Au Reservoir (19 page)

‘Golly, I haven’t seen any of that for simply ages,’ Georgie commented. ‘So tarsome. It’s the only way to make a decent dry martini.’

‘Bad enough for you and me, Georgie, but imagine the effect of the drought on Noël, who practically lives on the things. Apparently there’s some legal problem at the moment about importing the stuff from France.’

‘So how did you get hold of it?’ asked Georgie.

‘I rang a chum at the embassy and got some sent over in the diplomatic baggage,’ she said. ‘Easy really.’

‘I never knew you had friends at the French Embassy,’ Georgie said.

‘Oh, I don’t. Well, not really anyway. No, I spoke to someone at the American Embassy and they had some dear little man go out and get it, and then drive to Calais to put it on the afternoon packet under seal. So useful the Americans, don’t you think? Apart from anything else they’re the only people who seem to have an unlimited supply of petrol.’

‘Oh, you
are
wonderful,’ Georgie marvelled, not for the first time. ‘So what’s the plan?’

‘You and Lucia must allow everyone to go on thinking that Noël isn’t coming,’ Olga instructed him. ‘On the day of the fête, Cadman must take you over to Tenterden and then instead of going back to Tilling, carry on to Ashford to meet the London train. That way nobody will see us arrive at the local station and give the game away. He can drive us back to Tenterden, by which time things should have been underway for at least half an hour or so, and Mapp will be waxing vicious about Lucia – I’m afraid you’ll just have to put up with that, my darling – only to be confounded by the sight of Noël himself, who has been carefully briefed to tell all and sundry about his close and deeply rewarding friendship with Lucia.’

‘Confounded?’ Georgie echoed. ‘Why, she’ll be completely blown out of the water.’

‘Torpedoed and sunk. Let’s just hope she gets the message and gives up all this spiteful nonsense once and for all.’

‘Well, that would be nice,’ Georgie said wistfully, ‘but Elizabeth wouldn’t be Elizabeth without wanting to score off Lucia on a regular basis now, would she?’

‘True, and I suppose Tilling wouldn’t be Tilling either, but it does all get rather wearisome at times.’

‘The awful thing is that, as we said a little while ago, she’s often right – or nearly right, anyway – but then she goes on and on hammering away at it until she’s made a mess of it somehow.’

Olga agreed. ‘Why, if she’d just made one sharp little comment about this business and left it at that, then we wouldn’t have felt compelled to spend all this time spiking her guns and she would probably have got what she wanted, in that everyone would have been left wondering if Lucia had been – over-enthusiastic, shall we say? – about knowing Noël.’

‘And now he’s coming to the fête after all, and everything is lovely again,’ Georgie said contentedly. ‘Oh, Olga, I could clap my hands for joy, but then I’d drop the telephone.’

‘I think I can deliver Johnnie Gielgud as well,’ Olga informed him. ‘Noël is so distraught about the whole thing that I think he’d welcome the moral support, and Johnnie thinks the whole affair is deliciously amusing.’

‘Oh,’ gasped Georgie, ‘Noël Coward
and
John Gielgud. Such a shame that Lucia won’t get a chance to meet them. She won’t be there, you know.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Olga said briskly. ‘They’re going to stay the weekend at Mallards so Lucia can show them off at dinner.’

‘Oh,’ said Georgie again in awe.

‘But security must be total and absolute, Georgie. The success of this whole operation depends entirely on surprise. I would suggest that Lucia tells the staff to prepare for house guests but doesn’t say who, and swears them to secrecy on the point anyway. And she can send out invitations to dinner as if it’s just a
po’ di mu
or something like that.’

‘Well, we haven’t had one of those for ages, actually,’ Georgie mused, ‘so that would certainly look credible. Oh, I say, you don’t think …?’

‘The answer is yes,’ Olga said, ‘I’ve already asked him. If Lucia asks him nicely, he’ll sing a couple of songs for us.’

‘Oh, Olga, how can I ever thank you?’ Georgie said. ‘You’ve made everything quite parfect.’

‘It’s enough to know that Lucia won’t have to be unhappy any more,’ Olga said gently, ‘nor you, of course.’

Georgie had actually said ‘Au reservoir’ and was about to replace the receiver, when he suddenly snatched it back and said ‘Olga?’

Luckily he just caught her before she had a chance to replace the handset at her end.

‘Mm?’

