by E. F. Benson
“No; Irene wasn’t in a trance at all,” insisted Georgie. “Anything but. And as for your feeling that because Elizabeth is Mayoress you ought to resent it, that’s thoroughly inconsistent with your theory that Art’s got nothing to do with Life. But I’ll go down to the High Street soon, and see what the general feeling is. You’ll be late, dear, if you don’t go off to your meeting at once. In fact, you’re late already.”
Lucia mounted her bicycle in a great hurry and set off for the Town Hall. With every stroke of her pedals she felt growing pangs of jealousy of Elizabeth. Why, oh why, had not Irene painted her, the Mayor, the first woman who had ever been Mayor of Tilling, being wafted up the river, with Georgie blowing on her from the clouds?
Such a picture would have had a far greater historical interest, and she would not have resented the grossest caricature of herself if only she could have been the paramount figure in the Picture of the Year. The town in the background would be widely recognised as Tilling, and Lucia imagined the eager comments of the crowd swarming round the masterpiece . . . “Why that’s Tilling! We spent a week there this summer. Just like! . . .” “And who can that woman be? Clearly a portrait” . . . “Oh, that’s the Mayor, Lucia Pillson: she was pointed out to me. Lives in a lovely family house called Mallards” . . . “And the man in the clouds with the Vandyck beard and the red dinner-suit (what a colour!) must be her husband . . .”
“What fame!” thought Lucia with aching regret. “What illimitable, immortal réclame. What publicity to be stared at all day by excited crowds!” At this moment the Private View would be going on, and Duchesses and Archbishops and Cabinet Ministers would soon be jostling to get a view of her, instead of Elizabeth and Benjy! “I must instantly commission Irene to paint my portrait,” she said to herself as she dismounted at the steps of the Town Hall. “A picture that tells a story I think. A sort of biography. In my robes by the front door at Mallards with my hand on my bicycle. . . .”
She gave but scant attention to the proceedings at her Committee, and mounting again rang the bell all the way down the hill into the High Street on a secret errand to the haberdashery shop. By a curious coincidence she met Major Benjy on the threshold. He was carrying the reconstructed riding-whip and was in high elation.
“Good morning, your Worship,” he said. “Just come to have my riding-whip repaired. I gave my old man-eater such a swipe at my lecture two nights ago, that I cracked it, by Jove.”
“Oh Major, what a pity!” said Lucia. “But it was almost worth breaking it, wasn’t it? You produced such a dramatic sensation.”
“And there’s another sensation this morning,” chuckled Benjy. “Have you seen the notice of the Royal Academy in the Times?”
Lucia still considered that the proper public line to take was her sense of the insult to her Mayoress, though certainly Benjy seemed very cheerful.
“I have,” she said indignantly. “Oh, Major Benjy, it is monstrous! I was horrified: I should not have thought it of Irene. And the Daily Mirror, too—”
“No, really?” interrupted Benjy. “I must get it.”
“Such a wanton insult to dear Elizabeth,” continued Lucia, “and, of course, to you up in the clouds. Horrified! I shall write to Elizabeth as soon as I get home to convey my sympathy and indignation.”
“Don’t you bother!” cried Benjy. “Liz hasn’t been so bucked up with anything for years. After all, to be the principal feature in the Picture of the Year is a privilege that doesn’t fall to everybody. Such a leg up for our obscure little Tilling, too. We’re going up to town next week to see it. Why, here’s Liz herself.”
Elizabeth kissed her hand to Lucia from the other side of the street, and, waiting till Susan went ponderously by, tripped across, and kissed her (Lucia’s) face.
“What a red-letter day, dear!” she cried. “Quaint Irene suddenly becoming so world-wide, and your humble little Mayoress almost equally so. Benjy, it’s in the Daily Telegraph, too. You’d better get a copy of every morning paper. Pop in, and tell them to mend your riding-whip, while I send a telegram of congratulation to Irene. — I should think Burlington House, London, would find her now — and meet me at the paper-shop. And do persuade Irene, Worship, to let us have the picture for our exhibition here, when the Academy’s over, unless the Chantrey Bequest buys it straight away.”
