Further telephone noise.
‘Well, actually I’m afraid there’s been a bit of a mix-up. Poor Padre is growing a little vague these days, I’m afraid, and he seems accidentally to have given Mrs Pillson the impression that you wanted her to open the fête.’
Anguished squawks.
‘Yes indeed, why would you want her? The very question I posed to the Padre, the dear forgetful man. Old friends though we are, I really cannot think of any reason why anyone would want ordinary old Lulu to open a fête, particularly so grand a one as you have in Tenterden.’
Approval, followed by what sounded awfully like anxiety.
‘Well, I do have a suggestion to make, Mrs Campbell. I put it forward very diffidently, mind, as after all your fête is none of my business.’
Mrs Mapp-Flint was at this point encouraged specifically to advance her suggestion.
‘I am sure we would all agree,’ Mapp cooed, her voice becoming if possible even more sugary, ‘that the important thing is to spare Padre’s blushes. Poor man, he’s so embarrassed by the knowledge that he has messed things up that he doesn’t know where to put himself. Sorry? Oh, just anno domini, I’m afraid, but then we’re none of us getting any younger, are we?’
The Padre gaped indignantly at being discussed in this way. To rub salt into the wound, he was sensitive about his age and was nursing not one but two secrets. The first was that he had just received the long-dreaded letter from the Bishop congratulating him on his coming retirement. The second, though this was not at all as secret as he imagined, was that he had started to become genuinely forgetful over the course of the last year or two.
‘My idea? Well, why not simply write to Mrs Pillson, explain that Reverend Bartlett got things mixed up, and that he was really intending to ask her to invite her friend Mr Coward down to open the fête, and that in deference to his feelings you would suggest sorting the matter out directly between the two of you without involving him further.’
Delighted parrot noises ensued, leading to the Padre rather sourly imagining Mrs Campbell jumping up and down on a perch and flapping her wings excitedly.
‘Not at all, Mrs Campbell, only too glad to be able to be of assistance. What was that? Why yes, of course I’ll tell him.’
‘Mrs Campbell sends her regards,’ she said unnecessarily as she put the phone down.
‘There, it’s all sorted,’ she trumpeted with every appearance of satisfaction at a job well done. ‘Not that difficult really, Padre. Just needed a little resolve, that’s all.’
‘But Mrs Pillson …?’ gasped the Padre, appalled by the prospect of Lucia’s reaction to the letter which he now knew must inevitably follow.
‘As for Mrs Pillson,’ replied Mapp grimly, ‘Her High and Mightiness is going to have to learn that she is not destined always to get things her own way.’
‘Oh,’ said Olga as Georgie came into her dressing room at Covent Garden, ‘you’re here then?’
‘Funny,’ he replied, ‘that’s exactly what Lucia said at lunchtime.’
‘It really is very bad of you, Georgie,’ she scolded him. ‘You know what I said. Lucia needs your support right now. Things are very difficult for her.’
‘No, everything’s all right now,’ he said, as he sat down and placed a bouquet of flowers on the table. ‘She told me all about it at lunch and then insisted that I should come up to town as planned.’
‘Really?’ asked Olga, clearly unconvinced. ‘Well, tell me, then.’
‘There’s been a new development,’ he explained. ‘Apparently Mapp got the Padre to volunteer Noël to open a fête over in Tenterden. He presumably told the committee in good faith that Lucia and Noël were friends, because Mapp told him they were and he simply passed it on.’
‘No!’ Olga cried in fine Tilling style. ‘The nerve of the woman!’
‘Ah, but you haven’t heard the best bit yet,’ Georgie said contentedly. ‘Of course it was the Padre who was then tasked with asking Lucia to ask Noël, and either he made a dog’s breakfast of it or Lucia somehow managed to twist his words and pretend to misunderstand – I suspect the latter, of course – but he ended up agreeing that she should open the fête herself.’
‘And even better,’ she added after they had finished laughing, ‘is the thought of the Padre then having to break the happy news to Mapp.’
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ Georgie agreed. ‘I wonder if she got that look on her face, you know – when she is really angry about something and her cheeks go red and her eyes bulge?’ He attempted to imitate the look with some success, which set them both laughing once again.