‘Olga, you said that Noël wanted three things and you only mentioned two: the joke and the Noilly Prat. What was the third thing?’

‘Oh, that,’ Olga replied, slightly embarrassed. ‘Well, I’m afraid I had to pledge your credit, so to speak. I had to promise Noël something on your behalf.’

‘Anything,’ he assured her, ‘anything at all.’

‘I’m glad you feel like that,’ she said, sounding relieved. ‘You see, you’re going to have to give him the last six bottles of the 1928 Petrus.’

This time Georgie really did drop the telephone. Giving a little cry, he staggered backwards and sat down heavily on the ormolu effect chair in the telephone room. He pulled his handkerchief from his top pocket and pressed it over his mouth to suppress a sob. Happily, the smell of sandalwood seemed to have a soothing effect. He took a deep cologne-infused breath and picked up the receiver.

‘Georgie,’ Olga said with concern, having heard both the cry and the sob. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I think so,’ he assured her weakly.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she sympathised.

‘Don’t worry,’ came the response, firmer now. ‘At times like this, sacrifices must be made.’

At Grebe that evening Elizabeth Mapp-Flint was still brooding over the news of the morning. Her husband eyed her warily, his mood not improved by the fact that Withers’ chosen dish of the day was smoked haddock, something he considered entirely inappropriate to set before a man who had held the King’s commission.

‘I should drop it, Liz,’ he said shortly, having pushed his haddock around his plate while he tried to address his boiled potatoes with some appearance of enthusiasm. He speculated gloomily on what the inhabitants of Mallards might be enjoying for dinner. Surely Lucia’s cook could have turned this unappetising repast into kedgeree and pommes lyonaisses, while Grosvenor would have whistled up a bottle of hock from the cellar?

‘Drop what?’ she replied equally shortly.

‘This fête thing,’ he said. ‘Dare say you’re right, of course. In fact,’ he went on hastily, waving his fork in the air, ‘I’m sure you are, but that doesn’t mean you can get to the bottom of it, at least not on the information available, anyway.’

‘It’s so vexing, though,’ she responded crossly. ‘There she is pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes, and nobody seems to care.’

‘Oh no,’ the Major assured her with another wave of his fork, ‘I can’t believe that, old girl. Fact is, they’re all just waiting for Lucia to fall flat on her face. It must get pretty sickening for everyone to see her win all the time.’

His wife’s scowl threatened to engulf the room. Her mouth opened but before she could utter anything he tried to extricate himself from the bear-trap into which he appeared inadvertently to have stepped.

‘Appear to get the better of you, I meant to say of course. Not that anyone
could
get the better of you, that is …’

Silence greeted these remarks so he tried again.

‘After all, look at what happened when she presented that monstrosity of a painting to the town council, or when she tried to open that museum to herself. You had her measure, what?’

He gazed at her in trepidation, and was relieved to note that her scowl had suddenly softened.

‘Benjy-boy,’ she said almost dreamily, ‘I do believe you’ve hit on it.’

Now it was her husband’s turn to look blank.

‘On what?’

She gave a little laugh and gazed fondly across the table at him.

‘Your famous flank attack, you know. The way to take her by surprise.’

‘Jolly good!’ he commented enthusiastically.

He gave up the unequal struggle with his haddock and laid down his knife and fork, having created an almost unrecognisable mess in the middle of his plate. He took a gulp of water and winced in distaste.

‘I say,’ he ventured hopefully, ‘you don’t fancy a glass of something, do you?’

‘I do not,’ she responded firmly.

Seeing his obviously crestfallen expression, she relented.

‘But that’s no reason you shouldn’t have a chota peg, Benjy, particularly when you have just played Dr Watson to my Sherlock Holmes.’

‘Ah,’ he said in a tone of voice which he trusted conveyed deep understanding of whatever it was to which she was referring.

He crossed the room to the tantalus and returned with a generous measure of whisky and soda.

‘Don’t suppose you’d care to enlighten me?’ he asked casually as he sat down again.

She twirled a frond of hair around her fingers girlishly.

‘Do you know,’ she said coquettishly, ‘I don’t think I shall. After all, surely it’s best for the object of the – flank attack, did you call it? – to remain a closely guarded secret?’

‘Oh, quite so, Liz, quite so,’ he agreed. ‘And it’s most important that you don’t give any indication that your frontal assault is not the real thing. So you mustn’t let up on this Tenterden business. You have to keep her completely occupied with that, or she’ll never allow herself to be taken by surprise by … by whatever else it is you have in mind.’

