Lucia Victrix (86 page)

Lucia reviewed this rather sinister intelligence.

‘I hate to disappoint dear Olga,' she said, ‘but I think I had better stop here. What about you?'

‘Of course I shall go,' said Georgie.

Georgie had to leave for Riseholme next morning without a maid, for in view of the entertainment that might be going on at Mallards, Lucia could not spare either Foljambe or Grosvenor. She spent a long time at the garden-room window that afternoon, and told her cook to have a good tea ready to be served at a moment's notice, for Miss Leg would surely return her call to-day. Presently a large car came bouncing up the street: from its size Lucia thought at first that it was Susan's, but there was a man in livery sitting next the chauffeur, and at once she guessed. The car stopped at Mallards, and from behind her curtain Lucia could see that Elizabeth and another woman were inside. A podgy little hand was thrust out of the
window, holding a card, which the man-servant thrust into the letter-box. He rang the bell, but before it was answered he mounted again, and the car drove on. A hundred pages of stream-of-consciousness fiction could not have explained the situation more exhaustively to Lucia than her own flash of insight. Elizabeth had evidently told the novelist that it would be quite sufficient to leave a card on the Mayor and have done with her. What followed at the Vicarage that evening when Miss Leg dined with the Mapp-Flints bore out the accuracy of Lucia's intuition.

‘A very plain simple dinner, dear Miss Leg,' said Elizabeth as they sat down. ‘Just pot-luck, as I warned you, so I hope you've got a country appetite.'

‘I know I have, Liz,' said Benjy heartily. ‘A round of golf makes me as hungry as I used to be after a day's tiger-shooting in the jungle.'

‘Those are trophies of yours at Grebe, then,' said Miss Leg. ‘I consider tiger-shooting a manly pursuit. That's what I mean by sport, taking your life in your hand instead of sitting in an armchair and firing into flocks of hand-reared pheasants. That kind of “sportsman” doesn't even load his own gun, I believe. Butchers and poulterers; that's what I called them in one of my books.'

‘Withering! scathing!' cried Elizabeth. ‘And how well deserved! Benjy gave such a wonderful lecture here the other day about his hair-breadth escapes. You could have heard a pin drop.'

‘Ah, that's an old story now,' said Benjy. ‘My
shikarri
days are over. And there's not a man in Tilling who's even seen a tiger except through the bars at the Zoo. Georgie Pillson, for instance –'

‘Whom I presented to you at tea yesterday, Miss Leg,' put in Elizabeth. ‘Husband of our dear Mayor. Pointed beard. Sketches quite prettily, and does exquisite needlework. My wicked Benjy once dubbed him Miss Milliner Michael-Angelo.'

‘And that was very withering too,' said Miss Leg, eating lumps of expensive middle-cut salmon with a country appetite.

‘Well, well, not very kind, I'm afraid, but I like a man to be a man,' said Benjy. ‘I'll take a bit more fish, Liz. A nice fresh-run fish. And what are you going to give us next?'

‘Just a brace of grouse,' said Elizabeth.

‘Ah, yes. A few old friends with Scotch moors haven't quite forgotten me yet, Miss Leg. Dear old General!'

‘Your Miss Milliner has gone away, Benjy,' said Elizabeth. ‘Staying with Miss Olga Bracely. Probably you know her, Miss Leg. The prima donna. Such a fascinating woman.'

‘Alone? Without his wife?' asked Miss Leg. ‘I do not approve of that. A wife's duty, Mayor or not, is to be always with her husband and vice versa. If she can't leave her home, she ought to insist on his stopping with her.'

‘Dear Lucia is a little slack in these ways,' said Elizabeth regretfully. ‘But she gives us to understand that they're all old friends.'

‘The older the better,' said Miss Leg epigrammatically, and they all laughed very much.

‘Tell me more about your Lucia,' she ordered, when their mirth subsided.

‘I don't fancy you would find very much in common with her,' said Elizabeth thoughtfully. ‘Rather prone we think, to plot and intrigue in a way we regret. And a little superior at times.'

‘It seems to have gone to her head to be Mayor,' put in Benjy. ‘She'd have made a sad mess of things without you to steady her, Liz.'

