Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “But I’m not the Mayor of Tilling,” cried Georgie. “Lucia’s the Mayor of Tilling, and she hasn’t got a beard—”

  “Georgie, don’t be pedantic,” said Olga. “Evidently she means you—”

  “La Barba e mobile,” chanted Cortese. “Una barba per due. Scusi. Should say ‘A beard for two,’ my Dorothea.”

  “It isn’t mobile,’’ said Georgie, thinking about his toupée.

  “Of course it isn’t,” said Olga. “It’s a fine, natural beard. Well, what about Poppy? Let’s all go to-morrow afternoon.”

  “No: I must get back to Tilling,” said Georgie. “Lucia expects me—”

  “Aha, you are a henpeck,” cried Cortese. “And I am also a henpeck. Is it not so, my Dorothea?”

  “You’re coming with us, Georgie,” said Olga. “Ring up Lucia in the morning and tell her so. Just like that. And tell Poppy that we’ll all four come, Dorothy. So that’s settled.”

  Lucia, for all her chagrin, was thrilled at the news, when Georgie rang her up next morning. He laid special stress on the Mayor of Tilling having been asked, for he felt sure she would enjoy that. Though it was agonizing to think what she had missed by her precipitate departure yesterday, Lucia cordially gave him leave to go to Sheffield Castle, for it was something that Georgie should stay there, though not she, and she sent her love and regrets to Poppy. Then after presiding at the Borough Bench (which lasted exactly twenty seconds, as there were no cases) instead of conferring with her Town Clerk, she hurried down to the High Street to release the news like a new film.

  “Back again, dear Worship,” cried Elizabeth, darting across the street. “Pleasant visit?”

  “Delicious,” said Lucia in the drawling voice. “Dear Riseholme! How pleased they all were to see me. No party at Olga’s; just Cortese and his wife, très intime, but such music. I got back last night to be ready for my duties to-day.”

  “And not Mr. Georgie?” asked Elizabeth.

  “No. I insisted that he should stop. Indeed, I don’t expect him till to-morrow, for he has just telephoned that Duchess Poppy — a cousin of Madame Cortese — asked the whole lot of us to go over to Sheffield to-day to dine and sleep. Such short notice, and impossible for me, of course, with my Council meeting this afternoon. The dear thing cannot realise that one has duties which must not be thrown over.”

  “What a pity. So disappointing for you, dear,” said Elizabeth, writhing under a sudden spasm of colic of the mind. “But Sheffield’s a long way to go for one night. Does she live in the town?”

  Lucia emitted the musical trill of merriment.

  “No, it’s Sheffield Castle,” she said. “Not a long drive from Riseholme, in one of Olga’s Daimlers. A Norman tower. A moat. It was in Country Life not long ago. . . . Good morning, Padre.”

  “An’ where’s your guid man?” asked the Padre.

  Lucia considered whether she should repeat the great news. But it was more exalted not to, especially since the dissemination of it, now that Elizabeth knew, was as certain as if she had it proclaimed by the Town Crier.

  “He joins me to-morrow,” she said. “Any news here?”

  “Such a lovely sermon from Reverence yesterday,” said Elizabeth, for the relief of her colic. “All about riches and position in the world being only dross. I wish you could have heard it, Worship.”

  Lucia could afford to smile at this pitiable thrust, and proceeded with her shopping, not ordering any special delicacies for herself because Georgie would be dining with a Duchess. She felt that fate had not been very kind to her personally, though most thoughtful for Georgie. It was cruel that she had not known the nationality of Cortese’s wife, and her rooted objection to his talking Italian, before she had become adamant about returning to Tilling, and this was doubly bitter, because in that case she would have still been on the spot when Poppy’s invitation arrived, and it might have been possible (indeed, she would have made it possible) for the Deputy Mayor to take her place at the Council meeting to-day, at which her presence had been so imperative when she was retreating before the Italians.

