Title: Trouble for Lucia (1939)
Author: E. F. Benson
eBook No.: 0501151.txt
Edition: 1
Language: English
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Date first posted: December 2005
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Title: Trouble for Lucia (1939)
Author: E. F. Benson
CHAPTER I
Lucia Pillson, the Mayor-Elect of Tilling and her husband Georgie
were talking together one October afternoon in the garden-room at
Mallards. The debate demanded the exercise of their keenest
faculties. Viz:
Should Lucia, when next month she entered on the supreme Municipal
Office, continue to go down to the High Street every morning after
breakfast with her market-basket, and make her personal purchases
at the shops of the baker, the grocer, the butcher and wherever
else the needs of the day's catering directed? There were pros and
cons to be considered, and Lucia had been putting the case for both
sides with the tedious lucidity of opposing counsel addressing the
Court. It might be confidently expected that, when she had
finished exploring the entire territory, she would be fully
competent to express the verdict of the jury and the sentence of
the judge. In anticipation of the numerous speeches she would soon
be called upon to make as Mayor, she was cultivating, whenever she
remembered to do so, a finished oratorical style, and a pedantic
Oxford voice.
"I must be very careful, Georgie," she said. "Thoroughly
democratic as you know I am in the truest sense of the word, I
shall be entrusted, on the ninth of November next, with the duty of
upholding the dignity and tradition of my high office. I'm not
sure that I ought to go popping in and out of shops, as I have
hitherto done, carrying my market-basket and bustling about just
like anybody else. Let me put a somewhat similar case to you.
Supposing you saw a newly-appointed Lord Chancellor trotting round
the streets of Westminster in shorts, for the sake of exercise.
What would you feel about it? What would your reactions be?"
"I hope you're not thinking of putting on shorts, are you?" asked
Georgie, hoping to introduce a lighter tone.
"Certainly not," said Lucia. "A parallel case only. And then
there's this. It would be intolerable to my democratic principles
that, if I went into the grocer's to make some small purchase,
other customers already there should stand aside in order that I
might be served first. That would never do. Never!"
Georgie surveyed with an absent air the pretty piece of needlework
on which he was engaged. He was embroidering the Borough arms of
Tilling in coloured silks on the back of the white kid gloves which
Lucia would wear at the inaugural ceremony, and he was not quite
sure that he had placed the device exactly in the middle.
"How tar'some," he said. "Well, it will have to do. I daresay it
will stretch right. About the Lord Chancellor in shorts. I don't
think I should mind. It would depend a little on what sort of
knees he had. As for other customers standing aside because you
were the Mayor, I don't think you need be afraid of that for a
moment. Most unlikely."
Lucia became violently interested in her gloves.
"My dear, they look too smart for anything," she said. "Beautiful
work, Georgie. Lovely. They remind me of the jewelled gloves you
see in primitive Italian pictures on the hands of kneeling Popes
and adoring Bishops."
"Do you think the arms are quite in the middle?" he asked.
"It looks perfect. Shall I try it on?"
Lucia displayed the back of her gloved hand, leaning her forehead
elegantly against the finger-tips.
"Yes, that seems all right," said Georgie. "Give it me back. It's
not quite finished. About the other thing. It would be rather
marked if you suddenly stopped doing your marketing yourself, as
you've done it every day for the last two years or so. Except
Sundays. Some people might say that you were swanky because you
were Mayor. Elizabeth would."
"Possibly. But I should be puzzled, dear, to name off-hand
anything that mattered less to me than what Elizabeth Mapp-Flint
said, poor woman. Give me your opinion, not hers."
"You might drop the marketing by degrees, if you felt it was
undignified," said Georgie yawning. "Shop every day this week, and
only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday next week--"
"No, dear," interrupted Lucia. "That would be hedging, and I never
hedge. One thing or the other."
"A hedge may save you from falling into a ditch," said Georgie
brilliantly.
"Georgino, how epigrammatic! What does it mean exactly? What
ditch?"
"Any ditch," said Georgie. "Just making a mistake and not being
judicious. Tilling is a mass of pitfalls."
"I don't mind about pitfalls so long as my conscience assures me
that I am guided by right principles. I must set an example in my
private as well as my public life. If I decide to go on with my
daily marketing I shall certainly make a point of buying very
cheap, simple provisions. Cabbages and turnips, for instance, not
asparagus."
"We've got plenty of that in the garden when it comes in," said
Georgie.
"--plaice, not soles. Apples," went on Lucia, as if he hadn't
spoken. "Plain living in private--everybody will hear me buying
cheap vegetables--Splendour, those lovely gloves, in public. And
high thinking in both."
"That would sound well in your inaugural speech," said Georgie.
"I hope it will. What I want to do in our dear Tilling is to
elevate the tone, to make it a real centre of intellectual and
artistic activity. That must go on simultaneously with social
reforms and the well-being of the poorer classes. All the slums
must be cleared away. There must be an end to overcrowding.
Pasteurisation of milk, Georgie; a strict censorship of the films;
benches in sunny corners. Of course, it will cost money. I should
like to see the rates go up by leaps and bounds."
"That won't make you very popular," said Georgie.
"I should welcome any unpopularity that such reforms might earn for
me. The decorative side of life, too. Flower boxes in the windows
of the humblest dwellings. Cheap concerts of first-rate music.
The revival of ancient customs, like beating the bounds. I must
find out just what that is."
"The town-council went in procession round the boundaries of the
parish," said Georgie, "and the Mayor was bumped on the boundary
stones. Hadn't we better stick to the question of whether you go
marketing or not?"
Lucia did not like the idea of being bumped on boundary stones . . .
"Quite right, dear. I lose myself in my dreams. We were talking
about the example we must set in plain living. I wish it to be
known that I do my catering with economy. To be heard ordering
neck of mutton at the butcher's."
"I won't eat neck of mutton in order to be an example to anybody,"
said Georgie. "And, personally, whatever you settle to do, I won't
give up the morning shopping. Besides, one learns all the news
then. Why, it would be worse than not having the wireless! I
should be lost without it. So would you."
Lucia tried to picture herself bereft of that eager daily
interchange of gossip, when her Tilling circle of friends bustled
up and down the High Street carrying their market-baskets and
bumping into each other in the narrow doorways of shops. Rain or
fine, with umbrellas and goloshes or with sunshades and the
thinnest blouses, it was the bracing hour that whetted the appetite
for the complications of life. The idea of missing it was
unthinkable, and without the slightest difficulty she ascribed
exalted motives and a high sense of duty to its continuance.
"You are right, dear," she said. "Thank you for your guidance!
More than ever now in my new position, it will be incumbent on me
to know what Tilling is thinking and feeling. My finger must be on
its pulse. That book I was reading the other day, which impressed
me so enormously--what on earth was it? A biography."
"Catherine the Great?" asked Georgie. Lucia had dipped into it
lately, but the suggestion was intended to be humorous.
"Yes: I shall forget my own name next. She always had her finger
on the pulse of her people: that I maintain was the real source of
her greatness. She used to disguise herself, you remember, as a
peasant woman--moujik, isn't it?--and let herself out of the back-
door of the Winter Palace, and sat in the bars and cafés or
wherever they drink vodka and tea--samovars--and hear what the
common people were saying, astonishing her Ministers with her
knowledge."
Georgie felt fearfully bored with her and this preposterous
rubbish. Lucia did not care two straws what "the common people"
were saying. She, in this hour of shopping in the High Street,
wanted to know what fresh mischief Elizabeth Mapp-Flint was
hatching, and what Major Benjy Mapp-Flint was at, and whether Diva
Plaistow's Irish terrier had got mange, and if Irene Coles had
obtained the sanction of the Town Surveying Department to paint a
fresco on the front of her house of a nude Venus rising from the
sea, and if Susan Wyse had really sat down on her budgerigar,
squashing it quite flat. Instead of which she gassed about the
duty of the Mayor Elect of Tilling to have her finger on the pulse
of the place, like Catherine the Great. Such nonsense was best met
with a touch of sarcasm.
"That will be a new experience, dear," he said. "Fancy your
disguising yourself as a gypsy-woman and stealing out through the
back-door, and sitting in the bars of public-houses. I do call
that thorough."
"Ah, you take me too literally, Georgie," she said. "Only a loose
analogy. In some respects I should be sorry to behave like that
marvellous woman. But what a splendid notion to listen to all that
the moujiks said when their tongues were unloosed with vodka. In
vino veritas."
"Not always," said Georgie. "For instance, Major Benjy was sitting
boozing in the club this afternoon. The wind was too high for him
to go out and play golf, so he spent his time in port . . .
Putting out in a gale, you see, or stopping in port. Quite a lot
of port."
Georgie waited for his wife to applaud this pretty play upon words,
but she was thinking about herself and Catherine the Great.
"Well, wine wasn't making him truthful, but just the opposite," he
went on. "Telling the most awful whoppers about the tigers he'd
shot and his huge success with women when he was younger."
"Poor Elizabeth," said Lucia in an unsympathetic voice.
"He grew quite dreadful," said Georgie, "talking about his bachelor
days of freedom. And he had the insolence to dig me in the ribs
and whisper 'We know all about that, old boy, don't we? Ha ha.
What?'"
"Georgie, how impertinent," cried Lucia. "Why, it's comparing
Elizabeth with me!"
"And me with him," suggested Georgie.
"Altogether most unpleasant. Any more news?"
"Yes; I saw Diva for a moment. Paddy's not got mange. Only a
little eczema. And she's quite determined to start her tea-shop.
She asked me if I thought you would perform the opening ceremony
and drink the first cup of tea. I said I thought you certainly
would. Such éclat for her if you went in your robes! I don't
suppose there would be a muffin left in the place."
Lucia's brow clouded, but it made her happy to be on Mayoral
subjects again.
"Georgie, I wish you hadn't encouraged her to hope that I would,"
she said. "I should be delighted to give Diva such a magnificent
send-off as that, but I must be very careful. Supposing next day
somebody opens a new boot-shop I shall have made a precedent and
shall have to wear the first pair of shoes. Or a hat-shop. If I
open one, I must open all, for I will not show any sort of
favouritism. I will gladly, ever so gladly, go and drink the first
cup of tea at Diva's, as Mrs. Pillson, but not officially. I must
be officially incognita."
"She'll be disappointed," said Georgie.
"Poor Diva, I fear so. As for robes, quite impossible. The Mayor
never appears in robes except when attended by the whole
Corporation. I can hardly request my Aldermen and Councillors to
have tea with Diva in state. Of course it's most enterprising of
her, but I can't believe her little tea-room will resemble the
goldmine she anticipates."
"I don't think she's doing it just to make money," said Georgie,
"though, of course she wouldn't mind that."
"What then? Think of the expense of cups and saucers and tables
and tea-spoons. The trouble, too. She told me she meant to serve
the teas herself."
"It's just that she'll enjoy so much," said Georgie, "popping in
and out and talking to her customers. She's got a raving passion
for talking to anybody, and she finds it such silent work living
alone. She'll have constant conversation if her tea-room catches
on."
"Well, you may be right," said Lucia. "Oh, and there's another
thing. My Mayoral banquet. I lay awake half last night--perhaps
not quite so much--thinking about it, and I don't see how you can
come to it."
"That's sickening," said Georgie. "Why not?"
"It's very difficult. If I ask you, it will certainly set a
precedent--"
"You think too much about precedents," interrupted Georgie.
"Nobody will care."
"But listen. The banquet is entirely official. I shall ask the
Mayors of neighbouring boroughs, the Bishop, the Lord Lieutenant,
the Vicar, who is my Chaplain, my Aldermen and Councillors, and
Justices of the Peace. You, dear, have no official position. We
are, so to speak, like Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort."
"You said that before," said Georgie, "and I looked it up. When
she opened Parliament he drove with her to Westminster and sat
beside her on a throne. A throne--"
"I wonder if that is so. Some of those lives of the Queen are very
inaccurate. At that rate, the wife of the Lord Chancellor ought to
sit on a corner of the Woolsack. Besides, where are you to be
placed? You can't sit next me. The Lord Lieutenant must be on my
right and the Bishop on my left--"
"If they come," observed Georgie.
"Naturally they won't sit there if they don't. After them come the
Mayors, Aldermen and Councillors. You would have to sit below them
all, and that would be intolerable to me."
"I shouldn't mind where I sat," said Georgie.
"I should love you to be there, Georgie," she said. "But in what
capacity? It's all official, I repeat. Think of tradition."
"But there isn't any tradition. No woman has ever been Mayor of
Tilling before: you've often told me that. However, don't let us
argue about it. I expect Tilling will think it very odd if I'm not
there. I shall go up to London that day, and then you can tell
them I've been called away."
"That would never do," cried Lucia. "Tilling would think it much
odder if you weren't here on my great day."
"Having dinner alone at Mallards," said Georgie bitterly. "The
neck of mutton you spoke of."
He rose.
"Time for my bath," he said. "And I shan't talk about it or think
about it any more. I leave it to you."
Georgie went upstairs, feeling much vexed. He undressed and put on
his blue silk dressing-gown, and peppered his bath with a liberal
allowance of verbena salts. He submerged himself in the fragrant
liquid, and concentrated his mind on the subject he had resolved
not to think about any more. Just now Lucia seemed able to apply
her mind to nothing except herself and the duties or dignities of
her coming office.
"'Egalo-megalo-mayoralo-mania', I call it," Georgie said to himself
in a withering whisper. "Catherine the Great! Delirium! She
thinks the whole town is as wildly excited about her being Mayor as
she is herself. Whereas it's a matter of supreme indifference to
them . . . All except Elizabeth, who trembles with rage and
jealousy whenever she sees Lucia . . . But she always did
that . . . Bother! I've dropped my soap and it slips away like
an eel . . . All very tar'some. Lucia can't talk about anything
else . . . Breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner, there's nothing but
that . . . Mayoral complex . . . It's a crashing bore, that's what
it is . . . Everlastingly reminding me that I've no official
position . . . Hullo, who's that? No, you can't come in, whoever
you are."
