’ exclaimed Elizabeth, and a chorus of approbation arose from her fellow-guests. Yet it was impossible to contradict such flattery; to him it tasted like Brown Windsor, but the artist is but one interpreter of his own work. To Leonardo, no doubt, the Madonna’s smile was but a smile; to the succeeding generations it has meant much more. So if Georgie thought his soup was Brown Windsor, Georgie must be mistaken. It was all most confusing.
To Lucia, it might as well have been chicken broth. So far as she could think coherently in this disaster, she was reconstructing all the possible causes for this drastic peripeteia in her fortunes. Had she perchance, walking in her sleep or under the influence of automatism, been overheard humming Haydn’s Austrian Hymn? Had mysterious lights been seen at the windows of Mallards? She resolved upon one last attempt; should that fail, she decided, she would leave Tilling for ever, to end her days as a hermit on some rocky Scottish island, singing madrigals to the unheeding breakers.
‘Tell me, Elizabeth,’ she nearly shouted through the buzz of conversation, ‘when you were at Windsor ....’
Simultaneously, Susan Wyse (on her left) and the Padre (on her right) began to talk to her loudly and rapidly; both, as it so happened, declaring what a comfort it was, in such dark days as these, that they still had the simple pleasures of life to console themselves with—such as a game of Bridge among friends. Like the stichomythia of the Attic drama, they recounted celebrated Bridge-games of the past—the distant past, in fact, for without exception they dated from before Lucia’s arrival in Tilling.
‘I remember when Elizabeth made two slam declarations in a row and won them both! Such daring! It cost me six shillings, but I begrudged her not a penny! Before your time, I think, Lucia dear. A pity. You should have seen it!’
‘Ah, right weel do I recall it, Mistress Wyse. And do ye recall that evening in this very room, when Mistress Mapp—as she then was, drew a hand of four aces and three kings? That was a canny no-trumps hand and no mistake!’
Like the motifs in a piece of music, these themes recurred again and again; the pleasure of Bridge, Bridge at Mallards, Mallards before Lucia. Gradually, the whole table except Lucia and Georgie took up the refrain until it resembled some intricate fugue in which the vital elements are so closely interwoven that they merge one with another; Elizabeth, Bridge, and no Lucia.
Only then was it that Lucia realised what had happened and it took her breath away. Because she had suggested, gently and hypothetically, that every hour of every day need not be spent in playing cards, the whole town had deliberately resolved to take no notice whatever of one of the most sensationa
l incidents in the history of Tilling since its capture by the French in the Hundred Years’ War. How was I to know? demanded Lucia of her much enduring soul. As the voices raged around her like the sea, she could think of nothing that might alter this situation. All the town was united against her, there was an end of it.
It hardly seems necessary to add that the rubbers of Bridge that followed this ill-starred meal, for follow they did, were of a quality scarcely if ever seen before in Sussex. At times, four aces seemed to be the absolute minimum in a pack of cards. When diamonds were trumps, each player’s hand resembled some Rajah’s crown. Doublings and redoublings were legion and if the president of the Society for Psychical Research had been present, he would have gloried in the innumerable and successful psychic bids. Even the normally impassive Mr. Wyse was gripped with excitement. For all that Georgie had developed a substance indistinguishable from nougat chocolate, Diva was so enthralled by the conflict that she scarcely touched the second plateful. Finally, when the smoke and din of battle was lifted, Elizabeth rose from the tables no less than eight shillings richer, while Lucia’s purse was lighter by an exactly corresponding amount. Everyone else had broken more or less even, so the significance of the omen was obvious.
‘Such an enjoyable evening,’ exclaimed Susan Wyse as she climbed into her cockpit of sables for the three-minute walk to Starling Cottage. ‘Such excitement! Why, I confess that I was so carried away by the excitement of the card-play that the war slipped from my mind like a bad dream!’
‘I too was transported back to the long-dead past,’ agreed her husband. ‘I never thought to spend such a light-hearted and carefree evening again.’