He glanced at her pleadingly, but to no avail.

‘What a clever old Benjy-boy you are,’ she purred, reaching out across the table and stroking his hand. ‘What on earth would I do without my big brave soldier to advise me on tactics?’

‘Ah,’ he said proudly, gazing at her fondly. Sadly, however, this did not induce her to recognise that his glass was now empty.

‘And I will follow your advice of course,’ she said. ‘I think we shall go to the fête next weekend.’

‘I expect the whole of Tilling will be there,’ came his rejoinder. ‘Perhaps we should hire a charabanc, what?’

‘Goodness, are those still around?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘I haven’t seen one for years. Do you remember how dozens of them used to come down to the beach every weekend in the summer?’

‘Well, a coach then,’ the Major said, waving his hand in impatience at having to deal with petty technical details. ‘Doesn’t matter what it is. I bet there’d be plenty of takers. Diva Plaistow and the Bartletts for a start. What’s the Padre to do otherwise? Cycle all the way there with Evie on the crossbar?’

He chortled at the thought.

‘We shall!’ she said, beaming at him delightedly. ‘Hang the expense, Benjy! Hire a coach – a small one, mind – and put a notice in Twemlow’s window asking anyone interested in coming along to contact us here.’

‘Are you sure?’ the Major asked in alarm. ‘Suppose we get some dreadful oiks asking to come with us?’

‘We shall simply tell them that the coach is already fully booked, silly,’ his wife explained. ‘Now, how does one go about hiring a coach, Benjy?’

‘Nothing simpler, old thing,’ he replied with a despairing glance at the tantalus. ‘The cove at the garage on the Military Road has one he uses for church outings and things. I’ll ask him tomorrow. Should get a decent deal as well. I happen to know he wants to join the golf club.’

‘Clever boy,’ Mapp said admiringly. ‘Oh very well, have another drink if you must.’

He rose with alacrity to take advantage of this suggestion.

‘Are you sure, though, Liz old girl? About the expense, I mean? Even if I can get a good deal it’s likely to cost a pretty penny or two.’

The noble sentiments of meanness and jealousy competed briefly in his wife’s ample breast, with the latter emerging triumphant.

‘Go ahead,’ she commanded magnanimously. ‘After all, it’s about time that people realised that Lulu is not Tilling’s
only
benefactress.’

‘Quai-Hai, then,’ Major Benjy replied, hiding his glass with his free hand. ‘I’ll go and see the feller in the morning.’

The next morning over breakfast Mrs Mapp-Flint tried several versions of an invitation to select members of the public to accept a lift to the Tenterden fête, finally settling upon the following:

Tenterden Fête

Major and Mrs Mapp-Flint have generously procured a coach to travel to and from the fête at Tenterden this coming weekend. Any residents of Tilling wishing to take advantage of this kind offer are invited to apply by note of hand to Mrs Mapp-Flint at Grebe.

She wrote out a fair copy of this on to a postcard, which the Major placed carefully in an inside pocket of his jacket before tugging the peak of his cap and striding purposefully in the direction of the Military Road. Since this lay beyond Tilling, and Tilling itself a good mile and a half from Grebe, this was not a short walk. Some forty minutes later he arrived at the garage, rather red in the face, and accosted the owner.

‘Ah, Williams,’ he boomed, taking off his cap to mop his brow, ‘got some business for you.’

‘Really, Major?’ the target of his custom replied in a puzzled tone of voice, for he knew full well that the Mapp-Flints did not possess a motor car.

‘Yes, want to hire your coach for the Tenterden fête this Saturday. Need a good rate, mind. After all, we golf club members must stick together, what?’

The Major gave a hearty guffaw designed to lead into embarrassed recognition that Williams was not yet a member and a sincere offer to do something about this sorry state of affairs in the near future. As it was, this second part of his intended scenario failed to materialise as he became aware that Williams was shaking his head sorrowfully.

‘Sorry, Major, can’t be done. My coach is booked for the whole of Saturday. If only you’d come yesterday. I would so like to have accommodated you.’

At this point a rather dashing pre-war Humber Tourer drew up at the petrol pump and, after excusing himself, Williams went off to collect the driver’s petrol vouchers and dispense a carefully measured allowance into its capacious fuel tank, leaving his visitor to ruminate on this unexpected and unwelcome turn of events.