A volley of raps had sounded at the door of the bathroom. Then
Lucia's voice:
"No, I don't want to come in," she said. "But, eureka, Georgie.
Ho trovato: ho ben trovato!"
"What have you found?" called Georgie, sitting up in his bath.
"It. Me. My banquet. You and my banquet. I'll tell you at
dinner. Be quick."
"Probably she'll let me hand the cheese," thought Georgie, still
feeling morose. "I'm in no hurry to hear that."
He padded back to his bedroom in his dressing-gown and green
morocco slippers. A parcel had arrived for him while he was at his
bath, and Foljambe, the parlour-maid valet had put it on his pink
bed-quilt.
"It must be my new dinner suit," he said to himself. "And with all
this worry I'd quite forgotten about it."
He cut the string and there it was: jacket and waistcoat and
trousers of ruby-coloured velvet, with synthetic-onyx buttons,
quite superb. It was Lucia's birthday present to him; he was to
order just what dinner-suit he liked, and the bill was to be sent
to her. She knew nothing more, except that he had told her that it
would be something quite out of the common and that Tilling would
be astonished. He was thrilled with its audacious beauty.
"Now let me think," he meditated. "One of my pleated shirts, and a
black butterfly tie, and my garnet solitaire. And my pink vest.
Nobody will see it, but I shall know it's there. And red socks.
Or daren't I?"
He swiftly invested himself in this striking creation. It fitted
beautifully in front, and he rang the bell for Foljambe to see if
it was equally satisfactory behind. Her masterful knock sounded on
the door, and he said come in.
Foljambe gave a shrill ejaculation.
"Lor!" she said. "Something fancy-dress, sir?"
"Not at all," said Georgie. "My new evening suit. Isn't it smart,
Foljambe? Does it fit all right at the back?"
"Seems to," said Foljambe, pulling his sleeve. "Stand a bit
straighter, sir. Yes, quite a good fit. Nearly gave me one."
"Don't you like it?" asked Georgie anxiously.
"Well, a bit of a shock, sir. I hope you won't spill things on it,
for it would be a rare job to get anything sticky out of the
velvet, and you do throw your food about sometimes. But it is
pretty now I begin to take it in."
Georgie went into his sitting-room next door, where there was a big
mirror over the fireplace, and turned on all the electric lights.
He got up on a chair, so that he could get a more comprehensive
view of himself, and revolved slowly in the brilliant light. He
was so absorbed in his Narcissism that he did not hear Lucia come
out of her bedroom. The door was ajar, and she peeped in. She
gave a strangled scream at the sight of a large man in a glaring
red suit standing on a chair with his back to her. It was unusual.
Georgie whisked round at her cry.
"Look!" he said. "Your delicious present. There it was when I
came from my bath. Isn't it lovely?"
Lucia recovered from her shock.
"Positively Venetian, Georgie," she said. "Real Titian."
"I think it's adorable," said Georgie, getting down. "Won't
Tilling be excited? Thank you a thousand times."
"And a thousand congratulations, Georgino," she said. "Oh, and my
discovery! I am a genius, dear. There'll be a high table across
the room at my banquet with two tables joining it at the corners
going down the room. Me, of course, in the centre of the high
table. We shall sit only on one side of these tables. And you can
sit all by yourself exactly opposite me. Facing me. No official
position, neither above or below the others. Just the Mayor's
husband close to her materially, but officially in the air, so to
speak."
From below came the merry sound of little bells that announced
dinner. Grosvenor, the other parlour-maid, was playing quite a
sweet tune on them to-night, which showed she was pleased with
life. When she was cross she made a snappy jangled discord.
"That solves everything!" said Georgie. "Brilliant. How clever of
you! I DID feel a little hurt at the thought of not being there.
Listen: Grosvenor's happy, too. We're all pleased."
He offered her his beautiful velvet arm, and they went downstairs.
"And my garnet solitaire," he said. "Doesn't it go well with my
clothes? I must tuck my napkin in securely. It would be frightful
if I spilt anything. I am glad about the banquet."
"So am I, dear. It would have been horrid not to have had you
there. But I had to reconcile the feelings of private life with
the etiquette of public life. We must expect problems of the sort
to arise while I'm Mayor--"
"Such good fish," said Georgie, trying to divert her from the
eternal subject.
Quite useless.
"Excellent, isn't it," said Lucia. "In the time of Queen
Elizabeth, Georgie, the Mayor of Tilling was charged with supplying
fish for the Court. A train of pack-mules was despatched to London
twice a week. What a wonderful thing if I could get that custom
restored! Such an impetus to the fishermen here."
"The Court must have been rather partial to putrid fish," said
Georgie. "I shouldn't care to eat a whiting that had been carried
on a mule to London in hot weather, or in cold, for that matter."
"Ah, I should not mean to go back to the mules," said Lucia,
"though how picturesque to see them loaded at the river-bank, and
starting on their Royal errand. One would use the railway. I
wonder if it could be managed. The Royal Fish Express."
"Do you propose a special train full of soles and lobsters twice a
week for Buckingham Palace or Royal Lodge?" he asked.
"A refrigerating van would be sufficient. I daresay if I searched
in the archives I should find that Tilling had the monopoly of
supplying the Royal table, and that the right has never been
revoked. If so, I should think a petition to the King: 'Your
Majesty's loyal subjects of Tilling humbly pray that this privilege
be restored to them'. Or perhaps some preliminary enquiries from
the Directors of the Southern Railway first. Such prestige. And a
steady demand would be a wonderful thing for the fishing industry."
"It's got enough demand already," said Georgie. "There isn't too
much fish for us here as it is."
"Georgie! Where's your political economy? Demand invariably leads
to supply. There would be more fishing-smacks built, more men
would follow the sea. Unemployment would diminish. Think of
Yarmouth and its immense trade. How I should like to capture some
of it for our Tilling! I mustn't lose sight of that among all the
schemes I ponder over so constantly. . . . But I've had a busy
day: let us relax a little and make music in the garden-room."
She rose, and her voice assumed a careless lightness.
"I saw to-day," she said, "in one of my old bound-up volumes of
duets, an arrangement for four hands of Glazonov's 'Bacchanal'. It
looked rather attractive. We might run through it."
Georgie had seen it, too, a week ago, and though most of Lucia's
music was familiar, he felt sure they had never tried this. He had
had a bad cold in the head, and, not being up to their usual walk
for a day or two, he had played over the bass part several times
while Lucia was out taking her exercise: some day it might come in
useful. Then this very afternoon, busy in the garden, he had heard
a long-continued soft-pedalled tinkle, and rightly conjectured that
Lucia was stealing a march on him in the treble part . . . Out
they went to the garden-room, and Lucia found the 'Bacchanal'. His
new suit made him feel very kindly disposed.
"You must take the treble, then," he said. "I could never read
that."
"How lazy of you, dear," she said, instantly sitting down. "Well,
I'll try if you insist, but you mustn't scold me if I make a mess
of it."
It went beautifully. Odd trains of thought coursed through the
heads of both. "Why is she such a hypocrite?" he wondered. "She
was practising it half the afternoon." . . . Simultaneously Lucia
was saying to herself, "Georgie can't be reading it. He must have
tried it before." At the end were mutual congratulations: each
thought that the other had read it wonderfully well. Then bed-
time. She kissed her hand to him as she closed her bedroom door,
and Georgie made a few revolutions in front of his mirror before
divesting himself of the new suit. By a touching transference of
emotions, Lucia had vivid dreams of heaving seas of ruby-coloured
velvet, and Georgie of the new Cunard liner, Queen Mary, running
aground in the river on a monstrous shoal of whiting and lobsters.
There was an early autumnal frost in the night, though not severe
enough to blacken the superb dahlias in Lucia's garden and soon
melting. The lawn was covered with pearly moisture when she and
Georgie met at breakfast, and the red roofs of Tilling gleamed
bright in the morning sun. Lucia had already engaged a shorthand
and typewriting secretary to get used to her duties before the
heavy mayoral correspondence began to pour in, but to-day the post
brought nothing but a few circulars at once committed to the waste-
paper basket. But it would not do to leave Mrs. Simpson completely
idle, so, before setting out for the morning marketing, Lucia
dictated invitations to Mrs. Bartlett and the Padre, to Susan and
Mr. Wyse, to Elizabeth Mapp-Flint and Major Benjy for dinner and
Bridge the following night. She would write in the invocations and
signatures when she returned, and she apologized in each letter for
the stress of work which had prevented her from writing with her
own hand throughout.
"Georgie, I shall have to learn typing myself," she said as they
started. "I can easily imagine some municipal crisis which would
swamp Mrs. Simpson, quick worker though she is. Or isn't there a
machine called the dictaphone? . . . How deliciously warm the sun
is! When we get back I shall make a water-colour sketch of my
dahlias in the giardino segreto. Any night might see them
blackened, and I should deplore not having a record of them. Ecco,
there's Irene beckoning to us from her window. Something about the
fresco, I expect."
Irene Coles bounced out into the street.
"Lucia, beloved one," she cried. "It's too cruel! That lousy Town
Surveying Department refuses to sanction my fresco-design of Venus
rising from the sea. Come into my studio and look at my sketch of
it, which they have sent back to me. Goths and Vandals and Mrs.
Grundys to a man and woman!"
The sketch was very striking. A nude, well-nourished, putty-
coloured female, mottled with green shadows, was balanced on an
oyster shell, while a prizefighter, representing the wind and
sprawling across the sky, propelled her with puffed cheeks up a
river towards a red-roofed town on the shore which presented
Tilling with pre-Raphaelite fidelity.
"Dear me! Quite Botticellian!" said Lucia.
"What?" screamed Irene. "Darling, how can you compare my great
deep-bosomed Venus, fit to be the mother of heroes, with
Botticelli's anæmic flapper? What'll the next generation in
Tilling be like when my Venus gets ashore?"
"Yes. Quite. So vigorous! So allegorical!" said Lucia. "But,
dear Irene, do you want everybody to be reminded of that whenever
they go up and down the street?"
"Why not? What can be nobler than Motherhood?" asked Irene.
"Nothing! Nothing!" Lucia assured her. "For a maternity home--"
Irene picked up her sketch and tore it across.
"I know what I shall do," she said. "I shall turn my wondrous
Hellenic goddess into a Victorian mother. I shall dress her in a
tartan shawl and skirt and a bonnet with a bow underneath her chin
and button-boots and a parasol. I shall give my lusty South Wind a
frock-coat and trousers and a top-hat, and send the design back to
that foul-minded Department asking if I have now removed all
objectionable features. Georgie, when next you come to see me, you
won't need to blush."
"I haven't blushed once!" said Georgie indignantly. "How can you
tell such fibs?"
"Dear Irene is so full of vitality," said Lucia as they regained
the street. "Such ozone! She always makes me feel as if I was out
in a high wind, and I wonder if my hair is coming down. But so
easily managed with a little tact--Ah! There's Diva at her window.
We might pop in on her for a minute, and I'll break it to her about
a State-opening for her tea-rooms . . . Take care, Georgie!
There's Susan's Royce plunging down on us."
Mrs. Wyse's huge car, turning into the High Street, drew up
directly between them and Diva's house. She let down the window
and put her large round face where the window had been. As usual,
she had on her ponderous fur-coat, but on her head was a quite new
hat, to the side of which, like a cockade, was attached a trophy of
bright blue, green and yellow plumage, evidently the wings, tail
and breast of a small bird.
"Can I give you a lift, dear?" she said in a mournful voice. "I'm
going shopping in the High Street. You, too, of course, Mr.
Georgie, if you don't mind sitting in front."
"Many thanks, dear Susan," said Lucia, "but hardly worth while, as
we are in the High Street already."
Susan nodded sadly to them, put up the window, and signalled to her
chauffeur to proceed. Ten yards brought her to the grocer's, and
the car stopped again.
"Georgie, it was the remains of the budgerigar tacked to her hat,"
said Lucia in a thrilled whisper as they crossed the street. "Yes,
Diva: we'll pop in for a minute."
"Wearing it," said Diva in her telegraphic manner as she opened the
front-door to them. "In her hat."
"Then is it true, Diva?" asked Lucia. "Did she sit down on her
budgerigar?"
"Definitely. I was having tea with her. Cage open. Budgerigar
flitting about the room. A messy bird. Then Susan suddenly said
'Tweet, tweet. Where's my blue Birdie?' Not a sign of it. 'It'll
be all right,' said Susan. 'In the piano or somewhere.' So we
finished tea. Susan got up and there was blue Birdie. Dead and as
flat as a pancake. We came away at once."
"Very tactful," said Georgie. "But the head wasn't on her hat, I'm
pretty sure."
"Having it stuffed, I expect. To be added later between the wings.
And what about those new clothes, Mr. Georgie?"
"How on earth did you hear that?" said Georgie in great
astonishment. How news travelled in Tilling! Only last night,
dining at home, he had worn the ruby-coloured velvet for the first
time, and now, quite early next morning, Diva had heard about it.
Really things were known in Tilling almost before they happened.
"My Janet was posting a letter, ten p.m.," said Diva. "Foljambe
was posting a letter. They chatted. And are they really red?"
"You'll see before long," said Georgie, pleased to know that
interest in his suit was blazing already. "Just wait and see."
All this conversation had taken place on Diva's doorstep.
"Come in for a minute," she said. "I want to consult you about my
parlour, when I make it into a tea-room. Shall take away those two
big tables, and put in six little ones, for four at each. Then
there's the small room at the back full of things I could never
quite throw away. Bird-cages. Broken coal-scuttles. Old towel-
horses. I shall clear them out now, as there's no rummage-sale
coming on. Put that big cupboard there against the wall, and a
couple of card tables. People might like a rubber after their tea
if it's raining. Me always ready to make a fourth if wanted.
Won't that be cosy?"
"Very cosy indeed," said Lucia. "But may you provide facilities
for gambling in a public place, without risking a police-raid?"
