Lucia Triumphant (23 page)

‘
It was me all the time,' he said angrily. ‘Oh, how could she think that!'

Then he went to sleep.

 

The next morning brought fresh excitement. Everyone had received an invitation to dine at Grebe—an unusual thing in itself, for Elizabeth rarely took it upon herself to feed all of Tilling Society at a sitting. Such Homeric gestures, she reasoned, were best left to Lucia and the Wyses. More fascinating still was the handwritten post-script to each invitation: ‘Do, please, try to come if you can, as I have something interesting to tell you all.'

‘
That's typical of Elizabeth,' said Evie to Diva. ‘A great deal of mystery and suspense and all it will turn out to be is a new hat, or Benjy-boy managing the fifth hole in less than twelve! How she loves to dramatize everything!'

‘
Perhaps,' said Diva. ‘Or maybe she has got some news. She's been very quiet of late. All she's really done is try and steal Lucia's ghost.'

This unfortunate choice of words conjured up a strange picture in the minds of both of them; Evie seemed to see Elizabeth engaged in some hideous necromantic rite, in which she sought to capture Lucia's spirit, while Diva, whose imagination was rather more mundane, pictured Elizabeth laying a trail of aniseed from Mallards to Grebe. They freed themselves from these strange imaginings.

‘
That'll be it, then. She'll have found a ghost for Grebe. Or perhaps she's having one sent down from London in a hamper. Talking of ghosts, by the way, Lucia has asked Kenneth to exorcise the Black Spaniard. As quietly as possible, she said.'

‘
How thrilling!' cried Diva. ‘But why? She was as keen as anything on having a ghost before. What can have changed her mind?'

‘
No idea. But Kenneth is terribly excited. He's been studying the service and he's written to the Bishop for advice. He's never been asked to perform an exorcism before.'

The Wyses, passing by in the Royce, stopped for a moment to ascertain indirectly whether Elizabeth's hospitality had been extended to all or simply to themselves alone. They too were fascinated to hear of the Black Spaniard's imminent demise. Susan, with her keen interest in Spiritualism, was particularly interested in the ghost's well-being.

‘
I do hope the dear Padre will use a humane form of exorcism,' she said. ‘Some of the forms and procedures for driving out spirits are rather brutal and I would hate to think of the poor thing's suffering. Is it over quickly, Evie dear, or does the ghost linger on for some minutes?'

‘
I can't say for sure,' said Evie, who had not considered this aspect of the matter. ‘I know Kenneth has to ring a little bell and call it all sorts of names. I don't think he actually kills it, though.'

‘
He couldn't kill it,' said Susan. ‘It is a spirit and therefore immortal.'

‘
You mean it'll be wandering around looking for somewhere to go?' asked Diva excitedly. She had already thought of offering it a home at Wasters, should it require one. But she could not see how she might make her house especially attractive for the spirit. One could not put out bowls of bread and milk as one did for hedgehogs.

‘
The ejected spirit, unless it be malign, which in this case seems unlikely, will probably find release from its earthly bonds and be translated to the Other Side,' explained Susan loftily.

‘
Oh, I see,' said Diva sadly. ‘What a pity. It seems such a waste.'

 

Elizabeth, meanwhile, was preoccupied with other matters, to wit, her dinner party and the triumphant exhibition of Miss Lydia Mapp. Major Benjy's inspection of the (altered) portrait had been enough to convince her that no one would be able to detect her slight emendations. He had peered at the name for quite three minutes and pronounced it genuine in reply to her anxious query of ‘Oh Benjy, do you think it can really say that?' In fact, Benjy had gone rather further: he had at once inspected the silver tray and she rather feared that he gained the erroneous impression that it said ‘Mapp' too. But it would be too complicated to explain all that and, since his subsequent scrutiny of the porcelain urn had proved fruitless, she let the matter rest. She was preparing to go into town when Benjy, rather red-faced, stopped her.

‘
You were—um—thinking of driving in?' he asked cautiously.

‘
Yes, why? Has that wretched car broken down again?'

