by E. F. Benson
“How I appreciate the honour,” she said. “But — but how I should hate to feel that the dear townsfolk would not approve. The last elections, you know . . . Ah, I see what is in your mind. You think that since then they realize a little more the sincerity of my desire to forward Tilling’s welfare to the best of my humble capacity.” (There came a tap at the door.) “I see I shall have to yield and, if your colleagues wish it, I gladly accept the great honour.”
The door had opened a chink; Elizabeth’s ears had heard the words “great honour,” and now her mouth (she had eluded Grosvenor) said:
“May I come in, dear?”
“Entrate,” said Lucia. “Mr. Mayor, do you know Mrs. Mapp-Flint? You must! Such an old inhabitant of dear Tilling. Dreadful floods out by the links, and several friends, Major and Mrs. Mapp-Flint and the Padre and Mrs. Bartlett are all washed out. But such a treat for me, for I am taking them in, and have quite a party. Mallards House and I are always at the service of our citizens. But I mustn’t detain you. You will let me know whether the meeting accepts your suggestion? I shall be eagerly waiting.”
Lucia insisted on seeing the Mayor to the front door, but returned at once to the garden-room, which had been thus violated by Elizabeth.
“I hope your sitting-room is comfortable, Elizabeth,” she said. “You’ve got all you want there? Sure?”
The desire to know what those ominous words “great honour” could possibly signify, consumed Elizabeth like a burning fire, and she was absolutely impervious to the hint so strongly conveyed to her.
“Delicious, dear,” she enthusiastically replied. “So cosy, and Benjy so happy with his cigar and his paper. But didn’t I hear the piano going just now? Sounded so lovely. May I sit mum as a mouse and listen?”
Lucia could not quite bring herself to say “No, go away,” but she felt she must put her foot down. She had given her visitors a sitting-room of their own, and did not intend to have them here in the morning. Perhaps if she put her foot down on what she always called the sostenuto pedal, and played loud scales and exercises she could render the room intolerable to any listener.
“By all means,” she said. “I have to practice very hard every morning to keep my poor fingers from getting rusty, or Georgie scolds me over our duets.”
Elizabeth slid into her familiar place in the window where she could observe the movements of Tilling, conducted chiefly this morning under umbrellas, and Lucia began. C Major up and down till her fingers ached with their unaccustomed drilling: then a few firm chords in that jovial key.
“Lovely chords! Such harmonies,” said Elizabeth, seeing Lucia’s motor draw up at Mallards Cottage and deposit the Padre and his suit-case.
C Minor. This was more difficult. Lucia found that the upward scale was not the same as the downward, and she went over it half-a-dozen times, rumbling at first at the bottom end of the piano and then shrieking at the top and back again, before she got it right. A few simple minor chords followed.
“That wonderful funeral march,” said Elizabeth absently. Evie had thrust her head out of the window of the motor, and, to anybody who had any perception, was quite clearly telling Georgie, who had come to the door, about the flood, for she lowered and then raised her podgy little paw, evidently showing how much the flood had risen during the night.
As she watched, Lucia had begun to practice shakes, including that very difficult one for the third and fourth fingers.
“Like the sweet birdies in my garden,” said Elizabeth, still absently (though nothing could possibly have been less like), “thrushes and blackbirds and . . .” Her voice trailed into silence as the motor moved on, down the street towards Mallards, minus the Padre and his suit-case.
“And here’s Evie just arriving,” she said, thinking that Lucia would stop that hideous noise, and go out to welcome her guest. Not a bit of it: the scale of D Major followed: it was markedly slower because her fingers were terribly fatigued. Then Grosvenor came in. She left the door open, and a strong draught blew round Elizabeth’s ankles.
“Yes, Grosvenor?” said Lucia, with her hands poised over the keys.
“The Mayor has rung up, ma’am,” said Grosvenor, “and would like to speak to you, if you are disengaged.”
The Mayoral call was irresistible, and Lucia went to the telephone in her Office. Elizabeth, crazy with curiosity, followed, and instantly became violently interested in the book-case in the hall, where she hoped she could hear Lucia’s half, at any rate, of the conversation. After two or three gabbling, quacking noises, her voice broke jubilantly in.
