Lucia Victrix (22 page)

‘Diva dear, come in for a minute,' she said. ‘I've heard something.'

Diva looked with concern at that lined and agitated face.

‘What's the matter?' she said. ‘Nothing serious?'

‘Oh no, lovely news,' she said with bitter sarcasm. ‘Tilling will rejoice.
She's
not going away.
She's
going to stop here for ever.'

There was no need to ask who ‘she' was. For weeks Lucia had been ‘she'. If you meant Susan Wyse, or Diva or Irene, you said so. But ‘she' was Lucia.

‘I suspected as much,' said Diva. ‘I know she had an order to view Grebe.'

Elizabeth, in a spasm of exasperation, banged the door of Wasters so violently after she and Diva had entered, that the house shook and a note leaped from the wire letter-box on to the floor.

‘Steady on with my front door,' said Diva, ‘or there'll be some dilapidations to settle.'

Elizabeth took no notice of this petty remark, and picked up the note. The handwriting was unmistakable, for Lucia's study of Homer had caused her (subconsciously or not) to adopt a modified form of Greek script, and she made her ‘a' like alpha and her ‘e' like epsilon. At the sight of it Elizabeth suffered a complete loss of self-control, she held the note on high as if exposing a relic to the gaze of pious worshippers, and made a low curtsey to it.

‘And this is from Her,' she said. ‘Oh, how kind of Her Majesty to write to me in her own hand with all those ridiculous twiddles. Not content with speaking Italian quite perfectly, she must also write in Greek. I dare say she talks it beautifully too.'

‘Come, pull yourself together, Elizabeth,' said Diva.

‘I am not aware that I am coming to bits, dear,' said Elizabeth, opening the note with the very tips of her fingers, as if it had been written by someone infected with plague or at least influenza. ‘But let me see what Her Majesty says… “Dearest Liblib”… the impertinence of it! Or is it Riseholme humour?'

‘Well, you call her Lulu,' said Diva. ‘Do get on.'

Elizabeth frowned with the difficulty of deciphering this crabbed handwriting.

‘“Now that I am quite free of infection,”' she read – (Infection indeed. She never had flu at all) – ‘“of infection, I can receive my friends again, and hope so much you will lunch with me to-morrow. I hasten also to tell you of my change of plans, for I have so fallen in love with your delicious Tilling that I have bought a house here – (Stale news!) – and shall settle into it next month. An awful wrench, as you may imagine, to leave my dear Riseholme – (Then why wrench yourself?) – … and poor Georgie is in despair, but Tilling and all you dear people have wrapt yourselves round my heart. (Have we? The same to you!) – and it is no use my struggling to get free. I wonder therefore if you would consider letting me take your beautiful Mallards at the same rent for another month, while
Grebe is being done up, and my furniture being installed? I should be so grateful if this is possible, otherwise I shall try to get Mallards Cottage when my Georgie – (My!) goes back to Riseholme. Could you, do you think, let me know about this to-morrow, if, as I hope, you will send me
un'amabile ‘si'
– (What in the world is an
amabile si?
) – and come to lunch?
Tanti saluti,
Lucia.”'

‘I understand,' said Diva. ‘It means “an amiable yes”, about going to lunch.'

‘Thank you, Diva. You are quite an Italian scholar too,' said Elizabeth. ‘I call that a thoroughly heartless letter. And all of us, mark you, must serve her convenience. I can't get back into Mallards, because She wants it, and even if I refused, She would be next door at Mallards Cottage. I've never been so long out of my own house before.'

Both ladies felt that it would be impossible to keep up any semblance of indignation that Lucia was wanting to take Mallards for another month, for it suited them both so marvellously well.

‘You are in luck,' said Diva, ‘getting another month's let at that price. So am I too, if you want to stop here, for Irene is certain to let me stay on at her house, because her cottage is next to Grebe and she'll be in and out all day –'

‘Poor Irene seems to be under a sort of spell,' said Elizabeth in parenthesis. ‘She can think about nothing except that woman. Her painting has fallen off terribly. Coarsened … Yes, dear, I think I will give the Queen of the Italian language an
amabile si
about Mallards. I don't know if you would consider taking rather a smaller rent for November. Winter prices are always lower.'

