by Tom Holt
‘Does that mean that you’ll start talking to her again?’ asked Georgie as they stopped outside Wasters.
‘I suppose so. I’m terribly muddled, though.’
‘So am I. Should I tell her she’s forgiven?’
‘No, don’t do that. In fact, don’t do anything yet. Oh, how worrying it all is. I’m sure I don’t know what we ought to do for the best. And what will Lucia think of us all? And what will Elizabeth do when we all start talking to Lucia again? And should we all stop speaking to Elizabeth? I shan’t get a wink of sleep tonight. Come in for a sherry?’
Georgie very much wanted to continue the discussion, but it was dark and he was a married man. Besides, rather than become any more confused he wanted to go home and get Lucia to explain it all to him. So he said it was getting late and went on his way. For her part, Diva let herself into the house and sat down dejectedly on a straight-backed chair.
‘Oh dear,’ she wailed aloud, ‘how terribly complicated! Now, if Elizabeth told Mr. Arncott ....’
But the more she thought about it the more difficult it became, and she poured herself a glass of sherry to calm her nerves. Janet, her maid, asked her what she wanted for dinner, but she had no appetite for mere food and bespoke nothing but an omelette. Should she go and confer with the Bartletts? Or should she telephone Lucia? She had already picked up the receiver when she thought of the awkwardness (and the cost) of such a call, and put it down again. Then she thought of the Wyses. They might be able to cast some light on the matter, but she could not now remember all the ins and outs of the argument herself. In the end she ate her omelette and went to bed. After lying awake for several hours, she fell into a troubled sleep and dreams—the product of worry and the slice of strong cheddar cheese she had eaten after her omelette (for man cannot live by thought alone)—fluttered around her head all night; conspiracies, cabals, lies and false witness, all of which were entirely her fault. Finally she dreamt that she was brought to trial at the Old Bailey on a charge of perjury, where Lucia, resplendent in her red Mayoral robes and a black cap, to which was pinned a most elegant little cameo brooch, sentenced her to be transported to Cannes for the rest of her natural life .... She awoke with a start and lay still for a while, trembling slightly. Then something became transparently clear in her mind.
‘Of course!’ she cried. ‘That’s it! Why didn’t I think of it before? Just wait till I tell—’
Then she went back to sleep.
Chapter 8
The next morning historical interest seemed to be at a peak in Tilling. Major Benjy, on his way to the Club to resume his studies, passed Lucia’s motor-car as he went through the Landgate. He was on foot and the front wheel of Lucia’s Rolls-Royce, going through a puddle, sprayed him with water. At once the motor stopped and Lucia got down. The Major was in a quandary. Lucia did not exist; on the other hand, her motor quite palpably did, and even a non-existent motorist must be allowed to apologise for inflicting puddle-water on an innocent pedestrian. It would have been easier, reflected Major Benjy, if Cadman, the actual driver of the vehicle, had got down to apologise, but that, in strict terms, would have been rather impolite. The Major resolved on a compromise. He would speak to Lucia if necessary, but he would not, if he could possibly help it, remember her name.
‘My dear Major Mapp-Flint!’ cried Lucia, and her respectful use of his rank and full surname seemed to strike exactly the right note. ‘I am most terribly sorry. Are they wet through?’
Such politeness and sincere concern was most disarming and the Major suddenly found that he could remember that her name was Mrs. Pillson.
‘Not at all, Mrs. Pillson,’ he said loftily, ‘a mere splash, that’s all.’
‘But it was too careless of Cadman. He shall be fully reprimanded; and your poor trousers! Do have them cleaned and send me the bill.’
That sounded, or could be made to sound, as if the Major’s trousers never saw the inside of a cleaner’s from one year to the next, but he let it pass. He found it hard to be rude to such a polite and charming lady as Lucia was making herself this morning.
‘No need, I assure you. Fine day,’ he added sociably.
‘It is indeed. Are you off to your admirable studies? How diligent! And I am about the same business, in a way.’
‘Really?’ Was she, too, off to indulge in secret drinking? He doubted it.
