Lucia Victrix (55 page)

Grosvenor came in.

‘Trunk-call from London, ma'am,' she said. ‘Central News Agency.'

Lucia, sick with apprehension, tottered to the Office.

‘Mrs Lucas?' asked a buzzing voice.

‘Yes.'

‘Central News Agency. We've just heard by phone from Hastings of your discovery of Roman remains at Tilling,' it said. ‘We're sending down a special representative this morning to inspect your excavations and write –'

‘Not the slightest use,' interrupted Lucia. ‘My excavations have not yet reached the stage when I can permit any account of them to appear in the press.'

‘But the London Sunday papers are most anxious to secure some material about them to-morrow, and Professor Arbuthnot of the British Museum, whom we have just rung up, is willing to supply them. He will motor down and be at Tilling –'

Lucia turned cold with horror.

‘I am very sorry,' she said firmly, ‘but it is quite impossible for me to let Professor Arbuthnot inspect my excavations at this stage, or to permit any further announcement concerning them.'

She rang off, she waited a moment, and, being totally unable to bear the strain of the situation alone, rang up Georgie. There was no Italian or baby-talk to-day.

‘Georgie, I must see you at once,' she said.

‘My dear, anything wrong about the excavations?' asked the intuitive Georgie.

‘Yes, something frightful. I'll be with you in one minute.'

‘I've only just begun my break –' said Georgie and heard the receiver replaced.

With the nightmare notion in her mind of some sleuthhound of an archaeologist calling while she was out and finding no excavation at all, Lucia laid it on Grosvenor to admit nobody to the house under any pretext, and hatless, with the
Hastings Chronicle
in her hand, she scudded up the road to Mallards Cottage. As she crossed the street she heard from the direction of Irene's house a prolonged and clamorous ringing of a dinner-bell, but there was no time now even to conjecture what that meant.

Georgie was breakfasting in his blue dressing-gown. He had been touching up his hair and beard with the contents of the bottle that always stood in a locked cupboard in his bedroom. His hair was not dry yet, and it was most inconvenient that she should want to see him so immediately. But the anxiety in her telephone-voice was unmistakable, and very likely she would not notice his hair.

‘All quite awful, Georgie,' she said, noticing nothing at all. ‘Now first I must tell you that I found the rest of the Apollo-vessel yesterday, and it was an Apollinaris bottle.'

‘My dear, how tarsome,' said Georgie sympathetically.

‘Tragic rather than tiresome,' said Lucia. ‘First the Spencer-tile then the Apollinaris bottle. Nothing Roman left, and I filled up the trench yesterday.
Finito!
Georgie, how I should have loved a Roman temple in my garden! Think of the prestige! Archaeologists and garden-parties with little lectures! It is cruel. And then as if the extinction of all I hoped for wasn't enough there came the most frightful complications. Listen to the
Hastings Chronicle
of this morning.'

She read the monstrous fabrication through in a tragic monotone.

‘Such fibs, such inventions!' she cried. ‘I never knew what a vile trade journalism was! I did see a young man last week – I
can't even remember his name or what he looked like – for two minutes, not more, and told him just what I said you might tell Tilling. It wasn't in the garden-room and I didn't give him tea, because it was just before lunch, standing in the hall, and I never shook a playful forefinger at him or talked about day-dreams or naughty gas pipes, and I never called the garden
jardin
, though I may have said
giardino
. And I had hardly finished reading this tissue of lies just now, when the Central News rang me up and wanted to send down Professor Arbuthnot of the British Museum to see my excavations. Georgie, how I should have loved it if there had been anything to show him! I stopped that – the Sunday London papers wanted news too – but what am I to do about this revolting
Chronicle
?'

Georgie glanced through the paper again.

‘I don't think I should bother much,' he said. ‘The
châtelaine
of Mallards, you know, leader of exclusive circles, lovely hands, pianist and scholar: all very complimentary. What a rage Elizabeth will be in. She'll burst.'

‘Very possibly,' said Lucia. ‘But don't you see how this drags me down to her level? That's so awful. We've all been despising her for deceiving us and trying to make us think she was to have a baby, and now here am I no better than her, trying to make you all think I had discovered a Roman temple. And I did believe it much more than she ever believed the other. I did indeed, Georgie, and now it's all in print which makes it ever so much worse. Her baby was never in print.'