"Don't see why not," said Diva. "I may provide chess or draughts,
and what's to prevent people gambling at them? Why not cards? And
you will come in your robes, won't you, on Mayoring day, to
inaugurate my tea-rooms?"
"My dear, quite impossible," said Lucia firmly. "As I told
Georgie, I should have to be attended by my Aldermen and
Councillors, as if it was some great public occasion. But I'll
come as Mrs. Pillson, and everyone will say that the Mayor
performed the opening ceremony. But, officially, I must be
incognita."
"Well, that's something," said Diva. "And may I put up some
posters to say that Mrs. Pillson will open it?"
"There can be no possible objection to that," said Lucia with
alacrity. "That will not invalidate my incognita. Just some big
lettering at the top 'Ye Olde Tea-House', and, if you think my name
will help, big letters again for 'Mrs. Pillson' or 'Mrs. Pillson of
Mallards'. Quite. Any other news? I know that your Paddy hasn't
got mange."
"Nothing, I think. Oh yes, Elizabeth was in here just now, and
asked me who was to be your Mayoress?"
"My Mayoress?" asked Lucia. "Aren't I both?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Diva. "But she says she's sure all
Mayors have Mayoresses."
"Poor Elizabeth: she always gets things muddled. Oh, Diva, will
you--No nothing: I'm muddled, too. Goodbye, dear. All too cosy
for words. A month to-day, then, for the opening. Georgie, remind
me to put that down."
Lucia and her husband passed on up the street.
"Such an escape!" she said. "I was on the point of asking Diva to
dine and play bridge to-morrow, quite forgetting that I'd asked the
Bartletts and the Wyses and the Mapp-Flints. You know, our custom
of always asking husbands and wives together is rather Victorian.
It dates us. I shall make innovations when the first terrific
weeks of office are over. If we always ask couples, single people
like Diva get left out."
"So shall I if the others do it, too," remarked Georgie. "Look,
we've nearly caught up Susan. She's going into the post-office."
As Susan, a few yards ahead, stepped ponderously out of the Royce,
her head brushed against the side of the door, and a wing from the
cockade of bright feathers, insecurely fastened, fluttered down on
to the pavement. She did not perceive her loss, and went in to the
office. Georgie picked up the plume.
"Better put it back on the seat inside," whispered Lucia. "Not
tactful to give it her in public. She'll see it when she gets in."
"She may sit down on it again," whispered Georgie.
"Oh, the far seat: that'll do. She can't miss it."
He placed it carefully in the car, and they walked on.
"It's always a joy to devise those little unseen kindnesses," said
Lucia. "Poulterer's first, Georgie. If all my guests accept for
to-morrow, I had better bespeak two brace of partridges."
"Delicious," said Georgie, "but how about the plain living? Oh I
see: that'll be after you become Mayor . . . Good morning, Padre."
The Reverend Kenneth Bartlett stepped out of a shop in front. He
always talked a mixture of faulty Scots and spurious Elizabethan
English. It had been a playful diversion at first, but now it had
become a habit, and unless carried away by the conversation he
seldom spoke the current tongue.
"Guid morrow, richt worshipful leddy," he said. "Well met, indeed,
for there's a sair curiosity abroad, and 'tis you who can still it.
Who's the happy wumman whom ye'll hae for your Mayoress?"
"That's the second time I've been asked that this morning," said
Lucia. "I've had no official information that I must have one."
"A'weel. It's early days yet. A month still before you need her.
But ye mun have one: Mayor and Mayoress, 'tis the law o' the land.
I was thinking--"
He dropped his voice to a whisper.
"There's that helpmate of mine," he said. "Not that there's been
any colloquy betune us. She just passed the remark this morning:
'I wonder who Mistress Pillson will select for her Mayoress,' and I
said I dinna ken and left it there."
"Very wise," said Lucia encouragingly.
The Padre's language grew almost Anglicized.
"But it put an idea into my head, that my Evie might be willing to
help you in any way she could. She'd keep you in touch with all
Church matters which I know you have at heart, and Sunday Schools
and all that. Mind. I don't promise that she'd consent, but I
think 'tis likely, though I wouldn't encourage false hopes. All
confidential, of course; and I must be stepping."
He looked furtively round as if engaged in some dark conspiracy and
stepped.
"Georgie, I wonder if there can be any truth in it," said Lucia.
"Of course, nothing would induce me to have poor dear little Evie
as Mayoress. I would as soon have a mouse. Oh, there's Major
Benjy: he'll be asking me next who my Mayoress is to be. Quick,
into the poulterer's."
They hurried into the shop. Mr. Rice gave her a low bow. "Good-
morning, your worship--" he began.
"No, not yet, Mr. Rice," said Lucia. "Not for a month yet.
Partridges. I shall very likely want two brace of partridges to-
morrow evening."
"I've got some prime young birds, your worsh--ma'am," said Mr.
Rice.
"Very well. Please earmark four birds for me. I will let you know
the first thing to-morrow morning, if I require them."
"Earmarked they are, ma'am," said Mr. Rice enthusiastically.
Lucia peeped cautiously out. Major Benjy had evidently seen them
taking cover, and was regarding electric heaters in the shop next
door with an absent eye. He saw her look out and made a military
salute.
"Good-morning," he said cordially. "Lovely day isn't it?
October's my favourite month. Chill October, what? I was
wondering, Mrs. Pillson, as I strolled along, if you had yet
selected the fortunate lady who will have the honour of being your
Mayoress."
"Good morning, Major. Oddly enough somebody else asked me that
very thing a moment ago."
"Ha! I bet five to one I know who that was. I had a word or two
with the Padre just now, and the subject came on the tapis, as they
say in France. I fancy he's got some notion that that good little
wife of his--but that would be too ridiculous--"
"I've settled nothing yet," said Lucia. "So overwhelmed with work
lately. Certainly it shall receive my attention. Elizabeth quite
well? That's good."
She hurried away with Georgie.
"The question of the Mayoress is in the air like influenza,
Georgie," she said. "I must ring up the Town Hall as soon as I get
in, and find out if I must have one. I see no necessity. There's
Susan Wyse beckoning again."
Susan let down the window of her car.
"Just going home again," she said. "Shall I give you a lift up the
hill?"
"No, a thousand thanks," said Lucia. "It's only a hundred yards."
Susan shook her head sadly.
"Don't overdo it, dear," she said. "As we get on in life we must
be careful about hills."
"This Mayoress business is worrying me, Georgie," said Lucia when
Susan had driven off. "If it's all too true, and I must have one,
who on earth shall I get? Everyone I can think of seems so totally
unfit for it. I believe, do you know, that it must have been in
Major Benjy's mind to recommend me to ask Elizabeth."
"Impossible!" said Georgie. "I might as well recommend you to ask
Foljambe."
CHAPTER II
Lucia found on her return to Mallards that Mrs. Simpson had got
through the laborious task of typing three identical dinner
invitations for next day to Mrs. Wyse, Mrs. Bartlett and Mrs. Mapp-
Flint with husbands. She filled up in autograph "Dearest Susan,
Evie and Elizabeth" and was affectionately theirs. Rack her brains
as she would she could think of no further task for her secretary,
so Mrs. Simpson took these letters to deliver them by hand, thus
saving time and postage. "And could you be here at nine-thirty to-
morrow morning," said Lucia, "instead of ten in case there is a
stress of work? Things turn up so suddenly, and it would never do
to fall into arrears."
Lucia looked at her engagement book. Its fair white pages
satisfied her that there were none at present.
"I shall be glad of a few days' quiet, dear," she said to Georgie.
"I shall have a holiday of painting and music and reading. When
once the rush begins there will be little time for such pursuits.
Yet I know there was something very urgent that required my
attention. Ah, yes! I must find out for certain whether I must
have a Mayoress. And I must get a telephone extension into the
garden-room, to save running in and out of the house for calls."
Lucia went in and rang up the clerk at the Town Hall. Yes: he was
quite sure that every Mayor had a Mayoress, whom the Mayor invited
to fill the post. She turned to Georgie with a corrugated brow.
"Yes, it is so," she said. "I shall have to find some capable
obliging woman with whom I can work harmoniously. But who?"
The metallic clang of the flap of the letter-box on the front door
caused her to look out of the window. There was Diva going quickly
away with her scudding, birdlike walk. Lucia opened the note she
had left, and read it. Though Diva was telegraphic in conversation,
her epistolary style was flowing.
DEAREST LUCIA,
I felt quite shy of speaking to you about it to-day, for writing is
always the best, don't you think, when it's difficult to find the
right words or to get them out when you have, so this is to tell
you that I am quite at your disposal, and shall [Note: Line missing
in scanned copy] much longer in Tilling than you, dear, that
perhaps I can be of some use in all your entertainments and other
functions. Not that I would ASK you to choose me as your Mayoress,
for I shouldn't think of such a thing. So pushing! So I just want
to say that I am quite at your service, as you may feel rather
diffident about asking me, for it would be awkward for me to
refuse, being such an old friend, if I didn't feel like it. But I
should positively enjoy helping you, quite apart from my duty as a
friend.
Ever yours,
DIVA.
"Poor dear, ridiculous little Diva!" said Lucia, handing Georgie
this artless epistle. "So ambitious and so pathetic! And now I
shall hurry off to begin my sketch of the dahlias. I will not be
interrupted by any further public business this morning. I must
have a little time to myself--What's that?"
Again the metallic clang from the letter box, and Lucia, consumed
with curiosity, again peeped out from a corner of the window and
saw Mr. Wyse with his malacca cane and his Panama hat and his black
velveteen coat, walking briskly away.
"Just an answer to my invitation for to-morrow, I expect," she
said. "Susan probably doesn't feel up to writing after the loss of
her budgerigar. She had a sodden and battered look this morning,
didn't you think, like a cardboard box that has been out in the
rain. Flaccid. No resilience."
Lucia had taken Mr. Wyse's letter from the post-box, as she made
these tonic remarks. She glanced through it, her mouth falling
wider and wider open.
"Listen, Georgie!" she said:
DEAR AND WORSHIPFUL MAYOR-ELECT,
It has reached my ears (Dame Rumour) that during the coming year,
when you have so self-sacrificingly consented to fill the highest
office which our dear little Tilling can bestow, thereby honouring
itself so far more than you, you will need some partner to assist
you in your arduous duties. From little unconscious signs, little
involuntary self-betrayals that I have observed in my dear Susan, I
think I may encourage you to hope that she MIGHT be persuaded to
honour herself and you by accepting the onerous post which I hear
is yet unfilled. I have not had any word with her on the subject.
Nor is she aware that I am writing to you. As you know, she has
sustained a severe bereavement in the sudden death of her little
winged companion. But I have ventured to say to her, "Carissima
sposa, you must buck up. You must not let a dead bird, however
dear, stand between you and the duties and opportunities of life
which may present themselves to you." And she answered (whether
she guessed the purport of my exhortation, I cannot say), "I will
make an effort, Algernon." I augur favourably from that.
Of the distinction which renders her so suitable for the post of
Mayoress I need not speak, for you know her character so well. I
might remind you, however, that our late beloved Sovereign himself
bestowed on her the insignia of the Order of Member of the British
Empire, and that she would therefore bring to her new office a
cachet unshared by any of the otherwise estimable ladies of
Tilling. And in this distressing estrangement which now exists
between the kingdoms of England and Italy, the fact that my dear
Susan is sister-in-law to my dear sister Amelia, Contessa di
Faraglione, might help to heal the differences between the
countries. In conclusion, dear lady, I do not think you could do
better than to offer my Susan the post for which her distinction
and abilities so eminently fit her, and you may be sure that I
shall use my influence with her to get her to accept it.
A rivederci, illustrissima Signora, ed anche presto!
ALGERNON WYSE.
P.S.: I will come round at any moment to confer with you.
P.P.S.: I reopen this to add that Susan has just received your
amiable invitation for to-morrow, which we shall both be honoured
to accept.
Lucia and Georgie looked at each other in silence at the end of the
reading of this elegant epistle.
"Beautifully expressed, I must allow," she said. "Oh, Georgie, it
is a frightful responsibility to have patronage of this crucial
kind in one's gift! It is mine to confer not only an honour but an
influence for good of a most far-reaching sort. A line from me and
Susan is my Mayoress. But good Susan has not the energy, the
decision which I should look for. I could not rely on her
judgment."
"She put Algernon up to writing that lovely letter," said Georgie.
"How they're all struggling to be Mayoress!"
"I am not surprised, dear, at that," said Lucia, with dignity. "No
doubt also Evie got the Padre to recommend her--"
"And Diva recommended herself," remarked Georgie, "as she hadn't
got anyone to do it for her."
"And Major Benjy was certainly going to say a word for Elizabeth,
if I hadn't cut him short," said Lucia. "I find it all rather
ugly, though, poor things, I sympathise with their ambitions which
in themselves are noble. I shall have to draft two very tactful
letters to Diva and Mr. Wyse, before Mrs. Simpson comes to-morrow.
What a good thing I told her to come at half-past nine. But just
for the present I shall dismiss it all from my mind, and seek an
hour's peace with my paint-box and my belli fiori. What are you
going to do till lunch?"
"It's my day for cleaning my bibelots," said Georgie. "What a rush
it all is!"
Georgie went to his sitting-room and got busy. Soon he thought he
heard another metallic clang from the post-box, and hurrying to the
window, he saw Major Benjy walking briskly away from the door.
"That'll be another formal application, I expect," he said to
himself, and went downstairs to see, with his wash-leather in his
hand. There was a letter in the post-box, but to his surprise it
was addressed not to Lucia, but himself. It ran:
MY DEAR PILLSON,
My wife has just received Her Worship's most amiable invitation
that we should dine chez vous to-morrow. I was on the point of
writing to you in any case, so she begs me to say we shall be
charmed.
Now, my dear old man (if you'll permit me to call you so) I've a
word to say to you. Best always, isn't it, to be frank and open.
