by E. F. Benson
“Sweet of the dear Contessa,” she said. “But in my humble little Grebe, I feel quite a country mouse, so far away from all that’s going on. Hardly Tilling at all: my Benjy-boy tells me I must call the house ‘Mouse-trap.’” Irene was still alert for attacks on Lucia.
“How about calling it Cat and Mouse trap, Mapp?” she enquired across the table.
“Why, dear?” said Elizabeth with terrifying suavity.
Lucia instantly engaged quaint Irene’s attention, or something even more quaint might have followed, and Mr. Wyse made signals to Figgis and pointed towards Elizabeth’s wine-glass. Figgis thinking that he was only calling his notice to wine-glasses in general filled up Major Benjy’s which happened to be empty, and began carving the chicken. The maid handed the plates and Lucia got some nice slices off the breast. Elizabeth receiving no answer from Irene, wheeled round to Georgie.
“What a day it will be when we are all allowed to see the great Roman remains,” she said.
“Won’t it?” said Georgie.
A dead silence fell on the table except for Benjy’s jovial voice.
“A saucy little customer she was. They used to call her the Pride of Poona. I’ve still got her photograph somewhere, by Jove.”
Rockets of conversation, a regular bouquet of them, shot up all round the table.
“And was Poona where you killed those lovely tigers, Major?” asked Susan. “What a pretty costume Elizabeth made of the best bits. So ingenious. Figgis, the champagne.”
“Irene dear,” said Lucia in her most earnest voice, “I think you must manage our summer picture-exhibition this year. My hands are so full. Do persuade her to, Mr. Wyse.”
Mr. Wyse bowed right and left particularly to Elizabeth.
“I see on all sides of me such brilliant artists and such competent managers—” he began.
“Oh, pray not me!” said Elizabeth. “I’m quite out of touch with modern art.”
“Well, there’s room for old masters and mistresses, Mapp,” said Irene encouragingly. “Never say die.”
Lucia had just finished her nice slice of breast when a well-developed drumstick, probably from the leg on which the chicken habitually roosted, was placed before Elizabeth. Black roots of plucked feathers were dotted about in the yellow skin.
“Oh, far too much for me,” she said. “Just a teeny slice after my lovely turbot.”
Her plate was brought back with a piece of the drumstick cut off. Chestnut ice with brandy followed, and the famous oyster savoury, and then dessert, with a compote of figs in honey.
“A little Easter gift from my sister Amelia,” explained Mr. Wyse to Elizabeth. “A domestic product of which the recipe is an heirloom of the mistress of Castello Faraglione. I think Amelia had the privilege of sending you a spoonful or two of the Faraglione honey not so long ago.”
The most malicious brain could not have devised two more appalling gaffes than this pretty speech contained. There was that unfortunate mention of the word “recipe” again, and everyone thought of lobster, and who could help recalling the reason why Contessa Amelia had sent Elizabeth the jar of nutritious honey? The pause of stupefaction was succeeded by a fresh gabble of conversation, and a spurt of irrepressible laughter from quaint Irene.
Dinner was now over: Susan collected ladies’ eyes, and shepherded them out of the room, while the Padre held the door open and addressed some bright and gallant little remark in three languages to each. In spite of her injunction to her husband that the gentlemen mustn’t be long, or there would be no time for Bridge, it was impossible to obey, for Major Benjy had a great number of very amusing stories to tell, each of which suggested another to him. He forgot the point of some, and it might have been as well if he had forgotten the point of others, but they were all men together, he said, and it was a sad heart that never rejoiced. Also he forgot once or twice to send the port on when it came to him, and filled up his glass again when he had finished his story.
“Most entertaining,” said Mr. Wyse frigidly as the clock struck ten. “A long time since I have laughed so much. You are a regular storehouse of amusing anecdotes, Major. But Susan will scold me unless we join the ladies.”
“Never do to keep the lil’ fairies waiting,” said Benjy. “Well, thanks, just a spot of sherry. Capital good dinner I’ve had. A married man doesn’t often get much of a dinner at home, by Jove, at least I don’t, though that’s to go no further. Ha, ha! Discretion.”