‘Certainly not,' said Diva. ‘You're going to get the same as before for Mallards.'

‘That's my affair, dear,' said Elizabeth.

‘And this is mine,' said Diva firmly. ‘And will you go to lunch with her to-morrow?'

Elizabeth, now comparatively calm, sank down in the window-seat, which commanded so good a view of the High Street.

‘I suppose I shall have to,' she said. ‘One must be civil, whatever has happened. Oh, there's Major Benjy. I wonder if he's heard.'

She tapped at the window and threw it open. He came hurrying across the street and began to speak in a loud voice before she could get in a word.

‘That amusing guessing game of yours, Miss Elizabeth,' he said, just like Irene. ‘About Mrs Lucas. I'll give you three –'

‘One's enough: we all know,' said Elizabeth. ‘Joyful news, isn't it?'

‘Indeed, it is delightful to know that we are not going to lose one who – who has endeared herself to us all so much,' said he very handsomely.

He stopped. His tone lacked sincerity; there seemed to be something in his mind which he left unsaid. Elizabeth gave him a piercing and confidential look.

‘Yes, Major Benjy?' she suggested.

He glanced round like a conspirator to see there was no one eavesdropping.

‘Those parties, you know,' he said. ‘Those entertainments which we've all enjoyed so much. Beautiful music. But Grebe's a long way off on a wet winter night. Not just round the corner. Now if she was settling in Mallards –'

He saw at once what an appalling interpretation might be put on this, and went on in a great hurry.

‘You'll have to come to our rescue, Miss Elizabeth,' he said, dropping his voice so that even Diva could not hear. ‘When you're back in your own house again, you'll have to look after us all as you always used to. Charming woman, Mrs Lucas, and most hospitable, I'm sure, but in the winter, as I was saying, that long way out of Tilling, just to hear a bit of music, and have a tomato, if you see what I mean.'

‘Why, of course I see what you mean,' murmured Elizabeth. ‘The dear thing, as you say, is so hospitable. Lovely music and tomatoes, but we must make a stand.'

‘Well, you can have too much of a good thing,' said Major Benjy, ‘and for my part a little Mozart lasts me a long time, especially if it's a long way on a wet night. Then I'm told
there's an idea of callisthenic classes, though no doubt they would be for ladies only –'

‘I wouldn't be too sure about that,' said Elizabeth. ‘Our dear friend has got enough – shall we call it self-confidence? – to think herself capable of teaching anybody anything. If you aren't careful, Major Benjy, you'll find yourself in a skipping-match on the lawn at Grebe, before you know what you're doing. You've been King Cophetua already, which I, for one, never thought to see.'

‘That was just once in a way,' said he. ‘But when it comes to callisthenic classes –'

Diva, in an agony at not being able to hear what was going on, had crept up behind Elizabeth, and now crouched close to her as she stood leaning out of the window. At this moment, Lucia, having finished her piano-practice, came round the corner from Mallards into the High Street. Elizabeth hastily withdrew from the window and bumped into Diva.

‘So sorry: didn't know you were there, dear,' she said. ‘We must put our heads together another time, Major Benjy. Au reservoir.'

She closed the window.

‘Oh, do tell me what you're going to put your heads together about,' said Diva. ‘I only heard just the end.'

It was important to get allies: otherwise Elizabeth would have made a few well-chosen remarks about eavesdroppers.

‘It is sad to find that just when Lucia has settled never to leave us any more,' she said, ‘that there should be so much feeling in Tilling about being told to do this and being made to listen to that. Major Benjy – I don't know if you heard that part, dear – spoke very firmly, and I thought sensibly about it. The question really is if England is a free country or not, and whether we're going to be trampled upon. We've been very happy in Tilling all these years, going our own way, and living in sweet harmony together, and I for one, and Major Benjy for another, don't intend to put our necks under the yoke. I don't know how you feel about it. Perhaps you like it, for after all you were Mary Queen of Scots just as much as Major Benjy was King Cophetua.'

‘I won't go to any po-di-mus, after dinner at Grebe,' said Diva. ‘I shouldn't have gone to the last, but you persuaded us all to go. Where was your neck then, Elizabeth? Be fair.'