‘So there you are,’ Georgie said, wiping his eyes and tucking his handkerchief back into the sleeve of his evening shirt, ‘everything’s nice again. Oh, I am so glad that it’s all worked out, Olga, I have been dying to hear you in Siegfried again.’
‘Um, that could be a bit tricky actually,’ she said awkwardly. ‘You see, David Webster has the royal box tonight and because I assumed you weren’t coming I didn’t try to get you a ticket.’
‘Of course, I see,’ said Georgie as casually as he could manage. ‘Well, don’t worry about it. I can go home and then come back and meet you for dinner afterwards.’
‘Oh, rats!’ exclaimed Olga in extreme irritation. ‘There must be a way.’
Georgie waited expectantly.
‘Perhaps we could persuade one of the St John’s Ambulance people to change clothes with you?’ Olga suggested. ‘They’re never actually needed to do anything, you know, and they have little jump seats at the back of the orchestra stalls.’
‘Don’t people ever have heart attacks at Covent Garden, then?’ Georgie asked, intrigued.
‘Oh yes, but their private Harley Street quack usually turns out to be sitting behind them. Somebody got a nose bleed in the dress rehearsal of Götterdämmerung a couple of weeks ago and when the conductor stopped the music and asked if there was a doctor in the house half the dress circle stood up.’
‘Oh, well,’ Georgie said, much intrigued by the possibility, ‘tell me, what colour is the uniform exactly?’
At this stage there was a knock on the door. They both glanced at the clock. It was still too early for First Call.
‘Come in!’ Olga called, whereupon a tall, elegant man in exquisitely fitting evening dress entered the room.
‘Olga, my darling,’ he said in a slight Scottish accent, kissing her hand. ‘I just came to wish you the very best for this evening. Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise that you had company. I see that I’m intruding.’
‘You’re not intruding at all, David,’ Olga reassured him. ‘This is my very dear friend Georgie Pillson. In fact, you have met before at one of your supper parties. Georgie is a great patron of the arts. Why, he gives lots and lots of money to all sorts of charities, don’t you, Georgie?’
Georgie looked rather startled, as well he might. The only charitable contribution he could remember making was buying a flag on lifeboat day.
‘Georgie, you must remember David Webster. He runs the Covent Garden Opera Company.’
They shook hands, Georgie looking enviously at the cut of the visitor’s tails. He was strongly tempted to ask for an introduction to his tailor.
‘Of course I remember,’ Georgie lied. ‘Mr Webster, a pleasure to see you again.’
‘My dear Pillson,’ Webster said languidly. ‘Likewise.’
‘Gosh, David,’ Olga cried suddenly. ‘You may be the answer to a maiden’s prayer.’
‘I’m sure that sounds delightful,’ he said warily, ‘but in which way exactly?’
‘I thought Georgie wasn’t coming – all my fault, I made a mess of things like a first-class chump – so I didn’t get him a ticket. Can you help? We’re desperate. We even thought of disguising him as a St John’s Ambulance volunteer.’
‘Desperation indeed,’ Webster replied. ‘I cannot recommend it, though. For one thing it is probably illegal. For another, the uniform is most unbecoming.’
‘Oh, is it really?’ Georgie asked, quite crestfallen.
‘I fear so, my dear sir. Positively lumpen in fact. Personally I find that I much prefer naval uniform.’
‘Oh, so do I,’ Georgie said eagerly, thinking of his treasured yachting cap.
‘Why,’ he went on, blushing slightly, ‘I sometimes wear it myself – but only in appropriate circumstances, naturally.’
‘Do you really?’ Webster asked, gazing at him with a whole new interest. ‘Olga, there will be no need for subterfuge of any kind. I would be delighted to invite Mr Pillson to be my guest in the royal box.’
‘Oh, thank you, David, that’s wonderful.’
‘Not at all,’ Webster said as he turned to leave. ‘Well, I will see you later, Pillson. I trust you will enjoy the company. One of my other guests is John Gielgud. It will be my pleasure to introduce you.’
‘Oh, but I know him already,’ Georgie said at once. ‘Why, we had dinner the other night with him and Noël Coward.’