  She began to wonder whether she could not manage to join the Ducal party after all. There was actually very little business at the Council meeting; it would be over by half-past four, and if she started then she would be in time for dinner at Sheffield Castle. Or perhaps it would be safer to telephone to the Deputy Mayor, asking him to take her place, as she had been called away unexpectedly. The Deputy Mayor very willingly consented. He hoped it was not bad news and was reassured. All that there remained was to ring up Sheffield Castle, and say that the Mayor of Tilling was delighted to accept Her Grace’s invitation to dine and sleep, conveyed to her Worship by Mr. Pillson. The answer was returned that the Mayor of Tilling was expected. “And just for a joke,” thought Lucia, “I won’t tell them at Riseholme that I’m coming. Such a lovely surprise for them, if I get there first. I can start soon after lunch, and take it quietly.”

  She recollected, with a trivial pang of uneasiness, that she had told Elizabeth that her duties at Tilling would have prevented her in any case from going to Sheffield Castle, but that did not last long. She would live it down or deny having said it, and she went into the garden-room to release Mrs. Simpson, and, at the same time, to provide for the propagation of the tidings that she was going to her Duchess.

  “I shall not attend the Council meeting this afternoon, Mrs. Simpson,” she said, “as there’s nothing of the slightest importance. It will be a mere formality, so I am playing truant. I shall be leaving Tilling after lunch, to dine and sleep at the Duchess of Sheffield’s, at Sheffield Castle. A moat and I think a drawbridge. Ring me up there if anything occurs that I must deal with personally, and I will give it my attention. There seems nothing that need detain you any more to-day. One of our rare holidays.”

  On her way home Mrs. Simpson met Diva’s Janet, and told her the sumptuous news. Janet scuttled home and plunged down into the kitchen to tell her mistress who was making buns. She had already heard about Georgie from Elizabeth.

  “Don’t believe a word of it,” said Diva. “You’ve mixed it up, Janet. It’s Mr. Georgie, if anybody, who’s going to Sheffield Castle.”

  “Beg your pardon, ma’am,” said Janet hotly, “but I’ve mixed nothing up. Mrs. Simpson told me direct that the Mayor was going, and talking of mixing you’d better mix twice that lot of currants, if it’s going to be buns.”

  The telephone bell rang in the tea-room above, and Diva flew up the kitchen-stairs, scattering flour.

  “Diva, is that Diva?” said Lucia’s voice. “My memory is shocking; did I say I would pop in for tea to-day?”

  “No. Why?” said Diva.

  “That is all right then,” said Lucia. “I feared that I might have to put it off. I’m joining Georgie on a one night’s visit to a friend. I couldn’t get out of it. Back to-morrow.”

  Diva replaced the receiver.

  “Janet, you’re quite right,” she called down the kitchen stairs. “Just finish the buns. Must go out and tell people.”

  Lucia’s motor came round after lunch. Foljambe (it was Foljambe’s turn, and Georgie felt more comfortable with her) was waiting in the hall with the jewel-case and a camera, and Lucia was getting the “Slum Clearance” tin box from the garden-room to take with her, when the telephone-bell rang. She had a faint presage of coming disaster as she said, “Who is it?” in as steady a voice as she could command.

  “Sheffield Castle speaking. Is that the Mayor of Tilling.”

  “Yes.”

  “Her Grace’s maid speaking, your Worship. Her Grace partook of her usual luncheon to-day—”

  “Dressed crab?” asked Lucia in parenthesis.

  “Yes, your Worship, and was taken with internal pains.”

  “I am terribly sorry,” said Lucia. “Was it tinned?”

  “Fresh, I understand, and the party is put off.”

  Lucia gave a hollow moan into the receiver, and Her Grace’s maid offered consolatio
n.

  “No anxiety at all, your Worship,” she said, “but she thought she wouldn’t feel up to a party.”

  The disaster evoked in Lucia the exercise of her utmost brilliance. There was such a fearful lot at stake over this petty indigestion.

  “I don’t mind an atom about the dislocation of my plans,” she said, “but I am a little anxious about her dear Grace. I quite understand about the party being put off; so wise to spare her fatigue. It would be such a relief if I might come just to reassure myself. I was on the point of starting, my maid, my luggage all ready. I would not be any trouble. My maid would bring me a tray instead of dinner. Is it possible?”

  “I’ll see,” said her Grace’s maid, touched by this devotion. “Hold on.”