Then arose the very delicate question of the composition of the Bridge tables. Vainly did Mr. Wyse (faintly echoed by Susan) explain that they would both much sooner look on, for everybody else, with the same curious absence of conviction in their voices, said that they would infinitely prefer to do the same. That was so palpably false that without more ado cards were cut, the two highest to sit out for the first rubber. Lucia drew a king, and Elizabeth drew a knave, and it seemed for a little that they would have to sit out together, which would have been quite frightful, but then Benjy luckily cut a Queen. A small sitting-room, opening from the drawing-room would enable them to chat without disturbing the players, and Major Benjy gallantly declared that he would sooner have a talk with her than win two grand slams.
Benjy’s sense of exuberant health and happiness was beginning to be overshadowed, as if the edge of a coming eclipse had nicked the full orb of the sun — perhaps the last glass or two of port had been an error in an otherwise judicious dinner — but he was still very bright and loquacious and suffused.
“‘Pon my word, a delightful little dinner,” he said, as he closed the door into the little sitting-room. “Good talk, good friends, a glass of jolly good wine and a rubber to follow. What more can a man ask, I ask you, and Echo answers ‘Cern’ly not.’ And I’ve not had a pow-wow with you for a long time, Signora, as old Camelia Faradiddleone would say.”
Lucia saw that he had had about enough wine, but after many evenings with Elizabeth who wouldn’t?
“No, I’ve been quite a hermit lately,” she said. “So busy with my little jobs — oh, take care of your cigar, Major Benjy: it’s burning the edge of the table.”
“Dear me, yes, monstrous stupid of me: where there’s smoke there’s fire! We’ve been busy, too, settling in. How do you think Liz is looking?”
“Very well, exceedingly well,” said Lucia enthusiastically. “All her old energy, all her delightful activity seem to have returned. At one time—”
Major Benjy looked round to see that the door was closed and nodded his head with extreme solemnity.
“Quite, quite. Olive-branches. Very true,” he said. “Marvellous woman, ain’t she, the way she’s put it all behind her. Felt it very much at the time, for she’s mos’ sensitive. Highly strung. Concert pitch. Liable to ups and downs. For instance, there was a paragraph in the Hastings paper this morning that upset Liz so much that she whirled about like a spinning top, butting into the tables and chairs. ‘Take it quietly, Lisbeth Mapp-Flint,’ I told her. Beneath you to notice it, or should I go over and punch the Editor’s head?”
“Do you happen to be referring to the paragraph about me and my little excavations?” asked Lucia.
“God bless me, if I hadn’t forgotten what it was about,” cried Benjy. “You’re right, Msslucas, the very first time. That’s what it was about, if I may say so without prejudice. I only remembered there was something that annoyed Lisbeth Mapp-Flint, and that was enough for Major B, late of His Majesty’s India forces, God bless him, too. If something annoys my wife, it annoys me, too, that’s what I say. A husband’s duty, Msslucas, is always to stand between her and any annoyances, what? Too many annoyances lately and often my heart’s bled for her. Then it was a sad trial parting with her old home which she’d known ever since her aunt was a lil’ girl, or since they were lil’ girls together, if not before. Then that was a bad business about the Town Council and those dinner-bells. A dirty business I might call it, if there wasn’t a lady present, though that mustn’t go any further. Not cricket, hic.
All adds up, you know, in the mind of a very sensitive woman. Twice two and four, if you see what I mean.”
Benjy sank down lower in his chair, and after two attempts to relight his cigar, gave it up, and the eclipse spread a little further.
“I’m not quite easy in my mind about Lisbeth,” he said, “an’ that’s why it’s such a privilege to be able to have quiet talk with you like this. There’s no more sympathetic woman in Tilling, I tell my missus, than Msslucas. A thousand pities that you and she don’t always see eye to eye about this or that, whether it’s dinner bells or it might be Roman antiquities or changing houses. First it’s one thing and then it’s another, and then it’s something else. Anxious work.”
“I don’t think there’s the slightest cause for you to be anxious, Major Benjy,” said Lucia.
Benjy thumped the table with one hand, then drew his chair a little closer to hers, and laid the other hand on her knee.