‘
In the motor, you mean?'

This was a foolish question, more foolish than she would have expected even from the Major, and it put her on her guard.

‘
Is there something the matter with the motor?' she reiterated.

‘
No, nothing at all. But—well, you can't drive it, I'm afraid. Not just now anyway.'

‘
What can you mean, you obscure one? Of course I can. I've been driving it for months.'

‘
Well, old girl, it's like this.' The Major swallowed hard. ‘I was chattin' with the bobby just now—or, rather, he called specially. Asked if you had a Driving Licence.'

‘
A
what
, dear?' demanded Elizabeth sharply.

‘
Some damn' Government thing. Apparently you have to have one, and to get one nowadays you have to pass some sort of test. Just come in, apparently. Otherwise you can't drive a motor on the road. It's illegal.'

‘
But Benjy, this is absurd. Apart from the sheer tyranny of it, how on earth can one learn to drive and so pass this test if one is not allowed to drive without a licence?'

‘
Oh, you can drive without passing the test if someone who has a licence is with you.'

Elizabeth relaxed and said patiently, as if to a small child, ‘That's all right, then. You can accompany me until I pass this test and obtain my licence. I presume it will be just a formality.'

‘
Not exactly, Liz,' said the Major uncomfortably. ‘You see, I haven't got a licence either. Didn't really know you had to have one.' He shut his eyes as a man will do before an explosion. ‘It's only been the law for a little while,' he said pleadingly.

‘
You mean that for that
little
while,' said Elizabeth aghast, ‘we've been regularly and systematically breaking the law? Ever since you persuaded me—against my better judgment, let me say—to pay good money for that—that wretched thing? And I could have been arrested? And taken to court?' The horror of this struck Elizabeth like a hammer, for she knew only too well that Lucia was a magistrate. Her heart nearly stopped beating as images of a packed court and Lucia in a black cap flashed across her mind. Had she been apprehended and brought before the Mayor in her wrath, who could doubt that she would have gone the way of Perkin Map?

‘
Oh, Benjy,' she gasped, ‘how could you have been so utterly stupid? Get rid of it at once, do you hear? I never want to set eyes on it again.'

‘
But Liz,' pleaded the Major, ‘it's only a matter of passing the test. I'm sure we could get someone to sit in the car with you until you're ready.'

‘
Whom, for instance?'

‘
Well, if we were to ask her, Lucia might let us have Cadman for a day or so each week. If we paid his wages, of course.'

That, as far as Elizabeth was concerned, was that. Rather than subject herself to such an indignity, she would prefer to crawl about on her knees for the rest of her days. With a terrible cry, therefore, she drove the Major from her presence, and, going out into the garden, vented her fury on the rose-bushes (which had already been thoroughly pruned) until sweet thoughts of Miss Lydia Mapp restored her equilibrium.

For his part, Major Benjy could bear the loss with a degree of equanimity. He had scarcely ever been able to get the machine to himself and it had been rather shaming to be driven everywhere by his wife, with her incessant cries of ‘Do move your knee, dear, I'm trying to change gear!' In fact, it was this humiliation rather than dire threats from officers of the law that had led him, on finding out about the new motoring regulations from an acquaintance at the Golf Club, to concoct that mythical meeting with the policeman. If someone in the Mapp-Flint household had been going to learn to drive, he knew for certain that it would not have been him. He would have been condemned to eternal passengerhood, with all its attendant ignominy. His tale, with the threat of the magistrates' court and the suggestion—calculated to inspire rage—that she should take lessons from Cadman, had produced the desired result. All rather neat, especially since his golfing friend, informed of his difficulties, had offered to take the three-wheeler off his hands for seventy pounds. He toyed with the idea of concealing the true sum from Elizabeth and converting the difference to his own use, but that would be fraught with danger .... He drove the machine, for the first and last time, down to the links, handed it over as arranged, and stayed to drink a whisky-and-soda until the tram left to take him back to Tilling.