  She held on; she held on, it seemed, as for life itself, till, after an interminable interval the reply came.

  “Her Grace would be very happy to see the Mayor of Tilling, but she’s putting off the rest of the party,” said the angelic voice.

  “Thank you, thank you,” called Lucia. “So good of her. I will start at once.”

  She picked up Slum Clearance and went into the house only to be met by a fresh ringing of the telephone in the hall. A panic seized her lest Poppy should have changed her mind.

  “Let it ring, Grosvenor,” she said. “Don’t answer it at all. Get in, Foljambe. Be quick.”

  She leaped into the car.

  “Drive on, Chapman,” she called.

  The car rocked its way down to the High Street, and Lucia let down the window and looked out, in case there were any friends about. There was Diva at the corner, and she stopped the car.

  “Just off, Diva,” she said. “Duchess Poppy not very well, so I’ve just heard.”

  “No! Crab?” asked Diva.

  “Apparently, but not tinned, and there is no need for me to feel anxious. She insisted on my coming just the same. Such a lovely drive in front of me. Taking some work with me.”

  Lucia pulled up the window again and pinched her finger but she hardly regarded that for there was so much to think about. Olga at Riseholme, for instance, must have been informed by now that the party was off, and yet Georgie had not rung up to say that he would be returning to Tilling to-day. A disagreeable notion flitted through her mind that, having got leave to go to Sheffield Castle, he now meant to stay another night with Olga, without telling her, and it was with a certain relief that she remembered the disregarded telephone call which had hurried her departure. Very likely that was Georgie ringing up to tell her that he was coming back to Tilling to-day. It would be a sad surprise for him not to find her there.

  Her route lay through Riseholme, and passing along the edge of the village green, she kept a sharp look-out for familiar figures. She saw Piggie and Goosie with Mrs. Antrobus: they were all three gesticulating with their hands in a manner that seemed very odd until she remembered that they must be speaking in deaf and dumb alphabet: she saw a very slim elegant young woman whom she conjectured to be Daisy Quantock’s atheistic French maid, but there was no sign of Georgie or Olga. She debated a moment as to whether she should call at Olga’s to find out for certain that he had gone, but dismissed the idea as implying a groundless suspicion. Beyond doubt the telephone call which she had so narrowly evaded was to say that he had done so, and she steadily backed away from the familiar scene in order to avoid seeing him if he was still here . . . Then came less familiar country, a belt of woods, a stretch of heathery upland glowing in the afternoon sun, positively demanding to be sketched in water-colours, and presently a turning with a sign-post “To Sheffield Bottom’’. Trees again, a small village of grey stone houses, and facing her a great castellated wall with a tower above a gateway and a bridge over a moat leading to it. Lucia stopped the car and got out, camera in hand.

  “What a noble façade,” she said to herself. “I wonder if my room will be in that tower.”

  She took a couple of photographs, and getting back into the car, she passed over the bridge and through the gateway.

  Inside lay a paved courtyard in a state of indescribable neglect. Weeds sprouted between the stones, a jungle of neglected flower-beds lay below the windows, here and there were moss-covered stone seats. On one of these close beside the huge discoloured door of blistered paint sat Poppy with her mouth open, fast asleep. As Lucia stepped out, she awoke, and looked at her with a dazed expression of strong disfavour.

  “Who are you?” asked Poppy.

  “Dear Duchess, so good of you to let me come,” said Lucia, thinking that she was only half-awake. “Lucia Pillson, the Mayor of Tilling.”

  “That you aren’t,” said Poppy. “It’s a man, and he’s got a beard.”

  Lucia laughed brightly.

  “Ah, you’re thinking of my husband,” she said. “Such a vivid description of him. It fits him exactly. But I’m the Mayor. We met at dear Olga’s opera-box, and at the Ritz next day.”

  Poppy gave a great yawn, and sat silent, assimilating this information.

  “I’m afraid there’s been a complete muddle,” she said. “I thought it was he who was coming. You see I was much flattered at his eagerness to spend a quiet evening with me and my stomach-ache, and so I said yes. No designs on him of any kind I assure you. All clean as a whistle: he’d have been as safe with me as with his grandmother, if she’s still alive. My husband’s away, and I just wanted a pleasant companion. And to think that it was you all the while. That never entered my head. Fancy!”

