by Tom Holt
Diva glared at Elizabeth. It had been her duty as a friend of long standing to take her side in the hare controversy, which she now feared was at an end. So she ordered a brace of woodpigeon instead and her tone was distinctly ironical.
‘Fancy boiled chicken being good enough for the de Maps of Maidstone! Partridges, I would have thought, or even a haunch of venison.’
‘Dear Diva, what can you mean? I only wish I could afford to eat roast hare every day—or will you get cook to jug it? But my tastes are simple enough; plain, wholesome food and pure water to drink.’
Diva did her best to synthesise scorn. ‘Ho!’ she exclaimed. ‘That doesn’t sound fitting for the aristocracy. Noblesse oblige, after all. And it was a rabbit, too. You can tell by the shape of the ears.’
Thus it was that, as Elizabeth left the shop, she had food for thought in mind as well as food for dinner in her basket. Above all, she feared the acid tongue of quaint Irene Coles, dreaded mimic and fervent Socialist. As luck would have it, Irene was in the butcher’s, obtaining the basic ingredients of a Stroganoff. Elizabeth could clearly make out the close-cropped head and frieze-jacketed shoulders at the counter and decided that a brisk walk in quite another direction would be good for her soul as well as her body. So she turned quickly and crossed the road to Twemlow’s. Unfortunately, Diva had gone before her and they met again in the doorway.
‘Here’s Mrs. de Map-Flint,’ cried Diva loudly (for the intervening minutes had not diminished the hurt of the presumed rabbit). ‘I expect she’ll be wanting one of those big tins of goose-liver pâté). Or do you have it sent down from London?’
Elizabeth ignored this heavy irony but could not ignore Diva’s beloved Irish setter, Paddy, whose tail happened to be under her foot as she set it down. The dog howled and Elizabeth staggered, knocking over a pyramid of small tins of South African peaches.
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ said Elizabeth sharply. ‘You’d better apologize to Mr. Twemlow.’
‘I’ll do no such thing,’ retorted Diva. ‘Just because your crusader ancestors went about treading on dogs ....’
‘Why on earth should you say that?’
‘On their tombs,’ explained Diva, ‘always got their feet up on a dog. Cruel, I call it. Come along, Paddy.’
Mr. Twemlow’s assistant began the long task of rebuilding the pyramid and Elizabeth felt an obligation to buy a tin. She did not, however, want any of the tins of goose-liver pâté that had been brought up all the way from the basement and Mr. Twemlow muttered something under his breath about time-wasters.
Quaint Irene, it seemed, was still in the butcher’s and so the way back to Grebe was still barred. Rather than go into the watchmaker’s or the King’s Arms, Elizabeth decided to walk up the narrow street to the Town Hall and then make her way down East Street, thereby circumventing Mr. Worthington’s shop altogether. By staying under the awnings of the shops she hoped to be able to negotiate the rest of the High Street undetected and so regain the security of the Landgate. By the time she reached the foot of East Street, however, Irene had completed her meat-buying and was coming out of the shop. Elizabeth was therefore compelled to go back the way she had just come and stood outside the Town Hall counting up to fifty to give her persecutor time to move on.
When she judged the coast to be clear, she walked briskly down the cobbled street straight into the Padre and wee wifie.
‘My apologies, Mistress de Map-Flint,’ said the Padre lugubriously. ‘I wasna’ aware that you were ganging thither. I trust I havena’ upset your basket o’ vittles.’
‘Not at all, dear Padre. And what a quaint name you choose to greet me with.’
‘Eh, but it’s common knowledge the noo that you’ve the blood of our gallant Norman forebears in your veins. ’Tes a great thing indeed to be so richly descended.’
‘If I have Norman blood in my veins, dear Padre, I’m sure I didn’t put it there. As you so sternly reminded us on Sunday, we must all seek to do our duty in that station of life to which it has pleased God to call us.’
‘Are there any rights and privileges that you are entitled to as Lady of the Manor?’ enquired Evie anxiously. ‘I’m sure there must be some. So many of these delightful old traditions.’