‘I do my best,' sighed Elizabeth, ‘though it's uphill work sometimes. I am her Mayoress and a Councillor, Miss Leg, and she does need assistance and support. Oh, her dear, funny little ways! She's got a curious delusion that she can play the piano, and she gives us a treat sometimes, and one doesn't know which way to look. And not long ago – how you'll scream, Miss Leg, she told us all, several times over, that she was going to stay with the Duchess of Sheffield, and when she came back she showed us quantities of photographs of the Castle to prove she had been there –'

‘I went to a Charity Concert of the Duchess's in her mansion
in Grosvenor Square not long ago,' said Miss Leg. ‘Five-guinea seats. Does she live near here?'

‘No, many miles away. There's the cream of it. It turned out that Worship only went to tea. A three-hours' drive each way to get a cup of tea! So odd. I almost suspect that she was never asked at all really; some mistake. And she always alludes to her as Poppy; whether she calls her that to her face is another question.'

‘Evidently a snob,' said Miss Leg. ‘If there's one thing I hate it's snobbishness.'

‘Oh, you mustn't call her a snob,' cried Elizabeth. ‘I should be so vexed with myself if I had conveyed that impression.'

‘And is that a family house of her husband's where I left my card to-day?' asked Miss Leg.

Elizabeth sighed.

‘Oh, what a tragic question!' she said. ‘No, they're quite
parvenus
in Tilling; that beautiful house – such a garden – belonged to my family. I couldn't afford to live there, and I had to sell it. Lucia gave me a pitiful price for it, but beggars can't be choosers. A cruel moment!'

‘What a shame,' said Miss Leg. ‘All the old homes of England are going to upstarts and interlopers. I hope you never set foot in it.'

‘It's a struggle to do so,' said Elizabeth, ‘but I feel that both as Mayoress and as a friend of Lucia, I must be neighbourly. Neither officially nor socially must I fail to stand by her.'

They made plans for next day. Elizabeth was very sarcastic and amusing about the morning shopping of her friends.

‘Such fun!' she said. ‘Quite a feature of life here, you must not miss it. You'll see Diva bolting in and out of shops like a rabbit, Benjy says, when a ferret's after it, and Susan Wyse perhaps on a tricycle, and Lucia and quaint Irene Coles who painted the Picture of the Year, which is in our exhibition here; you must see that. Then we could pop in at the Town Hall, and I would show you our ancient charters and our wonderful Elizabethan plate. And would you honour us by signing your name in the Mayor's book for distinguished visitors?'

‘Certainly, very glad,' said Miss Leg, ‘though I don't often give my autograph.'

‘Oh, that is kind. I would be ready for you at ten – not too early? and take you round. Must you really be going? Benjy, see if Miss Leg's beautiful Daimler is here. Au reservoir!'

‘O what?' asked Miss Leg.

‘Some of the dear folk here say “au reservoir” instead of “
au revoir
”,' explained Elizabeth.

‘Why do they do that?' asked Miss Leg.

Lucia, as she dined alone, had been thinking over the hostilities which she felt were imminent. She was quite determined to annex Miss Leg with a view to being the central figure in her next best-seller, but Elizabeth was determined to annex her too, and Lucia was aware that she and her Mayoress could not run in harness over this job; the feat was impossible. Her pride forbade her to get hold of Miss Leg through Elizabeth, and Elizabeth, somehow or other, must be detached. She sat long that night meditating in the garden-room, and when next morning the Mayoress rang her up as usual at breakfast-time, she went to the telephone ready for anything.

‘Good morning, dear Worship,' said that cooing voice. ‘What a beautiful day.'

‘Lovely!' said Lucia.

‘Nothing I can do for you, dear?'

‘Nothing, thanks,' said Lucia, and waited.

‘I'm taking Miss Leg –'

‘Who?' asked Lucia.

‘Susan Leg: Rudolph da Vinci: my tenant,' explained Elizabeth.

‘Oh, yes. She left a card on me yesterday, Foljambe told me. So kind. I hope she will enjoy her visit.'

‘I'm taking her to the Town Hall this morning. So would you be a very sweet Worship and tell the Serjeant to get out the Corporation plate, which she would like to see. We shall be there by half-past ten, so if it is ready by a quarter past there'll be no delay. And though she seldom gives her autograph, she's promised to sign her name in Worship's book.'

Lucia gave a happy sigh. She had not dared to hope for such a rash move.

‘My dear, how very awkward,' she said. ‘You see, the Corporation plate is always on view to the public on Tuesdays at 3 p.m. – or it may be 2 p.m.; you had better make certain – and it is such a business to get it out. One cannot do that for any casual visitor. And the privilege of signing the Mayor's book is reserved for really distinguished strangers, whose visit it is an honour to record. Olga, for instance.'