‘Although Hitler has taken from us our food and our clothes, our loved ones and our tranquillity,’ declared Elizabeth (and all agreed that Mr. Churchill could not have said it more sonorously), ‘he cannot take from us the everlasting pleasures of friendship. Thank you, Lucia, for an enchanting evening. I shall treasure the memory of it always,’ she cooed, as she departed with a twinkling wave.
‘What happened?’ asked Georgie as he and Lucia stood on the threshold of Mallards contemplating the empty street.
‘Bridge, Georgie, Bridge. Because I suggested—purely a sounding-out, a testing of the waters, that we might do very well with a little less Bridge and a little more Poetry and Music, they have conspired together not to notice Elizabeth’s deceit. They have taken her side against me!’
‘I warned you,’ said Georgie softly, ‘but you wouldn’t listen.’
‘I know,’ said Lucia, ‘I should have. Well, there it is.’
They stood awhile and reflected on this stark reality, until Mr. Rice, the A.R.P. warden, passing by on his bicycle, became aware of light flooding the street from the open portal of Mallards.
‘Shut that blooming door!’ he roared. ‘Do you want the Germans to blow you to Kingdom Come, or what?’
Yes, decided Lucia, and shut the door.
Chapter 12.
Tilling remained aloof for some weeks and Lucia came to feel that she was in the position of some savage chieftain Caractacus, say, or Cetewayo—who, after doing great damage to his enemies, is captured and made to live among them, a turbulent warrior dragging out his miserable existence with only the grudging respect of his ancient foe. As she walked down the High Street, she seemed to hear them say to each other, ‘There goes Lucia, who actually tried to put a stop to Bridge-playing in Tilling. And she very nearly succeeded, too!’
So long as Irene Coles remained in Tilling, Lucia was sure of at least one staunch ally. But the day came when even that fidus Achates departed. She called at Mallards at seven o’ clock one wet morning, clad in an enormous duffel-coat and smoking an oily black briar.
‘Alas!’ she declared dramatically. ‘We must part, dear Lucia. Duty calls and all that, though it breaks my heart to go!’ And she flung her arms around her acutely embarrassed friend.
‘Now you will take care,’ said Lucia solicitously.
Irene roared with laughter. ‘Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be all right. It’s you I’m worried about. How can I bring myself to leave you when Mapp is grinding you beneath her iron heel? Never mind, you’ll win through. Serenely, beautifully, triumphantly, you just mark my words.’
Lucia decided it would be best to move off this difficult subject. ‘And where will you be going? And who will you be going with?’
‘Sh!’ hissed Irene. ‘That’s a secret. But I’ll tell you. We’ll be taking coal to Manchester along the Ship Canal. There’s me and Lucy, of course, and Henry Porteous’s sister Antigone. We call her Tiggers,’ said Irene, in a voice heavy with gruff affection. ‘Oh, if only you would come too, and leave all this petty turmoil. The open waters, the nights beneath the brilliant stars, the tranquil progress through that majestic industrial landscape! I feel I shall do some of my best work with such inspiration all about me.’
Lucia shuddered. It all sounded perfectly horrible. ‘It all sounds perfectly delightful,’ she fluted, ‘but I am far too old and pampered to be of any use to you. But do have a simply wonderful time and paint hundreds and hundreds of beautiful pickies. Write to me and I’ll send you some warm socks and balaclava helmets.’
‘That’s so like your beautiful, generous nature,’ cried Irene, deeply affected. Then she embraced Lucia again, her eyes wet with tears. ‘And how dare that miserable old Mapp be so beastly to you! I’ve got a good mind to teach her a lesson before I go!’
And what she did was this. Rushing back to Taormina (for she still had a little while before her train arrived) she telephoned to Grebe. Putting on a deep, masculine voice (something which came easily to her), she asked for Mrs. Mapp-Flint. There was a short pause as Withers fetched Elizabeth from her dressing-room. Putting in her teeth, Elizabeth replied, ‘Yes?’