Georgie had absently passed his fingers through his beard, to assist thought, and perceived a vivid walnut stain on them. He put his hand below the tablecloth.

‘I never thought of that,' he said. ‘It is rather a pity. But think how very soon we forgot about Elizabeth. Why it was almost the next day after she gave up going to be a mother and took in the old green skirt again that you got on to your discoveries, and nobody gave a single thought to her baby any more. Can't we give them all something new to jabber about?'

Georgie had got up from the table and with his walnut hand still concealed strayed to the open window and looked out.

‘If that isn't Elizabeth at the door of Mallards!' he said.
‘She's got a paper in her hand:
Hastings Chronicle
, I bet. Grosvenor's opened the door, but not very wide. Elizabeth's arguing –'

‘Georgie, she mustn't get in,' cried the agonized Lucia. ‘She'll pop out into the garden, and see there's no excavation at all.'

‘She's still arguing,' said Georgie in the manner of Brangaene warning Isolde. ‘She's on the top step now … Oh, it's all right. Grosvenor's shut the door in her face. I could hear it, too. She's standing on the top step, thinking. Oh, my God, she's coming here, just as she did before, when she was canvassing. But there'll be time to tell Foljambe not to let her in.'

Georgie hurried away on this errand, and Lucia flattened herself against the wall so that she could not be seen from the street. Presently the door-bell tinkled, and Foljambe's voice was heard firmly reiterating, ‘No, ma'am, he's not at home … No ma'am, he's not in … No, ma'am, he's out, and I can't say when he'll be in. Out.'

The door closed, and next moment Elizabeth's fell face appeared at the open window. A suspiciously minded person might have thought that she wanted to peep into Georgie's sitting-room to verify (or disprove) Foljambe's assertions, and Elizabeth, who could read suspicious minds like an open book, made haste to dispel so odious a supposition. She gave a slight scream at seeing him so close to her and in such an elegant costume.

‘Dear Mr Georgie,' she said. ‘I beg your pardon, but your good Foljambe was so certain you were out, and I, seeing the window was open, I – I just meant to pop this copy of the
Hastings Chronicle
in. I knew how much you'd like to see it. Lovely things about sweet Lucia,
châtelaine
of Mallards and Queen of Tilling and such a wonderful archaeologist. Full of surprises for us. How little one knows on the spot!'

Georgie, returning from warning Foljambe, had left the door ajar, and in consequence Lucia, flattening herself like a shadow against the wall between it and the window, was in a strong draught. The swift and tingling approach of a sneeze darted through her nose and it crashed forth.

‘Thanks very much,' said Georgie in a loud voice to Elizabeth, hoping in a confused manner by talking loud to drown what had already resounded through the room. Instantly Elizabeth thrust her head a little further through the window and got a satisfactory glimpse of Lucia's skirt. That was enough: Lucia was there and she withdrew her head from its strained position.

‘We're all agog about her discoveries,' she said. ‘Such an excitement! You've seen them, of course.'

‘Rather!' said Georgie with enthusiasm. ‘Beautiful Roman tiles and glass and pottery. Exquisite!'

Elizabeth's face fell: she had hoped otherwise.

‘Must be trotting along,' she said. ‘We meet at dinner, don't we, at Susan Wyse's. Her Majesty is coming, I believe.'

‘Oh, I didn't know she was in Tilling,' said Georgie. ‘Is she staying with you?'

‘Naughty! I only meant the Queen of Tilling.'

‘Oh, I
see
,' said Georgie, ‘Au reservoir.'

Lucia came out of her very unsuccessful lair.

‘Do you think she saw me, Georgie?' she asked. ‘It might have been Foljambe as far as the sneeze went.'

‘Certainly she saw you. Not a doubt of it,' said Georgie, rather pleased at this compromising role which had been provided for him. ‘And now Elizabeth will tell everybody that you and I were breakfasting in my dressing-gown – you see what I mean – and that you hid when she looked in. I don't know what she mightn't make of that.'

Lucia considered this a moment, weighing her moral against her archaeological reputation.