‘You must ask our dear Lucia, who is so well informed about local history. So touching, don’t you think, that she, who is the most recent arrival in our beloved town, should be so careful of our heritage, while I with my roots perhaps—I say perhaps—going right back to the Conqueror should know so little. I fear I have been very idle!’
‘But surely you knew all along?’ demanded Evie. ‘About the de Maps and so forth?’
Elizabeth smiled in a way that neither affirmed nor contradicted Evie’s statement. ‘As your dear fellow-country-man Burns said, dear Padre, the rank is but the penny-stamp. I am the same woman as I was yesterday and the day before.’
This Delphic comment caused the Bartletts to be silent for a moment. Then the Padre, despairing of interpreting it, said, ‘Ah yes, quite so, but that doesna change the fact that ye’re of the nobility. Ye’ve been hidin’ your light under a bushel all these years.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps,’ Elizabeth said, without a trace of condescension in her voice, and bade them both good day. As she walked at last down through the Landgate, however, she was almost deafened by a shrill cry behind her. She turned, and with a sinking heart observed quaint Irene bearing down on her like a small but ferocious dog. Before she could even think of how she might escape, Irene was upon her.
‘Death to the aristocracy!’ she cried. ‘Long live the Revolution!’
Elizabeth’s Norman blood, or at least a fair amount of it, rushed to her cheeks. ‘Don’t be silly, dear,’ she managed to say, although her voice was so thick with rage and embarrassment that she could hardly speak. She quickened her pace, but unfortunately Irene was just as quick and dogged her every footstep. Elizabeth looked round nervously and observed that a number of children were also following Irene with obvious enthusiasm. She broke into what she hoped was a dignified trot and, as she did so, the chicken fell from her basket. This was no bad thing, for Irene stopped to retrieve the fallen bird, which she waved round her head like a banner.
‘Spoils!’ she cried, ‘Spoils of victory! Here,’ and she thrust it at one of the children. The child inspected the chicken, discovered to its disgust that it was dead, and gave it back to Irene, who slipped it into her own basket. ‘Parasite!’ she bellowed after Elizabeth’s fast-retreating form and returned exhausted to Taormina in pleasant anticipation of a chicken casserole.
While this deplorable scene was going on, Lucia and Georgie were sitting at the piano.
‘I thought we might try a little Mozart,’ suggested Georgie.
‘Caro, on no account! We should not dare to molest the maestro until we have had a chance to practise after our too, too long absentia. Now let me see.’ She leafed through the sheet-music on top of the piano. ‘Here is some Grieg—strong, robust Grieg, not in the front rank of course, but a worthy craftsman nevertheless. We have much to learn from honest Grieg. Or should we venture a few pages of delicious Elgar? He is like a draught of cool spring water after heavy claret.’
Elgar always reminded Georgie of a strong cup of tea but Elgar was not too difficult, so he made no objection. Lucia put the music on the music-rest and stretched out her hands, then checked herself, as if something were wrong. After a moment, she rose and took away the Elgar.
‘It is not an Elgar sort of day,’ she said sadly and returned to her search. ‘But what can this be? Ah, here is that Chopin nocturne that you gave me for Christmas. But how negligent I am! I have not so much as glanced at it. Such ingratitude! Oo poor Georgino, to have such a wicked wife. So much sharper than serpent’s toothy-woothy.’
This proposal seemed eminently fair to Georgie, for the choice seemed entirely fortuitous. Usually, he got the impression that Lucia forced a certain piece of music on him, as a conjuror forces a card on h
is victim. But unless Lucia had practised all the pieces that she had offered him, she would be as new to it as he—more so, for he had secretly run through the bass part of the Chopin a week or so ago while Lucia had been at a Council meeting.
‘You take the treble, then,’ he declared magnanimously. ‘It looks frightfully diffy. I should be sure to make awful blunders.’
‘Thank you, dear. Now then, uno, due, TRE!’
As they played, Georgie found that his prophecy concerning the awful blunders was coming true with a vengeance, for all that he had only meant it conditionally upon his playing the treble. Lucia, however, sailed through that difficult piece without effort; without, indeed, seeming to look at the music. ‘Why, she has been practising,’ he said to himself. ‘How tar’some of her. Why does she do it, I wonder?’ But when the piece had reached the end, both treble and bass (for the bass, rather against the composer’s original intentions, finished noticeably after the treble), he said, as he always did, ‘Thank you, Lucia. You never played better!’
