There came a knock at the door and Withers entered with some letters on a tray and, most unusually, two telegrams.
‘Post, mum,’ she announced.
‘Thank you, Withers,’ her mistress replied, gathering up the contents of the tray and passing two of them towards her husband.
‘Any answer, mum?’ Withers asked, nodding towards the telegrams.
‘Not at the moment, thank you, Withers. However, the Major may require some more tea and toast.’
The Major brightened up at this and indicated that yes he did indeed require more tea and toast. As Withers bobbed and left the room, he inspected his post warily and decided that both envelopes were probably best discarded unopened. His bar bill at the golf club and his debit balance with his bookmaker had begun recently to assume quite alarming proportions.
On the other side of the table, his wife had used her knife to open her post and was scanning the telegrams excitedly.
‘Ah-ha!’ she announced triumphantly. ‘Well, there is one of Lucia’s stratagems foiled at least, Benjy.’
He looked at her enquiringly.
‘The two bridge professionals whom I contacted have both telegrammed to say that they would be delighted to play with us in the tournament.’
‘That is good news, old girl,’ the Major said enthusiastically. ‘One in the eye for Lucia, what? She tries to shut us out and we bounce back with a couple of professionals for partners. Ha! That’s the stuff to give the troops.’
‘Good news indeed,’ agreed Mapp less enthusiastically, for she had just spotted the outrageous sum which each had named as the price of their services. She took a sharp intake of breath, feeling a quick spasm of parsimony pass through her, then steeled herself. If it was one in the eye for Lucia, it would be (almost) worth the expense.
‘Can’t wait to see the expression on her face when she finds out, what?’ the Major chortled.
‘Nor can I, Benjy, and there’s no time like the present. So, once you’ve finished your breakfast, why don’t we venture out for shopping?’
‘Absolutely,’ he agreed. ‘Ah, here’s Withers now. Good show! Can’t march on an empty stomach, what?’
He attacked his fresh tea and toast with military enthusiasm.
‘By the way,’ he said indistinctly with his mouth full of marmalade, ‘what was in that letter with the brown envelope?’
‘That,’ she informed him with every appearance of satisfaction, ‘was the last piece of my flank attack falling into place.’
He waited for further elucidation but, as before, it was not forthcoming. Clearly some conversational gambit was required in order to draw the old girl out a bit.
‘And how is that coming along?’ he enquired casually, already buttering the last piece of toast.
‘I think I may say that it is coming along very nicely indeed.’
She rose and rang for Withers.
‘Nothing I can help with, I suppose?’ the Major offered airily.
‘Nothing, thank you, Benjy,’ she said firmly. ‘Ah, Withers. I shall reply to the telegrams myself from the post office this morning. But you should please prepare for two gentleman house guests on the weekend of the bridge tournament, and one gentleman the following weekend.’
At this point the telephone rang and Withers departed to answer it.
The Major stared quizzically at his wife. He could not remember them inviting a single house guest to stay the weekend since they had been married. She met his glance levelly.
‘The flank attack?’ he asked.
Silently, she nodded. So at least now he knew when the attack would be launched, though not what form it might take.
Withers re-entered the room.
‘Message from the golf club, sir,’ she announced. ‘Could you please drop in and see the manager at your earliest convenience?’
‘Ah, yes, that’s alright,’ he replied, dismissing her with an expansive gesture.
‘I say, Liz-girl,’ he said awkwardly as the door closed behind her. ‘You couldn’t see your way clear to lending me a fiver, could you?’
As it happened, the timing of the Mapp-Flint’s revelations was not long delayed as there occurred later that morning one of those impromptu gatherings where all the major figures of Tilling society found themselves spontaneously approaching the same road junction at the same time.
The Major said ‘Quai-Hai!’ as was his wont. Quaint Irene resolutely said ‘Morning, comrades’. The Padre said ‘Good day to ye’, while everyone else said ‘Good morning’.
‘Any news?’ Diva asked.
‘Not really, dear,’ Mapp said briskly, ‘just on my way to the post office to send some telegrams.’