“Indeed, I am most highly honoured, Mr. Mayor—” she began. Then, unfortunately for the cause of the dissemination of useful knowledge, she caught sight of Elizabeth in the hall just outside with an open book in her hand, and smartly shut the Office door. Having taken this sensible precaution she continued:
“Please assure my colleagues, as I understand that the Town Council is sitting now, that I will resolutely shoulder the responsibility of my position.”
“Should you be unoccupied at the moment, Mrs. Lucas,” said the Mayor, “perhaps you would come and take part in the business that lies before us, as you are now a member of the Council.”
“By all means,” cried Lucia. “I will be with you in a couple of minutes.”
Elizabeth had replaced the fourth volume of Pepys’ Diary upside down, and had stolen up closer to the Office door, where her footfall was noiseless on the india-rubber. Simultaneously Grosvenor came into the hall to open the front door to Evie, and Lucia came out of the Office, nearly running into Elizabeth.
“Admiring your lovely india-rubber matting, dear,” said Elizabeth adroitly. “So pussy-cat quiet.”
Lucia hardly seemed to see her.
“Grosvenor: my hat, my raincoat, my umbrella at once,” she cried. “I’ve got to go out. Delighted to see you, dear Evie. So sorry to be called away. A little soup or a sandwich after your drive? Elizabeth will show you the sitting-room upstairs. Lunch at half-past one: begin whether I’m in or not. No, Grosvenor, my new hat—”
“It’s raining, ma’am,” said Grosvenor.
“I know it is, or I shouldn’t want my umbrella.”
Her feet twinkled nearly as nimbly as Diva’s as she sped through the rain to the mayor’s parlour at the Town Hall. The assembled Council rose to their feet as she entered, and the Mayor formally presented them to the new colleague whom they had just co-opted: Per of the gas works, and Georgie of the drains and Twistevant the greengrocer. Just now Twistevant was looking morose, for the report of the Town-Surveyor about his slum-dwellings had been received, and this dire document advised that eight of his houses should be condemned as insanitary, and pulled down. The next item on the agenda was Lucia’s offer of fifty almond trees (or more if desirable) to beautify in spring-time the bare grass slope to the south of the town. She said a few diffident words about the privilege of being allowed to make a little garden there, and intimated that she would pay for the enrichment of the soil and the planting of the trees and any subsequent upkeep, so that not a penny should fall on the rates. The offer was gratefully accepted with the applause of knuckles on the table, and as she was popular enough for the moment, she deferred announcing her project for the relaying of the steps by the Norman Tower. Half-an-hour more sufficed for the rest of the business before the Town Councillors.
Treading on air, Lucia dropped in at Mallards Cottage to tell Georgie the news. The Padre had just gone across to Mallards, for Evie and he had got into a remarkable muddle that morning packing their bags in such a hurry: he had to recover his shaving equipment from hers, and take her a few small articles of female attire.
“I think I had better tell them all about my appointment at once, Georgie,” she said, “for they are sure to hear about it very soon, and if Elizabeth has a bilious attack from chagrin, the sooner it’s over the better. My dear, how tiresome she has been already! She came and sat in the garden-room, which I don’t intend that anybody s
hall do in the morning, and so I began playing scales and shakes to smoke her out. Then she tried to overhear my conversation on the Office telephone with the Mayor—”
“And did she?” asked Georgie greedily.
“I don’t think so. I banged the door when I saw her in the hall. You and the Padre will have all your meals with me, won’t you, till they go, but if this rain continues, it looks as if they might be here till they get back into their own houses again. Let me sit quietly with you till lunch-time, for we shall have them all on our hands for the rest of the day.”
“I think we’ve been too hospitable,” said Georgie. “One can overdo it. If the Padre sits and talks to me all morning, I shall have to live in my bedroom. Foljambe doesn’t like it, either. He’s called her ‘my lassie’ already.”
“No!” said Lucia. “She’d hate that. Oh, and Benjy looked as black as ink when I told him I must give up his room to Evie. But we must rejoice, Georgie, that we’re able to do something for the poor things.”
“Rejoice isn’t quite the word,” said Georgie firmly.