At least that's my experience in my twenty-five years of service in
the King's (God bless him) army. So listen. Re Mayoress. It will
be a tremendous asset to your wife's success in her most
distinguished post, if she can get a wise and level-headed woman to
assist her. A woman of commanding character, big-minded enough to
disregard the little flurries and disturbances of her office, and
above all one who has tact, and would never make mischief. Some of
our mutual friends--I mention no names--are only too apt to scheme
and intrigue and indulge in gossip and tittle-tattle. I can only
put my finger on one who is entirely free from such failings, and
that is my dear Elizabeth. I can't answer for her accepting the
post. It's a lot to ask of any woman, but in my private opinion,
if your wife approached Elizabeth in a proper spirit, making it
clear how inestimable a help she (Elizabeth) would be to her, (the
Mayor), I think we might hope for a favourable reply. Perhaps to-
morrow evening I might have a quiet word with you. Sincerely
yours,
BENJAMIN MAPP-FLINT (Major).
Georgie with his wash-leather hurried out to the giardino segreto
where Lucia was drawing dahlias. He held the letter out to her,
but she scarcely turned her head.
"No need to tell me, dear, that your letter is on behalf of another
applicant. Elizabeth Mapp-Flint, I believe. Read it me while I go
on drawing. Such exquisite shapes: we do not look at flowers
closely enough."
As Georgie read it she plied a steady pencil, but when he came to
the sentence about approaching Elizabeth in a proper spirit, her
hand gave a violent jerk.
"Georgie, it isn't true!" she cried. "Show me. . . . Yes. My
india-rubber? Ah, there it is."
Georgie finished the letter, and Lucia, having rubbed out the
random line her pencil had made, continued to draw dahlias with
concentrated attention.
"Lucia, it's too ridiculous of you to pretend to be absorbed in
your sketch," he said impatiently. "What are you going to do?"
Lucia appeared to recall herself from the realms of peace and
beauty.
"Elizabeth will be my Mayoress," she said calmly. "Don't you see,
dear, she would be infinitely more tiresome if she wasn't? As
Mayoress, she will be muzzled, so to speak. Officially, she will
have to perform the tasks I allot to her. She will come to heel,
and that will be very good for her. Besides, who else IS there?
Diva with her tea-shop? Poor Susan? Little mouse-like Evie
Bartlett?"
"But can you see yourself approaching Elizabeth in a proper
spirit?" he asked.
Lucia gave a gay trill of laughter.
"Certainly I cannot. I shall wait for her to approach me. She
will have to come and implore me. I shall do nothing till then."
Georgie pondered on this extraordinary decision.
"I think you're being very rash," he said. "And you and Elizabeth
hate each other like poison--"
"Emphatically no," said Lucia. "I have had occasion sometimes to
take her down a peg or two. I have sometimes felt it necessary to
thwart her. But hate? Never. Dismiss that from your mind. And
don't be afraid that I shall approach her in any spirit at all."
"But what am I to say to Benjy when he asks me for a few private
words to-morrow night?"
Lucia laughed again.
"My dear, they'll all ask you for a few private words to-morrow
night. There's the Padre running poor little Evie. There's Mr.
Wyse running Susan. They'll all want to know whom I'm likely to
choose, and to secure your influence with me. Be like Mr. Baldwin
and say your lips are sealed, or like some other Prime Minister,
wasn't it? who said 'Wait and see.' Counting Diva, there are four
applicants now--remind me to tell Mrs. Simpson to enter them all--
and I think the list may be considered closed. Leave it to me; be
discreet . . . And the more I think of it, the more clearly I
perceive that Elizabeth Mapp-Flint must be my Mayoress. It is far
better to have her on a lead, bound to me by ties of gratitude than
skulking about like a pariah dog, snapping at me. True, she may
not be capable of gratitude, but I always prefer to look for the
best in people, like Mr. Somerset Maugham in his delightful
stories."
Mrs. Simpson arriving at half-past nine next morning had to wait a
considerable time for Lucia's tactful letters to Diva and Mr. Wyse;
she and Georgie sat long after breakfast scribbling and erasing on
half-sheets and envelopes turned inside out till they got
thoroughly tactful drafts. Lucia did not want to tell Diva point-
blank that she could not dream of asking her to be Mayoress, but
she did not want to raise false hopes. All she could do was to
thank her warmly for her offers of help ("So like you, dear Diva!")
and to assure her that she would not hesitate to take advantage of
them should occasion arise. To Mr. Wyse she said that no one had a
keener appreciation of Susan's great gifts (so rightly recognised
by the King) than she; no one more deplored the unhappy
international relations between England and Italy . . . Georgie
briefly acknowledged Major Benjy's letter and said he had
communicated its contents to his wife, who was greatly touched.
Lucia thought that these letters had better not reach their
recipients till after her party, and Mrs. Simpson posted them later
in the day.
Lucia was quite right about the husbands of expectant Mayoresses
wanting a private word with Georgie that evening. Major Benjy and
Elizabeth arrived first, a full ten minutes before dinner-time and
explained to Foljambe that their clocks were fast, while Georgie in
his new red velvet suit was putting the menu-cards which Mrs.
Simpson had typed on the dinner-table. He incautiously put his
head out of the dining-room door, while this explanation was going
on, and Benjy spied him.
"Ha, a word with you, my dear old man," he exclaimed, and joined
Georgie, while Elizabeth was taken to the garden-room to wait for
Lucia.
"'Pon my soul, amazingly stupid of us to have come so early," he
said, closing the dining-room door behind him. "I told Liz we
should be too early--ah, our clocks were fast. Don't let me
interrupt you; charming flowers, and, dear me, what a handsome
suit. Just the colour of my wife's dress. However, that's neither
here nor there. What I should like to urge on you is to persuade
your wife to take advantage of Elizabeth's willingness to become
Mayoress, for the good of the town. She's willing, I gather, to
sacrifice her time and her leisure for that. Mrs. Pillson and Mrs.
Mapp-Flint would be an alliance indeed. But Elizabeth feels that
her offer can't remain open indefinitely, and she rather expected
to have heard from your wife to-day."
"But didn't you tell me, Major," asked Georgie, "that your wife
knew nothing about your letter to me? I understood that it was
only your opinion that if properly approached--"
There was a tap at the door, and Mr. Wyse entered. He was dressed
in a brand new suit, never before seen in Tilling, of sapphire blue
velvet, with a soft pleated shirt, a sapphire solitaire and bright
blue socks. The two looked like two middle-aged male mannequins.
Mr. Wyse began bowing.
"Mr. Georgie!" he said. "Major Benjy! The noise of voices. It
occurred to me that perhaps we men were assembling here according
to that pretty Italian custom, for a glass of vermouth, so my wife
went straight out to the garden-room. I am afraid we are some
minutes early. The Royce makes nothing of the steep hill from
Starling Cottage."
Georgie was disappointed at the ruby velvet not being the only
sartorial sensation of the evening, but he took it very well.
"Good evening," he said. "Well, I do call that a lovely suit. I
was just finishing the flowers, when Major Benjy popped in. Let us
go out to the garden-room, where we shall find some sherry."
Once again the door opened.
"Eh, here be all the laddies," said the Padre. "Mr. Wyse; a
handsome costume, sir. Just the colour of the dress wee wifie's
donned for this evening. She's ganged awa' to the garden-room. I
wanted a bit word wi' ye, Mr. Pillson, and your parlour-maid told
me you were here."
"I'm afraid we must go out now to the garden-room, Padre," said
Georgie, rather fussed. "They'll all be waiting for us."
It was difficult to get them to move, for each of the men stood
aside to let the others pass, and thus secure a word with Georgie.
Eventually the Church unwillingly headed the procession, followed
by the Army, lured by the thought of sherry, and Mr. Wyse deftly
closed the dining-room door again and stood in front of it.
"A word, Mr. Georgie," he said. "I had the honour yesterday to
write a note to your wife about a private matter--not private from
you, of course--and I wondered whether she had spoken to you about
it. I have since ascertained from my dear Susan--"
The door opened again, and bumped against his heels and the back of
his head with a dull thud. Foljambe's face looked in.
"Beg your pardon, sir," she said. "Thought I heard you go."
"We must follow the others," said Georgie. "Lucia will wonder
what's happened to us."
The wives looked enquiringly into the faces of their husbands as
they filed into the garden-room to see if there was any news.
Georgie shook hands with the women and Lucia with the men. He saw
how well his suit matched Elizabeth's gown, and Mr. Wyse's might
have been cut from the same piece as that of the Padre's wife.
Another brilliant point of colour was furnished by Susan Wyse's
budgerigar. The wing that had been flipped off yesterday had been
re-stitched, and the head, as Diva had predicted, had been stuffed
and completed the bird. She wore this notable decoration as a
centrepiece on her ample bosom. Would it be tactful, wondered
Georgie, to admire it, or would it be tearing open old wounds
again? But surely when Susan displayed her wound so conspicuously,
she would be disappointed if he appeared not to see it. He gave
her a glass of sherry and moved aside with her.
"Perfectly charming, Mrs. Wyse," he said, looking pointedly at it.
"Lovely! Most successful!"
He had done right; Susan's great watery smile spread across her
face.
"So glad you like it," she said, "and since I've worn it, Mr.
Georgie, I've felt comforted for Blue Birdie. He seems to be with
me still. A very strong impression. Quite psychical."
"Very interesting and touching," said Georgie sympathetically.
"Is it not? I am hoping to get into rapport with him again. His
pretty sweet ways! And may I congratulate you, too? Such a lovely
suit!"
"Lucia's present to me," said Georgie, "though I chose it."
"What a coincidence!" said Susan. "Algernon's new suit is my
present to him and he chose it. There are brain-waves everywhere,
Mr. Georgie, beyond the farthest stars."
Foljambe announced dinner. Never before had conversation, even at
Lucia's table, maintained so serious and solid a tone. The ladies
in particular, though the word Mayoress was never mentioned, vied
with each other in weighty observations bearing on municipal
matters, in order to show the deep interest they took in them. It
was as if they even engaged on a self-imposed vive-voce examination
to exhibit their qualifications for the unmentioned post. They
addressed their answers to Lucia and of each other they were highly
critical.
"No, dear Evie," said Elizabeth, "I cannot share your views about
girl-guides. Boy scouts I wholeheartedly support. All that drill
teaches them discipline, but the best discipline for girls is to
help mother at home. Cooking, housework, lighting the fire,
father's slippers. Don't you agree, dear hostess?"
"Eh, Mistress Mapp-Flint," said the Padre, strongly upholding his
wife. "Ye havena' the tithe of my Evie's experience among the
bairns of the parish. Half the ailments o' the lassies come from
being kept at home without enough exercise and air and chance to
fend for themselves. Easy to have too much of mother's apron
strings, and as fur father's slippers I disapprove of corporal
punishment for the young of whatever sex."
"Oh, Padre, how could you think I meant that!" exclaimed Elizabeth.
"And as for letting a child light a fire," put in Susan, "that's
most dangerous. No match-box should ever be allowed within a
child's reach. I must say too, that I wish the fire-brigade in
Tilling was better organized and more efficient. If once a fire
broke out here the whole town would be burned to the ground."
"Dear Susan, is it possible you haven't heard that there was a fire
in Ford Place last week? Fancy! And you're strangely in error
about the brigade's efficiency, for they were there in three
minutes from the time the alarm was given, and the fire was
extinguished in five minutes more."
"Lucia, what is really wanted in Tilling," said Susan, "is better
lighting of the streets. Coming home sometimes in the evening my
Royce has to crawl down Porpoise Street."
"More powerful lamps to your car would make that all right, dear,"
said Elizabeth. "Not a very great expense. The paving of the
streets, to my mind, wants the most immediate attention. I nearly
fell down the other day, stepping in a great hole. The roads, too:
the road opposite my house is little better than a snipe bog.
Again and again I have written to the Hampshire Argus about it."
Mr. Wyse bowed across the table to her.
"I regret to say I have missed seeing your letters," he said.
"Very careless of me. Was there one last week?"
Evie emitted the mouse-like squeak which denoted intense private
amusement.
"I've missed them, too," she said. "I expect we all have. In any
case, Elizabeth, Grebe is outside the parish boundaries. Nothing
to do with Tilling. It's a County Council road you will find if
you look at a map. Now the overcrowding in the town itself, Lucia,
is another matter which does concern us. I have it very much at
heart, as anybody must have who knows anything about it. And then
there are the postal deliveries. Shocking. I wrote a letter the
other day--"
This was one of the subjects which Susan Wyse had specially mugged
up. By leaning forward and putting an enormous elbow on the table
she interposed a mountain of healthy animal tissue between Evie and
Lucia, and the mouse was obliterated behind the mountain.
"And only two posts a day, Lucia," she said. "You will find it
terribly inconvenient to get only two and the second is never
anything but circulars. There's not a borough in England so ill-
served. I'm told that if a petition is sent to the Postmaster-
General signed by fifty per cent. of the population he is bound by
law to give us a third delivery. Algernon and I would be only too
happy to get up this petition--"
Algernon from the other side of the table suddenly interrupted her.
"Susan, take care!" he cried. "Your budgerigar: your raspberry
soufflé!"
He was too late. The budgerigar dropped into the middle of Susan's
bountifully supplied plate. She took it out, dripping with hot
raspberry juice and wrapped it in her napkin, moaning softly to
herself. The raspberry juice stained it red, as if Blue Birdie had
been sat on again, and Foljambe very tactfully handed a plate to
Susan on which she deposited it. After so sad and irrelevant an
incident, it was hard to get back to high topics, and the Padre
started on a lower level.
"A cosy little establishment will Mistress Diva Plaistow be running
presently," he said. "She tells me that the opening of it will be
the first function of our new Mayor. A fine send-off indeed."
A simultaneous suspicion shot through the minds of the candidates
present that Diva (incredible as it seemed) might be in the
running. Like vultures they swooped on the absent prey.
"A little too cosy for my tastes," said Elizabeth. "If all the
tables she means to put into her tea-room were full, sardines in a
tin wouldn't be the word. Not to mention that the occupants of two
of the tables would be being kippered up the chimney, and two
others in a gale every time the door was opened. And are you going
to open it officially, dear Lucia?"