‘Golly, what’s so important?’ Diva enquired, for Mapp’s views on the ruinously expensive nature of telegrams (as indeed of everything else) were well known.
‘More transport arrangements perhaps, Elizabeth?’ Lucia suggested.
‘Fan mail for Noël Coward, more like,’ cried Irene.
The Major bristled, wishing that he had a riding crop to hand. Yet he need not have worried for, far from wilting under this combined assault, Mapp came back strongly.
‘Naughty, Irene!’ she chided her. ‘Or – what is it you say, worship? – cattiva, isn’t it? Mr Coward was very understanding of my natural mistake at the fête. After all, if one is well aware that a lookalike contest is in progress, then it is hardly unreasonable to assume that someone who looks like the original is in fact one of the contestants.’
‘Ah, but he was the original, and you didn’t expect him to be there, did you?’ that hateful Irene Coles persisted.
‘Surely that’s implicit in what I’ve just said,’ Mapp countered with one of her sweetest smiles. ‘And anyway, quaint one, nobody expected him to be there, if you remember, because dear Lucia chose to keep it a secret. Quelle surprise, indeed, n’est ce pas?’
Mr Wyse, who found these personal duels extremely distressing, but had become resigned to them nonetheless, attempted to change the subject.
‘May we hope, Mrs Mapp-Flint, that you have secured some teammates for the bridge tournament? Tilling would be very sad to be deprived of the company of two such congenial companions as the Major and yourself.’
‘We have,’ she replied, with another broad smile. ‘In fact, since you have dragged the secret out of me, Mr Wyse, that is the subject matter of my telegrams. I am very happy to inform you that Benjyboy and I have secured the services of two professional bridge players to partner us.’
This remark made a deep impression, as she had expected it to, and she watched with gratification as everyone looked stunned. However, it rapidly transpired that the nature of the impression was not exactly what she had envisaged.
‘Professionals?’ Diva echoed. ‘Surely not, Elizabeth?’
‘Why yes, Diva, why not? With all you dear ones who are our regular little playmates unavailable to us, what could be more natural?’
‘What would be more natural,’ Irene replied with some heat, ‘would be to ask at the library desk for the list of visitors who haven’t been able to form a team but would like to be put in touch with another pair. As Lucia is doing, aren’t you, angel?’
Mapp looked blank. She had no idea such a list existed. Lucia looked expressionless and made one of those little noises of hers which could have meant anything.
‘Hardly a felony though, Irene, to engage some professionals, surely?’ Lucia ventured. ‘After all, that is what they exist for, to play bridge for money.’
‘How like you!’ Irene said warmly. ‘To find something nice to say about everyone.’
The ‘even Mapp’ was clearly understood, even though not expressly stated.
‘Not very sporting, though, is it?’ interjected Diva, who had gone rather red in the face. ‘Gives you an unfair advantage.’
‘Charity, Mistress Plaistow,’ murmured the Padre, hoping that the message would be understood more convincingly than it was conveyed. He had been harbouri
ng covetous thoughts of winning the cash prize himself. As the universally acknowledged leading bridge player in East Sussex, such hopes were not unreasonable, despite the erratic bidding habits of Irene Coles and the tendency of Diva Plaistow either to fail to draw trumps or to forget what they were.
‘Hear, hear, Padre mio,’ Lucia said warmly. ‘Elizabeth is quite within her rights to include professionals within her team. Indeed, the rules specifically permit it.’
The others gazed at her, wondering at this support for Elizabeth Mapp-Flint coming from such an unexpected quarter. Seeing that some further exposition of her stance was clearly called for, Lucia strove to supply it.
‘This is a bridge tournament, open to all comers, not one of our little bridge teas, delightful though those are. The whole purpose of it is to put Tilling firmly on the map, and that is what I am convinced it will do. Why, surely you can all see how it will strengthen our argument for a daily express to London?
‘Are we to stand aside from the bridge world as a whole?’ she went on. ‘Are we to pull up the drawbridge and retreat into our own little parochial world, to shut ourselves off from all the experience of playing with other players, yes and better players too? Fie, I say! This is an opportunity, and we must prove equal to it. Indeed, we must prove worthy of it.’