Lucia returned to Mallards a little after half-past one, and went up to the sitting-room she had assigned to her guests and tapped on the door before entering. That might convey to Elizabeth’s obtuse mind that this was their private room, and she might infer, by implication, that the garden-room was Lucia’s private room. But this little moral lesson was wasted, for the room was empty except for stale cigar-smoke. She went to the dining-room, for they might, as desired, have begun lunch. Empty also. She went to the garden-room, and even as she opened the door, Elizabeth’s voice rang out.
“No, Padre, my card was not covered,” she said. “Uncovered.”
“An exposed card whatever then, Mistress Mapp,” said the Padre.
“Come, come, Mapp-Flint, Padre,” said Benjy.
“Oh, there’s dearest Lucia!” cried Elizabeth. “I thought it was Grosvenor come to tell us that lunch was ready. Such a dismal morning; we thought we would have a little game of cards to pass the time. No card-table in our cosy parlour upstairs.”
“Of course you shall have one,” said Lucia.
“And you’ve done your little businesses?” asked Elizabeth.
Lucia was really sorry for her, but the blow must be dealt.
“Yes: I attended a meeting of the Town Council. But there was very little business.”
“The Town Council, did you say?” asked the stricken woman.
“Yes: they did me the honour to co-opt me, for a member has resigned owing to ill-health. I felt it my duty to fill the vacancy. Let us go in to lunch.”
CHAPTER XII.
It was not till a fortnight later that Georgie and Lucia were once more dining alone at Mallards House, both feeling as if they were recovering from some debilitating nervous complaint, accompanied by high blood-pressure and great depression. The attack, so to speak, was over, and now they had to pick up their strength again. Only yesterday had the Padre and Evie gone back to their bungalow, and only this morning had the Mapp-Flints returned to Grebe. They might have gone the day before, since the insane widow of the Baronet had left that morning, removing herself and forty-seven canaries in two gipsy-vans. But there was so much rape seed scattered on the tiger-skins, and so many tokens of bird-life on curtains and tables and chairs that it had required a full day to clean up. Benjy on his departure had pressed a half-crown and a penny into Grosvenor’s hand, one from himself and one from Elizabeth. This looked as if he had calculated the value of her services with meticulous accuracy, but the error had arisen because he had mixed up coppers and silver in his pocket, and he had genuinely meant to give her five shillings. Elizabeth gave her a sweet smile and shook hands.
Anyhow the fortnight was now over. Lucia had preserved the seignorial air to the end. Her car was always at the disposal of her guests, fires blazed in their bedrooms, she told them what passed at the meetings of the Town Council, she consulted their tastes at table. One day there was haggis for the Padre who was being particularly Scotch, and one day there were stewed prunes for Elizabeth, and fiery curry for Major Benjy in his more Indian moods, and parsnips for Evie who had a passion for that deplorable vegetable. About one thing only was Lucia adamant. They might take all the morning papers up to the guests’ sitting-room, but until lunch-time they should not read them in the garden-room. Verboten; défendu; non permesso. If Elizabeth showed her nose there, or Benjy his cigar, or Evie her parish magazine, Lucia telephoned for Georgie, and they played duets till the intruder could stand it no more. . . .
She pressed the pomander which rang the electric bell. Grosvenor brought in coffee, and now they could talk freely.
“That wonderful fourth round of the Inferno, Georgie,” said Lucia dreamily. “The guests who eat the salt of their host, and sputare it on the floor. Some very unpleasant fate awaited them: I think they were pickled in brine.”
“I’m sure they deserved whatever it was,” said Georgie.
“She,” said Lucia, mentioning no name, “She went to see Diva one morning and said that Grosvenor had no idea of valeting, because she had put out a sock for Benjy with a large hole in it. Diva said: ‘Why did you let it get like that?’”
“So that was that,” said Georgie.
“And Benjy told the Padre that Grosvenor was very sparing with the wine. Certainly I did tell her not to fill up his glass the moment it was empty, for I was not going to have another Wyse-evening every day of the week.”
“Quite right, and there was always plenty for anyone who didn’t want to get tipsy,” said Georgie. “And Benjy wasn’t very sparing with my whisky. Every evening practically he came across to chat with me about seven, and had three stiff goes.”