‘Don’t thank me,’ replied Lucia, as ever, ‘thank wonderful Chopin.’
Lucia rose and went to the window, but nothing was happening out in the street, so she returned to the piano-stool. ‘Ah, why do we ever distract ourselves with things temporal? What could possibly be more important than making music?’
No answer to these questions seemed to be expected, which was probably just as well. Georgie could think of lots of things—going out to tea, playing Bridge, his bibelots of course—in fact, most things.
‘After all,’ Lucia continued, ‘it is in music that we find our higher being. Let there be no more words, Georgie; let us communicate henceforth only in music. Schubert for when we are happy and light-hearted; Wagner for anger and despair—those fearful chords—and Beethoven for those noble, lofty sentiments that no word can ever convey. And Mozart, Mozart for the sublime moments when the soul speaks.’
This sounded a rather impractical idea. It would mean having to take one’s piano wherever one went, and how on earth could one make polite conversation, let alone ask for anything in a shop? While this lofty fit was upon her, however, it would not be advisable to raise these questions with his wife. Instead, he asked her if she would play the slow movement of the Moonlight Sonata.
‘Oh, I couldn’t,’ replied Lucia, settling herself comfortably and reopening the lid of the piano. ‘Not until I have had much, much more practice. I must work up to it again.’ She paused, waiting to be remonstrated with; but Georgie was looking out of the window at Diva, who had dropped a sheet of wrapping-paper and was chasing it as it billowed in the wind. ‘Perhaps a few bars then,’ she relented, and extended her fingers gracefully over the keys.
At that moment, Grosvenor entered with a letter. ‘By hand, madam,’ she said in an awed voice. ‘Sent on from the Town Hall.’
Lucia scrambled from the piano-stool and almost snatched the letter out of Grosvenor’s hands. It bore a London postmark and the address was typed. She devoured its contents eagerly.
‘Georgie!’ she declared. ‘Listen to this! It’s from the editor of County Life, Mr. Cuthbertson. He’s planning an illustrated article on the architecture of Tilling and is writing to me as Mayor, for advice on which houses would be most appropriate and representative.’
‘No!’ exclaimed Georgie. ‘How marvellous. What are you going to recommend?’
‘Well, Mallards, of course. But what else?’
‘I don’t know,’ confessed Georgie. ‘Me must fink. But we’ll have to keep this a secret or everyone will want us to recommend their houses.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ said Lucia, but her tone of voice suggested the very opposite. ‘If word of this were to leak out, I would be in the invidious position of one who has a great favour to bestow and people might try to ingratiate themselves with me in order to attempt to influence my decision, which would be too distressing. It would not be bribery exactly—none of our friends would stoop so low—but they would not be above making themselves especially pleasant to me in order to gain the recognition that they all so earnestly seek.’
‘That sounds rather like fun to me,’ said Georgie.
‘On the contrary, Georgie, it would be pitiful. Admittedly, someone with such a high degree of moral authority could perhaps effect some useful changes in our community. The Monopoly habit, for instance—how it seems to have gripped us all of late and yet I dare say that you and I have had almost as much pleasure making music together as we would have had had we spent the time at the Monopoly table.’
‘Possibly,’ said Georgie.
‘Of course, poor Elizabeth would not be affected by this influence. Grebe is a very fine house, in a functional way, but not historic or architecturally outstanding in any sense. On the other hand, perhaps we should suggest to Mr. Cuthbertson that his survey would not be complete without a representative of relatively modern domestic architecture.’
Georgie could take a hint, especially one this strong. He resented forever being made Lucia’s mouthpiece, but consoled himself with the thought that this made him what the newspapers termed ‘reliable official sources’; perhaps even ‘sources close to the Mayor’. And he would at least have the satisfaction of being the first with the news.
‘So, Georgino, not a word to anyone for the present. But we might take a stroll round the town after dinner and make a few notes. I imagine half a dozen houses will suffice for Mr. Cuthbertson’s purposes.’