‘Be fair yourself, Diva,' said Elizabeth with some heat. ‘You know perfectly well that I wanted you to go in order that you might all get your necks from under her yoke, and hear that she couldn't speak a word of Italian.'

‘And a nice mess you made of that,' said Diva. ‘But never mind. She's established now as a perfect Italian linguist, and there it is. Don't meddle with that again, or you'll only prove that she can talk Greek too.'

Elizabeth rose and pointed at her like one of Raphael's Sibyls.

‘Diva, to this day I don't believe she can talk Italian. It was a conjuring trick, and I'm no conjurer but a plain woman, and I can't tell you how it was done. But I will swear it was a trick. Besides, answer me this! Why doesn't she offer to give us Italian lessons if she knows it? She has offered to teach us bridge and Homer and callisthenics and take choir-practices and arranged tableaux. Why not Italian?'

‘That's curious,' said Diva thoughtfully.

‘Not the least curious. The reason is obvious. Everyone snubbed me and scolded me, you among others, at that dreadful luncheon-party, but I know I'm right, and some day the truth will come out. I can wait. Meantime what she means to do is to take us all in hand, and I won't be taken in hand. What is needed from us all is a little firmness.'

Diva went home thrilled to the marrow of her bones at the thought of the rich entertainment that these next months promised to provide. Naturally she saw through Elizabeth's rodomontade about yokes and free countries: what she meant was that she intended to assert herself again, and topple Lucia over. Two could not reign in Tilling, as everybody could see by this time. ‘All most interesting,' said Diva to herself. ‘Elizabeth's got hold of Major Benjy for the present, and Lucia's going to lose Georgie, but then men don't count for much in Tilling: it's brains that do it. There'll be more bridge-parties and teas this winter than ever before. Really, I don't know
which of them I would back. Hullo, there's a note from her. Lunch to-morrow, I expect … I thought so.'

Lucia's luncheon-party next day was to be of the nature of a banquet to celebrate the double event of her recovery and of the fact that Tilling, instead of mourning her approaching departure, was privileged to retain her, as Elizabeth had said, for ever and ever. The whole circle of her joyful friends would be there, and she meant to give them to eat of the famous dish of lobster
à la Riseholme
, which she had provided for Georgie, a few weeks ago, to act as a buffer to break the shock of Foljambe's engagement. It had already produced a great deal of wild surmise in the minds of the housewives at Tilling for no one could conjecture how it was made, and Lucia had been deaf to all requests for the recipe: Elizabeth had asked her twice to give it her, but Lucia had merely changed the subject without attempt at transition: she had merely talked about something quite different. This secretiveness was considered unamiable, for the use of Tilling was to impart its culinary mysteries to friends, so that they might enjoy their favourite dishes at each other's houses, and lobster
à la Riseholme
had long been an agonizing problem to Elizabeth. She had made an attempt at it herself, but the result was not encouraging. She had told Diva and the Padre that she felt sure she had ‘guessed it', and, when bidden to come to lunch and partake of it, they had both anticipated a great treat. But Elizabeth had clearly guessed wrong, for lobster
à la Riseholme à la Mapp
had been found to consist of something resembling lumps of india-rubber (so tough that the teeth positively bounced away from them on contact) swimming in a dubious pink gruel, and both of them left a great deal on their plates, concealed as far as possible under their knives and forks, though their hostess continued manfully to chew, till her jaw-muscles gave out. Then Elizabeth had had recourse to underhand methods. Lucia had observed her more than once in the High Street, making herself suspiciously pleasant to her cook, and from the window of the garden-room just before her influenza, she had seen her at the back door of Mallards again in conversation with the lady of the kitchen. On this occasion, with an unerring conviction
in her mind, she had sent for her cook and asked her what Miss Mapp wanted. It was even so: Elizabeth's ostensible inquiry was for an egg-whisk, which she had left by mistake at Mallards three months ago, but then she had unmasked her batteries, and, actually fingering a bright half-crown, had asked point-blank for the recipe of this lobster
à la Riseholme
. The cook had given her a polite but firm refusal, and Lucia was now more determined than ever that Elizabeth should never know the exquisite secret. She naturally felt that it was beneath her to take the slightest notice of this low and paltry attempt to obtain by naked bribery a piece of private knowledge, and she never let Elizabeth know that she was cognizant of it.