Benjy went into the haberdasher’s to get the riding-whip repaired. This meeting with him just here made Lucia’s errand much simpler. She followed him into the shop and became completely absorbed in umbrellas till he went out again. Then, with an eye on the door, she spoke to the shopman in a confidential tone.
“I want you,” she said, “to make me an exact copy of Major Mapp-Flint’s pretty riding-whip. Silver top with the same initials on it. Quite private, you understand: it’s a little surprise for a friend. And send it, please, to me at Mallards House, as soon as it’s ready.”
Lucia mounted her bicycle and rode thoughtfully homewards. Since Elizabeth and Benjy both took this gross insult to her Mayoress as the highest possible compliment, and longed to have quaint Irene’s libel on them exhibited here, there was no need that she should make herself indignant or unhappy for their sakes. Indeed, she understood their elation, and her regret that Irene had not caricatured her instead of Elizabeth grew very bitter: she would have borne it with a magnanimity fully equal to their’s. It was a slight consolation to know that the replica of the riding-whip was in hand.
She went out into the garden-room where patient Mrs. Simpson was waiting for her. There were invitations to be sent out for an afternoon party next week to view the beauties of Lucia’s spring-garden, for which she wanted to rouse the envious admiration of her friends, and the list must be written out. Then there was a letter to Irene of warm congratulation to be typed. Then the Committee of the Museum, of which the Mayor was Chairman was to meet on Friday, and she gave Mrs. Simpson the key of the tin-box labelled “Museum”.
“Just look in it, Mrs. Simpson,” she said, “and see if there are any papers I ought to glance through. A mountain of work, I fear, to-day.”
Grosvenor appeared.
“Could you see Mrs. Wyse for a moment?” she asked.
Lucia knitted her brows, and consulted her engagement-book.
“Yes, just for ten minutes,” she said. “Ask her to come out here.”
Grosvenor went back into the house to fetch Susan, and simultaneously Mrs. Simpson gave a shriek of horror.
“The corpse of a blue parakeet,” she cried, “and an awful smell.”
Lucia sprang from her seat. She plucked Blue Birdie, exhaling disinfectant and decay, from the Museum box, and scudding across the room thrust it into the fire. She poked and battered it down among the glowing embers, and even as she wrought she cursed herself for not having told Mrs. Simpson to leave it where it was and lock the Museum box again, but it was too late for that. In that swift journey to cremation Blue Birdie had dropped a plume or two, and from the fire came a vivid smell of burned feathers. But she was just in time and had resumed her seat and taken up her pen as Susan came ponderously up the steps into the garden-room.
“Good morning, dear,” said Lucia. “At my eternal tasks as usual, but charmed to see you.”
She rose in welcome, and to her horror saw a long blue tail-feather (slightly tinged with red) on the carpet. She planted her foot upon it.
“Good morning,” said Susan. “What a horrid smell of burned feathers.”
Lucia sniffed, still standing firm.
“I do smell something,” she said. “Gas, surely. I thought I smelt it the other day. I must send for my town-surveyor. Do you not smell gas, Mrs. Simpson?”
Lucia focused on her secretary the full power of her gimlet-eye.
“Certainly, gas,” said that loyal woman, locking the Museum box.
“Most disagreeable,” said Lucia, advancing on Susan. “Let us go into the garden and have our little talk there. I know what you’ve come about: Irene’s picture. The Pic
ture of the Year, they say. Elizabeth is famous at last, and is skipping for joy. I am so pleased for her sake.”
“I should certainly have said burned feathers,” repeated Susan.
Dire speculations flitted through Lucia’s mind: would Susan’s vague but retentive brain begin to grope after a connection between burned feathers and her vanished bird? A concentration of force and volubility was required, and taking another step forward on to another blue feather, she broke into a gabble of topics as she launched Susan, like a huge liner, down the slip of the garden-room stairs.
“No, Susan, gas,” she said. “And have you seen the reproduction of Irene’s picture in the Times? Mrs. Simpson, would you kindly bring the Times into the garden. You must stroll across the lawn and have a peep at my daffodils in my giardino segreto. Never have I had such a show. Those lovely lines ‘dancing with the daffodils’. How true! I saw you in the High Street this morning, dear, on your tricycle. And such wallflowers; they will be in fullest bloom for my party next week, to which you and Mr. Wyse must come. And Benjy in the clouds; so like, but Georgie says it isn’t a bottle, but his umbrella. Tell me exactly what you think of it all. So important that I should know what Tilling feels.”