Webster turned at the door and looked hard at him again. A final thought seemed to strike him.
‘And perhaps I could mention, strictly en passant of course, that the Covent Garden Opera Company is itself a charity?’
Chapter 8
Olga and Georgie were taking a late breakfast together when the telephone rang. Shortly afterwards Celine entered the room and said, ‘Your wife, m’sieu.’ Celine, being French, had taken the idea of a married man frequently staying the night with her mistress in her stride, and while she recognised, with some regret, that the arrangement was entirely innocent, she still felt that the situation had a certain panache about it.
Georgie excused himself and went into the hall.
‘Hello, Lucia,’ he said with the slightly husky voice of one who has stayed up too late the night before and smoked too many cigarettes. ‘Any news?’
‘Yes,’ came the mournful reply, ‘and none of it good. I have just received a letter – delivered by chauffeur from Tenterden.’ Lucia’s tone of voice conveyed some surprise that anyone in Tenterden should run to a chauffeur.
‘Oh yes?’ Georgie said warily.
‘It’s from some wretched woman who claims to be the Lady Chairman of the fête committee there. She says the Padre has gone doolally, if you please, and meant to ask me to invite Noël Coward to open the fête. I can’t decide which I abhor more: her suggesting that the Padre is no longer compos mentis, or her believing that she can come crashing in and overturn arrangements which have already been made.’
‘Well,’ Georgie interjected diffidently. ‘I suppose it is her fête, after all.’
‘It really is too much,’ Lucia continued, ignoring his proffered comment completely. ‘I shall reply saying that I am in no doubt as to the Padre’s mental capacity, that I am much offended by having my invitation withdrawn so summarily, and suggest that courtesy and politeness are clearly on the wane in less civilised parts of the world than Tilling.’
‘No, don’t do that,’ Georgie advised at once.
‘And why not, pray?’ Lucia enquired coldly.
Georgie thought quickly.
‘Well, for one thing, we all know who’s behind this.’
‘Mapp, of course, though quite how she managed it I can’t imagine.’
‘No matter how she did it,’ said Georgie briskly. ‘Mapp it must be for sure, and that’s almost certainly the reaction she is hoping for. For another, this woman in Tenterden is equally certainly expecting a speedy response – she must be if she went to the trouble of sending the letter by chauffeur rather than putting it in the post – so why not do what she doesn’t want, rather than what she does?’
There was a noise of grudging approval from the Tilling end of the line.
‘Anyway,’ Georgie pressed on, ‘I’m planning to come back this evening in time for dinner, so why not wait and discuss it then? That way we can both have a jolly good think in the meantime.’
‘All white, Georgie,’ Lucia said, lapsing into baby talk, ‘oo ’ave little fink.’
‘Oh, I will,’ he assured her fervently.
He hung up in the knowledge that his breakfast had now been quite spoiled and when he went back into the room it was all he could do to force himself to take another helping of scrambled egg.
‘What’s wrong?’ Olga said at once, seeing perturbation in his face.
‘Oh, it’s that blister Mapp again,’ he said in great irritation. ‘She really is the limit!’
‘Tell me,’ she commanded, pouring herself another cup of black coffee.
‘Somehow, don’t ask me how, she seems to have been in contact with the fête committee in Tenterden, got Lucia’s invitation revoked and Noël’s reinstated. So now we’re back where we started, only probably rather worse.’
‘But how can they withdraw the invitation?’ Olga asked. ‘Surely the Padre had the committee’s authority to make it, and Lucia accepted.’
Georgie struggled for words to express his indignation.
‘I can’t quite believe that even Mapp would stoop so low,’ he got out at last, ‘but she has apparently spread the story that the Padre is in the grip of senile dementia and didn’t know what he was doing or saying at the time.’
‘No!’ exclaimed Olga.
‘Yes she jolly well has, or so Lucia says. I haven’t seen the letter for myself of course. But it sounds like Mapp. I suppose she thought it was the only way she could get round what had already been agreed.’
‘And I suppose it is, too,’ Olga reluctantly agreed. ‘Poor Padre! Such a nice man.’
‘Poor Padre indeed,’ Georgie concurred.
