Lucia Triumphant (16 page)

‘
This time,' said Lucia coldly, ‘she has gone too far.'

‘
They spelt her name right too,' said Georgie, ‘or at least the Norman part of it—de Map with one “p”. She must have written it down for them.'

‘
Surely you are mistaken, dear,' said Lucia, grim as Cromwell. ‘Elizabeth's surname since her marriage has been Mapp (two “p”s)-Flint. But, then, it is such an inaccurate, carelessly researched, badly edited article that such minor errors are of no consequence.'

Georgie sought to change the subject.

‘
Fancy the Wyses being Spanish nobles,' he said. ‘I think they call them
hidalgos,
or are those the people who fight bulls? They've got their name wrong too—they won't like that, since it's such a terribly good name and whoever heard of the Whites of Whitchurch? And Mr. Wyse has been given Susan's medal, only it's grander. I bet they're furious.'

Lucia noticed that her name, in tiny italics, appeared at the bottom of the article (and nowhere else) among those thanked by the editor for their invaluable assistance in preparing the article.

‘
Clearly this is another of Elizabeth's insane practical jokes,' she reiterated. ‘For some reason—some silly, childish reason of her own—she must have misled Mr. Arncott, who is obviously, for all his learning, not a particularly intelligent man, with deliberate falsehoods.'

‘
I suppose so,' said Georgie. ‘But how could she manage it? And why didn't we see them taking the beastly photograph?'

‘
I imagine she was prowling around outside the house and, when we went off to see what had become of them, she loitered in front of the garden-room window until Mr. Arncott and the photographer—a most unprofessional photographer, by the look of it—came by. Look, she is wearing that hideous old hat that she keeps for sketching. She must have put up her easel outside. And all the time,' Lucia could not keep the emotion from her voice, ‘we were wandering around the back streets looking for them in case they were lost. It's too bad of her, it really is.'

‘
I think we should ignore the whole thing,' said Georgie who was re-reading the passage about the Wyses.

‘
I agree with you,
caro.
We might possibly write a letter to the editor pointing out the strictly factual errors in the article, but beyond that it would be too humiliating to become involved directly in accusations of deception and fraud. If Elizabeth is so keen to announce to the world the depths to which she is prepared to sink, we at least should not assist her in her self-destructive mania.'

Lucia was getting excited again, and Georgie, thinking of her blood-pressure, interrupted her.

‘
Oh look,' he said, ‘our curtains have come out terribly well. There's Brutus as clear as anything.'

‘
I'm surprised Elizabeth didn't claim them too. She has as much right to do so as she has to claim any connection with Mallards.' Lucia was more furious than ever and Georgie started to edge nervously from the room. ‘When I think of the state this house was in when I rescued it from her! Why, if she was still the owner, there would have been nothing for her friend Mr. Arncott to see but a pile of fallen masonry.'

So quickly was Lucia speaking in her wrath that before he could attain the safety of the corridor, Georgie had to listen to a full and not particularly flattering character-study of Elizabeth, with speculation about her true ancestry and her likely ultimate fate. As he closed the door behind him, he wiped his brow with his handkerchief, for he was perspiring freely, and he noted with distress that the perspiration had made the deep auburn of his hair run a little.

‘
If she carries on like that,' he said to himself, ‘she'll go off pop!'

 

The other eager readers of
County Life
had by this time reassembled in the High Street and their verdict on the article was hardly more favourable than Lucia's. Their resentment, however, was focused on another scapegoat, for they too had read the small italics at the end of the piece. Besides that, there were other well-springs of animosity.

‘
Gave me her word that Wasters would be in it,' said Diva, ‘or as good as gave me her word. I wouldn't have minded if she hadn't gone and raised my hopes.'

‘
Why, she virtually promised me that the Vicarage windows would be prominently featured,' said Evie. ‘She thought that the sills alone—'

‘
Currying favour,' replied Diva. ‘Now I suppose she'll blame poor Mr. Arncott and say that he ignored her recommendations. Won't believe a word of it. Bet
she
suggested that hovel in Church Square. Why, it's no bigger than my scullery.'