‘But, dear Worship,' said Elizabeth. ‘I've already promised to show her the plate.'

‘Nothing simpler. At 2 p.m. or 3 p.m., whichever it is, on Tuesday afternoon.'

‘And the Mayor's book: I've asked her to sign it.'

Lucia laughed gaily.

‘Start a Mayoress's book, dear,' she said. ‘You can get anybody you like to sign that.'

Lucia remained a moment in thought after ringing off. Then she rang up the Town Hall.

‘Is that the Serjeant?' she said. ‘The Mayor speaking. Serjeant, do not get out the Corporation plate or produce my visitors' book without direct orders from me. At present I have given none. What a lovely morning.'

Lucia gave Mrs Simpson a holiday, as there was nothing for her to do, and went down to the High Street for her marketing. Her mind resembled a modern army attended by an air force and all appliances. It was ready to scout and skirmish, to lay an ambush, to defend or to attack an enemy with explosive from its aircraft or poison gas (which would be only a reprisal, for she was certain it had been used against her). Diva was watching at her window, evidently waiting for her, and threw it open.

‘Have you seen her?' she asked.

There was only one ‘her' just now.

‘Only her hand,' said Lucia. ‘She put it out of her motor – a podgy sort of hand – yesterday afternoon. She left a card on me, or rather her footman popped it into my letter-box, without asking if I was in. Elizabeth was with her. They drove on.'

‘Well, I do call that rude,' said Diva, warmly. ‘High and lofty, that's what she is. She told me her
chef
would send me a recipe for cream-wafers. I tried it. Muck. I gave one to Paddy, and he was sick. And she rang me up just now to go to tea with her this afternoon. Did she think I was going out to Grebe, just when I was busiest, to eat more muck? Not I. She dined at Elizabeth's last night, and Janet heard from Elizabeth's parlourmaid what they had. Tomato soup, middle-cut of salmon sent over from Hornbridge, a brace of grouse from Rice's, Melba peaches, but only bottled with custard instead of cream, and tinned caviare. And Elizabeth called it pot-luck! I never had such luck there, pot or unpot. Elizabeth's meaning to run her, that's what it is. Let 'em run! I'll come out with you and do my shopping. Just see how Paddy is, but I think he's got rid of it. Cream-wafers, indeed! Wait a sec.'

While Lucia waited a sec., Susan Wyse's Royce, with her husband and herself inside, hooted its ponderous way into the High Street. As it drew up at the fishmonger's, Lucia's eagle eye spied Elizabeth and a round, fat little woman, of whose identity there could be no doubt, walking towards it. Mr Wyse had got out and Elizabeth clearly introduced him to her companion. He stood hatless, as was his polite habit when he talked to ladies under God's blue sky, or even in the rain, and then led her towards the open door of the Royce, where Elizabeth was chatting to Susan.

Lucia strolled towards them, but the moment Elizabeth saw her, she wheeled round without smile or greeting, and, detaching Miss Leg, moved away up the street to where Irene in her usual shorts and scarlet pullover, had just set up her easel at the edge of the pavement.

‘Good morning, dear Susan,' called Lucia. ‘Oh, Mr Wyse, pray put your hat on; such a hot sun. Who was that odd little woman with my Mayoress, who spoke to you just now?'

‘I think your Mayoress said Miss Leg,' observed Mr Wyse. ‘And she told my Susan that if she asked Miss Leg to dine to-night she would probably accept. Did you ask her, dear? If so, we must order more fish.'

‘Certainly I didn't,' said Susan. ‘Who is this Leg? Why should Elizabeth foist her friends on me? Most unheard of.'

‘Leg? Leg?' said Lucia vaguely. ‘Ah, of course. Elizabeth's tenant. The novelist. Does she not call herself Rudolph da Vinci?'

‘A very self-satisfied little woman, whatever she calls herself,' said Susan with unusual severity, ‘and she's not going to dine with me. She can dine with Elizabeth.'

Diva had trundled up and overheard this.

‘She did. Last night,' she said. ‘All most sumptuous and grand. But fancy her leaving a card on Lucia without even asking whether she was at home! So rude.'

‘Did she indeed?' asked Mr Wyse in a shocked voice. ‘We are not accustomed to such want of manners in Tilling. You were very right, Susan, not to ask her to dine. Your intuition served you well.'

‘I thought it strange,' said Lucia, ‘but I dare say she's a very decent, homely little woman, when left to herself. Elizabeth was with her, when she honoured me with her card.'