Lucia resumed her place on the piano-stool.
‘And now, I think I might venture just a few bars of that immortal work. Shall I dare, Georgino?’
Georgie reassured her that she might dare as she played the First Movement of the Moonlight, he sat, chin on wrist in the approved manner, and bethought him of how he might disseminate this latest breach of confidence. Had he, he wondered, happened to catch sight of the letter lying open on Lucia’s desk and cast an idle glance over its contents? Or had Lucia confided the whole story to him and confessed herself baffled as to which houses she ought to recommend? Then he would be able to play the rôle of the concerned husband, who, distressed at the sight of his wife’s perplexity, was seeking the wise counsel of his friends.
The slow movement ended and both breathed the well-known music sigh of wistful satisfaction which Lucia had brought with her from her former domain of Riseholme, where she had ruled virtually assoluta before her conquest of Tilling, and which only the ill-bred would venture to associate with indigestion.
‘Ah, divine Beethoven!’ said Lucia, gently closing the lid of the piano. ‘And now I fear I must tear myself away from these enchantments and write a brief note of acknowledgement to Mr. Cuthbertson. Such a pity I had to let Mrs. Simpson go.’
Georgie recollected Lucia’s secretary and remembered that that worthy and hard-working woman had nearly exhausted Lucia’s ingenuity in finding something to keep her occupied for at least an hour a day.
‘So tar’some,’ he said. ‘You ought to learn typing yourself. ’
Lucia seemed to shudder slightly at the thought. ‘When would I find the time? And then I must go across to the Town Hall and see what else they have for me today. I hope I haven’t kept them waiting. But everything can wait for divine Beethoven.’
Diva had chased the sheet of wrapping-paper from Church Square to the foot of West Street, only to see it go under the wheels of a motor-car and perish utterly. Irene had watched the hunt from the upstairs window of Taormina, whence she had retired after her persecution of Elizabeth, and had sought to encourage Diva with various cries from the vocabulary of la chasse. She now joined the baffled huntress, who was with difficulty recovering her breath.
‘Gone to earth, I should say. But never mind, I’ve got a paper-bag at home you could put up. The wind’s about nor’-nor’-east, so if we launched it from the top of Porpoise Street—’
‘Very funny!’ said the panting Diva. ‘Cost me threepence and now look at it.’
‘Up goes half a
guinea, bang goes a penny and down comes half-a-crown,’ said Irene sympathetically. ‘Still, it’s not what you get for the carcass, it’s the sport that counts. But I agree, that one’s only fit for the dogs now.’
‘Oh well,’ said Diva obliviously, ‘I’ll have to get some more. Any news this morning?’
‘Elizabeth a bit reluctant to talk about her Royal connections, to me at any rate. Typical Mapp! Oh yes, and Lucia’s started playing the piano again. The Moonlight, I think it was.’
‘I heard that too,’ confirmed Diva.
‘And a man from the Town Hall took a letter round to Mallards. I watched him all the way. A white envelope with a stamp.’
‘Golly!’ exclaimed Diva. ‘I wonder what that could be.’
‘Another death-warrant for her to sign, of course. Mapp’s, with any luck. Gosh, what a swell.’
A tall, aristocratic-looking woman had stepped out of the doorway of the King’s Arms, accompanied by a massive borzoi. Suddenly, the dog stopped dead, sniffed the air noisily and then sprang forward, slipping its lead. Diva and Irene stared in astonishment as the beast sprinted past them and leapt at Susan Wyse, who had stepped down from the Royce to post a letter. The borzoi gripped Susan’s enormous fur coat in its strong jaws and pulled it from her back, then stood on it and growled threateningly.
‘It took Susan Wyse for a bear!’ cried Irene joyfully. ‘Quite an understandable mistake for a Russian dog, I suppose.’
Mr. Wyse stepped nimbly from the motor and paused for a moment as if nerving himself to confront the ferocious animal. Then it apparently occurred to him that his first duty must be to comfort his wife.
‘Get that thing off my sables!’ shrieked Susan, shaking her fist.
‘Pray do not excite the animal, my dear, lest he do further damage to the garment. Let us await the arrival of the owner.’