As her address progressed, the unmistakable timbre of her Queen Elizabeth voice became clearly evident and Georgie was momentarily transported back to the village green at Riseholme and Lucia’s Elizabethan pageant, with himself, having been Riseholme’s leading young man for at least the last two decades, as Raleigh, being knighted by Lucia on the deck of the Golden Hind. He gazed at her fondly as he remembered. How long ago it all seemed, though.
There was silence as her exhortations towards more noble sentiments and more manly conduct died away.
‘Angel,’ breathed Irene admiringly.
‘Mrs Pillson as always,’ Mr Wyse commented with a bow in her direction, ‘reminds us of our neighbourly instincts, and the Reverend of our Christian duty.’
‘Well, there we are,’ Mapp said, beaming widely once again. ‘Benjyboy and I must away to the post office. By the way, worship, you will be glad to hear that I have taken your advice to heart about weekend house guests. Why, I have just had an invitation accepted from a very charming man for the weekend after the bridge tournament.’
‘I am delighted to hear it, Elizabeth,’ Lucia replied. ‘And naturally you must bring him to my tea party on the Saturday.’
‘Thank you, dear, I’m sure we would all love to come.’
The Mapp-Flints and the Pillsons parted in opposite directions, both hoping for their entirely different reasons that the whole issue of professional players had now been settled and discarded. In this, however, they were all to be disappointed.
As they walked away discussion broke out anew behind them. Discussion which rapidly became first intense and then animated, with Quaint Irene waving her pipe for emphasis. Clearly Lucia’s regal strictures had not made so strong an impact upon her subjects as she would have wished.
Chapter 21
‘Oh, drat the woman!’ Georgie exclaimed to Lucia as they sat together after lunch. ‘It really is uncanny the way she dogs our footsteps. It’s almost as though she knows what we’re thinking.’
‘Agreed, Georgie. Why, if all the staff hadn’t been with us for years, then one could almost imagine that there was a spy in our midst.’
‘Oh, I can’t imagine Foljambe doing anything like that,’ Georgie expostulated. ‘Why, she’s been with me since the very beginning, when I first bought my house in Riseholme.’
Being of a delicate disposition, and very attached to Foljambe, there were in fact various things which he did not like to imagine her doing.
‘As has Grosvenor,’ Lucia reminded him severely, ‘and Cook, and Cadman.’
‘Yes, I know, the very idea is preposterous,’ Georgie agreed. ‘But the fact remains that she’s got us into a jolly awkward situation.’
‘I really don’t see that, Georgie,’ Lucia said. ‘In fact, I rather think she’s got us out of one. All we have to do is telegram our two professionals, agreeing to pay them anyway but asking them to come with two other professionals as a team of four and not to mention our prior arrangement.’
‘Pay all four, you mean?’ Georgie asked.
‘If necessary,’ Lucia responded briskly, ‘though I expect there will be lots of professionals out there who will be happy to come and play just for the lure of the cash prize.’
‘You are wonderful, Lucia,’ he said, gazing at her fondly. ‘You seem to be able to find an elegant solution to every problem.’
She smiled back at him and was about to lapse into an ickle bit of baby talk when Grosvenor knocked and entered the room.
‘Mr Wyse, madam,’ she announced.
‘Dear lady,’ Mr Wyse said, showing distinct signs of nervousness as he was ushered into the room, ‘a thousand pardons for disturbing you in the middle of the afternoon.’
‘Not at all, not at all,’ Lucia reassured him. ‘Won’t you sit down?’
Mr Wyse perched irresolutely on the edge of a chair. Wearing royal blue velvet plus fours with a matching jacket, he brought to mind a fidgety child being adjured to pose for a portrait by Gainsborough.
‘I come by way of a delegation,’ he began, ‘on what is, I confess, a most delicate and troubling matter.’
‘Would you rather that I left you two alone?’ offered Georgie.
He had a sudden premonition that Mr Wyse’s visit might concern Susan, and shuddered at the thought of having to listen to female medical conditions being described. Nor, of course, did he wish to embarrass Mr Wyse in such a case.