“That reminds me what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said. “Grebe, you know, our lil’ place Grebe. Far better house in my opinion than poor ole Auntie’s. I give you my word on that, and Major B’s word’s as good’s his bond, if not better. Smelt of dry rot, did Auntie’s house, and the paint peeling off the walls same as an orange. But ‘Lisbeth liked it, Msslucas. It suited ‘Lisbeth down to the ground. You give the old lady a curtain to sit behind an’ something puzzling going on in the street outside, and she’ll be azappy as a Queen till the cows come home, if not longer. She misses that at our lil’ place, Grebe, and it goes to my heart, Msslucas.”
He was rather more tipsy, thought Lucia than she had supposed, but he was much better here, maundering quietly along than coming under Elizabeth’s eye, for her sake as well as his, for she had had a horrid evening with nothing but foam to drink and mackintosh and muscular drumstick to eat, to the accompaniment of all those frightful gaffes about cat-traps and recipes and nutritious honey and hints about Benjy’s recollections of the Pride of Poona, poor woman. Lucia sincerely hoped that the rubbers now in progress would be long, so that he might get a little steadier before he had to make a public appearance again.
“It gives ‘Lisbeth the hump, does Grebe,” he went on in a melancholy voice. “No little side-shows going on outside. Nothing but sheep and sea-gulls to squint at from behind a curtain at our lil’ place. Scarcely worth getting behind a curtain at all, it isn’t, and it’s a sad come-down for her. I lie awake thinking of it, and I’ll tell you what, Msslucas, though it mustn’t go any further. Mum’s the word, like what we had at dinner. I believe, though I couldn’t say for certain, that she’d be willing to let you have Grebe, if you offered her thousan’ pounds premium, and go back to Auntie’s herself. Worth thinking about, or lemme see, do I mean that she’d give you thousan’ pounds premium? Split the difference. Why, here’s ‘Lisbeth herself! There’s a curious thing!”
Elizabeth stood in the doorway, and took him in from head to foot in a single glance, as he withdrew his hand from Lucia’s knee as if it had been a live coal, and, hoisting himself with some difficulty out of his chair, brushed an inch of cigar-ash off his waistcoat.
“We’re going home, Benjy,” she said. “Come along.”
“But I want to have rubber of Bridge, Liz,” said he. “Msslucas and I’ve been waiting for our lil’ rubber of Bridge.”
Elizabeth continued to be as unconscious of Lucia as if they were standing for the Town Council again.
“You’ve had enough pleasure for one evening, Benjy,” said she, “and enough—”
Lucia, crushing a natural even a laudable desire to hear what should follow, slipped quietly from the room and closed the door. Outside a rubber was still going on at one table, and at the other the Padre, Georgie and Diva were leaning forward discussing something in low tones.
“But she had quitted her card,” said Diva. “And the whole rubber was only ninepence, and she’s not paid me. Those hectoring ways of hers—”
“Diva, dear,” said Lucia, seating herself in the vacant chair. “Let’s cut for deal at once and go on as if nothing had happened. You and me. Laddies against lassies, Padre.”
They were still considering their hands when the door into the inner room opened again, and Elizabeth swept into the room followed by Benjy.
“Pray don’t let anyone get up,” she said. “Such a lovely evening, dear Susan! Such a lovely party! No, Mr. Wyse, I insist. My Benjy tells me it’s time for me to go home. So late. We shall walk and enjoy the beautiful stars. Do us both good. Goloshes outside in the hall. Everything.”
Mr. Wyse got up and pressed the bell.
“But, my dear lady, no hurry, so early,” he said. “A sandwich surely, a tunny sandwich, a little lemonade, a drop of whisky. Figgis: Whisky, sandwiches, goloshes!”
Benjy suddenly raised the red banner of revolt. He stood quite firmly in the middle of the room, with his hand on the back of the Padre’s chair.
“There’s been a lil’ mistake,” he said. “I want my lil’ rubber of Bridge. Fair play’s a jewel. I want my tummy sandwich and mouthful whisky and soda. I want—”
“Benjy, I’m waiting for you,” said Elizabeth.
He looked this way and that but encountered no glance of encouragement. Then he made a smart military salute to the general company and marched from the room stepping carefully but impeccably, as if treading a tight rope stretched over an abyss, and shut the door into the hall with swift decision.