As he raised a forkful of scrambled egg to his mouth, he noticed that his hands were trembling. Olga noticed it too, and briefly leaned across the table and squeezed his hand.
‘Poor darling,’ she murmured.
‘Oh,’ Georgie said, suddenly feeling butterflies in his stomach, ‘it’s all so tarsome.’
They gazed at each other for what felt like a very long moment, one of those moments when you both know what it is that each of you would like to say but never will. Then Olga withdrew her hand from where it had been resting gently on his.
‘Well,’ she said briskly, ‘that settles it. I’m off to see Noël and tell him to buck his ideas up a bit and get himself down to Tilling.’
‘I wonder …’ Georgie pondered.
‘What?’
‘It’s just –’ he got no further.
‘The fête!’ she cried. ‘Oh, Georgie, aren’t you brilliant? Of course, that’s it! Mapp will be sitting there smugly, confident that Lucia has got herself into a frightful mess, and then who should turn up to open the fête but Noël himself!’
‘Hang on,’ Georgie enjoined, though he was of course enjoying being the object of adulation, ‘that doesn’t work, does it?’
‘What do you mean?’ Olga demanded.
‘Well, Lucia would have to write back saying yes, Noël can open the fête, and then Mapp would know all about it, and surely she would know that even in her most desperate moment Lucia wouldn’t do anything as silly as promising faithfully to deliver Noël Coward when she knows that she can’t.’
‘Gosh yes, you’re right, you blighter,’ Olga moaned, sinking her head theatrically into her hands.
‘Never mind,’ Georgie sought to comfort her, ‘it was very nearly a jolly good plan.’
‘And could be still,’ she said, looking up suddenly, her eyes gleaming. ‘I think I’ve got it.’
Georgie raised his eyebrows invitingly.
‘Lucia writes to this committee woman saying that Noël would be delighted to open the damned fête but that he lives in mortal fear of being mobbed by fans and reporters and so must impose total secrecy as a condition of his acceptance. The committee must simply announce that a mystery celebrity will do the honours and nobody except the woman herself will be allowed to know his or her true identity, not even –’
‘Not even dear, sweet Mrs Mapp-Fli
nt,’ Georgie finished for her. ‘Brilliant!’
‘Of course,’ Olga went on, getting up from the table, ‘Lucia must know nothing of any of this until we are sure we’ve got Noël nailed down. I’ll telephone you at Mallards this evening, in any event.’
‘Oh, you are wonderful,’ Georgie said admiringly.
* * *
‘Any news?’ Diva enquired hopefully as she encountered Major and Mrs Benjamin Mapp-Flint in the High Street.
‘There certainly is,’ Mapp replied sweetly. ‘Dear Lulu has been told by the committee that the invitation to open the fête over in Tenterden was extended to her in error, and that the real intention had been to ask her to invite her friend Noël Coward.’ She settled her shopping basket on her arm in a combative manner and added, ‘As well she knew, of course,’ as an afterthought.
‘Don’t understand,’ Diva replied, rather unnecessarily as she already looked completely blank. ‘The Padre told us it was all settled and that Lucia was going to do it.’
‘Ah yes, the Padre,’ Mapp said, tapping the side of her nose meaningfully. Irritatingly, whatever meaning it was that she thought was adequately conveyed by such a gesture entirely failed to register with Godiva Plaistow, who still gazed at her, blank and uncomprehending.
‘Oh, come on, Diva,’ Mapp swept on, ‘haven’t you noticed how forgetful the man has become recently, how he sometimes tells you a story, forgetting that he already told it to you the week before?’
Diva switched her puzzled gaze instantly to Major Benjy, who had been exhibiting exactly this characteristic for the last twenty years. Catching her drift, he said ‘Ah’, and stroked his moustache defensively.
Suddenly the gears, which had been freewheeling within Diva’s mind, meshed and engaged with each other.
‘But he’d only just been in to see her when he ran into us,’ she protested. ‘Surely he couldn’t have forgotten something that quickly? And anyway, he told us that she had accepted, so he hadn’t forgotten, had he?’
She tailed off as fresh clouds of confusion began to swirl around her.
Mapp sighed in exasperation.
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