"Certainly not," said Lucia. "I told her I would drink the first
cup of tea with pleasure, but as Mrs. Pillson, not as Mayor."
"Poor Diva can't MAKE tea," squeaked Evie. "She never could. It's
either hot water or pure tannin."
"And she intends to make all the fancy pastry herself," said Susan
sorrowfully. "Much better to stick to bread and butter and a plain
cake. Very ambitious, I call it, but nowadays Diva's like that.
More plans for all we know."
"And quite a reformer," said Elizabeth. "She talks about a quicker
train service to London. She knows a brother-in-law of one of the
directors. Of course the thing is as good as done with a word from
Diva. It looks terribly like paranoia coming on."
The ladies left. Major Benjy drunk off his port in a great hurry,
so as to get a full glass when it came round again.
"A very good glass of port," he said. "Well, I don't mind if I
fill up. The longer I live with my Liz., Pillson, the more I am
astonished at her masculine grasp of new ideas."
"My Susan's remarks about an additional postal delivery and
lighting of the streets showed a very keen perception of the
reforms of which our town most stands in need," said Algernon.
"Her judgment is never at fault. I have often been struck--"
The Padre, speaking to Major Benjy, raised his voice for Georgie to
hear and thumped the table.
"Wee wifie's energy is unbounded," he said. "Often I say to her:
'Spare yourself a bitty' I've said, and always she's replied
'Heaven fits the back to the burden' quo' she, 'and if there's
more work and responsibility to be undertaken, Evie's ready for
it'."
"You mustn't let her overtax herself, Padre," said Benjy with great
earnestness. "She's got her hands over full already. Not so young
as she was."
"Eh, that's what ails all the ladies of Tilling," retorted the
Padre, "an' she'll be younger than many I could mention. An
abounding vitality. If they made me Lord Archbishop to-morrow,
she'd be a mother in Israel to the province, and no mistake."
This was too much for Benjy. It would have been a gross
dereliction of duty not to let loose his withering powers of
satire.
"No no, Padre," he said. "Tilling can't spare you. Canterbury
must find someone else."
"Eh, well, and if the War Office tries to entice you away, Major,
you must say no. That'll be a bargain. But the point of my
observation was that my Evie is aye ready and willing for any call
that may come to her. That's what I'm getting at."
"Ha, ha, Padre; let me know when you've got it, and then I'll talk
to you. Well, if the port is standing idle in front of you--"
Georgie rose. He had had enough of these unsolicited testimonials,
and when Benjy became satirical it was a symptom that he should
have no more port.
"I think it's time we got to our Bridge," he said. "Lucia will
scold me if I keep you here too long."
They marched in a compact body to the garden-room, where Lucia had
been keeping hopeful Mayoresses at bay with music, and two tables
were instantly formed. Georgie and Elizabeth, rubies, played
against the sapphires, Mr. Wyse and Evie, and the other table was
drab in comparison. The evening ended unusually late, and it was
on the stroke of midnight when the three pairs of guests, unable to
get a private word with either of their hosts, moved sadly away
like a vanquished army. The Royce conveyed the Wyses to Porpoise
Street, just round the corner, with Susan, faintly suggesting
Salome, holding the plate with the bloodstained handkerchief
containing the budgerigar; a taxi that had long been ticking
conveyed the Mapp-Flints to the snipe-bog, and two pairs of
goloshes took the Padre and his wife to the Vicarage.
Lucia's tactful letters were received next morning. Mr. Wyse
thought that all was not yet lost, though it surprised him that
Lucia had not taken Susan aside last night and implored her to be
Mayoress. Diva, on the other hand, with a more correct estimate of
the purport of Lucia's tact, was instantly sure that all was lost,
and exclaiming, "Drat it, so that's that," gave Lucia's note to
Paddy to worry, and started out for her morning's shopping. There
were plenty of absorbing interests to distract her. Susan, with
the budgerigar cockade in her hat, looked out of the window of the
Royce, but to Diva's amazement the colour of the bird's plumage had
changed; it was flushed with red like a stormy sunset with patches
of blue sky behind. Could Susan, for some psychical reason, have
dyed it? . . . Georgie and Lucia were approaching from Mallards,
but Diva, after that tactful note, did not want to see her friend
till she had thought of something pretty sharp to say. Turning
towards the High Street she bumped baskets sharply with Elizabeth.
"Morning, dear!" said Elizabeth. "Do you feel up to a chat?"
"Yes," said Diva. "Come in. I'll do my shopping afterwards. Any
news?"
"Benjy and I dined with Worshipful last night. Wyses, Bartletts,
Bridge. We all missed you."
"Wasn't asked," said Diva. "A good dinner? Did you win?"
"Partridges a little tough," said Elizabeth musingly. "Old birds
are cheaper, of course. I won a trifle, but nothing like enough to
pay for our taxi. An interesting, curious evening. Rather
revolting at times, but one mustn't be captious. Evie and Susan--
oh, a terrible thing happened. Susan wore the bird as a
breastplate, and it fell into the raspberry soufflé. Plop!"
Diva gave a sigh of relief.
"THAT explains it," she said. "Saw it just now and it puzzled me.
Go on, Elizabeth."
"Revolting, I was saying. Those two women. One talked about boy-
scouts, and the other about posts, and then one about overcrowding
and the other about the fire brigade. I just sat and listened and
blushed for them both. So cheap and obvious."
"But what's so cheap and obvious and blush-making?" asked Diva.
"It only sounds dull to me."
"All that fictitious interest in municipal matters. What has Susan
cared hitherto for postal deliveries, or Evie for overcrowding? In
a nutshell, they were trying to impress Lucia, and get her to ask
them, at least one of them, to be Mayoress. And from what Benjy
told me, their husbands were just as barefaced when we went into
the garden-room. An evening of intrigue and self-advertisement.
Pah!"
"Pah indeed!" said Diva. "How did Lucia take it?"
"I really hardly noticed. I was too disgusted at all these
underground schemings. So transparent! Poor Lucia! I trust she
will get someone who will be of use to her. She'll be sadly at sea
without a woman of sense and experience to consult."
"And was Mr. Georgie's dinner costume very lovely?" asked Diva.
Elizabeth half closed her eyes as if to visualise it.
"A very pretty colour," she said. "Just like the gown I had dyed
red not long ago, if you happen to remember it. Of course he
copied it."
The front-door bell rang. It was quicker to answer it oneself,
thought Diva, than to wait for Janet to come up from the kitchen,
and she trundled off.
"Come in, Evie," she said, "Elizabeth's here."
But Elizabeth would not wait, and Evie, in turn, gave her own
impressions of the previous evening. They were on the same lines
as Elizabeth's, only it had been Elizabeth and Susan who (instead
of revolting her) had been so vastly comical with their sudden
interest in municipal affairs:
"And, oh, dear me," she said, "Mr. Wyse and Major Benjy were just
as bad. It was like that musical thing where you have a tune in
the treble, and the same tune next in the bass. Fugue; that's it.
Those four were just like a Bach concert. Kenneth and I simply sat
listening. And I'm much mistaken if Lucia and Mr. Georgie didn't
see through them all."
Diva had now got a complete idea of what had taken place; clearly
there had been a six-part fugue.
"But she's got to choose somebody," she said. "Wonder who it'll
be."
"Perhaps you, he, he!" squeaked Evie for a joke.
"That it won't," cried Diva emphatically, looking at the fragments
of Lucia's tactful note scattered about the room. "Sooner sing
songs in the gutter. Fancy being at Lucia's beck and call,
whenever she wants something done which she doesn't want to do
herself. Not worth living at that price. No, thank you!"
"Just my fun," said Evie. "I didn't mean it seriously. And then
there were other surprises. Mr. Georgie in a red--"
"I know; the colour of Elizabeth's dyed one," put in Diva.
"--and Mr. Wyse in sapphire velvet," continued Evie. "Just like my
second-best, which I was wearing."
"No! I hadn't heard that," said Diva. "Aren't the Tilling boys
getting dressy?"
The tension increased during the next week to a point almost
unbearable, for Lucia, like the Pythian Oracle in unfavourable
circumstances, remained dumb, waiting for Elizabeth to implore her.
The strain was telling and whenever the telephone bell rang in the
houses of any of the candidates she or her husband ran to it to see
if it carried news of the nomination. But, as at an inconclusive
sitting of the Conclave of Cardinals for the election of the
Pontiff, no announcement came from the precinct; and every evening,
since the weather was growing chilly, a column of smoke curled out
of the chimney of the garden-room. Was it that Lucia, like the
Cardinals, could not make up her mind, or had she possibly chosen
her Mayoress and had enjoined silence till she gave the word?
Neither supposition seemed likely, the first, because she was so
very decisive a person; the second, because it was felt that the
chosen candidate could not have kept it to herself.
Then a series of curious things happened, and to the overwrought
imagination of Tilling they appeared to be of the nature of omens.
The church clock struck thirteen one noon, and then stopped with a
jarring sound. That surely augured ill for the chances of the
Padre's wife. A spring broke out in the cliff above the Mapp-
Flint's house, and, flowing through the garden, washed the
asparagus bed away. That looked like Elizabeth's hopes being
washed away too. Susan Wyse's Royce collided with a van in the
High Street and sustained damage to a mud-guard; that looked bad
for Susan. Then Elizabeth, distraught with anxiety, suddenly felt
convinced that Diva had been chosen. What made this the more
probable was that Diva had so emphatically denied to Evie that she
would ever be induced to accept the post. It was like poor Diva to
think that anybody would believe such a monstrous statement; it
only convinced Elizabeth that she was telling a thumping lie, in
order to conceal something. Probably she thought she was being
Bismarckian, but that was an error. Bismarck had said that to tell
the truth was a useful trick for a diplomatist, because others
would conclude that he was not. But he had never said that telling
lies would induce others to think that he was telling the truth.
The days went on, and Georgie began to have qualms as to whether
Elizabeth would ever humble herself and implore the boon.
"Time's passing," he said, as he and Lucia sat one morning in the
garden-room. "What on earth will you do, if she doesn't?"
"She will," said Lucia, "though I allow she has held out longer
than I expected. I did not know how strong that false pride of
hers was. But she's weakening. I've been sitting in the window
most of the morning--such a multiplicity of problems to think over--
and she has passed the house four times since breakfast. Once she
began to cross the road to the front-door, but then she saw me, and
walked away again. The sight of me, poor thing, must have made
more vivid to her what she had to do. But she'll come to it. Let
us discuss something more important. That idea of mine about
reviving the fishing industry. The Royal Fish Express. I made a
few notes--"
Lucia glanced once more out of the window.
"Georgie," she cried. "There's Elizabeth approaching again.
That's the fifth time. Round and round like a squirrel in its
cage."
She glided to her ambush behind the curtain, and, peeping
stealthily out, became like the reporter of the University boat-
race on the wireless.
"She's just opposite, level with the front-door," she announced.
"She's crossing the road. She's quickening up. She's crossed the
road. She's slowing down on the front-door steps. She's raised
her hand to the bell. She's dropped it again. She turned half-
round--no, I don't think she saw me. Poor woman, what a tussle!
Just pride. Georgie, she's rung the bell. Foljambe's opened the
door; she must have been dusting the hall. Foljambe's let her in,
and has shut the door. She'll be out here in a minute."
Foljambe entered.
"Mrs. Mapp-Flint, ma'am," she said. "I told her you were probably
engaged, but she much wants to see you for a few moments on a
private matter of great importance."
Lucia sat down in a great hurry, and spread some papers on the
table in front of her.
"Go into the garden, will you, Georgie," she said, "for she'll
never be able to get it out unless we're alone. Yes, Foljambe;
tell her I can spare her five minutes."
CHAPTER III
Five minutes later Elizabeth again stood on the doorstep of
Mallards, uncertain whether to go home to Grebe by the Vicarage and
tell inquisitive Evie the news, or via Irene and Diva. She decided
on the latter route, unconscious of the vast issues that hung on
this apparently trivial choice.
On this warm October morning, quaint Irene (having no garden) was
taking the air on a pile of cushions on her door-step. She had a
camera beside her in case of interesting figures passing by, and
was making tentative jottings in her sketch-book for her Victorian
Venus in a tartan shawl. Irene noticed something peculiarly
buoyant about Elizabeth's gait, as she approached, and with her
Venus in mind she shouted to her:
"Stand still a moment, Mapp. Stand on one leg in a poised
attitude. I want that prancing action. One arm forward if you can
manage it without tipping up."
Elizabeth would have posed for the devil in this triumphant mood.
"Like that, you quaint darling?" she asked.
"Perfect. Hold it for a second while I snap you first."
Irene focused and snapped.
"Now half a mo' more," she said, seizing her sketchbook. "Be on
the point of stepping forward again."
Irene dashed in important lines and curves.
"That'll do," she said. "I've got you. I never saw you so lissom
and elastic. What's up? Have you been successfully seducing some
young lad in the autumn of your life?"
"Oh, you shocking thing," said Elizabeth.
"Naughty! But I've just been having such a lovely talk with our
sweet Lucia. Shall I tell you about it, or shall I tease you?"
"Whichever you like," said Irene, putting in a little shading. "I
don't care a blow."
"Then I'll give you a hint. Make a pretty curtsey to the
Mayoress."
"Rubbish," said Irene.
"No, dear. Not rubbish. Gospel."
"My God, what an imagination you have," said Irene. "How do you DO
it? Does it just come to you like a dream?"
"Gospel, I repeat," said Elizabeth. "And such joy, dear, that you
should be the first to hear about it, except Mr. Georgie."
Irene looked at her and was forced to believe. Unaffected bliss
beamed in Mapp's face; she wasn't pretending to be pleased, she
wallowed in a bath of exuberant happiness.
"Good Lord, tell me about it," she said. "Bring another cushion,
Lucy," she shouted to her six-foot maid, who was leaning out of the
dining-room window, greedily listening.