‘Mrs. Mapp-Flint?’ said Irene. ‘This is the Warden of the Tower of London speaking.’ Elizabeth at the other end of the line went white. ‘It has come to my attention,’ continued quaint Irene, ‘as official investigator of cases of infringement of protocol and general lèse majesté, that you recently bluffed your way into an official reception at Windsor Castle, masquerading as your distinguished fellow-citizen, Mrs. Pillson of Mallards House, Tilling. What is your explanation of such deplorable conduct?’
Elizabeth began to babble hysterically about wireless broadcasts and letters opened in error, about how some people jumped to the worst conclusions and how she had been, after all, a sort of ambassador ....
‘Come off it, Mapp,’ said Irene in her own sweet voice.
At the other end of the wire terror changed to fury. Quaint Irene put down the receiver and left to catch her train.
Elizabeth’s vengeance was swift and sure. Just as Major Benjy’s independent action had seemed to call for punishment against herself, now Irene’s interference, though no doubt unsolicited, must bring down retribution on Lucia’s head. Elizabeth set about placing Mallards under embargo. So pleasant had she been to her friends in Tilling, and so great was her reputation as the saviour of Bridge, that they accepted her lead unquestioningly, while magnifying Lucia’s brief spell of domination into a prolonged and barbarous tyranny. First, Elizabeth began to decline invitations to Mallards, whereupon her supporters followed her lead, supplying each other with the prior engagements necessary for this purpose. Then she removed Lucia’s name from her own guest-list, an example followed at once by everyone else, so that an unprecedented state of excommunication existed in Tilling, a terrifying precedent for the disloyal and a crushing blow for Lucia.
Georgie was not included in this internal exile, and, although at first he put up a show of solidarity, his flesh proved too weak. He had never proposed to abolish Bridge; why should he suffer? On the pretext of bringing Lucia all the news, he began to attend the social gatherings for which his heart yearned. There he was met with a display of sympathetic understanding as if all pitied him that he was bound in chains of matrimony to that monster. No one, at least in h
is presence, voiced any criticism of Lucia, for no one mentioned her at all. It was as if she had never existed.
After a fortnight of this unendurable torment, Lucia seemed quite broken in spirit. Elizabeth, determined not to err as Lucia had erred in failing to be at least moderately merciful to an overthrown opponent, then relaxed the blockade, so that Lucia was gradually readmitted to the social life of the town. This clemency was noted and approved of by Elizabeth’s partisans and her supremacy was now undisputed, as it had never been in the days before the advent of Lucia.
Lucia endured it bravely, but in her heart she was close to despair. She could see no way out of this snare in which she had so foolishly allowed herself to be caught, but nevertheless, she continued to live peacefully in retirement, as it were, playing the piano, reading Dante and Aristotle (and the austere calf-bindings of her excellent collection of standard authors gave no clue as to whether these works were in the original or a translation, so that it must be presumed that they were in the former), supervising the production of foodstuffs in her spacious garden, and devoting as much time as the authorities of that institution would permit her to the service of the Tilling hospital.
One evening, as she made her way home through the darkness from an afternoon of reading to the elderly and confused, she noticed a brilliant light, as if of flames, down by the marshes. For a moment, her heart stopped still; then she ran to the telephone box and called up the Institute. No reply; and she recalled that Major Benjy and all his troop were away at Hastings, taking part in a training exercise with the Regular Army. She then telephoned the police station; but tonight was the police-sponsored War Charities Dance and, so she guessed, charity began at home for the defenders of the law in Tilling. In the background she could hear piano-playing of doubtful quality and raucous singing, and the voice that answered her enquiry laughed noisily and suggested that she should go and investigate it herself. Finally, she telephoned Mr. Rice, the A.R.P. warden. Mr. Rice was not there, said his wife; he was out on his bike snooping about after his blessed lights again, and his dinner going cold on the table, and she didn’t know why she bothered, she really didn’t.