Unable to withstand such a cataract of subjects, Susan could hardly say ‘burned feathers’ again. She showed a tendency to drift towards the garden-room on their return, but Lucia, like a powerful tug, edged her away from that dangerous shoal and towed her out to the front door of Mallards, where she cast her adrift to propel her tricycle under her own steam. Then returning to the garden-room, she found that the admirable Mrs. Simpson had picked up a few more feathers, which she had laid on Lucia’s blotting-pad.
Lucia threw them into the fire and swept up some half-burned fragments from the hearth.
“The smell of gas seems quite gone, Mrs. Simpson,” she said. “No need, I think, to send for my town-surveyor. It is such a pleasure to work with anyone who understands me as well as you . . . Yes, the list for my garden-party.”
The replica of the riding-whip was delivered, and looked identical. Lucia’s disposition of it was singular. After she had retired for the night, she tied it safely up among the foliage of the Clematis Montana which grew thickly up to the sill of her bedroom window. The silver top soon grew tarnished in this exposure, spiders spun threads about it, moisture dulled its varnished shaft, and it became a weathered object. “About ripe,” said Lucia to herself one morning, and rang up Elizabeth and Benjy, inviting them to tea at ye olde tea-house next day, with Bridge to follow. They had just returned from their visit to London to see the Picture of the Year, and accepted with pleasure.
Before starting for Diva’s, Lucia took her umbrella up to her bedroom, and subsequently carried it to the tea-room, arriving there ten minutes before the others. Diva was busy in the kitchen, and she looked into the card-room. Yes: there was the heavy cupboard with claw feet standing in the corner; perfect. Her manœuvres then comprised opening her umbrella and furling it again; and hearing Diva’s firm foot on the kitchen stairs she came softly back into the tea-room.
“Diva, what a delicious smell!” she said. “Oh, I want eighteen-penny teas. I came a few minutes early to tell you.”
“Reckoned on that,” said Diva. “The smell is waffles. I’ve been practising. Going to make waffles at my lecture, as an illustration, if I can do them over a spirit-lamp. Hand them round to the front row. Good advertisement. Here are the others.”
The waffles were a greater success than Diva had anticipated, and the compliments hardly made up for the consumption. Then they adjourned to the card-room, and Lucia, leaning her umbrella against the wall let it slip behind the big cupboard.
“So clumsy!” she said, “but never mind it now. We shall have to move the cupboard afterwards. Cut? You and I, Georgie. Families. Happy families.”
It was chatty Bridge at first, rich in agreeable conversation.
“We only got back from London yesterday,” said Elizabeth, dealing. “Such a rush, but we went to the Academy three times; one no trump.”
“Two spades,” said Georgie. “What did you think of the Picture?”
“Such a crowd round it! We had to scriggle in.”
“And I’m blest if I don’t believe that they recognised Liz,” put in Major Benjy. “A couple of women looked at her and then at the picture and back again, and whispered together, by Jove.”
“I’m sure they recognised me at our second visit,” said Elizabeth. “The crowd was thicker than ever, and we got quite wedged in. Such glances and whisperings all round. Most entertaining, wasn’t it, Benjy?”
Lucia tried to cork up her bitterness, but failed.
“I am glad you enjoyed it so much, dear,” she said. “How I envy you your superb self-confidence. I should find such publicity quite insupportable. I should have scriggled out again at whatever cost.”
“Dear Worship, I don’t think you would if you ever found yourself in such a position,” said Elizabeth. “You would face it. So brave!”
“If we’re playing Bridge, two spades was what I said. Ever so long ago,” announced Georgie.
“Oh, Mr. Georgie; apologies,” said Elizabeth. “I’m such a chatterbox. What do you bid, Benjy? Don’t be so slow.”