“Puir wee mannie,” said the Padre. “Three no trumps, Mistress Plaistow.”
“She had quitted the card,” said Diva still fuming. “I saw the light between it and her fingers. Oh, is it me? Three spades, I mean four.”
CHAPTER IX.
Lucia and Georgie were seated side by side on the bench of the organ in Tilling church. The May sunshine streamed on to them through the stained glass of a south window, vividly colouring them with patches of the brightest hues, so that they looked like objects daringly camouflaged in war-time against enemy aircraft, for nobody could have dreamed that those brilliant Joseph-coats could contain human beings. The lights cast upon Lucia’s face and white dress reached her through a picture of Elijah going up to heaven in a fiery chariot. The heat from this vehicle would presumably have prevented the prophet from feeling cold in interstellar space, for he wore only an emerald-green bathing-dress which left exposed his superbly virile arms and legs, and his snowy locks streamed in the wind. The horses were flame-coloured, the chariot was red-hot, and high above it in an ultramarine sky hung an orange sun which seemed to be the object of the expedition. Georgie came under the influence of the Witch of Endor. She was wrapt in an eau de nil mantle, which made his auburn beard look livid. Saul in a purple cloak, and Samuel in a black dressing-gown made sombre stains on his fawn-coloured suit.
The organ was in process of rebuilding. A quantity of fresh stops were being added to it, and an electric blowing apparatus had been installed. Lucia clicked on the switch which set the bellows working, and opened a copy of the Moonlight Sonata.
“It sounds quite marvellous on the organ, Georgie,” she said. “I was trying it over yesterday. What I want you to do is to play the pedals. Just those slow base notes: pom, pom. Quite easy.”
Georgie put a foot on the pedals. Nothing happened.
“Oh, I haven’t pulled out any pedal stop,” said Lucia. By mistake she pulled out the tuba, and as the pedals happened to be coupled to the solo organ a blast of baritone fury yelled through the church. “My fault,” she said, “entirely my fault, but what a magnificent noise! One of my new stops.”
She uncoupled the pedals and substituted the bourdon: Elijah and the Witch of Endor rattled in their leaded frames.
“That’s perfect!” she said. “Now with one hand I shall play the triplets on the swell, and the solo tune with the other on the vox humana! Oh, that tuba again! I thought I’d put it in.”
The plaintive throaty bleating of the vox humana was enervatingly lovely, and Lucia’s America-cloth eyes gre
w veiled with moisture.
“So heart-broken,” she intoned, her syllables keeping time with the air. “A lovely contralto tone. Like Clara Butt, is it not? The passionate despair of it. Fresh courage coming. So noble. No, Georgie, you must take care not to put your foot on two adjacent pedals at once. Now, listen! Do you hear that lovely crescendo? That I do by just opening the swell very gradually. Isn’t it a wonderful effect? . . . I am surprised that no one has ever thought of setting this Sonata for the organ . . . Go on pulling out stops on the great organ — yes, to your left there — in case I want them. One always has to look ahead in organ playing. Arrange your palette, so to speak. No, I shan’t want them . . . It dies away, softer and softer . . . Hold on that bass C sharp till I say now . . . Now.”
They both gave the usual slow movement sigh. Then the volume of Beethoven tumbled on to the great organ on which Georgie had pulled out all the stops, and the open diapasons received it with a shout of rapture. Lucia slipped from the bench to pick it up. On the floor round about was an assemblage of small pipes.
“I think this lot is the cor anglais,” she said. “I am putting in a beautiful cor anglais.”
She picked up one of the pipes, and blew through it.
“A lovely tone,” she said. “It reminds one of the last act of Tristan, does it not, where the shepherd-boy goes on playing the cor anglais for ever and ever.”
Georgie picked up a pipe belonging to the flute. It happened to be a major third above Lucia’s cor anglais, and they blew on them together with a very charming effect. They tried two others, but these happened to be a semitone apart, and the result was not so harmonious. Then they hastily put them down, for a party of tourists, being shown round the church by the Padre, came in at the north door. He was talking very strong Scots this morning, with snatches of early English in compliment to the architecture.
“The orrgan, ye see, is being renovated,” he said. “‘Twill be a bonny instrument, I ken. Good morrow to ye, Mistress Lucas.”