"Well, dear, it was an utter surprise to me," said Elizabeth.
"Such a notion had never entered my head. I was just walking up by
Mallards: I often stroll by to look at the sweet old home that used
to be mine--"
"You can cut all that," said Irene.
"--and I saw Lucia at the window of the garden-room, looking, oh,
so anxious and worn. She slipped behind a curtain and suddenly I
felt that she needed me. A sort of presentiment. So I rang the
bell--oh, and that was odd, too, for I'd hardly put my finger on it
when the door was opened, as if kind Foljambe had been waiting for
me--and I asked her if Lucia would like to see me."
Elizabeth paused for a moment in her embroidery.
"So Foljambe went to ask her," she continued, "and came almost
running back, and took me out to the garden-room. Lucia was
sitting at her table apparently absorbed in some papers. Wasn't
that queer, for the moment before she had been peeping out from
behind the curtain? I could see she was thoroughly overwrought and
she gave me such an imploring look that I was quite touched."
A wistful smile spread over Elizabeth's face.
"And then it came," she said. "I don't blame her for holding back:
a sort of pride, I expect, which she couldn't swallow. She begged
me to fill the post, and I felt it was my duty to do so. A
dreadful tax, I am afraid, on my time and energies, and there will
be difficult passages ahead, for she is not always very easy to
lead. What Benjy will say to me I don't know, but I must do what I
feel to be right. What a blessed thing to be able to help others!"
Irene was holding herself in, trembling slightly with the effort.
Elizabeth continued, still wistfully.
"A lovely little talk," she said, "and then there was Mr. Georgie
in the garden, and he came across the lawn to me with such
questioning eyes, for I think he guessed what we had been talking
about--"
Irene could contain herself no longer. She gave one maniac scream.
"Mapp, you make me sick," she cried. "I believe Lucia has asked
you to be Mayoress, poor misguided darling, but it didn't happen
like that. It isn't true, Mapp. You've been longing to be
Mayoress: you've been losing weight, not a bad thing either, with
anxiety. You asked her: you implored her. I am not arguing with
you, I am telling you . . . Hullo, here they both come. It will
be pretty to see their gratitude to you. Don't go, Mapp."
Elizabeth rose. Dignity prevented her from making any reply to
these gutter-snipe observations. She did it very well. She paused
to kiss her hand to the approaching Lucia, and walked away without
hurrying. But once round the corner into the High Street, she,
like Foljambe, "almost ran".
Irene hailed Lucia.
"Come and talk for a minute, darling," she said. "First, is it all
too true, Mayoress Mapp, I mean? I see it is. You had far better
have chosen me or Lucy. And what a liar she is! Thank God I told
her so. She told me that you had at last swallowed your pride, and
asked her--"
"What?" cried Lucia.
"Just that; and that she felt it was her duty to help you."
Lucia, though trembling with indignation, was magnificent.
"Poor thing!" she said. "Like all habitual liars, she deceives
herself far more often than she deceives others."
"But aren't you going to DO anything?" asked Irene, dancing wild
fandangoes on the doorstep. "Not tell her she's a liar? Or, even
better, tell her you never asked her to be Mayoress at all! Why
not? There was no one there but you and she."
"Dear Irene, you wouldn't want me to lower myself to her level?"
"Well, for once it wouldn't be a bad thing. You can become lofty
again immediately afterwards. But I'll develop the snap-shot I
made of her, and send it to the press as a photograph of our new
Mayoress."
Within an hour the news was stale. But the question of how the
offer was made and accepted was still interesting, and fresh coins
appeared from Elizabeth's mint: Lucia, it appeared had said
"Beloved friend, I could never have undertaken my duties without
your support" or words to that effect, and Georgie had kissed the
hand of the Mayoress Elect. No repudiation of such sensational
pieces came from head-quarters and they passed into a sort of
doubtful currency. Lucia merely shrugged her shoulders, and said
that her position forbade her directly to defend herself. This was
thought a little excessive; she was not actually of Royal blood. A
brief tranquillity followed, as when a kettle, tumultuously
boiling, is put on the hob to cool off, and the Hampshire Argus
merely stated that Mrs. Elizabeth Mapp-Flint (née Mapp) would be
Mayoress of Tilling for the ensuing year.
Next week the kettle began to lift its lid again, for in the same
paper there appeared a remarkable photograph of the Mayoress. She
was standing on one foot, as if skating, with the other poised in
the air behind her. Her face wore a beckoning smile, and one arm
was stretched out in front of her in eager solicitation. Something
seemed bound to happen. It did.
Diva by this time had furnished her tea-room, and was giving dress-
rehearsals, serving tea herself to a few friends and then sitting
down with them, very hot and thirsty. To-day Georgie and Evie were
being entertained, and the Padre was expected. Evie did not know
why he was late: he had been out in the parish all day, and she had
not seen him since after breakfast.
"Nothing like rehearsals to get things working smoothly," said
Diva, pouring her tea into her saucer and blowing on it. "There
are two jams, Mr. Georgie, thick and clear, or is that soup?"
"They're both beautifully clear," said Georgie politely, "and such
hot, crisp toast."
"There should have been pastry-fingers as well," said Diva, "but
they wouldn't rise."
"Tar'some things," said Georgie with his mouth full.
"Stuck to the tin and burned," replied Diva. "You must imagine
them here even for a shilling tea. And cream for eighteenpenny
teas with potted meat sandwiches. Choice of China or Indian.
Tables for four can be reserved, but not for less. . . . Ah,
here's the Padre. Have a nice cup of tea, Padre, after all those
funerals and baptisms."
"Sorry I'm late, Mistress Plaistow," said he, "and I've a bit o'
news, and what d'ye think that'll be about? Shall I tease you, as
Mistress Mapp-Flint says?"
"You won't tease me," said Georgie, "because I know it's about that
picture of Elizabeth in the Hampshire Argus. And I can tell you at
once that Lucia knew nothing about it, whatever Elizabeth may say,
till she saw it in the paper. Nothing whatever, except that Irene
had taken a snap-shot of her."
"Well, then, you know nowt o' my news. I was sitting in the club
for a bitty, towards noon, when in came Major Benjy, and picked up
the copy of the Hampshire Argus where was the portrait of his guid
wife. I heard a sort o' gobbling turkey-cock noise and there he
was, purple in the face, wi' heathen expressions streaming from him
like torrents o' spring. Out he rushed with the paper in his hand--
club-property, mind you, and not his at all--and I saw him pelting
down the road to Grebe."
"No!" cried Diva.
"Yes, Mistress Plaistow. A bit later as I was doing my parish
visiting, I saw the Major again with the famous cane riding-whip in
his hand, with which, we've all heard often enough, he hit the
Indian tiger in the face while he snatched his gun to shoot him.
'No one's going to insult my wife, while I'm above ground,' he
roared out, and popped into the office o' the Hampshire Argus."
"Gracious! What a crisis!" squeaked Evie.
"And that's but the commencement, mem! The rest I've heard from
the new Editor, Mr. McConnell, who took over not a week ago. Up
came a message to him that Major Mapp-Flint would like to see him
at once. He was engaged, but said he'd see the Major in a quarter
of an hour, and to pass the time wouldn't the Major have a drink.
Sure he would, and sure he'd have another when he'd made short work
of the first, and, to judge by the bottle, McConnell guessed he'd
had a third, but he couldn't say for certain. Be that as it may,
when he was ready to see the Major, either the Major had forgotten
what he'd come about, or thought he'd be more prudent not to be so
savage, for a big man is McConnell, a very big man indeed, and the
Major was most affable, and said he'd just looked in to pay a call
on the newcomer."
"Well, that was a come-down," ejaculated Georgie.
"And further to come down yet," said the Padre, "for they had
another drink together, and the poor Major's mind must have got in
a fair jumble. He'd come out, ye see, to give the man a thrashing,
and instead they'd got very pleasant together, and now he began
talking about bygones being bygones. That as yet was Hebrew-Greek
to McConnell, for it was the Art-Editor who'd been responsible for
the picture of the Mayoress and McConnell had only just glanced at
it, thinking there were some queer Mayoresses in Hampshire, and
then, oh, dear me, if the Major didn't ask him to step round and
have a bit of luncheon with him, and as for the riding-whip it went
clean out of his head and he left it in the waiting-room at the
office. There was Mistress Elizabeth when they got to Grebe,
looking out o' the parlour window and waiting to see her brave
Benjy come marching back with the riding-whip shewing a bit of wear
and tear, and instead there was the Major with no riding-whip at
all, arm in arm with a total stranger saying as how this was his
good friend Mr. McConnell, whom he'd brought to take pot-luck with
them. Dear, oh dear, what wunnerful things happen in Tilling, and
I'll have a look at that red conserve."
"Take it all," cried Diva. "And did they have lunch?"
"They did that," said the Padre, "though a sorry one it was. It
soon came out that Mr. McConnell was the Editor of the Argus, and
then indeed there was a terrifying glint in the lady's eye. He
made a hop and a skip of it when the collation was done, leaving
the twa together, and he told me about it a' when I met him half an
hour ago and 'twas that made me a bit late, for that's the kind of
tale ye can't leave in the middle. God knows what'll happen now,
and the famous riding-whip somewhere in the newspaper office."
The door-bell had rung while this epic was being related, but
nobody noticed it. Now it was ringing again, a long, uninterrupted
tinkle, and Diva rose.
"Shan't be a second," she said. "Don't discuss it too much till I
get back."
She hurried out.
"It must be Elizabeth herself," she thought excitedly. "Nobody
else rings like that. Using up such a lot of current, instead of
just dabbing now and then."
She opened the door. Elizabeth was on the threshold smiling
brilliantly. She carried in her hand the historic riding-whip.
Quite unmistakable.
"Dear one!" she said. "May I pop in for a minute. Not seen you
for so long."
Diva overlooked the fact that they had had a nice chat this morning
in the High Street, for there was a good chance of hearing more.
She abounded in cordiality.
"Do come in," she said. "Lovely to see you after all this long
time. Tea going on. A few friends."
Elizabeth sidled into the tea-room: the door was narrow for a big
woman.
"Evie dearest! Mr. Georgie! Padre!" she saluted. "How de do
everybody. How cosy! Yes, Indian, please, Diva."
She laid the whip down by the corner of the fireplace. She beamed
with geniality. What turn could this humiliating incident have
taken, everybody wondered, to make her so jocund and gay? In sheer
absorption of constructive thought the Padre helped himself to
another dollop of red jam and ate it with his teaspoon. Clearly
she had reclaimed the riding-whip from the Argus office but what
next? Had she administered to Benjy the chastisement he had feared
to inflict on another? Meantime, as puzzled eyes sought each other
in perplexity, she poured forth compliments.
"What a banquet, Diva!" she exclaimed. "What a pretty tablecloth!
If this is the sort of tea you will offer us when you open, I
shan't be found at home often. I suppose you'll charge two
shillings at least, and even then you'll be turning people away."
Diva recalled herself from her speculations.
"No: this will be only a shilling tea," she said, "and usually
there'll be pastry as well."
"Fancy! And so beautifully served. So dainty. Lovely flowers
on the table. Quite like having tea in the garden with no
earwigs . . . I had an unexpected guest to lunch to-day."
Cataleptic rigidity seized the entire company.
"Such a pleasant fellow," continued Elizabeth. "Mr. McConnell, the
new Editor of the Argus. Benjy paid a morning call on him at the
office and brought him home. He left his tiger-riding-whip there,
the forgetful boy, so I went and reclaimed it. Such a big man:
Benjy looked like a child beside him."
Elizabeth sipped her tea. The rigidity persisted.
"I never by any chance see the Hampshire Argus," she said. "Not
set eyes on it for years, for it used to be very dull. All
advertisements. But with Mr. McConnell at the helm, I must take it
in. He seemed so intelligent."
Imperceptibly the rigidity relaxed, as keen brains dissected the
situation . . . Elizabeth had sent her husband out to chastise
McConnell for publishing this insulting caricature of herself. He
had returned, rather tipsy, bringing the victim to lunch. Should
the true version of what had happened become current, she would
find herself in a very humiliating position with a craven husband
and a monstrous travesty unavenged. But her version was brilliant.
She was unaware that the Argus had contained any caricature of her,
and Benjy had brought his friend to lunch. A perfect story, to the
truth of which, no doubt, Benjy would perjure himself. Very
clever! Bravo Elizabeth!
Of course there was a slight feeling of disappointment, for only a
few minutes ago some catastrophic development seemed likely, and
Tilling's appetite for social catastrophe was keen. The Padre
sighed and began in a resigned voice "A'weel, all's well that ends
well", and Georgie hurried home to tell Lucia what had really
happened and how clever Elizabeth had been. She sent fondest love
to Worshipful, and as there were now four of them left, they
adjourned to Diva's card-room for a rubber of bridge.
Diva's Janet came up to clear tea away, and with her the bouncing
Irish terrier, Paddy, who had only got a little eczema. He scouted
about the room, licking up crumbs from the floor and found the
riding-whip. It was of agreeable texture for the teeth, just about
sufficiently tough to make gnawing a pleasure as well as a duty.
He picked it up, and, the back-door being open, took it into the
wood-shed and dealt with it. He went over it twice, reducing it to
a wet and roughly minced sawdust. There was a silver cap on it,
which he spurned and when he had triturated or swallowed most of
the rest, he rolled in the debris and shook himself. Except for
the silver cap, no murderer could have disposed of a corpse with
greater skill.
Upstairs the geniality of the tea-table had crumbled over cards.