“Two no trumps,” said Benjy. “We made our third visit during lunch-time, when there were fewer people—”
“Three spades,” said Lucia. “All I meant, dear Elizabeth, was that it is sufficient for me to tackle my little bit of public service, quietly and humbly and obscurely—”
“So like you, dear,” retorted Elizabeth, “and I double three spades. That’ll be a nice little bit for you to tackle quietly.”
Lucia made no reply, but the pleasant atmosphere was now charged with perilous stuff, for on the one side the Mayor was writhing with envy at the recognition of Elizabeth from the crowds round the Picture of the Year, while the Mayoress was writhing with exasperation at Lucia’s pitiful assertion that she shunned publicity.
Lucia won the doubled contract and the game.
“So there’s my little bit, Georgie,” she said, “and you played it very carefully, though of course it was a sitter. I ought to have redoubled: forgive me.”
“Benjy, your finesse was idiotic,” said Elizabeth, palpably wincing. “If you had played your ace, they’d have been two down. Probably more.’’
“And what about your doubling?” asked Benjy. “And what about your original no-trump?”
“Thoroughly justified, both of them,” said Elizabeth, “if you hadn’t finessed. Cut to me, please, Worship.”
“But you’ve just dealt, dear,” cooed Lucia.
“Haw, Haw. Well tried, Liz,” said Benjy.
Elizabeth looked so deadly at Benjy’s gentle fun that at the end of the hand Lucia loaded her with compliments.
“Beautifully played, dear!” she said. “Did you notice, Georgie, how Elizabeth kept putting the lead with you? Masterly!”
Elizabeth was not to be appeased with that sort of blarney.
“Thank you, dear,” she said. “I’m sorry, Benjy: I ought to have put the lead with Worship, and taken another trick.”
Diva came in as they were finishing the last rubber.
“Quite a lot of teas,” she said. “But they all come in so late now. Hungrier, I suppose. Saves them supper. No more waffles for shilling teas. Not if I know it. Too popular.”
Lucia had won from the whole table, and with an indifferent air she swept silver and copper into her bag without troubling to count it.
“I must be off,” she said. “I have pages of Borough expenditure to look through. Oh, my umbrella! I nearly forgot it.”
‘‘Dear Worship,’’ asked Elizabeth. “Do tell me what that means! Either you forget a thing, or you don’t.”
“I let it slip behind your big cupboard, Diva,” said Lucia, not taking the slightest notice of her Mayoress. “Catch hold of that end, Georgie, and we’ll run it out from the wall.”
“
Permit me,” said Benjy, taking Lucia’s end. “Now then, with a heave-ho, as they say in the sister service. One, two, three.”
He gave a tremendous tug. The cupboard, not so heavy as it looked, glided away from the wall with an interior rattle of crockery.
“Oh, my things!” cried Diva. “Do be careful.”
“Here’s your umbrella,” said Georgie. “Covered with dust . . . Why, what’s this? Major Benjy’s riding whip, isn’t it? Lost here ages ago. Well, that is queer!”
Diva simply snatched it from Georgie.
“But it is!” she cried. “Initials, everything. Must have lain here all this time. But at your lecture the other day Major—”
Lucia instantly interrupted her.
“What a fortunate discovery!” she said. “How glad you will be, Major, to get your precious relic back. Why it’s half-past seven! Good night everybody.”
She and Georgie let themselves out into the street.
“But you must tell me,” said he, as they walked briskly up the hill. “I shall die if you don’t tell me. How did you do it?”
“I? What do you mean?” asked the aggravating woman.
“You’re too tarsome,” said Georgie crossly. “And it isn’t fair. Diva told you how she buried the silver cap, and I told you how I dug it up, and you tell us nothing. Very miserly!”
Lucia was startled at the ill-humour in his voice.
“My dear, I was only teasing you—” she began.
“Well it doesn’t amuse me to be teased,” he snapped at her. “You’re like Elizabeth sometimes.”
“Georgie, what a monstrous thing to say to me! Of course, I’ll tell you, and Diva, too. Ring her up and ask her to pop in after dinner.”
She paused with her hand on the door of Mallards. “But never hint to the poor Mapp-Flints,” she said, “as Diva did just now, that the riding-whip Benjy used at his lecture couldn’t have been the real one. They knew that quite well, and they knew we know it. Much more excruciating for them not to rub it in.”