‘It's all for the best,' she said decidedly. ‘It will divert her horrid mind from the excavations. And did you ever hear such acidity in a human voice as when she said Queen of Tilling? A dozen lemons, well squeezed, were saccharine compared to it. But, my dear, it was most clever and most loyal of you to say you had seen my exquisite Roman tiles and glass. I appreciate that immensely.'

‘I thought it was pretty good,' said he. ‘She didn't like that.'

‘
Caro
, it was admirable, and you'll stick to it, won't you? Now the first thing I shall do is to go to the newsagent's and buy up all their copies of the
Hastings Chronicle
. It may be useful to cut off her supplies … Oh, Georgie, your hand. Have you hurt it? Iodine?'

‘Just a little sprain,' said Georgie. ‘Nothing to bother about.' Lucia picked up her hat at Mallards, and hurried down to the High Street. It was rather a shock to see a news-board outside the paper-shop with

M
RS
L
UCAS'S
R
OMAN
F
INDS IN
T
ILLING

prominent in the contents of the current number of the
Hastings Chronicle
, and a stronger shock to find that all the copies had been sold.

‘Went like hot cakes, ma'am,' said the proprietor, ‘on the news of your excavations, and I've just telephoned a repeat order.'

‘Most gratifying,' said Lucia, looking the reverse of gratified … There was Diva haggling at the butcher's as she passed, and Diva ran out, leaving Paddy to guard her basket.

‘Morning,' she said. ‘Seen Elizabeth?'

Lucia thought of replying ‘No, but she's seen me,' but that would entail lengthy explanations, and it was better first to hear what Diva had to say, for evidently there was news.

‘No, dear,' she said. ‘I've only just come down from Mallards. Why?'

Diva whistled to Paddy, who, guarding her basket, was growling ferociously at anyone who came near it.

‘Mad with rage,' she said. ‘
Hastings Chronicle
. Seen it?'

Lucia concentrated for a moment, in an effort of recollection.

‘Ah, that little paragraph about my excavations,' said she lightly. ‘I did glance at it. Rather exaggerated, rather decorated, but you know what journalists are.'

‘Not an idea,' said Diva, ‘but I know what Elizabeth is. She told me she was going to expose you. Said she was convinced you'd not found anything at all. Challenging you. Of course
what really riled her was that bit about you being leader of social circles, etcetera. From me she went on to tell Irene, and then to call on you and ask you point-blank whether your digging wasn't all a fake, and then she was going on to Georgie … Oh, there's Irene.'

Diva called shrilly to her, and she pounded up to them on her bicycle on which was hung a paint-box, a stool and an immense canvas.

‘Beloved!' she said to Lucia. ‘Mapp's been to see me. She told me she was quite sure you hadn't found any Roman remains. So I told her she was a liar. Just like that. She went gabbling on, so I rang my dinner-bell close to her face until she could not bear it any more and fled. Nobody can bear a dinner-bell for long if it's rung like that: all nerve specialists will tell you so. We had almost a row, in fact.'

‘Darling, you're a true friend,' cried Lucia, much moved.

‘Of course I am. What else do you expect me to be? I shall bring my bell to the Wyses' this evening, in case she begins again. Good-bye, adored. I'm going out to a farm on the marsh to paint a cow with its calf. If Mapp annoys you any more I shall give the cow her face, though it's bad luck on the cow, and send it to our summer exhibition. It will pleasantly remind her of what never happened to her.'

Diva looked after her approvingly as she snorted up the High Street.

‘That's the right way to handle Elizabeth, when all's said and done,' she remarked. ‘Quaint Irene understands her better than anybody. Think how kind we all were to her, especially you, when she was exposed. You just said “Wind-egg”. Never mentioned it again. Most ungrateful of Elizabeth, I think. What are you going to do about it? Why not show her a few of your finds, just to prove what a liar she is?'

Lucia thought desperately a moment, and then a warm, pitying smile dawned on her face.

‘My dear, it's really beneath me,' she said, ‘to take any notice of what she told you and Irene and no doubt others as well. I'm only sorry for that unhappy jealous nature of hers. Incurable, I'm afraid: chronic, and I'm sure she suffers dreadfully
from it in her better moments. As for my little excavations, I'm abandoning them for a time.'