‘Thank you, no,’ came the reply. ‘In fact, what I have to say very much concerns you both.
‘The bridge tournament,’ he went on, ‘appears to have become the subject of much discord. The news that our friends the Mapp-Flints propose to enter the competition with professionals as teammates has aroused strong passions.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Lucia with a concerned expression. ‘Yes, I was afraid that might be the case. Poor Elizabeth can be rather impetuous sometimes. She really should have stopped to consider what effect such action might have on the esteem in which she is regarded socially.’
‘Quite so,’ Mr Wyse agreed, ‘though,’ he went on hastily, ‘I personally hold the Mapp-Flints in the highest esteem.’
‘As do we all,’ Lucia seconded warmly.
‘Quite so,’ Mr Wyse said again. ‘I am relieved that we are agreed on that, as it makes my task that much easier.’
‘Do go on,’ Lucia urged him.
‘I am afraid,’ he said sadly, ‘that popular opinion seems to be much inflamed against that couple. Between the three of us, I believe that this is partly because of Mrs Mapp-Flint’s, well, stance over the fête, coupled of course with the curious business of the coach.’
‘And so this is in the nature of the last straw?’ Georgie interjected.
‘In a sense, yes. I certainly think there has been an accumulation of actions by Mrs Mapp-Flint which, viewed with the benefit of hindsight, might be considered to have been unwise, or even intemperate.’
When Mr Wyse gave judgement in such magisterial style, it was usual for those present to sit quietly for a few moments and nod sagely in agreement, which Lucia and Georgie duly did.
‘But what’s to be done?’ Georgie asked then. ‘Surely there’s no suggestion of the Mapp-Flints being tarred and feathered, or sending them to Coventry, or anything like that?’
‘Such sentiments were expressed by Miss Coles,’ Mr Wyse admitted painfully, ‘but happily wiser counsel prevailed.’
He wrinkled his nose, which was his usual sign of social distress. ‘Here I fear I come to the embarrassing part. You see, both the suggestions which have been advanced would involve you and Mr Pillson in significant expense. Indeed, there seems almost to have been an underlying assumption that you would be ha
ppy to incur such expense, which I had occasion to speak quite sharply about.’
The thought of Mr Wyse speaking sharply to anyone was a novel one, and Lucia wondered briefly just what sort of language might have been employed. Dismissing the thought, she waved a hand gracefully with a smile, as though swatting away any potential embarrassment.
‘Do go on,’ she said.
‘The first suggestion,’ he said, ‘is that you might be prepared generously to make available a further prize, or perhaps trophy, to the highest placed team that does not contain a single professional. I put this forward very diffidently as, of course, Susan and I would of course be playing in just such a team.’
‘An inspired suggestion,’ Lucia cried, clapping her hands. ‘It shall be done! Let me write it down at once.’
‘The other suggestion,’ Mr Wyse went on as she wrote briefly but intensely in her notebook, ‘is, I fear, even more presumptuous.’
He hesitated but then went on.
‘This suggestion is, I freely confess, not of my own making, and I am all too conscious that it may smack of, well, childishness frankly, but I have undertaken to deliver it nonetheless.’
Lucia looked at him expectantly. So did Georgie. In his experience childish suggestions were often spiteful, so listening to them was always fun.
‘The proposal is,’ Mr Wyse said carefully, ‘that you and Mr Pillson might similarly engage the services of a pair of professional bridge players and thus steal the Mapp-Flints’ thunder, as you might say.’
‘No!’ said Lucia and Georgie instinctively.
Mistaking their emotion for disapproval at such a petty proposal being put forward, Mr Wyse looked wretched.
‘I know, I know,’ he said, literally wringing his hands, ‘but I did undertake to deliver the message. I thought it best to do so, as the alternative might have been a most unfortunate scene when the Mapp-Flints next venture into town.’
‘Dear Mr Wyse,’ Lucia said warmly. ‘Never was a man more aptly named. How sensible! How pragmatic!’
‘Then you are not offended by the suggestion?’ he ventured timidly.
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