‘I am going to the Cartulary—the depository of ancient manuscripts—oh, of course you must know that already—at Bodiam Castle. No doubt you have used it yourself. No? You must. Invaluable documents, sources, original papers. I must get them to send you one of their Catalogues of Manuscripts. So sorry about the trousers.’
She waved gaily and returned to her vehicle. The Major, a damper but scarcely a wiser man, continued on his way. The High Street was unusually busy today and shoppers were swarming like excited bees from group to group. Cries of ‘No!’ and ‘Oh, how fascinating!’ echoed between the buildings, betokening some news or other, and the Major resolved to find out what was going on.
‘Good morning,’ he boomed, advancing on Diva and the Wyses and raising his hat. ‘Bit of a respite from the rain, eh? Any news?’
Diva, for some unexplained reason, flushed a deep red. Mr. Wyse fidgeted with his ebony cane, while Susan Wyse picked nervously at one of her gloves.
‘Nothing in particular,’ said Diva. ‘Should there be?’
‘I read in the newspapers,’ said Mr. Wyse abruptly, ‘that the Duchess of Westminster has joined a party at the Lido in Venice. The news from Abyssinia, however, remains discouraging.’
‘Oh,’ replied the nonplussed Major. ‘Well, I must get on, don’t you know. Good day to you, Mr. Wyse, Mrs. Wyse, Mrs. Plaistow.’
As he moved on, hurried whispers seemed to break out behind his back, but he did not turn. He was a soldier with a certain dignity to maintain. He next greeted the Bartletts, who were deep in discussion with Irene, whose tone was unusually moderate.
‘God gi’ ye good den, Major,’ exclaimed the Padre, and his voice was rather strained. ‘ ’Tes a bonny morning for the time o’ year, is it not? All the pretty flowers an’ a’.’
‘Splendid, splendid, splendid,’ said the Major cautiously. ‘Any news?’
There was a distinctly awkward silence. Evie looked at Irene, who made a great pantomime of knocking out her pipe on the heel of her boot and refilling it with what looked like wet leaves from a battered sealskin pouch.
‘Nothing much,’ said Evie at last, ‘Oh, there was something that might interest you, wasn’t there, Kenneth?’
‘I read in The Times,’ said the Padre (and a slight Midlands inflection clouded the limpid pool of his Caledonian dialect), ‘that the Pathans have retreated in the face of our latest punitive expedition. Such gallantry, especially on the part of one o’ our bonny Highland regiments. The Seaforth Highlanders, was it not, wifie?’
Evie looked a little nervously at her husband, as if deciding whether or not he needed to be rescued.
‘Were you ever on the frontier, Major?’ she gabbled. ‘It must be a dreadfully unfriendly place.’
‘Briefly,’ said the Major. ‘Shot a tiger there once. Place called Fort Everett.’
‘I didn’t know there were any tigers—’ Evie stopped herself abruptly and smiled a brittle smile. ‘How thrilling! Is that one of the tiger-skins in the drawing-room at Grebe! You must point it out to me if ever—I mean, when we next come to tea.’
Irene was having trouble with her pipe, for a puff of smoke seemed to go down the wrong way. She spluttered, said ‘Excuse me,’ and dashed off. The Major raised his hat again, bade the Bartletts good morning, and walked swiftly to the Club.
He was extremely befogged and felt in need of a stiff measure of local history, possibly without the customary soda. Having obtained it, he took his place in his favourite chair with his glass and some old book or other. From this vantage point he could look down through the window on the street, although he usually tended to
lean back rather, to avoid being seen himself.
The little knots of shoppers were still engaged in most animated conversation; evidently they found the activities of the Duchess of Westminster and the Seaforth Highlanders rather more fascinating than he did. He took a sip from his glass and opened the book, but his eye kept on straying down into the street. Georgie, his black cape and broad-brimmed hat identifiable across great distances, was hastening to join the throng and both groups with one accord surged to meet him. Was he the bearer of fresh tidings of the retreat of the Pathans? He could only wish that his own discourses on the military situation in India were greeted with such enthusiasm. Or perhaps the Duchess of Westminster had fallen into the Grand Canal? The notion pleased him and he ordered another drink.