The mellowing fumes of the whisky softened his heart, already light with the successful conclusion of his strategy, and he began to find himself feeling a little sorry for his wife. It must have been a distinct disappointment to her to lose her motor in this way and he felt it would be a kindly gesture if he looked about him for some small, unostentatious and preferably cheap token of his affection. As he reflected on this and a second glass of whisky, a rather splendid idea formed in his mind, not the first that he had had during the last few days. In fact, it was becoming something of a habit.

 

 

It was a long-standing problem to the organisers of social events in Tilling that, when Society met in full conclave, there was always one individual left out after the two Bridge-tables had been assembled. Generally, it would be incumbent upon the host or hostess to yield place to a guest; but Elizabeth found this ideal of behaviour difficult to achieve when she entertained at Grebe. If she deselected herself, she was excluded from the one occupation that she enjoyed above all others; if she dismissed her husband, there was no knowing what he might get up to while her attention was given over to the fascinations of Bridge. As a result, the first rubber of the evening at Grebe was always preceded by the ritual of cutting the cards to see who was to be excluded. The victim of this ostracism had the right to a place in the next rubber (if time permitted), but during the course of the game itself was condemned to sit and watch without being able to participate in any way. During the actual playing of the hand, the outcast could always chat to the player who had gone dummy; during the auction, however, there was nothing to do but listen, observe and reflect on how much better the entire hand could have been played had the outcast had some
rôle
in it. Elizabeth, by some infuriating chance, often tended to find herself cast out by her own procedure and on these occasions had been known to pace up and down like a caged animal. Lucia, on the other hand, would sit like an enraptured disciple at the feet of his master, watching every move and occasionally making notes in her pocket-book, so as to be able to contribute an independent commentary to the storm of recrimination and self-congratulation that followed every rubber. She could, if the need arose, sit opposite Elizabeth by the hour, watching in the strictest silence and without making the slightest movement (no one could accuse her of trying to distract Elizabeth's attention), and thus scarcely needing to resort to the faint quiver of an eyebrow or heavily muffled intake of breath to destroy Elizabeth's confidence at some crucial stage of the game.

It was this difficulty that occupied Elizabeth's mind as she made her final preparations for the great dinner party at which Miss Lydia Mapp was to make her
début
. Everything else had been so finely scheduled and organised as to admit of no possibility of disturbance. She had personally supervised the preparation of the meal (mock-turtle soup, lemon sole, roast lamb, sherry trifle) and had stood over the cook during the genesis of the trifle to ensure that all the worthy woman's diligence was directed to perfecting that safe and reliable delicacy. She had likewise invigilated Withers' treatment of the wine and gone to great lengths to make certain that the coffee would be hot and strong. She had inspected all the plates and cutlery as rigorously as in days gone by Major Benjy had inspected his troops; minutely examined the tablecloth and observed implacably while the napkins were folded. She had checked every surface in the house for dust and found none; she had evicted the more disreputable of the tiger-skins; and so great was the moral force that she had by this stage generated that she was able to persuade the Major that one of this trophies of native weapons, that had long been unchallenged in the dining-room, would look far better in the coal-shed. In any of these areas, she felt, Fate could not hurt her.

So to the drawing-room, where Miss Lydia Mapp,
(née
Mapperley) was so placed that she seemed to fill the room. Her portrait was framed by two enormous pot-plants and the coffee-tray would come to rest beneath her patrician nose. There too she placed the plate of nougat chocolates; Diva, at least, should have no excuse for not seeing the portrait. Conscience being in all of us an ever-pricking thorn, she examined the portrait under the piercing glare of a table-lamp; the forgery (or restoration, as she preferred to think of it) was undetectable. As if to emphasize, indeed to celebrate this, she left the lamp there, like the light in a shrine, and very pleasing it looked too. The silver tray and the urn she had banished to a dark, crowded place beneath the stairs, so the only novelty would be the portrait, and Elizabeth had sorely misjudged her friends if she thought that they would not notice at once any new thing, however trivial. Diva had been known to comment on a new stair-rod.