‘
Why on earth she made all those promises when she knew she'd be found out, I really can't imagine. But that's so like Lucia. She must have everyone looking up to her and saying how clever she is.'

‘
She can't be all that clever,' broke in Susan Wyse, ‘or she'd know my name by now. And what on earth possessed her to say that I was related to the Spanish aristocracy?'

‘
Come now, Susan, my dear,' said Mr. Wyse, although he knew in his heart that the devil whose advocate he was merited no defence, ‘we have no conclusive evidence that it was Mrs. Pillson who so misled those journalists.'

‘
Yes we have!' cried Diva. ‘It's there at the bottom of the third page, in black and white. Thanks Mrs. Pillson for her invaluable assistance. Fancy that! And calling the Padre Mr. McBartlett. I call that downright disrespectful to a clergyman, but I suppose it's her idea of a joke.'

‘
There's something that puzzles me,' said Evie darkly. ‘Why did she say that Mallards belonged to Elizabeth and had been in her family since the Norman Conquest or whatever it was? And all that stuff about Hugo de Map and the Domesday Book?
That's
not like Lucia.'

‘
Easy,' said Diva, who had puzzled long and hard over an explanation for this inconsistency. ‘
She
didn't tell them that. Must've found it out for themselves. Looked up the history of the area, I shouldn't wonder. Which only goes to show that what Elizabeth's been saying all this time is perfectly true. Confirmed by Mr. Arncott no less. In black and white,' she added, for she was fond of the phrase.

The word ‘white' made Mr. Wyse wince. ‘It is some small consolation,' he said, ‘that our dear friend Mrs. de Map-Flint's noble lineage has been independently researched and confirmed. I thought that Mrs. Pillson had been unnecessarily sceptical on the subject.'

Thus the battle-lines were drawn, and it became necessary to believe in Elizabeth's ancestry if one was against Lucia and her trickery. Irene, who had been to the Public Library to consult the copy of
County Life
available there (all the others having by now been sold), came running down the street grinning broadly. Thus it is that Fate seals our dooms, for her intervention at this point made Lucia's condemnation irrevocable.

At the sight of the Wyses, she stopped and bowed gravely. Having greeted Mr. Wyse as Don Alhernon and Susan as Mrs. White, she proceeded to advance a theory accounting for what had happened, a theory that was precisely correct. However, since it was she who had suggested it, if was, of course, dismissed at once as a tissue of malicious lies, and Irene was received in silence and cold disdain.

‘
Oh, please yourselves,' she said equably. ‘But, if I were you, I'd get an architect to look over Starling Cottage. Judging by that photograph, I don't think it's terribly safe. Did you see how it was leaning over backwards?
Olé.'

She departed as quickly as she had come and raced off towards Mallards to comfort Lucia. In fact, she did not have very far to go, for she met her outside Mr. Hopkins's shop, where Lucia had paused to buy some turbot and to summon up her courage before facing the High Street.

‘
Don't worry, ' said Irene. ‘It's an awful score for Mapp, of course, but I'll put her in her place all right, you just wait and see. I've scrapped my painting of the storm, by the way, and started a new one. You'll like it. It's the Battle of Hastings, only you're William and Mapp is Harold—which is logical; since she's not a Norman she's got to be a Saxon, hasn't she? And she's got an arrow in her eye, and Major Benjy is standing beside her with a gonfalon tied to his golf-club and a bottle of whisky. Come across and have a look.'

‘
Sweet of you, dear,' said Lucia. ‘I must come and see it, but not just now. Shopping first.'

‘
I should get the car out and go into Hastings for your shopping,' said Irene. ‘They're frightfully cross with you at the moment. They think
you
told all those fibs—it was Mapp, of course, but do you think they'd believe me? I think they got the impression that you promised to recommend their mouldy houses and then went back on your word. Utter rubbish, of course. You never promised anything.'