Elizabeth had been down to the garage whence the three-wheeler had been obtained. She had shown the obdurate man the bills from Southampton—garage repairs, hotel expenses and so on; she had related all that had been said about the condition of the vehicle; she had insisted, pleaded and threatened, all to no avail. Apparently she had bought the vehicle ‘as seen’, and not even Solomon, Minos and Judge Jeffreys sitting in conclave could award her a penny of compensation. She had, she was informed, got the machine cheap, and although she was sure she had not encountered this meaning of the word before (perhaps it was a dialect usage meaning ‘expensive’), she was urged to understand that in this wicked world one generally gets only what one pays for. Cheap, the man had said, and cheerful, that little Beezer had been. Now, if she was interested in something with a bit of quality ....
‘My husband shall hear of this!’ she cried, and with this awful threat hanging in the air like smoke, she ascended the motor and was gone. The further she went, however, the more unlikely she thought it that her husband should hear anything of what had transpired. Let alone anyone else, for a certain loss of prestige must attend such a disclosure. Better, perhaps, to forget all about it, at least for the present. In her fury she was driving perhaps a little too fast and when the corner of the road at which the Mint became the High Street suddenly leapt at her, she was compelled to brake rather fiercely and swing the wheel right round. But it appeared that the manufacturers of her motor had thought of the brakes only in an ornamental or ceremonial capacity and the car did not actually stop until it was within inches of the wall. Fortunately, the only witnesses to this regrettable incident were a few tradespeople who would keep their mouths shut if they wanted their exorbitant bills settled promptly, and Elizabeth was eventually able to continue on her way, albeit at a more sedate pace.
She returned to Grebe, took off her motoring hat and gloves and called savagely for tea. When it arrived, Withers informed her that Mrs. Pillson had telephoned shortly after she had left for town. She would be out until late afternoon, but could Mrs. Mapp-Flint kindly return her call at, say, half-past five?
Elizabeth snorted. Lucia was in no position to telephone anybody, let alone demand that they telephone her. If Lucia were to call again she might speak to her. Then again, she might be out or in the garden or simply, crushingly, unavailable. She took up her crochet work—she was making a pair of cuffs—and worked grimly for a while, but the annoyance of her interview with the garage-owner weighed heavily on her mind and she sought to purge her irritation by some more energetic pursuit. It was then that she realised that she had omitted to do her marketing, so she took up her basket and changed into a pair of walking shoes, for motoring had temporarily lost its charms, and prepared to walk into town. The exercise would do her good.
Just then the second post arrived (late as usual). There was only one letter, written in Lucia’s unmistakable hand. She put down her basket, removed her hat and contemplated the document. Had she not been alone it would have gone straight onto the fire, but there was no one to see; besides, she was curious. She opened the envelope. ‘My dear Mrs. Mapp-Flint,’ she read:
First, I feel I must apologise to you as much as to everyone else, for my entirely reprehensible conduct in connection with the article in County Life. I am most truly sorry and I feel I must give some solid token of repentance to those I have offended.
Extraordinary, thought Elizabeth. Why should Lucia be so terribly apologetic when she had, in truth, committed no actual crime beyond the customary misdemeanour of suggestio falsi? Was she so crushed under the burden of her exile that she was prepared to confess to crimes that she had not committed simply in order to be admitted back into Society? Possibly, but quite unlike Lucia.
Would you, then, be tremendously forgiving and dine with me on Thursday night? All our friends (if I may still count them as friends after my foolish deceptions) have done me the honour of consenting to be present to hear my act of contrition; yet it is your forgiveness and that of your dear husband that would mean the most to me.
Yours sincerely,
Emmeline Pillson.
It was many years since Lucia had signed a letter with her rather commonplace baptismal name and the humility inherent in the fact was as conspicuous as the tone of the epistle itself. What on earth could it mean? She read it again; it was as good as a signed confession. ‘Entirely reprehensible’, ‘foolish deceptions’. Elizabeth groped in the recesses of her mind for some explanation of these phrases with all the zeal of one who regularly inspects the teeth of gift-horses.