Elizabeth had been losing and she was feeling hot. She said to
Diva "This little room--so cosy--is quite stifling, dear. May we
have the window open?" Diva opened it as a deal was in progress,
and the cards blew about the table: Elizabeth's remnant consisted
of Kings and aces, but a fresh deal was necessary. Diva dropped a
card on the floor, face upwards, and put her foot on it so nimbly
that nobody could see what it was. She got up to fetch the book of
rules to see what ought to happen next, and, moving her foot
disclosed an ace. Elizabeth demanded another fresh deal. That was
conceded, but it left a friction. Then towards the end of a hand,
Elizabeth saw that she had revoked, long, long ago, and detection
was awaiting her. "I'll give you the last trick," she said, and
attempted to jumble up together all the cards. "Na, na, not so
fast, Mistress," cried the Padre, and he pounced on the card of
error. "Rather like cheating: rather like Elizabeth" was the
unspoken comment, and everyone remembered how she had tried the
same device about eighteen months ago. The atmosphere grew acid.
The Padre and Evie had to hurry off for a choir-practice, for which
they were already late, and Elizabeth finding she had not lost as
much as she feared lingered for a chat.
"Seen poor Susan Wyse lately?" she asked Diva.
Diva was feeling abrupt. It WAS cheating to try to mix up the
cards like that.
"This morning," she said. "But why 'poor'? You're always calling
people 'poor'. She's all right."
"Do you think she's got over the budgerigar?" asked Elizabeth.
"Quite. Wearing it to-day. Still raspberry-coloured."
"I wonder if she has got over it," mused Elizabeth. "If you ask
me, I think the budgerigar has got over her."
"Not the foggiest notion what you mean," said Diva.
"Just what I say. She believes she is getting in touch with the
bird's spirit. She told me so herself. She thinks that she hears
that tiresome little squeak it used to make, only she now calls it
singing."
"Singing in the ears, I expect," interrupted Diva. "Had it
sometimes myself. Wax. Syringe."
"--and the flutter of its wings," continued Elizabeth.
"She's trying to get communications from it by automatic script. I
hope our dear Susan won't go dotty."
"Rubbish!" said Diva severely, her thoughts going back again to
that revoke. She moved her chair up to the fire, and extinguished
Elizabeth by opening the evening paper.
The Mayoress bristled and rose.
"Well, we shall see whether it's rubbish or not," she said. "Such
a lovely game of Bridge, but I must be off. Where's Benjy's riding-
whip?"
"Wherever you happened to put it, I suppose," said Diva.
Elizabeth looked in the corner by the fireplace.
"That's where I put it," she said. "Who can have moved it?"
"You, of course. Probably took it into the card-room."
"I'm perfectly certain I didn't," said Elizabeth, hurrying there.
"Where's the switch, Diva?"
"Behind the door."
"What an inconvenient place to put it. It ought to have been the
other side."
Elizabeth cannoned into the card-table and a heavy fall of cards
and markers followed.
"Afraid I've upset something," she said. "Ah, I've got it."
"I said you'd taken it there yourself," said Diva. "Pick those
things up."
"No, not the riding-whip; the switch," she said.
Elizabeth looked in this corner and that, and under tables and
chairs, but there was no sign of what she sought. She came out,
leaving the light on.
"Not here," she said. "Perhaps the Padre has taken it. Or Evie."
"Better go round and ask them," said Diva.
"Thank you, dear. Or might I use your telephone? It would save me
a walk."
The call was made, but they were both at choir-practice.
"Or Mr. Georgie, do you think?" asked Elizabeth. "I'll just
enquire."
Now one of Diva's most sacred economies was the telephone. She
would always walk a reasonable distance herself to avoid these
outlays which, though individually small, mounted up so ruinously.
"If you want to telephone to all Tilling, Elizabeth," she said,
"you'd better go home and do it from there."
"Don't worry about that," said Elizabeth effusively; "I'll pay you
for the calls now, at once."
She opened her bag, dropped it, and a shower of coins of low
denomination scattered in all directions on the parquet floor.
"Clumsy of me," she said, pouncing on the bullion. "Ninepence in
coppers, two sixpences and a shilling, but I know there was a
threepenny bit. It must have rolled under your pretty sideboard.
Might I have a candle, dear?"
"No," said Diva firmly. "If there's a threepenny bit, Janet will
find it when she sweeps in the morning. You must get along without
it till then."
"There's no 'if' about it, dear. There WAS a threepenny bit. I
specially noticed it because it was a new one. With your
permission I'll ring up Mallards."
Foljambe answered. No; Mr. Georgie had taken his umbrella when he
went out to tea, and he couldn't have brought back a riding-whip by
mistake . . . Would Foljambe kindly make sure by asking him . . .
He was in his bath . . . Then would she just call through the
door. Mrs. Mapp-Flint would hold the line.
As Elizabeth waited for the answer, humming a little tune, Janet
came in with Diva's glass of sherry. She put up two fingers and
her eyebrows to enquire whether she should bring two glasses, and
Diva shook her head. Presently Georgie came to the telephone
himself.
"Wouldn't have bothered you for words, Mr. Georgie," said
Elizabeth. "Foljambe said you were in your bath. She must have
made a mistake."
"I was just going," said Georgie rather crossly, for the water must
be getting cold. "What is it?"
"Benjy's riding-whip has disappeared most mysteriously, and I can't
rest till I trace it. I thought you might possibly have taken it
away by mistake."
"What, the tiger one?" said Georgie, much interested in spite of
the draught round his ankles. "What a disaster. But I haven't got
it. What a series of adventures it's had! I saw you bring it into
Diva's; I noticed it particularly."
"Thank you," said Elizabeth, and rang off.
"And now for the police-station," said Diva, sipping her delicious
sherry. "That'll be your fourth call."
"Third, dear," said Elizabeth, uneasily wondering what Georgie
meant by the series of adventures. "But that would be premature
for the present. I must search a little more here, for it must be
somewhere. Oh, here's Paddy. Good dog! Come to help Auntie
Mayoress to find pretty riding-whip? Seek it, Paddy."
Paddy, intelligently following Elizabeth's pointing hand, thought
it must be a leaf of Diva's evening paper, which she had dropped on
the floor, that Auntie Mayoress wanted. He pounced on it, and
worried it.
"Paddy, you fool," cried Diva. "Drop it at once. Torn to bits and
all wet. Entirely your fault, Elizabeth." She rose, intensely
irritated.
"You must give it up for the present," she said to Elizabeth who
was poking about among the logs in the wood-basket. "All most
mysterious, I allow, but it's close on my supper-time, and that
interests me more."
Elizabeth was most reluctant to return to Benjy with the news that
she had called for the riding-whip at the office of the Argus and
had subsequently lost it.
"But it's Benjy's most cherished relic," she said. "It was the
very riding-whip with which he smacked the tiger over the face,
while he picked up his rifle and then shot him."
"Such a lot of legends aren't there?" said Diva menacingly. "And
if other people get talking there may be one or two more, just as
remarkable. And I want my supper."
Elizabeth paused in her search. This dark saying produced an
immediate effect.
"Too bad of me to stop so long," she said. "And thanks, dear, for
my delicious tea. It would be kind of you if you had another look
round."
Diva saw her off. The disappearance of the riding-whip was really
very strange: positively spooky. And though Elizabeth had been a
great nuisance, she deserved credit and sympathy for her ingenious
version of the awkward incident . . . She looked for the pennies
which Elizabeth had promised to pay at once for those telephone
calls, but there was no trace of them, and all her exasperation
returned.
"Just like her," she muttered. "That's the sort of thing that
really annoys me. So mean!"
It was Janet's evening out, and after eating her supper, Diva
returned to the tea-room for a few games of patience. It was
growing cold; Janet had forgotten to replenish the wood-basket, and
Diva went out to the wood-shed with an electric torch to fetch in a
few more logs. Something gleamed in the light, and she picked up a
silver cap, which seemed vaguely familiar. A fragment of chewed
wood projected from it, and looking more closely she saw engraved
on it the initials B. F.
"Golly! It's it," whispered the awe-struck Diva. "Benjamin Flint,
before he Mapped himself. But why here? And how?"
An idea struck her, and she called Paddy, but Paddy had no doubt
gone out with Janet. Forgetting about fresh logs but with this
relic in her hand, Diva returned to her room, and warmed herself
with intellectual speculation.
Somebody had disposed of all the riding-whip except this metallic
fragment. By process of elimination (for she acquitted Janet of
having eaten it), it must be Paddy. Should she ring up Elizabeth
and say that the riding-whip had been found? That would not be
true, for all that had been found was a piece of overwhelming
evidence that it never would be found. Besides, who could tell
what Elizabeth had said to Benjy by this time? Possibly (even
probably, considering what Elizabeth was) she would not tell him
that she had retrieved it from the office of the Argus, and thus
escape his just censure for having lost it.
"I believe," thought Diva, "that it might save developments which
nobody can foresee, if I said nothing about it to anybody. Nobody
knows except Paddy and me. Silentio, as Lucia says, when she's
gabbling fit to talk your head off. Let them settle it between
themselves, but nobody shall suspect ME of having had anything to
do with it. I'll bury it in the garden before Janet comes back.
Rather glad Paddy ate it. I was tired of Major Benjy showing me
the whip, and telling me about it over and over again. Couldn't be
true, either. I'm killing a lie."
With the help of a torch and a trowel Diva put the relic beyond
reasonable risk of discovery. This was only just done when Janet
returned with Paddy.
"Been strolling in the garden," said Diva with chattering teeth.
"Such a mild night. Dear Paddy! Such a clever dog."
Elizabeth pondered over the mystery as she walked briskly home, and
when she came to discuss it with Benjy after dinner they presently
became very friendly. She reminded him that he had behaved like a
poltroon this morning, and, like a loyal wife, she had shielded him
from exposure by her ingenious explanations. She disclosed that
she had retrieved the riding-whip from the Argus office, but had
subsequently lost it at Diva's tea-rooms. A great pity, but it
still might turn up. What they must fix firmly in their minds was
that Benjy had gone to the office of the Argus merely to pay a
polite call on Mr. McConnell, and that Elizabeth had never seen the
monstrous caricature of herself in that paper.
"That's settled then," she said, "and it's far the most dignified
course we can take. And I've been thinking about more important
things than these paltry affairs. There's an election to the Town
Council next month. One vacancy. I shall stand."
"Not very wise, Liz," he said. "You tried that once, and came in
at the bottom of the poll."
"I know that. Lucia and I polled exactly the same number of votes.
But times have changed now. She's Mayor and I'm Mayoress. It's of
her I'm thinking. I shall be much more assistance to her as a
Councillor. I shall be a support to her at the meetings."
"Very thoughtful of you," said Benjy. "Does she see it like that?"
"I've not told her yet. I shall be firm in any case. Well, it's
bedtime; such an exciting day! Dear me, if I didn't forget to pay
Diva for a few telephone calls I made from her house. Dear Diva,
and her precious economies!"
And in Diva's back garden, soon to tarnish by contact with the
loamy soil, there lay buried, like an unspent shell with all its
explosive potentialities intact, the silver cap of the vanished
relic.
Mayoring day arrived and Lucia, formally elected by the Town
Council, assumed her scarlet robes. She swept them a beautiful
curtsey and said she was their servant. She made a touching
allusion to her dear friend the Mayoress, whose loyal and loving
support would alone render her own immense responsibilities a joy
to shoulder, and Elizabeth, wreathed in smiles, dabbed her
handkerchief on the exact piece of her face where tears, had there
been any, would have bedewed it. The Mayor then entertained a
large party to lunch at the King's Arms Hotel, preceding them in
state while church bells rang, dogs barked, cameras clicked, and
the sun gleamed on the massive maces borne before her. There were
cheers for Lucia led by the late Mayor and cheers for the Mayoress
led by her present husband.
In the afternoon Lucia inaugurated Diva's tea-shop, incognita as
Mrs. Pillson. The populace of Tilling was not quite so thrilled as
she had expected at the prospect of taking its tea in the same room
as the Mayor, and no one saw her drink the first cup of tea except
Georgie and Diva, who kept running to the window on the look-out
for customers. Seeing Susan in her Royce, she tapped on the pane,
and got her to come in so that they could inaugurate the card-room
with a rubber of Bridge. Then suddenly a torrent of folk invaded
the tea-room and Diva had to leave an unfinished hand to help Janet
to serve them.
"Wish they'd come sooner," she said, "to see the ceremony. Do wait
a bit; if they ease off we can finish our game."
She hurried away. A few minutes afterwards she opened the door and
said in a thrilling whisper, "Fourteen shilling ones, and two
eighteen-penny's."
"Splendid!" said everybody, and Susan began telling them about her
automatic script.
"I sit there with my eyes shut and my pencil in my hand," she said,
"and Blue Birdie on the table by me. I get a sort of lost feeling,
and then Blue Birdie seems to say 'Tweet, tweet', and I say 'Good
morning, dear'. Then my pencil begins to move. I never know what
it writes. A queer, scrawling hand, not a bit like mine."
The door opened and Diva's face beamed redly.
"Still twelve shilling ones," she said, "though six of the first
lot have gone. Two more eighteen-penny, but the cream is getting
low, and Janet's had to add milk."
"Where had I got to?" said Susan. "Oh, yes. It goes on writing
till Blue Birdie seems to say 'Tweet, tweet' again, and that means
it's finished and I say 'Good-bye, dear'."
"What sort of things does it write?" asked Lucia.
"All sorts. This morning it kept writing mère over and over
again."
"That's very strange," said Lucia eagerly. "Very. I expect Blue
Birdie wants to say something to me."
"No," said Susan. "Not your sort of Mayor. The French word mère,
just as if Blue Birdie said 'Mummie'. Speaking to me evidently."
This did not seem to interest Lucia.
"And anything of value?" she asked.
"It's all of value," said Susan.
A slight crash sounded from the tea-room.
"Only a tea-cup," said Diva, looking in again. Rather like
breaking a bottle of wine when you launch a ship."
"Would you like me to show myself for a minute?" asked Lucia. "I
will gladly walk through the room if it would help."
"So good of you, but I don't want any help except in handling
things. Besides, I told the reporter of the Argus that you had had
your tea, and were playing cards in here."
"Oh, not quite wise, Diva," said Lucia. "Tell him I wasn't playing
for money. Think of the example."
"Afraid he's gone," said Diva. "Besides, it wouldn't be true. Two
of your Councillors here just now. Shillings. Didn't charge them.