“I thought so,” cried Lucia triumphantly, bringing her hand sharply down on the table. Unfortunately she hit the pomander, and Grosvenor re-entered. Lucia apologized for her mistake.
“Georgie, I inferred there certainly must be something of the sort,” she resumed when the door was shut again. “Every evening round about seven Benjy used to say that he wouldn’t play another rubber because he wanted a brisk walk and a breath of fresh air before dinner. Clever of him, Georgie. Though I’m sorry for your whisky I always applaud neat execution, however alcoholic the motive. After he had left the room, he banged the front door loud enough for her to hear it, so that she knew he had gone out and wasn’t getting at the sherry in the dining-room. I think she suspected something, but she didn’t quite know what.”
“I never knew an occasion on which she didn’t suspect something,” said he.
Lucia crunched a piece of coffee sugar in a meditative manner.
“An interesting study,” she said. “You know how devoted I am to psychological research, and I learned a great deal this last fortnight. Major Benjy was not very clever when he wooed and won her, but I think marriage has sharpened his wits. Little bits of foxiness, little evasions, nothing, of course, of a very high order, but some inkling of ingenuity and contrivance. I can understand a man developing a certain acuteness if he knew Elizabeth was always just round the corner. The instinct of self-protection. There is a character in Theophrastus very like him: I must look it up. Dear me; for the last fortnight I’ve hardly opened a book.”
“I can imagine that,” said he. “Even I, who had only the Padre in the house couldn’t settle down to anything. He was always coming in and out, wanting some ink in his bedroom, or a piece of string, or change for a shilling.”
“Multiply it by three. And she treated me all the time as if I was a hotel-keeper and she wasn’t pleased with her room or her food, but made no formal complaint. Oh, Georgie, I must tell you, Elizabeth went up four pounds in weight the first week she was here. She shared my bathroom and always had her bath just before me in the evening, and there’s a weighing-machine there, you know. Of course, I was terribly interested, but one day I felt I simply must thwart her, and so I hid the weights behind the bath. It was the only inhospitable thing I did the whole time she
was here, but I couldn’t bear it. So I don’t know how much more she went up the second week.”
“I should have thought your co-option on to the Town Council would have made her thinner,” observed Georgie. “But thrilling! She must have weighed herself without clothes, if she was having her bath. How much did she weigh?”
“Eleven stone twelve was the last,” said Lucia. “But she has got big bones, Georgie. We must be fair.”
“Yes, but her bones must have finished growing,” said Georgie. “They wouldn’t have gone up four pounds in a week. Just fat.”
“I suppose it must have been. As for my co-option, it was frightful for her. Frightful. Let’s go into the garden-room. My dear, how delicious to know that Benjy won’t be there, smoking one of his rank cigars, or little Evie, running about like a mouse, so it always seemed to me, among the legs of chairs and tables.”
“Hurrah, for one of our quiet evenings again,” said he.
It was with a sense of restored well-being that they sank into their chairs, too content in this relief from strain to play duets. Georgie was sewing a border of lace on to some new doilies for finger-bowls, and Lucia found the “Characters of Theophrastus,” and read to him in the English version the sketch of Benjy’s prototype. As their content worked inside them both, like tranquil yeast, they both became aware that a moment of vital import to them, and hardly less so to Tilling, was ticking its way nearer. A couple of years ago only, each had shuddered at the notion that the other might be thinking of matrimony, but now the prospect of it had lost its horror. For Georgie had stayed with her when he was growing his shingles-beard, and she had stayed with him when she was settling into Mallards, and those days of domestic propinquity had somehow convinced them both that nothing was further from the inclination of either than any species of dalliance. With that nightmare apprehension removed they could recognise that for a considerable portion of the day they enjoyed each other’s society more than their own solitude: they were happier together than apart. Again, Lucia was beginning to feel that, in the career which was opening for her in Tilling, a husband would give her a certain stability: a Prince Consort, though emphatically not for dynastic purposes, would lend her weight and ballast. Georgie with kindred thoughts in his mind could see himself filling that eminent position with grace and effectiveness.