  It did not require a mind of Lucia’s penetrative power to perceive that Poppy did not want her, and did not intend that she should stop. Her next remarks removed any possibility of doubt.

  “But you’ll have some tea first, won’t you?” she asked. “Indeed I insist on your having some tea unless you prefer coffee. If you ring the door-bell, somebody will probably come. Oh, I see you’ve got a camera. Do take some photographs. Would you like to begin with me, though I’m not looking my best.”

  In spite of the nightmarish quality of the situation, Lucia kept her head, and it was something to be given tea and to take photographs. Perhaps there was a scoop here, if she handled it properly, and first she photographed Poppy and the dismal courtyard, and then went to Poppy’s bedroom to tidy herself for tea and snapped her washing-stand and the corner of her Elizabethan bed. After tea Poppy took her to the dining-room and the gaunt picture gallery and through a series of decayed drawing-rooms, and all the time Lucia babbled rapturous comments.

  “Magnificent tapestry,” she said, “ah, and a glimpse of the Park from the window. Would you stand there, Duchess, looking out with your dog on the window-seat? What a little love! Perfect. And this noble hall: the panelling by that lovely oriel window would make a lovely picture. And that refectory table.”

  But now Poppy had had enough, and she walked firmly to the front-door and shook hands.

  “Charmed to have seen you,” she said, “though I’ve no head for names. You will have a pleasant drive home on this lovely evening. Goodbye, or perhaps au revoir.”

  “That would be much nicer,” said Lucia, cordial to the last.

  She drove out of the gateway she had entered three quarters of an hour before, and stopped the car to think out her plans. Her first idea was to spend the night at the Ambermere Arms at Riseholme, and return to Tilling next morning laden with undeveloped photographs of Sheffield Castle and Poppy, having presumably spent the night there. But that was risky: it could hardly help leaking out through Foljambe that she had done nothing of the sort, and the exposure, coupled with the loss of prestige, would be infinitely painful. “I must think of something better that that,” she said to herself, and suddenly a great illumination shone on her. “I shall tell the truth,” she heroically determined, “in all essentials. I shall say that Poppy’s maid told me that I, the Mayor of Tilling was expected. That, though the party was abandoned, she still wanted me to come. That I found her asleep in a weedy courtyard, looking ghastly. That she evidently didn’t feel up to entertai
ning me, but insisted that I should have tea. That I took photographs all over the place. All gospel truth, and no necessity for saying anything about that incredible mistake of hers in thinking that Georgie was the Mayor of Tilling.”

  She tapped on the window.

  “We’ll just have dinner at the Ambermere Arms, at Riseholme, Chapman,” she called, “and then go back to Tilling.”

  It was about half-past ten when Lucia’s car drew up at the door of Mallards. She could scarcely believe that it was still the same day as that on which she had awoke here, regretful that she had fled from Riseholme on a false alarm, had swanked about Georgie staying at Sheffield Castle, had shirked the Council meeting to which duty had called her, had wangled an invitation to the Castle herself, had stayed there for quite three quarters of an hour, and had dined at Riseholme. “Quite like that huge horrid book by Mr. James Joyce, which all happens in one day,” she reflected, as she stepped out of the car.

  Looking up, she saw that the garden-room was lit, and simultaneously she heard the piano: Georgie therefore must have come home. Surely (this time) she recognised the tune: it was the prayer in Lucrezia. He was playing that stormy introduction with absolute mastery, and he must be playing it by heart, for he could not have the score, nor, if he had, could he have read it. And then that unmistakeable soprano voice (though a little forced in the top register) began to sing. The wireless? Was Olga singing Lucrezia in London to-night? Impossible; for only a few hours ago during this interminable day, she was engaged to dine and sleep at Poppy’s Castle. Besides, if this was relayed from Covent Garden, the orchestra, not the piano, would be accompanying her. Olga must be singing in the garden-room, and Georgie must be here, and nobody else could be here . . . There seemed to be material for another huge horrid book by Mr. James Joyce before the day was done.