Advertisement."
The press of customers eased off, and, leaving Janet to deal with
the remainder, Diva joined them, clinking a bag of bullion.
"Lots of tips," she said. "I never reckoned on that. Mostly
twopences, but they'll add up. I must just count the takings, and
then let's finish the rubber."
The takings exceeded all expectation; quite a pile of silver; a
pyramid of copper.
"What will you do with all that money now the banks are closed?"
asked Georgie lightly. "Such a sum to have in the house. I should
bury it in the garden."
Diva's hand gave an involuntary twitch as she swept the coppers
into a bag. Odd that he should say that! "Safe enough," she
replied. "Paddy sleeps in my room, now that I know he hasn't got
mange."
The Mayoral banquet followed in the evening. Unfortunately,
neither the Lord Lieutenant nor the Bishop nor the Member of
Parliament were able to attend, but they sent charming letters of
regret, which Lucia read before her Chaplain, the Padre, said
Grace. She wore her mayoral chain of office round her neck, and
her chain of inherited seed-pearls in her hair, and Georgie, as
arranged, sat alone on the other side of the table directly
opposite her. He was disadvantageously placed with regard to
supplies of food and drink, for the waiter had to go round the far
end of the side-tables to get at him, but he took extra large
helpings when he got the chance, and had all his wine-glasses
filled. He wore on the lapel of his coat a fine green and white
enamel star, which had long lain among his bibelots, and which
looked like a foreign order. At the far end of the room was a
gallery, from which ladies, as if in purdah, were allowed to look
on. Elizabeth sat in the front row, and waggled her hand at the
Mayor, whenever Lucia looked in her direction, in order to
encourage her. Once, when a waiter was standing just behind Lucia,
Elizabeth felt sure that she had caught her eye, and kissed her
hand to her. The waiter promptly responded, and the Mayoress,
blushing prettily, ceased to signal. . . . There were flowery
speeches made and healths drunk, and afterwards a musical
entertainment. The Mayor created a precedent by contributing to
this herself and giving (as the Hampshire Argus recorded in its
next issue) an exquisite rendering on the piano of the slow
movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. It produced a somewhat
pensive effect, and she went back to her presiding place again amid
respectful applause and a shrill, solitary cry of "Encore!" from
Elizabeth. The spirits of her guests revived under the spell of
lighter melodies, and at the end Auld Lang Syne was sung with
crossed hands by all the company, with the exception of Georgie,
who had no neighbours. Lucia swept regal curtsies to right and
left, and a loop of the seed pearls in her hair got loose and
oscillated in front of her face.
The Mayor and her Prince Consort drove back to Mallards, Lucia
strung up to the highest pitch of triumph, Georgie intensely
fatigued. She put him through a catechism of self-glorification in
the garden-room.
"I think I gave them a good dinner," she said. "And the wine was
excellent, wasn't it?"
"Admirable," said Georgie.
"And my speech. Not too long?"
"Not a bit. Exactly right."
"I thought they drank my health very warmly. Non e vero?"
"Very. Molto," said Georgie.
Lucia struck a chord on the piano before she closed it.
"Did I take the Moonlight a little too quick?" she asked.
"No. I never heard you play it better."
"I felt the enthusiasm tingling round me," she said. "In the days
of horse-drawn vehicles, I am sure they would have taken my horses
out of the shafts and pulled us up home. But impossible with a
motor."
Georgie yawned.
"They might have taken out the carburetter," he said wearily.
She glanced at some papers on her table.
"I must be up early to-morrow," she said, "to be ready for Mrs.
Simpson. . . . A new era, Georgie. I seem to see a new era for
our dear Tilling."
CHAPTER IV
Lucia did not find her new duties quite as onerous as she expected,
but she made them as onerous as she could. She pored over plans
for new houses which the Corporation was building, and having once
grasped the difference between section and elevation was full of
ideas for tasteful weathercocks, lightning conductors and
balconies. With her previous experience in Stock Exchange
transactions to help her, she went deeply into questions of finance
and hit on a scheme of borrowing money at three and a half per
cent. for a heavy outlay for the renewal of drains, and investing
it in some thoroughly sound concern that brought in four and a half
per cent. She explained this masterpiece to Georgie.
"Say we borrow ten thousand pounds at three and a half," she said,
"the interest on that will be three hundred and fifty pounds a
year. We invest it, Georgie,--follow me closely here--at four and
a half, and it brings us in four hundred and fifty pounds a year.
A clear gain of one hundred pounds."
"That does seem brilliant," said Georgie. "But wait a moment. If
you re-invest what you borrow, how do you pay for the work on your
drains?"
Lucia's face grew corrugated with thought.
"I see what you're driving at, Georgie," she said slowly. "Very
acute of you. I must consider that further before I bring my
scheme before the Finance Committee. But in my belief--of course
this is strictly private--the work on the drains is not so very
urgent. We might put it off for six months, and in the meantime
reap our larger dividends. I'm sure there's something to be done
on those lines."
Then with a view to investigating the lighting of the streets, she
took Georgie out for walks after dinner on dark and even rainy
evenings.
"This corner now," she said as the rain poured down on her
umbrella. "A most insufficient illumination. I should never
forgive myself if some elderly person tripped up here in the dark
and stunned himself. He might remain undiscovered for hours."
"Quite," said Georgie, "But this is very cold-catching. Let's get
home. No elderly person will come out on such a night. Madness."
"It is a little wet," said Lucia, who never caught cold. "I'll go
to look at that alley by Bumpus's buildings another night, for
there's a memorandum on Town Development plans waiting for me,
which I haven't mastered. Something about residential zones and
industrial zones, Georgie. I mustn't permit a manufactory to be
opened in a residential zone: for instance, I could never set up a
brewery or a blacksmith's forge in the garden at Mallards--"
"Well, you don't want to, do you?" said Georgie.
"The principle, dear, is the interesting thing. At first sight it
looks rather like a curtailment of the liberty of the individual,
but if you look, as I am learning to do, below the surface, you
will perceive that a blacksmith's forge in the middle of the lawn
would detract from the tranquillity of adjoining residences. It
would injure their amenities."
Georgie plodded beside her, wishing Lucia was not so excruciatingly
didactic, but trying between sneezes to be a good husband to the
Mayor.
"And mayn't you reside in an industrial zone?" he asked.
"That I must look into. I should myself certainly permit a shoe-
maker to live above his shop. Then there's the general business
zone. I trust that Diva's tea-rooms in the High Street are in
order: it would be sad for her if I had to tell her to close
them . . . Ah, our comfortable garden-room again! You were asking
just now about residence in an industrial zone. I think I have
some papers here which will tell you that. And there's a coloured
map of zones somewhere, green for industrial, blue for residential
and yellow for general business, which would fascinate you. Where
is it now?"
"Don't bother about it to-night," said Georgie. "I can easily wait
till to-morrow. What about some music? There's that Scarlatti
duet."
"Ah, divino Scarlattino!" said Lucia absently, as she turned over
her papers. "Eureka! Here it is! No, that's about slums, but
also very interesting . . . What's a 'messuage'?"
"Probably a misprint for message," said he. "Or massage."
"No, neither makes sense: I must put a query to that."
Georgie sat down at the piano, and played a few fragments of
remembered tunes. Lucia continued reading: it was rather difficult
to understand, and the noise distracted her.
"Delicious tunes," she said, "but would it be very selfish of me,
dear, to ask you to stop while I'm tackling this? So important
that I should have it at my fingers' ends before the next meeting,
and be able to explain it. Ah, I see . . . no, that's green.
Industrial. But in half an hour or so--"
Georgie closed the piano.
"I think I shall go to bed," he said. "I may have caught cold."
"Ah, now I see," cried Lucia triumphantly. "You can reside in any
zone. That is only fair: why should a chemist in the High Street
be forced to live half a mile away? And very clearly put. I could
not have expressed it better myself. Good-night, dear. A few
drops of camphor on a lump of sugar. Sleep well."
The Mayoress was as zealous as the Mayor. She rang Lucia up at
breakfast time every morning, and wished to speak to her
personally.
"Anything I can do for you, dear Worship?" she asked. "Always at
your service, as I needn't remind you."
"Nothing whatever, thanks," answered Lucia. "I've a Council
meeting this afternoon--"
"No points you'd like to talk over with me? Sure?"
"Quite," said Lucia firmly.
"There are one or two bits of things I should like to bring to your
notice," said the baffled Elizabeth, "for of course you can't keep
in touch with everything. I'll pop in at one for a few minutes and
chance finding you disengaged. And a bit of news."
Lucia went back to her congealed bacon.
"She's got quite a wrong notion of the duties of a Mayoress,
Georgie," she said. "I wish she would understand that if I want
her help I shall ask for it. She has nothing to do with my
official duties, and as she's not on the Town Council, she can't
dip her oar very deep."
"She's hoping to run you," said Georgie. "She hopes to have her
finger in every pie. She will if she can."
"I have got to be very tactful," said Lucia thoughtfully. "You see
the only object of my making her Mayoress was to dope her malignant
propensities, and if I deal with her too rigorously I should merely
stimulate them . . . Ah, we must begin our régime of plain living.
Let us go and do our marketing at once, and then I can study the
agenda for this afternoon before Elizabeth arrives."
Elizabeth had some assorted jobs for Worship to attend to. Worship
ought to know that a car had come roaring down the hill into
Tilling yesterday at so terrific a pace that she hadn't time to see
the number. A van and Susan's Royce had caused a complete stoppage
of traffic in the High Street; anyone with only a few minutes to
spare to catch a train must have missed it. "And far worse was a
dog that howled all last night outside the house next Grebe," said
Elizabeth. "Couldn't sleep a wink."
"But I can't stop it," said Lucia.
"No? I should have thought some threatening notice might be served
on the owner. Or shall I write a letter to the Argus, which we
both might sign. More weight. Or I would write a personal note to
you which you might read to the Council. Whichever you like,
Worship. You to choose."
Lucia did not find any of these alternatives attractive, but made a
business-like note of them all.
"Most valuable suggestions," she said. "But I don't feel that I
could move officially about the dog. It might be a cat next, or a
canary."
Elizabeth was gazing out of the window with that kind, meditative
smile which so often betokened some atrocious train of thought.
"Just little efforts of mine, dear Worship, to enlarge your sphere
of influence," she said. "Soon, perhaps, I may be able to support
you more directly."
Lucia felt a qualm of sickening apprehension.
"That would be lovely," she said. "But how, dear Elizabeth, could
you do more than you are doing?"
Elizabeth focused her kind smile on dear Worship's face. A close
up.
"Guess, dear!" she said.
"Couldn't," said Lucia.
"Well, then, there's a vacancy in the Borough Council, and I'm
standing for it. Oh, if I got in! At hand to support you in all
your Council meetings. You and me! Just think!"
Lucia made one desperate attempt to avert this appalling prospect,
and began to gabble.
"That would be wonderful," she said, "and how well I know that it's
your devotion to me that prompts you. How I value that! But
somehow it seems to me that your influence, your tremendous
influence, would be lessened rather than the reverse, if you became
just one out of my twelve Councillors. Your unique position as
Mayoress would suffer. Tilling would think of you as one of a
body. You, my right hand, would lose your independence. And then,
unlikely, even impossible as it sounds, supposing you were not
elected? A ruinous loss of prestige--"
Foljambe entered.
"Lunch," she said, and left the door of the garden-room wide open.
Elizabeth sprang up with a shrill cry of astonishment.
"No idea it was lunch-time," she cried. "How naughty of me not to
have kept my eye on the clock, but time passed so quickly, as it
always does, dear, when I'm talking to you. But you haven't
convinced me; far from it. I must fly; Benjy will call me a
naughty girl for being so late."
Lucia remembered that the era of plain living had begun. Hashed
mutton and treacle pudding. Perhaps Elizabeth might go away if she
knew that. On the other hand, Elizabeth had certainly come here at
one o'clock in order to be asked to lunch, and it would be wiser to
ask her.
"Ring him up and say you're lunching here," she decided. "Do."
Elizabeth recollected that she had ordered hashed beef and
marmalade pudding at home.
"I consider that a command, dear Worship," she said. "May I use
your telephone?"
All these afflictions strongly reacted on Georgie. Mutton and Mapp
and incessant conversation about municipal affairs were making home
far less comfortable than he had a right to expect. Then Lucia
sprang another conscientious surprise on him, when she returned
that afternoon positively invigorated by a long Council meeting.
"I want to consult you, Georgie," she said. "Ever since the
Hampshire Argus reported that I played Bridge in Diva's card-room,
the whole question has been on my mind. I don't think I ought to
play for money."
"You can't call threepence a hundred money," said Georgie.
"It is not a large sum, but emphatically it IS money. It's the
principle of the thing. A very sad case--all this is very private--
has just come to my notice. Young Twistevant, the grocer's son,
has been backing horses, and is in debt with his last quarter's
rent unpaid. Lately married and a baby coming. All the result of
gambling."
"I don't see how the baby is the result of gambling," said Georgie.
"Unless he bet he wouldn't have one."
Lucia gave the wintry smile that was reserved for jokes she didn't
care about.
"I expressed myself badly," she said. "I only meant that his want
of money, when he will need it more than ever, is the result of
gambling. The principle is the same whether it's threepence or a
starving baby. And Bridge surely, with its call both on prudence
and enterprise, is a sufficiently good game to play for love: for
love of Bridge. Let us set an example. When we have our next
Bridge party, let it be understood that there are no stakes."
"I don't think you'll get many Bridge parties if that's
understood," said Georgie. "Everyone will go seven no trumps at
once."
"Then they'll be doubled," cried Lucia triumphantly.
"And redoubled. It wouldn't be any fun. Most monotonous. The
dealer might as well pick up his hand and say Seven no-trumps,
doubled and redoubled, before he looked at it."
"I hope we take a more intelligent interest in the game than THAT,"
said Lucia. "The judgment in declaring, the skill in the play of
the cards, the various systems