Perhaps Lucia had seen a vision of angels and had decided to renounce the devil and all his pomps. She had read of the religious mania that sometimes seizes rather unstable middle-aged women. Had Lucia, as the vulgar expression put it, ‘got religion’? Then again, there were people who, as a result of some mental disturbance, went about confessing to crimes of which they were entirely innocent and could not conceivably have committed, either to purge some deep-rooted sense of guilt or to gain the brief notoriety of the Police Reports. Lucia, she knew, adored to be conspicuous and she had plenty to feel guilty about, but such a drastic change of character was quite remarkable. Then again, this strange letter might be some sort of snare, the bait of some Machiavellian trap (Lucia with her professed love of all things Italian might well be familiar with the philosophy of the Father of Deceits). But how could that be? She herself was not, so far as she knew, vulnerable on any point: she had told no lies, deceived nobody, unless the trifling fibs she had told Mr. Arncott might be included under that heading. But unless he had told anyone (which was unlikely), how could such things be known, or at least proved? She searched her conscience but found it bare. The people of Tilling were on her side and surely if anyone were to be trapped Lucia would need popular support and assistance. Unless she had resolved, like Lucrezia Borgia (the Italian motif again), to poison them all at one fell swoop, there was no way in which she could make herself in any way formidable.
Curiosity, that bane of all things feline, overrode her doubts and fears and she telephoned Mallards. Georgie was brought to the receiver and acknowledged her acceptance of the invitation. She could get nothing else out of him, however, and she put the instrument down unsatisfied. She would have to wait until Thursday night. She looked at the calendar. Thursday was the fifteenth: the Ides of March.
‘And was it?’ demanded Georgie, as soon as Lucia came through the door.
‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘Just as I expected.’
‘Well, you are clever!’ cried her husband. ‘I would never have noticed.’
‘It was simple,’ said Lucia. ‘Now all we have to do is get Elizabeth to accept the invitation.’
‘She already has,’ said Georgie. ‘She telephoned just before lunch. I hope I didn’t give anything away.’
‘Splendid. And now, perhaps, a cup of tea, and then a little cleansing Mozartino; Lucia so tired.’
The Ides of March had come (but not yet gone) and by a strange coincidence the Hastings Chronicle carried a report of an unusually large jet-black herring caught by a Tilling trawler. Had Elizabeth been more attuned to omens she would have been a little more wary (for when beggars die there are no black herrings seen)
. As it was, she went blithely to Mallards for her dinner. Over the sherry Lucia had made a short but eloquent speech, fully admitting that some remarks she had made might well have given the false impression that she had recommended certain houses to the editor of County Life. But there was little sweetness in this for Elizabeth for the injured parties were only too ready to declare that they had received no such impression—that the first they knew about the visit was when Mr. Arncott arrived in the town. Then the subject was changed, changed utterly.
It was a spectacular meal and its centrepiece was that celebrated dish, lobster à la Riseholme, for the recipe of which Elizabeth had once gone to sea on a kitchen-table. Rarely if ever had the dish been served in Tilling since that time, for so colourful and poignant were its associations that neither Lucia nor Elizabeth felt it tactful to produce it. It was, however, greeted on this occasion not with embarrassment but with rapturous applause. Lucia’s cook had made of it a master-piece such as only a Midlander, born as far from the sea as is possible in the British Isles, can make of shellfish.
When all was eaten and Major Benjy had been separated from the port, the company gathered in the garden-room for coffee and Bridge. On the table under the window, where hung the celebrated curtains, were a pile of ancient, leather-bound books. They were all to do with local history: Bryant’s Prosopography of Mediaeval Sussex, Vaill’s A Sussex Antiquarian and other standard works, as well as a number whose Latin titles and roughly cut pages were unfamiliar even to the most erudite. Among them, largest and most magnificently bound, was that rare and noble monument to a great scholar, Pasmore’s Sussex County Families. It was on this volume that Lucia laid her hand, rather as a learned judge might lay his hand on the law-reports.