‘
I most certainly did not! ' snapped Lucia, and that was true enough.

‘
Well, take care,' said Irene, and she darted across into Taormina to start the work of changing the faces of the Saxon dead to resemble the Wyses, the Bartletts and Diva.

 

It had been one of the lowest troughs of Lucia's career. To be snubbed
en
bloc
by the whole of Tilling, to see them all cross the street at her approach to fawn on Elizabeth and compliment her on her excellent likeness in the photograph; to hear Evie Bartlett, the mouse-like, the insignificant, saying quite loudly, ‘Of course, Elizabeth dear, it's appropriate really. And the rest of it was
quite
correct. In your family for generations'; it was a bitter blow, and Lucia seemed for a moment to be bowed by it. But she was Lucia yet, and Mayor of Tilling. It was horribly unjust to be blamed for Elizabeth's forgeries. Of course, she had herself trodden dangerous ground by seeming to make promises that she could not and had not intended to keep. We learn by our mistakes, and Lucia had learnt from this disaster; now there was lost ground to be made up and mutiny to be suppressed. If she could engineer her own release from excommunication, she felt confident that she could deal with Elizabeth without too much difficulty, for Elizabeth had a delightful knack of making trouble for herself. But how was she to overcome this excommunication? Tilling had turned its back on her, and with those who will not hear, who can reason? Although she was sure that tea was still drunk and Bridge played in the town, she had received no invitations and her own had been declined with a cold formality that would have pleased Lord Chesterfield. She was under embargo; she did not exist.

Meanwhile Georgie, usually so resolute and unflinching (when properly handled), had refused to be her
agens in rebus
. He still existed in the eyes of Tilling, but his existence had from time to time been called into question by some of the more extreme agnostics, especially if he mentioned his wife or recounted her views on a subject. Then a sort of deafness afflicted his listeners, or else his voice became suddenly inaudible, for the conversation would continue as if he had not spoken. Indeed, if the house in which they were gathered had gone up in flames and he had said, ‘The house is on fire, as Lucia would have pointed out if she were here,' he was sure that they would have stayed where they were and been burnt to death rather than acknowledge his words.

‘
You've offended them,' he said, on his return from a particularly enjoyable tea party at which Lucia's name had not been mentioned once. ‘And so they've cut you out. I think they think they've proved that they can do without you perfectly well.'

Lucia received this message in stoical silence. She knew the difficulties that faced her; she also knew that if she had not existed, it would have been necessary to invent her. She rose from her place in front of the curtains, where she had been dividing the afternoon between Sallust's
Jugurtha
and a report from the Municipal Refuse Disposal Committee, and went to the piano.

‘
Dear Irene called while you were out,' she said absently. ‘Such a delightful chat—Art, Philosophy, municipal affairs. I feel that much could be made of Irene if her eccentricities could be ironed out—for she has a Brain, no question about that. I wish you could have been here. So rare in the hurly-burly of social and political life to find time to pause, or reflect, with one or two good friends.' She opened the lid of the piano and her fingers strayed idly over the keys. ‘That is why I do not resent this foolish, spiteful ostracism. I welcome it. So distracting, the ebb and flow of human interaction. How does that magnificent savage Wagner put it in his
Siegfried
?
“Männertaten
undämmern
mir
den Mut
”—human actions cloud my mind.'

Georgie regarded her nervously, for Wagner was very much the heavy artillery of her intellectual armoury. That she should be using it now on him was rather alarming. So like a kitten which, when frightened, rolls on its back and purrs defensively (but with eyes open and ears back), he decided to be cautiously jocund.

‘
I do believe that you've been practising some of our little duets while my back has been turned,' he said tentatively. ‘I know you,
cattiva
Lucia, polishing up the treble so as to be oh so much better that your
Georgino
when we play together.'